The Man Who Didn't Call

by Rosie Walsh

  And I kept replying that there was no way I could hand my mother over to Derek. However wonderful he was. ‘I’m the only person she wants to call when she needs help,’ I said. ‘There’s nobody else she’d trust.’

  ‘You don’t know that for certain.’

  ‘But I do! If I told her she couldn’t call me – even if I said she couldn’t call me as often – she’d either take no notice and carry on as before, or she’d become dangerously ill. You know her history. You know I’m not just being pessimistic.’

  By the time our hour was up, we had made no real progress, but I had promised I’d continue next week without any tantrums.

  Jeanne laughed. She said I was doing really well.

  I reach the top of the hill, finally, arriving underneath the beech tree I’ve come to check. (It’s metres from the mystery welly.) Back in June, when I was tramping the countryside, thinking angry and confused thoughts about Sarah, I noticed it was suffering dieback – only it’s looking much worse now. I’m guessing some sort of beetle, as there’s no obvious pathogen in the bark, but it’s definitely a goner. I rest a hand on the trunk, saddened to imagine this magnificent beast felled by a snarling chainsaw.

  ‘Sorry,’ I tell it, because it feels wrong to say nothing. ‘And thank you. For the oxygen. And everything.’

  I check the surrounding trees (the welly is still there) and then walk back down the hill, hands in pockets. My brain keeps trying to slide me back in the direction of Sarah, and her sister’s visit to a grief counsellor, but I resist. I make myself think about the tree instead. The tree is a problem I know how to solve. I’ll call Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust tomorrow, see if they’d like some help bringing it down.

  By the time I get back to my barn, I’m feeling quite normal again.

  Then I step inside and find my mother standing by my drawer of purple letters. My secret drawer of purple letters, which nobody on earth other than Jeanne knows about. And I realize that Mum is reading – she is reading quite calmly – one of my letters to Alex. She holds it in one hand, an ugly expression on her face.

  I have to take a moment to be certain this is really happening. To be certain that my mother – my dear mother – is committing a breach of privacy on this level. But at that moment Mum turns the letter over, so she can read the back of the page, and I know there’s no doubt.

  Disbelief melds slowly into fury.

  ‘Mum?’ I say. My hand is clamped to the doorframe like a bench vice.

  In one movement she slides the letter behind her and turns to me.

  I reread in my head the text message I sent her before going out: I’m going for a walk. Just to warn you, I’ll be leaving my phone, for a bit of peace. But I’ll be back in a couple of hours.

  I always deliberately overestimate the time it’ll take me to do something. She panics otherwise.

  ‘Hi, darling!’ It’s that voice again, the one she does when she’s pushed me too far. Only today it’s even higher. ‘You were very quick.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I . . .’

  There is a thick, panicked silence as she weighs up her options. Everything is still. Even the trees outside seem to have paused, as if waiting for confirmation of treachery. But she can’t do it. She can’t tell me the truth. ‘I could hear something,’ she says, and her voice is so full of inflection she could be on children’s television. ‘It sounded like a mouse. Have you had trouble with mice recently, Eddie? It was near here. I’ve just been poking around . . . I’ve opened a few drawers. I hope you don’t mind . . .’

  She continues in this vein until I shout— No, I actually bellow, ‘HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN READING MY LETTERS?’

  There is a bottom-of-the-sea silence.

  ‘I did find some letters, just a second before you arrived,’ she says eventually. ‘I haven’t read them, though. I took a look at one and thought, Oh, this has nothing to do with me , so I was just putting it back when—’

  ‘Don’t lie to me! How long have you been reading my letters?’

  Mum’s hand flies to her face, and she starts to take off her glasses, but then changes her mind, leaving them skewed across her nose like a child’s seesaw. I look at her and I don’t see my mother. Only rage, a giant hotplate of fury.

  ‘How long have you been reading my letters?’ I ask, for the third time. I don’t think I have ever spoken to her in this tone. ‘And don’t lie,’ I say. ‘Not again. Seriously, Mum, do not lie to me.’

