The Things We Do to Each Other

It is half past two on a Thursday afternoon. Late August. I’m leaving school and it’s only the second day of the school year. I have the usual weight on my shoulders from another thing I don’t know is a problem just yet. You are standing amongst the scattering of other parents. No one speaks to you. They leave you out of things, or so my sister Sally says. As I walk towards the gate, I know you’ve caught my eye but I pretend I haven’t seen yours. My gaze passes over the rest as though I’m choosing a bar of chocolate in a shop. You don’t have any of the dogs with you. You’re wearing your yellow raincoat that’s blemished from the work you do in the garden.

I get in the car and can hear you breathing through your nose. I’m not sure what to expect but all I know is that you’re not happy about something. I try to think; might you have met up with Dad and now feel like you need to have a shower? Might someone from England have called you and now I can’t talk to you for a while? Might you have accepted a favour from someone when your dance card was already overflowing to the brim with everything? God only knows. We have our usual chatter but we’re silent otherwise. Though, there is one thing. You tell me my brother Eric’s coming home for dinner tonight. That’ll be lovely. There’s always such a good atmosphere in the house when he comes.

At home, my booklist is on the table; doggy-eared and tea-stained at one edge. We have everything except the tables book I swear I have somewhere in the house. Well, where is it? It’s in one of the drawers of the dressing table in the playroom. They’ll be doing a collection of all the books we need tomorrow at school so I’ll need to have it by then. Well, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if I didn’t have it. Yes, actually it would. The collar of my shirt is like a stiff knife at my throat. I’ll just get changed and then I’ll find it. No, if you say it’s that easy to find, find it, and then you can get changed.

I go into the room and look through the drawers. There’s a mix of many things in there. A geography book and their accompanying workbooks from when Sally went to school in the 90s. Eric’s copy books from primary school where he wrote about me as his younger brother who loved the Titanic. Books that were gifts that I swear I’ll read some day, but today is not that day. I have to find that tables book. I can see it now - green and slim, almost like a

pamphlet you get from the doctor. It’s covered in protective plastic casing for good measure, and has a large white label with my name on it; this covers the many previous labels that had been repeatedly pulled off of it to make way for the next owner. But the book isn’t in any of the drawers. Definitely not. You said it was there. It has to be. But it’s not. I’m sorry, I can’t find it. You tell me I’ve got until 5 o’clock to find the book - or else.

I can feel my chest inflating with that feeling. I know I’m going to cry and it’s only a matter of when. I look through the drawers again; something inside me feels that perhaps it’ll be there if I look again; like, maybe I hadn’t looked hard enough last time. But I know well to look as best as I can when you ask me to find something. Please God, just let the book be here. I won’t ask for anything else. But it’s not there - and I can feel a pain starting at the back of my mouth as though something is expanding - a spy inside the room that is closing in on me.

Why does this always happen? I cook a big dinner and have to put two plates of it in the freezer. Adding to the other six plates of dinners that are also in there. Mum, I don’t know why you’re surprised. He always does this. He says he’ll come and he never does. But the bathroom door upstairs needs fixing. And he said he’d help me in the garden. I know, it’s really unfair of him to do that. Even if I can pick him up from town, do you think he’d come? Do you know where he is? Even then, I don’t think he’d bother. What? But he said he’d come. There’s probably something that’s come up. Maybe if I collect him, I can help him, and then he can come and help here. That’s crazy - you’ve done enough by cooking for him, where will it end, Mum? Ah, flip off then. You don’t know what he’s doing or going through. Speaking about him like that - that’s your brother.

Sally is silent. The kitchen door suddenly opens and I back up moving towards the playroom again. Sally is speaking to herself in disbelief and I can hear her throat croaking through the little that she does say. A tinkering sound as she grabs her car keys, the caw of the front door opening and the slam of it closing. Silence.

I am now alone with you. And the feeling in my chest is heightened because I know that all your anger has to go somewhere. I’m not sure what it is you do in these moments after someone has the guts to walk away from you like Sally does. I can’t even answer you back, though I’ve heard others in my class being able to do that to their moms. The smell of the dinner is all around the hallway now because of the commotion. I think that maybe the fact that dinner is ready might somehow save me from my situation. Maybe the argument has directed your anger at the lost book towards Sally - though I hate to think that she is taking the brunt of my mistake. Kitchen door opens. There’s a rushing sound in your movement.

You appear at the playroom door. Have you found it? No, I can’t find it - I swear it was here the last time.

