The Things We Thought We Knew

by Mahsuda Snaith

  Even when she’s angry Amma can’t resist giving me news updates. This morning she trotted around with the radio at full volume as she did the housework. I was repeatedly updated against my will. The election had received an unexpected turnout of voters, many being turned away from the polling stations because of the surge. The nation wanted change and so they got it in the fuzzy ambiguity of a coalition government. Gordon Brown was out and the Conservatives were aligned with the Liberal Democrats. The reporters were giving it a year.

  I look at Amma standing in her purple jogging bottoms, a symbol that more change is on the horizon.

  ‘What’s happening with you two?’ I ask.

  She smooths down her dyed black hair. ‘Between me and Gordon?’

  I furrow my brow. ‘You know who I mean.’

  I say this as strictly as a school teacher and suddenly our roles are reversed. Amma’s cheeks flush, a subtle blossoming of colour that would have gone unnoticed if it wasn’t for her refusal to look away.

  ‘We are becoming reacquainted.’

  I sigh. ‘You were barely acquainted the first time,’ I say. ‘He left you after a few months.’

  Amma keeps her eyes narrow. ‘You think you know everything, Little Miss Know-It-All?’

  I don’t answer but carry on clutching the duvet. She glares at me with beady eyes.

  ‘I must leave,’ she says. ‘I have a train to catch.’

  I feel my heart pounding as the front door slams. Silence leaks through the flat.

  After years of hourly devotion, of pills and heartburn breakfasts, of routine trips to the cash-and-carry, doctor’s surgery, park and no further, why has Amma decided to get on a train with the man who abandoned her nearly two decades ago and travel up to Blackpool with him? The answer is simple.

  She knows.

  The day of the election Amma couldn’t find her poll card. She stormed back indoors as I remained locked in the bathroom, and began typhooning her way around the flat. As she marched up and down the stairs, she made sure to declare that as soon as she found the correct documentation she was going to go and carry out her right to vote. I heard her shuffling around in her room then in mine, but it wasn’t until later that night that I discovered what she’d seen.

  Amma came upstairs with her usual tray for dinner. Upon it was a bowl of tomato soup and a bread roll.

  ‘What’s this?’ I said.

  She looked at me with an upturned nose. ‘What do you think it is?’

  I looked at the pool of crimson. ‘Soup?’

  She nodded sharply. ‘Correct.’

  I frowned. ‘No curry?’

  ‘I was too busy to make curry.’

  She sat down in her chair with her nose pointed to the ceiling.

  To be honest, I didn’t mind the absence of chilli, but the sudden change was disturbing. I slurped the soup up. A part of me knew she was testing me but I was so determined to enjoy this bending of the rules that I quickly finished the whole bowl. It was only when I put my spoon down that I realized something was missing. I looked along the top edge of my tray then down the bottom and along the sides.

  ‘You forgot my pills,’ I said.

  Amma raised her brows in mock surprise. She opened her mouth ready to let the words overflow, then reconsidered and closed her lips tight. She bowed her head.

  ‘So I did,’ she said, getting to her feet and walking slowly out of the room.

  If the heart flutters when in love, it also flutters when in panic. As I pushed the tray onto the bedside table and swung my head over the edge of the bed, I felt as though my chest was filled with butterflies. My heart continued to flutter with such a tickling velocity that I was afraid it would fly right out of my throat. I hung my head upside down and looked beneath the bed. The feeling stopped. The biscuit tin that housed three weeks of medication was still there but the lid that was usually pressed down tight had been lifted off and dropped to the side. There was no doubt in my mind what had happened. I’d been caught out.

  When Amma came back upstairs I sat up straight in bed, placed the tray back on my knees and refused to look at her.

  ‘Your pills,’ she said, sticking her hand out.

  I blindly took the pills from her grasp and placed them on the tray.

  ‘Thank you.’

  I could feel her looking down at the hard discs. It was clear that one of us would have to give in but I wasn’t sure who. As Amma continued to wait, I took hold of the pills, stuffing their round bodies into my mouth and swallowing the whole lot down with a single gulp of mango juice. Amma said nothing, simply looking at my tray one last time before leaving the room.

  So now we are both left tangled in the web of my lies. Amma won’t admit that she knows my secret and I won’t admit that I know that she knows. As I’ve come to realize, we’re both stubborn mules and even though I know Amma will, as ever, emerge the victor, I keep digging my heels in the dirt. I’m not ready to give in, not yet. Secrets are destructive things and now the pin has been pulled out of the grenade, all I can do is wait for the explosion.

