The Long Walk

Fear makes me a traitor that says nothing. It’s nowhere o’clock. My legs shake. Hands too. I squeeze a look at the telly, there’s nothing on but Nationwide. Not at Mum. Not at Da. His eyes sparkle like sixpences banging about in a centrifuge. There’s something almost solid about the smell as if he’s been wrapped in a fire blanket of smoke and stale booze and unfurled in our kitchen.

‘Ah’m no daeing any harm,’ is Da’s cry. His body is liquefied, legs uncorked, as he lurches from cooker to chair and back again.

Mum's whispers are a fast paced litany of prayers. I can’t hear what she’s saying, but her words are peck, peck, pecking at his chest.

He pushes her away. ‘Everything is san-fre-ann.’ Speaking is too much of a mouthful. Words dribble off his tongue and out of his mouth.

I hope he chokes on air. Chokes on his vomit and dies.

Da takes a mouthful of air and his neck lolls like a baby's and he looks through to the living room to where I’m sitting. I can see it in his eyes I’m not there.

Mum starts pecking at him again. I wish she’d stop.

His face is a thermostat from white to red to purple. He puts a hand on the wooden work top. Something solid is on his chest, tipping him, as if he’s looking for his shoes, or going to throw up. ‘I’m alright.’ He slathers between barks of a cough. ‘What harm ah’m a daeing?’ His body straightens like a rusty knife. The sixpences in his eyes glint and glitter defiance. He pushes her away.

Mum almost trips over the chair. Red colours her cheeks and her jaw clenches. She pushes him back. ‘Look at the states of you. You should be ashamed of yourself.’

Da punches her and Mum crumples like cardboard around his feet.

My face crumples too and I sob. ‘Mum. Mum. Mum.’ I jump out of my seat. Mum’s wailing fit to burst and Da’s standing over her, his mouth open, body deflated, as if all the air has been let out of his arms and legs. My eyes red rimmed and snot flying freely from my nostrils I can no longer look or listen. Rushing out the living room, legs pumping, I bang the front door shut and begin running up the hill. My body swerves automatically taking a left from Dickens Avenue to Byron Street and then a right onto Shakespeare Avenue going towards Parkhall shops. The lampposts light the way. It’s sleety rain and I realise I’ve not got on my anorak. I don’t care. I’m never going home. Not ever.

The Co-op is closed for the night, so is Birell’s the paper shop and the Paki shop next door. There’s somebody inside, a woman with a red blouse, looking out from inside the projected light of the Chinkies shop. The waft of spices and chips grips my nose as I pass and my eyes squint to stare in the window. The woman turns away and taps her Embassy fag packet on the counter. A few steps later the weathered and red facing brick, almost orange, at the side of the building is sprayed with one word in silver paint: ‘Bowie’ with a circle round it that marks it out as their gang territory. I wonder if sneaking round the back of the shops and hiding somewhere until morning is possible. My feet squelch as I walk up the lane to have a look, but it’s too dark and their might be rats. I go back out to the main drag and begin walking up the hill. The wind bowls down the hill driving the rain through my red striped T-shirt and setting my lips chattering against my teeth. I pass the outpost of Parkhall library. It’s tucked neatly into the High Park with barbed wire around the roof. I pray in my head that it’s going to be ok. Miss Friel said God really listens to children’s prayers. I sob a little, but it’s not real. I’ll be good. I’ll be good. I’ll be good I promise. I wipe my snotty nose against the caps of my T-shirt. I’m meant to be too big a boy for that sort of thing.

Miss Friel was always harping on about stuff like that. We were only supposed to get her for one term. She’s got long shiny black hair, which she piles up on her head like a crown. Unlike the other teachers Miss Friel’s not as old as a dinosaur egg. She bends at the blackboard and breezes about in a power of perfume smelling fresh and pretty as a daffodil. Everybody likes her. After Mrs Boyle it’s hard not to. But I like her best. I looked back at her sitting at her desk as we left school today and I thought I might marry her when I got older.

When I got home it was just Mum and me. Bryan was playing in our room, or in bed sleeping. She was working night shift in the hospital and was dozing in the chair with her sandals kicked off and one bar on the electric fire warming her bunions. I didn’t turn on the telly or anything. I just sat in the chair near the window with my jacket on and my school bag in my lap. Her eyes flickered open, with a gold glint reflected on her pupils, she gave me the best smile in the world and my heart flipped.

‘I’ll get the dinner on.’ Mum reached for her fags on the mantelpiece and lit one. She took a long drag before pushing her feet into her sandals.

I trudge up the hill and onto Kilbowie Road. Across from me is the dump, beside me is the grassy knoll of the High Park. To my right is the dual carriageway. There’s no way of knowing which way to go, but deep down I do. Turning round my feet shuffle back the way I’d come. I’m wondering if I could get a real gun and shoot my Da. I might get a knife and stab him, but I also know that he’s too big and I couldn’t. I’m thinking maybe I’d poison him, put something in his tea, but I’m not sure where you get poison. A snort of laughter escapes my closed lips. Maybe somebody else would drink the poison and I’d kill them. Maybe I’d put poison in my Da’s tea and Mum would take a sip and it would kill her. Then I’d need to kill myself but that’s a mortal sin.

When I get back to the house the clock starts again. Everybody’s there. Mum’s sister my Aunty Phyllis. Her husband Uncle Jim. Their kids and my cousins. Mc Ginlay from down the road. The hall light is on. The living room light. The kitchen. All the room lights are on. All the adults are smoking. Men are gulping whisky and beer. Women drinking vodka. Peters and Lee are playing on the stereo – ‘Welcome Home. Welcomeeee. Come on in and close the door. You’ve been gone. Too long. Welcomeeee. Home once more.’ That’s my Da’s favourite song. I hate Peters and Lee. It’s probably because the singer’s blind Da likes it so much.