Sticks and Stones

by Jo Jakeman

  ‘He remortgaged this place to get the deposit for the new place, and from what he says, he’s taken on a hefty mortgage over there.’

  ‘You let him take money from here to buy a place with that tart?’

  ‘I didn’t let him, I just didn’t stop him. He owns half this house – it seemed reasonable at the time.’

  Talking it over, it seemed ridiculous that I would simply pack up and go. I was still getting used to this new reality where Phillip didn’t have any say in what I did. But, just in case, I asked Rachel if we could move in with her until the financial settlement was agreed and I could get Alistair and me somewhere small. Safe.

  She said no.

  ‘Babe, you know I love you, but I will not let you roll over and play dead every time he confronts you. He can’t kick you out of the house. Any sane-minded court will let you stay. It’s the way it goes, when kids are involved. Phillip doesn’t have a leg to stand on. He’s got no leverage.’

  And for a moment, I almost believed her.

  The back door opened as I pulled the pot roast out of the oven in a cloud of spectacle-fogging steam. A glass of wine in the pan. Two in the chef.

  ‘Hello, darling.’

  ‘Mother.’

  I pressed my cheek upon hers and she shook out her umbrella. She patted down her hair, a sleek silver bob, never a strand out of place.

  ‘Ghastly weather out,’ she said, affronted by the incessant drizzle.

  ‘Good for the garden,’ I said.

  We had a strained relationship. Stretched to the point of no flexibility. Perhaps we had a better relationship before my father died, though I hardly remembered that time at all. Funny how death becomes a milestone for life; a before and an after.

  She often banished me from her presence, as if the sight of me could cause her ‘one of my heads’. Mother said I reminded her too much of him. The same light-brown, wavy hair, wide blue eyes and whirlpool dimples, which had been passed from Father to me, and from me to Alistair. A genetic baton in life’s relay race. I liked to think that I was a lot like my Father in temperament as well as looks. He loved books as much as I did, whereas Mother said reading was the favourite hobby of the bone-idle.

  ‘When I think of the hours,’ she said, ‘the hours you could spend doing something useful, instead of being away with the fairies. Your once-upon-a-time and your happily-ever-after are only setting you up for a lifetime of misery. And besides, it’s getting in the way of you washing the pots.’

  I used to hide books from her, the way other teenagers would hide booze and cigarettes. Wilkie Collins beneath my mattress; Daphne du Maurier under the rug; Louisa May Alcott secreted between layers of winter jumpers. I dreamed of owning a bookshop that served cakes and tea, where books would be read out loud and no one would judge. I’d have a system for matching books to readers, based on their mood and their need; with comfy chairs and blankets. And then Phillip Rochester breezed into my life, like Darcy and Heathcliff rolled into one, and I was lost.

  ‘No Yorkshire puddings?’ Mother asked, looking to the oven.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Probably for the best.’

  I put the kettle on to boil and pretended I didn’t see her shake her head in disgust as I fetched gravy granules from the cupboard. She picked the cutlery off the kitchen table, sighed and gave it a polish.

  We sat opposite each other, Mother and I, while Alistair sat to my right. I sipped my Malbec, and Mother frowned over her roasties. Conversation flowed smoothly – and by ‘smoothly’, I mean that Mother talked and I listened. The floozy upstairs had a gentleman caller again. The milkman forgot her eggs again. The country was going to the dogs again.

  Inevitably the conversation turned to Phillip and I shot Mother a look that, I hoped, warned her about what she said in front of Alistair.

  ‘Divorce is nothing to be proud of, Imogen.’

  ‘Never said it was.’

  ‘Do you know what would make me proud?’

  ‘Not a clue.’

  ‘Learning to stand on your own two feet.’ She lined up her cutlery and folded her napkin. ‘Let me tell you one thing,’ she continued, ‘if you’re waiting for another man to come along and sweep you off your feet, you’ve got another think coming. No man wants to raise someone else’s child. And if I were you, if someone said he were interested, I would be suspicious. You’d probably find his name on the sex offenders’ list.’

  ‘Mother!’

