Page 17 of The Spark

I shake my head, trying not to imagine how in the hell he’d managed that.

Upstairs, I sit on the edge of my childhood bed. Mum hasn’t touched this room since I went to uni. Same books and Justin Timberlake posters, same photos of Lara and me tacked up all over the place. Some have fluttered to the floor now, leaving hardened wads of Blu Tack in their place.

The room always feels stale whenever I walk into it. Unloved and unattended to, like it’s one more job Mum can’t be arsed to tick off her to-do list. Not that she’s ever had one.

The room needs airing and polishing, a good vacuum, a lick of paint.

I get up and wrench open the sash window, swollen now from years of damp and inattention. The trill of birdsong drifts through the gap, along with the screech of a van accelerating up the road. Fresh air floods the room. I inhale it, briefly shutting my eyes.

Lara.

Lara can’t be back. Can she?

I run a hand over my stripped mattress. It held Jamie’s body long ago, his form warm and firm against mine. Long kisses and fevered touches, stifled giggles whenever my mother wafted past the locked door, singing. Sometimes, she would rap on it, to make us both jump.

Mum never warmed to Jamie. She would always change in his company, becoming mute and watchful. They didn’t bond. Never so much as shared a joke. After their first few meetings, I avoided bringing him round here as much as I could, because the reception he got was always tepid at best.

Whenever I asked Mum about this, she flat-out denied there was a problem. So I had to conclude she was being awkward for the sake of it. Or that maybe a tiny part of her was jealous. After all, it hadn’t worked out too well for her, meeting the love of her life when she was only in her teens.

She never got over my dad leaving. Even though their relationship had been turbulent, I truly believe he was the only man she had ever really loved.

The affair, apparently, had been going on for two years.

Bev was younger than Dad, but that was where the cliché ended. She was Dad’s boss at the logistics company where they both worked. She spoke four languages and didn’t stand for anyone’s crap. She was far from the empty-headed bimbo my mum made her out to be.

Bev didn’t need my dad, not one bit. She wanted him.

Mum had suspected for a while, and so had I. Dad would whistle his way to the office, and was working increasingly long hours without complaint, taking extra pride in his appearance. I suppose he was good-looking, if you can say that about your own father. Dark and trim-figured, with a twinkle in his eye and a wicked sense of humour. He was the kind of person people always wanted to sit next to at the pub.

The day Mum discovered the texts, I came home from school to find Dad with blood all over his face, storming between the various floors of the house, gathering belongings. Mum was nowhere to be seen.

‘What happened?’ I asked, although I could guess, of course.

Dad didn’t respond. He just flung his things into a suitcase then left, not even bothering to shut the front door behind him.

I scrambled to the window of the living room.

A BMW was parked on the other side of the road beneath a street light, engine purring. I watched Bev take in my dad’s bloodied appearance as he climbed into the car before shaking her head, just once, then pressing her foot to the floor. Bev was better than all this drama, I could see that, even at the age of twelve. She wouldn’t indulge such histrionics. She was wearing sunglasses and a leather jacket. Her dark hair was bobbed and glossy. To me, she looked like a movie star. In some messed-up way, I felt in that moment that Bev was my idol.

I found Mum in the first-floor bathroom, sitting on the closed lid of the toilet. Some of Dad’s things were in the bath. Work shirts and trousers. A pile of photographs. Vinyl records. Slippers. A dressing gown. Boxer shorts. The stuff, I assumed, he didn’t want Bev judging him by.

I smelt bourbon, too. The expensive bottle Dad never let anyone touch, not even Mum. Well, she was touching it now, tipping it liberally over all the items in the bath, in between taking giant swigs. In her lap was a box of matches.

‘Mum!’ I exclaimed. ‘Don’t!’

She turned to stare at me. Her demeanour was wild, but she wasn’t out of control. I could see that instantly. This was vindication, I realised, after months – years – of being gaslit. Her fury had a place at last. Her anger was justified. She was now unstoppable. ‘Why the hell wouldn’t I?’

She struck the first match. I left the room and went to sit on the landing while she turned Dad’s possessions into ash.

‘Did you hurt him?’ I asked her after a while, through the bathroom door. I couldn’t stop thinking about his face covered in blood.

There was a long silence. I’d almost given up waiting for an answer when her voice cut through the smoke of the fire she’d made, brittle and bitter.

‘Not like he hurt me,’ was all she said.

Chapter 9.

Then

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