Chapter 87 Damon
Damon
My grandmother’s unwavering gaze tells me she believes she’s telling the truth. I don’t doubt there’s a lot she remembers accurately, but this isn’t one of those moments.
‘Mum killed herself,’ I say. ‘I was there. I . . .’ The words catch in my throat. A hint of emotion for the first time in our face-off. ‘I saw her jump from the window. I remember it.’
‘Have you asked yourself why you were watching her from outside?’ she asks. ‘Why you weren’t in the flat with her?’
I recall again what I saw when I drowned. My mum jumping to save herself from the flames. But I remember nothing of the moments leading up to the fire and how I ended up standing outside. ‘I was probably out playing on my bike or something.’
‘You were the first person on the scene,’ she says. ‘Some of your neighbours saw you staring up at the window as the heavens opened, even before the fire alarms rang. But you didn’t call for help.’
‘I was only a kid. I must’ve been trying to make sense of what was happening.’
‘You were twelve. Old enough to know what a fucking fire looks like and what you should’ve done. So no, son, don’t kid yourself. You were watching and waiting. You knew what was happening.’
I shake my head. ‘She was my mum. I loved her.’
‘You tried to lie your way out of it at first, telling your dad it was probably some old woman who was staying with your mum who started it. But none of us had ever heard or seen hide nor hair of this Maud bird. Then your dad found in your pocket the Zippo lighter you used. Recognised it straight away because it belonged to him before he lost it.’
‘That doesn’t mean anything.’
‘It was half-full of lighter fuel when he last saw it. When it came out of your pocket, it was empty.’
‘Then I’d probably been playing with it. It still doesn’t mean I set fire to my home.’
‘You had form. Tried torching something else in the flat once and almost burned the place down.’
She means Callum’s football shirt and homework in the bath. It still doesn’t prove anything.
‘What you haven’t told me is why I’d want to hurt her,’ I continue. ‘I had no reason to. She was all I had. It’s not like your beloved son was banging on our door wanting to play dad, was it?’
It’s a deliberate provocation that has the desired effect.
‘Because she was giving you up,’ my grandmother growls. Spittle flies from her mouth like small white rockets, landing on the lapels of my jacket until the tiny bubbles burst. ‘She’d met with social workers to talk about putting you into care.’
I hesitate, processing what she’s just said. She gauges my stunned expression before she further twists the knife. She couldn’t be getting more pleasure from this if she tried.
‘She stopped short of telling them what you’d done to Daisy or Callum because no one wants to admit their kid is a fucking psycho,’ she adds.
‘You begged her to let you stay, but she’d washed her hands of you.
She wanted rid of you completely, and who can blame her?
So while she was asleep in her bedroom, you set fire to the sofa.
Then you watched from outside with everyone else as that place burned. ’
I hear my own breath being released in sharp bursts as the wind leaves my sails.
Since visiting Dr Fernandez-Jones, I have felt like a cold, distant version of my old self.
Unfeeling, untethered, but in absolute control.
And constantly wrestling with the urge to harm those who don’t deserve it.
But something about the way my grandmother tells me this with such certainty knocks me off that path.
Suddenly, everything around me begins to blur and sway: the trees, the flowers, the cars – even her.
It’s as if I am able to feel again, but now I feel everything at once.
Sadness and remorse . . . it’s overwhelming, and I’m forced to steady myself with a hand against the car window.
Her stare strips me into pieces until she’s satisfied she has been able to deflect some of her suffering on to someone else.
‘You’re making it up,’ I mutter. ‘You can’t know any of this.’
‘I’m old and I’m mean and I’m fucking well vindictive, but I ain’t no liar,’ she says. I believe her.
She doesn’t need to say anything else. She has won.
I slump in my seat before, once again, the crackling of electricity and a suffocating pressure inside my skull announce the return of the cold version of myself.
It pushes to one side the remorse for what I did to Mum, and instead I want to hurt my grandmother.
Take my pain out on her. And to keep hurting her until there’s no strength left in my body and every inch of saggy skin hanging off her wretched old body is black or bleeding.
I even find myself drawing my arm back as if readying myself to act on my urges.
It does not go unnoticed, but she doesn’t so much as flinch.
‘Be my guest,’ she goads. ‘You’ve already taken away everything I have to live for.’
She starts rolling another cigarette and continues to regard me, revelling in the wounds she’s inflicted.
Then I suddenly feel something warm trickling down my nose.
I put my hand to my nostrils and examine my fingers.
Blood. In a panic, I search my pocket for the handkerchief I always keep on me.
I tilt my head forwards to stop it trickling down my throat and making me want to vomit, then pinch my nose.
Now it’s as if I’m suffocating, but for once, it’s blood and not water filling my mouth.
I wind down the window and spit it out. A long few minutes pass before it stops and I can pull myself together.
I catch my reflection in the partition glass. I look as if I’ve been in a fight.
‘Finished?’ my grandmother asks without concern.
‘I didn’t know about Mum,’ I reply, aware of how weak I sound.
‘You weren’t supposed to know, were you? The only people who did were me, your dad and his girlfriend.’
‘His girlfriend?’
‘You didn’t know?’ she asks, surprised. ‘I wonder why she didn’t tell you. She was probably scared you’d kill her too.’
‘Who?’
There’s another dramatic pause as she prepares to deliver another big reveal.
‘Helena,’ she says.