‘You left,’ I say.
‘So did you.’
We stare towards one another and I wish we weren’t so similar. We’re even leaning in the same way, with one leg bent at the knee.
‘Is that why you’re here?’ I ask. ‘Because you didn’t get anything in the will. You walked out more than twenty years ago and never tried to contact me. I tell people you’re dead. I kinda thought you were.’
I wait for her to say something, but she remains silent.
‘Did you try to contact Dad?’ I ask.
‘What do you think? I left for a reason.’
‘What was the reason for leaving me?’
She doesn’t answer and, as I clasp the mug tighter, I think about throwing it. She’s close enough that I couldn’t miss. It would smash her on the side of the head and shatter. There would be blood.
‘I thought about trying to contact you,’ she says.
‘I guess that makes everything all right, then. I think about doing lots of things, but it’s actions that matter.’
I grip the mug even harder. Actions do matter.
Mum nods towards it and there’s a moment in which I wonder if she’s somehow read my mind. ‘Are you going to offer me a tea?’
‘You can make your own.’
I watch as she does precisely that. She shunts the unwashed dishes to one side, fills the kettle, and then returns it to the base and turns it on. After that, she goes through the cupboard until she finds the teabags I bought this morning. At the time, I wasn’t sure why I’d bought them. I rarely have hot drinks when I’m by myself.
Mum opens the box, puts a teabag in a mug and then waits next to the kettle. The only sound is the bubbling of the water. Time passes until there’s a click and fizz as steam pours from the top of the kettle. It feels surreal to watch her like this, as if we haven’t been apart for so long. Like I didn’t wake up one morning to find she was no longer in my life. No note, no conversation; just my father to tell me that she’d gone and wasn’t coming back. I consider throwing her out now and completing the job that she started all those years ago.
Mum tips the water into the mug and waits. It’s only after another couple of minutes that she removes the bag, gets the milk from the fridge and pours a splash on top. She dumps the teabag in the bin and then stoops over it, peering at the bottles in the bottom. When she looks to me, there’s definite disapproval.
‘Don’t you dare say anything,’ I spit.
She doesn’t. Not about that, anyway.
‘Have you got any sugar?’ she asks instead.
‘No.’
Her top lip curls and she looks towards the cupboards as if I might be lying. She sips the drink anyway, and mutters ‘hot’ – as if it would be anything else. She then puts the mug down on the counter.
‘Would you like me to wash up?’ she asks as she looks across to the sinkful of dishes.
‘Do you want us to call it quits after that?’
She doesn’t respond and I get the sense that I could poke and poke but I’m not going to get anything meaningful.
‘Where’ve you been all this time?’ I ask.
‘Did you really think I was dead?’ It’s matter-of-fact again. All business.
‘You might as well have been.’
‘I was around. I always kept half an eye on everything.’
I stare at her, fighting back the anger. What a stupid reply.
‘What does that mean?’
It’s becoming impossible to keep the fury from my tone. It’s bubbling and ready to explode.
‘I grew up in Elwood, Abigail. I know people.’
‘Stop calling me Abigail.’
‘I named you.’
‘I have a few names for you, too.’
She goes to reply but bites her lip instead. It’s only that which stops me from going off the deep end. She sips her drink and I wonder if, behind that, there’s the slightest hint of a concessionary smile.
‘If you know people around here,’ I add, ‘why did none of them tell me where you’d gone?’
Mum doesn’t answer. Again. I suppose there isn’t a reply that could ever satisfy me and I already know the truth anyway. Nobody told me where she’d gone because she didn’t want me to know.
‘I heard you moved to London,’ she says.
‘You heard correctly.’
She turns to look around the kitchen again, focusing on my phone number that’s still pinned to the fridge.
‘I didn’t leave because of you, Abigail.’
‘I know why you left. For the same reason I did.’
We have that in common, too.
We stand in silence for a while longer. It feels like this could go on forever.
