Another Mother: a gripping psychological family drama

by Amanda James

  ‘Of course, I’ll see him again. He’s my dad, the man who brought me up, loves me, and …’ My words stick in my throat, so I take a breath and watch a seagull swoop down and try to grab a sandwich from the hand of the man on the next bench.

  ‘He knows that, love. Don’t upset yourself.’

  ‘How can I not be?’ I push my hair out of my eyes only to have an offshore breeze push it back again. ‘Look. Do you think I should come back this weekend? I’m sure Mellyn would understand.’

  ‘That depends. Do you want to?’

  I blow down my nostrils and twist my hair into a clip while I think about that. ‘Not really. I’ve just got my relationship on an even keel with Mellyn and we were supposed to go to Truro shopping on Saturday.’

  ‘An even keel?’ Adelaide says quietly. ‘I thought you two were fine after the first few hiccups?’

  Bugger. I wish I hadn’t let that slip out. Without even trying, Adelaide has that knack of drawing things out into the open that I’d rather keep hidden. ‘Yes, they are … it just came out wrong, I guess.’ I’m glad she can’t see the blush on my cheeks. ‘I think in a way that Dad should try to understand more. I haven’t spent any time at all with her over the last thirty years for goodness’ sake!’

  ‘Okay, love. No need to get angry.’

  ‘Oh, Adelaide, I’m sorry. I’m not angry with you – or Dad really. I just feel so torn.’

  ‘I expect you do. And really, I think you’re more frustrated than angry, aren’t you? Also, your dad hasn’t mentioned that he wants you home, has he?’

  ‘Not to me, no …’ I expect he had to her though.

  ‘Well, there you are, then. There is one thing I wondered about the other day – how are you for clothes and everything? Most of your stuff is here.’

  ‘I’ve been buying what I need. And I’m not sure that would go down very well with Dad, me rolling up to take all my stuff away.’ I force a laugh and wish I hadn’t.

  Adelaide laughs too and hers sounds more genuine, though it’s strange to hear her laugh. ‘Well, how’s this for an idea? I’ve been well overdue a holiday for a few years and I was chatting to my sister Evelyn the other day, and she said—’

  ‘You’re coming down here on holiday? That’s brilliant!’

  ‘Yes, with Evelyn! How did you guess? I hadn’t finished …’

  ‘You always do go around the houses, Adelaide. That would be fantastic. You could bring a few things down for me and we could have a proper catch up.’ I miss her, and until now, I hadn’t realised how much.

  ‘Yes. It will be lovely to meet Mellyn too.’

  Would it? Doubt crept into my mind. But I say, ‘Yes, I’m sure she’d be delighted to meet you too.’

  The last of my clothes in the wardrobe and drawers and my toiletries in the bathroom cabinet, I sit on the bed in my lovely new room, the Cinnamon Room as I think of it, and look out across the rooftops of St Ives. Tomorrow is the first of September. I think back to the New Year’s Eve party at Ellie’s that Sally had dragged me along to, me a little worse for wear, sitting at the bottom of the stairs under a sprig of mistletoe that had seen better days and fending off a kiss from Ellie’s cousin, who’d also had seen better days.

  I’d escaped to the garden and as my breath hung in the cold January air like little puffs of smoke, I made a wish on the brightest star in the black deep sky. I wished that the coming year would be different to all the others – exciting, challenging, and most of all, I wished for happiness. Little did I know that my wish would be granted in its entirety. It’s certainly different, because here I am for the first time living away from home with a new job in a new town. Exciting because my life has changed almost completely; I’ve managed to shake off the humdrum and predictable. Challenging? God yes. My dear mum was taken so cruelly and unexpectedly. Nevertheless, even though I’ve tragically lost one mother, I’ve become reunited with another, and though there are still problems, I can honestly say I’m happy.

  I go to the window and look down to my left at the garden. Two jackdaws alight, fold their wings, and chatter for a while like old friends on the rose arbor next to the rampant honeysuckle. Rosie’s a good friend. There are lots of firsts in my life at the moment, and for the first time, I know I have a genuine friend in Rosie; I’ve never felt so close to anyone apart from family. Since school, when Gill told that vile bully Megan about my adoption, I had never completely trusted anyone outside the family ever again. I count Adelaide as family, of course.

