And so he returns.
Again.
But I am changed.
Part of my heart has turned to ice.
I back away from him.
Literally and metaphorically.
We are wonderful beings.
Self preservation is powerful.

He progresses from the hotel
To a small flat.
Geographically, 
Not far from where we live.
Close to Wife No. 2.

He is in the flat for 3 months.
3 months.
I am detached.
He dupes us again in that period.
I can’t write about it.
But we are nearly finished.

And then.
And then.
There is a final broken promise
To Grandson No. 1.
A trip to Manchester.
An assurance Son will come.
Grandson No. 1 looks forward to it.
On the morning we wait.
We wait.
We wait.
Grandson No 1 keeps looking at his phone.
Nothing.

And suddenly.
He’s gone.
Puff.
Like smoke.
Into silence.
He disappears from our lives.
He is with his wife,
He is close by.
But he’s gone.
And she’s gone.

No calls.
No texts.
We hold our breath.
Each day.
Silence.
Each day.
We relax a little more.
Each day. 
We are surprised by normal life.

Christmas comes.
Silence.
No greetings to us or his children.
Grandson No. 1 doesn’t understand.
His tentative
“Have you heard from Dad?”
Like a knife in the heart.

We have our regular January holiday.
This is normally punctuated 
By texts threatening suicide 
And asking for money.
Wife No 2 is also silent.
Unbeknown to us
Daughter has communicated with her.
Instructing (as only Daughter can)
That we have some peace.

During the calm of the holiday,
We have dinner with one of our neighbours.
A retired, ancient catholic priest.
We sit in the evening sun.
We drink red wine.
We eat pasta.
We gaze at the indifferent sea.
We tell him everything.
Beginning to end.
The dreadful years.
The dawning of a kind of acceptance.

He listens intently. 
He doesn’t speak.
He lets us talk and talk.
His gaze is wise and weary.
When we have finished,
He looks at us:
“He’s a grown man.
He has chosen his path.
He must conquer it himself.
You have done all you can.
You must let him go.”

Remember.
“A good act does not wash out the bad,
Nor a bad act the good.”
He must fight for redemption every day.

And now.
We are at home.
I have my strong Husband.
My beautiful Daughter.
My funny, handsome Grandson No 1.
My odd little Grandson No 2.
I have my life.
I have a Son-shaped hole.
I have some contentment.

When I think of those days.
Those terrible, terrible days.
I wonder how we have all survived.
But you do.
As Churchill says,
You just keep buggering on.

I revel in the peace.
For the moment.
But.
The past remains part of the present.
You don’t forget,
You just remember less...


​

I wake to silence,
A grey light seeps into the room.
The stars are gone,
Replaced by a cold indifferent dawn.
The house slumbers on.
I creep downstairs,
Make tea,
Hug the peace.

I dread doors opening
And the day beginning.
I dread Son looming.
But. I know him well,
He will hide in his room till forced out.

I feel like a pencil drawing of myself.
Not quite there.
Husband has followed me downstairs.
“I’ve texted Wife No. 2,
She’s coming round in a couple of hours.”
My chest tightens.
“I’d better rouse him then.”
Horror. Horror.

I knock on his door,
All is quiet.
I open the door. Tentatively.
There’s a fog of fear in the room.
“Wife is coming.
Shower’s free.”
He is glassy eyed and hostile.

I knock at Grandson’s door.
Peep in, whisper:
“There’s to be a meeting soon, it won’t be a laugh.
Keep out of the way.
I’ll let you know when all is quiet.”
He grunts.
I hate that he’s witness to this hideous stuff.
But it is what it is.
Unfortunately.

And so we gather.
In the front room.
Again.
Wife No.2, Son, Husband and myself.
The fire is on,
The rain rains on and on,
Clattering at the windows
They are misting with warm breaths
And terrible words being spoken.
He sits on the sofa.
Isolated. Again.

We all have different views on the situation.
We are all right,
We are all wrong.
The awful thing.
He can’t stay here.
Wife doesn’t want him at her house.
So, where does he go?
He has walked out of rehab.
Truly it’s his problem.
But, as usual, he’s made it ours.
We have to turn him out.

“Teach us to care and not to care,
Teach us to sit still.” T.S. Eliot.

