Michael, Isla and Dougie each told their parents all they’d done that day. No detail was too insignificant to be left out.
My friends all adored Elaine and I think found her sexy before they knew what sexy meant. Her curls glowed like a Christmas tangerine, her skin was milky and freckled and she possessed a voluptuous Monroe-like hourglass figure. She never asked me about Doreen, but I’m sure Dougie had explained her irregular presence. I wasn’t bothered if she pitied my circumstances at home. I was just grateful for the attention from a mother, even it wasn’t my own.
Dougie’s parents treated me like a part-time son. My place was set at the dining room table regardless of my presence. My sleeping bag remained on a camp bed in Dougie’s bedroom and they’d even bought me my own toothbrush and flannel. All the Reynolds children were encouraged to invite their friends over and their house resembled a youth club with the number of children passing through its doors. But Elaine took a shine to me the most.
As an only child, I was fascinated by the unfamiliar world of sibling relationships – how they played, learned and fought with each other. They taught me the definition of family. But watching them bred resentment in me towards my father. The head of Dougie’s house was not the ghost of a man overtly consumed with his louche wife to notice his own neglected son.
I questioned what was missing in my father’s make-up that rendered him unable to keep hold of Doreen. Why hadn’t she loved him like Elaine loved her husband? What did he lack that drove my mother into the arms of other men? He lacked nothing, of course. My negativity merely masked what I felt were my own failings as her son. I knew the man who had offered me as much as he could also had his limitations. So what I couldn’t get from him, I stole from the Reynolds.
But the most important lesson I learned from spending time with them came years later. And it was that if you scratch the surface of something perfect, you’ll always find something rotten hidden beneath.
August 26, 3.15pm
While neither Bradley nor I trespassed too far into each other’s pasts, my gut instinct was that he was a reliable sort. My history was as irrelevant to me as it was to anyone else, so I would never have voluntarily revealed my true colours to him.
Such aloofness was a self-defence mechanism born out of bad experiences. Because the more you trust in someone, the more opportunities you give them to shatter your illusions. But as much as I cared to think of myself as a solitary unit - and against my better judgment - I still needed a Dougie Reynolds in my life. Bradley came close to filling that vacancy.
It was during a lock-in at the village pub a decade earlier, and with several pints of Guinness loosening our lips, that Dougie revealed the disease running through his family. Out of the blue, he confessed his father was a violent wife-beater who regularly knocked the living daylights out of Elaine.
Sometimes he’d hone his skills in front of his family. But for the most part, he kept his hobby behind the bedroom door. Dougie explained it was why they encouraged their friends to spend time at their house. Because if left alone, some minor incident would likely occur and inspire Dougie Senior into hurting her again. Our friendship offered them a temporary stay of execution. He’d used me.
I masked my ever-increasing dismay while he tearfully recalled his family’s swift departure from Scotland. Elaine had been attacked so badly that she’d been hospitalised for a fortnight – her husband’s lightening bolt blows broke her jaw and five ribs. Instead of offering their support to Elaine, Dougie Senior’s colleagues encouraged her not to press charges against one of their own and offered them a fresh start elsewhere.
But my disappointment wasn’t directed at the culprit, as it should have been. It was towards his son. Dougie had urged me to buy into his
My friends all adored Elaine and I think found her sexy before they knew what sexy meant. Her curls glowed like a Christmas tangerine, her skin was milky and freckled and she possessed a voluptuous Monroe-like hourglass figure. She never asked me about Doreen, but I’m sure Dougie had explained her irregular presence. I wasn’t bothered if she pitied my circumstances at home. I was just grateful for the attention from a mother, even it wasn’t my own.
Dougie’s parents treated me like a part-time son. My place was set at the dining room table regardless of my presence. My sleeping bag remained on a camp bed in Dougie’s bedroom and they’d even bought me my own toothbrush and flannel. All the Reynolds children were encouraged to invite their friends over and their house resembled a youth club with the number of children passing through its doors. But Elaine took a shine to me the most.
As an only child, I was fascinated by the unfamiliar world of sibling relationships – how they played, learned and fought with each other. They taught me the definition of family. But watching them bred resentment in me towards my father. The head of Dougie’s house was not the ghost of a man overtly consumed with his louche wife to notice his own neglected son.
I questioned what was missing in my father’s make-up that rendered him unable to keep hold of Doreen. Why hadn’t she loved him like Elaine loved her husband? What did he lack that drove my mother into the arms of other men? He lacked nothing, of course. My negativity merely masked what I felt were my own failings as her son. I knew the man who had offered me as much as he could also had his limitations. So what I couldn’t get from him, I stole from the Reynolds.
But the most important lesson I learned from spending time with them came years later. And it was that if you scratch the surface of something perfect, you’ll always find something rotten hidden beneath.
August 26, 3.15pm
While neither Bradley nor I trespassed too far into each other’s pasts, my gut instinct was that he was a reliable sort. My history was as irrelevant to me as it was to anyone else, so I would never have voluntarily revealed my true colours to him.
Such aloofness was a self-defence mechanism born out of bad experiences. Because the more you trust in someone, the more opportunities you give them to shatter your illusions. But as much as I cared to think of myself as a solitary unit - and against my better judgment - I still needed a Dougie Reynolds in my life. Bradley came close to filling that vacancy.
It was during a lock-in at the village pub a decade earlier, and with several pints of Guinness loosening our lips, that Dougie revealed the disease running through his family. Out of the blue, he confessed his father was a violent wife-beater who regularly knocked the living daylights out of Elaine.
Sometimes he’d hone his skills in front of his family. But for the most part, he kept his hobby behind the bedroom door. Dougie explained it was why they encouraged their friends to spend time at their house. Because if left alone, some minor incident would likely occur and inspire Dougie Senior into hurting her again. Our friendship offered them a temporary stay of execution. He’d used me.
I masked my ever-increasing dismay while he tearfully recalled his family’s swift departure from Scotland. Elaine had been attacked so badly that she’d been hospitalised for a fortnight – her husband’s lightening bolt blows broke her jaw and five ribs. Instead of offering their support to Elaine, Dougie Senior’s colleagues encouraged her not to press charges against one of their own and offered them a fresh start elsewhere.
But my disappointment wasn’t directed at the culprit, as it should have been. It was towards his son. Dougie had urged me to buy into his
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