TABOO TALES(erotica)

Dad looked at both of us. “It appears you have been giving this some thought, but it’s a big ask, asking me to accept this… relationship. I can’t have you living here as a couple, but I don’t want my children to leave. Neither one is compatible with the other, so this is what you’re going to do. While you live here, you live here like brother and sister, at least while I’m around. That means no sneaking around and swapping bedrooms or playing musical beds in the middle of the night.”

“When I’m not here, I expect you’ll do what all young adults do, and I have no control over that, but you will both have to decide, live here as siblings, or move out and do your own thing. If you decide to move away Jamie, you become two people; my daughter’s boyfriend, and I expect you to behave like a respectful one, and, when you’re here, with Nia, in my house, you become my daughter’s older brother, and again, you should behave appropriately.”

Nia looked stunned, and mum drew herself up and stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind her, while dad looked shocked at her reaction.

Nia broke the silence, “So that’s your… solution, is it?” she asked him, eyes narrowed and glittering like spikes of blue ice. “Jamie, come and help me pack, we are leaving!”

I mutely rose and followed her, looking at dad one last time, his face confused and worried. “Jamie, I thought…!” he began, and Nia cut him short. “I thought you would at least try and be human about this, see what it’s doing to us, but no, you just hand down pronouncements from on high as though your word is divine law. I thought that you could just be my dad, but instead you decide to be some, some… some Roman Judge! Jamie and I are leaving, now!”

I trailed after her, feeling groggy; it had all gone so horribly wrong, and now we were leaving, because dad was more concerned about how he felt than about his children, more specifically, about his daughter. As I passed mum’s door, I heard faint sounds from inside and stopped. I listened closely and heard the unmistakeable sounds of crying. I knocked softly. “Mum, mum, it’s Jamie and Nia, may we come in?” There was no reply, so I edged the door open, and saw mum, sitting cross-legged on her bed, crying. It made me feel very peculiar; I’d never seen mum cry, and it was both distressing and very worrying. Nia bolted past me and flung herself on her, crying and gabbling Vietnamese, while I sat on the bed, passing them both tissues while I waited for the machine-gun dialect to finish. Mum finally reached over and stroked my hair, which was a bad move, because I started crying then, partly because I felt so let-down, mostly because seeing mum hurting had rattled me so deeply.

“It OK Jamie, not cry any more, I am very sorry, I thought he better man than that, I was wrong, now I make you hurt as well, not want to do that to my little boy…” she trailed off and looked up. Dad was standing in the doorway, and mum’s eyes flashed.

“Get out! Shut door and go away, this not your room, this not your family! Get out!” He looked stunned, and backed out of the room, closing the door as he retreated.

Nia burst into tears again, and I resumed handing out tissues, mum holding her with one hand, and stroking my hair with the other.

“I think perhaps I come with you, wherever you go, I want be with you, cannot stay here if I cannot have my children, stupid man, very stupid man, make children very unhappy, make children leave, children important in family, no children mean no luck, children run away, good fortune leave with them!” her indignant muttering went on, lulling me as I listened to the rhythm of her speech. I had heard her speak all my life, and I had never been able to tell she had an accent; when kids at school said to me “your mum talks funny!” I’d look at them like they were mad, but now, I understood what they meant, her clipped, rise and fall tones almost sing-song, hypnotic. Mum never usually put long sentences together, using two or three words to convey meaning that other people couldn’t get across with a whole essay, and listening to her talking non-stop was novel and compelling. I had always believed she was so brief because her English wasn’t that good (and how good was my Vietnamese after living with her for close on 20 years?), but that was just how she spoke, believing brevity was the soul of communication.

There was a knock on the door, and mum slid off the bed and stalked over, flinging the door wide.

“I tell you once, this not your room, you sleep in spare room or greenhouse, I not care, I with my children, they need me, not need you, you hurt them, not love them, not care about them, neighbours more important, now you go away, ban la mot nguoi dan ong rat ngu ngoc!” (You are a very stupid man!)

Dad looked like he was going to burst into tears. I’d never seen mum so angry, and presumably neither had he, judging by the look on his face.

His face worked, and when he finally spoke, it was in a whisper.

“Anh, Jamie, Nia, I’m so sorry, I thought…!”

Mum flashed back at him. “What you think, that your children like your employees, you make rules and they jump around? They your children, James, they special, rules not apply, family come first, without family, there is nothing, you not know that yet? When you learn that?”

Dad really had tears on his cheeks this time, and mum was crying as well, but she was still furious.

