Soldier On: Chapter One: Part One

Scotland has a reputation for being cold and wet. Tonight was just another example of justification for such a reputation.

As the wind howled and rain lashed against the grey fascia of the front of the terrace, Jamie burst through the front door of the end house and out onto the garden path. He had no idea where he was going but he knew he couldn’t possibly stand another minute at home tonight. It was a cold and wet Friday evening in early November and while he’d been struggling through another day of mind-numbing and soul-destroying office work within the local hospital, his mother had spent most of the day working her way through bottles of cheap white wine, sitting in utter silence awaiting the moment she could explode with verbal kicks and volleys upon her son’s arrival home. Jamie stood still in the front garden, breathing deeply in an attempt to calm down and trying in vain to shield himself from the heavy rain using nothing but his cold, trembling hands.
If I go back in there tonight, I could end up killing her.
He didn’t want to kill her, nor did he have any intentions of doing so, but more than a decade of almost daily abuse from “Alcoholic Amy” was enough to test any son’s temper. One particularly vicious comment from the very woman who’d brought him into the world could set him off and maybe, just maybe, he would end up flipping out and doing something crazy. Insults hurt most people at the best of times but Amy, even in her drunken state, knew exactly how to push Jamie’s buttons, and could cut through her son’s feelings with a razor sharp blade made of resentment and cruelty. Jamie knew deep down that he probably wasn’t capable of murdering anyone, never mind his own mother, but it wasn’t a chance worth taking.
Her excessive drinking had begun a few weeks after her sister, Jamie’s aunt Karen, had propelled herself off of the roof of some multi-storey flats not far from the family’s East Kilbride home. He was a bit too young at the time to fully understand what had occurred and lead to his mum’s alcoholism, but to a bored 10-year old kid a drunken person could be a very funny show – especially when it was your own parent with the slurred speech or hilarious stumbles. Besides, his dad had always been there to drag her off to bed and clean up the empty bottles and puddles of bodily fluids, leaving Jamie free to chuckle away at the state of his funny, intoxicated mother. Even as he reached the teenage years, Jamie could bear it. He felt ashamed and embarrassed by his home life, but did a successful job of keeping it hidden from friends, neighbours and teachers, and generally just came to accept in time that it was the way of the world and the hand he had been dealt.
But that all changed when his dad, or “Disappearing Donald” as Jamie liked to now call him, had landed a lucrative job in the oil industry 18 months ago, moving permanently into a classy Aberdeen hotel and leaving Jamie in charge of the Dunlop Household. It was then that he began to look at his mum in a new light. No longer was she the sad drunk battling with the tragic death of her sibling. That bearable, almost acceptable perception had been replaced by the heartless and abusive parent whose selfishness and cruelty was matched only by her need to be consuming alcohol from sunrise until unconsciousness. She was a vile creature and Jamie knew his life would be better off without out her around.
I could kill her? No, of course I’m not going to kill her.
He wiped the rainwater from his face with an equally wet sleeve, took one last deep breath and stormed out of the garden.


Lynsey stared into her double Jagermeister and Red Bull as the conversation at the table washed over her. These were her friends – practically her family – but she always felt alone without her boyfriend nearby. Sandy and JP were busy talking about football, something Lynsey didn’t know anything about anyway, and Fran was too busy checking his texts. She had a quick look at her watch. There were thankfully still over two hours before last orders.
I wish Jamie was here.
Her eyes darted up from her drink and she began to analyse the pub. A couple at the next table sat holding hands and staring lovingly into each other’s eyes. They were the epitome of a wonderful happy life full of love and laughs, something that Lynsey had never experienced. They made her feel sick. She continued to scan the room. Two girls in ridiculously short skirts, low-cut tops, and far too much fake tan giggled uncontrollably near the front door, attracting the attention of the majority of men folk in the pub. They were the embodiment of the attention-seeking females who Lynsey despised. The kind of girls whose lives revolved around trying to make sure there was at least one pair of male eyes on them at all times, and whose fashion sense at weekends screamed “RAPE ME!” They made Lynsey cringe. Her eyes set off once more. Sitting at the bar a few of the older locals sipped from their whiskeys and discussed what horses they were betting on the following day, lost in the usual routine of every other night of the week. Despite being with friends, they still seemed sad and lonely to Lynsey. She could identify with them.
