The Train

by Sarah Bourne

  He turned towards her again and yawned.

  She didn’t want to get up, but she was dying for a cup of tea and a wee, so she pushed herself out of the sofa and limped into the hall. Charlie followed. She passed the phone, blinking with messages. She suspected they were all from Laura, wondering where she was. She carried on into the kitchen, filled the kettle and plugged it in, went to the loo, came back and got the tea and a packet of biscuits out. She realised now she’d had nothing to eat since the night before at Laura’s, and only a weak cup of tea on the train when Mei-Ling had insisted on getting one for her. She hadn’t even finished the one at the gardens. She sat in a kitchen chair waiting for the kettle to boil. Charlie sat too.

  ‘Don’t look at me in that tone of voice, Charlie. I’ve said I’m sorry. Here, have a biscuit.’ She gave him one. He ate it and looked at her expectantly.

  ‘You want another one?’

  He licked his lips.

  ‘One more. You know you have to watch your weight.’

  She bent down and stroked his smooth fur. He rolled onto his back, demanding a tummy rub. She’d been forgiven. But Iris was too stiff to bend all the way down to the floor to reach him, and so after a few moments, he jumped onto her lap.

  ‘Good boy,’ she said, giving him a hug. ‘I’ve been thinking while I’ve been away, and there are some things I’m going to change around here.’ She had been thinking, but she hadn’t actually come up with any ideas. She’d said what she did to make herself feel better, but she knew they were empty words. The reality was, she didn’t know what to do.

  Charlie cocked his head as if he understood. They sat there at the Formica-topped table. The kettle boiled, but Iris didn’t move. She had her dog, she was home, and for the time being, that was enough. She looked around her kitchen. Reg had built it years ago, made and fitted all the cupboards and painted them olive green on her orders. It looked shabby now, the paint peeling in places, faded in others. What had seemed so modern and chic twenty years ago was just old and tired now. Like her. She could afford to have it redone if she wanted. Reg and she had saved a bit, and she had her pension, but if she updated it, it wouldn’t remind her of Reg and her family anymore, of their evening meals taken together, of Barry and Laura doing their homework or fighting over an afternoon treat at this very table. Every inch of the house held a memory – the step on which Barry had slipped and broken his arm, the marks on the wall by the fridge that followed the growth of her children, the scratch on the sideboard from when Laura came in drunk at sixteen and scraped her keys across its surface. Reg’s clothes were still in the wardrobe. The very thought of tossing them out made her shudder. They were all she had left of him. The children’s school reports were in the desk drawer along with wedding invitations, letters and the drawings Laura and Barry had given her when they were little. It was like a museum of memories, and it was all Iris had left. She’d read once about the aborigines in Australia who knew their land by songlines; they sang songs as they moved about, songs that named the features of the landscape so they were never lost. Well, she had her own songlines that traced not only the features of the house, but its history and that of her family. If she changed anything about it, there was a chance her memories would fade. And if she didn’t have her memories, what would she have? She was too old to make many new ones, and she drew such comfort from the old.

  Her stomach rumbled and she took a TV dinner out of the freezer. Crumbed fish with mashed potatoes and green beans. She zapped it in the microwave and set the table. She always set the table for a meal. It didn’t do to get sloppy and eat on a tray. Charlie sat at her feet, waiting for a morsel to fall.

  After she’d washed and dried her knife and fork and made herself another cup of tea, she sat in the living room. Monday afternoon was usually bowls, but Iris had expected to be in Milton Keynes with Laura until midweek, so Jean, her partner, had agreed to play with someone else. There were other people she could play with, but she decided to give it a miss. She’d go to bridge club tomorrow, though; Edna loved her cards and would be happy she was back early. With a mind as sharp as a tack she was a good partner too. Yes, tomorrow she’d go out, but today she’d rest. She let her eyes close, and was asleep within minutes.

