It's Gone Dark Over Bill's Mother's

by Lisa Blower

  Lizzie came round to ask if there’d been any news. Mam refused to get out of bed. So Lizzie called Josie. She knows Mam and Josie get on. Josie was on annual leave so Lizzie put her mobile on speakerphone. ‘I’ll come and see you, Jean, when I get back,’ Josie said. ‘I’m up in Liverpool at the minute shopping with my daughter for her university digs.’

  Mam told her to fuck off. I’ve never heard her swear so much in my life. I sent Rae a text to tell her. And not to spend all my money on booze. But she didn’t reply.

  Friday

  The policeman who came to tell us was with someone from the Armed Forces and someone from the government who looked really tired. There was also someone from Citizen’s Advice and Lizzie came too because she said she had to be here because Rae was her client and she probably knew more about her and her needs than anyone else. Mam looked like she was going to sock her one for that, but I shouted, ‘Don’t put us in jail!’ so she didn’t.

  ‘She’s in Turkey,’ was what they all came to tell us.

  ‘And my granddaughter?’

  The man from the government told us this bit. He didn’t even flinch when Mam punched him in the kidneys and screamed.

  Monday

  Rae’s in Bed 16 in a special hospital we can all live at for a bit until it’s time to go home. There’s a policeman outside the door and another one back at our house and because the hospital is on an army base you get to hear a lot of gunshot which makes it sound like we’re at war. Mam holds Rae’s hand and refuses to let go even though Rae won’t speak to her. Rae has also refused to take off her clothes and headscarf which actually really suit her. Her face is all tanned and freckly. She looks just like she’s been on holiday. Fallen in love. Gone diving. Had a good time.

  Mam had to go for her dialysis so I stayed put with Rae. I was looking at how dirty her feet were when she suddenly spoke. But it was nothing major. Just that his other wives were really beautiful and she couldn’t understand a word they said.

  There was lots I could’ve asked her but I didn’t. It’s nice to have her back, even if she did spend all my money, but now Uncle Chalky’s gone missing. If it’s not one, it’s the other, and we just keep going round in circles. I don’t know how other families do it.

  Prawn Cocktail

  AS A WRITER, I am expected to tell stories and make things up. Tonight was no exception when, halfway through a date, while sat at a table with a basket of sauce sachets and sticky with spilt drinks, I was asked if I could indeed make up a story on the spot from beginning to end.

  Despite my protests, and that I didn’t think stories really had ends, I said that the mainstay of this story is of a man and a girl who are having an affair in a town where there are no secrets. Though I would, if I had more time to think this through, set this against the backdrop of war like Kosovo, or even Iraq, because that might give these unlikely lovers context and I might even win a prize. But anyway. This man and this girl have had an affair that has gone on longer than it should because we meet this man and this girl not long after they have had a conversation about what happens next. The girl—and we will call her Janet, Janet Bone—says ‘Isaac’—because that is to be the man’s name in all of this, Professor Isaac Drinkwater—‘Isaac. We need to talk about what happens next.’

  Now I have Janet Bone wearing a white dress that is made of that jersey material that clings to your skin and makes you itch and it is as cheap and small as a paper napkin and looks it. Janet is also a student on a scholarship reading English. ‘And scholarships are someone’s investment.’ Because now this a story about class, do you see how that has evolved? And sex. Education.

  So Janet is telling Isaac yet again that she loves him: ‘You know I love you, Isaac,’ which she says at least ten times a day (this sort of reassurance stems from a doting mother who might indeed dote but has never had the guts to articulate it, though that’s another story altogether). Isaac, on hearing that she loves him, looks up from the menu he has been studying—because it’s time this story had a sense of place and they are in what one might call a bistro, and you are already imaging red and white gingham tablecloths with couples eating spaghetti by tea lights I’m sure—and he says, ‘Do you think they’ll do me a prawn cocktail? I could murder a prawn cocktail.’

  ‘What about the whitebait?’ Janet asks. ‘You like whitebait.’ She pauses. ‘You used to like whitebait anyway.’

