Things Fall Apart

Amongst the tall grass and sedges in the front yard lay rain-rotted petrol canisters, rusted oil drums, a defunct motorbike beneath tarpaulin and the husk of a white Ford Transit, hoisted on a jack with the tyres removed. I watched from the window as dad thanked the delivery bloke and waved him off. The pickup truck’s rear wheels fishtailed in the mud as he pulled out of our drive and onto the A1028, past the boarded-up shell of our local pub.

        Dad stepped back and stood for a few seconds with his hands on his hips, admiring the new propane tank laid out like a swollen white belly beneath the Union Jack that sagged from its flagpole in the low December sun. He was wearing his military green jacket and wooly hat, muddy cargo pants and Doc Martens boots. He approached the tank, inspected each end as though he knew what he was looking for, then patted it approvingly and started back up the drive, breath clouding in the crisp winter air. 

        I dropped onto my Manchester United bedsheet, out of sight, so that he wouldn’t beckon me outside to listen to another diatribe about his provisions. The joy with which he described them unsettled me – how could he be so excited in the face of our possible extinction? Though only eleven, I’d lie awake most nights shuddering at the unfathomability of eternal non-existence, yet dad seemed to see the reaper as another adversary, easily bested with a bit of nous and some shrewd purchases. His mate Kev had dropped off a pile of timber the day before, with which he had requested my help to build a chicken coop. He’d even managed to pick up a twelve-gauge off some bloke who knew a bloke he knew out on one of the farms. 

        I was suspended from school before the Christmas holidays for kicking the teeth out of a lad who’d been picking on me. If the school wasn’t going to exist in a few weeks, I figured I had nothing to lose. I remember the cracking sound, the joy of watching his smug confidence give way to confused terror as he saw his top row scattered across the concrete. When we got home from the headteacher’s office, mum yelled herself hoarse about how violence was never the answer, how I risked wasting my brains and ending up in prison. Dad was out near Gunby quizzing an unconsenting chicken farmer and missed the meeting, but returned in the middle of her tirade. When she left the room, he gave me a wink and a thumbs up, slumped into the armchair beside me and lit a fag.

        “Don’t mind your mum, mate,” he whispered. “She dun’t understand that lads like that don’t respond to owt but a bloody good hidin’. You were right to stick up for yourself and crack him one – bet the little bastard’ll think twice before pickin’ on anyone else for a while, eh? We’ll need that fightin’ spirit when the clocks hit double-zero, matey,” he raised a clenched fist of solidarity and patted my shoulder. It was the first time I’d seen anything resembling pride in his weathered face, and I was henceforth enlisted as the right-hand man to his grand preparations for the Millennium Bug. We’d need to become “self-sufficient,” he told us at the Christmas dinner table – produce our own power, food and water for as long as possible after 31st December, the end of the world as we knew it. Mum stormed out in protest at his hijacking of a joyous occasion with tales of imminent Armageddon. I understood the gist of it, about big computers that controlled everything not being ready for the dates changing to zero, but the implications were too enormous to process.

        I pulled out my football sticker book and flicked to the United page, staring at the three blank squares I might someday fill with Nicky Butt, Quinton Fortune and Henning Berg, should dad be wrong about all this. From the next room, my little sister Evie’s dolls were embroiled in a heated debate, drowned out by the clattering of dishes and slamming of drawers in the kitchen. Mum was muttering under her breath again.

        “Yeah, that’s it…I’ll do everythin’...you piss about wastin’ money on fuckin’...”

        The second of the two doors dad installed between the makeshift corrugated iron garage and the kitchen, ostensibly to keep out burglars, creaked open. He emitted a series of groans and sighs particular to men over forty coming in from the cold and a hard morning’s graft.

        “Bloke’s just dropped the tank off,” he giddily informed mum, whose grunted response was lost in the sloshing of water in the sink. “Bloody good price, that. Said they’ve not flogged ‘alf as many as they were expectin’, so could get a few more if needs be.”

        “Oh aye,” she sighed, and I heard the pots being relinquished, “and where are they gonna go? Driveway already looks like an episode of Scrapheap fuckin’ Challenge.”

        She wasn’t on board with the Y2K concerns, much to dad’s chagrin. She called it “hysterical bollocks” once, and he disappeared into the half-built garage until she’d tucked away enough wine to fall asleep in front of Stars in their Eyes. Just enough to take the edge off, she said, which required a little more each day.

         Mum thought Y2K was just his latest fanciful project, like the garage, the fixer-upper motors, the rotting pile of timber round the back, once destined to become a shed. Like most men, his self-worth derived from the age-old noble instincts to build, battle and provide for his family, but when he lost his job at the packaging plant up in Louth, those urges began devouring him from within. While he was busy cheating extinction, she carried out the day-to-day obligations: cooking, cleaning, bills, kids. External demands on her time and attention began when the sun rose over our little bungalow, where the Lincolnshire Wolds met the fenlands, and ended when she closed her eyes at night. There was no time for dreaming. 

