Darren sat in the car and watched the lights through the high windows. On the top floor of the social club lights flashed reds and blues like the scene of a homicide, and Darren wondered if the choice of venue was a deliberate one.
He could not believe that no one had realised.
At first, it had angered him, but then he slowly considered the possibility that his Grandmother simply liked the place. She was old enough now – seventy was it? – that she didn’t have to make decisions based on how they affected others. Darren supposed that the old had that right. They had paid their dues. There had to come a time when they could stop paying them, and reap some of the rewards of a lifetime of compliance. There was also the chance – perhaps it was even likely considering her state of mind at the time – that she didn’t even remember the place.
The music from inside the building was loud enough that he thought he could feel the vibration through the floor of his rusted old VW Beetle. Originally the body of the car had been an electric blue, and he had paid someone to accent it in a bright yellow. Inside had been mostly yellow, but now most of it had accumulated enough grime for it to be closer to a soiled brown.
He couldn’t sit here all night contemplating his ruined car.
Well, he could, but it would not be worth what he’d have to endure later if someone found him out here. So, he climbed out of the car and locked it up. He wondered why he bothered expending the energy on the action, there were far nicer cars around than the Beetle, and there was nothing in the thing worth stealing.
The ground underfoot was springy, sponge-like, and as he walked towards the social club he had the uncomfortable feeling that he was walking on the flesh of some huge sleeping animal.
Darren had been out of sorts since he woke. He hated waking from a really bad dream. It often hung with him for the whole day. Polluting every thought with a morose dissatisfaction. It made him avoid those he loved and drew him to those who were best avoided. It made him hate his car and sit outside family gatherings with nothing but darkness in his heart.
Darren did not dislike family get-togethers, he disliked the person he became when he was at them. Always thinking, never content. Seeing old rivalries everywhere and seeing new ones festering in every look.
He opened the door and automatically took the stairs leading to the second floor, knowing this was where the function room was.
He remembered the building clearly from his Grandfather’s wake.
It was doubtful anyone would have recognised any of the music being played. Even if the DJ had chosen tracks from the appropriate era the proliferation of bass destroyed any chance of its identity being discovered.
It seemed that the young liked it that way. Darren supposed it could never be too loud for them, and it seemed that the older participants had long since lost enough of their hearing not to care.
For a moment Darren stood outside of the door, looking in through one chicken-wire re-enforced window. He watched as here and there someone tried to converse with a companion. Their faces were pinched and they all had hands cupped to their ears. Other people were content bopping along with the bass line, the only part of the music they could hear.
The homicide scene lighting was timed to the music, flickering and blossoming in response to the sound. Darren slipped into the room between the strobes of light, sliding to the side of the door and pausing in an attempt to allow his eyes time to adjust.
Further away from the dancefloor the music became a little more bearable, and the flashing lights became less insistent. Here he could see the person he had come here to see. This is where Lizzie Mallard – whose party it was – had chosen for her throne.
She was far enough away from the dancefloor to hear people speak around her, and far enough away from the door to watch those who entered without being seen.
Darren grinned, or so she would believe.
Lizzie – celebrating her seventieth – leaned in to speak to her daughter.
The younger woman, Darren’s mother, responded with something that made the older woman laugh but from where Darren stood he could not make out what it was. The music was muted here but still loud enough that conversations had to be spoken loud, and up close.
The younger woman grabbed the two empty glasses, a banknote held between two fingers of her right hand, and a short argument ensued. Lizzie placed a hand on her daughter’s arm, and the two women sparred, the daughter using her relative youth, while her mother relied on her experience.
The youth won and the daughter left, glasses in hand, for the bar.
Darren hovered on the edge of Lizzie’s periphery and waited.
His Grandmother blinked and wiggled her head slightly as if trying to find her focus. Darren grinned, perhaps it was her eyes but he suspected it was the drink.
“Darren!”
He moved in closer and she hooked a hand around the back of his neck like a wrestler. Surprisingly strong hands dragged him down, and she planted a single dry kiss high on his cheek beside his eye. Darren slid into the booth seat next to her, and his Grandmother placed her hand on his forearm.
“You are a terrible grandson.”
“I know.”
“Why don’t you visit?”
“I’m lazy and good-for-nothing.”
Lizzie looked at him. His hair was too long and he had a few days’ growth of stubble. Perhaps she thought it was “designer”, but more likely knew it was just “lazy”.
“At least you’re an honest boy, where’s that girlfriend of yours?”
“I don’t know, we split up.”
“I’m sorry… but she wasn’t a good one anyway Darren.”
“I guess not.”
It hadn’t been working for a long time, but it wasn’t her fault and Darren knew it. It wasn’t his either, he’d done nothing wrong apart from being himself, and perhaps that had been reason enough.
“Hey!” Lizzie called and Darren jerked his head away, feeling the immediate numbness in his ear. “Come ‘ere!”
Then Darren was once again assaulted by another woman in the family as his mother roughly wrapped her arms around him and kissed his forehead. For a moment it was as if he was still a child in single figures rather than a man with his own – now quite empty – flat.
“What are you drinking Son?”
“No, it’s okay, Mom.”
“Get him a pint of cider. He likes cider, don’t you Darren?”
