Prodigal
by Karen Jones
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: A couple of mild ones.
Description: Sometimes it's too late to go back.
_____________________________________________________________________
I step out of the train station and the rain nearly drowns me. Glasgow weather – some things you never forget. I turn on to Union Street, almost unrecognisable to me now. Different shops, different coloured buses passing by, ‘green’ exhaust fumes from black cabs rising imperceptibly towards the sky while still smudging a new layer of grime onto the once blond sandstone buildings. My mobile phone rings. I know it’s our Claire, the wee sister who takes care of everyone. The only one I’ve kept in touch with – at first by letter and later by email or text – but I never speak to her. I’ve always known that if I heard her voice, I’d be on the first flight back. I ignore the call.
The strong scent of coffee from a café almost tempts me into its warmth, but it’s a pint and a hauf I need before I face the family after all this time, so I head for the Mitre Bar, the one pub I’m sure won’t have changed.
I push open the door and narrow my eyes in preparation for the haze of smoke, expecting to choke on the cigarettes and thick coughs of the clientele. Clear air greets me; of course, the smoking ban started last month. It hardly seems possible in the heart attack capital of Europe. I suddenly wish the ban had never come into force. What had that second-hand carcinogenic fog been hiding? The place smells like a dying man, who’s never owned a toothbrush, is taking a piss at the bar.
I back out into the lane and shake my head. No way – how can I swallow a mouthful of lager or a swig of whisky in a place that reeks like the armpit of hell? I walk down to Argyle Street, the shops shuttered and silent, only the rain’s persistent beat accompanying my slow steps. I take a deep breath then exhale, my life becoming visible in the lungs of the cold night. I pull my collar up tight around my chin, bow my head in deference to the fierce wind, my steps getting slower as High Street comes into view.
Nearly there.
My phone rings for the third time in the last hour. I look at the number to check it’s Claire. I could speak to her now – I’m two minutes from the door of the flat. Two minutes from the Pawnbroker’s Shop beneath the family home. It’s daft to ignore the call – I promised her I would answer today, promised she wouldn’t have to text – but I don’t want to hear unchanged voices then be shocked by old faces.
I’m almost there.
I know the flat will look the same, I know there’ll be the stink of the old bastard’s aftershave, Mammy’s hairspray – no, I forgot, the chemo took her hair – her perfume, then: 'Chloe', that’s what it was called. Too sweet for my taste, but too sweet was always her problem. All those years, letting that bastard away with everything, never raising so much as her voice. My childhood filled with the metallic whiff of her blood and his boozy breath. Nobody to put him in his place.
Until the night I floored him. The night I decided, at seventeen, that I was man enough to deck the bastard. Knocked him out cold. I’d have finished him, too, but they stopped me – Mammy and Claire stopped me. Claire packed my bag while Mammy counted out enough of her hidden money to send me as far away from his vengeance as she could. And she cried all over those notes. And she cried as she pushed me out the door and warned me not to come back until the old git had gone. We all knew the drink would take him soon enough.
Twenty years later and he still drinks the pub dry while she gets eaten from the inside out. I wonder if he cares.
I look at the names on the security buzzers: ‘Flat 2A, Mcleod’ in her school prize-winning handwriting. I reach for the bell but my phone vibrates in my pocket and I stop to look at the message. A text from Claire: Mammy’s gone.
I let my head rest against the door. I think I knew the whole time I walked these old streets. I knew she was gone.
I see the price tags on other people's misery displayed in the pawnie's window. We were no strangers to that place, eh Mammy? You used to say it should have a revolving door. You're well out of it now.
I turn back up High Street, back towards the station, the rain clearing the streets clean of old ghosts in my path. I take a lung full of the fresh night air and I know I'll never come back.
Swearwords: A couple of mild ones.
Description: Sometimes it's too late to go back.
