I woke early on the morning of my thirteenth birthday, excitement like a family of ferrets under my skin. Would I get those football boots I asked for? And the Scottish football team tracksuit? A warning had been given though, before I had gone to bed, that if I was up before eight o’clock, I would get nothing. My parents were veterans of my excited gabble in the early hours of birthdays and Christmases.
Eventually, I heard movement from my parents’ room, so I bounced through to see if it was time to get up. Before entering, I knocked on the door and waited for my dad’s gruff voice to give me the all clear to come in.
‘It’s the birthday boy,’ said my dad, sitting up in bed with a broad grin as I entered their bedroom like an express train.
Their room was an essay in tidiness. A large antique wardrobe was deployed to cover one wall, a dressing table stood to attention under the window and the two single beds were in regimental order, looking as if they had just been made, despite the fact that they were still occupied.
Standing at the foot of Dad’s bed I asked, ‘Can I get up now? I’m bored. I’ve been awake for hours.’
‘Is Chris up yet?’ Mum asked.
‘Yeah,’ I lied.
‘Give us five minutes, John. Go back up to your room and we will give you a shout when it’s time to come downstairs,’ Mum said as she slipped out of bed. As the reason for this delay was to set up my birthday surprise, I was more than happy to comply.
My birthday present that year was, as I hoped, new boots and a new tracksuit. As well as the usual new socks and pants pile that arrived at all such occasions. And as this was a weekend I was allowed to make my own agenda, looking out of the window to see that it was pouring, I asked to go to the swimming pool with my friends, followed by a trip to the cinema to see Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.
That evening, Mum served all of my favourite food for dinner – sausages, mashed potatoes – real potatoes, not that powdered muck – and a mountain of beans, and then she brought out a huge birthday cake with thirteen lit candles for me to extinguish. This I managed with one fierce exhalation that made my eyes bulge, and then I made a solid effort to eat as much of the cake at one sitting as I could.
‘Have you had a nice day, son?’ my Dad asked afterwards, when we sat watching the television.
‘Not that you had much to do with it,’ my mother’s words were accompanied by a jagged little smile. A barb doused in perfume.
‘Brilliant, Dad. Absolutely brilliant,’ I answered. ‘Can I stay up late, seeing as it’s my birthday?’ It was worth a try.
‘Once you see your new bedroom you might not want to,’ he replied.
I looked at both of my parents quizzically.
‘We’ve been busy,’ Dad said with a big grin. ‘And your Mum added the finishing touches while you were in the cinema, son.’
‘I’ve cleared out the back room just for you.’ She smiled. ‘You’re a big boy now and you need your own space.’
The back room was a room on the ground floor that had been filled with all kinds of junk for as long as I could remember. Every couple of months, or so it seemed, Mum would say to Dad that he needed to clear it, that the boys would soon be of an age when they would each need their own space. Seemed like Mum got fed up asking Dad and decided to do it herself.
The door closed softly and I was on my own. I had my own space in my own home and I loved it. Moving so I had my back against the door, I turned back and with a whoop dived onto my bed. From there, both hands under my head, I scanned a small bookcase tucked into the corner, to the left of the door, and noticed that all of my books had been brought through and placed in alphabetical order. Even my football posters had been stuck on the walls. This was easily the best birthday ever.
Grabbing a book that Chris had given me, I settled myself on my stomach and began to read.
Mum’s head appeared at the door. ‘That’s ten o’clock, young man, time to get some sleep. Have you brushed your teeth?’ she asked.
‘Yes, Mum,’ I lied in a bored tone.
‘Fibber,’ she said with a small smile. ‘C’mon.’ She stepped to the side and pointed up the stairs towards the bathroom.
With a long drawn out, ‘Muuuuuum,’ I did what I was told, and walked upstairs, into the bathroom, and brushed my teeth. My mother stood at the door watching me, a strange look on her face. She took the two steps required to stand behind me.
‘Look at you, a big teenager now,’ she sighed. ‘Getting so big.’ She traced the width of my shoulders with both hands. And then squeezed my bum. ‘And firm,’ she added. ‘All the girls will be fighting over my big boy. But they needn’t bother. You’re mine.’ She mussed my hair.
Back in my bedroom, I wondered if Mum’d had any wine with her dinner and sat on the edge of the bed and began to undress. When I was naked, I jumped under the covers, foregoing the pyjamas. I was determined to enjoy my newfound privacy. Growing up in a home where even partial nudity was frowned upon, I wanted to experience the freedom of having no clothes on while I lay in my bed. The clean cotton sheets caressed my skin and quickly absorbed some of the heat from my body. Running my hands down my chest and down to my thighs, I fully examined this new sensation. I felt unfettered and for the first time free to be sensuous without fear of a younger brother rushing in to spoil my fun. My body responded and blood rushed to my groin. Just as I was beginning to tentatively touch myself, the door opened.
