The Broken Pane

1992

Early phone calls, the ones which drag you from sleep, are rarely good news.

We all know this.

I was dreaming I had left something important somewhere safe, but did not know what or where, I was running in and out of different houses, different lives, looking for it. I was pressing a doorbell; it rang and rang until it became the shrill ring of the phone in the hallway. I pulled myself out of bed, the sheets and blanket reluctantly letting me go, stumbling on autopilot to pick up the receiver.

M’yeah?

Tam? Have you seen him?

It was Lou. My brother Nicky, who I nicknamed Bugs, had not been home for several days.

It was not unusual for them to have quarrelled.

But this time was different.

Everything shattered.

Try as I might, I could not piece it back together.

Bugs! It’s me. Come on, let me in!

Nothing.

It was both odd and familiar to stand at the front door again, keys in hand, pulled from my bag out of habit. I noticed the green paint was peeling, more so in the parts that had been damaged through the years and re-touched with varying shades that did not quite match. The old-fashioned lock and the brass letter box, matching the number on the door. Unchanged after all these years.

I raised my fist and knocked.

I listened.

Silence. I knocked more resolutely but no response came.

I started to turn away, but as my ear was now positioned towards the door, I heard something. The radio was on. He must be in then. It could be no one else. I knocked a final time.

I’ve not got time for this, I need to see you and then I’m off to work, I’m coming in!

I selected the Chubb lock key first for the top lock, and then the main skeleton key, inserted it and leant back to get a better prise. The lock was stiff, as it had always been, so I pulled back on the handle, giving it the exact wiggle that it needed, just as my Nana had done the first day that I was brought here. As the door unlocked, I pushed it forward, against a few envelopes that jammed up against the door. I grimaced and scooped them up, dumping them on the hall table along with my handbag.

Nicky, it’s me, Tam. Wake up! Lou called. C’mon, I need to get to work.

The hall was filled with the grey light of an unloved place. Ahead, I could see that the kitchen light was on, the yellow glow anaemic. I walked down the hall, passing the under-stair cupboard to my left, the sitting room to my right, all beige, brown and saggy.

The kitchen was an absolute tip. The table was strewn with empty bottles, overflowing ashtrays. All the counters were covered too. Crumbs, crumpled empties, cigarette papers, filters, clumps of shredded tobacco, a half-litre vodka bottle, beer bottles. As though he had been out partying with his mates, had a late one and left the detritus for the morning.

Except there was only one chair, pushed back under the table.

Everything was positioned towards the chair, even a cigarette that had burnt down the most of its length and lay in the ashtray. Only one person had made use of all of this.

How long had this been going on?

The sound of the radio came back into focus. Where was it coming from? I titled my head to work out which room. Somewhere upstairs. I thought he must have passed out drunk or high in his room. The memory of the time I found him lying in his vomit flashed in front of my eyes. I needed to get to the chemist to open the shop, and I certainly did not want to be scrubbing a carpet in my work clothes.

Get up Bugs! The place is a mess. I’m not cleaning this up again, you know! This is totally disgusting. For fuck’s sake!

I marched up the stairs, irritation rising fast. I had told him not to stay here unless he was prepared to keep it tidy. I had always cleaned up after him. I was fed up with it.

I pushed the bathroom door open. It had been years since the lock had been forced, never to work again.

There he was, in the bath. Asleep.

No. Not asleep.

I screamed.

I took a deep breath.

I think I screamed again. It was a strange guttural sound that exploded out of my ribcage.

I was on my knees.

Lying there in the bath was my brother. His blonde head flopped back against the edge, the pink-brown water, his arm rested on the side of the bath, and a brown trickle ran from his wrist. The paring knife lay on the floor. The thought that he looked like some sort of morbid art installation flickered across my conscience.

I am not sure how long I sat there, on my knees. I was not even sobbing. I sat, staring at my little brother Nicky, until I noticed my feet and legs had gone numb beneath me.

I had not taken my eyes off him once.

I pulled myself up, out of the doorway, backwards, eyes locked on him as the door shut. I let my leaden feet guide me down the stairs, across the narrow hall into the living room to the telephone. I picked up the old-fashioned handset and rang 999, turning my finger three times around the dial, listening to it click back.