  ‘I like prawn cocktail,’ he replies and Janet sees that he’s not joking. He is deadly serious that this is what he wants.

  ‘Why can’t you just order what’s on the menu? There’s plenty of fish to choose from.’ Because Professor Isaac Drinkwater has a reputation, a wife and a wandering eye and Janet has often encountered old lovers, even dined with ex-bits on the side.

  Isaac slaps the menu shut and beckons over the waitress he likes with the sweet potato hair. ‘A prawn cocktail,’ he declares as she arrives with her pad and Janet is amazed when she says, ‘Of course.’

  ‘You’ve had it here before?’ Janet enquires, as Isaac reaches into his top pocket for his cigarettes. ‘And must you smoke already?’ Janet’s tone is so cold it could sharpen the knives that lie blunt and under-washed on the table. ‘We’ve only just sat down.’ And she notices that there’s a button missing on his shirt, that there’s blood on his collar from a shaving nick, that he’s chosen to not wear a tie. ‘You never used to be this slovenly,’ Janet says, and she holds up a napkin and gestures for him to blot his neck. But he doesn’t take the napkin. Simply waves his mobile phone at her and mutters something about checking in with the death squad which Janet has never found funny. Then he turns and says, ‘I’m with you, aren’t I?’ and Janet is forced to agree because he is.

  Left with the waitress poised with her pad, Janet asks her, ‘Do you know the professor well?’

  Except the waitress mishears and asks, ‘The professor isn’t well?’ and she asks Janet if she has made up her mind.

  ‘No,’ says Janet. ‘I haven’t.’ And she asks the waitress for five minutes.

  In that five minutes she takes out a pen and makes a list on the napkin that Isaac has refused. She writes with a fine black nib and though the ink bleeds quickly she sits back and reads:

  1. The years between / the years passed

  2. He will never leave her

  3. Nil by mouth from tomorrow

  4. It’s my body not his

  And whether it is because she has written them by candlelight or because she knows, deep in her pregnant gut, that those bleeding words are all true, it’s right then that Janet Bone makes her decision. Which is why I thanked my date for a lovely evening, gave him my napkin and left.

  Love, Alvin and Ramona

  In 2010, I was approached by the music journalist and photographer Kevin Cummins to contribute to an anthology by northern writers he admired. The brief was to respond to one of Kevin’s photographs however we wished. I was sent this photograph—‘Bar Man’.

  My response was to write a story about the smoking ban and its effects upon those who had worked in places synonymous with smoking. So I had my ‘Bar Man’ writing to the then sixteen-year-old Euan Blair, Tony Blair’s son, who had been arrested for drunkenness in London after his GCSE exam results.

  DEAR EUAN, I wrote. Have a word with your dad, son. It’s not the fags. It’s the lack of future in general.

  Love, Alvin and Ramona.

  He never replied. He never has. But they came for me anyway. I said to them, ‘Do you know who I am?’ And I gave them me business card—Alvin Starr, Human Jukebox. Ramona would say I was out of order, but you’ve got to make the most of such chances in this bad weather. That copper might’ve thought himself high and almighty when he whacked on them cuffs but like I said, his daughter will be wanting a wedding disco come a couple of years, and she’ll need to know where to go.

  ‘Don’t you be going to Johnny Discs,’ I warned him. ‘He anna got the vinyl like me. And he charges double and a minicab if you g
o past two.’

  ‘I’ll bear it in mind, Alvie,’ he said. ‘But she’s only sixteen, remember.’

  ‘So was mine,’ I said. ‘And it would’ve been proper nice to have walked her down the aisle.’

  It was three years ago when I woke up in a filthy mood and couldn’t put my finger on why. I felt like I needed to tell someone something, you know? And I’d been writing to Tony, I’d taught myself, like, and I was only telling him how disappointed I was. Oh, I know he rolled up his sleeves and went out without a tie, but that doesn’t mean he’s one of us, that he understands what it’s been like. Like I said to him, it’s like you’ve put an elastic band around the north and squeezed out its lifeblood. We’re choking, Tony, I wrote. And we’ve run out of ideas.

