Swan Song

by Tom Butler

  By this time on a Wednesday, they would usually be changed out of their school clothes and sitting expectantly at the kitchen table whilst mother made sure the cakes had cooled sufficiently and were ready to eat. Well, neither were changed and neither were seated. They were both just roaming around like two strays in a field, Mary humming again and James mimicking his father, the secretive smoker.

  He stopped ambling and went to the fridge to find there was barely enough fresh orange juice for himself let alone his sister, who paused from her tune to stare at the nearly empty bottle. Unscrewing the top, he took a sip and got the whole repertoire of disapproval from her. The scolding look, the straight back, the hands on hips.

  ‘Mummy says—’

  ‘Mummy’s not here,’ he stopped her. ‘There’s plenty of water in the tap. Or there’s milk.’

  Mary wrinkled up her nose at that.

  It was unlike him to be cruel, but there really wasn’t enough orange for both of them, and he shook the miniscule contents to prove it to her before drinking it. It hardly quenched his thirst so he went looking, opening up other cupboards. There was an unopened bottle of apple juice.

  ‘That’s for Noah,’ she said immediately. ‘I remember Mummy saying so.’

  James protested, ‘Noah’s not here.’ And he ignored her.

  He had to fight with the cap, and his sister stood hoping it would defeat him. But he managed it, wiped his mouth and took a swig.

  ‘Uh, boys,’ she complained. ‘I’m going to tell.’

  He smacked his lips and took a second mouthful, thinking it only fair he should hold out the bottle in Mary’s direction afterwards. She shook her head and made sure he knew what she thought of boys and their bad habits.

  He deliberated, ‘You won’t tell. If you do, I’ll tell too. About the glass horse.’

  Mary suddenly went all weepy at the thought of it. She had accidentally knocked the ornament over weeks ago and had been too frightened to admit it. Daddy hadn’t made a fuss and used super glue to put it back together. Almost as good as new.

  ‘Mommy won’t shout at me if you do tell her,’ she said back, unconvinced.

  ‘You’ll have no pocket money for ages and ages,’ he teased her.

  ‘I will so,’ she said, stamping her feet to show annoyance.

  ‘And you won’t be allowed to stay up late on Friday and Saturday either,’ James went on.

  ‘Will so, Daddy doesn’t mind, he likes it when I snuggle up to him.’

  Their mother worked a late shift on a supermarket checkout on both those evenings. The extra money was paying for a family holiday to Devon in July.

  Swishing her ponytail from side to side Mary asked. ‘Oh where is she? Where’s she gone? And why haven’t we got cakes? It’s not fair.’

  Her brother shrugged. ‘Because we haven’t, that’s why.’

  It was no sort of answer for a six-year-old with expectations. Her hair was now annoying her, and she was pulling at it for no other reason than it was there to be pulled. She thought about Chester, the boy in the street and the way he sometimes tugged at it to get her attention at school. How beastly was that? But at least he usually just wanted to show her something or join in whatever games she was playing with Alicia, Becky and Cora. The four of them were always doing something together, and Chester didn’t seem too keen on mixing with other boys, probably on account that he didn’t like football or throw and catch games.

  Out of the three she considered to be her very best of all friends, Becky was the one to watch where brother James was concerned. For no sensible reason, she had taken a shine to him, regularly referring to him and, of course, waving enthusiastically in his direction whenever she spotted him in the playground or assembly hall. It usually meant some ribbing from his own school friends to accompany the red cheeks and obligatory furtive expression as no matter what he said to discourage her hadn’t worked. But as long as her mother got on with Becky’s mum and they were allowed extra plays together, the giggles and waves were bearable for Mary, though it still remained one of those inexplicable things that had so far happened in her short life.

  ‘Where is she? She should be here,’ she worried again, giving vent with a heavy-footed stamp on the wooden tiled floor.

  ‘I don’t know. Stop asking me.’

