Upon Departure

It hadn't been a relief when his Mother died. He'd never really understood that she could die, complacent in his conviction that his youth could overcome anything. Propped up in the cancer ward on an L-shaped pillow she'd been the image of himself as a toddler, dressed in whites, smooth and plumply bald as if after twenty years they'd changed places. It was him who looked down on her, standing erect as someone tended her needs.

The tiny family house was silent, his Dad enthroned in the dull living room, unmoving. Grey skies made the streets and houses seem to cling precariously to valley sides leaving him exposed and small. The town centre, the beer and the bars were as brash and full of life as ever. He peered at the texture of red brick walls until it turned his stomach. The smell of hops from the brewery blocked out everything. The constant winds rasped against him. He was bruised and flayed to the point where all was irritation.

When she hadn't known his name or recognised him, staring through him and down the long ward of coughing women, he went out and spent most of his giro in bars and pubs, and found himself dancing with the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Bobbing and moving in the loud sweaty darkness, he shouted into her ear "My mother's got cancer, she's in the hospital. Now.

Without a word, she led him outside into the crisp cold that rung with laughter.

"Does it hurt?

"Does what hurt?

"Your Mother.

"She's in a lot of pain, full of medication. Cries sometimes.

"I meant you.

He didn't know what to say, so he kissed her. His Dad was at the hospital when they got back to his parents, the house empty.

Lying in the musky darkness of his small bedroom, bodies sticky, she asked how it felt to be powerless. "You can't change what happens to her. You can only watch.

He thought for a long time before he answered, the darkness pressing his eyes like cool felt.

"It's like you aren't really there, he said finally. "Like you're invisible until someone finally sees you and drags you back in.

The next morning his Mother was dead.

The long shiny car that carried him and his Dad to the crematorium had an inevitable momentum. There was no escape, no last minute turning of tables. No one returned from the dead, no clever plan was executed. The West Road looked as if it was recovering from a war, people carrying bundles, scrawny dogs, rubbish piled up against walls. Shuttered shops outnumbered open ones. An old man bent double vomited against a bus stop in the light grey drizzle.

In the chapel, surrounded by people he didn't recognise, standing mouthing words to hymns he didn't know, Mark could feel the warm dusty air pressing down on him. No one looked at him.

When the wake finished he walked around the house picking up beer cans and emptying ashtrays, carefully putting sausage rolls and tiny white triangles of cheese and egg sandwiches into Tupperware. His Dad was silent and distant, as if Mark were watching him through a telescope across a great chasm.

He telephoned the beautiful girl the night afterward, ringing the number written in eyeliner on a cigarette packet.

Someone that wasn't her picked up.

"Hello, could I speak to Christine?

A deep man's voice answered suspiciously. "I think she's busy.

"Could I speak to her please? It's very important.

He could hear the man shouting up the stairs.

"Are you one of her friends from school? She's doing her homework. I'm sure you'll see her at school tomorrow.

"I need to speak to her now.

A long pause as the receiver was put down, the sound of voices echoing around a large hall, the sound of footsteps on tiled floor.

"What do you want?

Her voice was small, immature.

Telling her that his Mam had died he could feel himself at her mercy.

"I'm very sorry. I'll give you a ring after my exams, okay?

She couldn't have been more than fifteen.

Two days later, he answered a job advert in the newspaper and within a week was on a train south.

His Dad's face looked like a wounded version of his own, lines and creases gouged and slashed deep over the months of changing dressings and lying awake waiting for the next breath and the next. His voice creaked and shifted as he spoke, coming from a thick and painful place.

"Are you sure you want to go? he asked at the station. "I'll miss you son, but I know I can't stop you doing what you want.

"It's the only thing I can do.

"If you're doing what you want then I'm happy. You've got to get what you want in life, haven't you?

Mark watched his Father, a man reduced, motionless, shrinking on the dirty platform as the train pulled away.