Anna hated Joey with the passion a normal person holds for murderers. She’d warned mother against buying animals from people coming to the house, but since when did she ever listen? Wasn’t she always right?
She said her daughter’s marriage wouldn’t last the season, her first and only pregnancy wouldn’t see full term. A normal person would call mom a witch.
Anna had worse names, but since the divorce had a choice of living there or on the streets. As the saying goes, “beggars can’t be choosers.” It had been close, then that darn bird, Joey was a grey and white Cockatoo sharing mom’s natural ease of making her life miserable.
"You’re drunk," Kathleen Tanner said distastefully as she heard the back door open.
Again she didn’t add.
“You’re alive,” Anna thought similarly. Disappointed, she held onto the fridge as she removed her high heels, no need to fall and give the old bat ammunition to highlight her life going down.
"I think it’s disgusting you go out every night, sucking the face of every guy you come across, what about diseases?"
"Come on, mom. You know I hurry home, you know I miss you.”
It was just past two a.m.; she’d hoped mom would be in her coffin by now, or hanging from the ceiling beams by her talons.
"Look at the time, no wonder you can’t keep a man."
Anna stuck her head in the fridge. She wouldn’t mention the white pill, but it was giving her the munchies and the heart rate of a marathon runner.
"Dad left you too, mom." Anna whispered, attacking a triangle of cheese. Maybe some dairy would soak the alcohol.
"He didn’t leave me, you were an awkward child, I-"
"No, mom," Anna said wearily, pushing a thick tick of blonde hair from her hazel eyes. "It’s late; I’m not getting into another argument with you"
Mom sipped her coffee, the best weapon in her arsenal for staying up. She was always there to make Anna’s life hell. "Honestly, dear; you sound like you’re the center of the universe."
"Whore," Joey chirped from his cage, tore a feather from his tail and repeated the greeting.
"So you haven’t been talking about me to the bird then?"
Kathleen stood up. She had bad knees from years of pushing her elderly mother round in a wheelchair during that cancer scare.
Yes, Anna felt bad wishing one day when mom got up there’d be a snap, she’d release a pleasing scream to Anna and down she’d go.
Yes, she felt guilty for being a bad daughter, but mom reminded her of that fact very often, and ofcourse the drinking helped.
Anna closed the door, staring hard at the cage till Joey defecated.
I hate you.
But mom was surprisingly light on her feet. The washed plates on the sink rattled, as she covered the distance from the table to the fridge in one bound. As she did so, the fat beneath her arm pits jiggled; the doctor told her to lose three stone in five years if she wished to see any grandchildren, mother knew best.
Anna didn’t press mom did anything to extend her life.
"Leave him be," Kathleen said lifting Joey, cage and all off the fridge
"He`s not an animal, he’s part of the family."
He’s welcome to it. Say a Lion bounded into the room, would mom have defended her like that? A human shield to protect the thing she loved most, moms love had died some time ago, like everything good in life. All that remained was this poisonous, snidely husk. Called
mum.
"You got a letter from Stevens solicitor while you were out" she kissed Joeys cage making sick, smooching noises. "All day" she added hitting the espresso machine.
Whiiiirrr! It sounded like a dentist drill.
Anna moaned, feeling the ground sway like the 2.03 train from Tokyo blared by.
"You opened my mail again?"
"Mail again, mail again" Joey coughed, nutted his bell and checked his beak for dents in his tiny mirror.
"Your mail, my house," Kathleen explained as though one and the same "He wants more money, I told you never to marry him."
Of course all that negativity had been the main reason she took him down the aisle, the one sweet certainty mom was wrong. But of course she wasn’t, and Anna suffered because she hadn’t listened.
She tore open the letter, fingers fighting the spirits that only a few hours ago seemed a good idea to blot out moms voice, the criticisms that haunted her sleep, the endless disappointments now worked against her. She read it twice, sometimes the words fizzed like badly mixed chemicals that didn’t register in her head.
Whiirrr-
If only she could think.
Whirrr!
The shelf shook as mom added cream, the machine went haywire, whacking the plaster off the sideboard.
"Must you have that on?" Anna said so softly, she thought the monster making of a hangover might tear her head apart.