"Which service do you require?

Hello?

Is anyone there?"

I blinked. I took a deep breath.

"Hello. I, um, my brother, he’s ...

I tried to swallow. My mouth was dry. The words choked in the back of my throat. The operator said something.

My brother. I think he’s dead. He’s dead. Help. Please. Help.

Ma’am, I’m dispatching someone to you right away. Was there an accident? How old is your brother? Can you tell me any more about what happened?

The next fifteen, twenty minutes or thirty minutes were a blur. I spoke to the dispatcher, sinking to my knees again, on the floor. I could not move. The image. His body. Every blink. Nicky, Nick, Bugs. Why? How?

Beautiful baby brother.

But not a tear. Not even one. Dry. Immobilised. Chest tight. Throat locked. Brownpink water. Ears rushing. Shoulders tight.

The police and some medics arrived. I must have left the front door open. First they came to me in the living room, but I pointed up.

A policewoman helped me from the floor and led me to the sofa. Her black and white checkered necktie seemed to hover in front of my eyes. Evidently, I had not said a word since they had arrived, and a brown-haired police officer had taken the phone handset from my hand. He spoke into the phone and hung up. He nodded at his colleague and went to stand in the hall.

The policewoman started to ask some questions which I answered unthinkingly, but she stopped after a couple, and looked me in the eye. She put her hand reassuringly on my shoulder.

I’ll be right back.

A few minutes later, she re-appeared, putting a hot cup of sweet tea between my hands.

There you go. Drink that. It will help a bit. I’m going to get the medic to take a quick look at you, OK?

The medic earnestly informed me that it was shock, and I stared at his hands, the funny tuft of hair sticking out from under his wristwatch. He told me I might feel cold and shivery a bit later, and with that, he left.

I noticed my hands were clammy on the hot mug.

Looming above me, the police officer returned and pulled out a small flip notepad. I looked down and lifted the mug to my lips, closed my eyes, breathed the steam in through my nose before taking a big swig. It went down well even though I hate sweet tea. I looked up and I was able to start answering her questions – name, age, relationship with Nicky, his name and age, when I last saw him and what his state of mind had been.

A man in a brown suit came and told me gently that Nicky was indeed dead, and his body would be taken to the mortuary. Did I want to see him again before he left the house? I glanced towards the stairs, which I could see through the doorway, and saw a black shape on a stretcher being carried out.

It stopped quite suddenly, the black shape seeming to hover diagonally behind the door frame. I blinked. Mrs Ranjeet’s head, shrouded in bright pink and gold popped into focus, the most incongruous vision, her ordinarily cheery face set to high concern.

"Tam! What an awful – is it a robbery? You don’t stay here much now, an empty house is always a, well the thieves, they know, you know. So many police! At least they came, they don’t always, did I see an ambulance? Was someone hurt? Oh chotu, shall I put on the kettle? You can tell me ..."

She trailed off into the kitchen, still chattering, and my eyes focused back to the stairs, now empty.

That was it, Nicky had left our childhood home forever.

I hadn’t been there when it happened.

I knew what it was.

I was supposed to always be there.

I was supposed to look after him.

Mrs Ranjeet bustled back in.

"Now, chotu, there was no milk or biscuits, and we can go to my flat if you like? You know, I thought I heard you calling out. How lovely to see you! You never stop by anymore. How are you? How’s the job? Are you fine? Good, good!"

She swept me up into a warm embrace, the familiar scents of cumin and Pears soap enveloping me. She launched herself into a barrage of news.

They were off to India the next month to visit Old Mrs Ranjeet, who had moved back a few years before. I was so rarely around anymore, I was looking too skinny, and I should catch up with her properly.

I nodded and pulled a smile across my face, forcing my sore eyes to open wider. I loved Mrs Ranjeet, who had been a kind, warm and maternal presence next door all my life, I wanted her to make it alright.

I could not bring myself to say a single word.

She seized my hand firmly, kindly, and looked straight into my eyes, so that I would know that she had something important to say.

She had been worried about Nicky, and he had not seemed right recently. He had turned up a few days before, and he had not been out of the flat at all, not even to say hello.

