Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

       He had defended himself, not by denial but by teaching the jury to doubt.  If he didn’t know, neither could they. His barrister described experiments on the implanting of false memory in children:

       ‘Have you ever cut your thumb and had to go to hospital?’

       ‘No’.

       ‘You were telling me last time about when you cut your thumb and had to go to hospital’.

       ‘Yes, I did cut my thumb once’.

       ‘Remember when you cut your thumb?’

       ‘I cut my thumb and had to go to hospital’.

       ‘Tell me about your thumb’.

       ‘I cut my thumb on a knife in the kitchen and it hurt lots and Mummy had to take me to hospital in the car and the nurse put a big bandage on it but it’s all right now’.

       Without exact dates or witnesses, with no reported or recalled changes in behaviour at the time of the alleged incidents, and with the passage of so many years, the jury took little time to acquit him. He had not made any attempt to prove his own innocence. Had it even been required, he could not have done so.

       As he came down the steps of the county court, carefully, one at a time, leading with the right as if he was old, he was accosted by a reporter and photographer. They wanted to know his reaction to the judgement. He must be so relieved and pleased. A smile for the camera? With an effort he kept his face expressionless and shook his head slowly. But they pressed for a response. In the end he said, ‘I have won nothing. I’m only sad it ever came to court’.

       He gave a sharp little nod to show that the interview was over, and stepping round them continued on his way.

       He drove home and let himself into the silent house. He drew the bolts and stood some minutes with his back against the door before going to the kitchen. He filled and switched on the kettle.

       It’s possible, he thought. I can see that she’s sincere and that she is not mad. She has been hurt by someone and believes it was me. She knows it was me. She remembers it was me. And yet I remember nothing. I know I didn’t do those things. It isn’t in me to do those things. I’ve never imagined doing those sort of things. I know I’m not like that. But I can see she isn’t mad and I know she wouldn’t lie. Why lie? She’s lost as much as me. We’ve all lost. However it came out in court, we’d still all lose. If I did it, how have I forgotten? Why don’t I even remember when I’m reminded? Could that be proof that it didn’t happen? I couldn’t say that in court because that is a proof that’s only open to me. Anyway, I don’t really believe it is a proof. In truth, I’m like the jury. I have nothing more than reasonable doubt. So perhaps I think I could. Nothing she said rang a bell, not the places or the times or the things that were done or the words that were spoken. But she believed it all. I can’t. I can’t believe it. I won’t believe any of it. I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it.

       On and on, the thought, as he pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead, the kettle still not boiling. He put the television on, found the afternoon soaps and made a sandwich and a drink. A while later he had only managed two mouthfuls of the sandwich and was crying because two people in the family on the screen were being kind to each other. The scene was profound, moving, and he couldn’t bear it. He tried music, but too many songs held some sort of memory. By evening he was pacing the half empty rooms, plaintive little sounds occasionally escaping his constricted throat. When it was dark enough he went out to the late shop and bought orange juice, cheap whisky and snack foods. Walking home, the bottle in its brown paper bag was heavy and comforting against his arm. Because of the evening and the walking he missed his dog terribly.

       Safe indoors he remembered the dog before that one, the puppy and the toddler growing up together. But all that good stuff was blighted by a terrible possibility, and the even more terrible certainty that no matter what, no matter whether it was only an imagining, all that carefully accumulated store of happy memories had been erased. She would ensure that to the third and fourth generation nothing of what they had done, nothing of him, would be passed on. She would cut him out of all her fireside and bedtime stories and neatly slice pages from the photo album.

       He mixed the whisky with juice so it wouldn’t burn his empty stomach and watched football until the alcohol worked and sent him to sleep. He slept on the sofa, the remote control in his hand.

       In the night he woke to go to the toilet and was frightened that he might have sobered and be awake the rest of the night. He finished what was left in the glass, then an inch more to be certain and slept again.

       The next day there were a few practicalities to do with the house that couldn’t be postponed. Anyway, they would only come looking for him. So he tidied himself up, drank coffee and ate a little, and drove into town. He did what he had to do with forms and officials and his solicitor, and thought he’d probably functioned pretty well. Back in the car though, he wanted only to be back at home, where the curtains were all drawn, where the phone was disconnected, where there was still a half full bottle to keep the lid on his panic.