  James’ hunch about Belinda was now looking unlikely. The kitchen clock said ten minutes to four and the digital one on the cooker which had a mind of its own was only five minutes different. Five to or ten to this wasn’t right at all. And no delicious, freshly baked cakes was a first. Something must have cropped up. He thought about Granny Megan and wondered if the terrible thing that had happened to her had happened again though he had never fully understood what it was. Adverts on the TV hadn’t really explained it, and he imagined it was something you had to endure when you were as old as she was. He thought about her age and couldn’t remember. But she looked old and that meant she was old in his eyes.

  ‘I’m going to find Moppit and ask her if she knows where Mummy is,’ Mary said suddenly heading back towards the hall.

  James grimaced. ‘Brilliant idea, she’s bound to know. And why don’t you ask her what we’re having for tea too.’

  His sarcasm was lost on her. She was already going up the stairs to her room like it was a race on school sports day. She found the door slightly open and Moppit sitting quietly on her bed in her very favourite spot. As rag dolls went, Moppit was oh so special. Brought all the way from America by her Aunt Jaclyn and climbing immediately to the top of Mary’s pecking order of dolls and cuddly animals.

  ‘Look at you, aren’t you just the most beautiful doll in the world. I’ve been to school and learned some new sums today. Would you like me to teach you some sums? Nod your head if you do.’

  Like magic and with just a little help, Moppit nodded her head. She was already smiling because she always smiled, and Mary had never seen her sad.

  ‘How exciting,’ Moppit said with a little bit of help. ‘I’m going to learn some sums.’

  ‘You’ll be as clever as me,’ Mary offered. ‘How good is that?’

  Downstairs, James was weighing up his options. He could use the kitchen phone to call several numbers. There was a list pinned to the wall next to the receiver. One for Granny Megan, one for the supermarket where his mother worked. Another for his Dad’s office, and then one for the gym that they both went to when they had time. Belinda’s number was also there as well as several for other mothers who took their children to the Broom school. If he did choose Belinda it would be as quick to run there and ring her bell. Mother could have lost track of time, he thought.

  There was no harm in trying, but as he went to open the front door, he heard his sister calling out, saying that Mummy was indeed in the house. She had been in the bathroom all the time.

  So why hadn’t she heard them come in or heard him scrape the chair across the kitchen floor to stand on? And why wasn’t she telling him off for doing it when chairs were for sitting, not standing on?

  He would most certainly go and find out why. But the scene that greeted him as he stepped up on to the landing and peered inside the bathroom, wasn’t the one he was expecting. At first, he was taken in because Mary was sitting next to her mother, and she and Moppit were talking, telling her all about the sums she had learnt at school.

  Mother was more crumpled than sitting, with her head up against the bottom of the shower cubicle, and her eyes did appear to be open, so she couldn’t possibly be asleep.

  ‘She was here all the time,’ Mary said. ‘Were you playing a game Mummy? Why don’t we all play?’

  It was unlike mother to be so quiet, and James didn’t quite know where to look because he could now see that the towelling bathrobe she wore was untied at the front, and that meant she was exposed. He decided to focus on her face. It wasn’t moving, the eyes just staring out into space. Something made him reach out to touch her right hand. It was cold. Much colder than it should have been. Then,
though he didn’t want to look, his eyes were drawn downwards to something he had not immediately noticed. The colour red. It seemed to be beneath her, between her legs, soaked into the folds of the bathrobe. Looking closer and travelling down to her bare feet there was more red. Beginning to realise what it was, he suppressed to urge to scream. Boys didn’t scream. That was for girls.

  Mary was still chatting away to her mother oblivious. Moppit was being made to join in as always.

  In a shaky voice James said, ‘Mummy’s had an accident, I think. She won’t hear you. I need to get some help.’

  Disbelievingly, Mary shook her mother’s shoulder. The sleeve of her pale blue school blouse had a smear of red on it picked up off the floor. There was more on the hem of her grey skirt.

  ‘Mary, you need to go downstairs while I get help. Be brave and do what I say. Take Moppit with you,’ he coaxed her.

