Standing outside the half-glazed front door, Thomasina looked to the right, towards the wide picture window that separated this flat from the one next door. She took in the grubby net curtains and the hazy flickering light of a TV, which pooled on to the walkway as dusk now gave way to darkness. A worn coconut mat sat on the floor with three cigarette butts lodged under the side. She took a deep breath and rang the tinny doorbell before taking a step backwards and waiting. As she wondered for the first time who might answer and exactly how she might introduce herself to Mrs Potts, she heard a loud shout from within, so loud she took another step backwards until she rested against the balcony wall. It was a woman’s voice, not only loud, but also rather angry.
‘Tell them to go away! Disturbing our evening! It’ll be bloody Jehovahwhatshisnames. Tell them I gave up my faith when my husband abandoned his marriage vows, ruining my life and destroying my belief in God! That father of yours made a mockery of my promise to the Almighty!’
Thomasina had very little time to digest the shout or react to the naked fear that leapt in her gut when the door opened and suddenly everything felt okay . . . There he was!
Grayson.
Her heart flipped at the sight of him and she felt her face break into a smile that was almost involuntary.
Standing in a white shirt with a tie loosened at his neck and clutching a red cotton napkin in his hand, he stared at her with an expression of disbelief. She felt her legs sway beneath her and her tongue stick to the dry roof of her mouth. It was a relief to find that the excitement he evoked in her had not diminished.
He pushed his long fringe behind his ear and blinked, looking lost for words, and she understood, sharing this mute sense of shock and wonder. She felt a similar collision of fear and joy swirling through her veins, leaving her limbs trembling.
Tentatively, he walked forward and stared at her, as if unable to process that she was here, standing on the very spot, no doubt, where Reggie the murderer had stood without his shoes as the flashing blue lights filled the night sky.
‘Hurry up, boy! You’re letting all the heat out!’ Again the woman’s voice hollered from within.
‘Sorry.’ Thomasina swallowed. ‘No message about Jesus. I was just passing.’ She watched, as he reached out his fingertips and brushed the side of her face, as though he needed the contact to confirm she was real.
‘Thomasina.’ He smiled at the sound of her name, as if to utter it brought nothing but sweet relief, which again she understood. She felt a little light-headed and at the same time so happy she wanted to shout out loud!
‘The very same.’
‘Is this the point at which our two worlds cross over?’ he asked quietly, looking briefly over his shoulder, clearly wary of being heard by the shouty lady inside.
‘It would appear so. We need to talk, Grayson – we need to talk about stuff.’
‘Yes, yes, we do.’ He swallowed.
She smiled a little sheepishly, comforted by his agreement and happy that it seemed she was not going to have to employ option three and turn on her heel, mainly because, at this time of night and having climbed several flights of stairs, her foot ached far too much for an effective strut. She too now looked over his shoulder.
‘Are you going to invite me in, or do we have to do our talking out here?’
Grayson looked briefly from her back to the door, and she saw the blush of discomfort spread over his face and neck, as if making a judgement call. It made her stomach shrink.
‘Please, come in.’
He stood back and, as she passed him in the narrow corridor, the gentle brush of his thigh against her hip was intoxicating. She took in the narrow hallway, where doors painted in yellowing white gloss presumably led off to bedrooms. The carpet was patterned with black and red swirls and coats, jackets and an umbrella were slung on a row of hooks over the radiator.
‘Come and eat your bloody tea! There’s lemon meringue for afters.’
It was the first time Thomasina noticed the slur to the woman’s shouts. She popped her head around the door and looked at the lady to whom the voice belonged: a large woman with thinning hair and a florid complexion who looked a little shoehorned into her narrow seat.
Grayson’s mother.
She watched as Mrs Potts, parked in one of two chairs in front of the television, slugged the remaining liquid in her tumbler and immediately reached for the bottle sitting within reach on the floor, with the same eagerness a child might feel for its dummy. She was drunk, was possibly a drunk, and this was a surprise to Thomasina and something Grayson had only touched on briefly.
My mum’s . . . quite needy and it’s hard to break away . . . She’s not ill, but I don’t know how to describe her, really . . .
