The House Martin

by William Parker

  ‘Can we go and sit outside Mummy? It’s not raining anymore…’ There’s a silence, and I wish the rain would stop hitting the window. She puts her arms down and stares at me as though she hadn’t noticed I was there.

  Her eyes have gone funny, like at home when my dad comes back for dinner and she’s had too much sherry. I don’t know what is going to happen next, but I’m very concerned about it.

  ‘Can we, Mummy?’

  ‘What, Darling?’

  ‘Go outside? It’s too stuffy in here for me. I think I feel a bit sick. I just want to sit outside for a bit…’ She looks out of the window and then slowly back at me as though it’s taking her eyes a bit of time to find out where I am, which is right in front of her.

  ‘It’s raining, Only One…’

  ‘I know, Mummy, but not very hard and it’s finishing now, and you don’t mind the rain anyway… Let’s just go outside. Please…?’

  ‘It’s far too wet out there, Darling.’ Then there’s a silence before she says, ‘It’s tipping down, and I don’t want you wet through before we even start! We’ll have to wait for a bit, I think…’

  Then she looks all around the room as though she’s searching for something. Suddenly she pushes the chair back from the table and stands up. I don’t know where she’s going, so I get up too, because I think we must be going out after all, and I put my boater on because there’s no one here from school to see me. She sways a little but not so much that anyone but me might notice. But she goes up to the counter instead of to the door and leans right over as though she’s going to tell the man a deadly secret and says in a whispery type of voice that’s really quite loud, ‘I say, would you mind awfully if I was to rob you of one of your ciggies?’

  And then I know that this is a bad day, because Mummy never goes anywhere without her cigarettes. Either she’s run out of them or she’s left them in the pub.

  The old lady who’s still drinking her tea does another ‘tut-tut’ and the man says, ‘Don’t sell them here. You’ll have to go back into the village for those…’

  ‘No… No, I was just wondering if I might possibly pinch one of yours…’

  I can see that he doesn’t want to give her a cigarette, but Mummy isn’t noticing and just waits.

  ‘We can go and get them, Mummy,’ I say. ‘I know where they sell them, actually. I know that place very well…’

  For a long time there’s no sound apart from the rain and wind on the window and the hissing of the urn, and then the man does a big sigh, reaches behind himself without looking, and lands his hand on a packet of cigarettes. He flicks it open with his thumb and stretches it out towards Mummy. She slowly puts her fingers into the packet but doesn’t seem to be able to get a cigarette out and does a funny little laugh. He sighs again and takes one out for her. ‘You’re so kind to me,’ she says and then she does her little girl look. I hate it when she does that. I sit down again because I can see we’re not going out yet, and I take off my boater. There’s an old paper napkin scrunched up on the table and I pick it up to start trying to rub off the spots of the tea Mummy spilt on it, though it doesn’t really matter because actually it’s a good thing at school if your boater is a bit grubby.

  Half way back to the table, Mummy stops and does another little giggle.

  ‘Silly, silly me—nothing’s going to happen without a light, is it?’ Then she looks up towards the ceiling, closes her eyes, and laughs really loudly. She turns round to go back, but this time she puts her hand out and holds onto one of the tables because she’s getting more wobbly. The man must know more and more that there’s something wrong with her.

  When she gets back to the counter, she holds onto it and leans over, with the cigarette in her mouth.

  ‘Light, please?’ She’s still doing the funny voice a bit. The man leans over from his side, and his face is right up close to Mummy’s. He stares at her without blinking once. I’m getting really very worried because I know that expression is the same one that some of the bullying boys at school use when they’re going to be really nasty to someone.

  ‘We’ve got a lighter in your bag, Mummy. You don’t need a light,’ I say, and I pick up her bag from the floor. I put it on my lap and rummage around past the sherry bottle, the tissues, the purse, the peppermints and a scarf, and then I pretend I’ve found it.

