LUCK
I was walking to the station in the driving rain, a bag slung over my shoulder, another cutting my hand in two. I was never going to catch the 3.30 now. The Menai Straits was just ahead, there was another train in an hour, why not have one for the road?
Was I capable of having just the one? I decided I was.
Someone had given
The Straits a fresh lick of paint,
we shag sheep written in bright red on the wall. I hesitated, my hand on the door. Something told me to turn around, look behind me. An instinct too strong to ignore;a soldier’s sixth sense. I turned my head and saw a woman getting out of a car. A new hairdo, new clothes, but it was Tina alright. She bent down to speak to someone on the back seat.
‘I’ll only be a minute.’
The kind of voice you used when you were talking to a child. She had Ryan with her. She clutched her collar round her neck, slammed the door, started walking to the chemist. She shouldn’t be leaving Ryan like that.
‘Tina!’
If she’d heard me then, it never would have happened. I tried again.
‘Tina!’
She looked frantic, like she’d been racing against the clock since the moment she woke up. New hairdo, new clothes, same old Tina. She pushed open the door, b
ing bong,
went inside.
She’d left the engine running. This was it, now. Do it.
I ran to the car, opened the door. Heaved my bags into the passenger side, dropped into the driving seat. A new car too, a Fiat Uno. I wondered where the money came from. She was on her way up, I was still heading for the bottom. Till today. I glanced at Ryan sitting in the back, just the top of his bobbing head visible, hunched over his gameboy, jungle pumping from his walkman. Sealed off from the world. From Tina. He was getting older, didn’t want to listen to her voice all day long. He needed his dad.
I felt myself choking up. It had been so long since I’d seen him. I wanted to say something.
No, don’t look at him, you’ll lose it.
I turned away from the mirror. My hands on the steering wheel looked strange. They didn’t look like they belonged to me at all.
Don’t start that.
‘Come on, move it.’
The gear box was tighter than the Escort’s, I couldn’t find first. I made five, six attempts before finally hitting home with a horrible clunk, then pulling away. I didn’t look back, I didn’t stop to think about whether I was doing the right thing. This was for real. I wasn’t cowering like a whipped dog anymore.
I changed up into second with an awful crunching sound, ground my teeth as I scoured the gear box searching for third. My mind was racing now, I felt a buzz I hadn’t felt since I was on patrol. Thinking ahead, covering all the angles, ready for trouble. But now I was moving, now I was finally doing something, another part of me stood outside myself, looking down on me driving, totally calm, observing everything from a distance. I could handle this. This was what I’d been waiting for.
I kept to the speed limit, I wasn’t going to make the mistake of attracting attention. I was just a normal Dad driving his son home. Fish Fingers and chips in front of a video, a bath, bedtime stories. I’d turn right onto the
George
Street
Bridge, avoid going through town, I was less likely to get stuck in traffic that way. Up
Commercial Road, past Ali’s Stores, Fags And Mags, The ‘Kin Cheap Shop, then slowing down again for the lights at the top. The adrenalin was pumping through me, I felt like I could punch my way through a brick wall.
Don’t look at your hands again. Don’t look back at Ryan. You’ll be alright.
I was doing OK. Ryan hadn’t noticed a thing, a tuneless humming interrupting the tinny sounds from the back now.
The lights were still red. Maybe I should have got in the left hand lane, gone down
Cardiff Road, to the big roundabout at Tredegar House, got onto the M4 there. It could be slow on the
Chepstow Road, buses stopping, pulling out again, old farts tootling up the road to the shops in their Ford Anglias. No, too late now, I was in the wrong lane, I’d made my decision, I needed to stick to it.
Tina might would be coming out of the chemist by now, staring at the space where her car had been, screaming at the top of her voice ‘Where’s my son? Someone’s taken my son.’ People rushing to help, someone calling the cops on their mobile.
The lights changed to green. Thank Christ. I turned right onto the bridge.
I had to get out of
Newport as soon as possible. How long before they put out an alert? The registration number, the make, colour, an eight year old boy in the back.
Had Ryan looked up yet? No, no more looking in the mirror, keep your eyes on the road and watch your speed. I wrote off a car last year. One minute I was driving out to Bettws to see a mate, the next I was back in
Bosnia
, walking through a burning village, staring at the blackened bodies. I went off the road, smashed into a lamp post. I escaped with a few cuts and bruises. Lucky, that’s me.