  Iris was woken by the glare from the street light coming on outside her window. She looked around, momentarily disorientated, and then recognised her sitting room with its faded furniture and its worn carpet. Her back ached from sleeping in her chair but the rest had revived her and she felt ready to listen to Laura’s messages. Perhaps she had called to apologise.

  She limped to the sideboard on feet that seemed to have cramped into hard knots while she was asleep, pressed the voicemail button and listened.

  ‘Mother – where are you – and why?’

  Iris was about to delete the message when she changed her mind, and carried on to the next one.

  ‘Mother – how dare you leave and not tell me.’

  And the next:

  ‘This proves exactly what I was saying. You can’t be trusted to live on your own any longer. You are a selfish, stupid old woman. It’s just this kind of childish behaviour that proves to me what I was saying was right.’

  And the last:

  ‘Mother – I’m getting worried now – just call me.’

  Selfish, stupid, childish. Iris didn’t believe she was any of those things but still it hurt to be accused of them. She sat again, leaning down to rub her aching feet. Was it selfish to refuse another’s demands? Childish to leave without giving a reason? She sat straight and took a deep breath. She knew she wasn’t stupid. She was resourceful and had done what she needed to do, that was all.

  And Mother. When had Laura started calling her Mother, and in that tone? She used to call her Mummy, and when she was a little older, Mumsy, and when that became embarrassing in front of her school friends, Mum or Ma. But never Mother. It was so cold, so formal. No loving daughter called their mother Mother, surely.

  She blinked away a tear. Charlie trotted over and licked her hand and then sat, his head cocked on one side looking for all the world like he understood what she was going through and was offering his sympathy. Iris realised with a jolt that he was her best friend these days; the one who was always there, who listened to her without judgement and who sat on her feet to warm them when she was cold. He was loyal and true. All she had to do in return was feed and walk him, give him a little treat once in a while. Their friendship was simple and straightforward, so unlike her relationships with her children, and yet she’d given them so much more than food and treats. Maybe she’d done too much for them and made them into the selfish people they were now. No, that wasn’t fair. Barry wasn’t selfish, or at least she didn’t think he was; he’d just slipped out of her hands and away on the tide of his life, leaving her behind in the wake. Laura, though, she was selfish. It was always about her.

  She sighed. Too late to change anything, and what would she change anyway? She’d enjoyed doing things for her family; cooking nice meals, making the house homely so they were proud to bring their friends back. She’d thought it a point of honour she never had to ask for their help in the house, that she could do it all herself. She had been expected to do chores from when she was quite small; at six she was cleaning out the grate in the mornings, and by the time she was ten she was cooking meals and doing the laundry. Children did in those days. If she’d given Barry and Laura jobs to do, would they have grown up differently? She had thought it an act of love to do everything, but maybe she’d been wrong. Perhaps she should have thought more about it all those years ago. She hadn’t loved her parents any less because they expected her to help. In fact, now she thought about it, it had made her proud to be able to contribute. So maybe she hadn’t been such a good mother after all. Perhaps she deserved all she got – or didn’t get – from her children.

  ‘Oh, Reg,’ she said, looking at the photo of him on the table next to her. ‘If only you were still here I’d be able to fa
ce anything. Anyway, Laura would never have done what she did if you’d been around, so I wouldn’t be facing it in the first place.’ She turned the picture away from her as she did when she was angry with him for dying and leaving her on her own, only to feel guilty a moment later and lift it to her lips for a kiss. ‘Oh, Reg, you old bugger.’ She sighed.

  Her shoulders slumped and she leant back into her chair again. She sat for a few minutes, letting her body sink into the cushions as if she was trying to disappear from her own living room. Living room – what a funny name for a place, as if you didn’t exist anywhere else, or you were more alive there than anywhere else. Well, here she was in her living room and she wasn’t ready to give up.

  ‘I’m just going to slip out for a while,’ she said. Charlie wagged his tail at her, got to his feet and looked towards the kitchen.

