Mum in the Middle

by Jane Wenham-Jones

  ‘I’m going to shake him till his teeth rattle,’ said Malcolm.

  ‘It would make the feature for you,’ I went on. ‘And it would be something he could show.’

  ‘So he started smashing windows, himself–’

  ‘He didn’t. Some boys did, by accident, on the way home from the pub. But he saw it and when Jinni thought it was a personal attack, he let her think that–’

  ‘Idiot!’

  ‘But he did get it repaired for her–’

  ‘So his mate could get free advertising.’

  ‘And he only did things he could put right again. He repainted my house–’

  ‘Regular little Robin Hood. Shall we nominate him for the Nobel prize for community service?’ Malcolm’s face was set hard. ‘That is the biggest load of bollocks I’ve heard for a long time. He did it because of you.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

  ‘And why did he try and get one final lot of damage in last night? Because YOU told him I was getting the CCTV put in. I knew you would. I told you not to tell anyone–’

  ‘I didn’t think you meant–’

  Malcolm gave a grim smile. ‘I knew I was right. Hack’s nose. So I wound him up a bit – said we’d make a splash of it, told him the sort of profile I thought it was – that they’d return to Jinni’s because she was so gobby about it–’ Malcolm looked satisfied. ‘And back he went. Like shooting fish in a bloody barrel.’

  I stared at him in disbelief. ‘That’s horrible.’

  ‘But accurate! If you hadn’t disturbed him, he’d have had another go at you too.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because then he could be Sir Galahad.’ Malcolm put on a whiny voice ‘Oh, Tess, let me help you clean all this nasty paint off.’

  ‘OH Gabriel,’ he pitched his voice even higher – ‘you’re such a lovely boy. Your mother must be so proud.’

  ‘Stop it! That’s disgusting. I feel terrible.’

  ‘He wanted your attention,’ Malcolm said in his normal voice. ‘Because–’

  ‘Because,’ I said emotionally, ‘he is clearly in a terrible state about losing his mother.’ I thought about Ben – parentless in a strange town with nobody to talk to and felt the tears come into my eyes. ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Well, you should have,’ I raged at him. ‘You had a duty of care.’

  ‘Pah.’

  The sound of his contempt ignited me further. ‘Stop being vile. He needs help and support!’

  ‘No doubt he’ll get plenty from the unemployment office.’

  I picked up my handbag, almost knocking my mug over, and considering briefly throwing it at Malcolm’s self-satisfied face.

  ‘Your wives were right,’ I said, choked. ‘You are a bloody bastard.’

  I sat in my car, heart thumping, overwhelmed by rage and sorrow. I’d thought Malcolm’s brusque exterior masked an empathy and compassion he clearly didn’t feel at all. Poor Gabriel was emotionally disturbed and needed help. I pulled my phone out, ready to ring him and then put it down again fearing I’d sound so upset myself I’d make it worse.

  I wished I had someone to talk to. Jinni had been spitting rivets – I didn’t know how long it would take her to come round – and Caroline had just sent a text to say she’d phone tomorrow because something had come up. This was accompanied by a smiley face. Fran would be knee deep in kids on a Saturday afternoon. Oliver and Sam had been going out to lunch with friends of hers and Ben would be out cold. Had Tilly known about Gabriel’s mother? Surely she’d have told me.

  As I sat, taking deep breaths, my eye fell on the text I’d had this morning. I scrolled through earlier ones for the postcode and then jabbed at the sat nav. He was only two miles away. Suddenly I wanted to see David’s smiley, crinkly eyes, smell his delicious aftershave and feel his arms close around me. I started the engine, shaken by how upset the altercation with Malcolm had left me. I wanted a hug.

  The sun beat down on my forearm as I gripped the wheel. As the narrow lane straightened out to an empty expanse of road ahead, I put my foot down and sped down into a dip and up an incline the other side and on round another bend until the small screen on my dashboard told me I was almost there.

  I slowed down as I approached. Long Barn House was on its own at the end of a small turning, at the top of a sloping garden. I had never seen anything quite like it.