“No, really, it’s okay.”
Darren watched as the two women completely ignored him, engaged in another of their pointless battles. He had seen it enough times to know that his Mother would win, but he suspected that it only happened because his Grandmother wanted it that way.
A few moments later Darren watched his mother walk to the bar.
“Neither of you ever listen.”
“I’m your Grandmother; it’s my job to be right.”
“I never said you were right.”
“It’s my party…”
She shrugged as if that explained it all.
“How old are you again?”
“Never you mind…”
Around them, figures joined the dancefloor, while others made unsteady journeys to the bar.
A silhouette waved and Lizzie waved back.
Darren remembered the dream, the one that still unsettled him.
“I had a dream about Granddad.”
Lizzie stopped waving and sat back.
“You did?”
“Well, I think it was about him… It was weird. I was speaking to you and Mom in a park. We were watching people play some game and then I saw Granddad on the edge of the field shouting like a coach at a football match. I tried to call him but then suddenly I was in Granddad’s garage. I was trying to find something. You poked your head in through the door and told me that Granddad was going to be angry at me for messing things up.”
“Then what happened?”
“I remembered that Granddad was dead, and I told you. Then you said it didn’t matter, you’d see him soon and he’d be annoyed with you for letting me mess things up.”
“Hmm…”
“What?”
A glass hovered in front of Darren’s face, the homicide lights flashing through the amber fluid. He took it and his mother slid into the seat opposite.
“What are you two talking about then?”
“Nothing. His girlfriend’s ran out on him.”
“She didn’t run out on me, we split up.”
“She’s no good, I told you…”
“I told him…” Mother interjected.
“So did I…” His Grandmother agreed.
“Oh, Lord!” Darren groaned.
“Why don’t you visit more?” His Mother asked, then turned to Lizzie. “I tell him to, I do…”
Darren put on a serious face.
“She does, Nan. She does…”
His mother slapped him on the arm in that playful way that only mothers could. The mark would be there for at least the rest of the night.
“I know, Mom; I know… I’ve got to get myself sorted.”
“You always say that.”
“Leave the boy alone, it’s not his fault he’s…”
Lizzie trailed off, searching for the right word.
“Stupid?” Darren offered.
“You’re not stupid!” His mother exclaimed.
Lizzy shifted in her seat uncomfortably and Mother and Son’s eyes both moved to her.
“Okay then… Where’s the Ladies?”
Mother and Son both point in the same direction.
“.. and where’s my walking stick?”
The music was dimmed by distance, the sound muffled by brick and wood. The corridor leading to the restrooms was empty and voices drifted from those closest to the function room door.
The staccato clack of a walking stick broke through the murmur of bass.
Shuffle, clack, shuffle, shuffle, clack.
Darren thought the triangular woman on the bathroom door looked like an art-deco representation of a preppy 50s teen.
Lizzie moaned softly under her breath, the response to quiet exasperating pain.
“You okay?”
“It comes and goes. Everything just stops working after a while.”
“I know the feeling…”
“You’re a child.”
They shuffle along a bit further.
“I had a dream the other night too…”
“Yeah?”
“Your Granddad and I were sat in the front room. He was in his chair with the newspaper over his arm like he used to be, and I was in front of the fire. We were young and I think your mother was just a baby, or it could’ve been your Aunt Mandy. I was knitting and he was talking about his day.”
They reached the door to the Ladies and then they stopped.
“He was talking about his work; he was a foreman or something… he said he watched over people. He told me he had spent the day talking to his father about the best way to deal with some news he had to deliver…”
Lizzy shook her head and reached into her pocket for a handkerchief to wipe her eyes. She leaned forward and hugged Darren. Darren didn’t move and felt her lean her weight against him, the moment slowing, drawing out.
Eventually, Lizzy pulled away.
“Look, I’ve messed myself up now.”
She took the handkerchief, an old-fashioned one that would require washing, and blew her nose.
“The strange thing is that your Granddad never knew his father at all; he never came back from the war.”
She turned and opened the door to the Ladies, but that’s as far as she got. For a moment she did not move, then she looked over her shoulder at her Grandson.
“Wait for me?”
”Nan?”
Lizzy paused a moment more, her old eyes still sharp. Darren fought for the words.
“I’m sorry…”
“What for?”
“For being a crap Grandson…”
Lizzie sighed and allowed the door to swing closed in front of her. The stick clacked and her legs shuffled as she turned and took three steps back to him. It seemed so laborious to Darren, so riddled with pain, each movement took an age.
She kissed him on the cheek, her hand pressed against his other cheek. She stood back a little, her hand still resting on his face, the touch like a feather.
“At least you’re an honest one.”
She turned and walked into the bathroom.
Shuffle, clack, shuffle, shuffle, clack.
“Love you, Nan…”
As the door swung closed Darren thought he heard a muffled “love you too” in return, but he wasn’t sure.
Darren waited. The music from the function room changed to something slow, and he waited. The sound of chatter and music in the background faded to silence, and he waited still.
He thought of the dream.
He hated waking from a bad dream.
It never truly felt as though he were awake.
The lights above him flickered, and he remembered.
“Oh, Nan…” He mumbled, and tears stung his eyes.