  ‘What’s a six offender?’ Alistair asked.

  ‘Ice cream, Ali?’ I asked. ‘We’ve got chocolate.’

  I scraped the plates as Alistair licked his bowl and Mother looked through the mugs for one that met her standards. I was desperate for her to leave, so that I could let my thoughts off the leash. I had resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn’t meet anyone else to share my life, my bed.

  Alistair had to come first. And yes, I was scared that I might never be loved again. But worse still was the realisation that I had never been loved at all: not by Father, who chose to leave me at the end of a rope; not by Mother, who wished she’d never had me; not by my husband, who was off as soon as he found a better offer; but perhaps by my son, though he had little choice in the matter. I was doing my best to make myself worthy of his love.

  ‘Swimming in half an hour,’ I said. ‘You don’t want to be late.’

  She was a better grandmother than mother, though that wasn’t saying much. Alistair was easy to love and she’d always wanted a son. I’d known this from an early age and, in case I forgot, she still reminded me from time to time. That’s when she wasn’t picking holes in my parenting techniques or my dress sense, my cooking, the cleanliness of my house, my weight …

  I took my tea into the garden. Though the sky was still sombre, the rain had let up. I sat on the tree swing, which was a present I’d bought myself last summer.

  I looked back to the house that had been my home since before Alistair was born. A light glowed from deep within, where he was getting ready. He lived with a simple innocence that came from believing everything would be all right with the world. He knew only love and security; he was not old enough to know the ways in which life could cut him down. If Phillip got his way, this time next month we’d be living in a home that didn’t have Alistair’s height marked on a wall, in black marker pen, when he was sure he’d grown. If I gave in, we would no longer live in a house where he’d taken his first steps, said his first words, or be able to sit in the garden where he’d learned to ride his bike. I knew the memories were portable, but they would lose their strength, fade, if I had to recall them out of context.

  It began to rain again, and I felt cold specks on the top of my head. If Phillip was having an affair – and all the signs pointed to the fact that he was, again – was she the reason he wanted us out of the house? It made sense that he would need somewhere else to live, if he was leaving Naomi, but I wouldn’t let him take our family home because of the poor decisions he’d made.

  Since he was seventeen Phillip had never been single. Not even for a day. Most of his relationships overlapped. He thought it proved how irresistible he was, but I knew that he was insecure and needed constant validation. At the risk of sounding like his first wife, Ruby, he needed the love of other people because he hadn’t learned how to love himself. Not that I ever wanted to agree with the woman, but she had a point. He took offence too easily, he lashed out when he was hurt. He was a child who needed constant soothing. The fact that he was being so difficult at the moment showed that someone, or something, had upset him. From what I’d seen at The Barn, my money was on Naomi. She didn’t look bright enough to have worked out that you don’t poke a wasps’ nest.

  SIX

  16 days before the funeral

  I’d drunk too much – a common side-effect of Sundays with Mother. But instead of the warm glow of a bottle of 12.5% in my stomach, it had turned to acid, causing my insides to squirm, my mouth to dry and my eyes to be slow to focus.


  ‘Since when have you had a Mercedes?’ I asked Rachel, as the traffic lights turned to green.

  The orange street lights lit her face. On. Off. On. Off. She squinted at the road signs and looked over her shoulder.

  ‘Not mine. I’m in the wrong bloody lane. Yes, thank you, arsehole. No need to flash. What a surprise … an Audi driver! Do you think car dealerships make them take, like, a Myers Briggs personality test and say, “Yes, sir, you are a complete wanker, you should drive an Audi”?’

  ‘What do you mean – “not yours”?’

  ‘It’s Mario’s. I accidentally swiped right and ended up on a date with him.’

  ‘God, sorry! You were on a date?’

  ‘No. That was Friday.’

  ‘But you’ve still got his car?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s not gone home yet. If you’d let me set you up, you could’ve had a nice ride for the weekend. And I’m not talking about the car, either.’

