Chapter 28

28

Like a grim-faced police officer who’s first at the crime scene, Joel patrols the downstairs of the house. The kitchen is terrible. The sight and stench of it makes his stomach heave. Bottles and cans and dirty glasses have been dumped on every surface, some with cigarettes stubbed out in them. There are sticky puddles of beer and smashed crisps all over the floor. The smell of weed and smoke, with a base note of stale booze, evokes the heady fragrance of student parties from his youth. But he’s not a student now. He’s a fifty-two-year-old man – and a father. He thought he could trust his kids! He bought them a KFC and McDonald’s and this is how they thank him!

From there, sensing that it will be even worse than the kitchen, he steps into the living room. There he surveys the Christmas tree lying broken, the baubles smashed, pine needles everywhere and the window cracked. The rug has been liberally doused in red wine, and the presents, wrapped so carefully by Shelley, have all been torn open and scattered about.

A reusable coffee mug, which he remembers Shelley being determined to buy that day at the shopping mall, is sitting in the middle of the floor filled with some kind of murky liquid. He doesn’t know who the other presents were meant to be for. Shelley had taken care of all that. To Joel it’s just a load of random stuff lying in a sea of torn wrapping paper and shiny ribbon and bows.

He sits gingerly on the sofa, taking care to avoid the various spillages on it as he’s still wearing his best trousers, the ones he’d picked out for his night with Carmel. Martha and Fin hover, looking pale and queasy, at the door. ‘This,’ Joel announces, ‘is a nightmare.’

‘I know,’ Martha murmurs. ‘I know, Dad.’

‘I can’t believe you did this.’

Fin sniffs and peers down at his trainers. ‘Sorry, Dad.’

‘Sorry?’ Joel glares at him. ‘As if that makes it all right?’ He jumps up and gestures wildly. ‘Look at the state of this place! The pair of you – I don’t know what to say. But there’s going to be consequences, I’ll tell you that. If you think you’re getting off scot-free then you’re very, very wrong. Because I’m going to—’ He breaks off because he doesn’t know what the consequences should be. Where is Shelley when he needs her? She always knows what to do. The kids are her area. But she’s living it up in Scotland with her friends!

‘We did try to clear up,’ Fin says in a small voice.

‘Really?’ Joel scoffs. ‘You mean it was actually worse than this?’

‘Yeah.’ Martha nods. ‘We did try. We’ve been up for hours, Dad, cleaning and?—’

‘When’s Mum back again?’ Fin croaks.

‘Christmas Eve. I’ve told you already?—’

‘We’re sorry, okay?’ Martha interrupts, fixing her father with a look. Although she’s clearly a little shellshocked – and hungover – now there’s a flicker of something else too. Defiance is what it is. Why is she looking at him like that? ‘It was only meant to be a little gathering,’ she adds. ‘But then all these other people came?—’

‘Oh, so big boys did it?’ he barks.

‘Some of them were quite big,’ Fin mumbles.

Joel blows out air as he tries to wrestle his thoughts into order. Nothing has gone right since Shelley decided to book herself a little holiday with five minutes’ notice, leaving him to deal with this crap. Well, fuck it, he decides, stomping upstairs now to see what else is in store for him on this, the shittiest of days – actually the worst day of the year so far. But maybe something else has yet to top it? There’s still time.

He flings open the bathroom door. There’s vomit in here – obviously – and he wonders briefly what young people drink these days, because when he was a teenager his was never neon orange like that.

Joel doesn’t bother checking the kids’ bedrooms. If they’re trashed then they can live in them like that. Serves them right. Instead, he hoofs up to his studio, his heart racing now. Surely no one’s been up here in his lair, his precious space? Not at the top of the house. Why would they?

He opens the door with some trepidation and his gaze sweeps his desk. The slab of teak the size of Kent is littered with more bottles and cans and there are several little dark brown marks on it. Burn marks where cigarettes have been stubbed out on it, he realises. Sheer and utter vandalism! He feels as if he might cry. But now fury has surged up in him again.

‘Martha!’ he yells. ‘Get up here now!’ Joel squeezes his eyes tight shut, hoping that when he opens them again everything will be normal and it was just a terrible mirage. Surely no one would burn the desk of a renowned graphic designer who once delivered a keynote speech at Glasgow School of Art?

But it’s not a mirage. His studio with its thousands of quids’ worth of tech has been used as a party den. He spots a few items from the living room in here: the tall ceramic vase, the pink glass candlesticks and the ailing cheese plant. Stranger still, some vaguely familiar yellow patterned fabric is draped over his ergonomic swivel chair. On closer examination it would appear that these are his trousers from the nineties – his phat pants – which would suggest that someone has also been in his bedroom, raking through his wardrobe!

‘MARTHA. FIN. GET UP HERE NOW OR I’LL KILL YOU!’

He hears them whispering, either conferring or trying to apportion blame, as they approach. ‘That’s nice,’ Martha mutters, ‘threatening to murder your children.’ They appear in his studio doorway, pale as snow.

‘Oh, shit,’ Fin breathes as he surveys the room.

‘Yes. “Oh shit” indeed.’ Joel notices now that, although his guitar is still sitting on its stand as he left it, two strings are broken. He exhales and looks around again, his gaze stopping suddenly. He steps forward and stares at the small expanse of bare desk, in between all the party detritus. ‘My new laptop,’ he says.

‘What?’ Martha frowns.

‘My laptop! Where is it?’

‘I don’t know, I wasn’t up here?—’

‘I didn’t do anything!’ Fin says quickly.

‘Then who was up here? Who did this?’

‘Honestly, I have no idea…’ Martha shrinks back as he storms around the room, checking shelves and desk drawers in the feeble hope that it might just have been ‘moved’.

Joel pushes past his kids and flies down the stairs. Where the hell is it? Not in the bathroom, he’s been in there, unless some joker dropped it into the cistern? As he’s less than keen to see the state of his kids’ rooms right now, he swings into his own room, the room he shares with Shelley, who should be here right now. Here to help and support and do something more useful than get pissed with Lena and Pearl?—

‘Dad?’ He’s conscious of his daughter hovering next to him, giving him a curious look. It strikes Joel that someone else looked at him that way today: that preposterous dancing Christmas tree woman in the street.

‘What?’ he shouts.

‘That thing there…’ Martha seems to recoil, and at the same time Joel becomes aware that not only is the bed unmade, duvet and pillows and even the sheet tossed around as if in a storm – but that someone is in the bed. A small young male with dark curly hair. A child, for Christ’s sake.

As Ajay stirs, feeling much better now after his sleep, Joel feels as if he might faint. Not because there’s a kid here – a kid he semi-recognises but God knows what his name is – but because Martha is staring right at him and, with a wave of horror, he realises what it must be.

‘ Daaaad ,’ she says slowly. ‘What’s that on your neck?’