I fucking love this pub, despite some of the morons that drink here.
This was where Lynsey felt at home – where she felt safe. Her flat in the Anniesland area of Glasgow was simply somewhere to sleep, but as soon as she walked through the front door of the Pig & Elephant in the centre of East Kilbride she felt all her sadness, all her bouts of depression, and all her cravings for heroin subside. The moment she smelled the strong fumes from the lager and Aftershock soaked carpet, heard the Britpop from the 1990s jukebox, and spotted one of the many barmen or barmaids she knew by forename, her brain packed up all her demons and squeezed them into a tiny box. Like a tourist attempting to pack far too many clothes into a suitcase, she always knew the box would burst open eventually and the demons would flood her mind once again – but for the duration of a visit to the Pig & Elephant, things were manageable.
Lynsey’s pub surveillance was interrupted by the sound of Fran coughing, as he dropped his phone back into his pocket.
“That was Jamie,” he explained, “he’ll be here in ten minutes!”
Lynsey smiled. Only on the inside though.


Standing in the pouring rain, Sandy sucked on his cigarette as hard and as quickly as possible in order to get his required hit of nicotine and get back inside the Pig & Elephant quicksmart. The pub had never quite adapted to the smoking regulations when they’d been brought in a few years ago, and smokers were left to face whatever adverse weather conditions were on the go at the time in order to relieve their cravings. And tonight was not a night for smokers.
Why the fuck didn’t I bring a jacket
Sandy was a t-shirt and skinny jeans kind of man. He would always justify not wearing a jacket to both his friends and himself with the explanation that wasting time in a queue for a nightclub’s cloakroom was a waste of valuable drinking time. It always made sense when he was getting ready to go out, but his fashion sense was not a fan of the ice-cold wind that had engulfed East Kilbride this evening. Even his hair was a problem. His parents didn’t approve of their son’s long wavy hair and scraggy beard. “Back home in Turin they would laugh at you Alessandro”, his dad would often say – sometimes in English, sometimes in Italian, but always with a face etched in fatherly disappointment. Haircuts always seemed to be high up on the family agenda. And perhaps they were right – his hair soaked up the heavy rain like a sponge and would provide rogue drips for the rest of the night, like little droplet prisoners escaping a shaggy jail and racing down his face in their bid for freedom. But his parents didn’t understand his life. They were Italians who had moved to Scotland to open a chip shop before Sandy had even been born. He was Scottish born and bred with proud Italian roots. He was a fashion icon. He was a philosopher, a poet, and a singer-songwriter. But he was also a full-time employee of East Kilbride’s only Italian chip shop, Di Maio’s. That was the reality, but only until his big break came calling.
I’m a rock ‘n’ roll star, the world just doesn’t know it yet.
A recognisable blue car pulled up a few metres from where Sandy stood and out climbed a soaking wet Jamie.
“Fucking hell, man!” Laughed Sandy, stubbing out the last of his cigarette on the wall, “Did you drive here with the sun-roof open?! How the fuck can you be so wet inside your car?!”


“I’m just going to the toilet.” Beamed JP. Fran rolled his eyes and Lynsey replied with a knowing look across the table as John-Paul lurched away from his chair in the Pig & Elephant and into the gent’s bathroom. A quick scan of the small toilets was enough to dismiss JP’s concern that he may have company, and he threw himself into the empty cubicle with all the enthusiasm of a hungry dog throwing itself into a mound of leftover bacon. With the speed of a Wild West gunslinger, he removed the small bag from his sock and within seconds he had set up two large rails of cocaine on the toilet cistern. His pre-rolled ten pound note was produced from his jacket pocket like a gun from its holster, and after just a few moments both lines ceased to exist.