She had heard him shouting one night, though she could have sworn he was alone, and another he had played music extremely loud. She emphasised the loud. What was more he’d had been eating fast food, which was something she frowned upon greatly, as he should have invited himself round and joined them at mealtimes.

She added that it was good to see me here, that I was needed. I had no idea what she meant. She told me that she had tried to offer him help to clean the flat so that she could get in and properly check on him, but he had refused.

Nicky and I had always been glad to know she was next door, not that we ever did run to her in an emergency. I squeezed her hand back, and nodded, saying that I would see her soon, that I would come for dinner, and to send greetings to her husband, love to the boys.

Somehow, I thought, she had missed it. The obvious thing. How could she not have noticed the paramedics, the morticians, the stretcher carrying Nicky away.

I could not find the words to point it out to her. I did not say Nicky is dead to her. I could not say Nicky has killed himself.

A throat cleared somewhere above my head and Mrs Ranjeet looked up over me. She smiled and bobbed her head.

Of course, officer, you’ll be wanting to get your statements. I’m along the hall, next door, you’ll want to know if I heard anything. Terrible though, all these break-ins, I’ll write to the Council, we need more Bobbies like you on the beat.

Her voice followed her and the officer out of the sitting room, right out of the front door.

Let me know, Officer, if she needs me. I’m Mrs Ranjeet. No, j-e-e-t. That’s right. I’ve known them since they were ...

Eventually, only the policewoman and the tall brown-haired officer remained. She sat down beside me, and gently took a now-cold cup out of my hand. I must have been holding it for well over an hour. My hand felt cramped and stiff. Mrs Ranjeet’s cups remained full on the chunky coffee table.

And you’re sure there’s no one we can call? We can run you home. Or Mrs Ranjeet next door maybe?

I’m fine, thank you. I should be at work. I need to go to work. I’m opening the shop. I have the keys.

The police officers exchanged looks. They told me that it was past midday, that work had already been taken care of, and with reassuring noises, the sort you might use with an animal or young child, guided me out of the flat, down to their car, and away, towards my own home.

I stared out of the police car window.

Bugs, it wasn’t that bad. We were OK. The ogre was gone.

1973

I do not have a first memory of my little brother. I do not remember my mother being pregnant, or her telling me that a baby was coming to live with us. There is an awareness of Nicky’s presence in my life that appears in my childhood recollections, like a bright light. Can anyone honestly say they remember it all accurately?

My mother, Ange, was pregnant again at the age of twenty one. Not an unusual age to be pregnant in those days, though her contemporaries in the maternity clinic were all anxiously patting their first bumps, asking her for advice on cots and layettes.

Shortly after her twenty-second birthday and a relatively quick labour that lasted under three hours, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Nicholas James.

This time round, my father Mick waited at the hospital, pacing the halls of the ward, grinding one finished cigarette into the standing ashtrays before immediately lighting the next, breaking only to refill his coffee cup, seasoned with a top note from his flask.

A young nurse came to find him in the late afternoon:

Congratulations, Sir, it’s a healthy baby boy.

To the nurse’s surprise, he hugged her in delight. Mick, I mean Dad, always said that she had looked flabbergasted. He only ever used the word when he told this anecdote, savouring the use of it. I suspect he was not entirely certain of the meaning and had picked it up at the time to use in this specific context. I could never use it without picturing my father, sodden in his cups, welling up over the tale of the birth of his son.

He told it well, the birth of his second child, there at his wife’s bedside as soon as he was summoned, how tenderly they kissed, the baby nestling between them. The room was warm and clean, my mother’s blonde hair gently cascading down a shoulder, glowing with her light of happiness, basking in the joy that he had bestowed on her, a perfect boy.

This vignette was often repeated, the beats familiar, and we, his audience, knew to sigh contentedly at the end of the telling.

Nana’s dear friend George came to the hospital a few hours later with me clinging to his enormous hand. He held a camera in the other. With it, he took one of our very few family photos. They may have had an unconventional relationship, but he knew how to step up to the part of Grandpa, albeit unofficially.