  We were on our way to the hospital. They hadn’t given out much information on the telephone, only that Mother had passed out at the swimming pool and they would like to keep her in for observation. I was halfway out of the door with car keys in hand before I realised I’d drunk the best part of a bottle of wine. Rachel would take Alistair home for me and put him to bed, while I stayed with Mother at the hospital. Perhaps I should have called Phillip. Perhaps if he were a better father, I would have done. I was still reeling from our confrontation on Wednesday and was in no mind to forgive him.

  ‘Is he Italian?’ I asked.

  ‘Who? Mario?’ She shook her head. ‘Why d’you ask?’

  ‘The name?’

  ‘No. At least, I don’t think so. It’s probably not his real name anyway. He’s probably called Stuart or Colin, or something sensible. No one tells the truth in the world of online dating, do they?’

  ‘Don’t they?’

  ‘Jesus, no. As far as Mario is concerned, my name is Amber Conway. You know, your porn-star name?’ Sensing my confusion, she elaborated. ‘It’s the name of your first pet, and then the street you grew up on.’

  ‘In that case,’ I said, ‘I’m Poker Paddocks.’

  ‘Ha! That’s a more specialist industry, that is.’

  She only came into the hospital with me to wish Mother a speedy recovery and whisk Alistair away. I tried to leave with them, saying, ‘You probably need some rest, Mother.’ But something about Mother’s limp arms and slack face kept pulling me back to her bedside.

  She was frail. Her eyes were open, but she looked through me as if she could see something that I couldn’t. She’d used all her charm on Rachel and, now that I was the only person there, there was no need to raise a smile. I didn’t understand why she liked Rachel so much. I knew why I liked her, but Rachel was so different, so removed from how Mother thought a woman should behave, that it amazed me that she smiled whenever she saw Rachel. She would wag her finger at Rachel as she described her escapades, but then call her a firecracker.

  I moved my chair to let a nurse get by. He checked the time and looked at the bag of clear liquid suspended above Mother, dripping via a needle into the back of her hand.

  ‘What’s this for again?’ I asked.

  ‘Fluids,’ he said. ‘Her blood pressure’s a little low, which might be due to dehydration.’

  ‘And apart from her shoulder,’ I pointed to the freshly slung arm, ‘there’s no other damage?’

  He shook his head and wrote in a folder, before putting it in the sleeve at the end of the bed.

  Mother drifted off to sleep with her mouth open, but she didn’t look peaceful. The lines on her face were battle scars from fighting sleep and tackling unsavoury dreams. I took her hand in mine and looked at the bruise surrounding the cannula. There were callous purple walnuts where her knuckles should have been. Her thin wedding band was loose about her skeletal fingers, but would never slip over engorged finger joints that had swollen with time. I wondered why she still wore it, but then looked to my own wedding band and almost laughed aloud. Both of us: a pair of idiots. Still pretending we were anchored to men who had drifted long ago.

  There were many reasons why I’d kept my wedding ring, but none of them told the whole picture. I had meant every word of my wedding vows and, in my mind, I was still Phillip’s wife ‘until death do us part’. The thin platinum band also kept away any chancers who thought they could chat me up, and it hid the truth that I was a single woman when all around me were married. It hinted that I was loved and lovable, instead of discarded and disgraced. It was my comfort blanket. And it was also stuck there until I lost ten pounds.

  I stroked Mother’s hand with my thumb. The hands that had peeled a thousand potatoes, knitted hundreds of jumpers and wiped noses and knees were weakening with age. Those hands would be my hands one day. Skin thinning with use, and veins bulging with the effort of keeping my heart beating.

  Visiting hours had finished and the patients were shuffling to and from the bathroom with washbags and towels. The hospital took on a cotton-wool sound. Padded to the point of no echo. Clocks ticked slower, voices were lower, the ward was bedding down for the night. I stood up carefully, so as not to wake Mother, and slipped past her to the nurses’ station.

  ‘Do you think she’ll be home tomorrow?’

  ‘We’ve not found a reason for her collapse yet. Call after the ward rounds in the morning and we should know more.’

  ‘Okay. Will you tell her I’ll be back in the morning?’