  ‘Here it is, Mummy. No need to worry!’ But just then, the man reaches out behind himself without looking again, and puts his hand on his lighter. By the time that he has it in front of Mummy, he’s flicked it on. She tries to put the end of the cigarette in the flame, but can’t find the right place. It’s burning halfway along before the man grabs hold of her hand for a second to make it steady.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ she says.

  There’s another ‘tut-tut’ from the old lady as Mummy slowly comes back to the table and sits down. She smokes the cigarette and it looks as though she’s enjoying it more than anything in her entire life. I can’t wait to grow up and learn how to smoke a cigarette. Abdul let me have a puff of one of his cigarettes once, and it made me choke and my head spin round. I thought I was going to be sick, but I think it’s just that you have to get used to it, and then it’s a very pleasurable experience.

  Mummy’s not talking now. She’s just enjoying the cigarette for a bit. Please let her not talk in that silly voice about the river again. The sun’s going to come out in a minute, and we’ll go outside away from the Oliver Hardy man and the tutting lady. When we leave here, we might be going in a taxi to the train at Chepstow, and then perhaps to an airport so that we can fly away to Greece, or back to our real home in Lebanon where everything used to be alright, and I’ll see my friend Abdul again and my cat Nurbanu who I rescued from the street outside when she was a tiny sick kitten.

  But it’s not going to be like that. It can’t be, and it’s all just because Mummy’s not well. I don’t think she would remember how to get back to that place in Greece, and they wouldn’t let us sleep on the beach anyway. We haven’t got our house in Beirut anymore; it’s all packed up. There must be someone else living there now, so if we were to go there, we would just be out in the street looking up at the old veranda outside the sitting room and knocking on the door with a maid we don’t know answering it.

  It might be that I’ll just not get into the taxi when it comes, or I’ll shout to one of the porters at the station that I’m being kidnapped, or perhaps I’ll leave it till we get onto the airplane and tell one of the stewardesses. They might be thinking that something’s not right already, of course, on account of the fact that we haven’t got any luggage, and no one goes so far away without at least a few cases. Besides, my dad’s finding out now because Mr. Burston’s phoned him up. Then he just really will have to do something about Mummy now because this is the worst time. This is definitely the worst time of all.

  But I’m most worried about what’s happening to Mummy because, actually, I know perfectly well that we’re not going anywhere at all. We can’t, because she hasn’t any tickets with her. Not for the train or the airplane, and no passports, and probably not even a single penny in her bag, not even enough for one packet of cigarettes. Perhaps what might be best is to tell this horrid man behind the counter so he can let someone know where we are.

  But if I do that, I’ll spoil the whole thing for Mummy, and it will be like I’ve given her away—betrayed her—and I’ll be the one who’s smashed up all our dreams. She’ll never be able to look at me without being reminded of it, and it will be the most hurtful thing I’ve ever done.

  She begins to put the cigarette out in the tin ashtray on the table even though she’s not finished it properly. It takes her a long time of fiddling, and she carries on till there’s not the slightest bit of glow or smoke. Then she stretches out her hand and strokes my cheek very gently and very slowly.

  ‘More cake, Darling?’

  ‘No,
thank you, Mummy.’

  ‘You sure? What did you have for lunch?’

  ‘Mince.’ I’m lying about that, of course, but I just really want to go outside.

  ‘Oh good.’

  And then she just stares at me for a bit and she says, ‘I’m going to pop to the Ladies, and then we’ll be off.’

  ‘Mummy—where are we going? Where are we going in fact?’

  ‘Away, My Only One. Just the two of us…’ She gets up, walks toward the counter again, and I say, ‘My mother would like to know where the Ladies is,’ in a loud voice. I hope the man will look at me and not at Mummy while she’s going out. ‘Over there,’ the man says and nods towards where the rotting scooter is. On the other side of it there’s a small broken down building which has so much ivy growing over it that you can’t really see what it is. The door, which is a bit ajar, is blowing about in the wind.

  ‘Is it open?’ I ask the man.

