‘What I did to Jack Clare - that wasn’t balls,’ I say, my heart thudding in my mouth. ‘That was rage and sheer fucking hatred and ... I’m not proud of it.’
‘Come on,’ my father dismisses my qualms with a shrug. ‘You squared up to someone you took to be your old man. All lads do that some time or another. It shows me you have something in you that your brother never had. It shows me that you’re the only one capable of taking over this business after I retire.’
‘No.’ I look at him in horror, shaking my head.
‘You said you were here to put things right. Well. I’m offering it all on a plate to you now, Lawrence.’ He looks me candidly in the eye.
‘Pilgrim is a good gofer but that’s all he’ll ever be. He isn’t as clever as you, he hasn’t got your guts or your abilities.’
‘What
abilities?
’
‘You’ve stayed clear of the fuzz all this time haven’t you? Without any help - that’s no mean feat. Truth is, Macrae Enterprises could be yours for the taking once I step down.’ He spreads his hands in a magnanimous gesture. ‘If you want it. We can sort you out with a water-tight alibi and nobody would ever touch you for what you did.
Yes
.
’
H
e smiles, ‘It can be done. You could work for me! In the meantime, you’ll run things under my direction, learn the trade and how things are done.’
I just stare at him. How could he have got hold of the wrong end of the stick so badly?
‘You said you were here to make amends,’ he prompts. ‘Here’s your chance.’
‘I’m not proud of what I did that night,’ I get out. ‘I’m here because I want to make amends.
To him
.’
‘To him?’ My father looks a little taken aback. ‘Who?’
‘I want you to give Jack Clare his land back.’
There’s a long, dark silence while he takes in the implications of this; I can feel him, moving a whole load of pieces across the chessboard of his mind. He takes in that I am compromised; racked with guilt. He takes in that I have somehow found the courage to risk coming back here. He takes in that I’m worn out with running and that I desperately need help, but clearly not enough to take what he’s offering me in exchange for it.
He takes in that I still, after all this time, reject him.
‘I’ve come back here for one reason,’ I tell him again. ‘To put things right. I want you to sign the land back over to the Clares. We never should have taken it. I’m not here to talk about coming home. I’m not here to accept any offer of protection from you for what I did. Just the land, to make it right, and then I’ll go.’
‘Just the land
.
’
H
e opens his hands, nods, his mouth pursed as if he’s considering my words very carefully. A small light has just come into his eyes and I seize upon it, sensing his slight shift in attitude towards me. What is this new thing I’m picking up?
Respect?
For one brief moment I entertain the fantasy that my father might actually be proud of me for being man enough to take this stand. That he might -
like Dougie was
- be proud of me for believing in a goal so much that I’d put the attaining of it before my own comfort or safety.
His next words pop that bubble in an instant.
‘You’ve come for the land. And just... how did you intend to persuade me?’
I stop, open-mouthed, not knowing how. I don’t have any leverage, do I? All I ever had was the forlorn hope that some small part of him might be glad to see me after all this time. Because I am his son. Happy enough to buy me peace of mind the only way I will ever now get it.
‘Jack Clare is real sick,’ I beg. ‘He could go away from here and get treatment but he won’t go because he’s scared you’ll develop the land. If we let him have it back - that would be an act of atonement. It would be an act of
mercy
.’
‘Of course,’ he agrees. ‘But you and he and I all know that land is potentially worth a lot of money,’ he prompts. ‘You’re offering me a business proposition of some sort, I take it?’
I hang my head, recognising the fool that I’ve been. My father doesn’t know about mercy. He doesn’t know about love. He’s not interested in any transaction in this world that doesn’t have some underlying commercial value to it;
‘I know about that man you killed,’ I tell him at last. ‘I might only have been a toddler but I know you buried him in the mound behind the pens, didn’t you? I saw you do it.’ My father bangs his fist on the desk suddenly, gets up and leans over it now, his eyes looking fit to bulge out of their sockets.
‘Don’t go there, Lawrence,’ he breathes. ‘Forget about Jack Clare.
Topfields is my property, now. It is mine, do you understand me?‘
‘You can keep everything’ I say. ‘I won’t tell anyone. About all the other things you have stolen, all the other people you have cheated and hurt. What you did to the family.
What you did to me
. I’ll say nothing. I just want that land signed back over to Jack ’
‘Fuck you, Lawrence. You wouldn’t have found me as easy to take down as that muppet you surprised that night, son. I’m not him,’ he warns me. ‘I’d have broken both your arms, and then some.’ He looks at me and a sudden sneer twists his face.
‘I still could.’ I stand very, very still. He’s come up and he’s just inches away from me now.