Who needs a job when you’ve got good gear?
As his heart began to race, he sat on the toilet seat. He was itching to get back to his pint of lager, but leaving the toilet so quickly after another trip would probably arouse suspicion amongst the bar staff so it was best just to give it a few minutes. JP loved charlie but this would be his last for a while, or at least until he managed to scrounge some money together. He hadn’t quite worked out how he was going to finance his life for the foreseeable future. His employment history was a long list of short spells at call centres, newsagents and takeaways that either sacked him, or would have sacked him if he’d stayed around long enough. His last job washing cars had actually been pretty enjoyable for a while in the summer, but he quickly lost interest when the cold weather set in. Turning up drunk and three hours late last week had been the final straw for his employers and it was game over as far as another job went. But JP wasn’t overly concerned. He knew he was a decent enough guy who, although work-shy and perhaps a little loud and idiotic at times, was still above most of the dregs of society that he shared the dole queue with. He was also an eternal optimist. Things would undoubtedly work out for him and he’d get a new job soon enough. And he’d get the girl eventually as well.
JP’s temporary reflections were interrupted by the sounds of a newcomer to the toilets as well as a sudden burst of Class A fuelled energy. He propelled himself to his feet and, with the cocaine safely tucked back inside his sock, he was now free to flush the toilet while leaving the cubicle just for that authentic touch. A passing comment to the stranger about how horrible a shit it had been just sealed the deal before he bounded out of the door.


“You know I love you too.” Sighed Fran, “Look, I’ve got to go. Jamie will be here shortly. I’ll see you when I get home.”
Fran didn’t mind his girlfriend’s phone calls, but he always felt guilty in the aftermath when he knew she was at home alone and he was out with friends at the Pig & Elephant.
Maybe I should have just asked Claire to come along?
It was a tricky situation. His friends and Claire were from two completely different worlds and, although he personally didn’t have anything to hide, it was probably best if those worlds didn’t collide. Claire was the responsible adult, the sensible type who preferred a bottle of wine, a DVD and an early night as opposed to an evening of full blown carnage. She was also completely anti-drugs. Fran wasn’t a drug user, but he wasn’t completely against their use either. It was hard to be when three of your best friends enjoyed the use of such delights as cocaine, ecstasy and cannabis, and your fourth best friend was a recovering heroin addict. Fran doubted whether Claire even knew his friends used drugs but having her around for longer than she needed to be just wasn’t worth the hassle regardless.
Aye, it’s definitely better this way.
There was no need for the guilt anyway. He’d enjoy a few drinks with his closest friends, then get a taxi home to his nice flat and his wonderful girlfriend for a good night’s sleep. Everything in his life was pretty great, even his job was enjoyable and well-paid, and it would be a shame to spoil all that by worrying too much about trivial things.
But his good life, in itself, was a problem for his conscience.
He was the only one of his group of friends who was actually happy. He was like the only pearl-producing oyster in a polluted sea of old depressed tyres and empty beer cans struggling to cope with the monotony of the same tides day after day. And it was mere thoughts like that which made him feel terrible. Most of the time he felt guilty about being “the happy one” anyway – but occasionally he’d feel smug about it, and then that just led to him feeling guilty for feeling smug. It was a horrible state of affairs.
Jamie’s mum was slowly drinking herself to death and his dad had upped sticks to Aberdeen, Sandy didn’t seem to have any ambitions out with his ridiculous dreams of being the next Pete Doherty and seemed destined to spend the rest of his life serving fish suppers in his family’s chip shop, and just last week JP had lost yet another job – not to mention his drug use which seemed to be spiralling out of control. And then there was Lynsey. She had more problems than the other three put together, from eating disorders and battles with depression to all the joys and delights that go with a former junkie having nine or ten months off the smack, cold turkey style.
