‘I wouldn’t take you there. Not to see her like that.’
‘But when she comes out?’
‘We’ll see.’
He didn’t know what he wanted. A mother who had been in prison? A mother he hadn’t seen for more than eight years? A mother he couldn’t remember? Would she expect him to be all loving and cuddly as he must have been when he was a baby? It was all confusing and uncomfortable. He wished his mum had died instead of being alive now. Then he felt bad at wishing that. But he was still angry with her. He knew that it wasn’t exactly her fault that she was going to be around any minute now to upset the ordinary life he’d lived ever since he could remember. He was used to being Stephen with just a dad and no mother, and that was how he wanted it to go on.
23
Christmas was over. Aunt Alice’s Christmas dinner had been more than usually dreadful. Gran had been demanding and whiny and sorry for herself. Her present to Dad had been an unwearable scarf knitted by herself, and to Stephen she had given a very old leather purse with a broken fastening. ‘It’s not new, but there’s plenty of wear in it yet,’ she had said.
‘I shall throw it away when we get home,’ Stephen said as they drove away from that sad house, where Gran complained and Aunt Alice suffered.
‘Belonged to my dad,’ Stephen’s father said.
‘Do you want me to keep it, then?’
‘Not if it’s no use.’
‘You don’t want it?’
‘No. Thanks.’
Stephen had saved the cardigan to give Dad after they’d got back. He’d felt it would be something to look forward to, to help him get through the visit to Gran. He knew that his dad wouldn’t want to have to open that elegant box and all the tissue paper inside. Opening the wrappings of presents was one of the things that deeply embarrassed him, so Stephen took the cardigan out of its box and handed it to Dad, naked, as you might say.
‘Here. My present for you,’ Stephen said, wondering whether Dad could possibly appreciate its importance. He watched as Dad slowly unfolded the arms of the cardigan, his expression giving nothing away. He held it up against himself. Then, he took off the pullover he was wearing and put on the cardigan. Stephen was pleased to see that it was a perfect fit. Dad still didn’t speak. There was a small mirror that lived permanently behind a mug on the kitchen dresser. Dad pulled it out and looked at himself. Then, at last, he looked at Stephen and said, Thanks. Looks good, don’t you think?’
Stephen said yes, he did.
Dad stroked the sleeve of the cardigan and said, ‘Cashmere?’
‘It’s cashmere,’ Stephen said.
‘I’ve never had anything cashmere,’ Dad said.
‘It’ll be warm,’ Stephen said.
‘I’ll be as grand as the Great Mogul,’ Dad said. Passing Stephen on his way back to his usual chair, he put out a hand and just touched Stephen’s hair. He didn’t say any more, but Stephen was satisfied. Dad had understood.
The week after Christmas and before the New Year was as might have been expected. Stephen watched television more than usual because most of the big shops were shut and most of his friends were away. He was bored. But at the same time he was uneasy. In a few days’ time, his mother would be coming out of that red brick prison he had seen. She would be free. Free to visit him. He dreaded the moment.
There were still three days to go, when he heard voices from next door. A woman was calling in the garden. ‘Alex! Dinner’s ready.’
He was surprised at the lift in his heart. Alex was there. He gave them an hour to eat their dinner, then he rang Mr Jenkins’s front door bell.
He had never before seen the woman who answered it. She was small and, he couldn’t help admitting, pretty. Not at all like Alex to look at, but when she spoke, her voice was just like her daughter’s.
‘Yes?’
‘I wondered if I could see Alex?’
She said, ‘Are you Stephen from next door?’ When he said, ‘Yes,’ she turned into the hall and called, ‘Alex! It’s your friend Stephen.’ Turning back, she said, ‘Alex doesn’t know anyone else here. That’s how I guessed it was you.’
Remembering his manners, he said, ‘I hope you had a good Christmas.’
‘It was all right. I’m not that keen on Christmases. They’re fun when you’ve got little kids, but not so much when you’re all nearly grown up.’
Sensible woman. Would his mum be as calm about anniversaries as this? Alex appeared behind her mother and said, ‘Hi!’
‘Hi!’
Alex’s mother stepped back and disappeared. Alex and Stephen stood looking at each other.
‘I can’t ask you in,’ Alex said.
‘That’s all right.’ Stephen considered the possibilities of his own house. Dad was in the kitchen, either sleeping or watching television. He said, ‘Come for a walk?’
She looked pleased. ‘I’ll get my coat.’
He waited until she reappeared in a short thick coat which was too large for her. She laughed when she saw his look. ‘One of my Christmas presents. It’s miles too big, but it’s really warm.’
They walked through the overgrown garden. ‘Where’ll we go?’
‘The park?’
‘It’ll be full of kids learning to ride their new bikes.’
‘I don’t mind.’
When they had found a bench among a little maze of paths too rough for the bike learners, Alex asked, ‘Did you have a nice Christmas?’
‘Not really. Did you?’
‘I quite liked it. I got some really good presents. Did you get anything exciting?’
