by S. E. Lynes
‘Graham’s got his girlfriend pregnant,’ she says.
Smack, blow. ‘You’re joking.’
‘I wish I was. I don’t know where he is, where either of them are. He left in a rage.’
‘He always comes back, though, doesn’t he? He’ll be knocking on the door by the end of today, I guarantee it.’
‘He’ll be nearly nineteen by the time it’s born, but she’s still at school. It’s no age, is it? I should know. And it’s raining outside, it’s pouring down, and I just can’t stop thinking about where they might be, the two of them. Oh God, listen to me. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.’
‘Just trying to cheer me up? I mean, I’ve got a few funnies myself, but I can’t top that. Carol? Are you crying or laughing?’
‘Bit of both. Can’t tell. You have to laugh, though, don’t you? Listen, Jim, it was nice of you to keep asking after us with Pauline and Tommy. It’s good, you know, to hear you.’
‘You too. How is he? Graham, I mean. Tommy told me he’d been on the old weed, like.’
Carol closes her eyes and sighs. Thanks, Tommy. ‘He’s not smoking as much now, not since he found Tracy.’ She laughs. ‘I don’t know, most women get a chance to pretend things are hunk-dory, at least for a bit. They get taken to restaurants in their best clothes.’ She fumbles for her cigarettes. ‘Me, I get bits of wallpaper in my hair, a dope-head son and a murdered husband.’
‘Aye, well. I don’t like restaurants that much. Bit stuffy for me, all that, bit fake. Listen, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.’
‘It’s OK, love,’ she manages. ‘But this girl, this Tracy, she’s all right, you know? Not exactly the sharpest tool in the box, like – I mean, you ask her how she is and she looks at you like a monkey doing long division – but she’s lovely. And he’s better with her, and that’s all that matters. He’s got a job at the garage. He’s getting there, Jim, he really is. He’s a good kid.’
‘I know that, darlin’.’
Darlin’. She ignores it, the fact that it makes her stomach flip. ‘But she’s still at school. I mean, they’re just kids.’ She lights her ciggie. The line is quiet, but she knows he’s there. ‘I just wish he’d given himself longer, do you know what I mean? After everything. Anyway, you don’t want to hear about my troubles.’
‘I do.’
She doesn’t know what to say to this. Wonders if he can hear her heart knocking on her ribs. ‘It was nice to hear from you, anyway. I mean, I’ve got your number now, so …’
‘So?’
‘So, we can, you know, have a natter sometimes. If you want.’
‘A natter? I’d like that.’
‘Right then, I’ll let you go. You must be busy.’
‘Right.’
She waits for him to hang up.
‘Carol?’
‘Yes, love?’
‘Can I call you again soon?’
Surely he can hear how much she wants him to. How could he not hear it? She makes her voice friendly and light. ‘Course you can, love. Any time. It’d be nice to have someone to talk to. Bye then.’
‘Bye.’
An hour later, they ring off. Both the receiver and her ear are damp with sweat.
He didn’t mention a girlfriend.
The phone rings the moment it touches the cradle. Typical Jim, just his sense of humour. She picks up, smiling stupidly, twirling so the cord wraps around her waist. ‘I know I said any time, but I didn’t mean straight away, you daft bugger.’
‘Mum?’
Slowly she disentangles herself from the cord and sits down on the phone stool. ‘Graham.’
‘Mum? I’ve been trying to get through. Who were you talking to?’
‘Me? Oh, just Pauline, love.’
‘Isn’t she at work?’
‘Thrown a sickie. Anyway, what is this? The Spanish Inquisitive? Where are you?’
‘It’s Inquisition.’ A sigh. ‘I’m in a phone box.’
‘Well, that narrows it down.’
‘I mean, near the house.’ He sounds flat, suspicious, frightened. ‘Tracy’s parents have thrown her out.’
‘Oh. Are you all right?’
The line goes quiet. Men and their bloody silences. She hears a sniff.
‘Graham? Love?’ Her heart fills for her son. He’s doing his best.
‘C-c-can I c-come home?’