  The Constellation of Car Boots

  It happened at Laser’s ‘End-of-Century Car Boot Bonanza’. We’d all gone together, huddling around broken stalls in the chill of the morning, reading signs written with highlighters and taped to lollipop sticks. ‘MILLENNIUM FIREWORX’ I read, wondering how Laser had succeeded with ‘millennium’ while failing with ‘fireworks’. We liked this stall best because it was covered in large boxes we weren’t allowed to touch – stacks of Catherine wheels, rockets, fountains and sparklers; fireworks packed in gaudy boxes with names like ‘Ice Fountain’ and ‘Emerald Nights’ emblazoned across them in a fiery font. Your brother spent most of that morning trying to convince Laser to sell him a star-shaped set called ‘The One-minute Spectacular’.

  ‘Look, mate, I can’t,’ said Laser, pulling at the collar of his Tommy Hillfinger jumper. ‘You won’t believe the shit I’ll get in if I sell to minors.’

  ‘I’m not a miner,’ Jonathan protested. ‘I’m not even old enough to bloody work!’

  Uncle Walter would usually have chuckled at this and guided Jonathan away but he was too busy mooching in his trench coat by the second-hand books. That morning, your mother had called him a fat lump when trying to pass him in the kitchen, and the taunt had made him retreat into a shell of silence.

  If Uncle Walter hadn’t been hiding that day, maybe things would have been different. But maybe they would have been the same. The dominoes were already lined up and once the slabs began to topple there was no way of stopping the results.

  The first domino to (literally) be pushed was Mr Eccentric. He was standing behind your mother, rifling through a box of bric-a-brac, and she was showing Sandy Burke a faux-fur jacket. As she swung the fuzzy item around her shoulders, her arm clipped Mr Eccentric across the nose, knocking the glasses clear off his face. I can see it now in slow motion: the reddish fur gliding through the air, the clash of elbow against face, the ripple of disgust across Mr Eccentric’s expression as thick glasses shot off his nose.

  ‘I knew it!’ he said, scrambling across the floor until he found his frames. ‘I knew you’d have to start something!’

  When he bounced up to his feet, berry-red suit scuffed at the knees, Mr Eccentric jutted a bony finger at your mother’s face. Mrs Dickerson recoiled from it, the corner of her lip cobra-tailing into a snarl.

  ‘Shut up, you old bastard,’ she said, turning back to Sandy.

  Amma gasped, covering my ears with her hands as if I hadn’t already heard these words from Jonathan Dickerson’s potty mouth. But it wasn’t the words, it was the tone in which they were said and the person to whom they were said. Mr Eccentric might have been strange and mean but he was also old and unhappy.

  ‘Muuuuum …’ you said in one drawn-out syllable, the body of a second-hand Sindy doll hanging loosely in your hand.

  ‘You’ve always been a foul-mouthed hag!’ Mr Eccentric yelled. ‘Rotten to the
core!’

  Your mother laughed, fiddling with the make-up pallettes on the stall in front of her. She was a wild animal, shoulders covered in faux fur, lip snarling. Nobody would be able to tame her.

  ‘Bobby didn’t seem to think so,’ she said.

  It was then that Uncle Walter emerged. He appeared out of nowhere, a giant stepping out of his cave.

  ‘Don’t you dare bring my Bobby into this!’ Mr Eccentric cried. Uncle Walter’s large bear hands were upon Mr Eccentric, pulling him back.

  ‘Come on, Reggie,’ he said in his ear.

  Mr Eccentric didn’t struggle, seemed placated in fact, then began yelling, ‘She’s a witch! A goddamn witch! She should never have come back!’

  His kicking legs knocked one of the stalls, sending bumper packs of rockets and Catherine wheels tumbling to the floor. It was only then that I saw Jonathan standing behind the collapsed table. He wasn’t looking at Mr Eccentric or Mrs Dickerson, but down at the pile of boxes.

  ‘Let’s calm down, shall we?’ Laser said, panicking as his goods lay scattered across the floor.

  He edged his way round the tables but Mrs Dickerson widened her stance and blocked his path. She placed her hands on her hips, furry shoulders shaking as she spoke.

  ‘I’ve got as much right to be here as anyone else.’

