by A. D. Koboah
“Can you believe that woman?” Eva asked as we left the market and turned onto the main road toward the bus stop. She was looking at an elderly black woman who was sitting cross-legged outside the tube station behind a makeshift platform on which were numerous A5-sized cards on display. She was a familiar sight I hadn’t seen in a while, but then again, there were a lot of things I hadn’t seen in a long while.
“Does she really expect people to pay money for that?” she continued, referring to the A5-sized cards which were drawings, mainly of birds that were decorated with sequins and glitter. It was the sort of thing you would expect a child in primary school to have produced and was definitely nothing you would expect to see on sale.
“I know,” I said and chuckled softly. “Once I had some money to spare so I dropped a pound on the table and carried on walking, feeling as if I had done something good. I couldn’t believe it when she came running after me and asked why I didn’t take a drawing.”
“You’re lying!”
“I wish I was. I didn’t know what to say, so I let her take me back to choose a drawing.” By now, we were both laughing.
It felt good to laugh, but it didn’t take the edge off the anxiety I was feeling, anxiety that increased when we left the bus and walked toward my mother’s. When the house came into view, I was immediately sent back to the last time I had been there.
It had been six months after my altercation with Barbara and I had hidden myself some distance away from the house and sat watching until I saw my mother leave to go to work. I had then walked up to the front door and tried my key, praying that the lock hadn’t been changed. Mercifully (or so I thought at the time) it hadn’t and the key slipped easily into the lock and the door glided open. Looking back on it now, I wished that the lock had been changed and I had been forced to leave. Instead I had silently closed the door and crept into the house.
At first the familiar scent of incense that she always burned at night had jolted me. It had thrown me back to the past and I was reminded of the times I had spent in the house. But I hadn’t stayed there for long.
Driven by desperation, I entered the neat, orderly living room. The only time I remembered the house being less than pristine was in the first few days after Dante’s death, but even then, I wouldn’t have described it as messy. My gaze was immediately drawn to the Jesus hanging above the sofa, but I quickly looked away and went to the large cabinet. I searched through the drawers where she kept her bills, feeling the eyes of the painting boring into the back of my head. I found a hundred and thirty pounds on top of a telephone bill and quickly left the room, relieved to be leaving those reproving eyes behind me. I had then gone upstairs into her bedroom, which felt strange without her. Everything was as neat and ordered as the living room apart from her headscarf, which had been carelessly tossed on one of the pillows.
I had searched through her underwear drawer first, and then through the rest of the drawers, tossing the clothes onto the floor. Finally, I found an envelope in the bottom drawer which contained three hundred pounds. I stuffed the money into my pocket. Then I changed my mind and returned one hundred and fifty pounds. I had then crept out of the house.
I returned three months later and again waited until I saw her leave for work. But this time when I tried to let myself in, I found that the lock had been changed.
I had cursed loudly, kicked and punched the door a few times before leaving, my desperation, my body screaming so painfully that it left no room for the shame and self-loathing I was now feeling as we walked up to the front door.
Maybe Eva sensed that I was ready to bolt and run because she linked her arm through mine and rang the doorbell. I braced myself when it was pulled open and my mother came into view.
Two years had passed since I had seen her last and the years had been relentless. She appeared smaller and thinner than I remembered, and a great deal older. The sight of her looking old was a visual jolt, a reminder that time wasn’t waiting around for us to resolve our issues with the people that mattered most to us. It moved on and relentlessly claimed year after year until it plucked people from our lives. And when that happened, I knew of no way to plead or bargain for more time.
“Eva.” She smiled genuinely at Eva.
“Hello, Auntie.” Eva leaned forward and hugged her. My mother kissed her on the cheek before she let her move into the house.
I nervously stepped forward.
Her smile faded away and turned to alarm when she looked at me and I guessed that she was just as alarmed by the physical changes she saw when she looked at me.
“Hi, Ma,” I said and hugged her awkwardly.
She felt so frail and thin and I was fearful that I might break her. I was surprised by the ferocity of her embrace and the way she clung to me, as if she was clinging onto life itself.
She reluctantly let me go after a few moments and looked up at me carefully as I stepped into the house, her expression growing sadder the more she saw.
“Peace, you are so, so skinny now,” she stated softly, mournfully, as she closed the door behind her.
“She’s put on weight, Auntie,” Eva had said chirpily in a bid to reassure her.
But the anguish I saw in my mother’s eyes increased as she no doubt tried to imagine how I must have looked before. I don’t think she took her eyes off me as I followed Eva down the corridor and into the living room. Barbara was sat in an armchair, her face turned expectantly towards the doorway.
“Hi, Barbara.”
“Hello, Eva.” Then, after a pause, “Hello, Peace.”
“Hi, Barbara,” I mumbled with my head facing the floor.
I sidled into the living room, avoiding making eye contact with her. Eva took a seat in the armchair opposite her whilst I took a seat on the large sofa, the farthest I could get from Barbara.
“How are you?” she asked me pleasantly.