  You see it’s no good when a class stops working. Hanging around in back kitchens, looking out of us windows, the wife shouting to shift the wardrobe so she could get to them skirtings—you’re as low as you can be when you’re on all fours with a cloth and a bowl of bleach. So I had a think while I was down there. What could I do? Who could I be now? Otherwise that’s it, isn’t it? Been somebody once, now a nobody with a Hoover in his hand. I said to the wife before she left, ‘Either you take that bloody Hoover with you or you let me burn it,’ but that’s the thing when you’re grieving on your own. Makes you do things you never thought your fists were capable of. But I would’ve loved a reply off Tony. House of Commons paper and that little gatehouse—would’ve really meant something to me that—stuck two fingers up at the old man at least.

  So I wrote to his son. He seemed like a good lad and I wanted to thank him. Because if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have heard my calling. And it was a little goldmine for a while. Made a bit on the side with what I could under the decks and I know our Ramona was looking down at me shaking her head, but like I told her: it’s a world of entrepreneurs now. You’ve got to branch out. And that Johnny Discs, he was cleaning up with his compilation CDs and duty free. So I looked around the house at what I could sell and I thought, I won’t sell my vinyl, no I won’t. Not when every record was bought with an honest week’s work. It was tradition that—every Saturday, like a fag and a pint come Friday. Symbolised a hard grafter that, deserving it was, and I’d play it to death. So I told our Ramona. I’ll make those records my job. Everyone loves a party. Then came that ban. And it did more than help the country’s health.

  Dear Euan, I wrote. We’ve all been drunk. Drunk because of love or drinking away the future, it’s all the same, and as for disorder, well. How do you order this many people? I said to our Ramona, it’s the dawning of a new decade and the sun is shining. Bit of fags and booze at his age, it’s to be expected. So I wrote to him: Come on Euan, do us a favour, eh? You’re one of us now mate, back on the streets with the rest of us, and you’re what, twenty-five now? Quarter of a century my son, you’re a lucky blighter. Mine never knew what it was like to pass big exams and become somebody else. While you were out there throwing up a new future, my daughter was in the garage dangling, the Hoover cable around her neck.

  The wife had wanted to call her Sheila, but like I said, that’s no name for who she’s going to be. I had to change my name. No good being an every John like everyone else. I want her knowing who she is from the off, because God, I had plans for my little girl. I’d made some real plans I had. Like I said to Euan—me and you mate have a bit of common ground. We’ve all known what it’s like to have a disappointing dad.

  Love, Alvin and Ramona.

  Dear Euan, I wrote. I was like you son, the eldest of four and there’s some responsibility in that. I weren’t so lucky in getting a decent brood to watch over, but what I lacked in family members I had in decent mates. Course, you know who your friends are in times of redundancy. It’s a bit of shock when they stop calling in for a brew. Makes you wonder what you ever had in common. But never mind eh? Bit of solitude has its moments and you get gen and make do. Story of my life that. But our Ramona, she was writing and writing. It’s why I started learning. I thought there isn’t any point in me sitting here and just watching her with all them pens and filling out my forms. Like I wrote to Tony, don’t be judging my handwriting mate. It’s not how it looks, it’s what it says. People today, they take a pen for granted.

  ‘What’s up with yer?’ our Ramona said, and I had to say to her, ‘I don’t know if I’m right or left.’ And she said, ‘Just go with the flow, Dad. See which feels most right.’

  Course, it was stuck in me head then, but so was being left, and I can’t tell you how much that got me down at first. Right-handed Alvie, I thought to myself. Never thought I’d see myself with a pen in my right hand. My father will be turning in his grave. Course, like I said to Tony. It weren’t the fags but the job that killed him. It’s why I never added dust to my stage name. All that dust on my father’s lungs, strikes a nerve that. Not a penny in compensation.