        “Well I told you I’d sort all that if and when we come out the other side a’ this!” dad protested. His voice went up an octave with a child-like petulance when he was on the defensive. “I’m not gonnoo apologise for takin’ precautions and makin’ sure the kids are safe!”

        “Oh get over yourself! This is nowt to do wi’ them kids and everythin’ to do wi’ you thinkin’ you’re Bruce Willis or summerts,” she snapped. “If the power goes out, we’ll deal with it for a few weeks. If the cash machines stop workin’, I’m sure the people at the banks will sort it. Blair’s already said they’re hirin’ thousands of –”

        “Oh come off it, duck! You think that chinless wonder’s got the first idea what’s comin’? Dozy cunt wun’t know a crisis if it bit ‘im on the arse. It’s gonna be normal folk wi’ common sense and bottle who survive this, not them private schoolboys holed up in their fuckin’ bunkers.”

        “Jesus Christ, you’re delusional!” her voice cracked with exasperation and she laughed in the hollow, sneering way she did when she wanted to stop herself crying.

        “How? I’m just tryin’ to-” I could picture his upturned palms, the hurt expression with mouth agape, as though it was an affront to ask him to abandon his latest calling.

        “Mick, you ‘an’t got a job, we can’t pay the lecky bill this month, we’re be’ind on the mortgage and our son is kickin’ kids’ teeth in at school! I can’t keep waitin’ for you to wake up and be a dad and ‘usband instead of pissin’ about in your little-”

        “Ey! No need to talk to me like that, is there?”

        “Well you’re such a fuckin’...urgh!” I heard a sniff, and the sound of sloshing and scrubbing returned. 

        She often cried at the sink. Once, after she’d polished the last of a bottle of gin and I was out of bed in the wee hours again, she confessed that she sometimes wished his doomsday prophecies would play out exactly as anticipated. Radios and TV newsreaders talking about wars, poverty and despair would finally shut up. Cars and delivery lorries rumbling by at all hours would grind to a halt. The flashing lights of arcades along the coast would fade to black as though someone had pulled the plug. Above all this, the stars would twinkle as they always had over our corner of the country – there before us and there when we returned to dust. The earth would sigh as the weight of human progress fell from her shoulders. She would restore herself, emerging anew with glittering promise. I nodded, unsure how all that could transpire because of a computer glitch, or why mum saw fit to unload it on me – maybe because there was nobody else.

        They usually stopped arguing when Evie was present, so I tucked the sticker book under the bed, snuck into her room, adjacent to mine at the bottom of the hallway. Her dolls lay on the dirt-brown carpet and she was sitting against the bed, arms wrapped around her knees, gazing up through the window.

        “Y’alright mate?” I slumped down beside her. “What you lookin’ at?”

        “The robin didn’t come today,” she mumbled, eyes fixed on the dimming sky. A crow perched on the roof of the Transit and squawked.

        “Oh piss off then! Can’t do right for doin’ wrong, can I?!” Dad's voice reverberated through the house and the door slammed. Seconds later, his motorbike’s engine kickstarted and growled out of the driveway.

        “I’m sure the robin’ll come tomorrow mate,” I told Evie, at a loss as to what was going on in her six-year-old brain. “Shall we go and see mum, see if she wants to play a game?”

        She shrugged and let her head droop between her legs. I took her hand and led her cautiously along the hall, where mum was leaning on the worktop with her face in her hands.

        Already taller than mum, I wrapped an arm around her shoulders, gave her a little shake, then glanced back at Evie in the doorway, caught between as yet unspoilt innocence and excess experience.

        “I can’t do this anymore,” mum whispered. Then she straightened up, wiped her eyes and yanked me into a hug so tight I thought my ribs might crack. Evie tottered over and hugged us both around the waist, then mum pulled away and crouched to Evie’s eye-level, glancing up at me intermittently.

        “Kids, what say we go and stay wi’ nan and grandad in Skegness?”

        Evie nodded with a toothy grin, eyes suddenly aglow at the prospect of unfettered access to nan and grandad’s biscuit tin and “beating” grandad at Connect 4 by the three-bar fire. A shiver of dread whispered through me as I studied mum’s face, her moist cheeks, the desperation hiding in plain sight behind the saddest smile I’d ever seen.

        I thought about dad returning to an empty house, how little sense he would make of it. I thought about what mum once told me about how his parents died when he was young, and his mates were only his mates when they wanted a car or motorbike fixed for free. Dad could look at a pile of scrap metal and wires, see a tapestry waiting to be woven and then bring it to life, but he was never able to read letters or people. I thought about the two of us, hunting and surviving throughout the endless marshland – fishing, building, breeding animals – and something inside me recoiled at the thought of that three-bar fire and the homely, albeit rudimentary, comforts of my grandparents’ gaff. What dad had shown me with that pat on the shoulder was that he was ready to let me into his world, and I wanted to experience it all, to live or die by its quixotic zeal. Though I knew his affirmation was misplaced, I wanted more. 