"I’m thirsty." Mom lied.
"Thirsty," Joey threw in his two cents, her defense lawyer; a sixty year old can have coffee at two a.m. in her own home if she wanted. Even when she lived alone she was in bed by nine.
"Stay out of this, you lice infested-"
"Anna, leave him be, I’ve raised you better, it’s not his fault you’ve ruined your life, because you can’t keep a man"
"Stop it, mom, I know you prefer that bird to me."
She’d meant jest, a statement so bizarre it would stun mom to silence, wonderful, sweet nothing. But mom didn’t reply, her eyes full of guilt.
"Well that’s lovely" Anna muttered, scared to raise her voice in case it broke, she reached for another beer - who needed sobriety? "No wonder I’m so messed up."
"He keeps me company, never runs out the house chasing men, trying to get myself pregnant to make up for the one I lost-"
Anna stopped moving, sure her heart would stop. "Thin ice," she whispered. "You’re on thin ice, go to bed before I lose control. If you want an argument do it at a more considering time."
Mom, I think something’s wrong with the baby, can you hold me.
"I was right about that poor thing inside you, all that damn beer, caring for your own fun, the babe didn’t stand a chance, the walls are paper thin, I hear what you get up to with those men you bring back-"
"Mom, I will not have this talk with you now, get away."
Anger pulsed through Anna, it became a living, ravenous thing born of her most sensitive point. She’d planned to call him Steven, after his dad.
She made fists, her fingers closing round a beer bottle neck.
"Don’t you tell me what to do in my own house, you’ve always been a bad child, and you’re a murderer!"
"No!" Anna turned to face her slanderer. "I loved him and he loved me, we were going well till you stuck your nose in- mom?"
Anna looked at the broken bottle in her hand; green glass littered the floor like pebbles on a beach catching sunlight.
"Mom?" she felt a minute of her life had been edited. There was a dent in the old woman’s head, something purple oozed and leaked out the cracks between the skull shards. "Mom?" Kathleen wasn’t breathing.
"Oh God"
"Mom? Mom?" Joey repeated and Anna jumped, expecting the world to close in, every face at her window, neighbors pointing at what she’d done.
“You’re in trouble,” she thought and lifted Joeys cage. "She’s my mom," she started crying as she put him in the living room, closed the door.
"Mom?" Joey said and Anna shouted till he quieted. Now she could put all her mind on staying out of prison, mom always said her daughter was good at looking after herself, now Anna would give the world to hear that awful screechy voice again.
She dropped the glass with some difficulty, some shards indented in her palm.
"I didn’t mean it," she insisted as she washed her hands.
Wash it all, wash everything.
No, it had to look natural, mom had taken all that was good, she wouldn’t take her freedom. That hate filled her again, that mom had bought her down to this, made
her do it. She checked her pulse, unsure which side of the line she was on, did she want her alive or not? Either way she’d be a prisoner of her or the system.
Her knees.
She had the doc`s memo as proof should this go to court, she’d been out all evening, had drunk enough people under the table to convince them she’d be comatose as soon as she reached home.
How could I do such a thing when she’d gone straight to bed, officer? Could hardly stand. But those pills, those wonderful pills locked her legs, gave her back control, her mind raced.
"You always make more work for me," Anna complained as she filled the sink, letting it overflow. The water would wash away any trace of contradicting DNA she’d over looked. Mom had complained she cleaned the floor earlier in the day, the windows would wait for a squeegee.
But for the plan to work there’d have to be one unpleasant act.
Her feet sodden wet, socks sticking to ankles she squatted besides her mother body and lifted her head, choking on that mothball and boiled sweet smell that continuously emanated off her.
Open and closed officer, she was old, her knees bad, she left the taps on while doing the washing, gone to feed Joey and on running back slipped, smashed her face on the edge of the tiled -
"Anna?"
Anna looked toward the living room, her name hadn’t been said a while, that brain dead bird echoed everything before its makers breath had faded. Was he learning to talk properly?
