Excerpt: The Basement Tapes

For a few moments, not a word was said between Claire and Taylor. Neither of them looked at one another – it was as if Claire was too ashamed to meet Taylor’s gaze, and Taylor thought he might be too tempted to hit Claire if he even so much as glanced her way.

“Why did you text me?”

It was Taylor who broke the tense, uncomfortable silence. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Claire turn her head in his direction, but kept staring out at the darkness.

“I missed you, Taylor-”

Taylor snorted. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Claire. You didn’t miss me. You wouldn’t know how to.” Here he turned to face her. “If you missed me so fucking much, then why the hell didn’t you try to make contact before?” He took a step forward, so that he was almost nose to nose with her. “I’m not going to say that I missed you, because that would be the biggest fucking lie in the history of creation. You were nothing but trouble when we were together.”

“Then why did you stay with me for so long, then? And for that matter, why the hell did you even knock me up?”

“That last one was an accident, and you fucking well know it.”

“I don’t care what it was. You still knocked me up.”

Taylor took in a deep breath and let it out slowly but shakily. “I stayed with you for so long because deep down inside, I was positive that things would get better at some point. Every night before I went to sleep I kept telling myself that things would be better in the morning, that soon I wouldn’t have to worry about if we’d have enough to eat the next day, or if the power or water would be disconnected because we hadn’t paid the bills. But to be completely honest, I stayed with you for so damn long because I wanted us to work things out, if only so that Miki would grow up with both her mother and her father.” He put his hands over his face and closed his eyes. “I did love you at some point, Claire. I really did. Hell, I even wanted to marry you. I was almost positive that if we did end up tying the knot, then we’d have to make things work. Unlike some people, I believe that when you marry someone, it’s for life.”

“Well, I don’t. Sometimes you can’t make things work out, Taylor, no matter how hard you try.” Claire shrugged her shoulders. “My parents couldn’t.”

“They just didn’t try hard enough, then.”

Claire raised an eyebrow. “’Didn’t try hard enough’?” she echoed, her tone incredulous. “Taylor, do you have any idea what my father did to my mum? He bashed her. Jacks and I, we were scared to death that one day we’d come home from school and find Mum lying on the kitchen floor in a pool of her own blood.” She started counting off on her fingers. “He bashed her at least once a week so badly that the bruises took weeks to heal, raped her at least twice in my memory, almost strangled her, and once I remember him using a stainless steel frying pan to beat her around the head. He did the same to Jacks and I, though to a lesser extent – he was always careful to beat us where the bruises and scars wouldn’t show.”

“You think you’re the only one who copped abuse, Claire?” Taylor asked. “I did too. I’m just as damaged as you are.”

“I never saw any scars.”

“None of them are physical. Emotional and psychological abuse is just as damaging.” Now he turned his back to the sea, leaning on the railing with his elbows propped up behind him. “I never wanted to be alone with my mother. She might have given birth to me, but she never truly loved me. My father didn’t realise that, and consistently left me at home with her. At least once a week, he’d take my brother and sister out somewhere, but I’d have to stay at home and ‘keep my mother company’.” He used his fingers to form air quotes around the last four words. “Being told by my father to keep my mother company was just another way of saying ‘keep your mother away from the liquor cabinet’. Soon as I turned my back, she’d be rooting around in there in search of something to mix with Coke, or whatever it was we had in the refrigerator. And as soon as she had her drink made, she’d sit me down on the lounge, clamp one hand around my wrist, and make me endure her drunken tirades.” He bit his bottom lip. “God, I don’t even know why I’m telling you this. I keep telling myself that I hate you and wish you’d just throw yourself off a high cliff.”

“It’s cathartic though, isn’t it?”

Taylor barked out a laugh. “That’s one word for it.” He scuffed the toe of his shoe along the concrete. “Every time she got on the piss, she would call me a mistake. My father never believed me, of course, and I never expected him to. As much as I wish they’d never kicked me out, in a way I am glad that they did. At least that way, I got away from her for good.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Taylor could see Claire studying him. “You know, for someone who is as emotionally damaged as you claim to be, you are remarkably well adjusted,” she commented.

Taylor shrugged. “I really had no choice in the matter. Not since you up and walked out on me.” He turned his head to look at her. “How could you do that to me and our daughter?”

Claire didn’t respond for a short while. “You wouldn’t understand,” she said at last.

“Make me understand, Claire. You were always such a good actress when we were together. You even managed to make me believe that you were on the Pill the entire time we were together. I don’t know why I let you feed me that bullshit for so long.”

Claire shrugged. “It’s not my fault that you take just about everything at face value.”

Taylor forced himself to bite back a scream of frustration. Claire hadn’t changed a bit in the six years and four months that they’d been apart – she was just as infuriating as she had been while they had still been a couple.

“You’re leaving?” Claire asked as Taylor started walking toward where Jackie was seated.

“Yes, Claire, I’m leaving. I have to go and pick up my daughter, and then I need to get home. Miki’s got school in the morning, so it’ll be an early start tomorrow for us both.”

“Oh,” Claire said quietly. “I was hoping we could talk for a little while longer.”

Taylor just looked at her. “Unlike you, Claire, I have responsibilities that I have to uphold – ones that put me at risk of having Miki taken away from me if I let them slip. And one of those is ensuring that she’s in school each day. I can’t get her off to school if I stay out all night talking to the mother who abandoned her. I had a hell of a time convincing the authorities to give me custody of Miki, and I know there are quite a few people out there who would love nothing more than to deprive me of being her dad. They wanted me to track you down so they could give you sole custody, even though I told them hundreds of times that you’d abandoned us and weren’t even capable of the care of a goldfish.”

To Taylor’s surprise he saw Claire visibly flinch, and he knew his words had struck a nerve. He forced a wry smile and turned his back on her, and kept on walking away.

“So I take it things didn’t go so well?” Jackie asked on the walk back to where the two of them had parked their cars. Taylor was walking with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, head bowed and staring at the toes of his sneakers.

“That would be an understatement,” Taylor replied. “She still can’t understand how damaging her leaving was. She still says she misses me, and yet couldn’t be bothered to get in touch with me at any point to see if Miki and I were okay. And she knows very well that Miki is her daughter, but she won’t ask how she’s doing.” He shook his head in dismay. “As much as I wish sometimes that things were different, not for one second do I want us to get back together. I’m grateful every day that I’ve got Miki. I think I would be completely lost without her. She’s my whole world.”

“I know she is,” Jackie said. “You’re hers too – I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen her eyes light up whenever someone so much as mentions your name. She adores you.”

Taylor looked up and at Jackie, who smiled, and he gave her a smile of his own. In that moment he forgot all about Claire and everything bad in his life that was primarily her doing – instead, all of his thoughts were of his little girl, in whose eyes he could do no wrong.