“I’m fine thanks. You?”
“Not too bad. You look well.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
“No, she does not look well,” my mother said softly as she entered the living room and sat down on the sofa beside me. “You have lost so much weight. You do not look like yourself. You do not look like my Peace.”
It all seemed to be too much for her and tears fell down her cheek. She held a hand to her chest as if to keep the pain that was in her heart from spilling out and her other hand lightly grazed her brow. I squirmed and looked away from her to the floor. I had been away for so long doing my own thing, trying to bury my own pain without a thought for those I had left behind. It hit me now.
Grief and confusion hung in the room. Barbara had no tears in her eyes, but her face spoke of her own pain.
Eva immediately stood up and grabbed a box of tissues on a table by her chair and sat down between my mother and I. She put a comforting arm around my mother and handed her the tissues. She placed the other hand on the hands clasped tightly in my lap and squeezed them.
“It’s all right,” she said gently.
She was looking at my mother but I felt as if she was also talking to me. “Everything is gonna be all right. She’s getting better. The worst is over now.”
“I know, I know.” This was spoken softly through my mother’s tears and she faced me as she said, “I know, but drugs? When Barbara told me you were taking drugs, my God, I did not believe it. That is something you see on the television, not something a child of mine could do to me. You have been so far away, for so long. My God…”
More sobs, eyes buried by the tissues she had brought up to her face, tissues that were unable to stem the flow. She finally looked at me again.
“Why, Peace? Why? Why did you do this? Why didn’t you come to me and talk to me. We were all suffering but why couldn’t we get through this as a family? I am your mother. Was there not something I could do to help you, even if it was only to pray for you? Why did you turn to other people, to drugs? You were here one day and the next day you were gone and we didn’t
hear anything from you. These past two years, every time the phone rang or somebody knocked on my door my heart would jump and I would ask myself, is this the day they come to tell me that my youngest child is dead? Why? Why?”
Eva’s hand tightened around mine.
“I don’t know,” I finally answered in a whisper whilst tears of helplessness formed behind my eyes. “All I can say to both of you is that I’m sorry.”
Nobody spoke for a while and the air was heavy with emotion.
“Is this finished now? Is this over?” my mother asked when the tears flowed less ardently.
“Yes. Yes it is.”
“Then praise God,” she said softly. “The day Dante died, I lost my grandchild and my child. But God has given me back my child. Praise God.”
“I meant what I said. I want both of you to know...” I looked up briefly at Barbara. “That I’m sorry. I caused you both a lot of pain, so soon after Dante died. I wish I could do something to make it up to you. All I can say for now is that I’m sorry and I hope you’ll be able to forgive me one day.”
“There is nothing to forgive,” my mother said. “His passing was hard for all of us. I’m just thankful to God that you have come back to us, thankful that you still have your life.”
“I’m not working at the moment,” I said after a short pause. “But I’m looking for a job and when I find one, I’ll pay back the money I...I... st-stole from you and pay for the damage I caused when I broke—”
“We don’t care about that,” Barbara said sharply.
“I... It’s something I need to do, Barbara.”
“We don’t care about that money, Peace. We only care that you are here with us now,” my mother said.
I didn’t press it, but knew that I had to pay back what I had taken otherwise it would always haunt me.
An awkward silence ensued before Barbara spoke.
“So how long were you in rehab?”
“I didn’t go into rehab. I did it by myself and I’ve been clean for four weeks now.”
“What? Nobody comes off heroin just like that.” She emphasised her point with a click of her fingers.
I could feel some of the old animosity I had towards Barbara rising.
“She knows that, Barbara,” Eva said, thankfully coming to my defence. “And it didn’t happen just like that.” She clicked her fingers. “I was there and it was really hard. She went through hell and back. It wasn’t easy but she did it and the hard part is over now. Besides she’s not alone. I’ll be moving in with Peace when I break up for the summer holidays and we’re all here to support her now, aren’t we?”
“Of course,” Barbara retorted quickly. “I was just saying, that’s all.”
Her expression told a different story.
***
Dinner was a subdued affair with Eva being the only one making conversation. I was aware throughout dinner that my mother was carefully watching everything I ate. When she offered me a second helping of jollof rice, I hesitated, about to refuse until I saw her eyebrows go up. I was forced to accept the second helping which I forced down. As I watched Eva throughout dinner, and then afterwards when she helped my mother clear the table and wash up, it seemed as if she had always been there, had always been a part of our lives. I left them in the kitchen together and followed Barbara into the living room, hoping for a few minutes to try and clear the air between us. But she spoke before I had a chance to.
“Sorry about before. I didn’t mean to sound negative, but you can understand why I’m concerned, can’t you?” She sounded pleasant but was looking at me with daggers for eyes. “How many people wake up one day and just completely stop taking whatever drug they’re hooked on, especially a drug like heroin? It just doesn’t ring true somehow.”
