by David Mathew
Seventy-two hours have elapsed. I couldn’t continue right there and then: I was crying. I’ve been crying for three solid days. Again, I don’t want to make you guilty, frustrated, sad or inadequate in any way; but I don’t want you to feel mean and powerful either. I am not only crying for you—I’m crying for the fragility of things. One phone call—one single, five-minute phone call and you have knocked over the house of cards I’ve been building on our behalf since you were sent down. That’s all it took. Which means, let’s be honest, it was never entirely secure in the first place. If I want you to feel anything, feel love. Feel love for Patrice, feel love for your mother, and feel love for the mother of your child. She has the right to a life. And if your letter set her free in one way to explore her own decisions, it was so empty of the right things to say that it’s built her a new type of prison—Category A—one with a crèche. Your daughter is in the next cell along, and she hasn’t even learned how to breathe properly. Picture that. I hope it does some good, however harsh I have made it sound. Julie can’t help loving who she loves any better than Patrice can and will. Or any better than I can. And I do love you, Willy. I suppose all of that—lecture over—is a kind of preamble to something I wanted very much to talk about, especially if this is going to be our last correspondence—hopefully, though, only our last for a while. There is one more thing to say. I suppose this is a sort of introduction. Yesterday, for the first time, I met Bailey. Or rather, I met a man named Bailey as Bailey. I have of course met him before; so have you. But he had a different name then, and it was a long time ago. The truth is, William, even when I was picking Patrice up one time and Julie sat me down and said she had a new man in her life, I was glad. I’m sorry, but I was. A child needs a father figure as well, and I thought—well, I thought it fit nicely, Bailey showing up when her chips were down. Offering help and a strong arm. But I didn’t meet him, and why should the name have meant anything? I’ve never met anyone called Bailey. I supported Julie’s decision, knowing it would hurt you. You were angry when he and Julie emptied your savings account. Naturally you were. I’m too long in the tooth, I think— and this game has lasted for too many years—for me to feel anything but dread at the thought of asking you were you got £85,000 from at your age. So I won’t. I don’t want to know. But I want to tell you this. He didn’t steal it from you, Willy. Don’t ask me how he and Julie drained your account, but they did, and Julie was telling the truth: Bailey was using the capital as investment. I had it all back yesterday—a cheque with my name on it, for me to look after it for you. He returned every penny, Bailey did. But I hardly even noticed the cheque when he brought it to the front door. It was like, do you remember when you were a boy? You loved your chocolate. But you didn’t eat it in a normal sort of way. Remember? You used to take the bar from the wrapper and put the wrapper in the bin. Then you’d start eating it from the middle—a great big bite, severing the two halves from each other. Then you nibbled at each of the remaining pieces—one bite here, one bite there. It was a bit like that, or it seems that way now. Shock was the only thing calling me when I saw Bailey’s face, but something had taken a bite out of my time. Crunch! The last two decades, munched away. Only a before and after left Bye-bye! I didn’t even recognise him at first. If you take something out of context, it’s difficult to see it for what it is. And I hadn’t even thought about your father—not properly—for ten or twelve years. Yet here he was, on the landing outside the flat, pressing the doorbell that doesn’t work and then using his knuckles to rap on the wood. He is thinner and takes up less space in real life than he does in my uncommon thoughts of him. Withered. Is that the word? His face had all but caved in on itself and he sucked on a set of false teeth for the few minutes he was with me. Yet no time had passed, it seemed— not once I’d quickly got used to his new appearance. Can I describe the emotions, other than the shock I mentioned above? I don’t think I can. I thought of the time he left us, which led to that trouble I got myself—and us—into; my blood thinned. Then I thought of how he used to make me laugh; my heart leaped up. What else could I do? I used sarcasm.
‘Did you get lost?’ I asked him. ‘Or was the shop a long way away?’
‘Hello, Sylvia,’ he said. ‘Good to see you again. I have something.’
‘Yeah—a nerve,’ I said. ‘You have a big fucking nerve.’
Pardon my French, Willy, but I was stunned, distressed, elated, I don’t know what else. Here he was, on our doorstep, not carrying a bag—that was one good thing, at least he didn’t expect to be invited to stay—but pulling from the back pocket of his jeans a piece of paper. As it turned out, a cheque; but I wasn’t finished dishing out the recriminations yet. I’d been storing them for a long time, as you can imagine; providing a piece of paper wasn’t about to dampen embers inside me that suddenly had been fanned into flames.
‘Where you been?’
‘Here and there.’
‘What you been doing?’
‘This and that.’
He wasn’t giving anything away, not at first. What else could I do? I did what the British do in times of crisis: I talked about the kettle.
‘I’m just brewing up,’ I told him. ‘Would you like one?’
