Memories — Chapter One
My earliest memory goes back to twenty one years ago. I was five, Mum was twenty two. I always remember how I knew I loved her, even before I was old enough to properly understand the concept of loving and being loved. A sweet, naïve young woman, my mum. That’s what I understand of her from before I happened, anyway. Rebecca. Open minded, she loved God and science and folklore and magical things all the same, which is admirable to me. She still loves all of those things, I reckon. She’s never stopped being gentle, even when a strict Catholic family and a sixteen-year-old’s mistake left her growing up all too quickly.
I’m that mistake, by the way. Hi. Hello. A six-pounds-three-ounces bouncing baby boy that would cry for three weeks straight, would make the thin council flat walls vibrate with shrill, meaningless bawling. Such a joy, right? Mum thought so. The neighbours would bang on their ceiling, our floor, yell, wake me up when I’d finally stopped to sleep for half an hour, but she’d never complain or make a fuss or let on that her life was a hopeless, bottomless pit that took the form of a shitty block of flats in Liverpool. (You’re probably wondering now how a poor northern boy such as myself got all the way to London, but that’s another story, and right now I am telling this one. Deal with it.) I was always given the best childhood she could manage, and in return I loved her as much as a child can. We went to church every Sunday. For all that her family had done for her, her faith had remained and I inherited that faith when I was the purest version of myself. Some things stay with you, you know? But then, sometimes, things happen. These things bury themselves into your very core, and then instead of those things staying with you they lock into your spirit and become a defining part of who you are. That’s where this memory begins. It’s not a happy memory of my fifth birthday or of a puppy that I found on a street corner only for us to become best friends that fight crime.
This memory is of darkness.
I was a five year old that did not naturally enjoy to be good. Usually I could make myself; as aforementioned, I loved my mother dearly, and I was conscious even then that I should make an effort to do things I did not want to do. It was just the two of us, after all. We did not have the time or resources to mess around. I remember walking with my mother, along the pavement with her hand enclosing mine. It was a Sunday, so naturally we were walking to church. I remember how sunny that day was. The skies were desperately blue, winning the battle against the very few clouds in the sky. I did not want to visit church that day. I was pulling back, scuffing my old shoes, complaining about everything and nothing, and pulling the harshest scowl I could possibly manage. Mum never told me off, of course. She only attempted to soothe my irritation with kind words and promises of sweets at Londis after Mass. Still I pulled this way and that to get free, with the intention of walking all the way home again on my own.
It was by chance that I managed to slip free of Mum’s hold that morning, and in surprise she only watched as I scarpered left to the road beside us. As I am well sure that you can imagine, when a child runs unexpectedly out into a road it’ll never end well. Yet, you know that I’m alive now at twenty six years old, so it isn’t the worst case scenario this time. I remember being frozen to the spot when I saw that car rumbling along like a wild stampede, and I remember how the car swerved this way and that. Out of control, the car squealed and screeched and I stood with wide eyes. What I remember most was the way Mum shrieked in horror, enough for anyone with a heart to cringe in sympathised pain. She was to lose her baby boy, she probably thought, because she could not hold his hand properly. Yet inexplicably, a turn of events that morning meant that I did not die. The car swerved out of the way, so narrowly that just the force of the wind sweeping past me knocked me back onto my arse, and collided into the iron railings of our church. Mum ran over, all teary-eyed and panicked as she scooped me up into her arms and cried out that she was sorry and she’d never let something so ghastly happen to me again. I’m seeing stars at this point, but I clearly remember how I looked at that church, how it had taken the car instead of letting it flatten me onto the road like a pancake (I thought that was what happened when people were hit by cars, as a five year old; lay off). All those times she’d told me about how Jesus died for our sins left me with a distinct impression that although I had done a bad thing, the church itself had taken the damage and I’d been left stricken with a sense of being very alive. Deep stuff for a five year old, right? I’d always been a bit like that, really. Came from being the man of the house— man of the flat, even.
I remember asking my mother later that day if God had meant for the car to hit the church instead of me. She replied that God would do anything for me to be safe and sound, so long as I loved Him. I told my mother when I was five years old that I always would, because I did not ever want to be flattened into the road. Mum said that perhaps I should still be careful around roads and cars anyway, and I agreed.
Five years ago, I escaped that fire unscathed. Need I elaborate?