The lights at the junction with
Corporation Road, a couple of hundred yards away, were amber already, slow down. The brakes squealed, but I kept the car on the right side of the line, just.
Calm down, don’t blow this.
I wasn’t religious, I didn’t believe in god. But this felt like a gift from somewhere beyond this world. What were the chances of this happening? Of coming across Ryan on the day I was leaving
Newport for good? Someone somewhere must have decided it was time I got a break. Handed me a piece of luck so huge I’d spend the rest of my life wondering how I’d ever pay it back. But I knew the answer to that one already, by taking care of Ryan.
When the lights changed I got into the right hand lane half way up
Wharf Road, ready to turn into
Chepstow Road. From there it was a straight run to the roundabout for the M4. I kept to the speed limit, focused on the road.
I slowed down again for the next lights. There was always a queue here. Tina would be frantic. What would she be thinking now? My son has been kidnapped by a paedophile. Don’t go there. I’ll ring as soon as we’re a safe distance away. She’ll hate me. She thinks I’m not fit to look after him. She’s wrong.
There was an old Pakistani guy sheltering in a doorway, leaning on a walking stick. Something about him, his sadness, his stillness, reminded me of that old man in
Bosnia
. I found him sitting on the ground in a burnt out village, the only person left alive. He’d been away on business in the nearest big town when the Serbs arrived. He’d lost his wife, three sons and two daughters, four grandchildren, his house was burnt to the ground. When I told him how sorry I was he smiled.
‘Don’t be sorry, I am a happy man.’
‘What do you mean?’
It was my first week, I didn’t understand yet what that place could do to people’s heads, a few weeks later I probably wouldn’t have bothered to ask.
‘I was very lucky to escape being killed myself, yes?’
I nodded.
He said ‘Well, in my language we have the same word for luck and happiness. So now you understand’ and he smiled again.
No, no more thinking about
Bosnia
.
My boy was in the back. This time I was going to take care of him.
I had a lot to make up. The last time he saw me, over a year ago, I was having a row with Tina in the kitchen.
‘Shut up you bitch, you’re doing my fucking head in.’
‘Why don’t you fucking piss off and leave us alone then?’
‘I fucking will.’
He was cringing in the doorway. It tore me up to see him so upset. Kids, they feel bad, they can’t imagine it will ever stop. Another part of me, the part that I discovered out there, thought Come on Ryan, don’t be so fucking soft, this is nothing mun, you should see what’s waiting for you. He caught my look, saw how much I despised his weakness. He burst into tears, ran up the stairs to his room.
No, don’t get caught in the memory trap. What’s done is done. Time to leave the past behind. Now, at last, I had a future to look forward to.
The lights changed.
The traffic on
Chepstow Road was light. Lucky again. We’d be at the M4 roundabout in ten minutes. Now I started to talk to him.
‘Have you missed me?’
The tinny walkman sounds were still coming from the back, I knew he couldn’t hear me, but he was going to look up eventually, and the first thing I wanted him to see was me talking to him, to know that everything was normal, that there was nothing too be afraid of.
‘I’ve missed you. I know I haven’t been to see you, but things weren’t working out between me and your mam and I thought it was best if I stayed away for a while. But I never stopped thinking about you. There wasn’t a day when you weren’t in my thoughts, little man. Not a day.’
Tina said I didn’t know how to talk to him, that I frightened him. She was wrong, a father always knows how to talk to his son. How else was he going to learn to be a man?
‘I haven’t been well son. My head’s not been right. That’s the reason I had to leave you and Mam. I’m sorry I said those things to you and her, I never meant to. We all need help sometimes Ryan, even mams and dads. You’ll understand that when you’re older.’
I wanted him to understand now.
‘That place they sent me to –
Bosnia
, I saw a lot of very bad things happen there. It affects you, when you see very bad things, and you aren’t able to do anything about them. It upsets you son, because you want to help people who are in trouble, don’t you? I know you would. I know you Ryan, you’ve got a good heart. We could have stopped it happening. They shouldn’t have sent us out there if they weren’t going to let us lift a finger to prevent it.’
I was getting too close to the car in front, I eased off the pedal.
‘You know what our job was over there? To ensure that the massacres were done in an orderly manner. How are you supposed to cope with that? The guilt won’t go away. Every day I feel the rage building up inside me. Nothing I’ll ever do again in my life, not even this, can make up for the time I stood by and let those people be slaughtered.’