His friends were fucked up. But they were his friends, despite how fucked up they were.
As he switched off his phone, he caught a glimpse of Jamie & Sandy making their way into the pub, thoroughly drenched by the Scottish rain. As he acknowledged Jamie’s arrival, he took a seat at the table with JP as Lynsey hopped up from her seat and embraced Jamie like he’d just returned from the war in Iraq. Soon the five friends were positioned around their usual table with drinks in hand, and everything seemed right.
“Okay kids,” began Jamie, raising his freshly poured yet flat pint in a toast, “let’s get absolutely hammered!”
There was a short clinking of glasses and cheers of approval, and then the session began.


Urgh, I feel dreadful.
Jamie wasn’t the type to suffer from hangovers. He wasn’t sure whether, at 22, he was just young enough to deal with the consumption of large quantities of alcohol without the dreaded morning after, or whether the many nights of debauchery had conditioned his body into a drinking fortress, impenetrable to the mere idea of a hangover. Whatever the reason, the first few moments upon waking up the day following a heavy session were still always hard work.
As he built up the energy to lift his heavy eye lids, Jamie took one almighty stretch. As his arms reached over to the other side of the mattress, he could feel the back of a head. As his pupils finally settled on a particular size and his eyes became adjusted to the morning light, he instantly recognised the high ceiling of Lynsey’s bedroom.
Last night had been decent, at least what he could remember of it. He hadn’t been in the best frame of mind upon his arrival at the Pig & Elephant, but after a few drinks with his friends everything was ticking along nicely.
I can remember up until chucking out time in the pub… but then what?!
There were a few brief crumbs of memory from last night floating about in Jamie’s mind, but nothing particularly substantial. He could remember spending some, if not most, of the early hours in Shaboodles. It was the local night club, the best in East Kilbride definitely, but comparing it to the majority of nightclubs throughout Scotland was the equivalent of Equatorial Guinea entering their best swimmer, Eric Moussambani, in the 2000 Summer Olympics. The strong taste of salt and vinegar still present in Jamie’s mouth suggested to him that Sandy had opened up his chip shop after the nightclub in order to get some drunken food. And now he found himself staring at the ceiling in his girlfriend’s flat in Anniesland, so presumably there had been a taxi involved at some point as well.
Unless…
The motivation to get out of bed that Jamie had been seeking hit him with the force of a freight train. Suddenly he was back in reality. He threw his body out of bed and darted to the window, scanning the street below, his eyes searching for the roof of his small blue Rover. Surely there was no way he had driven all the way to Glasgow in the state he was in last night? After numerous detailed checks of each parked car, just in case his own had formulated some sort of cunning disguise during the night, he let out a relieved sigh and turned to face the bed, where his beloved was still out cold.
She was gorgeous. Even with smudged mascara she was gorgeous. But she didn’t know it, or she just refused to believe it.
Jamie, Lynsey, JP and Fran had all been in the same class at Primary School and had quickly become good friends. The three boys found common ground with their mutual dislike of all things school related, and soon added Lynsey – the misfit of the class and the one person who actually seemed to hate school more than they did – to their number. Even back then she had been guarded and withdrawn, occasionally disappearing off of the face of the planet for a week or two before suddenly returning to school with the explanation she’d ran away from home, but not made it very far. At high school Jamie had became fascinated by her. To everyone else she was “Sid” – the quiet and weird punk who looked like she’d just dropped by the school en route to a Sex Pistols gig – but to Jamie she was a close friend and quickly becoming his first love. But after they’d left school it seemed Lynsey had finally succeeded in running away. They’d all went on to do different things after sixth year  – Jamie tried studying publishing at college, Fran had went to university to try his hand at some complicated computer-based course that Jamie couldn’t really understand, and JP had kicked off his employment merry-go round – but Lynsey just seemed to vanish. Regular texts, phone calls and nights out quickly dried up, and then soon Sid ceased to exist – in Jamie’s life at least. He’d constantly worried about her. She’d always seemed a little unstable and Jamie often feared the worst. But thankfully, she had reappeared a few months later in the form of sporadic text messages and the occasional inebriated phone call. For a couple of years it continued – enough communication to reassure Jamie that she was safe, but never enough to let on where she was or what she was doing with her life. By then, the space for a fourth member in Jamie’s group of friends had been filled by Sandy – the guy a couple of years older than him who, every weekend, seemed to be serving him chips after a trip to Shaboodles. It seemed destined that Lynsey’s whereabouts were to remain a mystery and the foursome just got on with living life at the weekends, the way they had become accustomed to.
