Another Mother's Son

by Janet Davey

  ‘I’m glad to do it.’

  Jude gives me instructions for the last half-mile. We arrive at a lane that goes nowhere and hers is the last cottage in the row. I see a sign to a riding school. Beyond are dark fields.

  I stare ahead through the purposeful silence of a kiss. Jude says goodbye and gets out of the car. Cold air rushes in. I wait with the engine running while she walks up the front path. She puts her key in the lock. As Jude opens the door, I hear barking and see a dog rush towards her. It slithers at the last moment across a black-and-white tiled floor.

  15

  THE KITCHEN SMELLS strongly of bleach and seafood, like a fish market at the end of the day. I am making more effort with the cleaning, and trying out new recipes. I put random ingredients into the search bar and the Internet concocts something more or less edible. Pistachio-crust salmon with spaghetti. It is dead simple. If you don’t have any Thai fish sauce, it says, just use Worcestershire which is fine by me.

  When I look at Jude, with her unmade-up face and downward-turning eyes, I want to throw away the demeaning aspects of adulthood. Ugly clothes, shoes, bags, stub ends of make-up, rancid perfumes. She has a spectacular effect on Ross. It is like the weather clearing once a front has moved on. His smile follows her around the room. She communicates in gusts and wears Ross’s skull-print sweatshirt. They have bought matching ear cuffs.

  ‘What’s this?’ Ross asks.

  ‘Salmon.’

  ‘Stick to the pasta, Jude. I’ll put some ketchup on and we’ll take it upstairs.’ Ross holds out two plates. He gives her a surreptitious grin. His Spider-Man sleeping bag is rolled out on the floor above us. For my sake, I suppose; or for his, on my behalf. It is Friday evening and Jude is with us again for the weekend. Without any explanation, Ross has stopped going to Crews Hill.

  ‘No, you won’t,’ I say, as I dole out the portions. ‘You eat down here.’

  I tip the fish onto the dishes in such a way that the crust is underneath. The nutty bit looks like greeny particles of burnt mould I am trying to hide.

  ‘Why?’ Ross says.

  ‘House rule.’

  ‘With exceptions,’ he says, a hint of bitterness in his voice.

  ‘If you’re at home at twenty-one, I’ll reconsider.’

  ‘No way. No way will I be at home then.’

  ‘We’ll eat in the kitchen, Doigy. It’s OK. Sit down.’ Jude is already at the table. She breaks up the fish and distributes flakes into the pasta with artistic precision. She tucks her hair behind her ears to eat. Her skin is as smooth as new soap.

  ‘I’m afraid my presentation skills lack finesse,’ I say.

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’ Jude pauses. ‘Doesn’t Ross’s brother ever eat with you?’

  ‘Ewan? Very seldom,’ I say.

  ‘Does he leave his room?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘The house?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where does he go?’ Jude takes neat mouthfuls in between questions. She twirls the spaghetti and tucks in the loose ends with a flourish.

  ‘Who knows? Along the streets, through Grovelands Park, Broomfield Park? I suppose he might get a train into town.’

  ‘You give him money, then?’

  ‘Yes. Not much.’

  ‘Does he have a girlfriend?’

  ‘Probably not. I don’t know.’

  ‘Has he ever had one?’

  ‘I expect so.’

  ‘They haven’t come here?’

  ‘No, Jude. But I don’t know that I read much into that. Lola from nursery school used to come round to play. But since then there has been a dearth of—’

  ‘What does he do all day long?’

  ‘Draws, does stuff on the computer, goes out. I don’t know exactly.’

  ‘He should get a job.’ She pronounces her consonants as if biting on them.

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘There are jobs if you’re not too fussy. Baristas, shop assistants …’

  I stand up, pick up my plate and tip what remains in the bin.

  ‘Finesse,’ Ross mutters. ‘Fuck.’