  Dear Euan, I wrote right-handed. Sorry to bug you again mate, but I’m starting to feel a bit cheated. This ban like, I don’t think your dad’s thought it through—because an empty ashtray is an empty pub. And an empty pub means they’re all at home putting their own records on. And if they’re putting their records on then they’re having a party. And if they’re having a party at home then there’s no need to go out. Do you see what I’m getting at, Euan? Because a fuller factory makes a better place to live, and a fuller ashtray means I’ve got a wage. So I’m making a point here. Them buckets of sand for the butts and the dimps, that’s what your old fella’s doing to us lot. He’s burying us in daft laws and yet his head’s in the sand.

  Love, Alvin and Ramona.

  The wife used to say that all she ever wanted was a bay window. If you had a bay window you had a semi. And if you had a semi you had a better view. Oh, she kept a decent house and she weren’t that bad a wife when she wasn’t wanting. We’d be sat at the table doing us writing, me and our Ramona, and there the wife would be sat, staring out of the window. ‘They’ve had a new car at number 6,’ she’d bleat. ‘They only decorated last week, and those kids are all in new uniforms. Blazers an’ everything.’

  And our Ramona, she’d be chewing her pen, I can see her now, and she’d tell her mother, ‘Only swots have blazers.’

  ‘Yes, I live on the wrong side of the bloody road,’ the wife would say. But I could picture her in mind as the wife pictured fresh wallpaper, and so I put a bit aside and got her one.

  ‘Oh Alvie,’ said the wife. ‘What are you trying to do to her?’

  I used to watch her take it off when the bus came, see her coming out of school with it screwed up in her bag. Like I wrote to Tony, I agree with you mate. Sometimes you don’t succeed, do you? You just don’t know what it feels like knowing you’re the new future. Shame though. The wife wanted to give it to the social but like I said to her: I’ve paid in my taxes for thirty odd years, asked no one for nothing and lived off hand-me-downs all my life. That blazer stays where she left it.

  Dear Euan, I wrote, and my letters were in double figures by now. Treat it like learning to tie your own shoelaces. He’s your dad. You must have a chat now and then, have a view, make a point, put the world to right, isn’t that his job? Mind you, farting about in other countries, he’s forgotten about the world back home. So tell him this while you’re at it, Euan. Because shoelaces, son, are what family was to this country. They tie us all together, and it’s the same process whether on the left or the right. Course, our Ramona was all heels by then; another six inches and she would’ve touched the garage floor and saved her life. I told her the night before, it won’t matter a jot what letters your exam results come in. You’re Ramona Starr. But what can you do, eh Euan? Ten years ago, I wouldn’t even have recognised the word fail. But that’s what I’ve found when you properly start learning. You see the word and then you see what other people think of it. And you know what the worst thing is, Euan? When you wish you hadn’t bloody learnt. When you wish you couldn’t read her words. Because if I hadn’t lea
rnt, I wouldn’t have been able to read, ‘Sorry Dad, but that’s me done.’

  Love, Alvin and Ramona.

  Dear Euan, I wrote. What do you think about this then? Friday night in the Six Bells was my night. It was all I had left. Fifty quid, and I’d made sure it was damn right. I’d start around nine-ish, bit of Bowie to ease them in, jig things up around midnight, keep the ladies happy with some Abba. Then the old bloody landlord keeled over in the cellar. Brewery sent some young things in and gutted it. Like a bloody kitchen with all that stainless steel around. Menus for God’s sake, cups and saucers and servi-bloody-ettes! I sit in here every day I do, nowt better on other than to sit here staring at my face in the stainless bloody steel and striking matches for fags I can’t smoke. Like I keep saying, it was a proper pub was this. This bar was propped up—Grafters, people, pint and a fag every Friday, a little bop and a bag of cheese and onion. Because it’s a bigger picture up here, Euan, I wrote, and it’s clogging up my veins, because look in that stainless steel bar, Euan. Don’t see a single working man’s face in that bar, do you? I’m sat by myself, wanting work, bit of company, and all them lot are sat at home with a special bloody offer from Tesco and playing ‘Now that’s what I call fuck off’ for the wife.

  Love, Alvin and Ramona.

  Dear Euan, I wrote for the last time. Just so you know son, that bar burnt down and another John bites the dust. It’s been a pleasure mate.

  Love, Alvin and Ramona.