‘Did you know I was back in Elwood?’ I ask.
She nods.
‘Why are you here?’
‘I figured it was time.’
She waits, but I don’t think I have anything to say.
‘Did you ever marry?’ she asks.
I wait, staring towards her until she turns back to me. ‘Everyone keeps asking that,’ I say, not disguising the contempt. ‘Is that all I am? Defined by whether or not I’m married?’
‘It’s only a question.’
There’s another stand-off, with us glaring at one another. Or, to be fair, I suppose I’m the only one actually glaring.
‘I was engaged,’ I say. ‘We were going to be married next month, but it turned out he and one of my friends had other ideas. Not that it’s any of your business.’
It feels like I’m telling this to a stranger, which makes it easier in many ways. Less judgement. Fewer feelings to care about.
‘Are you back for good?’
‘I don’t know.’ A breath. It’s not true. I do know. If I didn’t before, then I certainly do now. ‘No,’ I add. ‘And, before you get to it, you’re not a grandmother, if that’s what you were really asking.’
Her nose twitches in annoyance and, although we’ve not been in contact in a long time, I know that’s not what she was asking at all.
‘What about you?’ I ask, surprising myself. ‘Did you remarry? Dad said you were divorced through abandonment.’
She shifts her position against the counter. ‘Can we sit somewhere more comfortable? I’m too old to stand up this long.’
This is something with which I can’t argue; I’m not comfortable either.
We head through to the living room, but Mum doesn’t sit straight away. She does a small lap, taking in everything that’s barely changed. I suspect she’s as shocked by it as I was. She misses half a pace in front of the liquor cabinet, but then continues as if it hasn’t happened. It was the thing that drove us all apart, after all.
She eventually stops at the sofa, and sits perched on the edge with her knees crossed, in the way she always did.
‘The funeral’s tomorrow,’ I say.
‘Is it?’ She might still know people in the area, but the widening of her eyes tells me this is something of which she wasn’t aware.
‘It’s at the funeral directors’ at the end of the High Street, as if you’re heading out of town. Four p.m.’
‘Are you going?’
‘I think I’m the only one – unless Helena from next door shows up.’
‘Not a surprise, is it? He drove away everyone in the end.’
There’s sadness to her tone that I wouldn’t have expected and, in that moment, as I look around the room, my stomach lurches at the loss of a life I could’ve had. We could’ve had.
Mum sees it, too. We lock eyes, but I have to turn away because tears feel too close.
I stare at the stack of newspapers instead. Something irrational and ridiculous that barely feels real.
‘Shame about that boy…’
It takes me a little while to realise that Mum means Ethan. I was lost in the past, but she’s back in the present.
‘I saw it,’ I say.
‘Saw what?’
‘I was there w
hen it happened. I saw him in the gutter.’
‘That poor boy…’
It’s probably the sincerity with which she says it, the concern for someone else. The fact that she isn’t a monster, after all. That’s what breaks me. It feels like I’m going to be sick, but, instead, it’s a guttural sob. From there, the accompanying tears arrive and I’m left crying into my hands.
‘Why didn’t you take me with you?’ I manage.
Mum passes me a tissue from her bag and I blow my nose long and loud. She doesn’t reply. Not for a long time anyway. When she does, she speaks with an exhausted sigh.
‘Because, Abigail, I’d already given you eighteen years of my life.’
‘What does that mean?’
She waits until I’m looking directly at her. ‘It means that I didn’t want to.’
It feels like she’s slammed a knife into my middle. I try, but I can’t speak. The words are stuck somewhere around my chest and all that comes out is a short series of asthmatic gasps.
When I finally get the words out, they’re an anticlimax. I should’ve held onto my fury and not let it be replaced by this. ‘I think you should leave.’
Mum nods and then stands. ‘If that’s what you want.’ She crosses the room and then waits in the doorway to the kitchen. ‘I—’
‘What?’