  16

  I CAN’T FACE speaking about Ewan. Has he thought of seeing a therapist / getting an internship / learning Mandarin or web design? The recommendations are eased into speech with kindness. I dread the ‘What do your children do?’ question. Other people seem to think I exist in a mental fog so soupy and thick that the simplest solutions have failed to occur to me. I expect it’s a phase. They’ve been saying this for two years. It never occurs to them that the last person said it and the one before. ‘Phase’ is used in the sense of a period one’s son passes through, never to return, though to me the word, commonly associated with the movement of the moon and the planets, defines a recurring thing. If Ewan’s torpor turns out to be a recurring thing, some other woman can deal with it.

  Ewan stays in his room for hours at a time. He watches television on his laptop and draws bizarre and beautiful illuminated letters; a calligraphy that is undermined by the use of biro. The content is fairly wide-ranging. ‘A’, for example, incorporates an arsehole as well as Aztecs and an arum lily. The basic colours of blue, black and red intertwine on a jotter pad and produce, from a distance, the effect of a fantasy map or engraving. He comes down to the kitchen for food and to make tea or coffee, mostly in my absence. Sometimes he exchanges a few words with me or his brothers if he meets us on the landing; at others he slips past; a tall, sad-faced youth with hunched shoulders. Once or twice a week, I am aware that he leaves the house. I hear the front door click shut and later the key in the lock as he lets himself in. He goes straight upstairs. He can be away for as little as twenty minutes, or as long as four or five hours.

  He is usually dressed in the daytime: jeans, sweatshirts, jumpers – normal clothes, though they hang off him. He keeps his hair washed and must from time to time have it cut because it never grows longer than collar length. He is lanky, hollowed out under his ribs, but I know he eats. He takes food up to his room. Used plates and bowls end up on the floor. It is squalid to leave them there but they come back down in the end. I am not a chambermaid. He has the run of the house and I like to think that he makes use of the extra space when I am at work; that he sits in the kitchen, or the living room, watches television, spreads himself about a bit. I have no idea what he does. He completed two terms of a BA Hons degree in Film and Literature. He has no job. He makes no contribution to the household or to society.

  I look at his face. I am so used to it that I do not know what to make of it. I saw it at the beginning. If I had to recreate it I would use clay rather than wood because its changes are subtle. I would have to feel them under my fingers. He becomes watchful, distracted, alert, forgetful with a gradual dawning, and often I quake seeing the look on his face.

  At least he goes out, I said to Randal, soon after Ewan abandoned his degree course. That has to be a good sign. He has fresh air and takes some exercise. He wears trainers and appears fit. We don’t need to know what he’s doing; he is an adult. Let’s assume he meets up with friends, I said. I hope that’s right, Randal said, though he was usually the positive one. Well, why not? I said. He has his phone, he can fix things up. I hope that’s right, Randal said. Please stop saying that, I said. It rattles me. I understood what Randal implied. I had looked up the classic signs of depression, though I already knew what they were; a slippery list that applies to most people some of the time. The experts seem to agree that in the tick-box five is the key number, the same that they recommend for daily consumption of fruit and vegetables.

  17

  ‘HELLO. ONLY ME,’ I call out.

  I am holding the keys that I use to let myself into William’s flat. The living-room door is ajar.

  ‘This is Jane Brims,’ my father says as I enter. ‘She’s one of Helena’s cousins. She was passing by and called in to see me.’

  Jane Brims acknowledges me with a dull smile. She is tucked into the corner of the sofa, holding a tum
bler that rattles with ice. Old ice it must be, frozen into cubes many years ago. My mother had cold-sensitive teeth and William, my father, dislikes his gin and French diluted.

  ‘Help yourself to a drink, Lorna,’ he says. ‘There’s a bottle of red open in the kitchen.’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  He looks at his watch. ‘It’s coming up to five o’clock. I thought we might stretch a point.’ He turns to the woman. ‘Lorna drops by to see if I’m all in one piece. Generally, I am.’

  Jane Brims crosses her legs. She is wearing tapered black trousers, floral-patterned socks and red pumps. She takes a sip from the glass.

  ‘Aren’t I, Lorna?’ my father says.

  He is sitting in the hoop-backed chair that my mother, Helena, reupholstered. It faces the three floor-to-ceiling windows that take up one whole side of the room and let in the sky. There is little wall space for furniture and bookshelves. Even after the great cull that took place when William left the old house, what remains is packed in tightly and the arrangement, though artful, is not a complete success. A stranger, walking in, would guess correctly: elderly person or persons in a contemporary apartment.