  ‘All right, I’ll feed you first,’ she said, and made her way to the pantry to get his food. He ran round in circles as if he was chasing his own tail the way he always did when she fed him. It always made her laugh.

  ‘Anyone would think you’d never seen food the way you carry on,’ she said as she put his bowl down and gave him a rub between the ears.

  While he was eating, she went to her room and changed into a good dress, pulled a comb through her hair, powdered her nose and swiped a bit of lipstick at her lips. Then she called a cab for the second time that day.

  Standing outside Barry’s house half an hour later, she wondered if she’d done the right thing. The downstairs curtains were drawn but soft light leaked round the edges. She looked along the street. There was no one about. Many of the houses were dark, their occupants not home yet. It was that sort of street, Iris thought. Young people who worked long hours in the city to pay for the houses they didn’t have time to live in.

  She walked up Barry’s front path, noting the neat flower beds, the small patch of cropped grass. A place for everything, and everything in its place, as Reg would have said.

  She rang the bell and waited, hands in her pockets fiddling with her keys and an old packet of mints.

  ‘Oh! Hello, Iris,’ said Luke, opening the door. ‘What a surprise – are you okay?’ He looked over his shoulder and called to Barry. ‘It’s your mother.’ Turning back to Iris, he ushered her in.

  ‘Mother – what on earth are you doing here? Are you all right?’ He was wearing an apron and had a knife in his hand. Waving it around, he said, ‘I was just making dinner.’

  Iris looked from her son to Luke and back again. She thought what a handsome couple they made, her son and his boyfriend. Manfriend really, she supposed. And she noticed that he also called her Mother, and wondered what else he could call her – they were both too old for Mum, and Iris had never liked the way some grown-up children called their parents by their first names. Reg would have had a fit if ever Barry had called him by his given name. She hated the way Mother sounded coming from Laura’s lips – somehow spiteful and angry – but from Barry there was a softness to it she could accept.

  An ambulance sped past, siren blaring and lights flashing. The three of them stood frozen on the doorstep looking at each other until the noise had faded into the distance. She drew herself up to her full five feet, looked into her son’s face and took a deep breath.

  ‘I know you’re gay,’ she said. ‘I’ve known it for a long time.’

  They were still standing half in and half out of the house. Barry let his knife hand drop by his side. Luke bit his lip.

  ‘It’s fine. I don’t mind. I’ve got gay friends.’ She didn’t, but it made her sound more modern and accepting. And, she reasoned to herself she could have gay friends, it was just that she hadn’t met any.

  She went on, speaking into the lengthening silence. ‘I just feel hurt you didn’t tell me. What did you think I’d do?’

  Barry and Luke glanced at each other, and Iris saw such tenderness between them it made her heart stop for a beat. No one looked at her like that anymore. In fact, she often felt quite invisible. Even people on the street and shopkeepers didn’t really look at old people, and they were often the only people she saw during the day.

  ‘Come in and sit down, Mother,’ said Barry, finding his voice. He gave Luke the knife and he headed into the kitchen while Barry led her into the front room. He called it the lounge.

  They sat together on the sofa. Barry held her hand, and Iris enjoyed the warmth of it. Touch was another thing she missed. It was the reason she’d got Charlie, but it wasn’t the same.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mother, I should have told you years ago but it never seemed to be the right time.’

  Iris nodded.

  ‘I’m glad you know now though.’

  She smiled at her son. Her adult son who had thought she would be angry or disappointed in him and the way he lived his life. If only he knew how much she loved him.

  ‘And I’m glad you know I know,’ she said, and leant back into the sofa, suddenly drained. His love life wasn’t the reason she’d come and she didn’t really know why she’d said what she had, but she had, and it was okay. But now she didn’t have the energy to say what had brought her here. It was enough, for now, to sit with her son feeling closer to him than she had for years. She felt as if the tapestry of her family had been unravelling all this time but now this part of it at least, was being woven back together. Laura was another matter entirely, but for this moment, she could enjoy being with Barry knowing that the biggest secret of his life was between them no more.