In it, my father sits on my mother’s left-hand side, half on the bed with a foot still on the floor, his right arm behind her, supporting himself. She is sitting up, with my brother wrapped in a puce pink blanket cradled in her right arm, and I am sitting in front of them all, by my mother’s right knee, a grinning four-year-old, a mass of unruly black curls with my new blue teddy, Mr Blue, that Nana had given me on the day.

Photographic evidence that we could be a perfect family, no cracks on show.

Truth be told that I do not remember that day. The image is imprinted in my mind, soundtracked by the tale of Nicky’s birth.

I do have a few memories from the following year, the year of my fifth birthday. Like the time my friend from nursery school came round and we spread newspapers on the kitchen table and Mum got us paints and paper. It can’t have been Becky. I didn’t become friends with her until primary school. We daubed it all gleefully and laughed. I have incorporated details such as eating biscuits, and smearing paint on each other’s faces. I am able to remember it clearly because there is a photograph of us, our blue, yellow and green hands waving at the camera. I like this memory.

Mick, I mean Dad, swept me up into his arms every morning, with a be good, Duckling and a kiss on the forehead. Then he set off to work, giving Mum a peck on the lips on the way out, and I would run to the window to wave, my hair set neatly in bunches.

It was a perfect snow globe time in our lives. I recall being held up so that I could, look down into Nicky’s crib at the sleeping baby, his farm mobile playing a tune as it cranked round, the bright pink pig somehow more incongruous than the blue sheep. I revisit myself sat playing with a rosy-cheeked infant. I paint it in my mind as a warm and happy time, all together. I know this because Mick, I mean Dad, has often told me the stories of how good it was back then, when my mother was a gentle angel, I was a good girl and Nicky was a precious gift.

One of Nicky’s favourites from the Book of 101 Jokes which he carried about for weeks was What is the opposite of a snow globe?. He would stare intently at the adult he quizzed for a moment before shouting A lava lamp! and burst into peals of giggles. His audience would laugh too, relieved to be off the hook. I always thought that wasn’t quite right as a lava lamp has the same mesmerising effect as a snow globe. The exact opposite would be disturbing to watch.

There are times in your life you can hold like a perfect snow globe, some memories are the exact opposite lava lamps, made of real lava, too hot to hold in your mind.

1975

I sat, holding a book as a shield, in a corner of the playground. I was only seven, but I preferred to sit alone over running with the others. I watched the new girl. It was her second week, she seemed to be well liked so far. They were playing hopscotch. I looked back down at my book. The illustration on the cover showed four children walking through double yellow doors into a wintry pine forest.

Why don’t you play with the others?

I looked up, straight into the face of the new girl. She was tall for our class and I felt like I was looking up at an adult. I didn’t know what to say. I lifted the book. She smiled.

I love to read too. I’m Becky.

I know. I’m Tam.

She sat beside me, tucked her brown hair behind her ear and launched into telling a great long story about the Scotland Street School in Shields. The laughter of long dead children could still be heard along the corridors, their laughter rang out at night when they liked to come out play. I was enthralled. The bell rang. Becky ran ahead to the classroom. I was barely back on my feet when she reached the door.

The next day, I peeked over the top of my book and watched her playing at break time. She was skipping rope and waved at me. I waved back. She ran over.

Want to skip?

I don’t know how. Do you have any more stories?

Come. I’ll show you.

I went over. She nodded at one of the other girls who handed me the skipping rope. Becky flicked hers behind her. She hopped from one foot to the other, flicked her wrists and the rope arched above her, swooped down. She nimbly skipped over it. She swung it over again. She made it look easy.

As she had, I hopped on my feet. I flicked my wrists. The rope pulled up the back of my skirt. I felt my cheeks go red. I wanted to run across the playground. Becky was watching me. I tried again, swung the rope. It caught on my hair, hit my shins. I could feel the blood rise to my ears. The other girls were watching me.

Don’t worry, my arms are a bit longer, I can get the rope going better. Next time. Do you want to be the clapper and make a rhythm?

When break time finished, Becky ran ahead again, but after school, she waited by the gate.

Want to walk home together? I know a great story about Cathedral House. It was a halfway house for women prisoners. One woman had been away from her two children for so long that she didn’t recognise them and drowned them in a bathtub. You can still here them giggling and playing on the top floor.