  ‘Yea, yea—for the time being it is, yea.’ Mummy’s wobbling a bit. She gets to the door of the café and pulls the handle, but it’s stuck. The old lady says ‘tut-tut’ again. I jump out of my seat, yank the door open for her, and then I see the rain’s stopping.

  ‘I’ll wait for you outside, Mummy—the sun’s going to come out in a minute, I think.’ I close the difficult door and rush back to the table and grab my boater. Then I see that Mummy’s left her bag, which is typical when she’s not good, so I pick it up. I say to the man as I’m putting my boater back on and walking quickly to the door ‘Thank you for the tea,’ and he says, ‘Three and six,’ and I say, ‘Pardon?’ and he says, ‘She hasn’t paid.’ The old lady goes ‘tut-tut’ again.

  I do a little laugh as if to say ‘How silly we forgot!’ but I’m thinking that Mummy’s probably not got three and six, and what am I going to do? I reach into her bag and find her blue purse, which I know very well, and take it out very slowly so as to take up as much time as possible. The man stares at me with a frown on his face, and he knows what I’m thinking. I put my mouth in the shape to do whistling because I’m trying to look as though this is just the first place that I’m beginning the search for the money, though it’s probably somewhere else, but it’s in here somewhere for sure. When I open the purse I can see there’s lots of pennies and some threepenny pieces and one shilling but definitely no pound notes. I count it out with my heart beating. There’s going to be enough after all. I’ll give him the money, and then I will be getting out of here.

  After I’ve laid out the shilling, some threepenny pieces, and loads of pennies on the table, I scoop it all up and walk over to the man with Mummy’s bag under my arm. I open my hand and the coins clang onto the counter as I’m saying, ‘I think that’s right.’

  The man checks the pennies as quick as a flash and flicks a threepenny piece back towards me with his finger because I’ve got it wrong. It rolls towards me so quickly that I don’t have time to catch it, and it falls off the edge of the counter and onto my shoe. I bend down to pick it up. When I stand up again he’s looking at me as if I’ve done something wrong, which I haven’t.

  ‘Goodbye,’ I say. The man says nothing, and the little old lady is still stuck over her tea. I walk out into the wind, which is blowing like mad, and as I try to pull the noisy door shut behind me with all my might, my boater flies off and disappears round the corner. It’s essential to get it back because I’ll be in big trouble back at school without it. I run round the corner after it with Mummy’s bag under my arm, and the wind’s pinning my boater up against the side of a big bin and making it quiver like a frightened shivering animal.

  I sit on one of the benches outside the café. There are lots of them, but they’re mostly broken. This one’s right underneath the café window, and it’s the only one that’s not so broken you can’t sit on it, though it’s not really very good because I can feel a bit of wetness from the rain coming through my pants. The man can see me sitting here, and I don’t like that very much. At least the sun’s shining for the moment, and I’m not in there with him and that funny old lady.

  I can see the door of the Ladies. When Mummy comes out I’ll run over to her, and we’ll go away from here. My boater is jammed onto my head as hard as hard can be so the wind can’t blow it off again, and I’m holding her bag, so we’re ready to go to wherever we’re going.

  I look behind me through the window at the Oliver Hardy man. He’s smoking a cigarette. I smile at him and nod, but he just looks at me. He’s a frightening person, actually. I don’t think he’s going home yet after all because he’s not putting any more chairs on the tables. The old tut-tutting lady is still having the same cup of tea and bun that she was having before. Perhaps he just didn’t like the look of us and didn’t want us inside his café.

  I’m waiting for Mummy again—just like I have been for most of the day.

  I know the man’s watching me, and I try to look like I’m concentrating on the river and asking myself questions about it, which is dead silly because I see it everyday and I’ve got a much better view of it from my window in the dorm anyway. I try not to look the slightest bit worried about Mummy. The fact is we’re just on a bit of a day out, and it’s unfortunate about the rain, that’s all. I don’t want the man to be thinking that there’s something wrong, and he’s got to do something about it.

