‘Paul, here’s some advice. Stay away from me and mine if you know what’s good for you. If you see me on the street, you’d better cross the road because the next time I see you, it’s on.’
I spun round and walked away.
Time to find Josh.
41
Dante
It turned out to be easier than I thought it would be. I only had to watch Logan’s house for one night without success. On the second night, I turned into Logan’s street and there was Josh walking towards me, his head down, a bulging rucksack across his shoulder.
I stopped walking as I watched him approach. He wore denim jeans, a grubby grey T-shirt and the brown leather jacket he’d got for his sixteenth birthday. And with each step he took, the quiet fury inside me rose a little higher and burned a little stronger. Each step Josh took set off flashes of memory, snapshots of the kicking he’d given my brother. He had hidden out, waiting to ambush Adam. And for what? Because Adam had insulted him in the restaurant? With his head still down, Josh couldn’t see me, which suited me just fine. I took a quick look around. There were three people further up the road but they were walking away from us. The late autumn night air was dark and cold and sharp, just the way I felt inside.
I smiled as Josh got closer and closer.
He was about two metres away from me and closing when he finally realized that something was wrong. His head shot up. At the sight of me, his eyes widened, his mouth dropped open. And he bolted like he had the Devil himself after him – which, when you got right down to it, wasn’t far from the truth.
Josh was fast.
But I was faster.
Rugby tackling him to the ground, I then dragged him up onto his feet, throwing him against the nearest wall just as hard as I could. The air left his lungs in a pained hiss for a second time in as many seconds.
‘I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry . . .’
The words leaped from Josh before I could open my mouth. He put out his hands to fend me off but I knocked them out the way.
My hand was at his throat. I stared into his eyes without blinking. Slowly my fingers began to tighten around his neck.
‘I’m sorry . . .’ Josh squirmed frantically. ‘I d-didn’t m-mean to . . . He shouldn’t have k-kissed me.’
I tightened my grip. Josh’s face was turning puce now. He needed to taste some of what he’d dished out to my brother. Images of police, court, prison flitted in my head. My grip loosened, but only for a second. Josh had to pay.
My brother deserved nothing less.
And from the terror widening his eyes, Josh knew what was coming. He kept pulling away from me like he was trying to merge with the wall behind him. But he wasn’t going anywhere. Josh’s eyelids began to flutter shut.
Stop, Dante . . .
No. Damn it, he had to pay. Hell! There was a war going on inside me. Visions of Emma danced through my resolve. Her smile kept biting chunks out of my hatred towards Josh. I needed to focus on Adam, not my daughter.
Emma . . .
Damn it. I was all mixed up.
Josh stopped pulling away. He unexpectedly leaned forward instead.
And kissed me.
I let go of him at once, scrubbing my lips with the back of my hand. Josh collapsed in a heap at my feet, coughing and spluttering as he fought to draw breath.
‘You sick bastard!’ I shouted. ‘I’m gonna kill you.’
Josh put out his hands to try and push me away, but it did no good. Fists clenched, I aimed for his face and started battering him with all the fury that raged inside. He covered his head with his arms, curling up into a ball to try and protect himself. But it didn’t make any difference, not to me.
‘See,’ he gasped out through bloodied lips. ‘You hate us queers just as much as I do.’
His words jolted through me like a lightning bolt, stopping me in mid swing. Josh started to cry. Big awkward, embarrassed sobs racked his body. I stared down at him, his words clanging in my head.
Us queers . . .?
‘You . . . you’re gay?’
Josh nodded, still sobbing at my feet.
‘I . . . I don’t hate . . . I’m not like you. This is about what you did to my brother,’ I stuttered.
But who was I trying to convince, Josh or myself? Here I was standing over him, my fists clenched, my mind set on his destruction. I’d made up my mind to make him pay.
Pay?
Don’t honey-coat it, Dante.