‘My dad gave me a computer game. Trouble is, we haven’t got a computer.’
‘So how’ll you play it?’
‘One of my friends’s got one. I’ll go round to his house and we’ll play there.’
‘Anything else? Present, I mean?’
He told her about his gran’s old purse and Aunt Alice’s postal order. ‘It’s good of her, because she hasn’t any money. But the chicken she cooked was terrible. I had to swallow it in gobbets so as not to taste it.’
‘That’s bad. I’m lucky. My mum’s a super cook.’
Stephen wondered whether his mum could cook. Perhaps she’d forgotten how to. He didn’t know if a prisoner could cook in prison.
Alex said, doubtfully, ‘Steve?’
‘What?’
‘Did you get to see your mum?’
He was half glad that she’d brought the subject up. ‘Yes.’
‘Would you rather not talk about it?’
‘I don’t mind. I just saw her. Not to talk to or anything.’
‘Was it with one of your keys?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did it feel like?’
‘Peculiar.’
‘Is she like what you thought?’
‘No. She’s . . .’ He sought for the right words. ‘She’s more ordinary.’
‘Do you mind?’
‘No.’
‘Did you remember her at all?’
‘No.’
‘When are you going to see her properly? To talk to?’
‘She’s coming out in the New Year. In another three days. But not here. She’s staying somewhere else at first.’
Alex considered this for a little, before she said, ‘I can’t imagine what it’d be like to have a mum I’d never seen. I mean, couldn’t remember.’
There seemed nothing to say to this.
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,’ Alex said.
‘It’s all right. I don’t know what it’s going to be like either.’
‘I hope you’ll like each other.’
What an extraordinary thing to say! Stephen asked, ‘What do you mean, “like”?’
‘You know. Really like. Think you’re interesting. Think the same things are funny. Not annoying. Like. Like I like you.’
He was embarrassed. He said, ‘Aren’t you getting cold?’
She laughed. ‘All right. I know wha
t you’re thinking. It’s time you took the girl back and stopped her asking questions, and saying stupid things.’
They started back. They hardly exchanged a word. When they reached old Mr Jenkins’s garden gate, Alex said, ‘I hope everything’s all right for you.’
‘Thanks.’
‘We’ll probably be back here some time. Half term perhaps. You’ll be here then?’
‘Expect so.’
‘Can I ask you something?’
He said, ‘Suppose so.’ Reluctant.
‘It’s about your keys.’
‘Go on.’
‘Have you tried them all now?’
‘Yes.’
‘So what are you going to do with them?’
He hadn’t thought. ‘They won’t be any more use. There won’t be any keyholes for them.’
‘How do you know? You can’t be sure about that.’
He told her how the keyhole in the garden door, into which the Yale with a face had fitted, had changed.
‘So I reckon the other locks will have gone too.’
‘Shall we have a look some time? To make sure?’
‘If you like. But I’ll bet you they won’t be there.’
‘Bet me how much?’
‘I’ll give you the key that fits if there is one.’
‘I don’t think it would work for me,’ Alex said.
‘Why not?’ But he didn’t believe it would either. They were his keys. They had opened the doors for him. They would do nothing for anyone else.
‘Well, anyway, Happy New Year. For next week.’
‘Same to you.’
‘Bye!’
‘Bye.’
24
Stephen met the woman who had been his mother in a room that struck him as too bright, too cheerful, too clean. A room that didn’t belong to anyone. The woman he had seen with her by the leaded gate had let him and his dad into the house and left them here together.
He couldn’t look at her. He kept his eyes fixed on the too-flowery carpet. He heard his dad say, ‘I’ve brought the boy,’ and her voice answer. When she said, ‘Hi, Stephen!’ he muttered something, but he didn’t look up. They all sat down, stiff, on the edge of cretonne-covered chairs. He heard those two making uncomfortable, unreal conversation. He could tell from their voices that they were not really interested in what they were saying. Each of them was thinking quite differently. Then suddenly, the woman laughed. She said, ‘Give up, Will. We don’t want to go on like this. You go and talk to Petra. She’s in the kitchen making coffee. Stephen and I need to be alone for a bit.’
She went to the door and called out, ‘Petra! I’m sending Will to talk to you for a bit. Don’t send him back too soon.’
Stephen had never heard anyone order his dad about like that, and he was surprised that he went so meekly. As the door closed behind him, Stephen’s heart sank. Now this woman would get soppy. She would call him Deedie, she would expect him to kiss her. She would ask if he remembered her. Probably she would cry over him and say how she had missed him.
He was relieved when she sat down where she had been before, at some distance. He knew she was looking at him. Presently she said, ‘It isn’t easy, is it? Getting to know each other?’
He said, ‘No.’
‘I think you should call me by my name. It seems stupid if you start saying “Mum” after all these years.’
He was surprised into saying, ‘You mean call you Margaret?’
‘Why not?’
‘Seems funny.’
‘Don’t any of your friends call their parents by their given names?’
