by Cathy Ace
Growing up has its challenges, they say – Aled and I are going to be so happy when we can be together again. If I concentrate, I can almost feel his lips on me . . .
Helen
I sometimes think the silences are worse than her snapping at me, thought Helen as she drove her mother to the hospital to visit Gwen Beynon.
She won’t say why we’re doing this, and I know she’s stewing on something.
Forcing a smile, Helen announced, ‘Not far now, Mum.’
‘Good,’ snapped her mother, staring out at the lashing rain.
The drive from Rhosddraig to Morriston Hospital should have taken about an hour, but it was taking considerably longer due to the downpour. When they finally arrived it took Helen fifteen minutes to discover there was nowhere to park that didn’t require her mother to get soaked to the skin, so she dropped her at the main entrance, promised to meet her at the stroke unit – wherever that was – and drove around the multistorey car park until she triumphantly found a space.
She all but ran into the shiny new atrium area they’d recently built at the old place. It felt almost like a fancy hotel reception area; the comforting aroma of coffee was a lovely surprise. Helen hated the smell of hospitals.
By the time she found the corridor leading to the stroke unit, her mother was walking toward her, her expression particularly grim. ‘Let’s go,’ she barked at Helen.
Helen felt her frustration bubble up. ‘Is that it? You can’t have been with her for very long.’
‘Long enough to say what I wanted to. And long enough to listen to her twaddle. She might be ill, but she’s still a lying whore.’
‘Mum!’ Helen glanced around nervously, afraid someone might have overheard. ‘Look, I need the loo before we start the drive back, so why don’t you wait on one of those seats over there while I do that. Then we can drive all the way home again.’
‘Don’t be long.’
Helen sucked in a deep breath as she headed to find the loos. They were signposted in the direction from which her mother had just returned. Suitably refreshed, Helen wiped the last moisture from her hands with a paper towel, then dared to nip along to where she hoped she’d find Gwen Beynon; she’d never understood or shared her mother’s animosity toward the woman, and wondered if it might be her last chance to see her before . . .
Gwen was in a little cubicle at the end of a surprisingly jolly-looking ward. Propped up on pillows, her head was bandaged, like something you’d see in a Carry On Doctor film. Her face was slack, though the glint in her eyes told Helen she’d been recognized. Gwen let out little grunting noises, and motioned with her fingers that Helen should sit. Machines beeped, and wires and tubes seemed to be attached to her all over the place.
Trying to be as cheerful as possible, Helen said, ‘I can’t stop long – Mum’s waiting for me. I just wanted to say . . . hello.’
Realizing she really meant she wanted to say goodbye, and that she hadn’t brought a gift with her, Helen felt immediately and utterly inadequate.
Gwen beckoned her to come close. All the poor woman could manage was a garbled whisper. Her speech was badly slurred. ‘Myfanwy wrong. Your dad. Never. Cross my heart.’ She sucked in a deep breath. ‘New Year. 99. Flu. Bad. Doctor. Mair. Not Jack.’ Gwen flopped back into her pillows, her breathing ragged, her cheeks unnaturally pink. One of the machines to which she was connected began to beep loudly. Helen looked around, panicked. Should she call someone?
She didn’t need to. A couple of nurses wearing scrubs came jogging toward her.
‘Are you a relative?’ one of them asked.
Helen shook her head. ‘Just a neighbor.’
‘Then if you could go, that would help, ta. Mrs Beynon has just had some woman screaming at her, disturbing everybody; she shouldn’t really have another visitor so soon. She needs her rest.’
Helen left, in no doubt it had been her mother who’d been screaming at Gwen. As for what Gwen had said to her, she didn’t know what to make of it. 99? Flu? Mair? Not Jack? What on earth was she on about?
Spotting her mother waiting for her, Helen noticed how small she looked; sitting on an oversized, boxy seat, surrounded by the sick and the elderly, Nan Jones looked like a woman who’d seen a ghost. Pallid, lined, her eyes suddenly sunken. Helen hadn’t thought her mother looked anything but her normal self when they’d got into the car that morning. Now? She felt quite concerned.
‘Are you feeling alright, Mum?’ she asked gently.