She stares at me, her mouth open, as if about to say something. Then she changes her mind and turns. The next thing I hear is the front door closing – and then it’s only me and my tears.
Twenty-Two
Jo, Neil and Owen are already in the hospital waiting room when I arrive. None of them are talking to one another and, if I didn’t know better, I’d be sure they were three strangers on adjacent seats.
The room is largely full, with most people either looking at their phones or flipping through magazines. As I say hello to Jo, what becomes immediately apparent is that she’s getting sideways glances from all directions. Everyone knows who she is – and why she’s here.
There is no place to sit next to Jo and I’m about to take a seat on the next row when a man in a suit enters and says her name. She, Neil and Owen all stand and, as they head off towards the nearest corridor, she waves me across to join them.
The man leads the four of us through a bewildering labyrinth until we reach a separate and exclusive waiting area. He eyes me suspiciously until Jo offers a quick ‘she’s with us’. It’s hard not to see that she’s noticeably calmer now compared to earlier, almost to the point of indifference.
The man tells us to wait for a moment and we all hang around in silence as he disappears into the adjoining room. A moment later and he’s back, telling us we can head in now.
I’ve only ever seen it on television before, but it’s a shock to see a machine breathing for a person. Ethan is in a room of his own, with tubes attached to his chest, and a mask over his mouth. The machine at his side makes a steady, rhythmical thump. A doom-laden drumbeat. More shocking than that are the bruises across his top half. Both his eyes are black, with spiralling purple and yellow marks stretching across much of his face. He seems so small; so broken.
The room is tiny and it feels cramped, especially with the mass of balloons and cards on the table in the corner.
Jo sits on the only seat at Ethan’s side and takes his hand. I’m left not knowing what to say or, perhaps, why Jo wanted me here, as I watch on along with Neil and Owen.
‘I want you to come home,’ Jo says, talking to Ethan. ‘We’ll get you a new bike. Whichever one you want. We can go to that warehouse place out on the trading estate. Something better.’
Ethan doesn’t respond as the metronomic thump continues. It doesn’t feel as if this is a moment I should be sharing.
‘We’ll find out who did this,’ she adds, before repeating herself.
I watch Neil, remembering the way he moved to the driver’s door and wondering if it could be true that he’s been driving illegally. Whether it could have been him who drove off. If he is hiding something, then he doesn’t flinch. He continues to stare towards the bed, his arms behind his back, saying nothing.
Jo shifts slightly and then adds: ‘Your brother wants to say something to you.’
She turns and looks up to Owen, who gulps and clears his throat.
‘United are in for a striker,’ he says. ‘That Brazilian guy. I can’t remember his name. He had a good World Cup. They had a bid accepted this morning.’
He lets that hang and, as a room, it’s hard to ignore how dysfunctional everything is. There’s Neil, the banned driver who might be driving. There’s Owen, who claims he was in one place when his brother was hit – even though it’s almost certainly a lie. Then there’s Jo, with the tub of pills in her toilet cistern.
And me, of course. The person whose mother walked out on her because she didn’t want any part of her life.
Jo continues talking to Ethan, but she goes in circles. After a few minutes, she peters off to silence. I’d wondered why she hadn’t been spending more time at the hospital, but this is the answer. What is there to do? To say? It takes a lot out of a person to sit next to someone who’s critically injured and cannot reply. She has no ability to influence anything here.
After a while, there’s a knock on the door and the man in the suit reappears. He doesn’t say anything, but the slim smile is enough.
Jo squeezes Ethan’s hand once more and then stands.
‘I’ll see you soon,’ she says.
I’m not sure what to make of it. She’s emotional and yet… not. It feels as if there’s a distance. Like a person being told a stranger had cancer. There might be a natural human compassion and yet it would be hard to muster a genuine outpouring of grief because there’s no direct connection. It feels strange and yet everybody reacts to hardship in different ways. This might be the only way she can cope.