Who wins?
The one who shouts the loudest?
The one who proposes the easiest interim solution?
The hardest decision is to ask him to leave.
No ifs or buts,
Just leave.
That’s my awful answer.
Once said, can’t be unsaid.
Wife says no, no.
But has no further suggestions.
Husband suggests paying for a week in a cheap hotel
While we consider the options.
What options?
What options?

We need to agree.
The outsider is the bad guy.
Wife and Husband remove it from me.
Start to look at hotels.
It’s sticking plaster.
I want to shout,
My answer is too radical.
Too cruel.
I know this.
I stare at a book on the table.
The cover is vivid orange.
There is a silhouette of a kestrel simply drawn.
There are coffee cups.
There are slices of toast, curling at the edges.

Meanwhile we ask him what he intended to do when he walked out.
He is silent as usual.
I’m having a panic attack.
It’s like a huge bird flapping in my chest.
I want it all wiped out.
I want it as we were.
We will never be as we were.
None of us want him.
He has done terrible things.
We love him but he can’t stay.
He can’t stay.
It’s gut wrenching
And he won’t go.

I have said the words.
Me.
Me.
Husband is already ringing hotels.
I understand.
I feel relief, of course.
I look at Son.
He has placed us all here.
I want to kill him.
I want forgiveness.
He is cold, calm and hopeless.

A room is found,
It is booked for a week.
Son brightens,
Problem solved.
Wife drives him to the hotel.
We have a week’s grace.
And what then?

I close the bedroom door.
Undress.
Sink in that bed.
Pull the covers tightly around me.
I’m exhausted.
Exhausted.
And I lie there and sleep won’t come.
He’s in the next room.
I feel his presence, looming large.
Sucking the air from the house.
Panic rising.

I put the radio on.
I switch it off.
Pick up The IPad.
Play some Scrabble half heartedly.
Glance at Twitter.
Look at my downloads.
Can’t be bothered with any of it.
I switch off.
The screen dims, goes dark,
I leave the digital world behind.

I reach for a book.
I am re-reading quite a bit lately.
Strange how you can read something again and again
And still there are secrets in the corners.
More than last time,
More than the time before.
I appreciate the words and cadences.
The construction of a plot.
The tightness of a sentence.
Doors open and close.
How do they do that?
How do they overwhelm me
And place me in a moment?

A good writer makes you love the characters,
Makes you hate them,
Want to sleep with them,
Want to be them.
You become the story,
The place.
You live in their world
And out of it.
Stepping in and out.
I am the book,
I am the story.
I am overwhelmed.
I am crying,
I am mystified.

I have stepped into another place.
I can smell the grass,
I can smell the sweat,
I can smell the petrol fumes,
I can smell the fear.
There is light and shade,
There is pain and pleasure.

Favourite books creep through my life like a shadow.
I look at my shelves and touch them.
There is dust and memories.
I love a clever book.
I love a Victorian melodrama.
Daughter lends me Young Adult fiction.
I am dazzled by the inventiveness and wit.
These are books I would never have read,
I am amazed.

Beautiful writing has no category,
No subjects are taboo.
It lives on.
It fills me with awe.
It reveals by degrees,
It teases, fades, vanishes.
It hangs around me like a whisper.
It touches like a kiss.

And so I pick up Wuthering Heights again.
On this bleak night
I might as well join Cathy and Heathcliff
On those black moors.
Again, I am taken by its strangeness,
Unable to pin it down.
Like trying to catch the air.
All the while it’s slipping through my fingers.
Like mist.

I feel sleep approach.
I close the book,
Put the ghosts away.
Switch the reading lamp off.
Darkness.
I dread the morning...



I

”I’ve quit.” He mutters.
We are standing in the hall in some ghastly tableau.
My eyes bulge out of their sockets,
My intestines are water.
He shouldn’t be here.
I don’t want him here.

I want him in that grim house.
I want him miles away.
I want to know he’s alright.

But now.
I want to step away.
I want to turn the clock back 24 hours.
I want the chance
To run and run and run.

Outside the wind moans,
The rain lashes.
Inside it’s warm and cosy.
He’s brought the chill of the outside in.
That other world which we thought was gone for the night.
He’s a cluster of chaos amidst the calm.