  The original barn construction was still there, with mellow brick walls and massive beams, the small rose and grey roof tiles clearly original. But the huge steel-framed windows running the whole height of the building and a massive glass extension gave it a cutting-edge, almost futuristic, look. A flight of sharp concrete steps cut through the turf up to the thick glass and wood front door. Terraced flowerbeds on one side were filled with lavender bushes and a tall spiky blue flower I didn’t recognise. It was enormous.

  The black-metal barred gate stood open onto a large stone-paved area with a tall, industrial-looking steel floodlight to one side and David’s Porsche parked beneath it.

  All at once my heart was beating hard. I put the handbrake on and ran up the steps before I could change my mind.

  He opened the door surprised. ‘Tess!’

  He was wearing black jeans and a loose, short-sleeved grey open-necked polo shirt that brought out the colour of his eyes. His black hair was soft, as if it had just been washed. He looked delectable.

  My mouth flapped open.

  Over his shoulder, lolling in a doorway behind him, I recognised the woman with the shiny black hair from the gallery. She was wearing a short denim skirt, an extra button or two open on her top, her brown feet bare on the polished wood floor. Her gaze left me in no doubt I was an unwelcome intrusion.

  As I stared back, she gave a small, tight smirk of greeting and threw David a look. His eyebrows were raised. Keeping his back to her, he gave me a small quirky smile as if we shared a secret and raised his eyebrows some more, as if her presence were entirely beyond his control. His eyes flicked to his watch. ‘Sorry, I wasn’t–’

  I felt completely embarrassed. ‘I’ve brought your stuff back!’ I blurted out, praising the heavens I’d slung the box in the car while I was waiting for Rob and Tilly to sling their hooks.

  I indicated the car below and turned and ran hot-faced back down the steps.

  ‘Here it all is.’ I heard him behind me, but didn’t look round as I busied myself pulling open the rear door of the car and tugging at the box.

  ‘Let me.’

  I stood aside as he leant over and lifted it easily from the car. I could smell soap and something spicy. I wanted to touch him. He put the box on the low wall that edged the garden where the lawn swept upwards.

  ‘So have you caught someone already?’ He enquired, turning back to me. ‘Did you manage to nail the real culprit?’ He stressed the ‘real’ with another sardonic brow raise.

  ‘Sort of,’ I said. ‘Er, no, not really. The newspaper got us some other equipment–’

  ‘Tell me later,’ he said, moving closer and putting his hand on my arm, making my skin tingle. ‘I wasn’t expecting Lucia to call by. I’ll make sure she–’

  ‘What an amazing-looking place,’ I interrupted him.

  ‘Thank you.’ He hesitated. ‘I’d invite you in but–’

  ‘You’re a bit busy in there?’ I finished for him brightly. ‘It’s really no problem. I’ve got a lot on too. We can do it some other time–’

  My heart was pounding. And then my phone rang. We both looked at it lying on the front seat of my car. ‘I’ll just–’ I muttered, seeing his look of irritation as I reached for it, unable to break the habit of quickly checking who it was, in case something had happened to one of the kids …

  It was Gerald’s name flashing up on the screen and alarm gripped me. I pressed answer.

  ‘Your mum’s gone off again.’ For a moment he was hopeful. ‘She hasn’t come to you?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I
mouthed at David, unable to break the apologising habit even if he did have another woman stashed up there. A woman who was now standing in the open doorway looking down at him. He walked away, putting the box on the bottom step and sitting next to it in the sunshine as I paced between our cars while Gerald explained.

  My mother had been getting increasingly agitated about her appointment, asking Gerald constantly what time it was and where she was meeting me, twice getting her coat and shoes on, despite his reassurances it wasn’t until Monday (here I felt a wash of guilt for both forgetting and not replying to his text earlier).

  This morning he’d gone to get the shopping and left her, apparently contentedly, listening to the radio in the garden and when he came back she’d gone. He’d been driving around Margate looking for her and had called her friends. But there was no sign of her and Mo thought she might have got confused again and got on a train to see me.

  ‘Would she be able to do that?’ I asked anxiously.

