Chapter 21 #2
‘I don’t know. I just thought he might sound like that.’
I read another random post:
Am in the UK. Didn’t expect the tea to be that bad or her to be that lovely. Now every day starts with her laugh and ends with me trying not to stare at her too much. #LoveHurts
‘Is he talking about Rhiannon there?’
Jordy nodded sadly. ‘Yeah, he had it bad for her. Poor bugger.’
I read another post, a later one, one month before the day he died.
I’ll never be ready to go home. Having too much fun. Mother’s been on at me already about when I’m back and falling in love too easily. Might just miss my flight accidentally on purpose for that final leg. #Whoops.
And another one.
Mel-o-dramatic’s been on at me again. Fukkin hate still living at home. #MothersSuckBalls
And another one.
Screech screech screech like fukkin a cockatoo all day. ‘I asked you to put the laundry out, when are you gonna fill in that job application, how many times are you gonna blow your money on video games and takeout instead of a car?’ Jekyll and Hyde was written about my actual mutha #FunFact.
‘Did they not get on, him and Melissa?’ I asked.
Jordy shook their head. ‘She was a bit stifling. That’s why he couldn’t wait to get away from her. She wanted to keep him in a cage – “find a job round here, son, find a nice girl at the local tech and settle down. What do you wanna travel for – it’s all too bleedin’ foreign.”’
I laughed, scrolling through the posts. ‘That sounds like her to be fair.’
Just remembered Mum’s probably still got that ‘You’ll come crawling back’ magnet on the fridge. Cool can’t wait.
Didn’t know you could miss someone while sitting next to them. #HeartBrokenEmoji
She smiled at me today. I died a little today. #ILoveYouRhiannonLewis
I handed Jordy back the phone. ‘He had it bad for her.’
‘Yeah, silly sausage that he was. When you come to Oz, you can go surfing in his favourite spot at the beach – eat his favourite sangers—’
‘—see his grave.’
‘Well, it’s better than nothing, isn’t it?’ Jordy shrugged.
‘Melissa said I couldn’t even have his bedroom.’
‘No, she won’t let anyone in there. That’s her shrine.’
‘I don’t want to come, Jordy. I really don’t.’
‘Well, you don’t have any choice, do you?’
For a second I thought they were pissed off with me, but when we fixed stares, Jordy seemed to soften. ‘Come on, let’s go home and get some grub. Stomach thinks my throat’s been cut.’
By the time we got back, it was raining hard and Melissa was laying the dining table for dinner – fish and chips from the worst place in the area.
They never cleaned out their fryers and it was cash only.
Mum always said that place was a tax dodge.
Despite the takeaway papers and bottles of sauce everywhere, Melissa had laid it with Mum’s best porcelain – her Blu Mediterraneo Dolce and Gabbana collection from the Welsh dresser.
Just one dinner plate cost over one hundred and fifty pounds.
I didn’t tell Melissa that. I watched her spoon out piles of the greasiest chips onto the priceless plates and slather ketchup over the lot.
She’d made a salad and put it on a five-hundred-pound platter in the centre of the table – but had already dressed it.
I hated full-fat dressing – you can’t taste the salad when you’ve drenched it in that slime.
‘Not like salad?’ Melissa asked with her mouth full, noticing my reticence to pick anything out but a plum tomato that had escaped the deluge.
‘Not really,’ I said, wiping it on my napkin.
‘Did Heather tell you she’s organised a house clearance firm to take whatever furniture and stuff you don’t want. Any furniture you do, we can get it shipped out to Brizzie.’
‘Oh right.’
‘What do you want, darl?’ asked a greasy-lipped Larry.
It took me a moment before I realised he was talking to me. ‘What?’
‘What do you want, to keep, I mean? Of your mum’s?’
‘Nothing.’
Jordy and Melissa looked at one another, then at him.
‘Well, you’ll want your bedroom stuff, won’t you,’ he affirmed. ‘Your bed and your wardrobe and …’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve never liked my furniture anyway. Mum picked it out.’ I went back to dabbing the chip grease from my fingertips.
Melissa took up the baton in the Awkward Olympics. ‘Heather says she knows an auction house we could get in to value the antiques and the art – they do free valuations. As long as we place the items with them.’
‘Whatever,’ I said. ‘I don’t care.’
‘Well, I do,’ said Melissa. ‘Some of it’s worth a pretty penny.’
‘How do you know?’
‘We looked it up, didn’t we?’ she said to Larry who nodded. ‘You can’t let the house clearance firm take it all. They’ll lowball us.’
‘Us?’ I snipped. ‘None of those antiques belong to “us” – they belong to me. But I don’t care about the money as much as you so have what you want.’ I stood up. ‘You know what, have the fucking lot. The art, the antiques, I don’t give a shit. Here, have the best china too.’
I picked up my plate, allowing the last five chips to slide off onto the cloth. ‘You can start with this one.’ And I threw it like a discus over their heads, where it smashed cleanly against the dining room wall. It made a sound like something very expensive might sound if it were smashed.
Their faces were as priceless as the china I was destroying; one after the other, plate after plate, bowl after bowl sailed over their heads and careened into the nearest hard surface.
None of them dared stop me. Jordy had their head in their hands like they couldn’t stand the noise.
For me, it was like I was releasing something I’d been holding in for months, maybe years.
I felt like I was doing the plates a favour too – they’d been forced to be perfect and on display for so long.
I’d given them permission to be broken too.
I’m lying of course.
I didn’t smash anything. After I stood up, I stormed out.
I wanted to smash every plate and window in the place but what would it have achieved?
Nothing. I saw it all play out in my mind’s eye as I watched Melissa gnawing through her batter.
I wanted to smash, I wanted to break, I wanted to shout right into her fucking face, ‘IF YOU HADN’T DRIVEN HIM AWAY, HE’D STILL BE ALIIIIIIIIIIIVE! ’
But I didn’t. I stormed outside; the rain was pelting down and my feet were bare. I lay on the freezing cold driveway and let it batter me to death. Until my body felt the way it felt when I drank all that vodka – numb and emotionless. I had to be better. It was the only way to beat her.
It ran in our family, before it ran into me.