A story (well the opening lines of one)

I wake up. I want to kill my mother. OK? So what? I want to kill her every morning I wake up. But today is different. It’s a special day to me. This Thursday morning is the Silver Anniversary. It’s been 25 long and lonely years since that day. That day, THAT DAY, I have never forgiven her for what she did. And every day I have vowed revenge. But it takes courage to plunge the knife, to pull the cord around her rotten neck, to drop one pill too many in her black coffee, to watch her suffer and die. Every day I have concocted one of a thousand gruesome deaths to satiate my raw desire to avenge my father’s memory, to deliver the final deserving blows (one of many).

But why has it taken 25 years of pain and still I haven’t fulfilled my ultimate goal? I will tell you why. Because it has taken me 25 fucking years to find her and she doesn’t even know I know where she is.

In the beginning it was a tough childhood. Brought up on one of the roughest estates of glorious post-war rebuilt Britain. Bruised, battered, neglected. In short screwed up. A drunken mother and an absent father. Well, absent if down the pub away from the harridan of a wife qualifies.

So what was the balance sheet of childhood like? Education - none. Love – even less. One of four unfortunate, unwanted urchins, forced to steal for our tea. The oldest of four unkempt, reviled, revolting bastards. The scourge of the estate. First there was me, Graham Anthony Payne, then 2 years later the first of three sisters, Caroline Melissa. Then the twins – oh the pain that mother must have suffered bringing TWO little bitches into the world. Mary-Jane and Grace. Grace!! Never was a child more misnamed. So lacking in civility. But who could expect any more?

Father worked – when he was sober – on the docks as a stevedore. We barely saw him, save for Sunday mornings. He would go out before we woke, and return, drunk, past midnight, angry and looking for sex. We heard the repulsive noises through the thin walls as mother would “satisfy” him, briefly, Four little bastards, one bedroom, no hope, no future.

Father, we called him Father but we didn’t even know if he was. Poor bastard. Threw himself off the top floor of the estate one Sunday morning, 25 years ago, 25 years ago today. Couldn’t take anymore of the bitch. She drove him to it. Drove him to drink, drove him to the arms of prostitutes (Uncle George told me this much later). And I never forgave her.

It’s been 25 years, Nine thousand one hundred and thirty two days, and not a single day has passed when I haven’t plotted my revenge. How appropriate today would be I thought. What a perfect memorial, a perfect moment to pay her back.

My wife turns over, moans, goes back to sleep. Work seems a long way off this cold November morning. I can almost feel the cold wind through the windows as I stare at the barren fields beyond the garden fence. Birdsong permeates the crisp morning.