  Mr Eccentric lurched forward, his thin body held back by the giant weight of your uncle’s bulk.

  ‘You made a deal with me, you witch! You said you’d go!’

  Your mother glanced at the faces surrounding her. ‘I did go. Now I’m back.’

  Mr Eccentric shook his head, flapping his hands as though flies were attacking him.

  ‘Not now – then. If you’d gone when I told you to, my boy would be alive.’

  My gaze became wild and darting. I looked up at Amma but she was as confused as me. I looked at you, your hand held in the air as if ready to ask a question. I looked at Jonathan, still standing by the firework stand, his eyes directed at your mother like pistols at a target. Behind him a crowd of Westhill residents had formed. They stood gawping as though watching a performance. Mrs Dickerson laughed.

  ‘So it’s my fault he’s dead now?’ she said.

  Mr Eccentric stood still. You could see the crinkles in his berry suit slacken as he lifted his chin.

  ‘I know you sent those men to finish him.’

  Your mother’s body reeled back.

  ‘Men?’ Mrs Dickerson said. ‘What men?’

  Mr Eccentric’s glasses began to steam up. I could see the large panels of glass within the huge frames, his eyes filling behind them. Uncle Walter gently patted Mr Eccentric on the shoulder.

  ‘Let’s stop this, Reggie,’ he said. ‘Let’s go back to your flat.’

  Mr Eccentric held his head low, his suit hanging from his shoulders in a way that revealed his fragility, as he let your uncle guide him away. Uncle Walter glanced back at your mother.

  That could have been the end of it. I wish that had been the end of it. But your mother wasn’t finished.

  ‘He did it to himself!’ she cried. ‘Bobby was never murdered, you stupid old git. He killed himself!’

  Mr Eccentric turned back sharply.

  ‘You’re full of lies!’ he said, jabbing his finger at her again. ‘Wicked lies!’

  I looked at Mrs Dickerson. Her eyes were darting between Walter and Mr Eccentric, the veins in her neck pulsing, the breath heaving through her nostrils. This was how your mother looked when she was about to attack.

  ‘Ask your mate Walt if you don’t believe me!’ she said. ‘He saw the whole bloody thing! Left him there bleeding to death, the stupid idiot.’

  As soon as the words were out, your mother’s expression crumpled. Her eyes blinked rapidly, arms hanging loosely by her side. She began to shake as the crowd whispered. You stood by her side, trying to take hold of her hand, but she shook you off without looking down. Her eyes flicked towards the crowd, her cheeks burning red. She straightened her back, collecting herself with a sharp intake of breath.

  ‘What do you think to that, Reggie? Not so perfect now, is he, your mate? Nothing but a coward.’

  She pulled a cigarette out of her bag, her hand struggling to hold it steady as she brought it to her lips.

  ‘Playing around with knives the way they used to do. I kept telling them they’d have an accident someday. But I didn’t send anyone! Call me anything, Reggie, but don’t call me a liar.’

  Nothing can demonstrate the gravity of a situation better than the reaction of a crowd. While some bystanders continued mumbling to each other, with hands held to chests, others quickly dissipated, realizing that they wanted no part of this particular drama. Behind Mrs Dickerson, Sandy Burke’s face had twisted with confusion, her bony knees rattling against each other. Amma shook her head, grabbing my hand and pulling at me with a harsh yank.

  But I was immovable, watching Mr Eccentric as he stood straight again, head held tall upon the tower of his wrinkled neck. He was furious, his glasses now shaking on the bridge of his nose. He looked at your mother with a glare that seemed strong enough to make her buckle. It was only when he looked at your uncle that the poison drained away.

  Uncle Walter had taken a step back from the stick figure of Mr Eccentric. Standing by himself with nothing but the concrete of buildings around him, Uncle Walt looked as small as a beetle. He was shaking his head.

  ‘I told him not to do it.’ He glanced up at Mr Eccentric. ‘I said, “No, Bobby, no!”’

  Mr Eccentric’s eyes widened. ‘He wouldn’t do that, not my Bobby,’ he said.

  ‘He had the knife,’ Uncle Walter said, clutching his fist. ‘But I don’t think he meant to do it. Not really. And then … And then …’

  ‘You left him there?’ Sandy said. ‘You ran away?’

  Uncle Walter’s eyes bulged. He looked as scared as a child waiting to be whipped. He blinked wildly as his whole body clenched tight, mouth muttering.