  ‘Probably,’ Gerald sounded equally worried. ‘Her handbag has gone – she’s got money. She’s got your address in the back of her purse. I put all our numbers there. But I don’t know whether she’ll think to look.’

  ‘I’m not there at the moment,’ I told him. ‘But Ben is – he’ll phone me if she turns up.’ As I said it, I realised Ben could be fast asleep or have rallied and headed down town for a fry-up. I knew Rob had given him some money before he left …

  ‘I’ll go home now,’ I said.

  David got up as soon as I’d put the phone away. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘Family problem. I’ve got to go.’

  He touched my arm again. ‘But I’ll see you this evening?’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to.’

  ‘Oh come on! Lucia will be going soon.’ He smiled as it were all rather amusing. ‘Is that why you ran away last night? I didn’t know she’d be on the train either.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Look, we had a bit of an on-off thing and–’ his hand was now curled around my wrist. ‘Put it this way – she wants it to be “on” rather more than I do. He gave me one of his huge, disarming smiles. ‘I would like us to –’

  I got hurriedly into my car. ‘I must go!’

  ‘We’ll finish this conversation later?’ He was leaning down to look at me through the window as I started the engine. Frustration, disappointment, worry about my mother, the image of Lucia and the way she’d been looking at David, the way she was now leaning against the doorpost, very much at home, welled up inside me and for a moment I felt as though I was going to cry.

  I looked at him as I pushed the gear stick into reverse, confusion, misery and humiliation making my voice hard.

  ‘I really can’t see the point.’

  Chapter 37

  Caroline was right. I wasn’t like her, who found it exciting to have several men on the go, even if it meant sharing, or Jinni, who only wanted them for sex pre-breakfast.

  My stomach churned as I drove slowly along the High Street, scanning the pavements and shop doorways, thinking about Gabriel damaging my house, my horrible row with Malcolm that I had no idea how to put right, the sight of Lucia pointing her cleavage at David. And where the hell my mother had got to this time.

  I’d managed to rouse a foggy-sounding Ben, who’d heard nothing. If she’d got a train here and followed the signs to town she’d walk past the house. Would she recognise where she was then? From what I could gather from Gerald she had good days when she was almost her old self and hours when she seemed cut off from reality.

  I stopped at the station before I went home but the ticket office was closed. I looked along the near-empty platform, at the group of teenagers standing around a bench and the young woman with the shopping bags, clearly just off a train from London, and recalled David’s face that first time he met me, standing right here – the way he’d smiled, his hand holding mine …

  First impressions were usually the right ones!

  I turned and walked back to my car, stomach still in a knot, past the advertising billboard defaced with red spray paint courtesy of Gabriel’s ambition.

  DFLS GO HOME. Perhaps that’s what I should do. Or move down to the sea, where I could keep an eye on my mother. And start all over again …

  On the passenger seat, my phone was ringing. I grabbed it too late. As I started to call Ben back, a text pinged in. ‘Granny found!’

  There was another text too. ‘Sorry about that. Will call later. Hope your problem gets sorted x’

  Actually pal, you’re my fucking problem!

  I couldn’t cope with this roller coaster of emotions, not to mention the sensations raging through my body whenever I thought of David’s hand on my arm. It was too bloody exhausting.

  As I turned into my driveway, I felt lonely and overwhelmed and I longed for the house to be empty. Ben hadn’t answered when I rang back but I knew I’d have to phone Gerald, find out where my mother was and probably go back out to fetch her. When I wanted to hide away and forget.

  I could hear the voices even before my key was in the lock. Sam was making the policewoman a cup of tea while Oliver sat on the sofa holding my mother’s hand. She was wearing a bright dress and matching cardigan and wearing lipstick; her silver hair looked as if it had just been done.

  But I could see the lost look in her eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry, Tess,’ she said sadly as I came in. She peered up at my face. ‘Are you crying because of me?’

  I shook my head. ‘No Mum, not because of you.’

  ‘I’m just tired,’ I told Ben, in the kitchen, after Sam had hugged me and left the room. ‘I need an early night.’