I’d made up my mind to make him suffer, to make him endure worse than he’d inflicted on Adam. I had it all figured out. It was cold and calculated and I’d thought of nothing else since the night it had happened. Dad and Adam between them could look after Emma if I got banged up, plus Emma would get my bedroom to herself that much sooner. The social services wouldn’t take her away from the only family she knew, at least that’s what I was counting on. Dad wouldn’t let them take my daughter away from him. She’d be my one real regret, but if Josh got what was coming to him then maybe my brother could move forward and get on with his life.
An eye for an eye.
But then Josh had kissed me . . .
And any last lingering doubts I might have had about whether or not I could really hurt him flew out of my head and all I wanted to do then was not so much kill him as destroy him. I thought I hated him because of what he’d done to my brother. But that was nothing compared to what I’d felt when he’d kissed me.
So just what did that make me?
I leaned against the wall, my head tilted back as I tried to figure things out.
Next to me, Josh’s sobs were beginning to subside. He inhaled deeply, fighting for control. I watched as he slowly got to his feet, spitting out the blood in his mouth. We regarded each other. Josh was shaking. I was still.
‘Is . . . is Adam going to be OK?’
I glared at him. He could not be serious. My brother had escaped being six feet under by a hair’s-breadth and Josh had the nerve to enquire about his health?
‘Are you deliberately trying to wind me up?’
Josh shook his head. ‘No, I . . . no . . .’ The merest hint of a smile and it would’ve been me and him again, but Josh’s expression remained sombre. ‘Could you tell Adam . . . tell him I’m sorry?’ asked Josh.
Fists clenched, I turned round and walked away.
It was way after midnight when I finally returned home. I’d walked for a couple of hours, just thinking. And my thoughts hadn’t been pleasant ones, but they’d been honest. At first I’d seriously thought about going after Logan. When I eventually cooled down, I finally realized the extent to which we’d all been played, Josh included – not that I had any sympathy for that bastard whatsoever. But Logan was the one who’d wound us all up like mechanical toys and set us clashing and crashing towards each other. Some people like Collette and Adam had seen beneath Logan’s mask. I hadn’t. A lifetime ago, I’d dreamed of uncovering the truth and writing about it. Some joke when I couldn’t even tell what was true and what was false when it was right under my nose.
So what should I do about Logan?
In the end I decided to just let it go. Logan needed sorting – but I wouldn’t be the one to do it. To tell the truth, what I needed now was to be there for my daughter and my brother. They both needed me more than I needed revenge.
When I finally reached home, all I wanted to do was collapse into bed and sleep without dreaming. Even though I tried to tiptoe into my bedroom, for some reason Emma stirred in her cot and woke up immediately. I groaned inwardly as she pulled herself upright. Tonight I could really do without Emma’s teeth giving her grief.
‘Go back to sleep, Emma.’ I tried to get her to lie down again but she wasn’t having it. I sighed. ‘Emma, please go back to sleep.’
Emma held out her arms to be picked up. I gave in. Anything for a quiet life. I sat on my bed, holding Emma as she rested her head against my shoulder contentedly. I envied her so much. The world made far more sense to her than it d
id to me.
‘Dada . . .’ said Emma.
I froze momentarily. ‘What did you say?’ I whispered, holding her up so we were at eye-level.
‘Dada,’ she repeated.
‘Who’s your daddy?’ I asked, then laughed as I realized what I’d said.
Emma pressed a finger against my cheek. ‘Dada . . .’
I jumped up, taking Emma with me and ran for Dad’s room. Switching on his light, I headed over to his bed.
‘Dad! Dad!’
Dad sat bolt upright, blinking away, his eyes still glazed. ‘What’s the matter? Is something wrong with Emma?’
‘Listen to this,’ I told him. ‘Say it again, Emma.’
Emma said nothing. His frown deepening, Dad looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
‘Who am I, Emma? Tell Grandad who I am,’ I coaxed.
‘Dada!’ Emma giggled and I laughed out loud. She’d said it again. She really did mean it! I spun Emma around, lifting her high above my head and laughing up at her as she chortled down at me.
‘Did you hear that, Dad? She said “Dada”.’