The smile he gave me was yellower than it was when he left, but no less charming. Is this too much information? It probably is, but I want you to understand that once you let someone into your heart it’s impossible to free them completely. You might think you’ve let them go, but it’s like when you break a glass or a mug by accident: you’re forever finding miniscule shards on the linoleum. And on that subject, William, try your best to give Julie away but I bet you can’t. And you definitely won’t be able to give away Patrice. You’re a good boy. And it seems, despite what I thought, I didn’t give away your father.
‘Come in, Harvey,’ I said. ‘Welcome back.’ I walked away.
He entered the flat, saying, ‘Bailey, Sylv. It’s Bailey now.’
‘Why?’ I turned to look over my shoulder.
‘Bit of bother,’ was how he put it. ‘New start and all that.’
I was fairly decided on what he meant. ‘How long you been inside?’
I took hold of a dishcloth and removed the old kettle from the gas; the handle was scorching. I poured boiling water into the cup I’d prepared: milk and teabag, two spoonfuls of sugar.
‘You can have this one, Bailey.’
‘Thanks.’
Standing in the doorway, he seemed awkward, ill-at-ease.
‘I like what you’ve done to the place,’ he said.
‘You haven’t answered my question.’
Frustration—maybe fear—was making me stab his teabag with my spoon, again and again, even though the tea had brewed quickly and the liquid was the brown of shoe polish.
‘Okay. Three stretches,’ he said. ‘Six months. Eighteen months. Three years. Do you want to know for what?’
‘We might as well start with your war stories.’
‘Nothing serious. Promise. Burglary, burglary, aggravated burglary. The last one I was coerced into it; I owed a man a favour.’
I interrupted him. ‘I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to hear your war stories. What are you doing here, Harvey? Why now? If you haven’t been able to find the time to call or write since you left, why now?’
‘I’d like to see the kids,’ he tells me.
‘Well, that ain’t gonna happen!’
I started to prepare a cup for myself, and I swear to you, William—even now I hadn’t put two and two together. I knew that Julie had a fella called Bailey, and now, here was Bailey. I’m so stupid, I was in a kind of trauma, but I just didn’t think of them as being the same person. I did a few minutes later, but first we had a row to get through. I won’t bore you with the details, but in a nutshell he wants to see if he can try to be part of your lives again. He’s mended his ways. My guess is, he’s pennile
ss, possibly homeless, and he needs a permanent address in order to claim benefits; but you’ll forgive me for being catty and mean, I hope. I told him I’d speak to your sisters about it first, and I said that when it comes to you—to you, Willy—his timing couldn’t possibly be any worse. I showed him the frigid letter you wrote me—you wrote your mother. He was perplexed. He knew you were in prison, of course, but he didn’t understand this new resolution of yours, not to see anyone. He said that if he’d been allowed to choose he would have seen us every day. I told him I doubted it. Most likely you’ll be angry that I even took place in a conversation like this. Sorry. If you’re angry—sorry. I know you don’t need advice from your dad at this late stage, but he really has acted to help you. What he says is, he found out stories about you, most of them local (and I didn’t even know he was still in the area), but occasionally further afield. It’s a bit late in the day for a guilt trip, I told him but he didn’t smile. Late or not late, he said to me, that’s what I’m wearing. He got in touch with Julie in order to help with the baby. This is what he thought would be the hard part, but after he’d shown her the photographs I didn’t realise he would have kept—you know the picture of us all by the Christmas tree that Ronald Dott from downstairs took one Christmas morning when you were still in nappies? that really cute one? Julie believed your father’s claims. Even felt sorry for him. She soothed his bleeding heart, the poor lamb and she tells me that he was a good ‘father’ to Patrice. Julie’s family were only too happy to have someone else on board—but Julie was working up to the part where she told them he was actually your dad and a good deal older than she was. Not that there was ever a relationship there. Julie kept it secret from everyone, including me. I can’t help feeling disappointed about that but life goes on. I think I can see her point. I would have probably had a few words to say on the subject of your father turning up out of the blue and demanding access—not to you or your sisters, but to your daughter. All things balanced, Julie did the right thing, I am sure of it. What your father needed the money for—what exactly this investment happens to be—I have no idea. To be frank, I doubt any investment exists. Do you know what I think? When we finished our cups of tea, and I was silently willing him to leave because the last hour had been too stressful, that was when he attempted again to palm the cheque off on me. I didn’t even need him to explain what it was or where it came from. I’m not sure I said thank you. I was washing around in my theories, William. The overriding one is this: In addition to proving, as I say late in the day, there he does in fact have a modicum of parenting skills, I think your father wanted to prove he could also be trusted with money. The clear implication, of course, is that he believes Julie cannot—cannot be trusted with money. Or not with your money anyway. So he talked her into transferring it to his account. How hard could that have been, these days, with phone banking? Internet banking? She would have provided him with any codes or passwords he