He had to think. ‘Only if they’re steps.’
‘I’m not much more than a step, am I? I couldn’t be more of a stranger.’
Good. She wasn’t expecting him to behave as if she’d been his mother for ever.
There was a silence, but it wasn’t as uncomfortable. Suddenly she said, ‘Don’t you want to ask me any questions?’
He was wary at once. ‘What about?’
‘Anything you like.’
‘Really anything?’
‘Anything at all. I might say I wouldn’t tell you, but I don’t mind you asking. I know I’d want to if I was you.’
The most important question came first. ‘Are you going to come and live with us?’
‘I can’t answer that because I don’t know. Will and I haven’t seen much of each other in the last eight years. It’s a long time. I don’t know how we’d get on now.’ And there’s me, Stephen thought. As if she’d heard him, she said, ‘And there’s you.’
‘What about me?’
‘You’re old enough now to have opinions of your own. It might not suit you to have a mother come back from the dead.’ She laughed. ‘Well, as good as dead. I suppose we’d have to tell the neighbours I’d been with my sisters in Australia.’
‘You mean, if I didn’t want you to come back, you wouldn’t?’ he said.
‘It would be something we’d certainly take into account.’
She was quite different from what he’d expected. She was treating him as if he was grown up. Sensible. That made him feel better about her.
She was saying, ‘I’d probably try to win you round, if it came to that.’
He wondered how she would do it. The suggestion made him suspicious again. He would test her. She had said he could ask anything he liked. He said, ‘What’s it like, being in prison?’
She did not baulk at that. ‘Fairly horrible at first. Then you begin to get used to it.’
‘Used to what?’
‘Having people round you all the time. Being watched always.’
Yes. He could imagine that. He said, ‘Did you mind not being able to get out?’
She said, ‘Of course. That’s part of the punishment, isn’t it?’
There was no need to answer this. She was looking hard at him now. She said, ‘Go on!’
‘Go on what?’
‘You want to ask me what it’s like to have done what I did. Kill someone.’
He had wanted to, but hadn’t known how. He said, ‘What is it like, then?’
‘Terrible. You can’t believe you’ve really done it.’ She stopped speaking for a moment, then said, ‘But I’m not sorry. I’d do it again. If I had to.’
‘Did you have to?’
She looked at him strangely. She said, ‘The man I killed had tried to ruin my life. I wasn’t having him doing it again. To me and then to someone else as well.’
‘What did he do?’
She said, ‘I’m afraid that’s a question I’m not going to answer till I know you better.’
He wondered when that would be. He still wanted to push, to get at her somehow. ‘You said he tried to ruin your life. Why didn’t he manage to do it?’
‘He did for a time.’
‘What happened then?’
Her expression changed. She said, ‘I met Will.’
‘Dad?’ Stephen asked, astonished.
‘Your dad.’
‘What did he do?’
She said, quietly, ‘He loved me.’
He was so surprised that he said, without meaning to, ‘Did he say so?’
She laughed. ‘You’ve lived with your dad all these years and you don’t know the answer to that?’
Of course he did. But then, how had she known? And now she had mentioned the word love, he wasn’t as embarrassed as he’d have expected. At least, she hadn’t asked him to love her. She was prepared to be treated as a stranger.
She said, ‘I know it’s difficult for you, meeting me. But it isn’t easy for me either.’
‘Isn’t it?’
She was impatient. ‘For Christ’s sake, think! You can’t be so young that you really suppose that being grown up means that you always know what to do whatever’s going on? What do you think it’s like for me, meeting a son I haven’t seen since he was a baby? Or a husband I’ve only seen once a month for eight years? I don’t know what sortof a person either of
you’s turned into while I’ve been inside. I don’t even know if I’m going to like you. Or whether you’ll like me.’
She was right. He hadn’t thought about her feelings. He had only wondered how this meeting was going to turn out for him. He said, I’m sorry.’
That’s all right. I just wanted you to know.’
She got up and went to the door. She called out, Tetra! Will! You can bring in that coffee now.’
She came back to her chair and said to Stephen, ‘It’s going to take time.’
‘What’s going to take time? What for?’
‘Time to find out how we get on with each other. We’ll start from scratch, as if we’d never known each other, that’ll be the best way. But there’s no hurry. Not for me.’
He had time, before Petra and his dad came back into the room with mugs of coffee and a plate of biscuits, to say, ‘I’m not in a hurry either.’
She smiled at him, then. He remembered what Alex had said. ‘I hope you like each other.’ She hadn’t said ‘love’. Was it possible that liking was as important as loving? That was not what you were supposed to learn from books and films and television programmes. It was a strange idea. It was as strange as hearing this woman say that his dad had loved her. So love came into it somewhere, he wasn’t sure where. He had been mad at the idea that he would be expected to love this strange woman who had once been his mother, but now he did begin to feel that possibly he might get to like her. In the future, which lay, uncharted, before them.
This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader
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Copyright © Catherine Storr 2001
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The If Game Page 13
