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Turning back to Callum, I concentrated on the lines around his eyes, lines that told me he laughed a lot.
“I’ll tell you when I’m ready. I need to get going, I have to visit my parents,” I said and stepped out of his reach to collect our things from the pebbles.
“I’m not going anywhere, it’s you that disappears off to far-flung places,” he said.
I took his offered hand, he dragged me up the steep hill of pebbles, taking the blanket and towel, leaving me with my empty coffee cup. We cycled back up to the flat where Scottie was leaning against the side wall when we parked up the bikes. I got off for a moment to run up to the flat to grab my backpack. I waved goodbye to Callum and Scottie when I came back out. They had stayed by my bike to make sure no one stole it.
“I’ll see you for dinner, about seven o’clock,” I said. I had got used to Callum making me dinner and had felt better for having home cooked food.
“Ah, so sweet, see you later honey. Don’t work too hard,” Scottie called over as I hopped onto my bike. I gave him the finger to which he laughed hard at and waved as I peddled away.
“See you at seven,” Callum called after me.
Adaline
I did my usual circuit around Brighton collecting half a dozen magazines. I’d bought three magazines I knew one of my regular customers wanted. It didn’t bring in a huge profit, but some profit was better than nothing and it kept me happy. One day I might find the holy grail of magazines and then I could retire for a few years. I never gave up hope that someone had it in their attic and I would be the one to discover it.
There were days when I went along to house clearances. I had no interest in anything else in the house apart from any editorials the owner had. Other treasure hunters wanted the furniture, my contact, and I worked well.
My fortnightly visit to my parent’s house was an ordeal. I’d never forgiven them for spending the money I’d earned. I couldn’t get past it. They still had their hands out whenever I went, hoping that I’d give them money I had lying around. They didn’t care about my circumstances, in their eyes I still owed them.
I cycled to their house and put the bike in the back garden. Lifting the latch on the other side of the wooden gate, I shoved the door open. Their back garden was knee high with grass. There could be dead bodies lying in the grass, but no one would notice. Stray car tyres stacked in the far corner next to the chicken wire fence separating my parent’s garden from their neighbour’s mowed lawn. A pile of red house bricks, most of them broken, sat in a heap by the back door. Pulling down the handle, I pushed open the sticking door with my shoulder. The kitchen looked like a bunch of students lived in the house. The sink overflowed with dirty dishes, the grime hard from days of sitting in the sink. Coffee granules were scattered across the work surface with a spoon stuck solidly to the countertop. It disgusted me that they lived this way. The clock said six o’clock, it had said six o’clock for years.
The house was spotless when I grew up, not just because I had to clean the house, but they had a better standard of living. Since I left, they didn’t have any standards. I still hadn’t worked out why I continued to visit.
I could hear the television blaring in the front room, the horse racing channel sounded all the way up the corridor to the kitchen. It sounded like I was in time for the three o’clock from Doncaster. Inching towards the living room door, I stepped down the hallway.
“I can hear you coming a mile away Adaline, get in here, child,” my dad bellowed from his armchair. I would bet his winnings on the two forty from Doncaster that he was wearing a pair of brown polyester trousers and a string vest. Rounding the door frame, I pushed the door open to see my dad. A cigarette hung from his lips as he scanned the horseracing page of the newspaper. A pencil from the local bookies was sitting behind his ear. His eyes darted from the newspaper to the TV screen and back again.
“They’ve taken my horse out of the race,” he yelled and threw the paper at the TV. It smacked against the screen and fell on the dog’s back. I didn’t even know they had a dog. The mutt looked elderly, grey hairs circled his eyes as he growled at my dad and took refuge under the coffee table.
“Hi, dad, where’s mum?” I asked.
“Upstairs, she knows when to stay out of my way,” he said and drew hard on his cigarette. The tip glowed bright red for a few seconds and then turned grey. He’d let the cigarette burn too long in his mouth. He tried to take another drag, but he’d already smoked it down to the filter. In frustration, he stubbed it out in the overflowing ashtray on the arm of the chair.
I had a little sympathy for my mother, but when my dad was in a spiralling loop of lost bets, he was unbearable to be with.
“What are you doing here, other than to show your disgust for the house you grew up in?”
My thoughts, emotions and opinions could never be hidden. My face told anyone who looked what I was thinking. It was a curse, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I knew I was wrinkling my nose at the stale smell of the house.
“You could open a window now and then, we’re in the summer months.”
“Less of your cheek, girlie, you don’t live here anymore, remember?” He snarled at me, the hatred showing all over his pockmarked face.
I hated coming here, with every fibre of my being I hated coming to see them. If I didn’t, mum and dad would come and see me, and I wanted that even less. Mum and dad had a knack of arriving at my flat when I had a visitor. Without fail, they always asked them for money. A perfect stranger they had never met. It was usually twenty quid, for a pack of cigarettes. Sometimes they asked for the money for electricity if I had a female friend, thinking the women were a softer touch. To stop them coming to me, I came to them. Once a fortnight I came to check up on them. I shouldn’t care and leave them to it, but a sense of duty overcame me. They’d been appalling parents but something they said many years ago stuck with me. Mum and dad told me it was my obligation to look after them, especially because my dad was in ill health. They said I had the potential to earn hundreds of thousands of pounds and I was selfish for not putting food on their table.
I believed them, deep down, I believed this to be true.
Steph and Elliott had tried to talk to me about my parents, counselling me to cut the ties and walk away. Letting them self-destruct on their own, but I couldn’t do it.
I could hear my mother shuffling on the landing above me. The bannister creaked when she grabbed hold of it for support. The hacking coughs from her throat turned my stomach, retching, fluid coughing noises filled the air. She thumped down the stairs one slow step at a time. Her breathing laboured as she neared the bottom step. She was in her fifties, and her illnesses included epilepsy, diabetes, and lung disease. Mum smoked like a chimney, ate three thousand calories before lunch and didn’t give a fuck. She was convinced that she would be dead by sixty and would enjoy her life of eating and smoking. The furthest she could walk was to the end of the garden to gossip with her neighbour. Taxi cabs took her everywhere she wanted to go, which was to the bingo hall. My dad had lung disease and renal fibrosis, he was also a drunk and a mean one at that.
I learned of all of this at ten years old, they believed I should know everything that was wrong with them so I could win more competitions to keep their excessive habits alive. If I saw my parents approaching me while I had friends with me, I warned them not to give my parents any money. I would not provide a single penny that would put them in an early grave. I may hate them, but I would not enable their habits.
“Did you bring food from the chippy?” My mum asked as she entered the living room. I was still standing, not daring to sit down on any surface without checking when it was last cleaned.
Mum had grabbed a walking stick from the hallway. She reached the armchair and dropped into the seat, using the cane to aid her descent. The chair groaned when she landed on the seat. The recliners they had bought with the winnings from the last race my dad won no longer worked. My mum had broken them both with her weight. It was another thing that was my fault, I should have provided them with proper food. They claimed the only food they could afford was fast food. My mum won every week on the bingo but never told my dad. My father lost every time on the horses, the dogs or whatever he could bet on that week. He had a generous pension from his old firm. He’d worked for them for twenty years but the job had given him his many illnesses. As compensation for him to keep quiet, they retired him on a full pension. Between them, they had a dozen different benefits. They divided the money equally to waste away.