  I think about what might have happened if I had picked another B&B to stay in. I would never have met Rosie, might not have found a job, and that would have made staying here far more difficult. I have a lot to thank her for. Yes, the job is hard, sometimes dirty, knackering always, but it’s good honest work. Straightforward, with no complications like a sinister boss, and Rosie and I have so much fun. We’re very alike, share the same humour, and direct it in liberal doses at the Pomp and the Vulture, as Alan had now been shortened to. We said that sounded like a crazy name for a pub and pretend that we’ll open one in the future.

  With my head and shoulders out of the window and my neck craned to its full extent, I can just see a strip of blue Atlantic. An ear-to-ear grin stretches my cheeks and I draw in a deep lungful of fresh air. Sea on my doorstep. This is a far cry from rainy grey streets and old squashed together buildings ingrained with years of industrial grime burgeoning across the seven hills of Sheffield. I had lived there for the first thirty years of my life and I’m surprised to realise that I don’t miss it at all.

  ‘Bangers and mash seem a bit tame after your culinary delights,’ I say over my shoulder to Mellyn, who’s sitting at the kitchen table. At the sink I attempt potatoes, the unfamiliar peeler awkward in my hand.

  ‘I don’t eat like that all the time. I was doing it to impress you!’

  ‘That’s a relief. I got these sausages from the local butcher. They looked really good – outdoor-reared pork too of course.’

  ‘Of course. I’m sure they will be lovely, but as I said, there was no need to cook. We could have gone out to celebrate you moving in.’

  I turn to face her; the peeler drips brown water onto the floor tiles. ‘I’d like to stay in. Let’s just be normal for a bit. No more impressing me and fancy meals out – costs a fortune.’ I wipe up the water and turn my attention back to the potatoes.

  ‘We could have gone to Jack’s,’ she says quietly.

  Oh, for goodness’ sake, why can’t she let that lie? It must be obvious I don’t approve. ‘I won’t be going back there, and please let’s not discuss it tonight, Mum. I think we should, at some point, but not now.’

  ‘Suits me.’ Her voice sounds neutral, but I can’t see her expression. I hear her push back her chair and open a cupboard. ‘Now, which wine would go down well with your sausages?’ She stands next to me and places two bottles of red on the drainer.

  ‘It’s only bangers and mash. Why don’t we have a soft drink?’

  ‘Nonsense! Pick one.’

  Drinking every night doesn’t go well with early mornings. But to please her I say, ‘I think the Merlot.’

  ‘You don’t like the cabby savvy?’ Mellyn frowns and sticks out her bottom lip.

  ‘Yes, but—’

  Mellyn laughs and pats me on the head. ‘Just messing about. You are so easy to wind up.’

  ‘Where did you learn to make onion gravy like that? It’s phenomenal, and the mash is as creamy as the creamiest thing invented.’ Mellyn loads her fork with a combination of both and stuffs it into her mouth.

  ‘My … other mum. She was a brilliant cook.’ I glance across at Mellyn and note a shadow flit across her eyes.

  ‘As good as me?’ She gives a little laugh.

  ‘Yes, but in a different way. You cook more fancy stuff. She was more of a meat and two veg kind of gal.’

  Mellyn chases a hunk of sausage around her plate and stabs it. Hard. ‘I told you, I don’t normally cook like that.’
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  ‘It wasn’t a criticism. I love your food.’

  She takes two long swallows of wine and tops up her glass. I put my hand over mine – I’ve had two already. She shrugs and puts the bottle down. ‘You could seriously do something with your talent. Why not go on a cookery course? You’re wasted in that job.’

  Though I hadn’t planned on staying at the B&B forever, her words annoy me, and I can’t put my finger on why. I think it’s because I don’t think she has the right to comment, having left my upbringing to others. ‘One day, perhaps.’

  ‘That’s been your trouble. You’ve bobbed around like flotsam at sea. It’s about time you took the bull by the horns and—’ She stops as she catches the annoyance in my eyes.

  ‘I’m fine for now. And to be honest I have done quite a bit of bull horning these past few months.’

  ‘Bull horning!’ She lets out a hoot of laughter and a spot of gravy lands on her chin. I look at it and can’t keep a straight face. ‘What the bloody hell is bull horning?’

