‘Yes, I paid her, Sonya – Mrs O’Malley. She said she’d look out for the boy.’
I bite down on my fat, slippery tongue now that my father is being honest. There’s a tone to his voice I haven’t heard before, stripped of its usual self-regard.
‘You were doing ok, as far as she could tell, up until a few months ago, when your drinking escalated to the point that you nearly burned the house down the other night. Think about it, Sonya. What could have happened.’
‘Christ, it was only a few burnt fish fingers.’
My father turns his back on me, staring at our reflections in the window and the darkness beyond, his fingers feeling for a spot on the back of his neck that is red and raised. He speaks without turning around.
‘Did something happen a few months back? Something to tip you over?’
Did something ‘happen’？ I don’t think so. My ‘tipping point’ was just an inevitable destination on the journey I had embarked on. My flirtation had turned into a full-blown affair. There wasn’t an ‘aha’ moment; the relationship was going along nicely, smoothly – a buffer – and then I woke up to find my every thought consumed. This is my story with alcohol, as with all the men in my life up to now.
Who am I if I’m not acting or fucking?
He turns to face me. ‘Is there something funny, Sonya?’
My mouth must be doing its twisted thing. ‘I can’t believe you paid that auld bitch to “keep an eye”。’
‘What are we going to do?’
I surprise myself by saying, ‘I’ll have some tea, for starters.’
My father looks relieved, busies himself with the task at hand, concentration intense.
‘Thank you.’ I sip the bitter liquid, tongue scalded, my penance.
7
The two of us sit in silence, my father’s shoulders and fingers hunched in a way I’ve never seen before. I want to unbend his fingers, straighten his back. I tentatively swallow the peat-brown liquid, now tepid but still uncomforting, and crave the smack that sits patiently waiting for me in the fridge. Am I fooling myself? Do I ever really ‘taste’ it at all? It’s the sensation I’m chasing: the emptying and stilling and the nothingness of it. Blankety-blank. Fuck, Dad, I missed you. Bite down hard on the inside of my cheek.
‘I’d like to take the boy.’
‘I’ll go to AA.’
‘You need more than that, Sonya, at this stage. A stint.’
‘I’m not leaving my boys.’
‘Just for a while. You’ll be a better mother the other side.’
The other side.
‘He should be in preschool by now. Why isn’t he?’
I think of my GP’s concern the last time I visited with Tommy, when he had a high fever. The doctor seemed much more concerned about plans for Tommy’s schooling than his sore throat.
‘He doesn’t want to go. I asked him.’
My father stares at me, scratching that spot on the back of his neck.
‘Who’s the adult here, Sonya?’
I turn my back so he doesn’t see the heat in my face.
‘Sometimes we all have to do things we don’t want to. It’s important Tommy knows that.’
I open the cupboard where I keep my Cif lemon cleaning fluid; there’s a Brillo pad there too. I spritz and scrub every surface, obsessed with every streak on the wall I haven’t noticed before. Mrs O’Malley’s cleaning spree was far from thorough. The sweeping brush is in my hands and I’m swiping at a cobweb in the far corner of the kitchen. The poor spiders. What will become of them now? My eyes fill. A flash of Tommy’s face illuminated by flames, his eyes reflecting the flickering fire. What might have happened plays out for a moment… My boy engulfed in fiery heat. My boy suffocated. My dog abused.
‘Sonya, it has to be this way. Mrs O’Malley won’t let this continue… Nor will I… You’d be doing the right thing.’
Has he ever said those words to me before? It was Lara who stoked his disapproval, his distaste, his visceral dislike of me. I’ll never understand the wedge that woman felt the need to drive between us. The thought of Tommy around her almost strangles me. A coughing fit grabs me by the throat. My father gets up and pats me on the back. ‘There, there, Sonya, there, there,’ as if he’s trying to soothe a colicky baby.
‘I’m going in to Tommy, need to check up on him.’
‘Is that wise? He’s probably asleep.’
I go into the bedroom, close the door softly behind me and find the two of them curled into each other, snoring soundly. I sit at the edge of the bed, reach out a hand to smooth Tommy’s worried forehead. His worried forehead, and he’s not yet five. His little head full of bad fairies and black birds of worry and his tummy that’s often sore, his filthy home, and his mother who’s a lush, a selfish, selfish, selfish lush. How many more times am I going to say ‘tomorrow’？ How many more times am I going to say ‘sorry’？ And the house almost going on fire is not the worst of it; the worst of it happened earlier today with no witnesses, and I was capable of that. A woman capable of that is capable of anything. Monster Mother – I can see the blaring headlines. Everything in the room comes into sharp focus, my vision as if filtered through crystal, and I can see a future where my bitch imp has me in her grasp. I whisper to them both, ‘You are not safe with me as I am.’