The above is a photograph of my brothers and I, taken in the rented council house that we shared decades ago, before we were all men.
I’m on the right, the youngest of four. My position as last-born has felt at different times both blessing and curse. My relationship with each of my brothers is as different as they are people. I’ve always defined myself as being part of a fraternal quartet- we are four, and despite our frequent and fundamental differences I love them all.
Next to me is Anthony. The photo doesn’t do justice to the bear he turned into. As children we shared bunk-beds, and I suffered dead arm after dead arm as he gradually discovered the headstrong bastard of a man he was to become. I had the pleasure of top-bunk for a while during his spell at her majesty’s pleasure for helping himself to a car or two, but his current status as hard-working family man wipes that slate clean. While at first I counted the bruises he gave me, it’s since become a running joke between us that despite my patent inability to match him physically we’ll always come to blows, and as I’d play the idiot terrier convinced of his own superiority, he’d always be the mastiff slapping me down to size. Dysfunctional though it may seem, I’ve never felt closer to Anthony than while drunkenly taunting him, and knowing that the rib-rattling haymaker I was about to receive was a gesture of love from him, knowingly provoked and invited by me, his idiot younger brother.
Next to him is Alan, and this is a fact- without him and his influence, I would have been lost. So very much of what I consider good about me can be attributed to the time he invested in my formative years. He was and is a wonderful anomaly- while our mother and my father warred amidst her manic depression, prescription overdoses and alcoholism, Alan protected me by opening my eyes to what was possible through the power of independent thought. We’d travel to concerts, travel to films, read, discuss and discover together. Through him I learned a passion for music. I’d watch him, follow him. I learned to look beyond our fucking council estate and to seek excitement and stimulation to fill the vacuum at home which would otherwise have flattened me. He taught me that there’s always- always- a punchline, and the darker the joke, the funnier it gets. In all of my best memories, he’s there. Every time my mind was blown, he was the one lighting the fuse. Escaping at eighteen for university, I spent a long time incommunicado through losing myself in drugs and generally being a selfish prick- it was Alan alone who would send me burned discs of music and movies in the mail, reminding me he was there, reminding me we were brothers. The fact that I rose to my feet again is due in no small part to what I learned from him- you are not your past. Blame is a fucking cop-out. Think for yourself.
And next to him is Stuart. The gap in age between us meant that for much of my childhood Stuart was mostly a mystery to me. I remember his leaving home, and I remember his return. I remember visiting him as a child with my mother in a strange, dank and musty-smelling flat in a part of town I didn’t recognise. One night in my early teens I remember Stuart bursting into the house where I was playing alone on whatever gaming machine Alan and I were sharing at the time, demanding I give him whatever money I had. I was a fucking kid, I had nothing- this didn’t stop the swearing and the threats, and they in turn didn’t hide what even to a child was the clear sound of desperation. Stuart was, ostensibly, a builder. He was also a grifter. Pathologically unable to handle money in any shape or form, I watched his life become a morass of unpaid bills, of theft and petty crime, of lies to his family and of running from the inevitable. A life lived off the books, no national insurance, no driving license, the story would repeat itself time and again- rob. Lie. Pretend. Run. Repeat.
As I grew older, I saw Stuart mature and maintain a tenuous equilibrium. He was still clearly indebted and mired in fraud in every aspect of his life, yet he had a daughter and two stepchildren, was a good father and earned a reputation as a workman of repute- if he didn’t abscond with your money before building your patio, of course. Despite his quick temper, he and I never shared a crossed word. I never judged him or spoke ill of him, and he’d confide in me. There was an unspoken understanding between us. He’d go for long periods out of work, and would come to my house to “hang out” carrying a packed lunch and his toolbox. I knew he’d lied to his family that he was at work, and he knew I knew. He kept the Golden Virginia rollies coming, we’d chat. I saw the desperation and sadness he carried with him. It was in that capacity that I came to know Stuart best. While out of work he’d help my wife and I renovate our first home, and while doing so he shone with pride at being able to help his little brother out in the only way he could. Stuart rejuvenated our entire home, never once asking for payment and never once leaving us high and dry like he had so many others. He was always running, always hiding from the police and from his own mistakes, but I remained the only person in his entire life (save perhaps for his by-now teenage daughter) he never once fucked over. That meant and continues to mean the world to me.
Back to the photograph. Last year I thought it would make a wonderful gift to our mother- herself a success story after removing all chemical crutches from her life and blooming- if we were to recreate that photo as adults. If we could assume the same pose, Stuart, Alan, Anthony and I, the same brothers, but men as opposed to children. The finished article, our Mam’s boys. It was my idea to get us all together, through the differences we still shared, just for the moment it took to press a shutter and capture a moment. A moment which I hoped would reflect who we were, what we’d become and everything in between. But I took too long. I fucking hesitated. It will never be anything more than an idea and a regret, because four months ago Stuart took his own life.
Finally tired of running, finally having reached his nadir, at the end of March this year Stuart vanished, to be found a damp morning later at the end of a rope. As I write this through tears, there is nothing I wouldn’t gladly give to be able to sit with my brothers, the four of us, and to read to them what I’ve written tonight. As adults it was a rare thing for us to be together, but when it happened I never felt anything less than invincible. The youngest of four. My brothers and I.
I love you Stu, and I’ll always miss you.