Her mother looked up at her. She’d been crying. ‘I wouldn’t mind a coffee, if we have time,’ she replied quietly.
Helen was completely taken aback; her mother hadn’t even cried at her father’s funeral. ‘Of course we’ve got time for a coffee, Mum. Shall we go and find some seats in there, or shall I bring one out here for you?’
Her mother looked around, seeming dazed. ‘It looks quite nice in that coffee shop. Maybe they’ll have a bit of cake,’ she said, still in an unfamiliarly soft tone.
‘Let’s do that then,’ said Helen, wondering when – if ever – she’d bring up Gwen’s cryptic comments in conversation with her mother.
Nan
I can’t believe she’s lying there on what’s likely to be her deathbed, still not owning up to it, thought Nan as she bit into a piece of so-called lemon cake. She forced a smile for her daughter’s sake; it shut her up. Almost twenty years she’s kept it up, but I know the truth of it.
‘Are you feeling a bit better now, Mum?’ asked Helen, sipping a bucket of foam.
‘I wasn’t feeling bad,’ snapped Nan, then thought it best to change her tune. ‘But thanks for asking.’
She noticed that Helen looked surprised, but decided to not comment. She poked at her cake with disgust; the coffee’d cost an arm and a leg, and the cake had been wrapped in plastic. What was the world coming to?
She needed to sort it all out in her mind. Although Gwen could hardly speak, Nan could tell she’d been angry when she blurted out words. Just words. They didn’t make any sense.
‘Mum, I just popped in to see Gwen – you know, in case it was my last chance to . . . you know.’
Nan felt hot. ‘You had no right.’
A young mother with a pushchair and a toddler bumped Nan’s arm; her coffee sloshed. ‘There’s a pound’s worth I just lost on the table there,’ she said, mopping it up with a serviette. Helen helped, then took the dripping paper to a bin.
Retaking her seat, her daughter said, ‘Gwen said some things to me that don’t make any sense.’
Helen was being a pain.
‘She rarely did,’ replied Nan. ‘Not going to change now, is she?’
‘She said something about 99, flu, Mair, the doctor, and not Jack. Does she mean Dad? Do you know what any of that means? Mum?’
Nan had no intention of answering.
‘Mum? Why were you screaming at her in there? She’s not at all well.’
Nan put down the pathetic paper cup. ‘None of your business, so keep your nose out.’
‘Did something happen in 1999? With Dad? Or Mair? Please talk to me, Mum.’
Nan stared at her daughter. ‘Always asking questions, you were, from the time you were little. Questions, questions. “Why?” you’d say. On and on; why are there mountains, why is the sky blue, why are there black sheep? Remember that book you had one Christmas, Tell Me Why?’ Helen nodded. ‘We gave you that to shut you up; whenever you asked “why?” after that, we could tell you to look in the book.’
Nan wasn’t sure what the expression on Helen’s face meant when she said, ‘Oh, Mum.’
‘You’ve turned out alright. Well, since you got rid of that Bob you’ve been alright, anyway.’
Helen stopped drinking her coffee. The look on her face was changing, she was getting red. ‘You couldn’t be bothered to give me the time of day, even when I was little, could you, Mum? Dad was the only person in my life who ever took any real notice of me, possibly the only one who ever loved me. The way you�
��ve always treated me – and the way you treat me now – makes me wonder why on earth you ever had me.’
‘You were an accident, as I’ve told you on many an occasion. We didn’t think we could have kids, then there I was, thirty, and pregnant. My back’s never been the same since I carried you.’
‘And don’t forget your legs, Mum. They’ve never been the same since then either, have they? Your varicose veins? All my fault. And your piles. You don’t usually fail to mention your piles.’
Nan decided that particular comment didn’t deserve a response. ‘Your father was not at all the sort of man you seem to think he was. He had weaknesses, and I had to deal with them all. You never saw them. I did. You know I don’t like to talk about him, so let it drop. Now.’
Nan found Helen’s drumming fingers and bouncing knee annoying.
‘Dad was a wonderful man, so don’t you say anything bad about him, Mum. I was lucky to have him in my life as long as I did, but I wish he were still alive.’
