The Standing Water (60 page)

‘Yes, that’s
right,’ says Dad. ‘Whatever’s happened to decency, to respect, to knowing your
place and what’s expected of you?’

It’s hard not to
smile. In the eighties, they were both rabid Thatcher fans. You vote for a
party that promotes selfishness and greed then you’re dismayed when people
start to act in a selfish and greedy manner. Dad goes on.

‘At least we don’t
have
too
much of that sort of thing in Emberfield yet. This place, thank
God, is like an island in the flood, not swamped by the dreadfulness of the
modern world. There are hardly any niggers and Pakis in Emberfield and absolutely
no poofs!’

‘But even here,’
Mum says darkly, ‘even here you can see some of the modern world’s effects.
Even here –’

‘Unfortunately,
yes,’ Dad says. ‘There are quite a few of Ryan’s classmates who haven’t turned
out well.’

‘I blame that Mr
Stone,’ Mum says. ‘Everything was OK until he replaced Mr Weirton. That’s when
a lot of those youngsters started going bad.’

‘Of course –’ Dad
nods ‘– it’s obvious, isn’t it? Those lads only behaved well because of Mr
Weirton’s discipline. Withdraw that, replace it with namby-pamby modern ideas
and trendy nonsense, and lads are bound to start running wild! Stone didn’t
give out a single hiding! Not one! What on earth can you expect?’

‘Look at them now …
that Darren Hill!’

‘And that Richard
Johnson – now
that
lad …’

And Dad’s off
again, ranting about druggies and drunks, saying what they need is a good
flogging then putting in the army. The conversation moves onto Suzie Green and
Dad embarks on a tirade about single mothers. I struggle to gulp down the last
of my food, wonder when it would be polite to escape from the table. I could
plead tiredness, sneak upstairs. But with Mum and Dad’s diatribes gushing out,
I can’t slide a word in. A long discussion of Craig Browning’s outrages follows
next, along with occasional asides flung at Jonathon.

‘And that brother
of his hasn’t made much of his life by all accounts. Roaming around the country
like some damned gypsy, flitting from one dead-end job to the next. Always
seemed quite a bright lad, n’all. Must be laziness, due to lack of discipline.
That blasted Mr Stone …’

I try to glug my tea
down so I can decently slip away. It’s too hot. I burn my mouth, scorch my
throat. As I sit, blowing on that damned drink, I think about Emberfield. Its
residents may despise people who are different, most of whom live far away in
big cities, down south, even abroad. They may aim the arrows of their fury at
those mysterious conspirators they blame for swallowing their taxes, ruining
their country, blighting their lives. But the very fact so many of those
detested aliens are far off means that – to vent their rage, express their hatred
– Emberfield’s inhabitants have to search much nearer their homes. And many
convenient scapegoats are Weirton’s former pupils.

The food finally
finished, the tea drunk, I stand up, give an exaggerated stretch, speak of my
long day and journey, and retreat to my room. Trudge up the staircase, past the
picture of the beggar boy still holding out his hopeful tin, that tin which –
even after so many years – has still not received a coin. I shut my bedroom
door; its wood thankfully muffles the spiky crackles of the radio as that
device goes on pouring out its woeful tales. At last, a bit of peace. I go to
the window, stick my head through the curtains, gaze outside. There’s not much
to see. Light from the house illuminates the front garden. The streetlamp
opposite sends down its orange cone then beyond there’s just blackness. I
imagine the fields stretching away, the miles of dark marshes just occasionally
spotted by a lonely farmhouse, a dull hamlet, an old church. A train rattles
past in the distance, making the sound I used to think came from the Drummer
Boy. The train’s echo fades; I think of Salton, the castle and graveyard
standing so quietly, the cursed glove with which we’d tried to kill Weirton
hanging in the church, so motionless, so silent. As I stare from the window, I
wonder why I ever come back here. No mates left in Emberfield now – they’ve all
moved away. Obligation – feel it’s my duty to visit the family. Difficult to
understand why we need to put each other through it – we don’t like each other,
don’t get on. We see the world very differently; when we’re together we grate
on each other’s nerves. Past resentments foam and bubble just under the
surface. There’s this unspoken law that you have to love your parents, adore
your family, but why? You’re just a bunch of people the randomness of genetics
has flung together. There’s no reason – beyond your DNA – why you should have
much in common. And why should I like, let alone love, people who – not only
willingly, but enthusiastically – subjected me to Weirton? People who urged on
every swoop of his hand, applauded each impact. I really can’t comprehend how
people can not only bear, but actually celebrate such things being done to
their children. We really do live in different universes. I try not to despise
my parents, but it’s a struggle I often lose. I sometimes wonder how the hell
someone like me could have grown up in such a family, in such a place. I’m the
absolute opposite of everything I’ve been brought up to be. It can’t just be
youthful rebellion now I’m thirty-five. It must be the way I am. Though how I
turned out like this would puzzle anyone.