Then it’s just a blur of motion and sounds from here onwards. You leave the doorway so I can’t see you but I hear you talking to yourself. Right. Right! The first is a statement. The second, a scream. Rooms are being entered. Drawers are being pulled out. You scream at me to come into the room and see what I am making you do. You always told me there’s no such thing as the banshee whenever we watch that film but watching you now, as you clamber about our home in rage, I cannot be so sure. Why am I ALWAYS the one who’s left to do everything? Why can’t everything go as planned, just for once? I want to respond to you, but experience has taught me that silence is golden - at least until I am forced to respond. If you think I’m paying for another book that you’ve lost, you can forget about it.

You suddenly stop emptying a bookcase and eye me. Before I can gather my gaze towards your eyes, you are already upon me. I back myself out the door and I’m met with the stair banister at my back again, wishing I could liquify myself further into them to escape. A sharp sizzling sound accompanies your left hand grasping my hair, pulling it upwards. I involuntarily pull myself upwards, tears have already started plummeting from my eyes. Your right hand has clamped itself onto the collar of my school uniform and I can’t think of anything else at that moment except to wish for it to be over. I’m not even sure what it is you’re saying to me. Then a quick DO YOU? triggers me to respond with a ‘yes’. I’m really not sure what I’m agreeing to, so I must put the pain and fear aside and listen to what you’re saying.

If you ever lose a book again, I’ll break your neck - do you hear me?

There is a slap. Then, another slap. Then you back away for a moment and hit yourself in the head. I am now sitting on the floor, the wall pushing against my spine. I look ahead of me through blurry-eyed vision and see two strands of my hair descending lightly in front of me. I don’t blame them - I’d want to be rid of me and this house too. But they won’t leave this house. They won’t really be rid of us. Those strands will make their way down to the carpet where they’ll be stuck and trampled on by those passing by. Their only escape will be through the hoovering which will be done on Sunday. And even then, they’ll be stuck in the Dyson’s see-through cylinder until it’s emptied. And only God knows when that’ll be emptied. You reappear at the doorway of the kitchen.

I know you pretend you don’t see me when I come to pick you up at school.

You slam the kitchen door shut and I can’t hear very much happening after that. I’m still crying though, so I decide it’s better to stop and just listen to what you’re doing in there. I want to go to my room and get changed - I hate the collar of my school uniform. I hate it.

But I don’t dare move in case you’re not finished. How could I ever run away from something you needed to do to me? Unthinkable. But it’s been over 5 minutes now and I can’t hear anything. Maybe you’re sitting down at the table and eating. I hope you are. Maybe you were just hungry today. Yeah, I suppose that’s what the problem was. You put everything ahead of you and forget to look after yourself. And it always leads to things like this. Disappointments. Arguments. Thrashes.

I quietly climb the stairs and go to my room; there is a smell of cardboard and fresh bed sheets. You recently bought me new things for my room so I’d be happier sleeping in it throughout the night. But it hasn’t worked; I still end up coming in to you in the middle of the night. I take off my uniform, the itchy sweater, the shirt with the collar like a bike tyre, the tie with the elastic band for easy application, the gray trousers that feel like needles when they’re wet from the rain. I look out the window and wonder what my brother Eric is doing. I know Sally is somewhere else, upset and crying - but why didn’t Eric come? Why does he always say he’ll come but never does? He’s probably out drinking again and forgot. I think of those days when I’ll come of age and have a life of my own. And I can choose whether or not to come and remain sitting against the stair banister wall, just in case you want to express yourself to me any further.

You finally call me down, and I find myself eating the dinner you made at the table. It’s something with gravy, vegetables and meat. I want to try and make conversation - put the whole thing behind us but I still can’t gauge your mood. I don’t want you to respond to me with something sarcastic so I stay quiet. And then; I’m sorry Iain. I know I’m like this sometimes but you need to know how mad you make me and that’s really not ok. I end up smashing things to pieces - because you can’t find your tables book.

I bow my head in shame. Me, that documentary camera that sees your real life: how you conduct things around the house to make them conform to your liking, the conversations you have on the telephone with your friends and relatives who take advantage of you, and the aspirations you have for a better life that are just not realistic because of everything that has ever happened to you.

You promise not to hit me anymore if I promise to be more careful with my things. I agree with a smile, thinking this will be the change that I want most. Then suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, it’s there - in the corner of the room. The tables book! I jump out of my seat and pick it up. Yes, this is it! The real thing! I hold it against my chest, my heart beaming as I carefully walk into the playroom. I place it back in the drawer where I had stowed it last time - with all the other promises that had been made. All those changes that had been pledged all the other times before came into fruition if only through the best of intentions, in the most ephemeral of ways.