‘I just might. You’ve grown, boy, but you haven’t grown that much. I could still knock your lights out and don’t you forget it.’
‘I didn’t come here for that,’ I breathe, but I can see he’s barely listening to me anymore.
‘No. You came here to threaten me. Don’t you think I deserve a little more respect than that?’ I flinch backwards, but his breath is coming hard and fast. I recognise the signs. How he used to work his way up into a rant and then from there the punches would start flying. ‘All my life I’ve slaved away, dirtied my hands,
slaughtered pigs for a living
so that you three could have a roof over your heads. Don’t you think I should have some acknowledgement from my family for that? Is that it? Nothing for Rob Macrae?’
I look at my father in fear and disbelief. He’s mental, that’s what he is.
‘No matter what I tried to do for you, you always let me down.’ He twists his neck now and I can see the veins bulging.
‘Don’t come a step closer,’ I warn.
‘Why couldn’t you have just worked with me, boy? All those things you took so much to heart, everything that you and your brother thought of as terrible punishments - I was trying to instil a bit of discipline into you, that’s all. Life’s hard. I was trying to teach my kids to roll with the knocks.
To become men
.’
‘Men like you?’ My throat closes up. If he touched me now, could I take him? I am famished and exhausted. He’s that little bit older and I’m that bit bigger, swifter, but still I know I could not. Not after seeing what I did to Jack Clare; I could not.
‘I’m a
free
man, Lawrence,’ he taunts. ‘More than can be said for you, eh?’
‘More than can be said for any man who works for you, either...’ His face twists into something very ugly now; something I recognise from long ago and I recoil.
‘You never saw any value in me, did you, boy? You’ve never respected me. Even your mother saw that.’
‘My mother only ever saw what she wanted to see...’
Didn’t she ask
, I think suddenly,
didn’t she even wonder, why he sent her away this Christmas? She could have worked out it was because I was back...
‘Your brother saw it. He accepted me. Not you though, eh? You were just a bad apple through and through – you always had to throw everything I ever did for you, everything I offered you, back in my face.’ He takes a small step closer to me and my fingers creep down to close around the barrel of his gun under my jumper. Could I do it? I’ve never shot anyone in my life before though if anyone deserves it, it’s got to be him.
‘You must have known that I would never let you out of here.’ He shrugs his arms out of his jacket and underneath I see he is wearing only a thin white shirt. Slowly, he unbuttons the cuffs. He rolls up the sleeves and then he begins to dance and feint around me, jabbing at the air once or twice, as if he were back in the boxing ring, grunting and lunging. His eyes are little black circles now, his forehead down, focused, getting ready to go in for the money shot and then... he’s hitting my forearms, left-right, right-left, hitting them like a machine with military precision and fireworks of pain are exploding deep inside my biceps; suddenly, I get a real shot of clarity.
This time
, I think,
he really is going to kill me
.
My head feels giddy now, as if the room is spinning. I put my hands up and a flurry of rain spatters against the window. I feel the warm stickiness of bleeding coming from my nose. Through the glass I can see the massive oak by the farm gate is still groaning with snow, a few of its boughs are broken, sagging almost to the ground with the weight. Then I look downwards as my blood splashes over the parquet floor, darkening the wood effect. It is already so dark. How much darker can it get in here? How much darkness is there, left?
‘You must have known,’ he’s saying softly now, ‘
t
hat I would never let you go.’ He’s pulled me by the shoulders round to face him again and now he punches me, just once, hard in the midriff. Next, in the middle of my forehead, my head jerking backwards like a crash dummy in a smashed vehicle and the room has become so dark, I can barely see I can barely think I can barely breathe then -
bang
- his fist smashes deep into my chest and I crumple like a straw.
‘What did you really come back for, eh? What?’
‘Dad
.
’
M
y brother’s horrified face is at the door suddenly now, watching us. How long has he been out there, listening? Does he know that my father was poised to hand the whole kit and kaboodle over to me in his stead? That I only had to say the word? Pilgrim used to wait outside the World War Two bunker for hours, when he was a kid. I used to hear him, talking to Kahn. He used to wait for me at first, before he grew old enough to realise I wouldn’t be out any time soon. Hearing my brother’s voice now, I don’t know what gives me the strength to look up but when I do, I see him swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He’s grown from a boy into a man while I was away, I hardly recognise him. He’s a man, but he’s Rob Macrae’s man now. Still, I can see he wants my father to stop. He puts his hand to his face and it’s obvious that he’s scared.
‘
Dad...
’
‘Get. Out.’ Fists still clenched, Rob Macrae turns to slam the door shut on my brother with his foot.