Unspoken Of (Part 1 of 2)

          In my family, we don’t talk about my brother.

            It’s always just been like that.  I don’t remember anybody ever telling me not to mention him, or ever telling me not to ask about him.  Just the topic never came up.  I knew him from the family group photos that still adorn our walls and shelves.  I see a teenager, a young man with my father’s curly hair, and the tough, clefted chin of my mother’s family.  I can see little bits of me in him too.  A dark-haired, unsettled image, a face tilted downwards, not engaging with the moment, shoulders permanently shrugged, hands in pockets.  A favourite dull red jacket he had on in almost all of them.

            His name’s Sean.

            I didn’t really know him, born too late.  The youngest of a widespread, populous family.  Nine of us kids.  Six girls.  Three boys.  We’ve all grown far apart in our own ways, half off travelling the world.  Our Sindy’s a model; our Eddie’s our travel photographer; my sister Lucy just won a scholarship; and her twin Nancy was in the paper last week: a writeup about all the fundraising work she does for charities.  That kind of family.

            Except Sean.

            Whom we don’t talk about.

            Not so, the other kids at school.  That’s how I found out, after all.

            Round glasses, braces, pigtails.  Leaning over at me with her frizzy red hair brushing my desk.  Face uglified with a wide sneer.  “I know about your brother, Gina.”

            “What about my brother?”

            “Everybody knows.”

            “Knows what?”

            “He’s a pervert.”

            “Huh?”

            “And a criminal.”

            “What do you know?”  But what did I know?  And could every kid in school see that Una Parker knew more about my own brother than I did?

            “He’s a rapist.”

            Age eleven.  Naïve.  Not even quite sure what that meant.  “Piss off.  How would you know?”
            “Everybody knows.”

            “It’s not like that.”

            #

            Well, it is like that.  Exactly like that.  And there’s a whole neighbourhood out there that does know, and can’t forget.  And in all its little ways, won’t let us forget either.  From the overheard gossip to the casual remarks from the butcher, or the courier.  “Morning Marjory,” – my mum – “how’s that son of yours?  Not comin’ back this way at all?”

            Two other good boys he could ask about instead: sweeping across the world taking photographs; working hard every day on the building sight.  Mum always having to smile politely and say she’s not really sure, they don’t really speak.

            She won’t speak to him.  Won’t see him.

            Me: living a childhood without knowing he was in jail for most of it.  Never being taken to visit, never hearing about any of them ever visiting.

            They say he’s got a chequered past.  That he was in trouble from age twelve or so, moving up from graffiti and window breaking to shoplifting, to armed robbery; to that fateful night when he met Tina Macklecroft out on the corner of Leith and Swift, a few too many drinks in him, and talking turned to more than talking, until she tried to brush him off, until she said, enough, not here and now, not today, not you – however, whatever, exactly it was she said – and he didn’t want to hear it, going from horny to horny and angry, to a viciousness that left her cheek broken and her lips split.  To her running, going straight for her dad, then for the police; and then our house – though I don’t remember it – flashing with red lights, sirens bouncing off our walls and garden fence.

            I was two then.

            I don’t remember.  I didn’t get told about it.

            I had to look it up in the court news, on the microfiche, at the library.  That’s how I found out his past, saw pictures of him I’d never seen.  Pictures of Mum trying to shield us from photographers, Dad with his jacket over Sean’s head.

            That’s how I learnt he was nearly up for release.

            #

            I was thirteen the first time I met my brother in person.  Or at least, the first time I remember.

            It was awkward.

            I remember the first thing I thought was: he’s old.  Not properly old.  But old by an adolescent scale of time.  Old for a teenager meeting a brother she’d only seen in photographs not looking much older than she did.  To find him aged, rough around the edges, a fully grown man who must be in his thirties.  His hair was cut too short now to be curly, and his face had changed, thickened and hardened.  One of his cheeks was bruised, and it made me think of rotten fruit.  Everything about him seemed to have that taint.  I felt what I’d never expected to feel: afraid of him.

            And him, looking at all of us, taking us in, but with a sour look on his face.  His mindset full of reasons to resent the family who’d abandoned him in this decade or so of misery.  His years of need.

            The hug with Mum, the one that followed with Dad: they were perfunctory things.  Quick and light.  There was no burying themselves in one another, no breathing in with gratitude the other person’s presence.  There was no sense of homecoming.

            And Mum, taking me by the hand, leading me up to him.  “Sean, this is your sister, Gina.  Do you remember?”

            “The baby,” he said.

