Jamie and Amanda sat down to a Christmas meal right out of a television advert. Roast potatoes, a giant turkey crown and all the usual vegetables. Followed by Christmas pudding with brandy sauce. And then a glass of port each.
Looking across the table it seemed to Jamie that Amanda had set to eating with grim determination. She was absolutely going to enjoy this. Wasn’t this what Christmas was all about – a set menu and overeating? For the entirety of the meal they didn’t say a word to each other. The only sound in the room was of them masticating and swallowing.
After dinner, they even watched the Queen’s speech.
Jamie opened his mouth to ask why they were watching it, but Amanda shushed him. Then they watched Christmas episodes of all of the soaps. And then a Christmas movie. Throughout it all, Jamie was bored out of his mind, but he felt a strange fascination, watching his sister. It was as if she felt this was her last Christmas on Earth and she was going to be damned sure she would follow the ideal and enjoy it.
‘Well, wasn’t that jolly?’ Jamie said at the end of the film.
Amanda exploded. ‘You’ve had a sour puss on you all day. You could have at least tried to enjoy yourself.’
‘For fuckssake, Amanda. This is supposed to be a holiday where you do what pleases you, not “what is written”. He formed air quotes as he spoke. ‘This is like sitting through a Christmas commandment. You will eat this and you will watch that. Fucking pathetic. Don’t be such a sheep.’ He left the room and went to his bed.
Lying there, staring upward. As cars drove by outside, shadows waxed and waned against the ceiling. Watching the indistinct shapes move above him he realised he felt just as lacking in substance. Like he was a slice of darkness growing and shrinking, dependant on the light from someone else. That was what his entire life was like. And it was time for change.
Everyone who had ever been part of his life had let him down, including the sainted Danny, even if it wasn’t his fault. And what about his mum and dad? Sure, he was fed and watered, but the more he tried to look back, the more he couldn’t remember a kind word or a soft hand. Ever. They were too busy fighting each other and drinking.
Then there were the foster parents. Pure evil. What kind of way was that to treat a little boy desperate for a family; desperate for any small act of love and affection?
The shapes on the ceiling continued to move, to shift, to reach down and pull him in. A memory. Nothing but a boy, his voice hadn’t even broken yet, and he was in a bath. She was on her knees by his side, reaching in, losing the soap, finding it again.
‘We need to wash the sin out of you,’ she said as she held the soap to his groin and began to rub. Hard. ‘The sins of the child, and the sins of the man to come.’
While she worked the soap into a lather her husband stood at her back. His hand stroking her hair, a secret smile working its way into the corners of his mouth.
He recoiled from a memory that visited him from time to time in his dreams. He was certain there was more, otherwise why would there be so much fear and anticipation attached to that memory? But his mind protected him from the detail. Memory held fast a black, iron door and wouldn’t let him through.
He was glad they were dead. And how easy was that to organise. A little adaptation to their boiler while they slept, and fatal gases filled the house instead of flowing out into the night air.
Finally in the roll-call of those who had let him down: Luke. He’d begun to let him in, to trust him. It had been almost soothing to watch him and Nathan. To see how people who cared about each other actually behaved. But he allowed his yearnings for a proper family to cloud his judgement. Luke was no better than the rest of them. And that was made worse by the man behaving like he was some kind of saint.
His acts of caring were clearly just that: acts.
He’d never forget the barely suppressed anger in his eyes at the funfair. Oh, he’d tried to hide it. Tried to pretend that everything was fine, that he wasn’t furious that Jamie had lost his precious wee boy. For the rest of that day he barely spoke to him, concentrating entirely on Nathan. He felt ignored and dismissed, as if he was nothing and nobody.
After all he’d ‘found’ the boy, and shouldn’t that have been the main consideration in Luke’s mind?
Luke had led Jamie to believe he was better than that. But like everyone else he was a liar. A fraud.
As far as he was concerned the man deserved everything that was coming to him.