Go away, go away, go away.
“Come into the front room and get warm.”
He is soaked.
He has walked 10 miles.
He is like some sodden sea creature.
He leaves pools behind him.

I concentrate on mundanities.
“Take those wet things off.
I’ll find something of Grandson’s for you to wear.”
I go upstairs.
Husband is awake, staring at me.
He goes downstairs.
I find track suit bottoms, TShirt, hoody, thick socks.
I gather up his dripping clothes,
Give him the dry things.

We are grave and silent and efficient.
I make tea and toast.
I put his wet clothes in the washing machine.
The room is quiet,
The fire hisses.
Outside a storm, rain like pebbles on the window.
Inside another, quieter storm.
Son, husband, me.

I look at him.
It’s like time has stopped.
I feel pity,
Most of all, though, I feel resentful and withdrawn.

I look at him.
I see the child, the boy, the teenager, the young man, the man,
The heroin addict.

I wish I was driving through California in the sun
Heading for the ocean.
Sun glinting.
I wish I was anywhere but here.

I’m not supposed to think like this.
He’s my son.
He’s supposed to come when he’s in trouble.
But I don’t want it.
Father’s questioning him now.
He answers in monosyllables.
There’s a Greek chorus in the shadows shrouded in grey.
There’s no air in the room.
I don’t know what to do.
I don’t know what to do.
What’s going to happen?
What’s going to happen?

He looks embattled and diminished.
I stand up.
“Let’s get some sleep.
We’ll talk in the morning.”

We put him in the spare room
With the ironing board and the storage boxes.
We all traipse upstairs.
Misery hangs in the air.
I dread the morning...

During that long Saturday whilst we all held our breath.
Before he turned up on the doorstep
Like a creature from the deep,
Dripping and weeping rainy tears
Onto the black and white tiles.

My mind wandered around No. 2 Grandson.
He doesn’t get much attention I’m afraid.
He’s a charmless child
Given to spectacular tantrums.
In between the tantrums there are ominous silences.
He is uncommunicative and taciturn.
He seems completely incapable of articulating his problems,
A hard thing at any age, to be fair.

He has a history of eczema
And a few years ago when he was about 8
He started to poop his pants.
He would wet the bed and soil his pyjamas.
All these problems were mainly ignored by the parents.
We became more and more stressed by it.

Finally we risked Mother’s wrath and pushed for medical intervention.
He saw his GP, he referred him to a gastroenterologist.
He was prescribed a stool softener
And eventually, the problem subsided.

I think he has deep rooted psychological problems.
Unfortunately only the symptoms are treated in these situations.
It’s delicate for us grandparents.
We are bad guys by association with Son.
I gave birth to him so we’re the enemy.
I know it’s natural in this scenario.
We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t.
There are eggshells to be walked on.
Many promises have been made and not kept.

The two boys are chalk and cheese.
The older one somehow emphasising the younger one’s inadequacies.
No.2’s schoolwork doesn’t seem affected.
He is in top sets and appears capable.
Despite this he is regularly sick on school mornings.
He is sent home often when he has “vomited” in class.
This appears to be getting worse as he gets older.
We often have to pick him up during the day because he’s been sick.
He always times it so that the spewing is visible.

What’s to be done?
The problem is being ignored again.
He seems loaded with existential angst.
As an anxiety sufferer myself I recognise a lot of his symptoms.
He is too young, as yet, to have learned coping strategies.
Maybe some talking therapy might help.
But who’s going to set that in motion?

So the gap between us and him widens.
The bridges, although not burned, are shaky at best.
We’re too old for additional aggro.
So we stand by and watch as
A child struggles through his life.

And now his father, our son,
Who is responsible for some of the child’s woes,
Stands in front of me
Bedraggled, exhausted and by the look of him
Physically and mentally battered...
.

As the days slide by
There is a creeping silence.
My days tick on full and empty.
Daughter remains a constant,
We text every day.
She visits and Son hums in the background.
We both have a sense of unease.
Husband blocks it out.

He’s been in the dreaded house for about three months.
Three months. Gone.
I lie in bed at night watching a fingernail moon.
Listening to the radio.
Reading.