  I’m wholly unprepared for what comes next. I’m expecting weeping, my mother slumped on the floor begging forgiveness, when suddenly she turns, sweeping the letter into the air as if it were a parking ticket or some other insult to her existence. It zigzags slowly towards the floor. ‘Like you’ve lied to me?’ she says. ‘Like you lied to me about wanting to go to LA for a “holiday”? About wanting to see your friend Nathan, do a bit of surfing? Like you lied to me about Alan having an “emergency” the day you got back?’

  With a deliberateness I find mesmerizing, she moves forward and plants her hand on the bench that runs down the centre of this part of the workshop. ‘Like you lied to me about that . . . that girl ?’ She stares wildly at me, as if searching for her son in the face of a serial killer. ‘How could you? How could you have slept with her, Eddie? How could you betray your sister like that? ’

  She must have been reading my letters for months.

  No wonder she’s been so paranoid and clingy since I got back from LA. And no wonder she tried everything in her power to stop me going over there in the first place. Usually when I tell her I’m planning a trip, she looks pleased, because it allows her to convince herself I’m still having a life. This time she behaved as if I were emigrating to Australia.

  ‘That girl,’ she adds, shuddering. She looks like she’s talking about a rapist or a paedophile, not Sarah Harrington. Although I guess that to Mum there’s no moral distinction. ‘I meant what I said that day. I hope it was her in that hearse.’

  ‘Jesus Christ , Mum!’ I breathe. My voice is soft with wonder. ‘After all you’ve been through, you wish the same pain on someone else? Are you for real?’

  She makes a dismissive noise with her mouth. My mind leaps in all directions, finding clues everywhere. This is why she’s started to become ill again. She has known about Sarah for months.

  ‘Was it you who called her?’ I ask quietly. ‘On the phone? Was it you who sent her that threatening message? Is that why you wanted to get a new phone back in July?’

  I’ve started getting those marketing calls, she’d said. They’re really stressing me out, Eddie. I need a new phone number.

  ‘Yes. It was me who called her. And I don’t regret it.’ She’s wearing a pink jumper. For some reason the pink makes this ugliness all the more shocking.

  ‘And did you turn up at her old school that day? Did you lurk about on the canal path near her parents’ house when she came down to visit?’

  ‘Yes.’ She’s almost shouting ! ‘Somebody had to do something. I could not have her infect you. You’re all I have left!

  ‘Somebody had to do something,’ she repeats, when I fail to reply. ‘And you obviously weren’t going to. Moping around like that, telling your poor sister how much you loved the woman who killed her . . .’ She trails off. She’s hissing again. I stop hearing the words. All I can think is, Do you have any idea what I have gone through to keep you safe from this? How lonely I’ve been? Do you have any idea what I have sacrificed for the sake of your sanity?

  It comes to me at some point that she has stopped talking. Her eyes are wide and glassy with tears.

  ‘How did you get Sarah’s phone number?’ I hear myself asking, although I know the answer. ‘How did you know she was at her old school that day? Have you been looking at my phone, too?’

  She tells me yes. ‘And it’s your fault, Eddie, so don’t you get angry with me. I had to intervene, somehow. I had to try to protect Alex from . . . from this. ’

&
nbsp; A tear escapes her eye, but her voice remains firm. ‘It’s your fault,’ she repeats. ‘You who love to talk about choice! You had a choice, and you chose that woman. That girl .’

  I shake my head, sickened. Her hatred is as livid and vital as it was in the weeks following Alex’s death, intact after all these years.

  ‘It’s your fault,’ she repeats once more. ‘And I will not apologize.’

  And with that I feel a rupture in my skin – those layers, so thin and strained, so many years, just give way and it all haemorrhages out. The resentment, anger, loneliness, anxiety, fear, whatever – you name it, it’s all storming out like a burst water main. I know in that moment that I cannot carry on like this. I’m done.

  I lean against the door, exhausted. And when my voice comes out, it’s oddly level, as if I’m reading the shipping forecast.