I step back from
the window, let the curtains swing closed. I lie on the bed, try to read a
book, but can’t concentrate. Try to steel myself for the awful hours waiting
tomorrow. It’ll be Sunday; Mum’s going to cook a roast; my sister’s coming
over. Another family member I don’t get on with. Sang about and celebrated
Weirton’s whackings as a child, but by the time she started school Stone’s
softer regime was in place. Think she felt cheated – robbed of witnessing her
share of those legendary thrashings, those mythical head-drills, those volcanic
tantrums, those elaborate humiliations the headmaster had inflicted. She picked
up on Mum and Dad’s laments for the golden age of Mr Weirton. Having never been
on the end of one of those wallopings, humiliations, eruptions herself, she didn’t
know what it was like to experience them. She was one of the few kids who never
took to Stone. Guess she felt the school’s calm predictable workings and the
warm bubble of praise and acceptance in which Stone enclosed us lacked
something. Grew up to be just like my folks. She married a local boy, had a
couple of kids. Her husband’s a big ugly brute. He beats the children, almost
as mercilessly as Weirton thrashed us, beats them with my sister’s
encouragement. Thank God he’s not coming to the lunch. The moment my eyes
rested on that repulsive oik, I’d want to rip him apart. I’d want to crash
punches into him until he knew exactly what it’s like to be thrashed and
humiliated. The problem is, he probably
does
already know. I can imagine
the upbringing he’s had. I’m sure it’d startle him to discover some people manage
to raise kids without resorting to their right hands. Be as much of a shock as
finding out for the first time the earth orbits the sun. I reckon my folks and sister
have kept him away from me. They probably made no conscious decision, but
somewhere in the dim dungeons of their minds they knew something, or somebody,
was likely to explode. I let out a long sigh as I think about that lunch
tomorrow. At least when it’s over I can be off, driving away from here, towards
the peace and clarity I hope await at my cottage. Or – if I find Weirton – then
a confrontation, a forced explanation that might at least quieten certain
demons and ghosts.

So Sunday comes and
the crisp yet cloying aroma of roast chicken fills the house along with the
sludgy smell of gravy. Soon we’re seated around the kitchen table as the bloody
radio crackles, vomiting out bad news in sharp wiry words. Dad snarls and
scowls, but thankfully doesn’t launch into a full rant. I struggle to make
bland conversation with Sarah, conversation in which I avoid asking too much
about her kids. I’m so tense I have to battle to gulp down my meat; the sharp
corners of the roast spuds snag in my throat. Our knives and forks click,
scrape on china as the conversation flickers and flits between subjects – local
affairs, family matters, the weather, cricket and football. I hope, as the last
of the meat is sliced, as the last of the gravy is dribbled, as the boiled pudding
sits ready, giving off its vanilla scents on the sideboard, that the meal will
finish without any incidents, any arguments, any diatribes from Dad,
declarations on discipline from Sarah. I just want to get my piece of that
pudding inside, slurp a cup of polite coffee and be off: motoring away from
Emberfield, the exhaust fumes and tarmac putting the miles between myself and
this place that – however much I try to escape it – I always get hauled back
to.

For some moments,
our mouths chew, our cutlery clacks, the radio crackles on and dad goes on
murmuring his opinions, opinions that never change, views that just stagnate,
like stinking ponds.

‘The man who never
changes his opinion,’ Blake wrote, ‘is like the standing water and breeds
reptiles of the mind.’

I go on hoping we
can reach the meal’s end having suffered nothing worse than our strained chats,
Dad’s mumbled snarls. Such hopes, of course, are not realised. As our plates
sit empty except for gooey pools and lakes of gravy, as our knives and forks
lay exhausted side-by-side, as Mum bears the steaming pudding from the sideboard,
the conversation has to move, lamentably and predictably, onto ‘old times’.

‘I remember you and
your friends at school, Ryan,’ Mum says as she settles the pud on the table. ‘You
were all real little boys. Mr Weirton had his hands full with you lot. You were
all as lively as a bag of ferrets!’

