The stranger

I’m in the kitchen making a sandwich and my dad is upstairs in bed. I can hear the bed springs groan as he turns. The peanut butter gets stuck in globs and tears the bread. I can hear every black bubble from the glass of coke beside the plate.

It’ll go like this. I’ll approach his bed. I’ll try and be calm and ignore the sweat forming around my neck. I’ll put my hands in my pockets, or stroke the back of my head. Maybe I’ll have watery eyes, but I doubt if I can force tears.

I’ll ease my way in with some soothing words. I’ll say I bumped into Mrs. Kyle, who told me about her fantastic dream. She saw an angel, full of light, who led her into a moonlit garden. The angel had dug a large crater in the grass and they sat in it together. The angel smiled benevolently and said Mr. Kyle was recovering in heaven. And I will say to my dad, ‘That’s nice, right?’

‘Yes, that’s beautiful,’ he’ll say. Then, ‘But why is he recovering? Something terrible must have happened? Did he die in pain? Did he die in pain?’

I’ll hide my anger behind a sympathetic sigh, and try a different tack. I’ll say when I was very young, all my friends turned against me for no reason. In the school playground I found a little stone; a purple piece of flint embedded in the concrete. It became my friend. I spent hours standing around it and talking to it as if it was wise and understanding.

One time it talked back. It said something I vowed I’d never tell anyone. But I will whisper it into my dad’s ear, and then say, ‘See, I understand. I’ve had hard times too.’ But he will see me as crazy, I know it. He will look me up and down and moan, ‘You say the strangest things. Do you really think this is helping? Why do you insist on telling me these stories?’

Then I will look firmly into his eyes, my eyelids flickering. I will tell him how I know he made fun of my looks; my lazy eye and strange bent walk. I overheard him laughing about it in the cellar one morning, talking to the boys in a haze of cigarette smoke. He owes me. Not money. What I need is… and then I will tell him what I want. He'll have to listen.

I stare at myself in the grand hallway mirror. I anxiously flatten my hair at the back and straighten my tie. As I adjust what needn’t be adjusted, I am caught by the beauty of the glass; a perfect pool of silver water. I fall forward and my head breaks the surface. Beyond, I see cold darkness.

I knock on my dad’s bedroom door. There is no answer, so finally, without being beckoned, I inch the door open and creep into the room. Despite being almost completely shrouded in darkness, the room glows blue. My dad is tightly tucked into the double bed, only his balding head and slender arms poking out of the duvet. He is quiet and his eyes are closed.

A man is sitting across the room by my dad’s side, whispering in his ear. He has broad shoulders and a round face, but I can’t make out any other features. I gently close the door and walk a couple of paces into the room. As I near the bed, the darkness enveloping the man diminishes, revealing his scruffy black hair and black woolly jumper, but no more. I think about turning back and returning another time. But I tell myself no.

‘Take a seat,’ the man says quietly. I think about it, and then do as I’m told. I place myself beside the bed, on a little stool opposite the man. I’m still unable to see most of his face but I can discern the movement of his thin lips.

‘Your Don’s son, aren’t you? You should say something,’ the man says, ‘it’s very serious now.’

‘Sorry, who are you?’ I say, leaning towards him. I try to bore a hole into the darkness.

‘I’m John, a friend of your dad’s.’

‘Oh.’

I forget his name immediately.

My dad’s eyes open, then close. His chest heaves steadily up and down. He wheezes, and his breath stings my nostrils. I try to remember my strategy but I hadn’t counted on another person listening in. The words I’ve rehearsed have slipped from my mind, as if swallowed by the shadows.

‘Well,’ I say, ‘I wanted to talk about my mum.’ I decide to discuss something obscure, something meaningless even, something the man could know nothing about. This is the best way to avoid being judged or caught out.

‘Well, ok,’ I say, positioning myself to face my dad. His face is grey and stiff, as if chiseled from stone. ‘Before you became ill, mum told you she didn’t want our dog anymore. He’s menacing. He’s been known to follow children,’ I say to the man. ‘He doesn’t growl or anything, but it’s the way he stares. Anyway,’ I say returning my gaze to my dad, ‘mum’s just had enough. She wants Sammy put down. I thought maybe I could solve the problem and take the dog as my own.’

I take a deep breath, trying to dislodge the knot in my stomach. John mutters into my dad’s ear, then pulls himself up, then slouches.

‘Did you know,’ the man says, ‘your mum has been spending your dad’s money? Draining it away.