       From a hundred yards away it caught his eye, and at fifty he could read it. He pulled into his drive. On the wall of his house, soaked deep into the brickwork, was painted in three-foot high capital letters the single word LIAR. He switched off the engine and stared. The word looked strange. Was it the spelling? No. L.I.A.R. was correct, though L.I.E.R. would be just as sensible. Maybe it was the huge crude lettering - looked like a four-inch brush. He got out of the car and touched the first letter. Non-drip gloss and still wet, glistening, with the texture of the brick breaking the surface. He stood looking at the word, observed how even it was with the lines of cement as a guide. He rebuilt his memory of the morning. While he had been just about coping in town, his quiet, leafy cul-de-sac, its population at school or about its professional occupations, had not been at peace. Rage and hate had come with a pot and a brush to paint this word on the side of his house - their house. Controlled rage and hate, determined, unhurried. Not so much graffiti as a permanent sign. He glanced around the street. No one in sight, not even a twitch of curtains, but in three or four hours his neighbours would catch his new title in the sweep of their headlights.

       The word looked less strange as he came to accept it as his own. He made no effort to remove it and went inside. The rest of that day and the night were much like the last. No one called. He put the phone back on for a while but no one rang. Old friends didn’t know what to think, who to believe, who to trust. He drank as much as he needed to, never turned off the television, ate little and often, feeling heavy and sluggish. He paced the room, repeating and repeating his denials, while a second voice wondered who he was trying to convince. He searched for some true thing that really had gone wrong, that could have led his daughter to create these terrible events, but he could only recall scenes of innocent delight, of a lucky family unvisited by sickness, deep discord, gnawing frustrations or failure. Somewhere a virus had been burrowing under the skin but he couldn’t find it. Finally he slept, but not before he had made another trip to the late shop.

       The morning brought only an ocean of hours to cross before he could sleep again. It seemed an unendurable journey. There was nothing he had to do today. Until a few months ago each new day had been full of promise. Now he had only this big empty house and his tormented disbelief that he could lose everything, all at once, because of something that made no sense - that might not be something at all. It might be just a figment of her imagination. It might be nothing at all.

       No one would ever know.

       His wife might come. Perhaps to collect a last few things, perhaps to see him. He’d better tidy up a bit. He collected the bottles and the crisp packets and went out to the dustbin. Ah yes, and then he could fix the puncture on his son’s bike. That was something he could still do. She could take it away with her - he’d be pleased.

       In the same large, white capitals, a second word had been added to the wall. ABUSER. More precise, more descriptive of the supposed offence, it had been fitted neatly below LIAR, beginning one letter before and finishing one letter after. Permanent, indelible, soaked into the fabric of the house and the man. He turned to the empty street, hands open, palms up. Is this me? Is this what I am? Will some one tell me if this is the truth?

       He turned to the garage as a place of safety. Largely his domain through the years, it was not so stripped as the rest of the house. He ran his fingers along the neat rows of tools behind the bench, slowly turned the bar of the vice, placed his palm on the spot where the children would leave their toys to be fixed. He lifted the bike up onto the bench. It was old and much worked upon. The gears, the brakes, the handlebar tape, all repaired or replaced. Together. He felt quite quiet inside as he worked. Even when he pulled out the inner tube and saw three or four old patches they had put on, he only cried a little. He was very tired of crying now. When he’d finished, he oiled the chain and the brakes, checked all the nuts and placed the bike with great deliberation against the boxes that his wife would come to collect. He took a short piece of timber and a length of nylon rope and 
went into the house, head bowed under the weight of the words as he passed them. With the same deliberation, he carried a dining chair upstairs and stood on it beneath the loft hatch. He pushed back the lid and rested the timber across the space. He knotted the rope round the wood.

       Downstairs, he sat at the table, sipping coffee and thinking about the words. He had begun to think that most likely they were true. For all the nights of sieving his brain for some suppressed memory, he couldn’t remember a thing, but her relentless certainty had worked into him. He didn’t know what to think, but he did know that he didn’t want to think. And he knew with the soaking of the paint into the brickwork that there was no way back from this. He found paper and pen and in a slow, round hand that was not really his own, he wrote the following:

       I have no idea what is true. You have your certainty. I don’t know where it comes from. Maybe from something that really happened. No one will ever know. I have done this not because of any guilt, but because you hate me.

       He folded the piece of paper and wrote his daughter’s name on the outside. He laid it on the fourth step of the stairs.

       He still didn’t know what had happened, what he had done, what anyone had done, when he slipped off the back of the chair.

       A puppy and a little girl in a bath-towel on a rug beside a fire, wet, black curls down the neck, sipping hot chocolate, watching cartoons.