  ‘Okay, it sounded good at the time.’ I laugh and put my plate to one side. ‘Want pudding? It’s only shop bought sticky toffee pudding and clotted cream.’

  ‘You trying to give me heart failure with all this comfort food?’ She draws her mouth into a straight line and furrows her brow. Then she smiles. ‘Of course! Bring it on.’

  Rain keeps us in after dinner, and so in pyjamas we make ourselves comfy with wine, chocolate and fluffy blankets on a sofa each next to the log fire. ‘I bet that fire looks really cosy in winter,’ I say through a mouthful of chocolate whirl.

  ‘Only when it’s lit.’ Mellyn slides me a mischievous look over the rim of her glass.

  ‘Oh, ha ha.’ I throw a chocolate at her which she catches deftly.

  Stretching out my legs I think about the first day I saw this room and pictured myself in it at Christmas. I imagined that I was jumping the gun then, but it looks like that’s a real possibility now. But then there’s Dad …

  ‘Penny for them.’

  I tell her but leave Dad out.

  ‘That would be fabulous if you could stay here! I usually spend it alone.’

  ‘But that’s terrible. Have you no family at all – aunts, uncles?’

  ‘Nope. Mum and Dad were only children and the only real friends I have are all in St Austell.’

  ‘Couldn’t you invite them here, or you go there?’

  ‘They all have families, Lu. Nobody wants a woman on her own at Christmas.’ She winks. ‘Especially the ones with wayward husbands.’

  If I was wondering whether to go back to Sheffield for Christmas before, I’m not now. Poor Mellyn. My heart swells with sympathy for her. Okay, there’s the femme fatale drawback, but nobody should be alone at that time of year. Perhaps Dad could come here, or I could take Mellyn there? We must be able to work something out.

  ‘We always make a big thing of Christmas,’ I say, and take a sip of wine. ‘Mum always makes … made, her own pudding, cake and …’ Without warning my words run out. I realise that this will be the first year without her.

  Mellyn speaks into her glass. ‘Must hurt, eh? I remember the first year without my parents. Unbearable. They died just a few weeks before Christmas Day.’

  I want to change the subject before I start to cry. Something pushes at the edges of my memory … something Rosie had mentioned. Ah yes. ‘Talking of friends, I’ve been meaning to ask you, do you remember someone called Val?’

  Mellyn twists her mouth to the side and frowns. ‘Don’t think so. Val who?’

  ‘Green. She’s the mother of my friend Rosie, you know, the one I work with?’

  ‘I didn’t know Rosie’s surname was Green, thought it was something else.’ Mellyn puts her glass down, yawns and stretches her arms above her head.

  Am I boring her?

  ‘So anyway, her mum Val and her dad moved to Spain and opened a bar a few years back. Rosie thought you and her mum were friends. Val used to run a bar here, but—’

  ‘Nope, never heard of her. Wanna ’nother drink?’ She avoids my puzzled look, gets up and goes to the kitchen.

  ‘No. I’d better not, thanks,’ I say. Why has she gone all weird?

  She comes back in with a bowl of peanuts and a huge glass of red. ‘Can you believe I’m peckish after that heart attack on a plate you fed me?’

  Her eyes look too bright and red blotches on her skin spread upward from her neck. ‘Must be all the wine – it can give you an appetite.’

  She narrows her eyes and with her cheeks full of nuts I’m reminded of an angry squirrel. ‘You think I drink too much, don’t you?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say too much—’

  ‘What would you say then?’

  I want to tell her to calm down and stop cutting off my sentences, but the look on her face tells me that would be a bad idea. Instinct makes me stand my ground, however. ‘Perhaps a bit more than is good for you, I guess.’

  ‘I think you’re right,’ she says, and drains half the glass. ‘But then if you’d had my life, you’d drink. Neil drank and when he’d had enough, he beat me. Did I not tell you that?’ She leans forward, her mouth tight, her eyes bright with defiance.

  The last time she’d looked like this was the day at the shop ages ago when she’d been angry that I didn’t want to pick the jewellery. I don’t need this now. ‘Yes … you know you did. Let’s change the subject, Mum.’