            “That’s right.  She’s a grown up girl now.”

            I glowered.  Tried to stop myself.  Manufactured a smile.  “Hi.”  And the greeting hung there in the air, nobody quite sure what to do with it.

            “Did they tell you you’re related to a monster?”

            Dad: “Sean!”  True anger in his voice.

            Me, like a child, shaking my head, not quite ready to meet his eyes.

            “It’s not all like they say it is.”

            Mum: “Sean, we never…”

            Eddie, flown in for this event: “Let’s just make this a happy time, all right?”

            But there wasn’t.  We went out, found a café, spend some time talking about the past – selectively, carefully, examining each topic from five angles before bringing it up.  Sean told us about the food – so crap in there – how much better this was.  Eleven years since I had a Coke, eleven years since a beer.  Glancing over at me with a kind of sinister mischief: “Eleven years since I had a fuck.”
            Nancy: almost getting to her feet, almost walking out.

            Sindy, pressing her lips hard together, her fingers tightening on her coffee cup.

            Rotten fruit.  Broken crockery.  That’s what he was, and I didn’t know how to react.  I wasn’t sure what to say, where to look.  For today I just wanted to retreat into my youth and let the grown-ups do whatever it was they were doing.

            Sean told Eddie: “I’ve seen some of your photos.  In magazines.”

            “Yeah?  Which ones?”

            “Paris.  Those islands…”

            “Galapagos?”

            “Something like that.  And the monkeys.”

            He was itching to correct to Orang-utans, but didn’t.  “Yeah, Borneo.  That was amazing.  You….”  But of course, who’s going to let him into any country anywhere, now he’s got this record?  His wings aren’t clipped.  They’re gone.

            And just a few hours later, standing out on a street corner, waiting for the bus to come.  Dad giving Sean some money.  Mum giving him a hug.  Eddie helping him with his bags.  “Start again,” Dad’s advice.  “You can still make something out of your life, you know.  Put the past behind you, you see.”
            Put us behind him.

            His feet didn’t touch the inside of our house.  Not after eleven years of absence.  He got on a bus instead, I wasn’t sure where to, or what would happen to him, or why.

            But I heard Mum and Dad arguing about it later that night, in the hours after midnight when we’d all finally been able to convince ourselves to go to bed and not sleep.

            “The boy’s still our flesh and blood,” Dad was saying.

            “You’ve seen what he’s like now.  Worse…”

            “But our son.”

            “I can’t Joseph, I just can’t!  Not with Gina here, Nancy and Lucy.”

            “He’s their brother.”

            “He’s not… he’s not whole.  He’s not safe.”

            “I know.  I know that.  But he’s had these years to change.”

            “For the worse, Joseph.”

            “He needs us.  He belongs to us.”

            “Not after how it was with Sindy.”

            “That was a long time ago.”

            Her voice, insistent, a hiss, but an iron one: “He’s worse now.  He’s worse than I thought he’d be.”

            #

            I see Tina Macklecroft in town sometimes.  She’s on the cusp of middle age, same as Sean.  Still pretty.  Pale blond, with long hair, and a lean, sexy figure.  Married now, with two little girls.  I see her walking along the main street with one of them in each hand.  Both girls in yellow raincoats, both of them skipping, out of time with each other.  Their teeth are full of gaps.

            Tina: she seems happy enough.  I’ve heard that she works in a travel agent’s, that she collects money from women’s shelters.  Her husband is a lawyer.  It’s a neat, silk-smooth life she’s got worked out for herself.  I don’t know if she thinks about that night, about what Sean did to her, if the terror of it comes back to her at night, in the dark, or with her husband when he touches her in just the wrong way.  I suppose it must, thought it doesn’t show on her face.  I look for scars, but I can’t see them.

            I wonder if she notices me staring.

            Or if she even knows who I am.

            #

            My sister Chloe is the only one who really keeps in touch.

            I know Mum calls him a couple of times a year: his birthday, Christmas.  She gives the phone to Dad for a few brief words that neither one of them can enjoy.  The duty done for another year, the awkwardness and bad memories over with, Christmas marred just a little, but the turkey and a few glasses of sherry ought to put that right.

            Chloe keeps in touch with him for real.  She goes to see him sometimes.  She talks about him every now and then, bringing conversation to a cold, accusatory halt.  They don’t like her to do it, she doesn’t like them to stay away.  The tension lasts until somebody finds something else to talk about.

            Chloe’s the tough one.  Always been.

            Two weeks ago, I asked her, “Can I go with you?”

 

Picture credit/descredit: author's own work