B07F6HL2NB

by Frances Garrood

  ‘What an — odd person,’ says Mum.

  ‘Oh, she’s odd all right. Goodness knows why Eric and Silas put up with her. But she’ll be okay now she’s met you. Just ignore her. She’s upset because she likes to feel she’s in charge of this place, and she hates surprises.’

  But Blossom has only just started. She follows poor Mum round the house, ensuring that whatever job she is about to do, Mum’s in the way. She skins a freshly-killed rabbit under Mum’s nose (quite unnecessarily, as Silas usually does that sort of thing) and she flatly refuses to spring clean Mum’s room, although Eric asks her very nicely.

  ‘No time,’ she says.

  ‘You’ve got another two hours yet,’ says Eric reasonably. ‘It shouldn’t take that long.’

  ‘Take more’n that.’

  ‘No it won’t. Not if you start now.’

  Blossom eyes Eric beadily.

  ‘Bad back,’ she says. ‘Done enough cleaning for today. Do the pigs.’

  ‘What bad back?’ asks Silas, the medical expert.

  ‘Personal,’ says Blossom going out and slamming the back door behind her.

  ‘How can a bad back be personal?’ asks Mum, puzzled.

  ‘Blossom’s bad back can be anything she likes,’ says Eric wearily. ‘If she’s got one. Which I very much doubt.’

  ‘Why doesn’t she like me?’ Mum asks.

  ‘I suspect you’re a threat,’ Eric says. ‘Ruth was bad enough — another woman around the house, and all that — but now there are two of you, she probably sees it as two against one.’

  Poor Mum. Her visit has not got off to a good start, and there is more to come, for the next day, Mikey pays me another visit. He says he is ‘just passing’ again, but I suspect there’s more to it than that, for he seems strangely excited.

  Mum hasn’t met Mikey, and as far as I know has never met any gay person. She’s not so much homophobic as homo-ignorant (if there is such a thing), and given Mikey’s exuberant lack of tact, I anticipate trouble.

  At first, things go well enough. Mikey greets Mum very nicely, doesn’t ask embarrassing questions as to the whys and wherefores of her visit, and there is a safely general discussion round the kitchen table when he joins us all for lunch. But I can see that he is bursting to say something, and after half an hour, he can contain himself no longer.

  ‘Oh, Ruth! I’ve been dying to tell you. You know that new partner I was telling you about? We’re in love!’ he tells me (and of course, everyone else).

  ‘That’s great, Mikey.’ I try making warning signals, but Mikey is oblivious.

  ‘Yes. It all happened so quickly. We’re going on holiday together.’

  At this stage, I try to reach Mikey’s foot with mine to give him a kick under the table, but he’s too far away. I look despairingly at my uncles, but neither of them seems to have noticed the impending danger.

  ‘How lovely for you,’ Mum beams. ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Gavin. Gavin.’ The word rolls off Mikey’s lips as only a lover’s name can; smoothly, adoringly, and (to most people) indisputably male.

  ‘What an unusual name for a girl!’ cries my mother, still completely in the dark.

  I make one last, desperate attempt to reach either Mikey’s love-glazed eyes or his foot, but it’s too late.

  ‘Oh, Gavin isn’t a girl; he’s a man,’ Mikey tells her. ‘Can’t you tell? I’m —’

  At last my foot reaches its target and administers a sharp blow to Mikey’s ankle, and he finally shuts up. But of course, the damage is done. I have never seen anyone blush the way Mum does when she realises what Mikey’s saying; what Mikey is. Even the tips of her ears seem to go puce. She looks at me despairingly, and I realise that of course she has no idea what to do. She has no rules for this kind of situation, and Mum lives her life by rules. My father isn’t there to give her guidance, and she hasn’t the confidence to trust any reaction of her own. She is almost certainly torn between politeness, horror and a deep and unspeakable embarrassment, and I feel desperately sorry for her.

  ‘Mum, why don’t you go and put your feet up?’ I suggest. ‘You must be tired. I know you didn’t have a very good night.’

  She gives me a grateful look and practically scampers from the room. A few minutes later, Eric and Silas wander off to inspect a leaky roof, and Mikey and I are left on our own.