  ‘Yes, let’s. What news from your end?’ She stretches her mouth into what’s supposed to be a smile, exposing her wine-stained teeth and bottom lip.

  The only news I have is Adelaide’s and I’ve no time to consider if sharing it will make things better or worse. I need to get Mellyn off this track, so I tell her.

  The rest of her wine goes the same way as the last bottle and a half. She places the empty glass gently on the side table, but her knuckles are white as she grasps the stem.

  ‘So, let me get this right. Your neighbour is coming to visit you in a few weeks?’ Her voice is calm, but I’m not fooled.

  ‘Adelaide’s much more than a neighbour. I don’t know how I would have coped with everything if she hadn’t been there for me,’ I say and look her in the eye.

  ‘But I haven’t had you to myself for five minutes. Is he coming too?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your dad,’ she spits, as if she’s got something nasty in her mouth.

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘You said they are coming.’

  ‘Adelaide and her sister.’

  ‘Sounds like the title of a film. A boring one.’

  Before I can stop myself, I snap, ‘How rude! What’s the matter with you? Just because a dear friend is coming here on holiday and thought she’d visit me, doesn’t mean I think any less of you. She was actually looking forward to meeting my mum. Ha! Like that’s going to happen now.’ I go into the kitchen to put space between us and to avoid looking at her shocked white face.

  I lean against the sink and watch a droplet of water form, grow fat and then plop from the end of the tap into the washing-up bowl. I watch another and then another. The detergent bubbles raft together around the clear water the droplets leave behind, and I realise I’m the bubbles to Mellyn’s droplets. Always reacting rather than acting. Pacifying her moods, trying to protect her. Until just now and that time at the restaurant, I’ve always kept my temper. It might not be a good idea to lash out, given what I’m trying to achieve by being here, but I’m only human after all.

  Her voice drifts in from the sitting room. ‘Please come back in, Lu. I behaved badly when I said I wouldn’t the other night … and I am so, so sorry.’

  I turn the tap and the droplets stop. I go back into the sitting room and find Mellyn where I left her … with another full glass of wine. A bottle is open on the dining table. I glance at it and wish I knew what to say next.

  Unbelievably she misinterprets my look at the wine. ‘Would you like another glass? I forgot I had this one – it was at the back of the
cabinet.’

  ‘No. In fact I think it’s time I went to bed.’

  ‘Oh please, not yet, not when we’ve had a falling out.’ She slurs her last few words and I watch her bottom lip trembling. ‘Can you forgive me?’

  I look at her big blue eyes pooling with tears and know that I can. I have to. ‘Yes, Mum, I forgive you. I just wish Neil wasn’t dead, so I could bloody kill him myself for what he’s done to you.’ I close the gap between us and wrap her in a hug.

  Mellyn rests her head on my shoulder and her sobs shudder through my body. ‘Too late. I … I got there before you.’

  What’s she on about now? ‘Got where, Mum?’ I hold her at arm’s length and wipe the streaks of mascara from her face with a tissue.

  ‘Told you the other night that I made him pay.’ Her legs buckle, and she drops heavily onto the settee. I sit opposite, my brain trying to block the implications of her words while I watch her pick up her glass from the table and down half of it in one. I go to take the rest away from her, but then freeze when she says, ‘I … killed him. I killed Neil.’

  17

  Grey dawn light slips under the curtains and onto a lopsided dog’s head peering from a heap of clothes on the bedroom floor. I rub my eyes and look again. The dog turns into a pillow that I had punched, folded and then flung across the room during a sleepless night. I sit up and check the time on my phone. Five o’clock. Two hours sleep then. That doesn’t bode well for a long day’s work at Pebble House. Would Rosie manage without me just for today? Probably, but then I would have to face Mellyn, and her terrible confession hanging in the air like a vile curse on an innocent tongue.

  I lie back down and pull the duvet up around my chin and think about the whole stomach-churning mess once more. Mellyn had switched, as I thought of her moods, after I’d mentioned Val, Rosie’s mum. That was when she’d really started drinking in earnest, but why? I sit up again and draw my hands down my face. Did that actually matter? The real problem was that she had got very drunk and decided to share the fact that she had murdered her husband. Murdered him in cold blood and then asked me not to tell anyone.