  ‘I didn’t mean … It happened so quick … I told him not to do it. There was so much blood! So much—’

  Mr Eccentric was shaking his head so vigorously that his glasses fell to the floor again. He didn’t bend down to collect them but covered his face with his hands.

  ‘It’s not true,’ he said into his palms. ‘It’s not true!’

  Uncle Walter stopped muttering and inhaled deeply. His shoulders dropped as he breathed out, a breath so long that I felt he could have blown us away. His eyes began to well up. We had never seen your uncle cry before.

  ‘I was a coward, Reginald,’ he said, voice cracking. ‘And I’ll never forgive myself.’

  I don’t know when he began walking but I do know that no one stopped your uncle that day on Westhill Estate. His slow, plodding footsteps were so resigned that there seemed no urgency. There was something in his walk that made it clear he wasn’t coming back, that this was the last we would see of him, but still no one followed. As he made his way along the backbone of the steps that led down the hill, his outline grew fainter and fainter. The further he went, the more he disappeared, until soon he was nothing more than a ghost.

  ‘Go on, leave!’ Mrs Dickerson cried, long after he could have heard. ‘Run away like you always bloody do! I’m not keeping your secrets any more!’

  Mr Eccentric continued to mutter into his hands as his glasses lay by his feet. When I looked at you a stream of tears was covering your tan cheeks. I wanted to run over and hold you but every limb of my body felt as heavy as stone. I searched for your brother, afraid that he would be tearing one of the stalls to pieces in a fit of rage. Instead, I saw him marching back to Bosworth House, back bent over, jacket stuffed with boxes that poked out at the seams.

  After Amma leaves I’m restless. I toss around in bed so recklessly I strain a muscle in my left shoulder. I curse the pain and it isn’t even that bad. This is how quickly the mind forgets past traumas; there was a time when I would have longed for such a simple and short-lived sting. Still, I sear
ch beneath my bed, pulling the strongest painkillers from my tin. I swallow them dry, their hard bodies sticking in my throat until I gag to make them shift. It’s then, as I lie head hanging over the side of the bed, that I see the corner of a book between the slats of the bed. It’s covered with red-brick wrapping paper and as soon as I see it I remember what it is. Another part of the past, waiting to find me.

  I sit up, trying to forget I’ve seen anything, and collect a crossword book from the bedside table. But the words swim before my eyes. So I move on to newspapers, making paper pellets out of them and throwing them at the dustbin. And then I lie. Looking up at the cracked paint on the ceiling, watching the white light fade to blue, then to black, then illuminate with orange as the streetlights click on. I try to think of crossword clues to keep my mind busy but keep coming back to the same one.

  9 down: To be on one’s own (5) = ALONE

  I close my eyes but my mind won’t sleep. I try to trick it with stories and lullabies yet it’s inundated with the words of my mother, your brother and our past life. Eventually I fling the sheets off my body and stomp down the stairs to the kitchen. I search through the cupboards. I don’t know what I’m looking for until I find it under the sink. Behind packets of sponge cloths and a randomly assembled first-aid kit (bandages, safety pins and a packet of hard-boiled sweets) I find a bottle of whiskey. As I draw it out from its hiding place it glimmers in the dusk; brown toffee liquid held behind a thick frosted wall. The foil-edged label is peeling back, the contents barely touched. I take four long glugs of the whiskey, choking with each swallow, before putting it back in its hiding place and returning to bed.

  I giggle as the mix of alcohol and medication makes me drowsy. I feel myself sliding into sleep, a fuzzy haze of random images filling the darkness. I see the image of Pikachu, our favourite of all the Pokémon, performing somersaults in the air. He twirls and whizzes, sparks trailing from his tail as he cries, ‘Pika-pika … CHOO!’ A My Little Pony flies off the curtains as if trying to compete, shaking its rainbow mane as fairy dust falls from its hoofs. Then I see you, or a version of you, lit up on the back wall. You’re grown up, curly hair tied back from your face, a pair of red reading glasses perched on your nose as you sit on top of a mountain like the one in Bobby’s postcard. Your hands are wrapped around your ankles as a ladybird umbrella hovers over your head, the mountain beginning to turn around, your figure turning away with it. The images continue to tumble as I fall into a disturbed sleep. Fluorescent strip lighting shaped like sheep, candyfloss horses strung up at a fair, the people standing waist-deep in the river Ganges as they wait for the eclipse.