  ‘No,’ I say blankly. (Bay of Biscay: good. ) ‘No, Mum, you’re not blaming me. I am not responsible for your actions. I am not responsible for how you feel, or what you think. It all comes from you. None of it is mine. You chose to read my letters. You chose to harass Sarah. You chose to turn what’s happened to me in the last few months – which, for the record, has been hell – into some sort of grand betrayal. You did that all on your own; I didn’t do a thing.’

  She starts to cry in earnest, although she still looks furious.

  ‘I am not responsible for your illness, Mum. Nor is Sarah. I have done my best for you – my very best – while you’ve invaded the only tiny bit of privacy I thought I had left.’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘Yes, I met Sarah, and yes, I fell for her. But I gave her up the moment – the second – I found out. And everything I’ve done since then has been in your best interests. Not mine, yours . And you’re still blaming me?’

  I watch her consider her response. She’s starting to panic. It’s not that she’s listened to what I’ve said, or thought about it, or (God forbid) realized that I might have a point; it’s more that she’s used to me having given way by this stage, and it’s beginning to dawn on her that I won’t.

  So she does what I knew she’d do, eventually: she recasts herself as victim.

  ‘OK,’ she says, and the tears begin to stream down her face. ‘OK, Eddie, it’s my fault. It’s my fault that I have this awful, miserable life, that I’m trapped in my house, taking all that horrid medication. It’s all my fault.’

  She watches my face, but I don’t move a muscle. ‘You tell yourself whatever you like, Eddie, but really you have no idea how hard my life is.’

  Given that I’ve been looking after her for nineteen years, I think this is a little unfair.

  We stand like two pawns in a chessboard face-off. Mum breaks eye contact first, doubtless to make me feel like the aggressor. She looks wretchedly down at the bench, tears squeezing and dripping into the deep ruts and saw marks below.

  ‘Don’t leave me, Eddie,’ she says eventually, like I knew she would. ‘I’m sorry I did what I did. I’m just devastated about you and . . . her. It’s destroyed me.’

  I close my eyes.

  ‘Don’t leave me, Eddie,’ she repeats.

  I move round the bench and hug her. A tiny sparrow of a human being, so easily crushed. I hold her, rigid, and think of my ex-girlfriend Gemma. This was the moment she could never truly understand. The moment when, even after Mum had pushed me to the outer edge of my capabilities, it was still my job to comfort her, to tell her everything was OK. The capitulation was totally inexplicable to Gemma. But I suppose that, like most people, she’s never had the experience of being responsible for someone else’s mental well-being. She’s never lost her sister, and then, nearly, her mother.

  This time, though, it’s different. I’m hugging Mum because I have to, but inside the landscape has already changed.

  It’s raining by the time I get her into the Land Rover and drive her home. The sky is stuffed with grey clouds, swarming quickly over each other like angry thoughts. I apologize silently to Sarah. Wherever she is. I don’t wish you dead , I tell her. I wish you only happiness.

  In Mum’s house, I give the heating a boost and make her some toast before she goes to bed. I give her a sleeping pill and hold her hand until she’s asleep. I have never had the experience of watching my own child sleep, but I imagine it’s a similar feeling. She looks, somehow, both lost and peaceful as she lies there, curled against my hand like a safety blanket, twitching occasionally, her breath barely audible.

  Then I step outside and call Derek, and I leave a message on his answerphone, saying, in a very matter-of-fact way, that I have hit a wall and need his help.

  On returning home, I watch three episodes of some Netflix series and – exhausted but unable to sleep – spend most of the rest of the night on my garden bench, wrapped in my duvet, having a one-way conversation with Steve the squirrel.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  DECEMBER – Three Months Later

  Dear You,

  Well, ho, ho, ho! Merry bloody Christmas.

  I’ll be thankful for the end of this year.

  This is my first letter to you in more than three months. I guess I’ve had a lot to think about. I’ve also been very busy trying to effect change with Mum without her realizing. That’s been Derek’s plan: liberate Eddie by stealth. He’s been magnificent, of course.

  He set up a meeting with Frances, the vicar who’s been visiting Mum for years. She said there are a few people locally who are happy to visit isolated parishioners. Derek said that the idea was to establish a friendship between Mum and a volunteer – however long it took – so that eventually she’d trust them enough to want them to take her shopping, or to the odd medical appointment. Someone other than me she could call, someone to open her world up, just a chink.