There was so much about the cramped room that drew her eye – it was hard to know what to look at first. A small Formica-topped table was pushed up against the wall with a place set for one; a plate with foil partially peeled away revealed a fillet of flaky yellow fish with some kind of pale scum on it and some rather grey-looking runner beans.
A small alcove led through to a kitchenette, while on the wall sat an electric fire with two bars glowing red. A large carriage clock took pride of place on the mantel, tick-tick-ticking loudly. Grayson folded the napkin in his hand and placed it on the table next to his plate.
Mrs Potts looked up from her chair and did a double-take. ‘What’s going on here, and who might you be?’ Her voice was gravelly and on the verge of aggressive.
Thomasina’s gut flipped and it took all her courage not to turn and trip right back out of the door. Grayson stepped forward and stood by her side and, when he spoke, she cursed the warble in his voice; it did little to give her confidence. If he was this nervous, what hope was there for her? Mrs Potts hauled herself upright in her chair, staring at her.
‘Mum, this is Thomasina. My friend.’
‘Your friend?’ Mrs Potts spoke with an underlying hint of humour, as if such a thing were not possible, pulling her head back on her shoulders before again sipping her wine.
‘Yes! We met when Grayson came to stay at my parents’ farm just outside Bristol. I’m sure he told you about it,’ Thomasina chirped, thinking it might be easier for her to jump in and try to break down any barriers. She remembered Pops’s words and figured that, by engaging with his mother, she might be able to spread the joy she carried with her like a scent, hoping at some level to rid the space of the pungent, acrid sting of cigarette smoke and milk-poached haddock.
‘Oh, you’re sure of that, are you?’
Mrs Potts eyed Thomasina suspiciously, and again she felt her confidence shrink into an icy little ball and slip down into her bowel. She could not in a million years imagine her parents greeting anyone in this way, let alone a guest. She felt pity for Grayson, sensing the unease coming off him in waves, an almost tangible thing. The atmosphere was tense, to say the least.
Grayson’s mum slurped her wine and narrowed her eyes. ‘Well, for your information, he ain’t told me nothing! Just sits there like a useless lump. Friend . . .’ She shook her head.
His mum had spoken so disparagingly and eyed her with a look so close to hatred that Thomasina now gathered herself and dusted off her armour. ‘Well, he certainly told me all about you.’
‘Did he now?’ His mum nodded and twisted her jaw, shifting in her seat as if she were squaring up for battle.
‘Yes! He told me about you and his aunties, Eva and Joan, and said that you like a chat, and I thought that was good because I like a chat too. Can I sit down?’ She pointed at the empty chair.
‘If y’like.’ His mum watched her with hawk eyes.
Thomasina sat down, her heart beating somewhere at the base of her throat, as Grayson hovered by the dining table.
‘Eva and Joan are my sisters. Joan trained as a hairdresser up west – she’s the only person to ever cut Grayson’s hair – but she never finished the course, had a baby and that put paid to that. My dad chucked her out,
but he was a lovely dad really!’ The woman gave her first smile of genuine happiness. ‘Different days then, but lovely days. Grandad Arty, Grandma Noella and Betty next door – oh, she was a character. One day Grandma Noella got her leg stuck in the fence between her and Betty’s house!’ She wheezed with laughter. ‘And Betty was screaming, “Get her orf my fence!” And Grandma Noella – she was a fierce old bird, let me tell you – she screamed back, “I can’t, I’ve got me bleeding leg caught!” And then Grandad Arty got mixed up in it all . . . Oh my days!’ She wiped her eyes. ‘All gone now. All of them, all gone.’
The following silence was sharp and seemed to ring like a bell. Thomasina tried to fill the quiet and build a verbal bridge.
‘I like your ornaments.’ She ran her eyes over the dusty clutter packed on to the shelves and mantelpiece and, briefly catching Grayson’s eye, saw him smile at her act of simple kindness. ‘We have a lot of ornaments at home too – most of them were my grandma’s. I like to think that I look at the same things she did every day while I’m cleaning or pottering.’