‘Exactly as boys
should be!’ Dad says. ‘Of course, they wouldn’t like it nowadays; it wouldn’t
be politically correct! They’d want you all to be a bunch of sissies!’

I suck in breath –
this is a shock.

‘Hang on a minute,’
I say. ‘You actually
liked
the way we were?’

‘Course we did,’
Dad says. ‘OK, some lads occasionally went too far: Craig Browning, Dennis
Stubbs, and that Marcus Jones – he was a real tearaway! But any nonsense good
old Mr Weirton clamped down on. Yet, by and large, you were like young lads
should be – cheeky scamps getting into all sorts of scrapes then copping a
damned good hiding when necessary!’

‘But wait,’ I say.
‘If you were so keen on how we were, why did Weirton have to whack us all the
time to change us?’

‘Just the way it
is.’ Dad shrugs. ‘Young lads need discipline. People have known that since the
beginning of time …’

Dad trails off. He’s
been wrong-footed by my question, but won’t admit it. The pudding stays
unserved as Mum slides into her seat, watching Dad think.

‘It’s like horses,’
he finally says. ‘Yes, horses. If you buy a young horse, you want one with a
bit of fire, a bit of kick, a bit of spirit. But you also need to
break
that horse – otherwise, it’ll be no good. It won’t do the things you need it
to. It’s the same with people, especially young lads. We need to
break
them, for want of a better word, so they can fit into society.’

‘And a good thing
too,’ my sister pipes up. ‘Look how things are today – crime out of control,
prisons full, millions of idlers on benefits! It’s no coincidence there’s been
a decline in corporal punishment. I’m just glad my Steve’s a traditional kind
of man.’

‘I know corporal
punishment’s not especially pleasant,’ Dad goes on. ‘It does rather knock the
stuffing out of people, as it’s supposed to. But, on balance, I think it’s a
good
thing!’

I clench my teeth;
my fists grip under the table. Mum notices my anger and switches the subject.

‘I saw Mrs Stubbs
in town the other day. She was telling me about Dennis’s illness. It sounds
terrible – he can hardly keep any food down. The doctors are still struggling
to understand it.’

‘It’s the hatred!’
I blurt, surprising everyone, even myself. ‘All that hatred bubbling,
fermenting inside him for so many years – that’s what’s caused it!’

There’s shock in
Dad’s eyes, but he manages to keep his face scornful yet calm as he turns to
me.

‘What sort of New
Age rubbish is this? Dennis’s illness isn’t the result of hatred or any other
emotion. These things have proper scientific causes even if the doctors don’t
understand them yet.’

‘Illnesses can have
psychological and emotional roots,’ I say. ‘What about stress and high blood
pressure?’

‘Yes, OK,’ says
Dad. ‘But why would Dennis be filled with hatred? He had the best upbringing a
boy could have, at least until Mr Stone got his way – good firm discipline at
home and good firm discipline at school. What could be better for setting a
young man up?’

‘A lot of things
could be better!’ My voice is raised, fury echoes in it. ‘Corporal punishment,
as you say, knocks the stuffing out of people. But it knocks out a lot of other
things, good things, besides!’

‘Like what?’ Dad
thrusts his angry sneering face across the table.

‘Confidence,
compassion, creativity, individuality, motivation, self-control – all these
things can be easily thrashed from you! Good things are beaten out and people
are left as empty shells –’

‘They’re not empty
shells – they’re fit for society. And I’d rather have people as “empty shells”,
as you call them, than have them mugging old ladies. There has to be order!
There has to be discipline! Without those things we’re lost! Sometimes the
individual has to be sacrificed to the greater good!’

‘And what fills
that empty shell!?’ I shout, bash my fist on the table. ‘Except hatred, bitterness,
anger, resentment! Don’t you wonder why Craig Browning, Darren Hill, Richard
Johnson have turned out the way they have?’

‘Look, if we can
just calm down –’ Mum says.

