Authors: Meg Henderson
She had often wondered why Lily had put up with it as long as she had, because it was clear she would have been better off on her own, without this dead weight ruining and ruling her life. That
the marriage was a mistake was obvious, no one tried to pretend otherwise. Lily had been a young girl who had ‘got into trouble’, and in those days, 1942, there was only one respectable
course of action for the truly innocent – marriage. For the more streetwise there were always backstreet abortionists, everyone knew where to find them, but Lily had been sixteen when she had
committed her act of folly, no more than a child. So Peter had made his unplanned appearance, though God alone knew how Lily had conceived a second time eleven years later. Kathy always secretly
suspected that her own birth had been the result of Lily being overpowered by Con in one of his drunken rampages, but in case that were true she didn’t ask, she couldn’t have lived with
having it confirmed. Lily’s punishment for her lapse at sixteen had been a life sentence, she was sentenced to live with Con for the mere twenty-six years she had left, until she died in the
James Watt Street Fire in 1968, at the age of forty-two.
It was somehow symbolic of her married life that as she was dying, her husband was in a pub somewhere. Kathy had been at school, in the middle of an Art lesson, when someone came into the class
and asked her to report to the headmistress, Sister Felicitous. There had been a fire at Stern’s, the upholstery warehouse where her mother worked. Mrs Kelly might be safe, but she might not,
and had she any idea where her father might be? It was the wrong way round, she was only a child for God’s sake; it was one of the many things she would never forgive him for. For years she
would go over it in her mind, much to her annoyance, because she knew it was pointless, that she should’ve been getting on with her life instead of looking back and trying to correct the
uncorrectable. If Old Con had died that day instead, Lily would’ve heard first and broken the news to her daughter, her mother would’ve been there to comfort her, had she had a decent
father at any rate. Instead, there she was, at the age of fifteen, being dealt the worst blow of her life and in the same breath being asked to help locate her father. Did she know where he might
be? Yes, she knew where he was; hadn’t she done the rounds of all his haunts so many times that she could do it blindfold? Maybe not the exact pub, but she knew he was in a pub somewhere, and
she’d been right. Not that he was any good to her when he was found, he was out of his mind as usual, and the only thing he’d taken from Lily’s death was that once again Fate had
singled him out for tragedy. It gave him something else to sob about in the years afterwards. Oh, but he’d had a hard life, taken many knocks, and just why it should happen to him he had no
idea! That, she thought, was the single aspect of his character that she hated most, his morbid, self-indulgent belief that every event in the universe was aimed at him personally, and the
enthusiasm with which he embraced every opportunity to play the martyr. The worst disasters were intended to affect Con Kelly; add a liberal application of booze, as he always did, and the picture
was complete in all its nauseating horror. Sometimes, when he wasn’t to be found in any of his habitual locations, he would finally be tracked down to St Kentigern’s, sitting with his
back against the white marble headstone shaped like a heart – what else? – erected for his sisters and his mother, a bottle of Old Tawny cheap wine, usually empty, in his hands, and
tears rolling down his cheeks. He would be singing ‘I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen’, the name of one of his sisters and his mother, the name Kathy had been given along with
Aggie’s, her other grandmother. Ironic when you thought about it, seeing as it was always Kathleen taking
him
home, carrying him home.