‘What’s the matter with your mouth?’ His mum lifted her half-empty tumbler in the direction of Thomasina’s face, lest there be any doubt as to which mouth it was she referred to.
‘Oh!’ The direct question was a little shocking, but actually Thomasina found it preferable to the whispers behind cupped hands and the stolen glimpses of those who shied away from such questioning. She took a breath, steeling herself. ‘I was born with a cleft palate and lip problems, and a few other wonky bits and pieces, and the surgeon who fixed me didn’t do the best job, as you can see. It’s very different nowadays. I’ve seen kids born the same as me and you’d never know – they end up with a tiny fine line, hardly noticeable, but I wasn’t so lucky. I got this.’ She touched her fingers to her own mouth.
‘Can you eat and drink all right with that then?’ Mrs Potts knew no shame. The path of her words oiled with the liberal application of alcohol meant the query was presented unadorned with pleasantry or politeness.
‘Are you kidding me – have you seen these hips of mine?’ Thomasina laughed. ‘Eating and drinking is definitely not a problem for me.’
‘Want some wine?’ Grayson’s mum lifted the bottle towards her and Thomasina greeted the gesture with a mixture of dread and relief.
‘That would be lovely. Thank you.’
‘Get her a glass!’ Mrs Potts shouted the instruction in her son’s direction.
Thomasina watched as he went dutifully to the kitchen and lifted another tumbler from the draining board by the sink, coming back and handing it to her with a certain resignation. Her stomach bunched at the barely perceptible wink he gave her. She watched as Mrs Potts poured a big slug of wine into the glass and handed it to her. Thomasina took a sip of the noxious sweet liquor and smiled sweetly.
‘And you’ve come from Bristol, you say?’
‘Yes, on the train.’
‘What you come all this way for, this time of night?’
‘Actually, I came to see Grayson.’
‘Did you now? What for?’
‘Because we need to talk about some stuff.’ She looked up at him and was glad to see that a little colour had returned to his face.
Mrs Potts gripped the arm of her chair with her free hand and sank back into it. ‘Well, good luck getting him to talk to you. I don’t get a bloody word out of him – do I?’ This last she addressed to her son, as she struggled to keep her eyelids open and her head lolled. ‘Goes off to his little job . . . I deserve to hear where he’s been and what he’s been up to! Bristol!’ She drank again. ‘What’s so bloody important in bloody Bristol and took up so much of his precious time that he couldn’t pick up the phone to his old mum or answer a bloody text message!’
‘I did reply to you, Mum.’ He sighed, and his mother ignored him.
‘Just like his bloody father – too busy to chat about his day, leaving me here to sit on me tod, no idea if he’s dead or alive! If I didn’t have your aunties, I wouldn’t’ve seen a soul for days!’
‘I was only in Bristol.’
‘Don’t I know it – Bristol! Bloody Bristol!’ She sat back heavily in her armchair and reached once more for her bottle of wine. ‘Might as well have been the Bahamas or Borneo, no damned contact . . . What, don’t you have phones in Bristol? Is it a different time zone?’ This she addressed directly to Thomasina.
‘We do have phones, but where I live we don’t always have a phone signal.’
‘Charming. Bloody charming!’ Mrs Potts shook her head and emptied the bottle into her glass. ‘And where, if you don’t mind me asking, are you thinking of staying?’
Thomasina stared at Grayson, wondering what came next and already casting her mind as to where she might go and whether it would be possible for him to go with her.
‘Well, I was hoping that, if it was all right with you, I could sleep here, but if that’s too cheeky then I can go and find a hotel.’
She watched the woman consider this, knocking back the wine as she eyed her up, slipping further and further down in her chair until she looked positively slumped and could barely keep her eyes open. She now roused herself enough, however, to continue shouting, albeit with less coherency.
‘You can stay if y’like. There’s a blow-up bed of his dad’s somewhere. He was an arsehole! What an arsehole! Walked out on us, he did, like we was nothing . . . Chucked away, no longer wanted! Just up and went, without so much as a by-your-leave! Snuck out in the dead of night! Coward. You heard the like of it?’ She drained her glass again. ‘He left me and the boy – just went!’ she shouted, slurring her words. ‘Bastard!’