  I bend over and pretend I’ve got to check something in Mummy’s bag. I can see for absolute sure that there’s no tickets and passports, and when I open her purse again I can see straightaway that there really is no sign of nearly enough money for anything. I pack it away at the bottom and fold my arms and look at the river with a smile on my face for the man to see, but inside I can feel every last bit of the coffee cake churning around. And when I have a quick peep round, the man’s not taken his eyes off me for one single second, so I get up and pick up Mummy’s bag. I pretend that I’m having a bit of a stroll around. I move farther along to a bench which is all broken up but isn’t in front of the window and sit down again. I’m glad he can’t see me, but I’m having to balance my bottom on the edge otherwise I’m going to be falling straight through because it doesn’t have any seat left.

  I start to wonder what must have happened to Mummy after all these minutes that she’s been in the Ladies’ loo. If she’s much longer I’ll have to go over and call out to her, and if she doesn’t answer I might have to go in through the door even though it’s the Ladies. I tell myself she must be having a drink of sherry but then remember that the bottle’s in the bag, and I’ve got it here with me. That’s the oddest thing because she never goes anywhere without it for even a few minutes. Even when we’re at home she does that. We’ll be watching the telly after dinner, and then she’ll say, ‘I’m just popping up to the loo,’ and I’ll hear the sherry in her bag when she picks it up. I know that sound ever so well. How silly is it to be taking your bag with you wherever you go, even in your own house? It’s that sort of thing that makes me sometimes a bit angry with her, actually. My dad knows exactly what’s going on too, but he never says anything about it, of course. Sometimes I look at him to see what he’s thinking and wonder whether he might just quickly look at me so we know for each other what’s going on, but he just stares at the telly and does a face that says ‘We are strictly not going to talk about this.’

  I look in the bag again just to make sure that the bottle really is there, and I feel it without taking it out just in case someone is looking. It’s so light that I know there’s only a drop of the sherry left, which means that quite soon there’ll be none left, and Mummy will be thinking about that more than anything else, even more than about going away.

  It’s only the tiniest while that the sun has been shining again, and already there’s another black cloud coming over from the other side of the river. When it gets here it’s going to rain, and there’s nowhere for me to shelter. I’ll just have to sit here and get wet. It doesn’t really matter as long as nobody
knows. Hopefully, the man in the café will think that Mummy and I have gone away, now that he can’t see me.

  But Mummy’s been in the Ladies for ever such a long time now, and I’m going to have to call through the door to see if she’s alright. When I walk over there the man will see me again and wonder what on earth’s going on with that boy’s mother, and that makes me want to just stay sitting here for a bit longer. I think he should be minding his own business and not concerning himself with other people who he doesn’t even know. That’s what I think. I’m just on a day out with my mother who’s come to visit. It’s a shame about the rain, that’s all, and he’s no right to be staring at me. No right at all.

  But the more I wait, the more worried I get. I can’t think what Mummy could be doing in there all by herself without her sherry, and it looks the sort of place where there might be a tramp inside even though it’s just meant for ladies, and perhaps he’s trying to rob her or something. Anything could be happening, especially since Mummy’s so bad today.

  I’ll just have to ignore the nosey fat old man. This is a serious situation after all, and I really must go and check that everything’s alright. I pick her bag up just as the clouds are coming over again and walk across to the Ladies. It’s not easy because the big slabs of pavement are all breaking up and have got mixed up with bits of shingle. There are old slippery leaves and weeds growing up and puddles from the rain that I have to jump over. Mummy’s bag bangs against the ground because the strap’s so long, and I’m worried that I might smash the bottle, so I pick it up and put it under my arm. Then all the things inside start moving around, and it feels like I’m holding a wild angry cat that’s trying to get away.

  Mummy certainly wouldn’t be able to jump over these puddles because she’s far too wobbly, and it’s a wonder that she didn’t fall over. Her feet are going to be soaking wet, and I’m going to get water in my shoes as well—which is just another problem to think about for later.