‘Of course you bloody can. You can always come home, you know that.’ The line is silent, but she knows he is getting himself together to speak. ‘Hey, come on,’ she coaxes. ‘This is your home and I’m your mum, even when you’re a total pain in the bum, and that’s all there is to it. I was just cross, that’s all. I don’t want you ruining your life.’
‘I’m s-s-sorry I shouted.’ His voice is hoarse. ‘I shouldn’t have shouted at you. I know I’ve shouted a lot, b-but that’s over now, I p-p-promise. It wasn’t me. It’s n-n-not who I am. And we won’t s-stay long. As s-soon as we get a flat, I’ll t-take care of everything. I c-can do it, Mum, I know I can.’
Forty-Two
Richard
1993
‘When I was a kid, I used to listen for him coming home.’ Graham tears a strip of fingernail with his teeth. ‘I could tell just from hearing him on the street what was going to happen. If he was singing, it was all right. Elvis songs he used to sing, all the time. But if he was muttering away to himself, different story.’
Richard holds his breath for fear that any noise he might make will break Graham’s flow.
‘I knew he’d have it in for her, like. If I was still downstairs, I’d try to get in between them, because he never hit me. Don’t know why, but he never. Strange or what?’ He changes his voice to an affected over-pronunciation: ‘Bizarre moral distinction.’ Then returns to his normal speech. ‘Listen to me, I’ve got the words to describe it now. A prison A level will do that for you. But back then I was just shit-scared, and when I met Tracy, I was determined never to do to her what my dad did to my mum.’
Richard says nothing, merely nods, to show he is listening, that he is here.
‘I can’t stand the thought of her outside, you know?’ Graham looks about him, as if for something to tear apart. ‘I feel like I’m handcuffed to the wall.’
‘Do you think that’s to do with your parole coming up?’
Graham squints at him. ‘What d’you mean, like?’
‘Well, maybe your feelings are beginning to stir. Once we glimpse the possibility of change, we come alive to all that we cannot bear in our current situation. You couldn’t afford to think of yourself as chained to the wall while you were facing years incarcerated; it would have been too hard. Sometimes you have to block things out to survive. But now that the door might soon open, your mind is accepting how unacceptable your situation really is. And the possibility of becoming close to someone again might be frightening now that it’s imminent. The possibility of freedom itself might be frightening. Freedom is frightening, I think. It’s so … vast.’ Richard cannot help but think of Andrew. Andrew set him free. Go home, he said. Go and make peace with yourself. I’m not going anywhere. Richard has done precisely nothing with that freedom, only stare into its light and let it blind him.
Graham is nodding slowly. ‘This is why I come to you – you make sense. You make me make sense.’
‘I’m glad you feel that way. I like talking to you, Graham.’
Graham smiles; his face pinks a little. ‘Aw, cheers, mate,’ he says. ‘That’s very nice, that is. You too, mate. You too.’
‘So you met Tracy,’ Richard says after a moment. ‘And you … fell in love?’
Graham turns his thumb upside down and nibbles at the nail, ragged and embedded in the swollen flesh. ‘I don’t know if I loved her straight away. But at the same time I think I did, from that first night, because I felt like I wanted to be with her all the time. She didn’t get on my nerves or anything.’
‘That’s a great definition of love.’ Richard smiles.
‘Someone who doesn’t get on your nerves.’
Graham returns the smile. ‘Except if you’re a girl. I think fellas get on girls’ nerves all the time. Anyway, that was that. But she got pregnant.’
‘Right,’ Richard says, stalling while he takes in the lightning summary of the relationship. ‘And how old were you when that happened?’
‘Eighteen. She was sixteen, like.’
‘That must have been very frightening.’
Graham pulls a thread of white skin from his thumb and swallows it. ‘Not that I would’ve admitted it, but yeah. I shat myself, to be honest with you, but I kept it together – for pride more than anything. Mum went ape. Tracy’s folks didn’t want to know. To be fair, they didn’t want to know her before; she was practically living at ours by then anyway.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘So then we all calmed down and Mum let us stay at hers until we got a flat sorted.’