Thomasina snuck Grayson a look and closed her eyes in a slow blink, knowing that to hear his dad spoken about in such terms could not be easy.
‘Well, how lucky was Grayson to have you, staying put and looking after him. You must have been both a mum and a dad to him.’
‘I was!’ His mum suddenly beamed, clearly delighted by the compliment. ‘I am!’
‘Well, there we go.’ Thomasina sipped the wine again and pulled a face at Grayson as the less than palatable brew clung to her tongue.
‘So, what d’you want to talk to him about? What do you want to tell . . . to tell him?’ Mrs Potts hiccupped.
‘Oh, lots of things,’ Thomasina began. ‘I wanted to tell him about one of my chickens.’
His mum slapped the arm of her chair. ‘A chicken?’
‘Yep, Daphne, one of my hens – a chicken.’
‘To eat?’ Mrs Potts screwed her face up.
Thomasina shook her head. ‘No, not to eat. I had to bury her. In the car park of the pub. She was killed by my cousin Emery.’
‘Oh no!’ Grayson spoke with a tone of sorrow, as if he knew how much this would mean to her, and she was glad.
‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’ She smiled sweetly at him over the rim of her glass, trying to be brave, and the look of understanding he gave her was enough to make her heart flex. All she wanted was to remove herself from this pantomime and lie in his arms while he quietly held her tight.
‘You took a chicken to the pub?’ his mum shouted.
‘Yes.’ Even she snickered at the absurdity of the statement.
‘His dad was an arsehole!’ Mrs Potts yelled, as if Thomasina’s tale was of no interest and she was desperate to get her message across.
Thomasina stood next to Grayson and the two cleaned their teeth. It felt lovely, performing this intimate task side by side. She sat on the edge of the bathtub while he changed into his striped pyjamas, and they acted without embarrassment, as if they’d been doing this for years.
‘I’m sorry about Daphne,’ he whispered. ‘I know how much she meant to you, that pretty little hen.’
‘Thank you.’ She swallowed the lump in her throat.
She glanced at Mrs Potts as she crossed the narrow hallway, his mum now snoring noisily in her chair, head back and slack-mouthed.
‘Should we move her into h
er room?’ She looked to Grayson for guidance, concerned for the woman’s welfare. ‘I can help you, if you like.’
He made a kind of tsk sound and shook his head. ‘She does this most nights. She’ll be okay. She’s never still there in the morning.’
Thomasina understood that this was normality for him and slipped into his room, closing the door behind her.
‘You’re right, this is a very small bedroom.’
‘With a very small bed.’ They both looked at the narrow mattress.
‘Well, I seem to remember, not so many nights ago, we fell asleep on a rug on the side of a river in the dark. We should consider a bed a rare treat. No matter how small.’ She thought about that wonderful, wonderful night.
‘I guess. I couldn’t imagine you being here, not when I compared it to that lovely room at Waycott Farm.’
‘And yet here I am.’ She shrugged.
‘Yes, here you are. I can’t believe it.’
‘When I saw my little Daphne dead, I just wanted to see you. I knew you’d get it, how awful it is.’ She bit her bottom lip. ‘Although I felt a lot better the moment I set out for London. I feel brave.’
‘You are brave. And it is awful, about Daphne.’ He was silent for a second or two in reverence.
‘Your mum, she seems . . . Is she . . .’
‘She’s an alcoholic,’ he interjected. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t tell you. Actually, I do know,’ he corrected himself. ‘I shied away from it because when she’s drunk she’s unpleasant and when she isn’t drunk she’s marginally less unpleasant.’
‘It can’t be easy for you.’ She leaned back on a walnut-coloured chest of drawers.
‘I’m used to it.’ He picked at a loose thread on the collar of his pyjamas.
‘Does anyone help you? Do you have anyone to talk to about it?’ She hated the thought of the burden falling on his narrow, kindly shoulders.
The Things I Know Page 16