Читать книгу I Confess - Alex Barclay - Страница 16

Patrick was nine years old, standing in the kitchen doorway. His mother was at the sink, an empty chair beside her. She looked at him and nodded down at it.

Patrick shook into stillness. He knew he was to get up on the chair, but he didn’t know what he’d done. Nothing bad had happened in school that day. He always behaved himself. He was never late, he was always polite.

Mrs Lynch’s eyes widened. She moved towards him, reached into the pocket of her apron, and whipped out a piece of paper. She unfolded it and held it up. Before he had a chance to focus on it, she pushed it closer to his face. ‘What’s this nonsense?’ she said.

Patrick pulled his head back so he could see. It was a page she had ripped from his religion copy. On the top half was a picture he’d drawn of a boat, with a boy beside him. The sun was shining, the sky was a skinny blue strip at the top of the page, the birds were waiting for fish. What was causing the problem that his mother was pointing at now were the huge smiles on the boy and the man.

‘It’s not nonsense,’ said Patrick.

His mother turned the page around to face her. She read out loud what he had written on the lines underneath the picture – in the voice she used when she wanted him to hear himself: ‘“I am fishing with Daddy. We are on the boat. We are catching so much fish. We went to Dursey Island on the cable car. There was a sheep in it. It was so funny. We had a picnic. Then we went home.” She looked up at the title. ‘So that’s “My Best Day” by Patrick Lynch. Have you ever seen such nonsense in all your life?’

Patrick’s face burned, and the heat seemed to flush through his whole body. His mother was glaring at him, waiting for him to reply.

Patrick shrugged.

‘Don’t you shrug your shoulders at me!’ She shook the picture again. ‘And a big red tick beside it and a “VG, Patrick!” I’ll VG her when I see her.’

‘Don’t, Mammy! She’s so nice.’

‘Nice!’ said his mother. ‘Nice?’

‘What’s wrong with it?’ said Patrick, brave, tentative.

His mother looked at him, her face pinched, lines like arrows piercing the tight circle of her mouth.

‘What’s wrong with it?’ she mimicked.

‘Why don’t you like it?’ said Patrick.

‘Like it?’ she said. ‘This?’ She rattled the page again.

Patrick shook his head. ‘No.’ His eyes darted everywhere before they tried to settle on hers, but he couldn’t even manage that. ‘Why don’t you like it when things are nice?’

His mother stared at him. ‘Get up on that chair now this minute.’

Patrick walked towards the sink behind her, his heart hammering, his eyes never leaving the picture. She was holding it between her thumb and index finger like it was dirty. He just wanted it back. It was his favourite picture and it was his favourite imaginary day. He knelt up on the chair. She lowered her left hand into the sink, and he watched the page disappear after it.

Patrick let out a moan. ‘No, Mammy. Mammy, no!’

Mrs Lynch lifted her hand slowly from the water, and tossed the picture to one side, where it clung, briefly, to a bucket of potato skins.

The same hand went into the sink again, and she rattled the dishes around to make space. Patrick jumped at the speed her right hand came down on the back of his neck. She plunged his head under the water, and his forehead struck the edge of a thick glass tankard. His scream, reflexive, and submerged, sent a rush of bubbles from his nose and mouth.

‘Jesus Christ Almighty!’ said Mrs Lynch, yanking him up. ‘You could have split your head open on that!’

When she was angry, her sentences came in a low snarl with highs like sparks from embers. She plunged him under again.

He had time to taste the water, and it tasted of cabbage and fish and bleach. She pulled him out again, and he hung from her grip, gasping, and red-eyed. Then she gave him three hard shakes – his prompt.

‘Sorry, Mammy,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry!’

She held him there, spluttering, his head bowed, a string of saliva hanging from his lip, until, eventually, her body relaxed.

Sorry was his mother’s drug. She needed to hear it for every transgression, real or concocted. She had never heard it from the husband she had kicked out. Not even on the last day she had seen him, when he left her to her insanity, and her fury, and their seven-year-old son, whose blond hair glowed red under the flickering bulb of a Sacred Heart light.