by Neil Rowland
“I keep my eye on them. Don’t worry,” I say.
She tugs her heavy cardigan closer and adjusts a heavy pin, which cuts through her thick tartan skirt. “I can’t stop sitting here and thinking of you, all alone by yourself in that house, with nobody to take care of you.”
“I’m quite happy by myself, most of the time,” I assure her, taking a sip.
“Did you say that I should expect Angela?” she wonders.
“That’s what she promised me. I’ve got every confidence...”
“Why doesn’t that girl make herself more useful around the house? She’s old enough to help you out. What does she do with herself? Why didn’t she come with you now?”
“She’s still at work, Mum.”
“Did she say what time she’s likely to visit me?” she persists.
“Angela’s got a little job along there in Park Street. You should see her in her nice uniform, serving people with the tasty food and drinks they have, being helpful. Serving at the tables and taking money at the register.”
“Is that the best she could find?” Mum asks, gripping the little teacup in her paw. “You told me that she’s a bright girl. You said she’s clever at school.”
“She’s working at the café to save money for university,” I argue.
Constance isn’t convinced or impressed by this explanation of Angie’s determination. “You’re the only one in this family who’s been to university. Your brother never needed to.”
“Then my daughter will follow in my footsteps,” I reply firmly.
Angela could enter university as a mature student. She shouldn’t count on her old man attending graduation. It hurts me to think about that.
“I walked all the way up to your house. It must have been Thursday evening. You should know how hard that is.”
“I have to assume you rang the bell,” I say.
“Couldn’t get any reply from you or anybody. So in the end I had to walk all the way back home again. By myself,” she tells me bluntly.
“Sorry about that, Mum. Let me think back. Try to understand what might have happened. I think I was working late that evening. So I’d guess there wasn’t anybody at home.”
“Then who was playing the loud music and switched a light on?” she asks. She’s determined that I get the whole shot.
“I couldn’t say exactly,” I admit, hunched under the accusation.
“I wouldn’t mind saying that it would have been our Angela.”
I take a repentant sip of the tea, that’s indeed strong enough for the bearded lady. “Your guess is as good as mine, really, Mum.”
“What do you say to that?” she wonders.
“I don’t know, but the kids have their own keys. They are free to come and go as much as they like. We don’t try to lock them up, you understand. I don’t always know who may be at home. You have to take your chances, I’m afraid.”
My reassurances are undermined by this picture of latchkey kids, taking full advantage of a broken home turned upside down.
“You shouldn’t allow your kids to run riot,” she warns.
“They just want to do their thing,” I say.
Her dark brow wrinkles and she pointedly slurps on her tea. “Keep an eye on those kids, Noah. You have to be careful in your position. You have their mother’s shoes to fill these days too.”
“That’s something I wouldn’t dare to try,” I say. Would it be the pair of red high heels? It’s sad that I still possess my boots of Spanish leather; if not the passionate, thoughtful girl who surprised me with them. Now she may as well pull them on and stamp all over my grave. I’ve no problem if she wants to wear my shoes in future.
“They have to miss their mother,” Con remarks.
“They miss for nothing,” I insist.
Mum doesn’t approve of unkind thoughts about the sacred Liz. From her experience the departure of a spouse is shattering, be that through divorce or death. Take away the security and love of a family and children begin to run amok. Release them from that routine and discipline and your kids are as dangerous as victorious troops in the enemy’s wine cellar.
“Fathers are always too indulgent to their children,” she argues. “Mothers are more confident of their children’s love.”
“I’m fully responsible and caring for them,” I reply.
“They need their mother.”
“Not that they miss for anything.” Then I change tack. “They’re able to visit their Mum any time,” I say. “They have their rights too. We recognise that. Liz hasn’t abandoned responsibility for them. We just live separate lives now, that’s all... our domestic arrangements have changed. But we’re both the caring parents we ever were. We understand our role as parents.”
“They don’t know where they are,” mother says. She edges forward on her throne and employs the lap of her skirt as a napkin.
“They’ll get used to it,” I reply.
“What a beautiful wedding Lizzie and you had, Noah. Such a lovely ceremony at the cathedral,” she recalls.
“Me in my top hat and tails, she in her generous dress.”
“You’ve lost a lovely girl there, Noah. What a shame.”
I exercise the capacity of my lungs.
Constance focuses on breaking her hunk of cake into edible sized pieces, as if searching for ore in rocks.
“Maybe that girl was too good for you, after all. I thought so when you first brought her home.”
She brushes crumbs from her large hands.
“Let me cast my mind back,” I say.
“I always enjoyed listening to that girl talk. She had most interesting things to chat about. What a beautiful face she had, such lovely flowing hair.”
“We’re divorced now,” I remind her.
“I always remember the way she folded her napkin?”
“Her napkin?” I declare.
“She was always so very graceful and dainty. Her manners. Our family came from that village as poor as the church mouse, after your poor father died. I wonder what she wanted with a lot of rough country people like us.”