‘I don’t know anything about my mum,’ I say, folding my arms.

'She even tried to buy a car, but the credit card was cancelled.’

The man arches his back. He looks straight at me, waiting, encouraging me to respond. He wavers between a smile and a ruffled brow. I know he knows what I’m thinking, as if he were able to pick the thoughts from my mind, like coins from a wallet.

‘I may as well come out with it,’ I say, checking my father as if he might butt in to the conversation, undermining my words. ‘Well, it’s obvious I guess, I want what anyone would want from his...dying...father. See, I’ve had to plan what to do when he goes. When it’s all over, that is. A coffin. Dad is traditional. A funeral. Thousands of pounds. Not to mention, taxes, inheritance I mean, extended family pulling this way and that, you know. Endless complications occur when dealing with a death.’

The man nods, pushing his lips together into a thoughtful expression. I shift forward in my seat, and lean myself over my dad’s midriff.

‘We’ve had problems in the past,’ I say, nodding my head at my dad. ‘It’s the same for everyone though, isn’t it?’

The stranger blinks.

‘I want to make amends,’ my voice wilts. ‘I do. I want to say some things. But you’re here and...I’m not trying to be rude.’

‘No, it’s a fair point,’ he says.

I lean my elbow on the bed, beside my dad’s thigh. ‘You see, as a kid growing up in my dad’s supermarket, it was wonderful,’ I say. ‘Everything was bright and colourful. Lines and lines of tins and packages perfectly stacked, all facing the same way. I thought it was quite beautiful. And you know living there so long makes you think nothing bad can happen. But of course that’s a childhood fantasy. I’ve had many problems with my looks.’

‘Oh, you look fine to me.’

‘Of course I don’t,’ I snap, ‘I look hideous. I’m always bruised and in pain. I bump into things. My dad, he would laugh and… it doesn’t matter now. But I want to say to him, it’s ok. Before it’s too late.’

‘I think you’re probably being a little unfair to your dad. He always loved you like a son.’

‘I am his son,’ I say, firmly. ‘Anyway, you weren’t there. Were you.’

‘But I have talked to your dad a lot recently,’ the man says. ‘And he said, you and I are very similar. Did you notice we both have the same slightly bent legs? Anyway, he has told me a lot about you, not all bad either,’ he smiles. ‘Honestly, I feel like I understand you.’

‘Right,’ I say to myself. I stand and walk to other side of the room. I peel back the curtain. A slither of light shoots into the room then gets trapped by the darkness. My back is to the stranger. He hasn’t turned to me.

‘How could you understand me? I really doubt it,’ I say angrily.

‘Perhaps not.’

‘All I wanted was a few small words from him to make things right. Some memento, something that I could carry with me, like a lucky coin, or a photograph inside a locket. Maybe just a touch of the hand would make up for all the hugs I missed out on.’

I turn to the sickbed, look at my feet and shake my head.

‘That's embarrassing,’ I say.

The stranger twists around slowly to face me, and gives me a friendly smile.

‘Someone screams and shouts’ I say, ‘and then realizes they have to be silent at some point. That’s how it is. My dad is one long scream, nearly silenced, and there’s no time to get a word in… He never screamed at me, though.’

I walk back to my stool, but I stand behind it now and rest my hands flat on the seat.

‘So you think you know me?’

The man waves me over to him. Finally, I do as I’m told. Up close to him, he is harder to see than before. His eye sockets cast shadows around his eyes. The darkness conceals his mouth and most of his nose. Then a bar of dim light is exposed from the bottom of his face. He is smiling.

He wraps his arm around my shoulders. Then we walk together, limping, like conjoined twins. There is an oval mirror by the bedside table, coming into view like a moon being unveiled by a slow moving cloud. There are tiny golden orbs dotting the frame.

We stand together, and stare. For a moment, neither of us appears in the mirror. But within a blink of the eye, the reflections are there, solid and real. Now light is fluttering, and falling.

We look the same. Except he is still smiling and I remain serious.

‘Isn’t it strange? Such a coincidence, no?’

‘ I’m unsure of things. What do you think?’ I say.

I wait for his reply. I know the answer. I can go home now. I can go back to my life and carry on pretending, just getting through, because getting what I want won’t help me. I wait for the stranger to say what he has to say. But he is still gazing into the mirror that almost fits our reflections, wrapped together, and stuck.

‘You want to see his eyes close forever. You want to see his heart stop beating. You want to hear the last breath from his lungs. You want to see him die, right?’

Right.