needed—say what you think about your skills as a ghetto boy, William, but you always were sloppy when it comes to matters of personal finance. I think your father believed that it was a matter of time before Julie dipped into your account anyway, and he was trying to protect you. That’s what I think. He let it get a few bob’s worth of interest in his own account—maybe—but he didn’t steal it from you. He has given it to me for safe keeping. You can have it upon release—so in spite of what I’ve written above, you will have to see me after all. Hard lines. I’m your mother and you don’t lose me so easily. Bailey drives a van now. He has an income. He is living locally, and swears he is going straight. I think prison shat him up worse than it has for you, Willy—pardon my French again. He’s too old, he feels, to lose even more time in a cell. And if I’ve got my facts right, if he does go away for a crime related to those he was convicted of (let’s forget the ones he probably got away with), isn’t it a case, these days, of three strikes and you’re out? He might go to prison for a long, long time. He’s trying not to do that, I believe. Will I see him again? That’s impossible to say. He claimed to have no land-line phone number and said he’d forgotten his mobile number too. Should I be so sceptical? It’s hard not to be, really it is. Bailey was even shady about where he was living—a mate’s settee for now, a deposit down on a bedsit for the new year, was the best explanation I could pluck out of the man—so I didn’t push any harder. When he left I looked over the balcony at both ends of the flat, to see if he climbed into a white van. He headed off on foot. Now you know. Your money is safe, unless Bailey has creamed off a few pounds for his expenses. Either way, the numbers on the cheque read: £85,104. You can be the judge who says if anything is missing or not. Just rest assured that when you get released, you have here the sort of nest-egg that most people—definitely round these parts—never see in their lives. This has been a long letter; but I have been a long Mum. What I mean is, I’ve been a Mum for a long time. Next birthday I will be forty. I’m not looking forward to it: you were still be in prison. What I wouldn’t give to have you home for a weekend—that weekend—to cut the cake and kiss me happy birthday, with your sisters nearby in the room. To be a family again. But barring a miracle overturning of justice—an appeal against the verdict of godlike proportions, Willy—I’ll be here and you’ll be there. I’ll be waiting.
Love and God bless you—
Mumsy xxx
###
Six.
Is this the first time my two consciousnesses have fully merged? Is this the first time my two selves have been aware of the other? Have I mingled as surely as hot soup and cream, or am I still closer to the never-the-twain style of oil and water? Oil and water, at any rate, is what I see. It’s what I smell as well as I am lowered, a rope around my waist, by a squad of fellow prisoners, up above me, still serving their time but wishing me well for the future. My sentence has been concluded; in this desert reality I am leaving the ship, my time spent, and in jerky motions I am heading down towards the rowboat. I can’t see myself. There is no third person, omniscient pair of eyes I can use to view how badly or well my body appears. I feel strong. I know that much. As I take my seat in the boat, the muscles I’ve used for years to row a ship that never moves—these muscles sigh and relax. I won’t be needing them in the short term. What I need is a drink of water. I’ll do anything for water, I think as the computer registers the extra weight, my weight, and sets off back in the direction of the shore and the township. My welcoming committee consists of a single person, dressed in black from head to toe, the hood obscuring his face included. When he looks up from his inspection of the oil- smiles on the sand by his feet, I can see his face, weathered and bruised but not old. He looks about thirty. It is Noor. He sports a largely black beard, in which zigzag filaments of the purest white hair. The beard stretches down to his clavicle.
Welcome back, he bids me.
Bids me warmly? Enthusiastically? Not a bit of it, no. Noor is here on duty, nothing but; to add to this air of non-committal there is something ill-at-ease about the man, the hood serving only to support my contention he doesn’t wish to be recognised. What language are we speaking? It has not crossed my mind to question our mutual understanding in this desert landscape—it’s only my memory—yes, memory!—of the screws’ faces in my cell when I’m speaking in tongues that makes me ponder now. In the language we speak I say:
I need to drink water.
Don’t we all? I have money. But you’ll have to buy it yourself and bring it out. There’s not a bar I can enter in Umma where someone won’t see me.
See you? Anyone can see you! You mean recognise you.
Angrily Noor counters with: I know what I mean! To some people I’m invisible. They know I’ve been on the Leper Island. That makes me invisible.
Is that where you went? When you got off the ship.
Noor nods his head; the hood wriggles back on his hairless scalp a few centimetres; Noor wastes no time in rearranging his attire.
Come! he says.
/> Where are we going? I ask him, the muscles that relaxed now tensing up again. The question hangs in the air as Noor turns and walks away.
To get you a drink, first, he replies over his shoulder.
Then to the desert. Where else would we be going?
With my awareness of all that’s been said inside the walls of Dellacotte YOI, I am able to frame the next thought with succinctness.
Am I dead again?
But call him Dott or call him Noor, the evasiveness is ever present.
Only if you want to be, he says. Come on, walk faster!