‘You stood by her.’
‘Who? Tracy? It never crossed my mind not to, like. I was working at the garage, I’d cut down on the weed. I was still not drinking. I reckoned I could look after her and the baby OK.’
‘That was brave.’
‘Nah.’ Graham’s thumb begins to bleed. He licks it and keeps it on his tongue, then takes it out and inspects it. ‘Anyway, Barry put a word in for us and we got a flat up at the Globe.’
‘That was a housing estate?’
‘Yeah, the flats where I was hanging out. You know the estate we went to after we left my old man? That was shitty, right? Well this one was a fucking sewer. Sorry. No more swearing, I promise.’
‘Do you know there’s a theatre called the Globe?’
Graham makes a face. ‘I’m not completely stupid, you know. The flats were named after it.’
‘A block of flats named after a Shakespeare theatre?’ Richard hears his mother say, Eeh, I’ve heard everything now. He feels the same way. The patronising pretension is mind-boggling.
‘You might well grin, Richy-Rich. You can laugh out loud if you want. It was called that because they built it in a circle with a kiddies’ playground in the middle – the stage, like, you know – which lasted about ten minutes. The floors were meant to be like the audience, do you know what I mean? “All the world’s a stage” and all that bollocks? You couldn’t make it up, could you?’ Graham rubs violently at his face and pushes his hands back through his hair. ‘It p-pisses me off thinking about that place.’
‘Because of the architecture?’
‘Yeah. No. Yeah and no. I suppose because of what ended up happening there.’
There is a pit in Richard’s stomach. He has tried for months to get Graham to move towards whatever it was that sent him here, and now that this moment seems near, he is filled with a sense of doom, as if it is all about to unfold again for real.
Graham stands up and walks over to the window. He rests his back against the ledge and crosses his feet. Richard does not move.
‘I suppose when me and Trace moved there I thought, oh well, it’s not for ever, you know? I thought I’d save up for a house and that. I thought, we won’t be here long. Well, I mean, I wasn’t there long in the end, was I? I ended up here pretty quick. Left Tracy alone with our little girl. Good work, Graham. Nice one.’ He batters his hands rhythmically on the window ledge, and then, like a street magician who’s collected enough coins to pack up his box of tricks and head home, he closes himself up. Closes himself up and walks out.
Forty-Three
Carol
1987
Jim calls often, once a day when he is onshore, which makes her happier than she can remember being in a long time. Nicola knows about the phone calls, but Carol says nothing to Graham. Her son’s relative calm, his apparent resolve to sort himself out, is new. Carol doesn’t trust it, not yet, is still tiptoeing around him, eggshells at her feet. She is desperate for Jim to visit, to see what they have, what they might have together, but mentioning his name could break whatever fragile stability Graham has managed to achieve.
Tracy begins to show towards Easter, and since her parents have disowned her, Carol goes with her on her visits to the midwife. The months clock up on the calendar. Tracy’s belly gets rounder. She complains about feeling like a space hopper when she sits her CSEs. Carol meanwhile knits her new hopes into two matinee jackets and a white crocheted shawl.
One evening in early August, Carol is lying on the sofa watching Coronation Street with her eyes closed. When the phone rings, it wakes her.
‘Mum?’
‘Graham? You at work, love?’
‘No, Mum. No.’ A pause, a choking sound.
‘Graham?’ Her heart leaps to her mouth. ‘Graham, love, are you all right?’
‘Mum, I’m at the hospital. Trace was amazing. Just amazing. The baby, she’s all pink and she’s p-p-perfect and she’s got these little fingers with these little nails, oh my God, the nails …’
‘A little girl,’ she says, eyes filling.
‘She’s called Jade. Like the jewel. Precious Jade. What do you think?’
‘I think it’s perfect,’ she manages. ‘New life, new start. This’ll be the making of you, son. The making of you. Congratulations to you both.’