‘That’s great. Well done, Emma. Now bugger off, Dante. It’s one o’clock in the morning,’ said Dad, falling back onto his pillows, his eyes closed, his whole expression pained.
‘Dad, could you watch your mouth in front of Emma, please?’
Dad opened his eyes to glare at me. ‘Dante. Go. Away.’
‘But, Dad . . .’
The glare turned into a frost-ridden, laser scowl. He wasn’t mucking around! I left his bedroom, still grinning.
‘That’s right, Emma,’ I told my daughter as I put her back in her cot. ‘I’m your daddy. And Daddy loves you very, very much.’
42
Dante
I wasn’t the only one worried about Adam. They had unwired his jaw and the bandages were long gone but my brother was nowhere to be seen. He still wouldn’t leave his bedroom and he barely spoke. When Adam did eat – at Dad’s insistence or at my nagging – it was always alone in his room. He very rarely went downstairs, and once his outpatient appointments at the hospital were over, he never left the house. Adam’s friends – male and female – came round our house to visit, but he refused to see any of them. After two or three times of the same thing happening, they stopped calling.
The left side of Adam’s face was almost back to normal, but the right side looked like he’d suffered a stroke or something. His right eye still drooped noticeably and he only had about fifty per cent of the vision he used to have in it. There was a scar on his right temple and the skin over his right cheek was mottled and lined with scars where he’d needed a number of stitches to reassemble his cheek. The stitches had long since been removed but the scars were taking their time to fade.
And Adam insisted that he didn’t want to see Emma and he wouldn’t let her see him.
He’d emerged from his living stupor exactly twice in as many months and that was because Emma tried to enter his room. Both times he screamed for me to come and get her whilst yelling at her to get out. And all of this was done with his back to Emma. Both times he’d made her cry her eyes out, which I must admit pissed me off, but I managed to restrain myself. Just.
‘There’s no need to shout at her like that,’ I told him. ‘She only wanted to be with her uncle. She misses you.’
‘You should thank me,’ said Adam, his back still towards us. ‘At least this way she won’t have nightmares about my face. Could you take her and go, please?’
When Emma finally stopped crying, I tried to explain. ‘Emma, your uncle isn’t well at the moment.’ I carefully picked my way through the words. ‘Something happened to his face and now his face isn’t the same and his heart is hurting and he doesn’t want anyone to see him like that.’
Emma sighed, probably with more patience and understanding than I was feeling at that precise moment.
Poor Adam . . .
I racked my brains for some way to help my brother, for some way to get the real Adam back, but I just couldn’t think of a way to do it.
We did get some good news. After my confrontation with Josh, a police officer came to our house two days later to tell us that Josh had turned himself in and that he was going to be charged with Grievous Bodily Harm under Section 18, which she was at pains to explain was a more serious charge than Grievous Bodily Harm under Section 20. I had to take their word for that. I passed the news on to Adam but he didn’t bat an eyelid. I had to say it twice before I was even sure he’d heard me. There was no reaction at all.
My brother was broken and I had no idea how to fix him.
I still couldn’t find a suitable job and Dad was working overtime as often as possible just to make ends meet. I’d finally given in and signed up for Jobseeker’s Allowance. I really hated doing it, but Emma needed nappies and clothes and food and it wasn’t fair for Dad to have to do everything by himself. Adam stayed in his room, Dad was tired all the time and I felt like the scrounger that woman in the shop a few months earlier had said I was. If it wasn’t for Emma there would’ve been precious little laughter in our house.
Winter came and went with no change. Adam wouldn’t even come downstairs to share Christmas dinner with us. Dad and I put on a show for Emma, putting up the Christmas tree and wrapping her presents to place under it and stuff like that, but to be honest Christmas was a big fail in our house. On the odd night when Emma woke me up with her crying because of her now emerging top teeth and I had to rock her back to sleep, I could hear Adam pacing back and forth in his room. And once or twice I’d swear I could hear him crying.
After the Christmas break, Dad insisted that Adam needed to go back to school.
‘I can’t. I’m not ready,’ said Adam.
‘Son, if you carry on like this, you’ll never be ready,’ said Dad.