  So a chap called Felix is visiting Mum, alongside Frances, once a week. Felix is a Gulf War veteran. Lost his arm out there. Then his wife left, because she couldn’t cope, and then he lost his son in Iraq in 2006. So Felix knows about pain and loss. And yet, you know what, Hedgehog? He’s so jolly! I’ve only met him twice, but he seems like the most positive chap. Listening to him and Mum is quite something – her response to just about everything is negative, whereas his is unfailingly upbeat. Sometimes when he’s talking, I can see her thinking, Is he completely mad?

  ‘Give her another few weeks,’ Derek said to me the other day. ‘I don’t think she’s far off going out of the house with him.’

  Derek even persuaded her to spend Christmas with her sister so I could have a break.

  So . . . slowly but surely, I’m getting a bit more space. A bit more oxygen. I get glimpses of myself, from time to time – how I was before all of this. How I was during that week with Sarah. How I was when I was young. And they feel good.

  Anyway! Here I am, on Christmas Day, in Alan’s new spare room in Bisley. It’s 5.45 a.m. and Lily’s already up, pounding on Alan and Gia’s door. I went mad and bought her a whole stocking’s worth of presents. Alan says I’m a selfish turd and that I’ve shown him up.

  For now, though, I’m looking out of the still-to-be-curtained window at a gunmetal sky and I’m thinking about you. My dearest, most precious Alex.

  I have no idea if you’re there. If you’ve stood at my shoulder all these years, reading the words I’ve written to you, or if you’ve been no more than a vibration of spent energy. Whatever you’ve been, though, I hope you have somehow known how dearly loved you were, how desperately missed.

  Without you, or these letters, I don’t know if I’d have made it. In death you were as in life: kind, colourful, warm, a friend. I felt you, through these purple pages. Your vitality and silliness, your nosiness, your goodness, your innocence, your sweetness. You kept me putting one foot in front of the other. You helped me breathe when life was strangling me.

  But the time has come for me to go it alone, as Jeanne says. To stand on my own two feet. And so, my little Hedgehog, this is to be our last letter.

  I am g
oing to be OK. Jeanne is certain of it, and – actually – I am, too. I have to be, really; I see every day in our mother what the alternative looks like.

  I am even going to give in to Alan’s insistence that I start dating. I don’t really want to, but I accept that I have to at least give myself the chance of loving someone else.

  Because that’s the thing: Mum can’t change, but I can. And I will. I will march on through winter, I will finish my commissions, and I’ll take on more. I’m going to start offering summer workshops for young people. I’m going to do this stupid Tinder thing. I’m going to get fit, too, and get better at stonemasonry, and be a stupendous godfather to Lily. And I’m going to do all of this with a smile on my face, because that’s the person people think I am, and that’s the person I want to be again.

  That’s my promise, Hedgehog. To you, and to myself.

  I will never forget you, Alex Hayley Wallace. Not for a day. I will love you until the end of my life. I will always miss you, and I will always be your big brother.

  Thank you for being there. In life and in death.

  Thank you, and goodbye, my darling Hedgehog.

  Me xxxxxxxxxxx

  Chapter Forty-Six

  EARLY MARCH – Three Months Later

  The day my life changes forever, I’m gearing up for my first Tinder date. I feel quite stupid with nerves. (It doesn’t help that Alan is texting me on the hour, every hour, to check I’m not backing out.) She is called Heather, and she has nice hair, and she seems smart and funny. But I still don’t want to go. I actually caught myself earlier, wondering if I could hammer a nail through my hand so I’d have the excuse of an afternoon in A&E.

  I have not admitted this to Alan.

  It’s also Mum’s sixty-seventh, so I’ve taken her for lunch in Stroud. We’re in Withey’s Yard, which has always been a safe place for her – presumably because it’s hidden up an old stone alleyway, visible to almost nobody – and today she’s full of chat. Felix took her shopping yesterday, and he’s better at it than I am. His only downfall is that he can’t carry as many shopping bags because he has only one arm.