The maudlin melancholy of it repulsed her, so that from a very young age she became resistant to showing any emotion lest she remind herself of Con. She had mistrusted feelings all her life
because she couldn’t tell the real from the phoney; look where feelings had got her mother after all. The young Lily’s feelings for Con had been genuine at the time, she had no reason
to doubt that, but they were wrong; true but false, so how could you tell the difference? It was in the aftermath of Lily’s life that her need to be in control took a firmer grip, it was then
that she truly learned to compartmentalise her life. You kept the various strands totally separate, tied them off as quickly and tightly as you could without dwelling too much on any one part, then
you stored them in their allotted parts of your mind and got on with your life. That was it. Safe. If you thought about things too deeply you might let go, and who knew what would happen? Even
Lily’s death had remained inside a mental file, on its own all these years, accepted but never analysed for fear of the emotions analysis might release. She had died, that was all,
don’t go any further, don’t ask questions for fear of what the answers would be and how you might react. It went against her nature not to force every detail from wherever it hid, it
threatened her need for completeness, but her fear of falling to pieces was even greater, and what good would it do to fall to pieces? So in situations where other people expressed affection, for
instance, Kathy Kelly was glib and brittle; she perfected a self-preserving shield of hard cynicism that was never lowered. Well, not never, she thought, casting her mind back as she sat going
through the family photos that night, then abruptly shaking her head to banish the memory that appeared. That was another file, another compartment. But that memory was itself proof, surely? Lower
your guard, even with someone you trusted as much as you did yourself, and look what could happen, what did happen. She thought of Con once again, lying against the white marble heart and crying,
and how her loathing for him at moments like that almost made her feel physically sick. The times she had found him lying by the grave and had wanted to take the bottle from his hand and crash it
down over his head, the recurring fantasy of digging a hole as far away from the unfortunate Kelly females as she could drag him and quietly dropping him into it. No one would know – who
would care?
2
It had taken a few years for her to wake up after Lily’s death, and even then it took another crisis in her life. Looking back, she had probably still been in shock; even
though the crisis came along five years later, it was why it had happened. She had always been able to look out for herself, she had no other choice, so it stood to reason that if she hadn’t
been knocked off course by Lily’s death there would have been no crisis. But there was no use thinking about that; it had happened. Funnily enough, Lily’s mother, Aggie, her
grandmother, had died around the same time, 1973, though that was no more than a coincidence, but it was one less tie to bind too. She had fought with her grandmother all her life, neither one of
them having a civil, let alone pleasant word to say to or about the other. Those battles had probably kept Aggie going, though Kathy didn’t think of that till years later, and during one of
those exchanges the old woman had handed her the single most amusing and valuable piece of information she could ever have hoped for. She had just told Aggie that she was going away, and Aggie was
telling her that she was a selfish bitch for leaving Con, for leaving her, come to that, and of course, God would strike her dead. It was always that; seemed to Kathy that Aggie’s God was
forever in the throes of indecision, caught between striking her dead or forgiving her. Then Aggie would cross herself with theatrical ceremony, as if that sealed the bargain. It was in the middle
of that argument she’d let it slip, in the heat of a particularly frank exchange of views, but Kathy was in no fit state to do anything about it then, she had more pressing problems to deal
with and so she had filed it away for future use. And the next day, before Kathy could execute her planned disappearance, Aggie had beaten her to it and gone herself, and Father McCabe had rushed
to her side, as he always had done. It wasn’t entirely unexpected really; any time she was refused what she wanted, usually by Kathy it had to be said, Aggie would threaten to go. ‘That
lassie will put me in ma grave!’ she’d shriek, her hand clasped over her eyes for effect, and Kathy would shout ‘Where’s the shovel? Ah’ll dae it right noo!’ So
when Kathy finally did what her brother had done many years before, but in Peter’s case with considerably less criticism, Con was left to his own devices, this time without even Aggie to
fight for him. Now Kathy’s leaving
had
been targeted at him, but as is often the way with those supposedly helpless and dependent, Con had survived perfectly well on his own, and in
the twenty years or so since, contact had been, now what could she say? Minimal, that was it, as little as she could get away with, of the ‘call me when you’re dead’ variety. But
instead of going quickly and cleanly he’d opted to play out his final scenes as slowly as possible, by the progressive destruction of the nerves in his spine from the waist down with booze.
She was dragged back for the first time five years ago, but not permanently, it would never be permanent, she’d made sure his doctors understood that. Having already escaped and made a life
for herself she was determined that she wouldn’t go back and spend what was left of Con’s life at his beck and call, and she made it clear that she gave not a fig what anyone thought.
Old Aggie would’ve had a field day if she’d still been alive. Kathy remembered how Aggie had defended Con at every turn, he was a good man, a man who needed to be looked after, one of
nature’s victims.
‘Yer arse in parsley!’ Kathy had replied. ‘He’s an alkie, that’s a’. Wance ye’ve said that ye’ve said everythin’ aboot ma Da!’