‘I’m not ready,’ Adam repeated.
And that was that.
In the end, Dad was so worried, he called out our GP.
‘D’you think I should tell him that Doctor Planter is on her way to see him?’ Dad asked me.
I shook my head. ‘He’d only tell you to cancel her or he’d phone the surgery and do it himself,’ I replied. ‘Wait till she arrives and then tell him.’
Dad nodded, deciding to take my advice.
It was almost an hour before Dr Planter finally arrived.
‘Dante, run upstairs and tell your brother the doctor is here,’ said Dad, giving me a meaningful look.
I thought Adam would hit the roof when I told him. Actually, I think I would’ve welcomed that. But to my surprise, he didn’t. He considered for a few moments.
‘I’ll see her, but only if I can see her alone,’ Adam said.
I went to the top of the stairs. ‘Doctor Planter, would you mind coming up, please?’
As the doctor was entering Adam’s room, I shook my head at Dad. ‘Adam wants to see her alone.’
Dad frowned, but he didn’t argue. When at last the doctor emerged from Adam’s room, Dad and I were waiting on the landing, ready to pounce.
‘How is he? Is he going to be OK?’ Dad launched in. ‘He can’t go on like this.’
Dr Planter shook her head. ‘In my opinion Adam isn’t ready, physically or emotionally, to go back to school yet,’ she informed us with a frown. ‘He’s not sleeping at all and as a result is suffering from mental exhaustion, so I’m going to prescribe some sleeping pills.’
‘Is that safe?’ Dad looked worried. ‘Isn’t he a bit young for sleeping pills?’
‘Well, it’s certainly not a long-term solution. The tablets I’m prescribing are for short-term use only. Adam feels that if he could just sleep properly at night, he would greatly improve – and I’m inclined to agree. I’m only going to prescribe enough for two weeks, no more than that, but they should help him get back into a regular sleeping pattern. I’d like to see him again in a fortnight. OK? If he isn’t making progress by then, I think some counselling might help.’
Dad nodded
his agreement, though he wasn’t entirely happy.
‘Mr Bridgeman, I know Adam isn’t keen on us doctors, but I really feel this is one of those occasions when you need to make him see sense,’ she said.
‘Don’t worry, I hear you,’ Dad replied. ‘It’s my fault. I should’ve called you out much earlier than this.’
Dr Planter wrote out a prescription for Adam’s medication and headed off. And that was that. I don’t know what I’d been expecting – a cure, some kind of instant miracle? Either way, I didn’t get it. I stared at Adam’s closed bedroom door and it felt like there was a whole ocean between us, rather than just a door.
My brother was slipping away from me and I had no idea how to stop it.
‘I’ll keep the pills and give Adam one to take each night,’ said Dad once the doctor had left. ‘That way we’ll all know where we are and there’ll be no chance of Adam taking two in one night by mistake. You know what your brother is like with tablets.’
I did indeed. And it was a measure of just how much my brother knew he needed help that he’d even agreed to take the pills in the first place.
Was that a good sign? Or was I merely clutching at straws?
I chose to believe it was the former.
43
Adam
There it is again, the knocking at my door. Dad or Dante? It doesn’t really matter. I don’t want to see either of them. Why can’t they get that through their heads? I don’t want to see anyone or speak to anyone. And I don’t want anyone to see me. I’m so tired. Bone tired. Maybe the sleeping pills Dr Planter suggested will help. I hope so. I can’t go on like this. I need to do something to get my life back. Everything I look at through my right eye is a blur and I have no peripheral vision in it any more. And even though all the mirrors in the house have been silenced, my fingers and my bedroom window still tell me the truth: my face is a mess.
Mr Marber, my surgeon at the hospital, tried to tell me that I was lucky. If I hadn’t been at the hospital when my subdural haematoma decided to make its presence felt, I might’ve died. That’s what he told me, I might’ve died. Was that his attempt to show me that getting beaten up had a silver lining? If so, he failed miserably. Here I am in my room and the future stretches out before me like some kind of relentless desert.