I listened intently to her all the way home, committing the tales to memory. From that day onwards I spent every break time with Becky. I tried to sit beside her for milk time if the teacher was not paying attention. I walked home with her. Somehow the other kids still liked her even though I tagged along. With Becky at my side, they smiled and said hello.

Her birthday was soon after that. A group of us went to the park. She told me afterwards that I was her best friend. I was a dark-haired scrawny thing. She was tall, with a big grin and the confidence to go with it. Everyone noticed her. I was hidden in plain sight by her side. A perfect friendship.

1983

The light from the big street window in the waiting room at the Funeral Director’s filtered through, past large display boards advertising their services to passers-by. The carpet was striped grey, beige, and black. The wallpaper had a coral sheen to the brown geometric pattern. The effect of the contrast with the pale green motif on the chairs was making my eyes swim. The scent from an immense bouquet of lilies cloyed at the back of my throat.

I was clutching a bag of clothes for my little brother Nicky. A pair of smart jeans, a jumper, a shirt. I brought socks, shoes, and pants too. The sympathetic lady on the phone had not mentioned those, but it seemed wrong to send him off without them. I had tried to find his Star Wars t-shirt, only to remember he had outgrown it years before.

The funeral parlour was on the route to the Odeon cinema, which is why I thought of the t-shirt. We only went there once all together, to see Return of the Jedi. Nicky had wanted to go on the Clockwork Orange, Glasgow’s underground light rail service. It wouldn’t have made sense though to walk down from Buchanan Street so we got the bus. George promised him they would go all the way round the circular together another time. I don’t know if they ever did.

Waiting outside, under the enormous marquee, George told us that both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones had played there in the 1960s. Mick said all he remembered from the ’60s were endless nappies. Nicky was not listening. He was bouncing on his toes, banging on about Boba Fett and something called a Sarlacc. I rolled my eyes. Star Wars had been everywhere. The actors were on Blue Peter. The school playground was a trading hub of cards. There was a column in Just Seventeen on the dos & don’ts of dating Mark Hamill, whether he was a better brother or boyfriend. We hadn’t seen the first two films, but Nicky knew everything about the stories. He would draw landspeeders and storm troopers to swap for the comics with his friends. His pictures were so good that even the older kids sought him out.

He was working on a large hand-drawn version of the film poster which he hoped to swap for an AT-AT from the Jolly Giant. I didn’t think anyone would go for that deal, but Nicky had a way of charming people into giving him what he wanted. That was why we were all there, Nana, George, Mick, Nicky and I, even though Bugs was the only one interested in the space films.

We were inside and he was yammering about the AT-AT when Nana strode across the foyer brandishing the tickets. Nicky squealed and did a victory dance in front of everyone, pulling his Star Wars t-shirt over his head and drumming on his tummy. There had been queues around the block for weeks, so I had warned him that we might not get in at all. He knew well enough this might be his only chance. Mick laughed. He half joined in before stretching his arms out, like a circus master, and took a bow.

The Great Nicky, Ladies and Gents. World-famous clown.

There was a thin, indulgent applause. Folding back, Mick started up a conversation with another father in front of us. He had a gift for banter. I retreated behind George’s robust frame. I hated when Dad was silly and flamboyant like this. It was a warning sign.

Boys, eh? Love to be the centre of attention, don’t they?

By the time the line started to move, Nicky was like a dog straining at a lead. We walked countless steps until we found our seats in the cavernous auditorium. The room was packed with over a thousand people. I hoped I would not need the toilet as it would be impossible to find my way back through the steep bank of seats.

I don’t remember the film. Science fiction was never of great interest to me. I had not got on with Jules Verne when the librarian had suggested his books. I liked Little Women and The Secret Garden. It was nice to all be together for a change. Mick, I mean Dad, rarely did anything fun with us. Nana sometimes took us to the big park in the summer. Of course, George always came too. Everyone assumed he was our Grandfather, though he didn’t live with Nana. No one expected older folk to be unconventional in that way. There were mornings when I could not understand how George was at Nana’s house quite so early.

The curtains drew across the wee stage at the