I rewrite Greek Mythology for a modern setting. Here is part one of my re-writing of Theseus, who was told by one possible father to lift a rock and fetch his sandals from beneath it, and travel to Athens to meet him.

WARNING. EXPLICIT LANGUAGE.

I can’t hate my mother for being a whore.

Every year, she hides the birthday cards. Every year, I find them. She always puts them in the same place. She knows I find them, but she never puts them somewhere else. There are two of them each year, one signed Anthony and one with a ‘P’ and a single cross slashed across the message section. This year, I step into her dark bedroom while she is attaching balloons to ceilings and rushing to clean our musty apartment for the pathetic smattering of family expected to arrive. I lift her pillow and pull out the cards. I know the different handwritings by now. I open P’s first. The familiar NAVAL stamp on the envelope is all I know about him. The card sports a bright red ‘18’ above a sports car. I don’t know what kind of car, but I assume it’s a desirable one. A Ferrari or something. I don’t really care about cars. But a father who has never met me isn’t supposed to know that.

P x

P is my favourite contender for the father role. Of course, he isn’t the only father I have. There is also Anthony. No one knows which one is the real one. There could be more than two possibilities. But these are the two who send me the cards. These are the two who think I am their son. I can’t hate my mother for being a whore. It’s too late for that.

I imagine P, in the navy, wearing a uniform and barking orders as his crew scurry around his steel ship. He could be a cleaner, a cook. But I want him to be a sailor, staring coldly out at the ocean as the ice cold spray bites into his face. The only stamp on Anthony’s envelopes are the SENT FROM NORTHAMPTON ones. There’s nothing special about Northampton. There’s nothing special about Anthony. I bet he’s balding, with a pot belly and glasses.

I idly flick open Anthony’s envelope and stare dully at the football scene on the front of the card. I don’t give a shit about football. In fact, I detest it. I’m not even going to open the card, to bother looking at Anthony’s name signed at the bottom for the 18th time. But something is sticking out from the bottom of the card, inside. I frown. He’s never sent money before. Neither of them have. Cheap birthday cards from the Spar have been as generous as either father has ever felt towards me.

I open the card. Not money. My frown deepens, and a chill settles in the pit of my stomach. A train ticket. The date printed on the orange and white slip is three days from now. The 10.06am train. One way. My hand trembles slightly as I read and re-read the tiny print. The card is just the same.

Anthony.

But suddenly the name is something so much more. No longer an abstract idea on a cheap piece of card, but the potential to materialise into something real. Something tangible. Something fatherly. I carefully put the ticket back into the card, the card back into the envelope, the envelope back beneath the pillow. I turn my back on Anthony and walk downstairs.

Mum is dashing around in a cloud of smoke, ash falling from the cigarette clamped between her yellow teeth and onto the carpet, where it is trodden into the patchwork of wine stains and burn marks. A few half-blown up balloons hang impotently from the ceiling. She pulls the fag from her mouth just long enough to wheeze into a new balloon, falling into a coughing fit and tying it off. I’m surprised she has the breath in her to blow up as many as she has. I nod my head at them and smile thinly. She comes over to me, smiling through her cigarette, and grabs me in a one-armed hug.

“Happy birthday, Theo-bear,” she growls. She growls everything. I think nicotine gradually robs you of your human vocal chords and replaces them with something more feral. I grimace at the nickname and shrug her arm from my shoulder. Her top is hanging too low at her front, and her faded bra is showing through. She claps her hands, and looks around herself, squinting, eyes watering slightly as the smoke gets into them.

“Ah,” she says suddenly, eyes lighting up. “Almost forgot.” She picks something up from the sofa and hands it to me, grinning sheepishly. A four-pack of Carlsberg, a pack of fags and a ten pound note, all wrapped around in a scruffy red ribbon, falls into my hands. “Your first drink and all. Now you’re 18 and all.”

It’s not my first drink. I’ve been drinking in the park outside the estate for going on four years now, and she knows it. But I smile and weigh the cans in my hands. “Cheers, ma,” I mutter. The tenner is barely recognisable, so scrumpled and worn. I know she’s dug it deep from beneath her mattress, where she keeps her savings. This is probably all that was there. There is a moment of silence, me staring at my cans, and mum transfixed by a balloon slowly deflating where she hasn’t tied it off properly. The buzzer sounds. She quickly stubs her fag out on the arm of the armchair, and drops the butt into an empty coke can on the radiator. As she moves to press the buzzer and let the visitor in downstairs, I blurt out, “I’m going to Northampton on Saturday.”

Mum’s shoulders stiffen and her mouth twitches at one corner. I am watching her closely, but she doesn’t say anything for a moment. We can hear footsteps on the stairs. She nods slowly and goes to open the door. Her father, my grandfather, shuffles in and I accept the £20 note he shoves into my hand, and the pat on the shoulder as he moves by me to sit on the sofa. He smells of tobacco as he passes. A new cigarette has already materialised in Mum’s mouth. The living room fills up with relatives I only see twice a year, cigarette smoke and progressively boozier breath. Half the balloons are deflated already. Only I notice the sad shimmer in her eyes.

This is really good. I like the detail and the characterization.