And then one day, just under a year ago, Lynsey had returned to East Kilbride.
It was a day of truly mixed emotions for Jamie. The moment she walked into the Pig & Elephant, he had felt his heart sing. It was a pathetic cliché, but it was true. He had fallen in love with her at high school but had never built up the courage to tell her, and here she was – walking back into his life after being positively AWOL for over three years.
But it wasn’t Lynsey McShane. The sunken eyes, the shuffled walk, the vast void of emotion – this was merely her outer shell. Jamie had embraced her with open arms, but felt devastated at the sight of his once closest friend.
After a few days though, the couple had reconnected. Jamie felt like he’d been Alexander McKuen in Journey to the Centre of the Earth during that time, finding himself being allowed to explore the mind of the girl he’d loved at high school, but knowing all along that it was a treacherous journey that few, if any, people had ever untaken. Somewhere underneath all the darkness the old Lynsey was still there, pleading with him for help. It had left him utterly heartbroken.
And then there was the skag.
Wherever Lynsey had been, whoever she had been with – she had returned home decimated by heroin addiction. Jamie was a recreational drug user himself by that time, but he despised smack and, although he still loved the essence of Lynsey, he found her exterior to be repulsive and disgusting.
One night, a few weeks after he’d discovered Lynsey was a junkie, he’d sat in his bedroom, locked away from his drunken mother, and had looked through all his old photos of the two of them. In not one photo did she appear to be smiling, but Jamie had reached a quick conclusion. He would be the brave knight on the glorious white steed, who would ride into the very depths of Sid’s hell and sweep her off to a better life. He was the solution to Lynsey’s problem, he was the cure to Lynsey’s disease.
It had been difficult at first – the tantrums, the insults, the bouts of violence. At times he had used his holidays at work simply so he could lock himself in a room with her away from drugs, and spent day after day on the receiving end of the kind of abuse he was already used to at home.
And then, he had succeeded.
One day, Lynsey just hadn’t seemed to crave brown anymore. Her need for heroin appeared to have just evaporated into thin air overnight, much like John Leslie’s television career, and after all those years she had finally fallen for Jamie. In Jamie’s mind, he was her saviour who had led her to the Promised Land and won her heart. And for a few days at least, it had been wonderful. All her problems seemed to have vanished and Jamie felt like he had finally found the Lynsey that had been locked away all of her life. But soon the depression had loomed back over her like a darkened rain cloud, regularly producing the vicious thunderstorms that had led to self-harm, anorexia and a greater use of other drugs such as charlie and grass, and Jamie had realised that heroin hadn’t been the cause – it had simply been her medicine and without it, Lynsey’s demons ran amok more and more.
Nothing much had changed since then. They were still together and still in love, but Lynsey hadn’t seem to get any better. If anything, her battle with depression seemed to be a fight she was slowly losing, and as the weeks without smack went by she seemed to need Jamie around more and more, as though he had somehow replaced the skag as her medicine.
It was a shit situation, but Jamie tried to remain optimistic.
If I can cure her of the smack addiction, I can cure her of the depression.
It was perhaps a very simple, and probably misguided, way of looking at things, and Jamie knew that. But he felt somehow duty bound to one day be able to sit and look through photos of him together with his beautiful girlfriend, in which she was smiling and laughing.
