Ink

Chapter Twelve

You know those family parties you go to – the ones with all the distant relations there, like weddings and funerals – and nobody quite knows what to say to each other? You're all kind of aware that you know each other, and forcing questions and small talk in some sort of morbid caricature of actual knowledge about the other person's life, when all you really know is that they regularly update their Facebook news feeds with pictures of beans on toast, or cats that are scared of cucumbers.

You hear me? Well, at first, it was really like that.

I'd gone straight upstairs, showered, changed, and came back down to a spotless kitchen after my stand-off with Jack– without the dining table, there were just six chairs lined up against the far wall, which I think was the first thing that really fucked my head. With the ammonia still lying thick over the air, and those random empty wooden seats, it was kind of like a makeshift doctor's waiting room, and I wondered if Stix and Tommy were going to make us sit in a circle like an AA meeting or something – shedding our deepest and darkest. That was kind of what the evening was about anyway, right?

I made myself a coffee and leaned against the counter for at least five minutes in the silence, cradling the cup to my chest, contemplating those chairs and what they meant to me, wondering if maybe I shouldn't just pack a bag and get the hell out of dodge.

Scott and Jack trampled into my thoughts as they fell through the back door, with a stack of Domino's boxes that obscured their faces. As he settled his pile down on the worktop, Jack handed me a bottle of cinnamon spiced Jack Daniels, murmuring out an apology "for being a twat" that I couldn't help but hug him for. Jack had always been volatile – he and I were probably most alike in that respect, if I'm honest, he'd always been the one threatening to punch me at breakfast, completely disregarding the beating that would get him from Stix.

After our awkward embrace, Stix and Tommy appeared from nowhere, both looking a bit troubled, and distant – Stix came straight to my side when he saw Jack so close, as though my brother might throttle me at any second, but Jack didn't seem to be bothered by it.

And then we sort of all stood, wooden, staring at each other across the kitchen. We all had the will to re-group, and do this whole family bonding shit, but nobody had any idea where to start. I suppose every family is dysfunctional at their roots, but this was a little bit above and beyond.

For somewhere to look, my eyes went back to the empty expanse that had been the home of my dining table for as long as I could remember.

"I guess we'll have to eat these in the lounge," I gestured to the pizzas, "I don't fancy sitting over there on death row ..."

Stix's low rumble of laughter broke a little of the awkwardness – the others just kind of stared at me, like they didn't have a clue what I was on about. Stix settled himself next to me on the sofa, Tommy on the armchair to the right, Scott to the left, and Jack leaned against the wall near the fireplace, so it sort of did feel like circle time in the end, after all. Everyone was deadly silent – the only sound in the room was the shifting of cardboard on cardboard as the various boxes were passed around us. Nobody had put any music on, or the TV even, as though none of us wanted to take the gavel and open up conversations, even in the most mundane fashion.

It must have only been minutes – food was still hot when we got to it – but it felt like days and days and days. Awkward silences probably wouldn't be so effective if they were shorter, would they?

And then all any of us could hear was Scott's chewing, and as I watched Jack give him evils out of the corner of his eye, trying not to ruin the mood but his look mirrored my own impatience – and really, the whole thing was a bit absurd, so I got a fit of the giggles that just cracked straight through the empty air, and that set off Jack and Stix as well.