  ‘Gerald’s on his way,’ Ben said. ‘He says he’ll be here by seven.’

  Gerald looked exhausted. Heart sinking, I knew I couldn’t expect him to drive home again. Especially when I found him in the garden, puffing on his inhaler. ‘How is your angina?’ I asked him guiltily. Caring for my mother was clearly taking its toll.

  He attempted to sound hearty. ‘Not usually a problem at all. Just a tricky day.’ He smiled at me. ‘We still have a laugh, you know. We manage.’

  My mother had convinced herself her appointment was today and she had to get to me to go to it. By the time she was on the train to Northstone she’d ‘come to’ and realised her mistake but couldn’t recall my address, although she thought she remembered the way.

  The taxi driver, getting increasingly concerned about driving around in circles for a woman of possibly unsound mind – ‘He thought I was batty’ – my mother laughed round at the assembled company then exchanged a painful look with me – suggested they went to the police station. They looked in her purse.

  ‘I did give him ten pounds,’ she finished. ‘He didn’t want to take it – he was a very nice man – but I said: I expect you’ve got a family and we all have to earn a living.’

  Sam made omelettes and I watched my mother nodding and smiling as she listened to Oliver tell her about the baby. But when he momentarily turned away to pass salad across the table, I saw the light in her face go out. When I spoke there was a split second where she appeared bewildered.

  I watched Gerald pat her hand and Oliver getting up to refill Sam’s glass of water. Sam looked better. She was no longer pale and her skin was beginning to glow. ‘Are you okay?’ I mouthed. She smiled and nodded.

  I took some deep breaths. I felt Ben watching me, so I beamed at him too. My children were healthy and doing things with their lives; I had friends and a home that would be lovely when I got double-glazing and the loo was fixed. On Monday we would see my mother’s consultant in Canterbury and find out what could be done to help her. As she’d put it, she wasn’t totally ga-ga yet – medication might keep her stable.

  My sister Alice, who had been spot-welded to Google since the first announcement, had sent acres of information on many different types of brain degeneration and links to dozens of information sheets on drug therapies. She was now researching th
e benefits of a course of treatment with a clinical neuropsychologist. I was to phone her when I was back from the appointment and we were to make A Plan.

  Things were not that bad. I only wanted to cry because I hadn’t had enough sleep.

  I left Oliver and Ben clearing up while I changed beds, intending to sleep in the conservatory and give Gerald and my mother mine. They both looked as if they needed a proper night’s rest and I didn’t know how comfortable the sofa bed was, although nobody had complained.

  Tilly would have done for sure, I thought, as I pulled off the crumpled pillow cases and pushed her remaining strewn possessions into a pile in the corner.

  It was warm in here, despite the blinds closed against the afternoon sun and I opened the two small windows at either end to let a breeze blow through, thinking about a long bath and the earliest possible night.

  When I turned around Ben was leaning in the doorway. ‘It’s been an action-packed weekend, so far, hasn’t it?’ he said. ‘Finding out your mate is the phantom paint-sprayer and having to track down the missing granny.’

  ‘How much tracking did you do? You were in bed!’

  He grinned back. Then stopped grinning. ‘Would you be annoyed with me if I gave up uni and got a job in Portugal?’

  I felt the last of my energy drain out through my feet. I flapped the duvet cover at him. ‘Help me.’

  I looked at his face as he was taking the corners. His hair had grown longer and gone lighter in the sun. He needed a shave. My heart twisted but he was nearly 19. He could go anywhere he wanted.

  ‘Portugal?’ I echoed. ‘What are you going to do there?’

  I was glad when the boys went off to the pub and happy to see Sam go with them – not just because it meant she was feeling better enough to venture forth for a fizzy water, but because I was talked-out.

  ‘Tell me the rest tomorrow,’ I said to Ben, hissing at Oliver to get the full story on the role of ‘Maria’, temporary barmaid at the Fox – here to learn the language but due to return home at the end of the summer, and mentioned twice as a friend full of useful info on Mediterranean relocation – in his brother’s sudden desire to teach English in Lisbon.