“Anh, I just thought that we shouldn’t…!” he began again, and again mum cut him short. “Should not what, James? Should not let them be in love? Try and make them not love each other? You not listen to your children, No, just say stupid things and watch them leave. Perhaps it time for me to go too; my children are crying, and you are making rules; when you stop loving your children and start loving rules so much? It time for you to go now, my children need me, and you not sorry, you just want to explain stupid rules. You promise me that you not drive my children away, that you listen to them, be their father, help them when they need you, now you drive them away. Go away!”

Dad looked at Anh, and slowly shook his head. “No, not until I apologise to Jamie, and Nia… and you. I was wrong, I wasn’t thinking, and I’m sorry. Can we go back downstairs, start again, work something out. I don’t want the kids to leave, I don’t want you to leave me, please!”

Mum looked slightly less angry, but her face was still set and her eyes were flinty, sharp and hard as they bored into his. Eventually she nodded, and dad turned to go back downstairs.

Mum looked back at the two of us, and nodded. “Children, we go, talk some more, maybe he have better idea. We see!” God, she was tough, I’m just glad she was on our side!Content rights by NôvelDr//ama.Org.

We trooped back downstairs, Mum with that set expression on her face and Nia still dabbing at her eyes, and filed into the sitting room. I sat on the sofa opposite dad, and Nia huddled behind me, her arms around my neck, glaring defiantly at him. Mum sat on the arm of the sofa next to me, her arm over Nia’s shoulder, and we waited for dad to begin.

“Anh, kids, what am I saying, you’re not kids anymore, Jamie, Nia, I’m sorry, I overreacted, I let the whole situation get away from me. Jamie, I haven’t seen you in almost a year, and I haven’t even said hello yet, just went straight into it; I’m sorry, I missed you, I know Nia did, she spent the last 3 years moping around, crying whenever we mentioned your name; I suppose with hindsight, I should have seen this coming. I wanted to say I was wrong, I made a mistake; I just thought I could make this not be happening, that my children didn’t really feel like that about each other. I know your mother sees it differently, but I just looked at it one way, and I got it wrong. Of course I want to help you, and I would never ask you to leave, either one of you, I would cut out my own heart before I drove either one of you away, and if you want to be together, I can’t stop you and I won’t stand in your way. I only have one condition. I meant what I said about musical beds, I can’t have that, so what you’ll do is, the pair of you will move into the top floor of the house, that will be your space, what you do in there is none of my business. I want my children to feel wanted in their own home, and this is the best I can do. Tomorrow, Jamie, you and I will clear it out and move whatever you want up there. Later, you may want to find a place of your own, do that, if that’s really what you want, but this is always going to be your home. I didn’t mean to hurt you, either of you, and I don’t want to hurt you again; every man’s entitled to make a complete bloody fool of himself once in his lifetime, I think I just used up my quota!”

Mum stood up and walked over to him, kissed him on the cheek. “Now you making sense, at last!”

He looked at Nia. “Is that good enough for you, Nugget?” he asked with a small smile. Nia grinned at him. “Thank you daddy, Jamie and I accept, we’ll both help you tomorrow!”

Dad grinned at us. “I meant what I said, no musical beds, tonight you’re still brother and sister, so your own rooms, please, tomorrow night, well, we’ll see!” he rubbed his chin. “I must be mad, this is so… so… I don’t know what this is, there must be a name for it but I’m buggered if I know!”

There was one thing I had been meaning to ask dad, ever since mum had told us her story.

“Dad, what was my mother like, my birth-mother, and why didn’t you tell me she and mum were friends, or anything about her?”

Dad looked pensive, eyes far away for a second.

“Jamie, your mother, your birth-mother, and I were married for almost a year. She was a trainee-teacher, learning to teach primary school 5-year olds. You look a lot like her. She was a lot like you, quiet, funny, patient, happy. She got pregnant soon after we got married, and Anh lived with us your mother’s parents had passed away, and Anh was like her young sister, the only family she had. Soon after you were born, she began having headaches, blurred vision, nausea. The hospital said she was suffering from migraine, kept giving her painkillers, but nothing helped, and the headaches got worse, so they did a CAT scan, and found she had a tumour, a large one, and it was inoperable. She passed away less than a month later. She gave you to your mum, told her she was your mother now, and that’s how we kept it. Your mum was the only mother you knew, I didn’t want you to be confused when you were small, and after a while it didn’t matter, your mum was your mum, she looked after you, fed you, changed you, did everything for you. The rest you know.”