I’m reading Miss Smilla’s feeling for snow by Peter Hoeg.
It’s a wonderful book.
If I could write like that I would die happy.
This is my second reading.
And it’s better second time around.
To say it’s a Scandinavian thriller is to undersell it.
Published in 1993 before these snowy dramas became popular genres.
Before, even, the arrival of the wonderful Stieg Larsson.
Once again I’m overawed by the clever and convoluted plotting.
The icy landscape.
The mesmerising heroine.
She’s just as awkward, vicious and clever as Lisbeth Salander.
And so, for the moment, I am in the world of snow and the idiosyncrasies of Greenlanders.
It isn’t an easy read.
Not a word must be missed.
I retrace my steps many times,
Flicking back and back and struggling with Danish names.
I learn about the way the Danes regard the Greenlanders
And all the nuances in the relationship.
All evoked with subtle poetic writing.

Anyway.
Dawn appears, birds sing,
The day begins.
It’s a Saturday.
Grandson is coming to stay.
Only one comes now,
The younger boy is complicated and introverted.
We have tried and tried to bond with him.
We realise it’s an impossible task,
He has been damaged.
He prefers the security of his mother.
The older one is the opposite.
He laughs and shouts and twists us round his little finger.

It’s raining and raining today.
On and on.
I text Daughter
She replies,
Backwards and forwards,
This and that.
On impulse I text Son.
There’s a silence like a great black hole.
I feel a bit lightheaded.
I think Husband is nervous, too.
He keeps looking at his phone.

The day passes.
The rain continues to rain.
No 1 Grandson arrives,
We have the obligatory takeaway tea.
It’s a bit grim,
It’s Grandson’s choice, of course.
The upside is that there is no cooking involved.
Always a good thing.
The evening is pleasant.
No 1 Grandson asks about his Dad,
He always does,
I tell him he’s silent at the moment.
He’s always hoping he might see him.

Evening oozes into night.
Blinds down lights on,
Rain still drumming on the windows.
Cars splashing by outside.
It’s a grim night.
We watch a film.
It finishes.
We all prepare for bed.
We gather up devices,
Make drinks,
Poke in the fridge.
Start to return the rooms to their darkened states
Husband has gone up.
No I Grandson and I bicker over a bar of Turkish Delight.
There were three and he’s already had two.

And then.
Like some terrible sound from the fires of hell.
The doorbell rings.
I look at my watch 11.45pm.
Grandson and I freeze.
We look at each other.
“Who’s that?” He whispers.
We both know.
I go into the front room.
I look out of the window.
Standing in the teeming rain.
Soaked and dripping
Bone white, wild eyed.
Son...

And so the days crawl by.
Son remains incarcerated.
When we visit the time hangs heavy,
The minutes hang like centuries
While we all watch each other.
“”How long is forever?” Asks Alice.
“Sometimes just one second.” Replies the White Rabbit.
But. We should have treasured this fragile peace.


Things shift and change all the time.
The Boss likes and trusts him. Hmm.
He is allowed out on Sundays,
He has a curfew of 11pm which he adheres to.
He also drives the works van.
He makes deliveries and ferries people back and forth.
Too much responsibility and freedom, in my opinion.
He’s not entirely happy with the situation,
Likes the change of scene the driving offers,
But thinks they take advantage of him.
His housemates are fickle and argumentative.
He does have his Reformed Alcoholic soulmate, however.
They cling to each other in an intense fashion.

We visit at weekend.
Warm but cloudy. Uncertain rain spits at us.
We order pizzas for everyone.
They come in flat, oil stained cardboard boxes.
There is free garlic bread.
They are soggy and delicious.
Son brews coffee,
Grease runs down our chins.
There are sudden, sharp jalapeño hits.

We clear away.
The bin outside already full of old takeaway containers.
We sit in the darkening room.
His mask slips a little.
We ask him if everything is alright.
This is the question that causes the opening of the floodgates.
There’s only Son, Husband, Recovering Alcoholic and myself
In the deepening gloom.

There is a problem with the van.
Son has had a scrape.
Not his fault, it never is.
He complains about the Boss,
Says he’s blaming him and is insisting Son pay for the damage.
He says he’ll take it out of his benefits.
The Boss claims all the addicts’ allowances and gives them pocket, and food money.
People in the house aren’t pulling their weight.
Son has tried to talk to them.
They’re young, have mental health issues.
Inevitably there is strife.

