AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Extra Terrestrial – Gethin
Somehow, I know before we start that my eighteenth will be a disaster.
It’s not so much Mum’s choice of a birthday treat – as in dragging my wasted self for a late lunch at the new café down the road. OK, it’s not the coolest venue – the women all long grey hair and old hippy clothes; balding blokes in slacks and sandals; kids in home-made tie-dyes – but I’m happy to make the most of it, especially when I find it’s actually not vegetarian.
And Mum’s making an effort too. All done up in her new floaty top and plummy lipstick, twitching to hide her upset when I order the Pure Ground Steak Burger Special. I do good at acting surprised when the waiter pops a bottle of Cava.
But something about Mum is more edgy than usual. It breaks through in literally seconds with her stressing about her art installation, how she’s losing faith in it, but I wouldn’t understand. Then she uses this to justify her closing performance at my party last night, in a passive aggressive apology for screaming at my friends when she came in late from her studio.
‘Well, it was just the run-of-the-mill drug-fuelled orgy,’ I try a joke.
‘Not in my bed!’ she snaps.
‘Aw, come on, Mum. You used to have a sense of humour.’
Let’s face it, my relationship with Mum has been at breaking point for a fair while. Somehow, we know not to push it and we finish our food in silence. Just as well the restaurant fans are cooling the heavy hot air between us. Then Mum takes a decisive breath, like she’s starting over, suggests another bottle of wine while I open my presents.
Her gift to me is an iPhone, all boxed and beautiful, and I am genuinely touched. As in it’s been the most basic of mobiles up to now, and she’s far from loaded. Then there’s a card from the grandparents, sporting a cheque for a cool £500. We retreat for a few brief moments into some safe shared anecdotes about their ridiculousness. But then Mum tenses up again, shoving a card from Karen at me.
Karen was kind of like my auntie after she and Mum split up.
‘I haven’t seen her for ages. Since she took me bowling and shit,’ I say, shaking out the quite acceptable £40 cash.
Mum starts on about how Karen was like the runner, between her and my sperm donor. She actually smiles when I share a sudden image of Karen in spray-on pink Lycra carrying a test-tube of spunk between her bouncing bazookas. She tells me Karen met the guy through her work, but Mum never knew who he was.
‘So, I could get the dirt on him from Karen?’
I may be mildly curious at this point, but I’m still not prepared for what’s coming.
‘She got him to write some basic facts about himself, you know, for you to have when you grew up?’ Mum looks at me, all blue-eyed saucers.
‘She’s got something written about my dad?’
Mum winces at the dad word. ‘To tell you the truth, I’d kind of forgotten about him until Karen sent it. But we can look another time.’ She chews her lip, looks down at her glass.
‘She’s fucking sent it? Have you got it with you?’
I lean forward to snatch her bag, but she grabs hold of it.
‘Come on, you’ve told me about it now.’
There’s a photo clipped to the letter of a guy in a biker jacket. Thirty-something, all straggly brownish hair and stubbly chin – looking like he’s been caught out somehow. His name at the top: Don McCalstry.
‘You are joking me,’ I shake the photo at Mum. ‘That’s him?’
‘I’ve never met him, Gethin. What does it say?’ Her bony shoulders are sharp with tension.
It’s not so much a letter as a list of vital statistics. I start reading out loud. ‘Date of birth 6thMay 1965. He’s a lot older than he looks.’
‘It was taken nineteen years ago, remember.’
‘He’ll be even better looking now then! Height 5ft 10, weight 12st 7. OK, not too much of a fat fuckeroo…Oh, look, family health history: mother died of cancer, grandmother of heart disease, father suffers from asthma, mother had bouts of severe depression. Hey, bundle of laughs.’ I feel my voice shake as I speak. Why the hell is this getting to me?
‘It’s stuff you may need to know, isn’t it?’ Mum’s soft tone irritates me to fuck.
There’s some blurb under the health bit. It goes like this:
‘A bit about myself? Guess I’m something of a loner. Motorcycle mechanic, spending all my money on classic British motorbikes and associated memorabilia (if only there were a job in that…). Born in Lochgillan, NW Scotland, but moved to Glasgow when I was a kid. I escaped to Sheffield in 1982, but I’ve a yen to return to my ancestral home. See out my days roasting small mammals and blaeberries in a cave on the loch side, perhaps?
