Yes, nine, because Daddy came to my party and sang Happy Birthday to me.

Faber: Look at your hands, Mack. And your arms. What do you see?

Mack: I see someone else’s hands where mine should be. They look old.

Faber: They are old, Mack. They’re sixty-three. The exact same age as you.

Mack: That can’t be right. That’s even older than Daddy! [Laughs]

Faber: Your illness affects the way you see things. It’s made your awareness of reality unstable. You see other people as your father. And your own identity has become so disengaged, you still think of yourself as the small boy you once were. Desperate to please Daddy.

[Pause]

Mack: Don’t you want to please your daddy?

[Pause]

Faber: Not in quite the same way. Not like you.

Mack: I don’t understand.

Kincaid: The person you grew up to be won’t let you forget your childhood, Mack. That little boy and the life you think you’re remembering, they’re not real. They don’t exist. I don’t think they ever did.

[Pause]

Mack: When can we play?

Kincaid: Excuse me?

Mack: You promised you’d play with me after tea. You said we could play football in the park. Don’t you remember?

Kincaid: Yes, of course. We’ll play soon, I promise.

[Pause]

Faber: Does Daddy always keep his promises, Mack?

Mack: Not all the time. Sometimes he’s too busy. He works a lot and doesn’t come home.

Faber: How does that make you feel?

Mack: It used to make me feel sad, but now it makes me feel happy. There’s no more shouting, and I stay up late with Mommy watching scary films on TV.

Faber: Don’t you miss Daddy when he’s away?

Mack: Course I do. It’s just better when Mommy and Daddy aren’t fighting.

Kincaid: Tell me a little about your mommy.

[Pause]

Mack: She loves Daddy very much.

Kincaid: What does she look like?

Mack: She has black hair and blue eyes.

Kincaid: Are you sure?

Mack: Yes.

Kincaid: Black hair and blue eyes…just like your father.

Mack: She loves Daddy very much. We both do.

Faber: When was the last time you saw Mommy?

Mack: [Laughs] A few minutes ago. She was making a packed lunch for me and Daddy to take to the park.

Faber: Can you remember what she said to you?

Mack: She told me to hold Daddy’s hand when crossing the road, which is silly.

Faber: Why?

Mack: Because I always hold Daddy’s hand.

Faber: To make you feel safe?

[Pause]

Mack: So he never leaves me behind when I look away.

 

 

 

CHAPTER 4: BREATHE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jimmy Hopewell hobbled back towards the house, his face warped like one of the plasticine men Billy sometimes made just so he could bash in their heads. When he touched the left side of his skull, he felt a dent in his temple that made him think of the tormented man in that painting, the one with the stretched, elongated head, captured forever in a silent scream, as his reality turned inside out.

He raised a hand to the seeping wound in his face and spat out a string of barely coherent curses. He could feel cold air blowing into the empty socket of his left eye and he wondered what he’d touch if he inserted his finger; considered with a kind of juvenile detachment whether it would now travel all the way to his brain.

He stumbled back into the house and closed the door behind him. At the end of the hallway, illuminated by the flickering light, was the entrance to the kitchen. It looked like someone had spilled a can of dark red paint across the threshold. The linoleum was smeared with the stuff and it startled him to see so much of his own blood in a room where he had cooked with his wife, eaten dinner with his family, laughed with his friends. He could also see exactly where he had lain unconscious, a body-shaped island of largely unbloodied linoleum that existed like an outline of his past self, when he had still been in possession of his left eye, and a wife.