The Dead Have No Shadows (18 page)

“What would you do?” said Mickey.

Pester thought for a moment.  “I’d do everything I could to help my case.  All of these episodes are evidence of your life.  Whether they’re helpful or harmful is not for us to say.”

“I suppose so,” Mickey replied.

Mickey had no way of knowing what would be helpful or otherwise.  Though he really wanted to go after Elena he realised that these situations had been set up for a reason.  It didn’t occur to him that one possible reason was to see whether he’d accept the challenge or not. 

He decided to see this one through.  Mickey slowly walked forward and opened the door.  A dead twenty two year old stepped over the threshold but a very much alive nine year old closed the door behind him.

The Young Mickey Raymond felt dizziness wash over him as he closed the door.  He had the funny feeling of being two people; himself and someone older but somehow familiar.  He paused for a moment to see if the strange feeling would pass.  It did and quickly but Mickey still had an odd sense at the back of his mind.  It was almost as if he was watching himself.

Across the lounge and directly opposite from the front door was the entrance into the dining room.  Mickey’s father stood framed in the doorway with his back to his son.  At the sound of the door closing Terry Raymond spun round.

“Where the fuck have you been?” he roared, crossing the room in four massive strides.  The swipe that caught Mickey on the side of the head knocked him into the door that opened onto the steep and dark staircase.

Without waiting for an answer Mickey’s father stormed from the lounge and through the dining room.

Mickey was relieved that his father hadn’t insisted that he account for where he’d been.  The truth was he couldn’t remember.  He had some vague memory of a strange man and a foreign girl.  Where that had come from he had no idea.  He must have been daydreaming.

From where he lay, sniffing back tears, little Mickey Raymond could clearly hear his father’s raised voice.

“Why was he still out at this time?”

Mickey also heard the slap and cry of pain from his Mum.

“How many times have I told you I want him in before I get home?  I don’t want to have to go trawling the fucking streets looking for him before I can have my tea.”

There was a gasp from Mickey’s Mum.  Mickey recognised the sound.  His father had taken a handful of Mum’s hair.

A chair scraped across the floor.  Mickey’s father had seated himself at the table.  Mickey quickly picked himself up, dried his eyes and hurried into the dining room.  Whenever Terry Raymond sat at the dining table it signalled mealtime.  This meant that Mickey had to get himself seated and his Mum, Elaine, had to get the food on the table now.

Mickey sat down and glanced at his father.

“What the fuck are you looking at?” Terry growled.

Mickey looked down at the table and said nothing.

“Well?” said his father.  “Answer me.”

“Nothing,” whispered Mickey.

“Well don’t then.”  Terry glared at his son, then roared at his wife, “Where’s my fucking tea?”

“It’ll be a couple of minutes,” Elaine’s harassed voice came back from the kitchen.

“Well fucking hurry up then,” the reply was shot back.

Mickey could hear his Mum rushing around in the kitchen.  True to her word, a couple of minutes later, Terry Raymond had his plate placed in front of him.  Elaine went back into the kitchen to fetch her own and Mickey’s meals.

When she sat down she gave Mickey a warm, everything’s alright kind of smile.  Elaine picked up her knife and fork then dropped them when a back hander caught her square in the face.

“When I come in I want my fucking tea on the table,” Terry shouted.  “If you hadn’t been sat on your fat arse all day reading magazines and watching fucking telly, it would have been ready.  And you could have made sure that he was fucking in.”  Terry jabbed his knife in Mickey’s direction to emphasise his point.

Elaine didn’t reply.  She knew better than that.  When her husband had hit her she had instinctively raised a hand to her face.  She brought her hand away dotted with blood.  Elaine reached for the tissue tucked under the sleeve of her cardigan and held it to her nose until the bleeding eased.  Terry had finished his meal before Elaine was able to start hers.  He grabbed his can of lager and left the table without a word to either his wife or son.

It was only when his father was away from the table that Mickey dared look up from his table and speak.

“Mummy, I’m sorry for making him hurt you,” he whispered, his voice wavering.

Elaine’s eyes were red rimmed and a few tears spilled out when she smiled.

“It’s not your fault, sweetheart.  Never ever think that you’re to blame.”

She reached across the table and squeezed Mickey’s hand.  The contact breached a dam and tears began to flow freely on both sides of the table.

Both Elaine and Mickey had lost their appetites.  They played with their food for awhile then both pushed their plates away.  Elaine should have insisted that her son eat more of his food, but she understood how he felt and let it go.  She got up from the table and started clearing the plates away.

There was a loud click.  Mickey glanced to where the sound had come from and saw a man leaning against the wall.  He was a funny looking person with spiky black hair and a funny wispy beard.  Mickey was about to scream in surprise when recognition eased forward in his mind and stopped the sound.  It took a while for the adult Mickey to fully reach the surface of consciousness.  From his position at the back of his own mind Mickey had been so wrapped up in the moment that he had forgotten that all of this had happened years ago and that he had an audience this time.

“Were mealtimes always like this?” Pester asked.

Mickey glanced at his Mum who had just come back into the dining room.

“Don’t worry,” said Pester.  “She can’t see or hear me.”

Mickey gave a barely perceptible nod of his head and waited until Elaine had gone back into the kitchen before answering in a whisper.

“Pretty much so.  Mum could never win.  If he came home early the tea wouldn’t be ready – so he would slap her.  If he stayed at the pub and was late in then the tea would be spoiled and he’d slap her for that as well.”