  I staggered through the windowless corridors, weary with worry and strain. I wanted to get home to Alistair and leave the quiet and aged imposter wearing my mother’s face far behind me. Night air slapped my face as I stepped from the stuffy, airless building into the star-pimpled night. Patients in dressing gowns huddled outside the hospital door under a cloud of cigarette smoke. I skirted around them over the open square to where taxis glowed like fireflies. I didn’t notice the small woman scurrying in the dark until I collided with her. She faltered in her step as she looked to check if I was all right. She held a dark cloth to the side of her head and her long red hair was matted down one side of her face.

  ‘Naomi?’

  ‘Shit! What’re you doing here?’ she said.

  ‘Visiting. What are you doing here?’

  She looked at the illuminated lights of A & E and then back at me. She hadn’t wanted anybody to see her – least of all me – but knowing that some things can’t be undone, she asked, ‘I don’t s’pose you’ve got a minute, have you?’

  We sat in awkward silence as the chairs in the waiting room emptied. Broken wrists, cut fingers, dizzy spells were acceptable maladies that were nothing to be ashamed of. And then there was Naomi. And me. An unlikely pairing.

  ‘Is there someone I could call?’ I asked. ‘A parent? A friend?’

  ‘Haven’t really got any. Foster kid,’ she added by way of explanation. ‘Don’t know where half me family are, and the other half are dead.’

  She stared ahead, careful not to meet my eyes, which tripped from her cut face to her wet hair and stained clothes.

  ‘I’m not saying it were my fault,’ she said. ‘I’m not daft. But I should know better than to say them things to him when he’s mardy and I’m backed into a corner with nowhere to run. Nan always said I didn’t have the sense I were born with.’

  The shoulder of her grey sweatshirt was black with blood spots and there were rusty smears across her jeans. She was scraping at the stains with her thumbnail. Blood had dried around her eye and caked in her eyebrow.

  Now we were in the light, I could see that she had a gash across her forehead that led up into her hairline. Her bottom lip was swollen and cracked.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked.

  ‘He pushed me over and I split my head open. That’s about all there is to it.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Doreen Maclaren?’ a nurse called.

  An elderly woman got gingerly to her feet, helped by a younger man, her son may
be. She was cradling her arm as if it would fall off if she let it go. Naomi and I watched as she went by.

  ‘You know,’ I said, ‘if it helps, I will believe you. Whatever it is that you tell me about him … I’ve probably experienced something similar. I doubt anything you could say would shock me.’

  ‘When you know stuff, you can’t un-know it.’

  ‘Hit me with it!’

  As soon as the sentence left my mouth I cringed at my choice of words, but if Naomi was offended, she didn’t show it. She moved in her seat until our shoulders were touching and spoke quietly, barely moving her lips.

  ‘He were complaining about work. I said to him, “You’re full of shit. Imogen’s told me you’ve not been in work for ages.”’

  I cringed. Had I caused this?

  Naomi picked at the skin around her thumbnail.

  ‘And then what?’ I asked, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer.

  ‘He did his nut. Went full-on psycho. “Who do you think you are, checking up on me?” Then he kicked over the coffee table and it broke in half. The mirror bit? Just clean in two. Then he pushed me and I s’pose I hit my head, but I didn’t feel anything at first. And he were screaming at me, “Look what you made me do! Couldn’t keep your nose out, could you?” But he weren’t worried about me, it were the table he were upset about. And I was like, “You know what? I’ve had enough. We’re done.”

  ‘Anyway, he slammed out of the house and were gone. Just like that. Pissed off in, like, two minutes. He went from mad and screaming to … gone. And I reckon I’ve got, like, a couple of hours to pack my stuff before he comes back. So I’m thinking about, you know, where to go, and I’m in the kitchen running the tap into the bowl and trying to stop my head from bleeding, and I don’t hear him come back.

  ‘He … he grabbed the back of me head and pushed me face into the washing-up bowl. Didn’t say a word. I weren’t even sure it were him at first. Scared the shit out of me. I kicked, like, kicked his knees or something, ’cause he went down and pulled me out of the water as he went.’