_____________________________________________________________________
I step out of the train station and the rain nearly drowns me. Glasgow weather – some things you never forget. I turn on to Union Street, almost unrecognisable to me now. Different shops, different coloured buses passing by, ‘green’ exhaust fumes from black cabs rising imperceptibly towards the sky while still smudging a new layer of grime onto the once blond sandstone buildings. My mobile phone rings. I know it’s our Claire, the wee sister who takes care of everyone. The only one I’ve kept in touch with – at first by letter and later by email or text – but I never speak to her. I’ve always known that if I heard her voice, I’d be on the first flight back. I ignore the call.
The strong scent of coffee from a café almost tempts me into its warmth, but it’s a pint and a hauf I need before I face the family after all this time, so I head for the Mitre Bar, the one pub I’m sure won’t have changed.
I push open the door and narrow my eyes in preparation for the haze of smoke, expecting to choke on the cigarettes and thick coughs of the clientele. Clear air greets me; of course, the smoking ban started last month. It hardly seems possible in the heart attack capital of Europe. I suddenly wish the ban had never come into force. What had that second-hand carcinogenic fog been hiding? The place smells like a dying man, who’s never owned a toothbrush, is taking a piss at the bar.
I back out into the lane and shake my head. No way – how can I swallow a mouthful of lager or a swig of whisky in a place that reeks like the armpit of hell? I walk down to Argyle Street, the shops shuttered and silent, only the rain’s persistent beat accompanying my slow steps. I take a deep breath then exhale, my life becoming visible in the lungs of the cold night. I pull my collar up tight around my chin, bow my head in deference to the fierce wind, my steps getting slower as High Street comes into view.
Nearly there.
My phone rings for the third time in the last hour. I look at the number to check it’s Claire. I could speak to her now – I’m two minutes from the door of the flat. Two minutes from the Pawnbroker’s Shop beneath the family home. It’s daft to ignore the call – I promised her I would answer today, promised she wouldn’t have to text – but I don’t want to hear unchanged voices then be shocked by old faces.
I’m almost there.
I know the flat will look the same, I know there’ll be the stink of the old bastard’s aftershave, Mammy’s hairspray – no, I forgot, the chemo took her hair – her perfume, then: 'Chloe', that’s what it was called. Too sweet for my taste, but too sweet was always her problem. All those years, letting that bastard away with everything, never raising so much as her voice. My childhood filled with the metallic whiff of her blood and his boozy breath. Nobody to put him in his place.
Until the night I floored him. The night I decided, at seventeen, that I was man enough to deck the bastard. Knocked him out cold. I’d have finished him, too, but they stopped me – Mammy and Claire stopped me. Claire packed my bag while Mammy counted out enough of her hidden money to send me as far away from his vengeance as she could. And she cried all over those notes. And she cried as she pushed me out the door and warned me not to come back until the old git had gone. We all knew the drink would take him soon enough.
Twenty years later and he still drinks the pub dry while she gets eaten from the inside out. I wonder if he cares.
I look at the names on the security buzzers: ‘Flat 2A, Mcleod’ in her school prize-winning handwriting. I reach for the bell but my phone vibrates in my pocket and I stop to look at the message. A text from Claire: Mammy’s gone.
I let my head rest against the door. I think I knew the whole time I walked these old streets. I knew she was gone.
I see the price tags on other people's misery displayed in the pawnie's window. We were no strangers to that place, eh Mammy? You used to say it should have a revolving door. You're well out of it now.
I turn back up High Street, back towards the station, the rain clearing the streets clean of old ghosts in my path. I take a lung full of the fresh night air and I know I'll never come back.
About the Author
Karen Jones is from Glasgow. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines,
anthologies and ezines. She was short-listed
for the 2007 Asham Award, took third prize in the 2010 Mslexia short story competition,
received an honourable mention in The Spilling Ink short fiction competition
2011, won second prize in the Flash 500 competition in 2012 and first prize in
the Words With Jam Shorter Fiction Competition 2013. Several of her poems have been published by
EDP.