  ‘But—’

  ‘But nothing. Just do it.’

  ‘Oh, OK, come on Moppit let’s go.’

  James was stooped down and carefully pulling at the bathrobe to cover his mother’s modesty. He was beginning to feel quite sick. Though he didn’t want to leave her, he knew that he had to. But who should he phone first? Then he remembered what he had been told at school. Always dial 999 and say it’s an emergency. He ran downstairs to the kitchen and did just that, giving the lady who answered the full address and enough information for her to arrange a response. The lady tried to keep him talking on the phone repeating his name in every sentence and overusing the words “Good Boy” which sounded strangely false. But anxious to get back to his stricken mother upstairs, he told her exactly that and replaced the receiver.

  Mary, meantime, was deep in conversation with Moppit, sitting cross-legged on an armchair in the lounge that was half turned to face both television and front bay window. It was, in fact, Daddy’s chair or certainly the one he sat in most. Only when guests came did he bring in a kitchen chair and put it as far away from the door so as not to obstruct it. Passing her and convincing her to stay where she was, James ran back to the bathroom to sit with his mother, perching himself on the toilet seat and looking for any outward signs of life from her.

  How white her face looked, no sign of the light brown freckles that ran from the bridge of her perfectly shaped nose almost to the top lip of her small mouth. If she was breathing he couldn’t tell. Whatever it was that was wrong with her, he dared not try to guess. She always radiated such a lot of warmth in her eyes, but now, though they were still open, they seemed almost black and menacingly cold. He wanted to reach across and close them and just make her go to sleep. But something stopped him, and he remained seated, watching over her like he knew he must.

  His father called his mother Angel, never ever referring to her proper name which was so close in pronunciation it didn’t matter. Angel suited her better because it just did. As mothers went, she was as perfect as any mother could be. Sometimes strict and louder than usual but nearly always ready with a cuddle and a kind word too. Whenever any of them were ill or just feeling not quite right, she would do everything possible to make them feel better without overplaying the sympathy. She was playful, enthusiastic, helpful when it came to the dreaded homework they often got. Even Mary was given things to do, and Mummy would do them with her without fail. Then there was the cooking and the clearing up after them and the million other things he had heard her claiming that needed to be done.

  If all mothers were indeed angels, then Angelica Swan was the queen of all of them in his eyes. He couldn’t imagine life without her. So if she did have to go into hospital like Granny Megan did, how would they cope? Who would look after them? Dad would have to, he supposed. But it wouldn’t be the same. Nothing would ever be the same.

  There was no clock in the bathroom, and he could see his mother wasn’t wearing a watch. He had a watch. In fact, he had two, but they were in his room, and he remembered mother telling him that one of them needed a battery. On his mother’s say, he had been forbidden from wearing either on school days, especially the one his parents had bought him for his eighth birthday. It had been quite an expensive one, and as he had lost one previously somewhere between school and home, it was thought best to go without and not take the risk of losing another. Anyway, there were plenty of clocks in school. They seemed to be everywhere.

  Though only faintly, he could hear Mary and Moppit having a conversation downstairs, so at least there was nothing out of the ordinary there, and reassuringly, his sister wasn’t sounding upset or unduly worried about her mother’s condition. The urge to do something other than just sit tight was great but what could he do? Wasn’t it wrong to try to move somebody in case they suffered worse damage to whatever it was that needed urgent medical attention. He had read or seen about that somewhere, possibly in school or on the television. The lady on the phone had asked him if his mother was still breathing, and he had told her that he didn’t think so though he couldn’t be sure. ‘Her eyes were open,’ he had said, ‘but she wasn’t moving.’

  She also asked if his mother took tablets for anything or had a history of collapsing, and he had said he didn’t think so. He had asked her to hurry, and she said she would, and when she asked if there was anybody else in the house, he had told her about Mary, and she had told him to look after her until help for his mother arrived.