  ‘Sorry, Dad?’

  ‘Generally in one piece?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, you are.’ I am usually more encouraging – and would add that he is doing really well, or some such phrase – but I am inhibited by the presence of the woman on the sofa.

  ‘You’re hovering,’ my father says. ‘Sit down. Or are you rushing off immediately? Quite often she’s rushing off.’ He speaks in a kindly voice without resentment.

  I drop the keys into my bag and sit on the arm of his chair, surprised, as I always am when I first arrive, by being at a standstill. Once I cross the threshold and perch myself, the day that has moved along stops.

  Jane Brims is a full ten years younger than William, possibly more; a striking woman with a serviceable layer of flesh – the equivalent of a couple of thermal vests – evenly distributed over her person, and this conserves her youth. Her unlined face is long and large; her eyes, brown as a dog’s, remain soulful even when her mouth – the business end of her face – tightens in annoyance. She sits firmly on the sofa, in an upright posture, more interviewer than interviewee, without a shred of diffidence. The legs, more skittishly arranged, stretched out and crossed at the ankles, reveal the floral socks. Are we supposed to admire them?

  She has been on a classical tour of Tunisia and visited the ancient Roman city of Dougga and the remains of the city of Carthage. There was an optional camel ride.

  William starts to tell his piano-recital story from the never-to-be-repeated cultural cruise on the Danube. Jane sits tight-lipped through his plodding account and the second it comes to an end launches into a morning at the troglodyte cave dwellings of Matmata, beginning with the early start and breakfast on the minibus.

  She speaks of white walls and blue-painted doors and progresses to Lars Homestead, the residence of Luke Skywalker, Aunt Beru Lars and Uncle Owen Lars. My father, who knows nothing of Star Wars, is taken aback by the mention of these Norwegian-sounding relatives and asks tetchily, ‘Which holiday are you on now?’

  In the lulls, I focus on the views north-west, over suburban crescents and closes, towards the turreted buildings of Highlands, the former Northern Convalescent Fever Hospital, now converted into apartment blocks. The windows of William’s apartment resemble unrolled Chinese scrolls. The balcony rail appears as a consistent dividing line in each and the vistas of lighted buildings and bare-branched trees occupy successive sections of the panorama, with their own clouds or cloud parts, pale against the sky. At the end of November, the sun has set by four-thirty.

  She starts as she means to go on, I think, though quite why the phrase jumps into my mind, I don’t know. I have no idea who Jane Brims is or why she is ensconced in William’s living room, looking like part of the furniture. My father’s reference to Jane passing by – where? The Heronry, Winchmore Hill? – seems inadequate and even disingenuous; a sleight of hand that I find disconcerting. I am not inclined to ask questions. Is she a Yates or a Finch? Suffolk or Middlesex? Probing will prolong the visit and validate the woman’s presence. Jane Brims might question me in return – though she has shown no interest in me thus far – and then I would have to elaborate on my sons’ ages and education, my work, where we live; the usual rigmarole. I prefer to sit gormlessly on the arm of my father’s chair.

  I have got into the habit, before I leave, of asking if there is anything William wants. This triggers anxious thoughts in him. It generally turns out that he has lost some household item – the kitchen scissors or the window key – or he wants me to read a letter from the managing agents of the flats.

  William hesitates, then, ‘No, nothing to report. All’s well,’ he says.

  One thing my mother did that I failed to appreciate while she was alive was to make it possible to communicate with my father. She was both interpreter and maître d’. She was the oil that allowed a frictionless flow. I wish I had a recording to remind me how it was done. Even without Jane Brims on the scene, talk with William can be stilted and a little bit sticky though we are full of goodwill towards one another. I have hopes that as we get used to the new situation we will find it easier. My mother, rather than an absence, will preside over us again or maybe we will just rub along without her.

  18

  THE GRILLES ARE down over the entrance to St James’s Park station. We all stream back the way the way we came, past the free-newspaper stand, past doorway sleepers and unoccupied rolls of bedding, past the Big Issue seller, in his Santa hat, and the two lumbering, human-sized furry animals who beseech with their paws and hold out buckets for cash. Spangly light from the shops is reflected in puddles.

