Outside the darkness of night blanketed the windows, converting everything into the movement of shadow.
"It's getting late I should get back before my dad changes his mind about band practice," said Ariana.
They left the love shack, navigating the pitch black of the country roads with lanterns on their phones. Johnny peeled off and went up the hill to his house and since Ariana lived a little further on from Ger, so she walked with him and Jerry Lee Mouse.
As they reached Ger's place, Ger recognized his dad's car in the driveway.
"My dad's here."
Ger stopped, frozen in place.
"Do you want me to come in with you ?" asked Ariana,
"No, I got this," said Ger with resolve.
"Dutch courage?" said Ariana with a smirk and offered him a purple Tic-Tac.
"Nah, thanks, I'm trying to give up," he said smiling back.
"Well, if you need me, just ring."
Ariana continued walking throwing concerned glances over her shoulder as she left and disappeared around the corner into the darkness.
"Don't worry kid, I've got yer back," said Jerry.
Ger took a deep breath and went inside.
As he went in through the front door he could already hear raised voices and was thankful for the deep tones of his uncle's voice pleading with his brother to calm down.
Ger could tell his father was drunk. His voice full of raw emotion and nervous desperation. Ger opened the door and stepped into the kitchen. The noise which had been on the edge of a ruckus suddenly stopped. Ger noted how the silence after a row was deeper and more melancholic than that after music; somehow emptier.
"There he is now, just the fella. How's it going son?" his father spoke, slurring his words slightly. He wobbled slightly on his legs as though suddenly at sea.
"Ger we need to talk a little with yer father, why don't you go upstairs," his mother hinted softly.
"No, no, no. Let him stay, will ya? He's not a boy anymore Una," his father said, the sour odor of alcohol on his every word.
"Isn't that right? Yea faced up to your old man the other night, didn't yea?"
"You were going to hit ma."
Ger's words gave his father reason to freeze. For a moment the unsteadiness of his stance became rigid and he looked Ger straight in the eye, his eyeballs rimmed with a bloodshot red, his iris shrunken to tiny dots.
"Francis? Is this true?" asked Uncle Edward.
"Una?"
Ger's mother nodded, her eyes beginning to tear up and glisten in the harsh light of the kitchen.
Ger's father just blinked and shook his head.
"You know Ed, I don't remember. I..."
"I remember. You would have done it too if I hadn't gotten in the way."
Ger continued to stare at his father as if almost daring him to prove him right and take a lunge at him. The memory was etched in anger across his soul and he could have little sympathy for his father. As his father had raised his arm to strike his mother and then Ger getting in the way and his father pushing him to the ground. Ger had leaped up straight back up and taken the boxing stance that Johnny had shown him in case the Keogh lads met him one day, and he was on his own. That was the moment that his father had left, as the awful realization dawned on him at what he had almost done.
"I didn't mean to son."
"Yeah, I know the story dad, it's always the same excuse. You were drunk, you're drunk now, you're always drunk. It's not an excuse anymore."
Rather clumsily his father took a chair and sat down, like Ger's words had taken all the wind out of his sails. The bloodshot rimmed eyes glistened as tears began to pour down his face.
"I didn't mean to, son, I didn't mean to..." He broke down, dropping his head into his hands, covering up the tears with his palms as they soaked his cheeks.
Instinctively Ger's mother moved to comfort him and Ger held out a hand to stop her. His father lifted his hand from his hands and looked straight into the face of a mouse who was dressed as he should be on the cover of the Beatles Sargent Pepper's Lonely Heart Band.
"Hi! I'm your son's band manager. I think you need to sober up a bit. He's a good kid, he deserves better."
"Can anyone else see the talking mouse on the table?" Of course being the patron saint of lost musicians, only Ger, and his dad could see Jerry Lee Mouse.
Ger's mother and uncle gave each other a concerned look.
"Why don't I drive you home Francis. I think you need to sleep it off," said Uncle Edward.
Ger's father squinted at the talking mouse and went to touch him. Of course, Jerry leaped back away from his hand. To everyone except Ger, it looked like he was waving his hand in the air trying to touch something that wasn't there.
"Yeah, maybe that's for the best," Ger's father admitted. He left with his brother, who gently steered him towards the front door and his car.
"You know he's many things you're father," his mother began talking to interrupt the overwhelming quiet after Ger's father and uncle left.
"A drunk, a good for nothing, a womanizer, but he's still your father.
That place you've got up at Johnny's for rehearsing; what did Johnny call it the other day, the love shack? Well, your father helped build it. It did some work on the side when you were born because we needed the money, although a lot of that went on the drink."
"That explains the leaks," commented Ger.
"The music, the instruments, the rehearsal space, like it or not but some of that comes from your father. You need to come to terms with that. He's a part of you. Whatever you decide, I'm behind you and I love you very much." She hugged him tightly.
Jerry lee Mouse coughed uncomfortably, and being an invisible eavesdropper in such a private moment didn't sit well with Jerry.
"Well, best get to bed kid, we've got a couple of long weeks ahead of us, it's probably best to get some rest"