  ‘Oh, Mikey! How could you!’ I am furious with him.

  ‘How could I what?’

  ‘My mother’s never come across a gay person before. She didn’t know where to put herself!’

  ‘Perhaps it was time she did.’

  ‘Did what?’

  ‘Meet a gay person.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so ridiculous.’ I begin collecting up the lunch things. ‘Mikey, my mother is a complete innocent. She lives under the thumb of my father and thinks and believes what he thinks and believes. In my father’s book, gay people are beyond the pale.’

  ‘How sweet,’ Mikey murmurs.

  ‘No. Not sweet. Just ignorant. But they are basically good people, and they are my parents.’

  ‘Am I supposed to be sorry?’

  ‘It would be a start.’

  ‘Okay. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Not good enough.’

  ‘I really am sorry, Ruth.’ He kisses my cheek. ‘Will that do? But I’m so happy, and I wanted you to be happy for me.’

  ‘Of course I’m happy for you. I’m delighted for you. But next time you have a piece of news like this, please spare my mother. She’s having a hard time at the moment, and she can do without you and your love life.’

  ‘Okay. Understood.’

  ‘That’s all right, then.’

  ‘So can I tell you about Gavin now? Please, Ruth. Just five minutes.’

  Mikey spends the next half-hour telling me about Gavin while we do the washing up together, and I listen, because Mikey is a good friend and I really am happy for him.

  ‘So,’ he finishes. ‘Now tell me about you.’

  ‘There’s not much to tell, really. I’m fine, and the baby’s fine. But the bad news is that my mother seems to have left my father.’

  ‘Goodness!’

  ‘Yes. I’m sure it’s not permanent, but still, it’s all a bit messy.’

  ‘And you’re caught in the middle.’

  ‘Well not really, because my father hasn’t been in touch. Mum only arrived yesterday.’

  ‘And she’s now trespassing on your patch.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad she feels she can come here, of course I am.’

  ‘But you were comfortable as you were. The three of you, and that ghastly Blossom.’

  ‘Yes. Does that sound awful?’

  ‘Not awful at all. It’s perfectly natural. You’ve settled in so happily here — it all seems so right — and of course your mum being around is bound to make a difference.

  ‘It does a bit.’

  ‘And still no man?’ he asks me.

  ‘I’m hardly likely to find one round here, am I?’

  ‘No. I suppose not. But what about the baby’s father, Ruth? Is there no chance of your making a go of it with him?’

  ‘I don’t even know where he is.’

  ‘Mm. That could be problematic.’ Mikey stacks plates neatly away in a cupboard. ‘Are you ready to talk about him yet?’

  ‘Oh, why not?’

  So I put away my tea towel, and tell Mikey about Amos. I tell him about our long friendship, Amos’s divorce and the night we spent together. I tell him about the comforting familiar hugeness of Amos, his sense of humour, his warmth and his kindness.

  ‘And — I miss him,’ I end lamely. ‘I never thought I would, and if it weren’t for the baby, I probably wouldn’t be giving him a thought, but I really, really miss him.’

  ‘Anyone would think you were in love with the guy,’ Mikey remarks after a moment.

  ‘Can one fall in love with someone when they’re not there?’

  ‘I don’t see why not. After al
l, you seem to know him pretty well. And I’m sure having a baby with someone must make a difference.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, it does. And of course, that’s another thing. The baby.’

  ‘What about the baby?’

  ‘I’ve done nothing about it. I can’t think about it or make plans for it or anything. I’m just — stuck. Eric and Silas say I should start making decisions about the future, but I can’t see a future. Not with a baby. I know I decided to keep it, and I’ve no regrets about that, but it doesn’t seem real, somehow. I just see myself living here for ever with my bump, milking goats and arguing with Blossom and playing my fiddle to bored shoppers.’

  ‘You could give the baby to me. I’d love to have your baby.’

  ‘That’s a thought.’ For a moment, I have a vision of the seahorse/rabbit being carried off into the sunset by Mikey (and probably Gavin as well. Why not?). It would be loved and cared for by someone I know, and I could have visiting rights. The perfect solution all round.