“I’m sorry for being blunt,” said Pester.  “But your father strikes me as complete shit bag.”

Mickey glanced into the kitchen where his Mum was starting the washing up.

“Yeah, he was,” he agreed “And I hated him.”

“You were afraid of him too,” said Pester.

“Too right I was,” said Mickey.  “You think what you’ve just seen was bad.  If he really lost it you never knew what he would do.”

There was another loud click and Pester disappeared.

Mickey had the feeling that he had just lost some time; that something had just happened but he couldn’t remember what.  Had he been talking to someone?  Had his father heard?  He would be furious if he thought that Mickey and Elaine had been talking behind his back.

Mickey left the table and walked through to where his father was nursing his lager can and watching
East Midlands Today
on the television.

“You needn’t think you’re staying in here,” Terry Raymond snarled at his son.  “Fuck off upstairs to your room.  And don’t make any noise.”

The nine year old Mickey, with his twenty two year old self tucked at the back of his sub-conscious mind, said nothing.  He walked across the lounge and opened the door onto the stairs.  As he placed his foot on the first step everything around him shivered and blurred and he suddenly found himself in bed.

To Young Mickey the situation was normal.  He had just spent the past couple of hours in his room, keeping quiet.  At the back of his nine year old mind the older Mickey wondered what had just happened.  He pondered the situation then decided that this must be his next episode.

Mickey’s bed butted up against the wall that adjoined his parent’s room.  There was a creak of bedsprings as someone got into bed.  A few minutes later someone else got into bed.  Then Mickey heard his Mum’s muffled voice.

“No, please.  I think Michael is still awake.”

Then there was the sound of struggling.

There was another, more insistent, ‘No’, then the unmistakable sound of a slap.  This was followed by a tearing sound and then the bedsprings began to creak in a rhythmic fashion that increased in
pace
until suddenly falling silent.  A short while later Mickey heard the sound of deep wet snoring.  Throughout what had gone before, despite having his hands pressed over his ears, Mickey had been able to hear the sound of his Mum’s sobs.

Over the snoring in the other room, Mickey heard someone get out of bed and go down stairs.  The snoring continued uninterrupted and Mickey slipped out of his own bed and followed his Mum downstairs.  He was small and light enough to be able to avoid the steps that creaked when you stood on them.  He knew he would be in deep trouble if his father caught him out of bed at this time of night.  Even if he needed the bathroom in the middle of the night Mickey would earn himself a back-hander if his father ever caught him out of bed.

Elaine was sitting on the settee and had her back to Mickey.  Even when he walked around the arm of the settee his Mum didn’t realise he was there.  By the light of the streetlight that cast its yellow glow through the thin curtains Mickey could see evidence of the damage that his father had caused.  The seam of Elaine’s nightdress had been torn revealing a long line of pale white thigh.  Mickey realised what he was seeing and quickly raised his eyes to look at his Mum’s face.  In the pale light Mickey could see the wet tracks of tears on Elaine’s cheeks.  He could also see evidence of fresh bleeding.

Mickey climbed onto the settee and his Mum realised, for the first time, that she was not alone.  Elaine hastily readjusted the ruin of her nightdress to hide her nakedness.

“Michael, you shouldn’t be out of bed,” she whispered.

“I don’t care,” Mickey replied.

He knelt on the cushion and wrapped his small arms around his Mum.

“I love you, Mummy,” he said.

Elaine’s fragile resolve crumbled and she wept.  When the worst of her tears had subsided Mickey’s small hands dried his Mum’s cheeks.  He kissed the corner of Elaine’s mouth where her lip had been split.  The kiss tasted bitter and metallic from a mixture of tears and blood.

“One day when I’m bigger,” Mickey said, his voice thick with the struggle to fight back his own tears.  “I’m going to make him stop hurting you.  Then I’ll take care of you.”

Elaine returned the kiss she had been given.

“I love you too, Michael,” she whispered, but didn’t dare to hope that Mickey could deliver on his promise.

When Mickey awoke the following morning he had aged six years.  It took his older self a few moments to establish who, where and when he was.  He then retreated to the back of his younger mind to see what happened next.

The fifteen year old Mickey sat up and looked around him.  His was not the typical bedroom of a teenage boy.  Most boys his age had posters of film, sport or pop stars pinned to their walls.  Others, the nerdy sort, had model aircraft suspended from string pinned into the ceiling.  There would be piles of books and games, of records or CD’s and DVD’s.  The luckiest ones would have their own television sets and games consoles or computers.

Mickey’s room had none of these trappings of youth.  A lack of money in the family contributed to this but the overriding factor was Mickey’s father.  Terry wouldn’t allow a television or hi-fi system in Mickey’s room because he would make, ‘too much fucking noise’.  He never gave Mickey permission to hang posters on his wall.  Terry argued that he didn’t decorate the room just for Mickey to cover the walls with pictures of over-paid footballers or
poncey
film stars.  The joke here was that Mickey couldn’t remember his father ever decorating this room.  The wallpaper was faded and discoloured with age and the ceiling was a dirty yellow.  None of this was helped by the dark wood wardrobe that was a hand me down from one of Mickey’s grandparents.  This was an old person’s bedroom, not that of a healthy and happy teenager – but then Mickey wasn’t a happy teenager.