Cages by David Mark (reading fiction TXT) 📗

Rufus swallows, painfully. He’s got his back to the handful of other drinkers who are taking up space in the front bar. He’s a bit embarrassed about the way he looks. The neck of his jumper is torn almost down to his stomach and he’s missing the top four buttons on his shirt. The gammon flesh of his pudgy face is starting to darken and there’s a crust of scabbed blood in his nostril that makes every breath smell of liver and iron. He’s feeling pretty damn sorry for himself. Had rung his daughter in the hope she would hear the lament in his voice and offer some words of comfort. He feels sore, and ill-used. He can’t say in good conscience that he feels angry at Annabeth but he wants to talk to her. To explain. He didn’t deserve the fury she unleashed but he understands that he crossed a line and he wants to put things right. He’s good at making allowances for people. He feels deeply put out that nobody affords him the same courtesy.

‘You loved being called Dormouse,’ says Rufus, petulant. ‘God, I dedicated book three to Dormouse and The Bump! I started writing a children’s book with that very name, for you and Millie, and—’

‘I’m a bit busy right now,’ says Dorcas, cutting him off. ‘Reading for an essay.’

‘Yeah?’ he asks, brightening. ‘Anything I can help with?’

‘You always take over,’ says Dorcas, with another forced exhalation.

‘I won’t,’ he pleads, desperate to be useful. ‘Come on, Dormouse, if I’m not good for helping my best girl with her English homework, what am I good for?’

There’s a laugh in her voice as she replies. It’s not a nice sound. ‘I think you’ve answered your own question.’

He swallows, taking a moment to find the right words. Swills the last dregs of cider in the base of his pint glass then tips it down his neck.

‘Where did it go wrong?’ he asks, half to himself. There’s a slur in his voice. He knows he’s pissed, but usually he can hide it from all but the experts. Tonight, after an hour in the boozer, he’s lost interest in putting on a show. Yeah, he’s drunk. What of it? He’s a grown man. He’s achieved things. He’s done what he set out to do and he’s passed on his genetic material to two ungrateful and distant daughters. Can’t he pickle his own liver if he wants to?

‘Go wrong?’ asks Dorcas. ‘What’s gone wrong? You’re living your best life, aren’t you, Dad? Not much expected of you, really. You write and you drink and you get strangers telling you you’re amazing. Mum pays the bills when you can’t and she’ll never leave you because she still thinks you’re some sort of Dylan Thomas character and your personality is the price for your genius. You might want to be grateful, now and again, instead of making her feel like you’ve settled for her instead of spread yourself among the masses.’

Rufus turns and catches the barmaid’s eye. Fumbles in the pocket of his cords and finds a few pound coins in among the shrapnel. Points at the cheap whisky in the optic and indicates he’d like a large. Business attended to, he lets his daughter’s words sink in.

‘She thinks that? Mum?’ His mind fills with images: curled lip, angry eyes; the way she freezes when he forces himself to touch her. What on earth was she talking about? ‘Shut up, she thinks I’m a loser. You can see it every time she looks at me!’

His words are a hose of petrol on a smouldering bonfire. The explosion takes his breath away.

‘God, you’re supposed to be good at understanding people,’ shrieks Dorcas, real wrath in her voice. ‘All those critics and readers who say you’ve got these great insights into human beings? They haven’t a clue. You haven’t a clue. Go and get pissed, Dad. You can’t afford to get me credit for the phone, but it’s amazing how you can always pay your bar bill. Jesus.’

Rufus feels himself growing smaller, as if viewed through a magnifying glass moving inexorably away.

‘I love you,’ he says, and it comes out in a rush. He feels hot tears pricking at his eyes. God how he wants her to tell him she loves him too. His head fills with shoplifted emotions: projections and imaginings of the parents robbed of their own darling adolescents. His whole self fills with horror and sadness at what it must feel like to lose a child. Worse, to have one taken. For a loved one to exist, and then in an instant cease to be. What could it be like to not know whether your child was alive or dead? Whether they were somewhere living some kind of life, however terrible, or if their pulse had long since halted. He can imagine himself tasting each breath in the hope of catching the faintest trace of a familiar exhalation. Understands the sorrow. The rage. What would a person do in order to find out the truth? How far would a parent go to learn whether their child still lived?

He hears Dorcas give the faintest little laugh. She’s exasperated with him, sure, but at least he’s hers to be exasperated with. He sees himself as an incontinent old dog, forever shitting on the new cream cord carpet. The laugh is the tickle behind the ear that tells him he’s maddening, but still a good boy.

‘I love you too,’ she says, sulkily. Then: ‘Don’t drive. You sound like Captain Jack Sparrow. Wherever you are sleep it off. And tell Mum you love her. Night.’

Rufus looks at the phone for a full ten seconds after she’s hung up, processing her words and looking for something he can shape into an amulet: a charm he can hold to keep him safe when the misery threatens to drag him down. Wordlessly, he takes his glass from the bar and slides the money across. Takes