‘No, Jane.’ Dad
stops her with his outstretched palm. ‘We might as well have this out. I can
see what he’s doing. He’s trying to blame the failures of himself and his
friends on the discipline their families and Mr Weirton gave them. The problem
obviously wasn’t too much discipline, but not enough. It all started to go
wrong with that damned Mr Stone then there was also a lack of discipline at
that namby-pamby Big School. And look at him now.’ Dad jabs his finger at me. ‘Look
what a failure he is! I can hardly believe he’s my son! He’s thirty-five; he’s
got barely any money; he’s living in one room in a shared flat in dirty,
disgusting, immigrant-ridden, gay-infested London! He’s writing books no one
reads and painting pictures no bugger understands! It’s not what I’d call a
life. When I was his age, I’d already got a mortgage on this house! The sad
thing is there are buggers like him everywhere – pointless human beings with no
aims, no direction, no purpose!
That’s
the consequence of society’s
breakdown in discipline!’

‘You’re absolutely
right, Dad …’ Sarah says, but I’m already standing up. I grab the tablecloth,
tear it from the table. The wine bottle, glasses, plates, knives all somersault.
The chicken turns and flips, as does the dish of stuffing, the pickle jars. The
gravy boat spins, painting sludgy pictures on the air. I breathe heavily, my
heart thumps though I feel strangely placid as I watch it all crash down. Mum,
Dad, Sarah sit; their mouths hang; their eyes bulge as the bottle shatters,
sprays out its acrid white blood, as the glasses break, the plates crack, jars
smash, pickles scatter. The pud comes down in the table’s centre – its bowl
ruptures, fingers of vanilla creep across the wood.

‘Well, I hope
you’re proud of yourself!’ Dad says.

‘Yes, I am!’ I
shout. ‘I’m proud of doing something I should have done years ago!’

I run over to the
sideboard, grab the teapot, hot and full beneath its Rasta hat. It burns my
hands as I hurl it across the kitchen. It hurtles through the air – its spout
dribbling a black streak. Mum and Sarah duck though it’s flying nowhere near
them. It explodes against the wall, leaving a dripping stain, adding its bitter
smell to the scents of unleashed vinegar, burst wine. The chicken’s fallen on
the floor. I sprint, lash a kick at it. My foot shoots into the hole; I hop,
yank the bird from my stuffing-coated boot. I have to laugh. No one else is
smiling; their faces are pale, mouths still open as if waiting to catch insects.
I run at the bird again, swing my foot. This time it flies, shitting pellets of
stuffing before it thuds against the wall. It drops to the ground, leaving grease
on the paintwork. I run to the table – that table around which my family are
still seated. I grasp its edge and hurl it up. There’s a flying mosaic of
shattered china, splintered glass, globs of pudding, shards of meat, spiralling
forks and spoons. The table turns, bashes down on its side, bounces once then
comes to rest. My family break into motion. Chairs fall; my Mum and sister are
running around, waving their hands. Sarah’s screaming; Mum’s howling, tears
streaming down their cheeks. Dad’s red, shaking with rage, his eyes fastened on
me. He lunges in my direction, throws a punch. I duck. He fires a jab at my
stomach; I sidestep it with ease. He attacks me with flailing fists; I skip out
of his path. Dad blunders into my sister, almost thumps her, making her shriek
even more hysterically. Though my heart thuds, I’m oddly calm, able to think in
the chaos. My main worry is the neighbours will get the cops round. Like some
angry old bull, Dad’s gazing at me. He’s sweating; his breath’s shaking his
torso; his shameful belly’s hanging over his belt. He rushes at me. I can’t
resist it. I slam my fist into the side of his skull. A wonderful impact rings;
warm satisfaction gushes up from my gut. I smile; it’s the best moment of my life.
I’ve hit him with nothing like my full power, but Dad crumples to the floor. He
lies there as the women bawl and sob. A few seconds go by then Dad springs
right back up. He’s twisting his head from side-to-side, trying – I suppose –
to piece together what’s happened. His eyes widen as he takes in the upturned
table, the smashed crockery, the tea bleeding down the wall.

‘You fucking little
bastard!’ he says.

‘Well?’ I shout. ‘How
did that feel? Want some more, do you? I’d be
quite
happy to give it to
you! Not so much fun being on the end of a walloping yourself, is it!?’

‘Can’t you see
you’re upsetting your mother!?’

‘What about all
those times you allowed that maniac to upset me!?’

Hate blazes in
Dad’s eyes. He leaps at me, flings a roundhouse punch. I slap it away; crash my
fist into his jaw. Dad’s sprawling on the ground, blinking, head resting on the
chicken carcass. Bits of plate, slivers of glass, stray pickles are strewn
around him. He stands up, much more slowly this time, gripping the sideboard for
help. He hobbles out into the hallway – his walk a defeated totter, a meek
shuffle.