Her daughter was having one of her uppity days.
‘Unlike me, I suppose,’ sniped Nan. ‘Wishing I was the one with all those things poking out of me in that bed instead of Gwen, aren’t you? I know you are. Well, I’ll be gone soon enough, I dare say. Then you’ll see.’
‘See what exactly, Mum? See how hard it is to keep going every day? See how running a pub is absolutely exhausting? How tough it is raising a daughter alone because the man you married turned out to be the worst nightmare you could have imagined? How being pulled in every direction and never, ever being able to do anything right is so utterly soul destroying? Is that what I’ll see when you’ve gone? Well, don’t worry, I know all that already.’
Nan decided it was time to stop her daughter from drawing attention to them. She stood. ‘I’m leaving now.’
‘Not without me driving you, you’re not,’ said her ungrateful child, also standing.
Nan forced the matter by hobbling toward the exit. She knew Helen would follow her, and she did. Tail between her legs. Looking sorry because she’d spoken out of turn. Just like her father.
Nan decided to keep quiet on the trip home. She wanted to think. But it seemed Helen wasn’t going to allow her to enjoy the entire drive in peace.
Once they’d passed Sketty Cross, Helen started. ‘See these big houses, set back here, along the Gower Road – did you know my entire horizon of ambition when I was Sadie’s age was to live in one of those, with a husband and some children – loving, and being loved. Did you know that?’
Nan had to admit she didn’t.
‘Dad did, Mum, because he listened to me. He let me talk to him, and he listened. You never listened.’
‘Covetousness is against the Commandments, and is unbecoming in a child of mine.’ Nan reckoned that about covered it.
‘You talk such rubbish, Mum.’
‘That light’s red,’ said Nan, bracing herself.
They screeched to a halt just past the stop line.
‘No arm across me to protect me this time?’ Nan sneered at her daughter.
‘I’m trying to be a quick learner, Mum,’ replied Helen.
‘Spiteful girl.’
‘What was Gwen talking about, Mum? Tell me, or I’ll pull over on the side of this road and you can catch two buses to get home from here.’
Nan seethed. She was being held hostage by her own child. To hell with it – he’d been her father, she should know. Nan spoke with all the hatred she felt. ‘He had an affair. With Gwen Beynon. End of 1999. I saw them with my own eyes. She’s never admitted it, nor did he. But I knew. I chose not to say anything at the time, because marriage is a sacrament, but I know what I know. There. See? Not such a perfect man after all, your dad.’
Nan was delighted that Helen didn’t speak for the next five minutes. When she did, Nan was surprised by what she said. ‘Dad was nearly seventy by then – what on earth would he be doing having an affair with anyone? Let alone Gwen Beynon. She’s not that much younger than you.’
‘She’s six years younger than me. And your father was the sort of man who had a keen interest in matters of the flesh. An interest I didn’t share. Not after you were born, anyway. It wasn’t just my back and my legs you messed up, my girl. The stitches I had to have after you came out were nobody’s business. That was that, for me.’
Nan watched as Helen puffed out both her cheeks, but kept her eyes on the road. ‘A bit too much information there, thanks, Mum. But, even so, I can’t believe it. Not of Dad. And not of Gwen. What did you see? How do you “know”?’
In for a penny, thought Nan. ‘I knew something was up. A wife can tell. Besides, when you run a pub it’s not difficult to notice a person’s gone for hours – there’s always work needs doing, and him not being there was something I would always find out about. For a while I didn’t know where he was off to. Then I saw them together, coming down the hillside path. Pleading with her about something, he was. Holding both her hands in his. I kept more of an eye on him after that. Saw him with his trousers off in the front bedroom up at her cottage once. New Year’s Eve 1999. I’ll never forget it. Big night in the pub, and we’d brought in extra people to help out. He’d been gone for at least an hour, so I went out to look for him, but there was no sign of him. Then there he was, pulling up his trousers; I saw him through a gap in the bedroom curtains. The light was on up there. He didn’t see me. I went back to the pub. Never said a word.’