  Mary’s nonstop talking might, on other days might have annoyed him, but it didn’t today and neither did the distant chimes of the regular ice cream van that was now paying its daily visit to the cul-de-sac and inadvertently drowning out her voice. He half expected her to run to the front door and herald its arrival. And then to call out to wherever her mother was in the house to ask for a small cone with sprinkles.

  But she didn’t. It was as if she knew instinctively that it was inappropriate. Ice creams would be off the agenda today and could be for some considerable time to come. Sacrifices would have to be made.

  Barely had the disappearing chimes left the street when he then heard a pretty disturbing sound of a siren, getting noticeably louder, a rare sound indeed for a village like Thurston which was some way from a main trunk road and usually oh-so quiet and tranquil. Over the next few hours, there was to be more noise than Thurston residents had ever known before. And for all the wrong reasons, it was going to be put squarely and firmly on the map.

  ******

  Chapter Two

  Angelica Lockhart and Michael Swan got married on 3 September 1992 at the Clare Valley Chapel in Florida. They had planned it unbeknown to relatives and friends who just thought it was their annual holiday. It came only weeks after they had told everybody they were engaged, and obviously people thought there was a third announcement to come. But Angelica was not pregnant; she was on the pill and had no intentions to start a family, even though she was of prime childbearing age. And, although eleven years older than her, Michael wouldn’t want children around either. At least not yet.

  They faced a mixed reaction. Angelica’s small family lived in Kansas and would have loved to be there in view of the fact the couple had married in the States rather than in England. But her parents, who didn’t have her until they were both well into their forties, had long since stopped her from doing anything and with only minor reservations they gave their blessing. Her older sister, Jaclyn, did so too, though she never saw what her considerably younger sibling saw in Michael nor in living in a place like Leicester which she took to be a poor substitute for London.

  As for Michael’s family, he was at last settling down after years of uncertainty and moving around the country from job to job. His estranged parents had both been shocked when they first met Angelica. She was nothing like Kimberley, his previous girlfriend who was of similar age and intelligence. The new girl looked barely out of school, and apart from her stunning good looks, she was bright, switched on and ambitious. Not that their son lacked ambition. But he was too much of a dreamer to ever reach the great heights he attained to, though he would
continue to sow the seed in people’s minds that he was on the verge of great things.

  Angelica liked him for his humour, his impressive physique and his love of classical music. The latter was something that bound them together, having brought them together in the first place by accident on New Year’s Eve 1989 when Michael fell off a concert hall stage and Angelica administered first aid to enable him to continue as the new year approached. A dinner date followed in the first week of 1990 as a thank you and was followed by her first ever visit to the Royal Albert Hall as his guest a week later.

  Angelica was a student nurse back then, the pittance of pay subsidising her as she tried to get herself noticed as a portrait artist in London’s competitive art world. She had come to Britain from America to study art at the City of London University five years earlier and had graduated with honours, but the plan to go back to her native Kansas was usurped by a philandering art tutor called Lewis, who not only took her virginity but also duped her into believing she had special talents.

  Consequently, she rented a pretty seedy bed-sit in Camden, persuading people to sit for her and trying to hone her artistic skills as best she could. It was a hand to mouth existence, but it made her strong, so that when two timing Lewis dumped her, she retained her dignity, kept her head above water and survived, and from there on, positively thrived.

  The bizarre meeting with Michael came at a time when she was considering her options where men were concerned. A male student nurse had made overtures, and then there was Gary, a struggling abstract painter who she felt sorry for and had perhaps led on a little.

  But accomplished trombonist Michael for some reason caught both her eye and her imagination and the others were soon forgotten. It was an unlikely alliance, but it worked. They got used to the raised eyebrow reaction and just simply fell in love. It was meant to be.

  Playing an instrument was only a hobby for Michael, and though he had once been told he had the potential to reach the top and make it professionally, he could never quite convince himself, and so, it stayed as a hobby that he found less and less time for with a new, pretty, and much younger girlfriend now on the scene.