The Persistence of Memory

Chapter Eight

"So Aidan, tell us what inspires you? Your work is very... emotional, unflinching, dark." She cocks her head to the side and studies me hard. The journalist from Descript is attractive. Olive-skinned with large almond eyes, she has a shapely mouth that curls melodically around her French accent.

Shifting in my chair, I stroke a hand over my face feeling uncomfortable and exposed like I always do giving interviews. Like I always do talking about myself.

"My work's inspired a lot by the sort of loneliness you experience as a young child,' I begin. "When the world seems so large and so utterly terrifying — you simply can't imagine being an adult in it. You just can't comprehend that one day you're going to have to navigate your way through it on your own. You think you're always gonna be this small helpless little thing, terrified of everything. Then when you do eventually grow up, you realise that — well, that is in fact the case. You're terrified of everything. I'm fucking terrified, constantly." I give her a smile which she returns, her eyes lingering on my face a moment before she writes something down.

I try and get a look at what it is but all I pick out is 'lonely child.' When she brings her head back up she has a sad look on her face and I know immediately what topic she's about to move onto.

"You lost your mother when you were very young, is that right?" She asks this even though she already knows the answer.

I nod. "I was six. She was killed two streets away from our house. A street we'd walked down a thousand times before. She was holding my hand when it happened." I'd felt her hand go from hot to cold in a few short, life-changing, minutes. I'd felt the life drain out of her onto the cracked pavement, blood pooling around my trainers.

I run a hand through my hair and try and glance at the large clock on the wall above the journalist's head. Eloise would be here in twenty minutes. The thought calms and settles me.

"Goodness, that must have been awful, Aidan. So awful. I'm so terribly sorry." She's shaking her head, lips pursed in empathy. She looks as though she's about to cry. Fuck sake I really hope she isn't. Cuddling crying girls was pretty much a full-time job up to the age of twelve.

"Of course," I nod again, "losing a parent is hard for anyone. At that age I didn't much understand that the way she went wasn't normal. That dying like that shouldn't happen to a young mother — shouldn't happen to anyone. I was very young and I only really remember flashes of her." I remember that day like it was yesterday though. Funny that."The repercussions of it were a lot harder to deal with. Those had the most effect on my life growing up. On my sister's lives."

I glance over at Pat, who's leaning over the kitchen counter on high alert, ready to jump in if it all gets a bit much. If I look likely to hit something or someone. He needn't look so worried. I don't hit women. I don't really hit anyone. The critic from The Independent had been an exception. He'd been an arrogant prick who deserved a lot more than the crack in the jaw I'd given him. To this day I'm still not sure how Pat got him to drop the charges.

"You mean your father? The abuse?" She replies. Instantly I feel my back straighten like a steel rod's been exchanged for my spine.

I narrow my eyes. "There was minimal abuse. Slapping your child every now and again wasn't considered the hanging offence it is now. I played up for attention. He drunk a lot. He was a sad, lonely man. And he died a sad, lonely man." My tone is colder and harsher than she deserves but I can't help it.

To this day I wonder why I feel the need to constantly defend the bastard. I guess it's just that the only people who are allowed to think badly of him are me, Niamh, and Mairead. We lived it. We survived it.