“I’m not lying!” I said, stung and growing angrier by the second. “I told you, I didn’t just stop. It was tough going through withdrawal, but I did it because I knew I had to. Besides, it doesn’t stop here. I’ve been referred to a counsellor now so I’m still working on my issues. I’m a lot stronger than you think, Barbara, and I have beat this thing.”
“Hm. If you say so. I can’t believe you would walk in here after so long and tell us that you’ve sorted yourself out when you haven’t had any proper treatment for your addiction. You haven’t got a clue how much shit you put Mum through. But let me tell you something. This is your last chance. If you fuck up again—that’s it for you and us. I won’t let you put Mum through that again. Do you understand?”
“I won’t fuck up,” I said.
But I was already beginning to doubt myself. It had been so much easier to drift through life in a chemical haze than live and deal with unpleasant situations like this one.
She was completely silent for a while and watched the television intently as if I wasn’t even in the room, the anger that had clung to her since Dante died, although softened by the years, seeming to be a part of her personality now. When she spoke again after what seemed like hours, I could see that it was still there, but she appeared to be making an effort to keep it under control.
“I broke up with David, by the way.”
“Really? When?”
“Not that long after the break in,” she said with a cynical smile. “Kicking him out of my house was probably one of the best things I’ve ever done. I just wish you’d said that stuff to me a few years earlier; you would have saved me a lot of time and money.”
I knew this was Barbara’s way of holding out an olive branch, but all I could do was look at the ground.
“That’s probably the only good thing that came out of all this; you speaking your mind for a change,” she said. “It gave me a lot to think about, that’s for sure.” She paused for a few seconds and her whole mood seemed to change.
“One thing I didn’t understand though, was what you meant when you referred to something I said to you the day he died. I’ve thought about it over and over again, but I honestly don’t know what it was. What did I say that day that upset you so much?”
She had tried to sound casual when asking me the question, but I could see by the way she was looking at me, by the haunting shadows behind her eyes, that those careless words had cut deep that day and had probably been the cause of many sleepless nights since.
I shrugged.
“To be honest I can’t remember,” I lied. “I was so out of it the day I came to your house, I couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t.”
She stared at me and I wasn’t sure whether or not she believed my explanation, but she didn’t push it. She stayed silent, staring thoughtfully at the television although I was sure she had lost interest in the show. She spoke again a few minutes later.
“You know,” she said facing me again. “When he died it hurt, but he was so happy, Peace. We made him happy and he made us happy. Isn’t that what really matters?”
“Yeah, I suppose it is.” I felt tears gathering as I remembered the last thing my beautiful little baby boy had said to me.
“That’s how it should be, when people die you shouldn’t have any regrets about the time you spent with them and that’s why I’m glad I’ve been given another chance with everyone else.”
“Me too,” I said, knowing she meant me. “So are you seeing somebody else now?”
Her face brightened.
“Yes I am as a matter of fact. His name’s Ludwig—”
“Ludwig?”
“Yeah, I know. But apart from the name, he’s perfect.”
We talked for a while about her new boyfriend and then moved onto other topics of conversation. And although things were far from perfect between us, it seemed as though we had finally taken a step across the abyss and instead of falling, we had each other to hold onto.
***
A few weeks later, Eva and I were on a bus headed for what was now ‘our flat’ after a visit to my mum’s house. Time had passed by unbearably slowly over the weeks as I fought boredom and depression, often wanting to do nothing
more than hide away from the real world which I was finding a frightening and daunting place. But I forced myself to go through the motions, forced myself to look for jobs and go to the counselling sessions that had been set up for me. I also forced myself to make regular visits to my mother’s house. Things between us were far from normal and we all seemed to tiptoe around the painful things that needed to be said, but which nobody wanted to be reminded of.
Although getting things back to normal with them was going at an excruciatingly slow pace, they were getting better and the biggest indicator of that fact was when Barbara gave me the savings book for an account I set up for Dante when he had been born. There was around five thousand pounds in that account, most of which was money I had received from friends and relatives at Dante’s christening and over the few short birthdays and Christmases he had spent on this Earth. The money had been put into that account and the pass book left with Barbara for safekeeping. I had only ever asked for it whenever there was more money to be deposited in the account. I had completely forgotten about that money, whether consciously or unconsciously is hard to tell, but the fact that Barbara had given it back to me showed that we were making progress and that I was getting closer to the trust and faith they had once had in me.
Fidgeting as I sat opposite Eva who was playing a game on her mobile phone, I thought about the conversation I’d had with my mother just before we left, my mind zinging with the possibilities it offered me. The only thing that dampened that excitement was Eva and the knowledge that it was likely to change everything for her too.
“Eve.” She looked up at me briefly and then continued playing with her phone. “Did my mum tell you she’s going back to Ghana for good in a few weeks’ time?”
“Yeah, she mentioned it.” She smiled wistfully. “I really like your mum. I wish she didn’t have to go.”
I paused, wondering whether or not I could really do this to Eva.
“Well, she asked me to go with her and stay for a while.”
Her head jerked up sharply and frightened eyes met mine.