        With feverish haste, mum began packing suitcases for herself and Evie and told me to do mine. I retired to my room and peered out of my window for signs of a single headlight. I hoped he’d catch her trying to slip out, stop it somehow.

        “Are you almost ready, love?” she nudged the door open, scanning the room with panicked intensity..

        “I’m not going,” I sat on the edge of the bed and rested my elbows on my knees.

        “What d’you mean?” she dropped to one knee and took my face in her hands. “Sweet’eart, you’re eleven – I can’t just leave you. We can talk about this when we get to nan’s, okay?”

        “I wanna stay with dad,” I mumbled, straining to control my quivering lip. “I need to help wi’ the chicken coop and that. Just go.”

        “Oh love…” she pinched the bridge of her nose, checked her watch, glanced back at Evie waiting with her backpack in the doorway. “You tell dad to ring me the second he gets back, okay?” She sobbed, stood and drew me into an awkward hug, kissed my crown, then bent over to make eye contact again. “Promise me?”

        I nodded. With a thin smile, told me she loved me, said we’d talk later that night, then hurried Evie out through the doors. The engine of the Peugeot 106 dad restored for her fired up, and I watched the taillights bump out through the mud and turn left, fading east.

*

When the rattling scream of the Suzuki Bandit finally pierced the night, I was hammering a flat football into the chalk goal in the wall round the side of the house, imagining the security light was a floodlight at Old Trafford.

        “Alright kiddo, what you doin’ out ‘ere?” Dad pulled off his helmet, then noticed the absence of light inside and asked where mum was.

        “Her and Evie went to stay at nan and grandad’s in Skeg for a bit,” I relayed, shaking.

        When the cries of “what d’you mean?” and “did she say why?” subsided and retellings of my story were exhausted, he fell quiet and stroked his greying goatee. I did keepy-uppies to avoid the uncomfortable, brooding silence. He rubbed his face, then forced a weak smile.

        “Well, I dunno…” he sighed and ruffled my hair. “Thanks for stickin’ around, mate. We’ll ‘av a laugh, just the two of us lads – no bloody women naggin’ away, eh?”

        He went inside and I watched him pace on the phone through the kitchen window, hand gestures growing frantic before running out of steam. After laying the phone down, he retrieved a bottle from the cupboard me and Evie were forbidden from opening and sank into one of the four chairs around the small dining table. 

*

Over the next week, I spoke to mum and Evie on the phone most nights. When I asked when they were coming home, mum would start talking about how nan and grandad missed me, and suggest I ask dad to drive me to Skeg so we could have a day out – chippy tea, ice cream, pier arcades. Afterwards, she’d speak to dad, and all I would hear were grunts and practicalities. Neither of us mentioned Skegness again.

        During the days, we worked to build the coop. I held panels in place while he nailed them. We drove out to meet men covered in mud or oil in farmyards or garage forecourts and we loaded the boot with unfamiliar items.

        When the day arrived, a sanguine resoluteness came over dad. We drove out to a shabby little lake he knew, tucked away down a dirt road where nobody would care that we didn’t have a fishing licence, and stayed until dusk. Dad was unusually quiet, but when I caught a decent-sized carp, he proudly brandished my scaly trophy before the old geezer twenty yards down, who’d complained that nothing was biting.

        After nightfall, we sat outside by the fire and cooked burgers on the portable barbecue we’d bought from Safeway, a managed transition to our imminent lifestyle. We fished some sparklers out of the back of the garage and took turns guessing what the other was drawing against the night sky.

        As the clock neared midnight, we gazed at the stars and I wondered what it might look like when the planes started falling from the sky. A weary acceptance danced from the warmth of the fire and kissed my cheeks. Dad crushed a can of lager with his fist, plucked another from the crate beside his Doc Martens, then tossed it to me.

        “Cheers for the ‘elp this last week, mate – cun’t a’ done it without ya,” he said, raising another and cracking it open with a psst. I mirrored him and held mine aloft.

        I took a tentative sip, winced, and he chuckled.

        “You’re a man now, eh? Men drink beer. Get it down ya.”

        I thought about the girls, who’d be at Bev and Paul’s, where we spent every New Year’s Eve. In a moment, either the fireworks would whistle out from the garden over the nearby industrial cleaning plant and they’d all sing Auld Lang Syne, or the town would be plunged into darkness as fiery hell rained down upon them.

        “Here we go,” said dad, checking his watch, cigarette dangling from his mouth. “Ready?”

        I nodded, but I wasn’t. He counted down from ten.

        Three…

          Two…

             One…

         Nothing. The crackle of fireworks and explosions of colour blossomed out along the North Sea coastline.

        “Hmm,” dad stood and wandered out into the grass to get a clearer view of the sky across the flat expanse of fields. He scratched his head, and I watched his shoulders slump a little.

         I thought about what mum said, and how she’d wake up in the morning to the start of another year, to do it all over again.