  But while Mikey is undoubtedly half-serious, the baby wouldn’t have a mother, and I’d like it to have a mother. Besides, now that my own mother is joining in I am no longer the only person involved. Mum is clearly preparing for — even looking forward to — her role as a grandmother, so I can hardly give her grandchild away. It seems that the Woman’s Right to Choose ends once the pregnancy is under way; after that, other people enter the equation, with their own hopes and expectations, and it’s hard to ignore them.

  ‘You’d make a lovely dad, Mikey, and it’s tempting. But I have to go ahead with this. I’ll manage somehow.’

  ‘Then at least find Amos.’

  ‘I’ve done everything I can think of. He just seems to have vanished.’

  ‘People can’t do that. Not with the internet, and mobiles, and CCTV.’

  ‘Amos can. He hates the internet, and likes people not knowing where he is. It’s a kind of pride thing with him, being invisible. Plus, he’s hiding from his ex.’

  ‘I could still try to Google him for you.’

  ‘Other friends have tried, but no luck so far. But I’d love you to have a go, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Of course I will. There can’t be that many trombone-playing Amoses. He should be pretty easy to find.’

  ‘Even Amos Jones?’

  ‘Especially Amos Jones.’

  ‘You’re a star.’ I give him a hug.

  ‘And still a godfather?’

  ‘Certainly still a godfather,’ I assure him. ‘I can’t think of a better one.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  All things considered, my mother has settled into the household surprisingly well. She appears unfazed by the chaos, seems to enjoy the animals, and is obviously deeply fond of Eric and Silas. It’s as though the three of them have picked from where they were when they were children, and it’s lovely to see Mum laughing once more.

  Of course, not everything delights her, and she finds Silas’s taxidermy hard to understand.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind so much if they looked the way they’re meant to,’ she confesses to me. ‘But they all look so — odd. Not at all the way they must have when they were alive. That badger looks more like a small bear on its way to a fancy dress party than a real badger.’

  ‘Silas over-stuffs them,’ I tell her. ‘He can’t help himself. He gets an animal just right, and then he can’t resist adding a little bit more stuffing, and ruins the effect. He also puts in the wrong eyes.’

  ‘The wrong eyes?’

  ‘Yes. He has to send away for the eyes. He got a batch of dogs’ eyes by mistake, and he can’t bear to waste them.’ Which of course explains the reproachful doggy gaze of several ill-matched animal faces. ‘Mr. Darcy can’t stand it. He doesn’t like the taxidermy thing any more than we do, but it’s the eyes that really get to him. I think he takes it personally.’

  And then there’s Eric and his researches. Poor Mum is torn between curiosity and her long-held fundamentalist beliefs. I can see that she is longing to look at Eric’s plans (which have now had to be moved into what is optimistically known as the study because they’ve outgrown the kitchen table), but has misgivings because of her loyalty to Dad and her church.

  ‘Oh, go on, Mum. What harm can it do?’ I ask her. ‘You can carry on believing what you’ve always believed, and still have a look at Eric’s Ark. It’s really very interesting.’

  So Mum spends an hour on her hands and knees with Eric poring over his plans, while he explains at length about carnivores and herbivores, which animals can co-habit and which must be kept apart, and the amount of excrement they will all produce in a day (which, Eric explains cheerily, can all be chucked into the sea, because if there’s one thing Noah has plenty of, it’s sea).

  ‘I thought you didn’t believe in Noah,’ Mum says, perhaps glimpsing a tiny opportunity for Eric’s salvation.

  ‘I don’t. This is all theory.’ Eric rolls up his plans and stows them carefully away in an old chest out of Blossom’s way (Blossom has no time for Eric’s researches, and given half a chance is more than capable of hoovering up all his hard work). ‘Don’t worry, Rosie.’ He pinches her cheek. ‘I’ll be okay. You don’t need to believe in a great boat full of animals in order to be saved.’

  Every evening, my father phones, and Mum speaks to him for about five minutes. She is reluctant to tell us what he says, but he is apparently coping well.

  ‘The church are all praying for us,’ she tells me.