‘Just thought that I would come and say goodnight, son, before I go back out to work.’ It was Dad’s turn to appear at the door.
The blood rushed from my groin to my face. Had he noticed anything? Did he know what I had been doing? If he had, he gave no indication.
‘How was the Phantom Menace, son?’ he asked as he came over and sat on the edge of the bed.
‘It was cool, Dad,’ I answered, trying to hide my mortification.
‘That’s good, I’m glad.’ He ruffled my hair. ‘Listen, I’m sorry I couldn’t spend more of the day with you,’ he said and a shadow passed over his eyes, like he was disappointed in himself. ‘You know how it is with work…’
My father was a taciturn man, and struggled with any form of close physical contact. I have often wondered, while nibbling at the few crumbs of my past that I would allow myself access to, whether my father’s dedication to his work, and his efforts to protect the local community, was his way of telling us how much he cared about us. If so, he lavished attention on us by proxy.
‘It’s okay, Dad.’ I had been having such a good time that I really hadn’t given much thought to his absence. It was what I was used to.
‘Good. I’m glad you had a good time,’ he repeated and walked to the door. Just as he opened it, he looked back and said in a stage whisper, ‘It’ll make you go blind.’ Then he closed the door and flicked the light switch, leaving me in the darkness.
Wondering if he’d said what I thought he had, I felt my face heat again. Then I let my eyes adjust to the darkness. This was great. I was lying in my own bed in my own room, but I was too wide awake to sleep just yet. Locating my torch in my bedside cabinet, I dived under the covers with my book. This way, if someone happened to check up on me, they wouldn’t be able to guess what I was up to. The torch illuminated the pages and the words pulled me into the story.
Soon, fatigue tugged at my eyelids and the words faded from my brain. I fought for as long as I could, but sleep was impossible to ignore. Pushing my torch under the pillow along with my book, I surrendered to its pull.
I dreamt of my new bedroom. It was the universe and contained everything that I could ever need. It was huge, with corridors that led to other rooms that were also mine. Each new room that I travelled to contained more new delights. I didn’t walk or run, I glided. Moving as fast as I wanted to, I had only to think of something and the next room contained it. A huge bed, draped in white furs. Someone lay in the centre, lost among the white cloud of soft fur. Her hair was as black as night and her skin tan and bare.
Noticing my arrival, she sat up, somehow managing to look shy and welcoming at the same time. My eyes travelled slowly down her body as I enjoyed the sight, while simultaneously being nervous about what might be expected of me. Blood pounding in my ears, I ached for … for something. I wasn’t sure exactly what but I knew the answer lay on the bed.
But something wasn’t quite right. The feeling nagged at the back of my mind as I moved through treacle onto the bed. Soft hands caressed me, touching me everywhere and I pulsed in response. The feeling of wrongness persisted and the pleasure began to subside. A hand moved down across my thigh. I awoke with a start. Feeling another person’s weight on the bed beside me, I strained in the darkness to recognise them.
‘Mum … what…’ A finger pressed against my lips to quieten me. Panic fluttered in my chest like a caged bird.
‘Shh, we don’t want to disturb anyone,’ she whispered.
‘But…’ I was silenced with a kiss on my forehead. ‘This is our special time, darling. Don’t worry, nothing’s wrong. This is Mummy’s treat.’
After the pleasure had subsided and was but a distant memory, disgust and shame rose to the surface, crowding my mind with accusations. How could I let this happen? I enjoyed it, so I must be guilty. I had to be in the wrong as even with my limited experience of sexual matters I knew that the male had to be aroused for anything of a sexual nature to take place. Didn’t they?
Guilt surged up from my belly like bile, and I spun away from her to vomit over the side of the bed.
She rushed out of the room and came back with a bucket and cloth. Soon she was finished cleaning and she leaned over the bed to kiss me goodnight. I shrank from her, as far into my pillow as I could manage, but I couldn’t avoid her lips. In a perverse form of benediction, she kissed my forehead and my mouth before leaving the room.
My new football boots lay discarded in the corner of the room, neither in nor out of their box, their sheen dulled by a patina of pain that no amount of polish would ever succeed in lifting.
When she was gone, in the darkness of the room I began to doubt that anything had actually happened. Nothing had changed. Horns hadn’t sprouted from my head. Everything in my room was as it was. The dark would hide the truth and I would be its willing accomplice. Nothing had happened. It was just a bad dream, but for the rest of the night her last words to me just before she went to get the cleaning materials rang through my mind.
‘Wee lamb,’ she said. ‘You just must have eaten too much birthday cake.’