“I can tell you exactly what she got from me,” I retort. “I don’t know why you talk about Lizzie and me in that way. Lizzie and I were friends right from the first day she joined my school,” I remind her.
“I don’t know why she wanted to marry you,” she admits.
The remark almost fires cake out of my throat, like a cannon ball.
“She was such a gracious and thoughtful girl.”
“We had an awful lot in common,” I insist.
“She came from a very nice family,” she recalls, nostalgically.
“They forced Lizzie into a posh girls’ only boarding school,” I recall. “What’s so nice about throwing her out of home and sending her away? At that age, when she didn’t want to?”
“They were always very pleasant to me,” Constance returns, stubbornly.
“Lizzie kept running away from that school so often, her parents didn’t know what to do with her. That place was like Newgate prison for middle-class schoolgirls,” I argue. “So finally they relented and allowed her to mix with an uncouth brute like me,” I comment.
“She was so very well brought up and polite. So clever passing all those exams and getting on in life. Whatever got into her? So cheerful and chatty too. You won’t find another girl like that.”
“How do you know that exactly? Perhaps I have already met someone else,” I say.
“A pretty girl always turned your head,” she admonishes. “You’ve always been far too easily led. I’m sorry, Noah, but I miss her. It’s so hard to understand.”
“Incomprehensible.”
“You need someone to look after you. Like all men.”
Do
ggedly I stir my own brew and try to dissolve my shame; to break up a sludge of regret and bitterness that’s left over, apparently, at the bottom of my existence.
Everybody says how much I resemble my father. They insist that I’m virtually his double these days. I inherited Dad’s complexion and thick straw hair, what’s left of it. My eyes are a dirty green. I haven’t fallen far from the tree.
“She was a friendly, lively girl. We always enjoyed it when she came to our house. Remember when you first brought her home for tea? Those were the days, boy!” she declares, suddenly animated.
I look away gloomily, in the direction of the garden, through long rain-speckled windows between drapes.
“After that she’d come around regularly. We got along famously,” Con remembers. “Honestly, I could sit and listen to that girl for hours at a time, without getting bored.”
“We were students in those days.”
“About her funny ideas. She didn’t worry that I worked in a factory canteen.”
“Lizzie was never stuck up,” I say.
“I never knew her to go searching under my pillows,” Constance remarks.
“That’s all true, Mum, but what difference does it make now?” I comment.
“Well, I’d like to invite her to visit me one afternoon. She and I ought to sit here and have a good long chat together.”
About me? “Elizabeth doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
“With you, maybe.”
“It’s all over with us, don’t you understand? Why would she want to visit you these days?” I point out.
“Just because you don’t see much of her,” she tells me.
“She’d never agree to that.”
“Invite her the next time you see her. It can’t do any harm.”
Chapter 22
There’s a penetrating drilling noise and flashing of lights in the living room. As usual this shocking alarm makes me jump out of my skin. This has been set off by someone pressing the door-bell, either another visitor or armed intruder. Mum asks me to go out to investigate as the intercom system is not working properly - more loose wires. Does Elizabeth have a direct line into my brain? However I’m expecting my daughter to call around to see grandma.
“This will be Angela at last.” In that split second I know that I’ll be glad to see her - our angel.
But when I reach the step to investigate, our visitor is none other than my brother Oswald. Usually he doesn’t go inside her apartment, but will wait in the car or van until she is ready, before driving her back to the family. He’s equally surprised to find me here and even offers to go away and come back. I refuse to hear of that, because my reactions are on auto-pilot.
Ossie cried off from visiting me in hospital, citing his work commitments, which even incensed Elizabeth. Any talk of driving up to London sounded as unlikely to him as flying to Berlin, before the wall came down. But Ossie doesn’t lack brotherly feeling, even if he didn’t rush to my bedside.
“You look bloody tarrable, little bro’,” he blurts out. He deliberately addresses me in a rougher local timbre.
“Right, but I’m much better than I was,” I state.
“Did they tell you that?” he demands. “Those doctors and nurses?”
I gesture for him to enter and he tries to adjust to the idea: the shock of my new appearance. Embarrassment forced out the comment, but he’s not a bloke to hide his real feelings.
“You come from work?” I ask, sociably.
“What ‘ave you been doin’ to yourself?” he wonders.
We make our way through the museum exhibits towards Mum’s door.
“Your heart goin’ wrong again or something?”
“Maybe you’ve put your finger on it,” I say.
I re-enter the apartment and we go searching for our mother.
“But you look tarrable, Noah, honest.”
“Try to be more sensitive, Oswald,” Mum implores, from across the room.
Tearing his eyes away from my mask he strides over to hug our mother and give her meaty kisses. “All right, Mum? How you been keeping? How are your knees?” he bellows.
“Not so bad, my boy, if I stay on my feet... if I keep moving,” she informs him; though she doesn’t risk them on this occasion.