* * *
A month later, Graham, Tracy and Jade move into a flat at the Globe. Carol tries not to remember that this is where Barry lives, nor think about the fact that it is Barry who is somehow involved in this deal, someone at the council, something she won’t ask about. When they leave with the baby, she feels the silence in the house like never before. Nicola is so studious. Carol will not disturb her, not at any cost. Her life’s aim is to get that girl off to university, out of here. And so records play quietly, radio and television mumble, there are no arguments, there is no baby noise to fill the rooms, no smell of burp cloths, no talc, no nappies. And when Jim is offshore, there isn’t even a daily phone call to look forward to. For once, she is glad of her shifts at Safeway and the company they give her. But none of the women there can put their arms around her and tell her it’s going to be all right.
Tracy comes over with the baby at least twice a week. Jade is bonny and dark, by turns furious and placid. Graham comes for a roast dinner on Sundays, but as winter gets a grip of the year once more, he grows quieter, stranger, and Carol feels her guts tie into knots once again. Tracy seems on edge, seems to be cross with Graham for little things that shouldn’t matter. On two consecutive Mondays after Graham has been to the house, Carol finds less money in her purse than she remembers having there. Both times she tells herself she must have spent it and forgotten.
On the last Sunday in November, Graham and his family come around once again. The moment Graham arrives, Carol can see that his eyes are puffy, red and small. He hasn’t been as bad as this since around the time Ted died. He isn’t aggressive, but he has returned to silence. He is smoking again, it is obvious, and it is getting the better of him. And now that Carol thinks about it, there is something about the way Tracy speaks and moves that is duller than usual, lifeless. Cautious, perhaps. She checks the girl’s face for bruises but finds none.
Doesn’t mean there aren’t any. Carol of all people knows that.
After the meal, which he barely touches, Graham excuses himself from the table. Carol realises she has to act. She has to speak to him now before it’s too late.
‘Are you two all right clearing away?’ she says to Tracy and Nicola, standing up.
‘Yep.’ Nicola is already collecting the plates. Sometimes Carol thinks she has a sixth sense, always seems to know when not to make any kind of fuss. Tracy is feeding Jade with mushed-up banana custard. Carol strokes the baby’s head as she passes and gives Tracy a flat smile. ‘Won’t be a tick.’
Graham is on the patio, staring into space. She notices straight away that his cigarette is hand-rolled, in the shape of a Cornetto ice cream. A year or so ago she’d have been none the wiser. Now she knows exactly what this is. Here in her garden, brazen as you like, her son is smoking pot, and
at the sight, she feels the familiar burn of shame.
‘Aren’t you cold?’ She pulls her cardie tight and shivers.
Graham is in his shirtsleeves. ‘I’m all right.’
Even outdoors, the smell of his smoke is sickly, sweet and heavy. This smell too, if you’d asked her last winter, she’d have said was a make of tobacco she didn’t know, or perhaps an incense stick from one of those hippy shops.
‘Are you all right?’ He doesn’t reply. ‘I said, are you all right, Graham?’
‘I s-said I’m all right, d-didn’t I?’
She lights her own cigarette while she thinks what to say next. ‘Things OK at home?’
‘Yeah.’ He pulls again on the roll-up, closing his eyes.
‘What about work?’
‘Wh-what is this?’ His face flashes with an anger she knows of old.
She takes a step back. She is frightened of him, there is no getting around it. She is afraid of making him cross, of his temper, just like she was with Ted.
‘I’m just asking if things are OK at work, that’s all.’
‘N-no you’re n-n-not.’
‘I am.’
‘You’re not. You’re asking if I c-can h-hold my job down. Very d-different, Mum, very different. Just ’cos I smoke a b-bit at the weekend. Had a good chat about it with Jim, have you?’
A pain thumps at her chest. He knows.
‘I haven’t, actually,’ she manages to say.
‘Our Nicky told us. If you’re wondering.’
‘I was going to tell you, but I don’t see that much of you, do I?’
‘Oh that’s right, t-turn it into a g-guilt trip.’
Every word she chooses is wrong. But for the life of her she can’t figure out which are the right words, let alone how to say them. ‘I just … I should’ve told you. I’m sorry. I didn’t know how you’d take it, that’s all.’