But. The worst thing.
Reformed Alcoholic Buddy is moving to a halfway house
With a view to entering the outside world.
He is Son’s crutch.
He says the Boss is being vindictive.
There will be someone new in the house
And the balance will change again.
No matter Son’s failings
To me it destabilises an already precarious situation.

I look at Son.
I have that swift, scared thought.
He’s worried.
He gets up and switches on a reading lamp.
In the pool of light his face is blotchy.
I feel a rush of sorrow.
But.
I remind myself
He’s better here than round the corner from our house.
I tell myself it’s his own making.
That is an old chestnut when applied to drug addicts.
There are many complicating factors.

At least he’s safer in this grotty house
Than in that little flat on his own with his cravings, depression and suicidal thoughts.
His presence round the corner
Hung over us like some terrible black cloud.
He does have some sort of company here,
Albeit of the oddest kind.

Nevertheless, I feel something has shifted.
There is an air of hovering hostility.
As usual he is blaming everyone else,
Housemates and Boss for problems real and imaginary.
His Buddy moving out is the last straw.
We feel uneasy and try to reassure him.
We hesitate to say that he has no choice but to stay.
He cannot come home.
It hangs in the air.
We know if he came back home
We would be back in that terrrible cycle of drugs, stealing and fear.

The trouble is.
I’ve seen him manipulate these situations before.
He puts the blame onto others for his problems.
In fact, it’s almost as if he concocts trouble
To legitimise his drug taking.

So we leave.
I feel apprehensive.
Husband says I’m being paranoid.
We’ll see...

He lives in this house
In the savage monotony of a suburban street.
Overgrown garden, peeling front door.
Step inside.
Smell the fear and anxiety.
The situation is neither safe nor normal.
These are complicated, possibly dangerous addicts/criminals.
Rules must be imposed.

These people will take a lifetime to repair.
When we speak to them they have an emotional credibility and rawness.
They also lie through their teeth.
We have to avoid looking too clearly at the situation Son is in.
But he has a chance here to get clean.
And. We have some peace of mind
For the time being, at least.

Amidst all the psychological traumas and dramas
The ordinary day to day life goes on.
House rules have to be adhered to.
So, the normal and abnormal exist side by side.
A sort of hierarchy exists.
Son soon establishes himself at its head.
Trouble is always bubbling under the surface.
There is an instability there.
People suddenly and unexpectedly fall off the rails.

When we visit they all, including son, put on a performance for us.
They are argumentative, entertaining and terrifying.
They’re suspicious and watchful.
They tell us stories which make us laugh and fill us with horror.
We sit on the grubby sofa in this parallel universe,
Endlessly fascinated voyeurs.

So.
Son starts with good intentions
He lives within his means, is proud of his new found austerity.
He works hard in the factory owned by the charity,
He takes his medication and appears to behave.
He helps with the running of things.
The boss is impressed with his expertise.
He is reinvented again as nice guy
Trying hard to keep on the straight and narrow.

He bonds with a recovering alcoholic.
They shop and organise the house together.
They talk about their problems and listen to music.
The ex alcoholic is very seduced by the church and it’s teachings.
He is pleasant and engaging, and seems to be doing well.
They appear to have a good influence on each other.
I look on with suspicioun.
Husband and Wife No 2 are delighted.

One drowsy summer evening we visit with the boys.
We have grudging permission from their Mother.
We don’t take them into the house,
We all go out to tea to one of his local fast food places.
Crispy chicken, pizzas, chips,
Huge cartons of fizzy drinks.
Black and white tiles on the floor sticky with spillages.
Red plastic seats.
Sauce in the inevitable tomato shaped container with its inevitable crust.

Son is pleased to see his boys
And they are equally pleased to see him.
He tells them tales of the inmates,
They all laugh.
The situation is casual, just a little tense.

The happy family charade plays on
Son knows the people in the caff.
They all chat amiably.

