Apocalypse Cow by Logan Michael

Author:Logan, Michael [Logan, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: azw, epub
ISBN: 9781448109296
Publisher: Random House UK
Published: 2012-05-09T16:00:00+00:00

‘Stupid woman!’

Geldof sat on the floor in his parents’ room, now just his father’s room, slamming his fist repeatedly against the side of the wardrobe. The medieval curses had been tossed aside for their more forceful descendants, but Geldof was not as well-practised in the art of profanity as David and was struggling to find the expletives to convey just how furious he was.

‘She never bloody listened to anyone, always had to do things her way. Now she’s fucking dead! Stupid crappy fucking sod.’

‘Don’t be angry,’ James, who was sprawled on the bed clutching Fanny’s pillow, said softly.

Geldof kicked the bed frame. ‘Why shouldn’t I be angry? She was an opinionated control freak who cared more about her principles than her own bloody son.’

‘I know Fanny said some things to you that seemed shitty, man, but—’

Geldof blazed across James’s attempt at mollification. ‘What, you mean like humanity is a plague and that she regretted adding to the problem by having me? Is that the kind of thing you mean?’

James waved his hand. ‘Yeah. But she never meant it, you know?’

‘So when she said I was a lead weight dragging her back down into the sea of consumerism – you know, that time I asked her to buy me a new school uniform because she had spilled paint intended for some rich woman’s fur coat on it – she was just having a laugh?’

‘You got to understand what she was. When I met her, she was just eighteen. She had a warrior’s soul. She just wanted to screw and fight.’

‘You’re a bigger idiot than she was. You’re talking to your fifteen-year-old son here, remember?’

James showed no sign of having heard. ‘You made it harder for her to be who she was.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. Did my existence get in the way of her plans?’

‘We wanted to get an abortion, but we were travelling through Africa, deep in the bush, when we found out.’

‘Are you supposed to be consoling me?’ Geldof asked. ‘I’m an aborted abortion, that’s what you’re saying?’

Still James kept going. ‘We kind of hoped she might miscarry. All those diseases in Africa, bumpy buses, bad hygiene, civil wars. But you clung on.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Geldof shouted at his impervious father. ‘You really are a halfwit, aren’t you?’

James finally lifted his head and met Geldof’s gaze. His eyes looked like they had been yanked out, dunked in a bowl of freshly chopped onions for an hour, then stuffed back into the sockets – a combination of crying and a four-hour marathon of back-to-back mega spliffs, the whole stash gone in one fell swoop.

‘Do you have a point, or are you just trying to make me feel worse?’ Geldof asked.

‘Point. Yeah. The point is, when you came out, she forgot all that and just loved you. She never stopped.’

‘Oh.’

The knot Geldof had been trying to cough up dissolved. He stopped punching the wardrobe and his eyes filled with tears again. Before he could wildly seesaw into a blubbering wreck, his father came to the rescue.

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