Ossie falls back into an armchair and surveys her flat with displeasure. His work clothes make no concession to the neighbourhood. The sole of a boot is flapping at us. Just the garb when you’re making a social call.
As I move between them to find my place, Ossie notices and observes me again, as if trying to square up a misaligned brick in a wall. “You’re not looking good, Noah boy, are you. What you been doin’ to yourself?” he wonders.
“I’m on the mend,” I insist.
“Doesn’t look like it,” he states; as if I’ve been touching his wage packet again.
“It’s taking a bit longer than anyone expected. There have been a few setbacks, but nothing to worry about.”
“Aint they gonna do anything for you?” he challenges.
“They already have,” I say.
“Aren’t they going to put you right? What’s happened?”
“What are the odds?”
He adopts a relaxed sprawled position, as if he’s a kid again and just returned home from school. His work clothes are caked with sand, concrete and other materials from his trade. His strong face is permanently roughened and raw from the out of doors. The blue eyes are narrowed and hurt, paradoxical, as they scrutinize me, across the floor.
“So you’re tellin’ me you’re gonna kick the bucket?” he asks.
“Please try to be more sensitive, Oswald,” Mum protests again.
“Not if I can help it, Ossie, I’m not,” I say.
But he knows this is not a certain bet. “Well I’m bloody upset to hear about that little bro’.” Ossie shakes his head at the terrible injustice. “I’m sure the wife will be upset too. But let’s hope it never comes to that, shall we?”
“That I might not live long enough?” I say.
“You do look bloody tarrable though, Noah boy, let me tell you.”
“I’m travelling light,” I admit.
“How good to see you two boys together,” Mum comments.
“You putting in some over time, Ossie?” I say.
“An extension,” he fires back.
“I’ve already had one put in,” I inform him. “Sorry.”
“I didn’t notice that. Anyway I thought your place was listed.”
Oswald celebrates his origins and still lives proudly in that first house in Bedminster - with front and rear extensions. He had a one-handled wheelbarrow, two bags of substandard cement and a ton of stolen bricks, when he first started working for himself. Then there was a family of kidnapped gnomes which brought in a handsome ransom.
People say that we look alike. We’re brothers. Or they did.
“Have another slice of cake with your tea, Oswald,” Mum suggests. “Come on, boy, it’s good for you.” She starts to hew off another generous hunk.
“Hand it over here, Mum.”
She may have got this recipe from Elizabeth, as she’s been sticking to it for years. Liz is passing back into my body by a transmigration of ingredients. The cake is growling in my stomach like a villain trapped in concrete under a motorway bridge.
Ossie slides down further and fixes me along the sights of his cheeks. The old grandfather clock becomes more paternal. We manage some crumbs of small talk under the searchlight of Mum’s attention. She’s happy if we produce a good vibration. But we’re not Dennis and Brian in their heyday.
“What exactly did they say to you, then?” he enquires. “At the ‘ospital?”
“They said that my operation didn’t turn out as expec
ted,” I admit.
“You don’t sound very optimistic,” he remarks, chewing.
“There’s a complication with my surgery,” I say. “There’s no way back.”
“You pulling my leg or what?”
Ossie never knew how to take me and I still don’t slip down easily. Not like a few pints at his local, with old school mates every Friday night. They only know me in passing, and get any woeful news second-hand. I wouldn’t really be welcome there anymore. It all dates from my university days. My brother has struggled with his feelings since that decision. Then there was the pretty girl I married; Lizzie with those strange and laughable ideas, who didn’t take him as seriously as a luminescent piglet. He’s never forgiven me, either for inventing myself or for marrying Lizzie; never has got over his shame and disgust about us.
“Shouldn’t they take you back into ‘ospital?” he asks. “What are you doin’ out here? I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous. What’s wrong with the National ‘ealth these days?” he declares, raising his voice.
“They can’t help me,” I say.
“Christ.”
“I’m trying to adopt a more relaxed lifestyle now.”
“Christ, you’re not that old.”
“Have another cup of tea,” Mum implores.
My brother stares towards me challengingly, seeing a different guy. He rubs spiky blonde hair violently, releasing plaster dust into the atmosphere, and becomes disillusioned with my life.
“The consultant told me to eradicate stress from my life. To improve my survival chances,” I explain. “I’m looking forward to sitting back and relaxing. Do a bit more gardening, fly my kites... that sort of thing. I’ve even joined a yoga class.”
“A yoga class?” he replies. His sore bewildered eyes stick to me in astonishment. “What good’s bloody yoga going to do you?”
“There’s no harm in it,” I argue.
He’s unable to suppress rough, confused laughter. “Is that all the doctor orders?” he remarks. “Haven’t they got any new drugs? Aren’t they going to open you up again? To see what’s wrong?”
“There are different paths to enlightenment,” I tell him. Not along a gangplank. I toss back another chunk of cake.