There was brief eye contact as Lynsey awoke before she quickly shielded her eyes from the morning sunlight. Jamie approached the bed and knelt beside her.
“I’m going to get a taxi back to the pub to pick up the car.” He whispered, “But I’ll meet you at your parents’ house for dinner tonight.”
“Mhmm-mhmm.” Lynsey managed in affirmation.
Jamie leaned forward and kissed her forehead.


“Just a bottle of H2O please mate.” Repeated JP. The greasy looking man behind the fried onions handed him a bottle of lukewarm water and took payment. As John-Paul stepped away from the run down snack van, he looked at his purchase – water was just water, it was the most common liquid on planet earth and was generally pretty boring, but on mornings like this it was the most refreshing and most appealing drink in all the Universe – a magical potion created by God himself, a wonderful antidote to combat the poisons that had polluted JP’s bloodstream from the night before. It had been a particularly chaotic night. Everyone else had seemed pretty subdued, so JP had taken it upon himself to get his own party started. After a gram of coke in the Pig & Elephant, he had managed to secure a few good quality pills from DJ Phil, Shaboodles’ resident disc-jockey and drug dealer to East Kilbride’s dancefloor crusaders, and had spent the rest of the night dancing like a maniac and flirting with the prospect of heat exhaustion. When the others had headed home, he had found himself in a run down council flat with a few club casualties playing Guitar Hero on the Xbox and generally just making merry with the last few cans of cider in their fridge. It had been another successful night as far as he was concerned, but about an hour ago the comedown had hit his vulnerable and unprepared body like a heavyweight boxer’s right hook and left him wandering East Kilbride’s grey streets on a Saturday morning in search of somewhere that would offer him sweet, sweet water, before he headed home to the comfort of his warm bed and DVD player.
The first stage of his recuperation had been a success. The water had been quaffed and was now bursting into his bloodstream like reinforcements sent to bolster his body’s defences in its combat with dehydration and serotonin depletion. Now he just had to undertake the short walk home.
As usual, he felt quite optimistic about the day ahead.
It didn’t last long.
As he turned to make his way over to the other side of the road, he caught a glimpse of a Rangers shirt whose large wearer appeared to be grinning at him. JP closed his eyes and felt his optimism slowly slip away.
Oh fuck.
“Alright tarrier?” Laughed the smiling blue mass.
JP decided to stick to his own side of the road and, keeping his head low, he started to walk quickly away.
“Don’t fucking ignore me, son.” The frightening entity slowly made its way across the road. JP ground to a halt and he turned to face the aggressor.
William was JP’s worst nightmare, his arch-nemesis. He was a large, fat man in his early 30s, with a rectangular face and small eyes like two peas on a door mat. He was a vicious bully who seemed content to get his kicks from picking on those smaller than him, and at 5’7” JP was an easy target. The dodgy tattoos on his forearms depicting British Bulldogs and Ulster flags, and his constant use of words like “tarrier” and “fenian” made it pretty evident that being named John-Paul O’Donnell didn’t endear JP to him.
“Jamie still with that junkie slut?” William’s eyes peered at JP, a smirk across his face.
John-Paul just nodded. He didn’t really have a choice. He despised William with all his being, and normally wouldn’t let anyone talk about Lynsey like that, but he was also absolutely petrified of Jamie’s bigoted cousin. JP could be as loud and as offensive as the best of them, but he wasn’t a fighter. And not only was William a truly frightening opponent, but he was always around. Whether it was the pub, club, or even just a morning snack van like today – William almost seemed to be able to sniff JP out in East Kilbride, like a shark sensing one drop of blood in twenty five gallons of water. More often than not, the short Catholic lad had his friends there as back-up. Fran was a kickboxing champion and Sandy, although slight, could throw a good punch – both of them hated William, and William knew it. Furthermore, William was scared of them. Even Jamie’s presence was enough to ward him off, the bigot wasn’t scared of him but he did have a sense of family loyalty and would never touch JP whilst Jamie was around. But this morning was different. JP was alone and vulnerable.