  ‘I bet they are,’ mutters Silas, mixing chemicals in the sink.

  ‘But he keeps asking when I’m coming home. I don’t know what to do, Ruth. I’ve never been in this situation before. What do — what do people do?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. But you’re doing okay, Mum. And at least you’re able to think things through without anyone putting pressure on you.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Do you miss him?’ I ask her.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Mum rolls out pastry for a pie she’s making (she’s “earning her keep” as she puts it by doing much of the cooking). ‘I ought to miss him, oughtn’t I? After nearly forty years. I certainly ought to feel — well, something more than this.’

  ‘I don’t think oughts count when it comes to feelings. After all, you can’t help what you feel, can you? It’s what you do that counts.’

  ‘And what I’m doing is wrong. I made vows, Ruth. Important vows. I believed — believe in them. And now look at me.’

  Poor Mum. I don’t think there are any divorced or separated couples among her sheltered acquaintance, so this is unknown territory for her. I often wonder how people like my parents survive the mores of our post-modern world. They behave like lost time-travellers from a bygone age, expecting everything to be as it used to be — as it ought to be — unable to accept or understand change. I’m sure my father is more worldly-wise than my mother, and that he has succeeded in protecting her from the more shocking aspects of the twenty-first century. They rarely watch television, and newspapers are carefully rationed. They have what Dad calls the “wireless” (who still uses that word?), listening to the news and the occasional church service, and such books as they read are all about the Bible or the joyous “witness” of those who have seen the light. There are a few children’s books left over from my childhood (Peter Rabbit, Barbar the Elephant, What Katy Did, Little Women; safe, clean stories with happy endings), but that’s about it. Matters sexual were never discussed, and such information as I had was gleaned from the rather clinical sex education lessons at school, and ill-informed friends (you can’t get pregnant if you have sex standing up; that kind of thing. My friend Molly Wilkins put this theory to the test, and soundly disproved it).

  ‘But I’m not going back. Not yet,’ Mum says now. ‘I’m not ready.’

  I think it’s the first time I’ve heard Mum say what she wants to do. It occurs to me that she’s spent her whole life doing things for other people or because other people have told her to do them. Things are certa
inly changing.

  The next day’s post brings news from Mikey. He has Googled Amos, and come up with some interesting, if ancient, snippets, under the following headings:

  ‘Young trombonist wins prestigious prize’ (The Times, May 1990). Typical.

  ‘Student leads demonstration against regime in Zimbabwe’ (Daily Mail, February 1994). Also typical.

  ‘Gifted jazz-player survives window fall’ (Daily Telegraph, April 1999). Ditto. Amos is accident-prone. He puts it down to his height, but actually he’s incredibly clumsy.

  ‘“His playing made our holiday,” wrote Enid Horton, who enjoyed one of our musical cruises last year’ (Cruise brochure, Summer 2000).

  There are various other bits and bobs; extracts from local newspapers, concert reviews, a mountaineering accident and, strangely, a brief appearance on a TV cookery programme, but nothing which can be of any use in actually tracking Amos down. The last mention is two years ago, and since that, nothing. It would appear that Amos hasn’t just disappeared from the face of the earth; he’s vanished from cyberspace, too.

  Mikey is sympathetic in his accompanying note, and says he’s “sure Amos will turn up sooner or later”. It’s the sort of banality lovers delight in; the world they inhabit is so blissful (if in the long run, so removed from reality) that they feel it incumbent upon themselves to spread the bliss around by trying to convince the rest of us that our worlds, too, will reach this pinnacle of perfection, if only we wait long enough.

  I am more disappointed by Mikey’s letter than I would have expected. I have faith in Mikey, and I had really hoped that he would come up with something more concrete. Each Amos-related disappointment is harder to deal with than the last, and this time, I find myself close to tears.

  I wander outside to find someone to talk to. Mum and I are getting on pretty well, considering our different predicaments, but I don’t think either of us is ready yet for an Amos conversation.

  I run Silas to ground in the greenhouse, where an amazing array of plants is managing to flourish among the broken flower pots and the weeds which have managed to negotiate the spaces left by several broken panes.