"Anna?" Mom said only able to open one eye, her left a bloody, bloated mess that had seen her first steps now saw only darkness. "I can’t move, I think some thing’s wrong, I think..." She made a clicking noise as her moisture less tongue separated from the roof of her mouth. She’d only one working eye but it saw the truth in Anna’s.
"Please don’t kill me, Anna."
Anna looked away as she grabbed her mother’s ears, pulled and pushed, bringing all her weight down as she smashed her head down again and again on the floor.
Stop moving, for once in your life listen you old fool and stop moving.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
When it was done and the air seemed gone from Kathleen’s lungs she vomited, that was good, it would go with the story, surprise at this tragic accident. Sure there was nothing left, wearily, woozy she went to the living room and picked up the phone.
“Think sad,” she thought though she smiled. Bring on the tears.
She thought of her dead baby and on they came.
"Hello? Ambulance please. I think my mother’s dead."
"Ambulance please" said Joey, then whistled.
Anna covered the phone with her palm and said "When this is all over I’m gonna put you in a pie"
Alan Keeping gave the woman his sympathies and reassurance these things happened far too often - it was quick and that in itself was a small mercy. He’d been a police man twelve years and nursing home assistant for ten before that so he had some sympathy for these old dears, left
alone, neglected. Pulling his eyes from the floor, to spare the woman’s misery he ordered everyone pack up, call it an early night as he tickled the bird and poured seed in its bowl. "Pretty thing, my mother had one too"
"That’s Joey" Anna explained, reaching for him, returned to his rightful place upon the fridge, her fingers were almost at his head before the bird recoiled like she might tear it off. "We’re best friends, just us two against the world now, huh Joey."
Joey hopped from the cage edge, as far as he could from her.
"Pretty thing" Joey squawked and Alan thought it a shame the only witness could say nothing more than his name and request crackers, a detailed account of the accident would be nice but so would world peace and that hadn’t worked out either.
"You’re tired." He said as his men closed the door leaving no trace of their passing but the slight whiff of cigarette smoke and cleaning fluid.
"I can see this has been a shock, I’ll leave the final details till morning, you’d best get some sleep."
"Thank you" Anna pushed her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking like the bones inside had melted away. Alan thought she was crying when in fact she was trying not to laugh, she was so close to being free, of all things.
"Is there any one I can get in contact to spend the night here? You shouldn’t stay alone after walking in on such a thing."
She declined, grateful for his kindness, a handsome, likeable guy, she thought he`d make a good father, would he have left her for another woman like Steven?
She blew her nose for effect and walked him to the door. "Again, thank you."
He shook her hand and wished her courage. "Goodbye Anna... Joey"
He tipped his hat and started to close the door, the area was a mine field of burglaries, a locked door was a safe door-
"Anna, please don’t kill me" Joey chirped and nutted his bell.
Alan put his foot in the door, Anna had her weight behind it but his size tens weren’t moving. The policeman’s face had changed, his smile was gone.
"Actually Miss Tanner, could I ask a few questions down the station?"
Anna coughed, reluctantly stepped from the door. "It’s a little late," Alan looked at the bird, then back at her "If you please, it would make this easier."
He didn’t say on you but he didn’t have to. Neither was he calling her by her first name now.
Anna felt her tongue dry, a fat maggot that writhed and drowned in its own lies behind her teeth. "May I have a moment to comb my hair, mother said a lady must look her best."
"Certainly, take all the time you wish."
Anna looked at the house; she could have done such good here. But mother was right, mom was always right. "I won’t be a moment."
Alan waited till he heard her on the stairs and picked Joeys cage up.
"Come on, old boy, softly does it."
"Softly, softly." Said Joey.
"Is this ok?" Anna asked as she put on her mother’s coat "It would clash hideously with handcuffs."
Alan opened the door for her "There’ll be no need for that will there, Miss?"
She looked at Joey, wishing he would burst into flames. "No," she said
"I’ll be good"
Just like mother wanted.
Wacky Writers
With the New Year here, and people making New Year’s resolutions, we want to know what yours are? Even better, we want you to write a short, fictional story about a character from your own imagination that has a new year’s resolution, and struggles with keeping it. (We all know how difficult that is!)
Literary Lunes Magazine, January 2012 Issue Page 7