  ‘Does this mean Victoria station’s shut too?’ a woman asks.

  The pedestrian signal by The Albert turns from green to red and back to green but the crowd of office workers and shoppers underneath a canopy of bobbing umbrellas has to wait behind the outstretched arms of a policewoman until she gives permission to go. Buses labour, stopping and starting, the passengers masked by a blur of condensation. Wheels splash in slow motion.

  ‘How much longer?’ someone calls out.

  ‘It’s always the same,’ the woman says, confidingly. ‘They favour the traffic. If we’re on foot, we don’t exist.’

  My phone rings. I have trouble disentangling it from my coat pocket. Drips land on my face as the umbrella tips sideways. I press the phone to my ear. Through the sound of juddering engines, I hear the word ‘duck’. Doug? Dirk. Got it.

  ‘Oh, hello, Dirk,’ I say. ‘There’s a lot of background noise. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You are at the airport check-in?’

  ‘No. I’ve just left work. Hang on a sec. We’re being allowed across the road.’

  In the crush of pedestrians surging forward, I manage to hang onto the phone. The woman who spoke to me jams her open umbrella against mine. We are trapped in a moving, makeshift tent as the rain beats down on us.

  ‘I have been meaning to thank you for having Jude to stay,’ Dirk says. ‘It has been frequent.’

  ‘Not at all. We love to see her.’

  ‘I hope she’s no trouble.’

  ‘No, she’s no trouble at all. It’s a pleasure to have her in the house.’ We reach the other side and I walk briskly into the external lobby of the House of Fraser, formerly the Army and Navy Stores. I contrive, one-handed, to put down the umbrella. The woman has vanished, though momentarily I thought she was with me for life.

  ‘Is the weekend of the twenty-seventh to twenty-eighth of January also possible? Rather distant, I know, but I should like to make these dates secure. Normally they stay where they like without intervention from us parents. This is correct for their age group, isn’t it? They are moving out of our clutches towards independence. On this occasion I am more formal because Frances and I will be away. If you need to kick her out we will not be there.’ Dirk laughs. ‘I�
��m only joking. Of course, we will keep our phones on.’

  ‘Yes, that should be fine, Dirk.’ I step to one side to allow a customer to pass. He pushes open the glass door into the store and a waft of warm, cosmetic-scented air escapes. I glimpse beauty gifts the size of timpani.

  ‘We are going to Manchester. This is where we met. And the twenty-eighth of January is an anniversary, special to us. It will, I hope, be a worthwhile weekend. I think you have heard from Jude some of our difficulties. I won’t bore you with them. They are, inevitably, quite boring if you yourself are not in the thick of them.’

  I murmur something; nothing articulate, a sympathetic noise.

  The doors open and again a cloying, synthetic floral smell meets the damp air. Two women come out, laden with shopping bags.

  ‘She has talked a bit about you.’ Dirk Neerhoff pauses. ‘She gives me a flavour of your conversation.’

  ‘Well, it’s always lovely to chat with her. She’s great.’

  ‘She is quite a mimic!’ Dirk Neerhoff gives a short, friendly laugh. ‘I do not have this gift. The expressions too. She does the expressions.’

  I glance at my reflection in the glass doors of the store. And then across the road, at the light beaming through the decorative etched windows of The Albert: the yellow brick pub, built in the 1860s, that is sandwiched between undistinguished office towers.

  ‘Really?’ I say.

  ‘I feel we have met. I hope this will be a reality in the near future. The four of us? For coffee?’ Dirk says.

  ‘Good idea.’

  ‘We will find a date. Unless a plan is made nothing happens. If we don’t speak again before Christmas, have a very happy—’

  I wonder whether the changed pattern of Jude coming to Dairyman’s Road rather than Ross going to the Bennet-Neerhoffs is connected with whatever is happening at home. Perhaps the atmosphere is terrible. Perhaps her parents row all the time. Or weep. My pleasure at the turn of events – Palmers Green one, Crews Hill nil – seems, in some far-fetched sense, to be at the other family’s expense.