The Legacy of St John

The Mayor stood radiantly on the stage of the Liverpool Exhibition Centre, the stage lights glinting off her chain of office. Watching her expectantly were the sea of local dignitaries, celebrities, and entrepreneurs, sipping coffee after the sumptuous five-course dinner and bottles of fine wine.

The Mayor cleared her throat and addressed the convivial audience. “Could I ask you all to be upstanding,” she said, “and put your hands together for this hero of Liverpool, this philanthropist, this entrepreneur who has dedicated himself to improving the lives of others in our city.”

She paused and looked at me before continuing, “Please welcome Mr John Henderson to receive the prestigious Freedom of the City award.”

I took a final sip of my water revive my parched throat and forced a smile, thinking of my brother. He should be the one here receiving this award, but he died four weeks ago in a car crash.

***

The blood red Alfa Romeo Guilia hugged each bend beautifully as I pushed it through the steep, rugged hill roads in North Wales, my brother beside me in the passenger seat. The sky was clear and dark, although the feint orange glow on the horizon announced the sunrise.

“Where are you taking us?” my brother asked, impatiently. He was fractionally older than me and his dislike of surprises showed.

“You’ll see,” was all I said, my attention focused on the task ahead.

“Well I’m going to get some shut eye. That coffee hasn’t kicked in yet.” With that, he closed his eyes while I stared ahead, the powerful headlights illuminating the quiet roads of the Snowdonia National Park.

The road below Pen-y-Pass is narrow but well maintained and lined with short dry-stone walls to keep the sheep off the road. In some places, the road is hewn into the mountainside and the walls are twice the height of cars, holding back tones of earth, peat and granite.

I’d driven this route half a dozen times in preparation for this moment and only had one chance to get it right. Nervous excitement coursed through me as the powerful car zoomed down the road.

Then it happened.

We approached the bend too fast and the car didn’t turn – smashing into the immovable, gray stone wall.

The air bag, among other things, saved my life.

***

My brother and I grew up in Glasgow, in Springburn to be precise, where high-rise council flats scar the skyline and house thousands of deprived, local residents. Our parents died when we were in our early teens and, with no stable relatives to support us, we were moved from one foster family to another.

With each foster family who care for us and every social worker assigned to us, my brother went out his way to be kind and compliant.

“Why are you always so perfect?” I sneered at him one day, shortly after he’d sucked up to our latest foster father. “I’m going to start calling you The Saint.”

“It’s easy to be a saint in comparison to you,” he shot back.

His piousness and perfection just made me more rebellious and I got in with the wrong crowds. My teenage years were a desert of boredom and hopelessness punctuated by alcohol and gambling to entertain me. Meanwhile, the Saint focused on studying, eventually getting an apprenticeship with a firm in Liverpool.

After he left Glasgow, we grew further apart. I moved around Glasgow, just about keeping my head above water with a combination of welfare benefits, black market jobs, and low-level crime. When drinking and gambling depleted my bank balance, I’d call him for money. And being the saint he was, he always gave it to me – but our conversations were always terse.

“How much do you want this time?” he asked.

“Do you not even say hi anymore, Saint John?” I retorted.

 “Don’t call me that,” he snapped. “We both had the same chances growing up. Good families looked after us and you’re messing up the opportunities we got.”

“F*** off. You’ve had it easy for the last 10 years. You’ve had all the luck.”

He breathed deeply. “I’ll send you another few hundred but that’s all I have.” He paused. “You know I love you – call me when you want to most of the chances we were both given.”

***

The next time I called him was two years later.

“Saint, you’ve got to help me,” I croaked into the phone, my throat raw from excessive gut-rot alcohol, cheap cigarettes and poor quality of life.

“It’s been a while, brother.” His voice was calm and professional.

“I’ve blown it. I need your help.” My voice trembled. “I’m up to my eyeballs in debt to a really bad bunch.”

“How bad?”

“Last week, they took a baseball bat to the kneecaps of a wee guy who owed them money. He’ll never walk without crutches again.” I gave him the vivid, terrifying details.

Like a saint, he gave me a lifeline. He promised to pay off my debts and put me through a residential detox programme on the condition that I moved to Merseyside with him and started working in his firm. My only choice was to comply.

***

So for the first time in a decade, I was safe. He was helpful, caring and kind. He made a home for me in the annex above his garage in his top-spec mansion near the City, where he lived alone. While he let me use the cars, private gym, and movie room, he insisted on managing my money and only gave me a paltry allowance.

As I watched him hobnobbing at parties with the good and great, giving money to charities, and employing orphans to work in the business, frustration, boredom, and jealously started eating away at me.

***

A misspent youth stealing cars in Glasgow taught me enough about mechanics to make the necessary adjustments to the car seats and seat belts. And I simulated it several times with test dummies.

When the majestic Alfa Romeo, with sleek metallic paintwork, smashed into the stone wall in Snowdonia, my brother’s head ricocheted malevolently against the dashboard and he was unconscious. I was dazed but conscious, thanks to the adjustments I’d made.

Shaking my head to clear the stars from my vision, I stepped out the crumpled car into the cold, dark morning. Dressing the scene, I moved my brother’s limp body into the driver’s seat and, forcing back the guilt, smashed his head against the steering wheel – giving him a fatal blood clot.

After swapping our identifiable possessions, I sat myself in the passenger seat and completed the hardest part – giving myself realistic injuries – before waiting for the inevitable Sunday tourist to find us.

***

Maybe my luck has changed. Or maybe I was just lucky to have an identical twin.

Pushing the still raw memories of John’s murder out my thoughts, I slide back my chair at the regal top table. Walking confidently across the stage to accept the Freedom of the City, I was applauded as a hero for the famous philanthropic achievements I had never done.