  When Luke popped his head around the door and invited her to stay for dinner she could have kissed him.

  Iris hadn’t eaten so well in years. Both Luke and Barry loved cooking, they told her in their new-found easiness. She learned more about her son in one evening than she had in the previous twenty years. He told her they often went away for weekends and stayed in country houses or cosy cottages, and they knew a lot about wine. Several years ago they had tried to adopt a baby. Iris was rather glad they hadn’t been successful – she was of the opinion that children needed a mother and a father, not two parents of the same sex. She knew she was old-fashioned, but that’s the way she was. So she said nothing in response to Barry’s revelation; tonight was not the time for discord.

  It seemed there was no stopping Luke and her son from sharing memories now the secret was out. She felt safe and content in the web of their lives. They loved each other, that was evident. The knowledge made her feel both happy and lonely; she was glad Barry had found love in his life. She remembered what it was like to feel loved, but hadn’t experienced it for a long time. She’d wanted to die when Reg went, hadn’t thought she could carry on on her own. For months her life had been so many shades of grey with no flashes of colour to ease the crushing sadness. She had been angry with him for not warning her he was going to die so that she could have made plans too, but you just don’t know when your heart’s going to give out, do you? You don’t wake in the morning and think, I’m going to die today. My heart is going to beat its last. So she’d forgiven him for his thoughtlessness and raised her chin a little higher, taken some deep breaths and carried on, because that’s what you do.

  Barry and Luke ushered her into the lounge and made her comfortable while they cleared the table and made tea. It was so unlike her living room – the furniture matched and was new. There was a rug on the floor that looked handmade and expensive. There were few knick-knacks and those on display were tasteful but impersonal, not the hotchpotch of photos and ornaments she had, all of which meant something to her. Theirs yelled ‘designer’. Hers was a home.

  ‘Tea, Mother.’ Barry put a mug down beside her and took her hand, giving it a squeeze.

  She looked at her handsome son, wondering when his hair had started going grey, and how long he’d had the little paunch that pressed against his belt. He sat down next to her and looked at her expectantly but she didn’t know how to go on.

  ‘What is it, Mother. You’re not yourself.’

  Iris pulled a
handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped her eyes. She was surprised, not by the fact that she was crying, but by the amount of tears. They cascaded down her face and into her hanky, making her nose run and no doubt carving a trough through her make-up. Barry waited, his comforting hand on her back.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said when, finally, she’d managed to stem the flow.

  ‘Don’t be, just tell me what it’s all about.’

  ‘You haven’t heard anything from your sister recently?’ she asked.

  ‘No. I don’t think I’ve seen her since that time at your house – Easter 2012, was it? In the last few years we’ve only exchanged Christmas cards. She doesn’t like certain choices I’ve made in my life.’

  Iris raised her eyebrows. ‘She doesn’t like Luke?’

  ‘Doesn’t like the fact I’m with Luke. If she’d met him without me and didn’t know he was gay, I’m sure she would have liked him. Everyone does.’ He smiled. ‘But she’s a bigot, you must know that.’

  Iris nodded. She supposed she did although they never really spoke about things like homosexuality, religion or politics, except for when Laura wanted to give her a lecture about something. She wondered what they had talked about that mattered over the years. She also realised she’d stopped hosting family occasions, but couldn’t remember when. She knew why though: it was because she’d got bored of always being the one trying get them all together when her children clearly didn’t want to be in the same house. In the end she’d admitted defeat. Perhaps if they’d had children it would have been different, the cousins would have had things in common, surely. But Barry was gay and she’d never expected him to produce grandchildren, and Laura’s marriage had broken down and afterwards she’d never been in a relationship long enough to get round to having babies. If she had, Iris would have spoiled them. She would have had them to stay and let them do things they weren’t allowed to do at home, like leaving sweets for them to find in the pantry for midnight feasts.