While the words bounce around and people smile and eat
I study Son.
At first glance he looks well.
He wears check shorts, blue shirt from Topman.
Scruffy red Toms and bare feet complete the picture.
The boys wear shorts, they’ve caught the sun.
It’s been a hot day.

I continue to study Son.
I have a touch of foreboding.
Considering he has supposedly stopped using all Class A drugs
He looks remarkably well.
Too well.
He says he’s suffering but it isn’t apparent.
There appears to be none of the usual sweaty anxiety.
As I watch him laughing I have an instinctive creep of suspicion.
That’s always there with a drug addict. It never goes.
When the laughter stops he looks haggard.

Moments of relaxation are always tinged by fear.
He has many layers.
This is my son and I want him to be well.
This is also a drug addict who will lie and steal from his family to fund his habit.
And so on this lovely evening
With the sun shining on the grubby tables
And everyone sitting in a bubble of contentment.
I find myself on the outside looking in through the glass
With suspicion...

He is installed, his life is squeezed down into this grim house.
Most of his possesssions are gone.
I hesitate to use the term “fresh start.”
That’s an impossibility, your self is always there, crouching in a corner of your mind.
He can perform and deliver sound bites.
He can reshape his past and his personality to suit any given situation.

The inmates (I use the term advisedly) are unfathomable.
From dark to light in a moment.
Some of them look like they’ve walked off the set of “The Godfather.”

He has been in a week.
We visit, bearing incongruous fancy fruit and snacks.
Upmarket coffee and chocolate.
Please like us, please accept him.
It’s a bright day, birds sing in the neglected garden.
Sun shines through the streaky windows onto cheap furniture.

We are introduced to a mix of the troubled, superficially pleasant and occasionally very funny.
They sneak looks at us, their faces ratty and watchful.
They mainly appear to be uneducated but streetwise.
We sit in a room overlooking the street watching normal (to all intents and purposes) families passing by.
It is a poor neighbourhood.
Of course.
A house for recovering drug addicts among the wealthy?
Heaven forfend.

Son makes fancy coffee for us and his housemates.
They show off, they make fun of his poncy ways.
He laughs, enjoying the moment and the safety of our presence.
When they have sussed us out ( They think. We also shape shift).
They relax and talk.
They vie for our attention.

How they have survived as long as they have defies logic.
Their lives have been mostly wretched.
We’ve all seen the homeless huddled in doorways,
We’ve all hurried past, maybe tossed a guilty coin,
Maybe bought a sandwich they didn’t want.
Felt a brief twinge of sympathy.
Try getting up close-ish, looking into their eyes and listening.
There’s an ex-alcoholic abandoned by family.
He tells us the best place to sleep is near fast food eateries.
You can feast like a king on people’s waste.
There are a couple of heroin addicts gaunt and spotty.
There is a young boy barely sprouting beard hair,
He said he liked being in jail.
“Easy access to drugs, regular meals, a warm bed and you have a laugh.”

They have all been hiding in people’s blind spots.
All with their own private hell and addiction to whatever substance.
All in a place we, in our ordinary lives, can’t really countenance.

There is no quick and easy solution to their problems.
They are damned by society in general.
Religion is on offer here.
The Sunday worship is compulsory.
The Church offers them all a family they never had.
They soon believe in a God and a creed which seems irrational.

A lot of so called religious believers are less than completely convinced.
Faith and rationality appear to be an oxymoron.
You could say that if you find it easy to believe
Then you haven’t really understood.
There must remain a mystery to faith.
This is the paradox.
Most people hold belief and disbelief together in their souls.

However.
It is a straw for desperate people.
We all long for redemption,
It’s at the heart of all human beings.
We journey on, battling and sinning,
Some more than others.
We may think these addicts have sinned more than others.
Sin must be put into context.
Sin and survival are sometimes necessary bedfellows.
These addicts’ sins are unquantifiable.
The church offers them tools to manage their existence.

Son has not suffered like them
Not in terms of physical deprivation and homelessness.
But can we say he has agonised less?
His isolation, despite being in a loving family and warm home,
Is no less stark than theirs.
His is hidden beneath respectability and stylish jeans and trainers.

And so we drop him into this boiling pot of strangeness.
Amongst people whose only common denominators
Are addictions, anxieties, violent pasts and unstable mental health.
What can possibly go wrong?