Tina would have hated me talking to him about
Bosnia
, but he had to know why I’d disappeared from his life, it was only fair.
‘We had to stand aside and watch people have very bad things done to them. We weren’t allowed to stop it, don’t ask me why. And when I came back home, I stood aside again – this time I stood aside and did nothing and let things get worse and worse between me and your mam and me and you. But you never know what’s around the corner, do you? This morning I couldn’t face getting out of bed, my life was in pieces on the floor, the only answer was getting out of
Newport, getting as far away from here as possible. I was going to go to
Spain
, Christ knows what I was going to do there, apart from sleep on the beach. Then I saw you and Mam, and I knew I couldn’t go through with it. ’
I could feel my voice cracking. And he was listening now, I was sure of it, the tinny crackle of the walkman had stopped.
‘But now I’m doing something about it. I’m going to make it up to you Ryan. We’ll go to
London fist, I’ve got a mate there we can stay with till we decide what to do. There’s no need to worry, we’ll call Mam in a bit, tell her what’s happening. You can speak to her if you like.’
I was longing to hear his voice.
‘What do you think, Ryan? Where shall we go?’
Silence.
‘Ryan, please son, haven’t you got anything to say to me after all this time?’
I heard him moving on the seat. I held my breath. He said ‘Who are you?’
I looked in the mirror. He was absolutely terrified. He wasn’t Ryan. It was some boy I’d never seen in my life before.
‘Who the fuck are you?’
He started bawling. I couldn’t understand it. I could have sworn it was Tina. It was her, I knew my own wife.
‘I want to go home.’
‘SHUT UP.’
Tears and snot running down his face. Another red light coming up. I had to stop again.
‘Listen son, there’s been a mistake. I thought you were Ryan. You look just like him. I…’
I groaned, slumped forward and banged my head on the steering wheel.
‘Oh fuck!’
Please no. I gripped the steering wheel tighter, tighter. Then I nearly jumped through the roof. The car behind was honking at me. I turned round to glare at the driver, he was pointing at the lights, they were green.
I drove on, I didn’t know what else to do.
‘Please mister…’
The boy wouldn’t stop crying. This had to end, now. I took the next left,
Beechwood Road, drove half way up, pulled over. I switched off the engine. Turned around to face him.
‘Look, I made a mistake, it could have happened to anyone.’
He wouldn’t look at me.
‘I’m going to leave you here. You’ll be alright now - for fuck’s sake will you stop crying?’
I couldn’t bear it any longer. I got out, started walking back to
Chepstow Road, the rain still beating down. I had to blank this out of my mind, get out of town. I started running.
Kids, they feel bad, they can’t imagine it will ever stop.
I looked back. How long was the poor little bastard going to sit there before someone came and found him? A middle aged woman was walking up the road on the other side, hauling a shopping trolley. I ran towards her.
‘Excuse me.’
She took one look at me, turned away, tried to walk past. I blocked her way.
‘You deaf?’
She looked at me like I was some kind of escaped lunatic. I pointed, ‘See that red Fiat Uno?’
She looked, but didn’t say a word.
‘There’s a little boy in there. He’s lost his mam. Go and help him.’
Her mouth dropped open and she stared at me, eyes like saucers. Jesus Christ, I’d stopped some kind of half wit.
‘Do you understand what I’m saying to you?’
I turned away before I lost it. You tried to help and this is what happens. At the end of the street I realized I’d left my bags in the car. Too late now. I began jogging back into town, putting distance between myself and the car and the boy. After a few minutes I was out of breath, saw a cab office, stepped inside.
‘Where you wanna go, mate?’
A young Asian bloke slumped on a seat, smoking;voice friendly, eyes wary.
‘The station.’
We didn’t say a word on the way. I caught him glancing nervously at me in the mirror a couple of times. Worried he had a nutter in the back. Maybe he had.
I was going to start again. I was going to do something good.
Someone somewhere must have decided it was time I got a break.
Life’s not like that. You’re too old to believe in fairy tales.
Don’t listen to the negative thoughts, don’t look at your hands, you’ll soon be out of here.
I got a single to
London. The next train was in half an hour. My hands were shaking. There was a bar on the station. Was I capable of having just the one? I decided I was.