Time To Play by KA Richardson (best book club books of all time TXT) 📗

and, curious, he’d had to visit. The tiny little girl had grabbed his fingers with hers, and he’d been completely and utterly lost. He’d moved home the next night, stopped smoking and getting hammered, hadn’t stopped the girls though. He’d still been somewhat regular at the brothel. Not that Sheila ever found out.

He’d begged Sheila then to stop seeing Fred, pleaded with her to be happy with two children so they could be a family, and she’d agreed.

They’d said they would never tell the kids, would bring them both up as though none of the shit from the past had any impact.

And it hadn’t.

Until now.

Sobs suddenly broke free from his body. All that pain, years and years of bottling it all up and never letting it out, years of coping now with the way Sheila was, all flooded to the surface and escaped. It wasn’t right. None of it was right.

He’d had enough.

All the girls he’d tried to teach to cope with pain, and it was all for jack shit. It meant nothing.

All he’d done was inflict pain on other people. It was all he’d done for his entire life. His son now couldn’t even bear to look at him. He’d watched earlier when he’d been round the house. Watched as Connor had made Sheila a cup of coffee, then sat on the sofa, his agony resounding around the room in a silent echo.

And James had finally understood.

Pain was normal.

Everyone had it in their lives. It had been wrong to pretend otherwise. But most people didn’t pick girls out from a line-up like cattle, beat the crap out of them with bare hands. Normal people didn’t do that. He already knew he wasn’t normal, had struggled hiding it from Sheila as he’d visited the seediest of places and done things with the girls that she’d never have let him do in a million years. But he’d always at least thought he wasn’t crazy. That he could cope with his own life.

But the deeper into her Alzheimer’s Sheila had got, the worse his behaviour had become.

He sat in the chair and sobbed until there were no more tears. His body eventually stopped shaking, and he felt physically exhausted.

Standing, he turned on the lamp on the workbench and pulled out the notebook and pen from his pocket. He wouldn’t back out this time. He couldn’t live with who he had become, and he needed to make sure that Connor and Marie understood.

Putting the pen to the paper, he started writing.

Dear Connor and Marie,

I know you won’t understand any of this, but it’s how it has to be. I had to do this; it was the only way. I’ve done such terrible things.

When your mum was diagnosed with her Alzheimer’s, I was stupid and thought it would take ages to take hold, and that we’d been together so long that she’d never, ever be able to forget me. But she did, and at times it felt, and still feels, like my heart was being pulled out from my chest.

I thought that if I took in some girls in trouble, that I could help them understand pain so that it would be easier for them, easier than it had been for me and you both at any rate. I thought they’d learn to handle pain, and then I’d let them go and they would just get it, you know? I never meant to strangle them. I never meant to keep going back to Fred and getting more. There were seven in total. I only took them so they could learn.

But I couldn’t teach them anything but pain and fear. I couldn’t even let them go to see if they could survive. They’d seen me, you see, knew my face. They would have ruined our whole family. As it turns out, it wasn’t them that ruined us, it was me.

I’m so sorry I hit you, Connor, and I can’t even describe how I feel about you both finding out that I’m not your dad. It was never meant to be like this. I loved you both so much from the second you were born. The nurse placed you in my arms and it didn’t matter who had got your mum pregnant, it just didn’t matter anymore. You were both the children of my heart, and I was there for every football game, every dance recital, every school play.

I know this is the coward’s way out, and I know you’ll both be upset. But it really is the only way – without me you will both continue with your lives; your mum will go in the home you both want and maybe even she’ll be happier.

All I know is I fucked everything up. I wish…well, wishing doesn’t do any good really, does it? I’ve said what I wanted to say. I hope it’s neither of you who find me, and I’m so sorry for everything. Look after your mother, and each other. And always remember that none of this is your fault.

My love always,

Your Dad

This was it – the sum total of his achievements was in this room. And it amounted to nothing.

Calm now, he reached for the rope he’d rigged above the door and wrapped it round his neck. The note was on the worktop; the pen placed neatly beside it.

Having the rope round his neck didn’t feel like he’d thought it would.

He’d thought that when his oxygen was cut off, he’d feel panic, put the weight back onto his legs to relieve the constriction at his throat – but he didn’t.

As the rope tightened further around his neck, he felt his lungs struggle for oxygen, and he felt calmer than he had ever felt in his life.

And when the darkness finally claimed him, for the first time in his whole life, he felt