Neil leads the way out of the hospital, with the rest of us following. I’ve not spoken since arriving and can’t figure out why Jo wanted me here. If it was for support, then she had Neil and Owen.
We pass through the sliding doors at the front and, without checking anyone’s still behind him, Neil follows the path around to the side and then starts to cross the car park. I’m already halfway across before I realise I have no reason to be following. Jo is in front of me and, I suppose, at the very least, I need to say goodbye. I keep trailing until we’re at the back end of the car park, in the shadows of the nearby trees. I spot Jo’s car and then realise there’s a man perching on the bonnet, looking at his phone. He peers up when we near, squinting quizzically towards me as I reach the others, before settling on Jo.
The man seems familiar, like when a character turns up on television: the actor is recognisable, but it’s not clear on which other show they appeared. It feels like I know him.
‘How is he?’ the man asks.
Jo takes a small step forward, so that she’s ahead of the rest of us. ‘I don’t want any trouble,’ she says.
‘I’m his dad. All I’m doing is asking how he is. They won’t let me in to see him.’
There’s a moment’s impasse and I realise this is Mark. When I knew him at school, he was a bigger kid, but it’s like he never grew any further. In the here and now, he looks the type who’d be well at home with a protein shake. A personal trainer, perhaps. He’s certainly aged better than Jo.
It’s Neil who answers. ‘We can probably get them to let you in,’ he says.
Mark clenches his teeth and turns to the other man. ‘Oh, you can, can you?’
The contempt is impossible to miss and Neil takes a small step to the side, using Jo as a human shield.
‘Leave it, Dad,’ Owen says to Mark.
Mark looks between the four of us, focusing on me for a fraction too long before settling back on Jo. ‘Didn’t anybody think to call me?’ he says. ‘I was working on a site over the border and found out what happened to Ethan from a Facebook message.’
‘We had other things on our minds,’ J
o retorts. ‘It’s not all about you. Besides, Ethan told you months ago that he didn’t want to see you. You know that.’
Mark balls his fists and straightens. ‘You’ve been poisoning him against me.’
‘No. You’ve done that by standing him up so often. Don’t you remember promising to take him to the football in February and not showing up? How long do you think it’s fair to keep doing that? It wasn’t the first time.’
They stand, staring fire at one another, and I can barely remember them as the couple they were. It’s hard to fathom that they had two children after that. From there to here, I guess.
Neil clears his throat with a definite air of drama. ‘Maybe we should go?’ he says.
Mark moves to the side, angling his neck to see around Jo. ‘You’d love that, wouldn’t you?’
‘Love what?’
‘I’m onto you, mate. I know all about you and your driving ban. Kept that quiet, didn’t you? I know people who’ve seen you out and about anyway.’
There’s a tremor in his voice as Neil replies. ‘Who told you that?’
‘Never you mind.’ Mark nods sneeringly at Jo. ‘Do you know he’s driving while banned?’
Jo doesn’t answer, but Owen’s head shoots from side to side, between his actual father and his live-in dad.
With the silence acting as apparent confirmation, Mark is on a roll. ‘Where were you when my boy got hit?’
Jo stretches and pushes him away. ‘He was with me,’ she says, although it’s as convincing as if she was trying to say the sky is pink.
Mark resists the push, refusing to step away from the car. His eyes are fixed on Neil, his lips curled to a sneer. ‘Not at work, then?’
Neil moves faster than I would’ve given him credit for. In a blink, he’s shifted out from behind Jo and is squaring up chest to chest with Mark. It feels like Neil is one moment away from getting battered when, before Mark can react, Owen has shoved his way in between the two men.
‘Stop!’ he shouts.
The two men step away, but any tension has gone as quickly as it arrived.
Mark flicks out a slap around his son, towards Neil, but he’s nowhere near close enough to connect. ‘If I find out you had anything to do with what happened to Ethan, you better hope the police get to you first.’
The Child Across the Street: An unputdownable and absolutely gripping psychological thriller Page 12