Please just go away. Please just leave me alone.
William leaned closer to him. “That’s a shame,” he began, “I’ll just need to hope that the wee slag overdoses on her smack.”
JP tried his best not to make eye contact, but it was difficult when your pupils were the size of dinner plates.
“And as for you,” snarled William, “I could cut you apart right now, fenian. But I’ll let you wait for it. Sleep with one eye open, son. Now fuck off.”
John-Paul let out a harsh breath and scurried up the road.
He didn’t look back.


After a few minutes of searching, Jamie spotted a space between two of his neighbour’s cars and parked up. His street was always busy during the day, with one small street left to cater for the parking needs of twenty houses. He turned off the ignition, stepped out into the afternoon sun and strolled towards his front door.
Maybe, just maybe, she’s sober.
Jamie had left the car outside the Pig & Elephant all night, so today could potentially be the day that his mum had woken up hungover and decided she couldn’t face walking to the local shop, opting to stay sober for the day. It could happen. It had to happen sometime, surely? As he entered the living room, the brief dream died.
“Fucking get out, you prick!” Amy had been on the red wine today, the stained lips were a testament to that, reminiscent of Heath Ledger’s Joker in the Dark Knight, although he would probably have been terrified of Jamie’s mother.
Just ignore her. Get some lunch, get a shower, get changed, and get out.
Jamie headed towards the kitchen in the hope that there was something edible in the far reaches of the fridge or cupboards. There never was anything particularly appealing. His mum was a regular visitor to the local shop, but very rarely for anything solid. She had however, picked up a loaf of bread some time in the last few days, and Jamie had come across a packet of Quavers in one of the cupboards above the sink. Lunch would be a piece and crisps today. It was better than most days.
“You’re not my fucking son!” Amy had managed to co-ordinate her feet just long enough to carry her into the kitchen, where she now grasped onto the door in order to keep her upright. “You’re a piece of shit, just like that junkie girl of yours.”
Jamie could feel a slight tingle in his toes. It was an interesting sensation, as though someone had just emptied a can of Deep Heat onto the tips. The feeling began to defy gravity – his feet, his calves, his thighs, soon he could feel it in his torso, his arms, his neck. By the time it reached his face, his heart was pounding faster and faster. He could feel a deep, scarlet rage building inside him despite his best efforts to fight it.
Just relax, forget about it, she’s drunk, she didn’t mea…
He exploded. He didn’t know what took the damage first, it might have been the pile of dishes next to the sink or Amy’s small collection of porcelain salt & pepper shakers on the shelf next to the fridge, but as he turned to face his drunken mother, the floor was littered with white shards and Quavers rained down from the sky, like little cheese-flavoured paratroopers.
He wasn’t done yet. Jamie launched himself through the doorway, barging his drunken target to the floor, and rampaging into the living room. If he was going to calmly leave the house having not strangled his mother, then everything in the room would have to feel the force of his anger. The school photo of Jamie from primary four on the wall, the antique clock on top of the television that his dad had bought at an auction in London, the lamp he had given his mum as a birthday present when he was a kid, even the tatty old curtains on the windows - he tore through the living room like a tornado ripping through the middle of a shanty town. With every inanimate object that was destroyed, Jamie could feel the heat returning to where it came from, and within minutes even the tingle in his toes was just a distant memory. He looked around the living room, breathing slower with his heart almost returning to a normal beat. He had left the place looking like a set from an earthquake movie, and he could feel himself taking a little bit of bizarre pride from it. He caught sight of the now smashed antique clock on the wooden floor and noted the time, or at least the time it had been 30 seconds ago when the clock had been forced to stop.
Fuck the shower.
He would bypass the change of clothes as well for today. There was just enough time for a stop at Di Maio’s to see Sandy, and then onto Lynsey’s parent’s house in Hamilton for dinner. He took one final look at his enraged handy work, stepped over his sobbing mother in the hallway, and left.