A long silence followed. Nan noticed Helen was crying. ‘Pull over. You can’t drive like that, you can’t see where you’re going.’
They pulled into a layby in Lower Middleford, close to the chip shop and the social club. Helen wasn’t sobbing; she was crying silently. Nan had never seen her do that before. She didn’t know what it meant, but was grateful for it – she couldn’t abide the sound of sobbing.
Eventually her daughter managed to squeeze out, ‘I can’t believe it.’
‘Well, you should. It wasn’t the first time he’d done it, either,’ said Nan.
Helen’s face was blotchy, her eyes wild when she turned to look at her mother. ‘What?’
Nan nodded twice. ‘There was one he had on the go for a long time, back in the seventies. You were little – you hadn’t started school – and he would be gone for hours on end. Back eventually, and never away overnight. But I knew what he was up to. Never knew who it was. Might not have been someone local, even. It was when we had the three-day week, and no electricity for hours at a time. We had to close the pub early some nights, because we couldn’t get the stock to sell, and couldn’t afford to run generators to keep the lights on, or to make anything else work. Worst time of my life that was, and he was off doing it with someone.’
‘Oh Mum.’
Nan could hear sympathy in her child’s voice. Sympathy for her. At last.
She just had one more thing to say.
‘It was after that the fighting began, but we managed to keep it quiet, so you didn’t know what was going on. A bit like you tried to do with Bob. But we were better at keeping it down than you two were.’
Sadie
This swotting every night is totally depressing. It’s so hard to concentrate. And what’s the point anyway? Aled’s going to be in court soon. They’re going ahead with it – which is stupid. There’s no real information out there about why. It’s horrible not knowing. Not being able to see the whole picture. But at least once he’s tried for it, he’ll get out. So I suppose it’s good it’s happening now.
Soon he’ll be home, and we can go back to how we were. I’ll be able to see him whenever I want, and we’ll be together forever. He can start giving me nice things again, though I hope we don’t have as many rows. I don’t like it when that happens. We even manage to keep all that private, too. No one knows. Maybe no one would even believe it.
Dad and I talked about Aled a bit, when we had coffee earlier today. I got the bus into Swansea and we met at the Kardomah Café. I like it there. Mam and Dad took me there
when I was little. It was the only place we went that smelled like that – of coffee, and warmth, and safety. That must have been a really long time ago. It didn’t smell as much of coffee as I remember it, or maybe more places smell the same nowadays, I don’t know. Anyway, it was nice to be there with him.
He’s good fun. He made all the waitresses laugh. He said to one of them that he recognized her from some place called The Cat and Whistle. She flipped him with the cloth she was using to wipe the table, and said she wasn’t that kind of girl. Girl? She was at least as old as Mam. When I asked Dad what The Cat and Whistle was he said it was an old pub down by the docks – gone now – where all the barmaids were cats and all you had to do was whistle for them. I don’t know what he meant, but he seemed to think it was very amusing.
The last few times I’ve seen him he’s been a bit off with me – keeps asking about Mam more than usual. Is she seeing anyone? Does she go out on dates? It’s weird he would ask that – I mean, who would want to go out with Mam? She’s so old, and she looks as though someone’s inflated her like a balloon the past year – she’s so fat and flabby it’s not funny.
I didn’t have a latte or anything to eat with Dad, just a plain black coffee – I’ve got to watch my figure for Aled. I want him to like the way I look.
Dad’s face was more drawn than usual today. He’s old too. Maybe it’s all the traveling he does – he’s always in some hotel or other; he never seems to be at home at all. It must be so boring to have to talk to doctors all the time; I don’t like how doctors’ surgeries smell, and Dad must smell like that himself at the end of a day going from one place to another, talking about how this new pill does that great new thing, or whatever it is he does. Ha! I suppose you could call him a drug dealer – because he works for a company that makes the sort of drugs that doctors prescribe. I never thought of it that way before.
I told him about what’s been going on at school – with the police being all over us about drugs all the time. He said I mustn’t worry, that the police aren’t interested in people who haven’t done anything wrong. He hadn’t heard about Aled’s Grannie Gwen being ill. He said he might go to see her at the hospital, which was nice of him.