‘May God forgive you!’ Aggie shouted, crossing herself. ‘He’s a heavy drinker, but he’s no’ an alkie!’
‘Ye’ve nae need tae tell me how heavy he is, Aggie,’ Kathy replied bitterly. ‘Ah’ve had tae lift him aff the floor an’ carry him tae his bed often enough.
Naebody hastae tell me how heavy a drinker he is!’
But Aggie was long gone when Con at last made his exit, the name of his long-lost son on his lips, though Kathy had no doubt she would be hovering about somewhere, celestially investing her
son-in-law’s final tragedy with as much saccharine sympathy as he would himself. Kathy had looked after him during those last months, but she had refused to leave her life in Glenfinnan when
he first became ill, so, as his ungrateful daughter had declined to become involved, a battery of carers took over Old Con’s life. He had a home help every day, district nurses to attend to
his needs and check his skin daily for bedsores, because having no feeling he didn’t know when it was time to move from one buttock to the other. Doctors arrived regularly to check on his
urinary catheter and to treat the frequent infections that flared up, and over the next five years he would be admitted to hospital as and when various bugs became resistant to his usual
antibiotics. He quickly adapted to being looked after – why not? He’d been looked after all his life – and soon he had become mentally institutionalised, his entire world
revolving around his condition and his little band of helpers. He played the role of the feisty little man to perfection, the plucky little martyr singled out for yet more terrible suffering, and
humbly prepared to accept his lot, as long as everyone understood how feisty, plucky and humble he was being. He became a great favourite with the Royal Infirmary staff. They said he wouldn’t
walk again, but he had hoisted himself to his feet and learned to throw his weight from numb leg to numb leg with the aid of a zimmer, which was why they didn’t want to amputate his leg if it
could be avoided. Such spirit in adversity, they said, and when he was treated for the inevitable urine then kidney infections, they were touched by his gratitude for all they did for him. And that
sense of humour! He must be a joy, a right card to live with!
Kathy made sure she couldn’t confirm or deny either opinion, keeping in touch by phone and the odd visit from the West Coast. She’d had enough of caring for Old Con, she’d done
it almost all her life in one way or another, and having once departed there was no way she would go back. And the medical people caring for him made their displeasure very clear in a hundred
different little ways, all of which Kathy ignored. Much of the criticism being voiced behind her back centred, she knew, on the fact that she had no other family responsibilities. She was the
spinster daughter with no one and nothing else in her life, and therefore little to do but care for her ailing father, who had, as far as they were concerned, provided for her all her life. They
couldn’t understand how anyone, least of all his own daughter, could be ambivalent about such a resilient, grateful old soul, and somehow the cause of his condition was quietly laid to one
side, out of reach of their critical faculties or their imaginations. Drink had caused his condition, a lifetime of heavy and constant boozing, but the judgemental medical people had contrived not
to think beyond Old Con’s apparent good humour with them, and so they didn’t try to imagine what life with him must have been like for his family. Kathy kept her own counsel, but she
had her answer ready for the first one unwise enough to openly suggest she should do her duty by her ailing father. No one did of course, they just hinted and looked, but she knew what they were
saying to each other once she’d gone. The poor man, and him so cheerful and grateful for everything that was done for him, and his daughter was so hard. His son was different of course. They
knew about Peter, Con saw to that, even though no attempt had been made to contact him, because, well, he was obviously out there in the world ‘doing things’, and probably
important
things. He had a life of some merit, whereas the spinster daughter couldn’t have any life worth bothering about, certainly not one that she couldn’t, shouldn’t,
give up to nurse her wonderful old father. And inevitably she had given it up, though only for these last three months before his death. Now at last he had succumbed to all the debilitating
infections that can hit the paralysed; the bugs had gradually gained the upper hand against the frequently used antibiotics, and the card had finally been trumped. Just a few more things to attend
to and in a matter of days she would leave this place and never come back, all loose ends finally and firmly tied, all duties performed. Please, the God that doesn’t exist, let it go quickly
and without a hitch so that I can be free!