Mum's List

by St. John Greene

  A poem is hard to write

  The words never come off right,

  Once the rhyme is found,

  No words with that sound,

  Spring to your mind,

  To express what you find in love.

  I felt surrounded by Kate. In my hands I had a direct link to the teenage Kate, the passionate, loved-up Kate who eagerly pursued me from the first time she saw me, refusing to listen to her parents, promising she’d love me forever. She was a gorgeous girl, and I was flattered she’d fallen for me in such a big way. I could hear her reading the poem to me, giggling her sexy giggle, and I could taste and smell the sugary, sweet gloss of her lips on mine.

  Kate was convinced we were made for each other, right from the moment she set eyes on me. She told me so over and over again, fixing her seductive eyes on mine, intent on making me believe her, and making me hers. I have to be honest. I didn’t share her vision of the future, not in the very early days anyhow. Kate was too young when we first met, and I was too much of a player to think long-term. No wonder that was one of Kate’s dying wishes: “Please teach them to respect women and not two-time.” She knew what men could be like, and she didn’t want Reef and Finn to follow my teenage footsteps in that respect.

  “Don’t let them ride a motorcycle or scooter especially on the road,” was another request borne out of my misspent youth. “Singe, I know what boys are like,” Kate told me as she wrote those wishes. “I know what you were like. You were lucky you never got hurt, but they might not be so lucky. It’s not worth the risk. Please keep them safe. Buy them cars, teach them to drive, keep teaching them to drive the boat, but don’t let them ride motorbikes.”

  “I promise,” I told her, looking deep into her eyes, which were locked on mine, leaving me in no doubt how passionately Kate felt about this.

  I used to tear around on my Suzuki Katana with its flash silver tank, wondering what all the fuss was about when Kate’s parents didn’t want her to ride on the back. Now I was older and wiser, and I knew exactly what all the fuss was about. Life is precious, and you have to put safety first. I didn’t think long-term at the start of our relationship, but Kate did, and she made sure she told me so in many of her letters.

  I picked up a poem and read the first page before my tears forced me to take a break.

  We are tight knit,

  Never to be split,

  Even once married,

  On we shall still carry on,

  In love.

  Kate was sixteen when she wrote that, and even though we’d known each other for a year or so we’d only just started properly dating. I was flattered and thought she was endearingly naive. In fact, it turned out she knew a heck of a lot more than I gave her credit for; her vision was spot on.

  Now, here she was in 2010, no longer here yet still one step ahead of me. I couldn’t get over it, and I couldn’t stop the tears from falling even though I felt thrilled and buoyed by the memories. Kate had carefully planned for me to sit here and read these letters in the days and weeks following her death. It was amazing. She knew that even though my emotions would be all over the place, the old memories would cheer me up, and they did.

  My heart was beating with anticipation each time I read another page, and warm feelings of love and tenderness loosened the cold, tight grip of grief inside my chest. This wasn’t a way of holding me back, locking me back in time by reminding me how loved-up we were together. Kate wanted me to meet someone else, I knew that. This was a gift of unashamed romantic nostalgia for old times’ sake, and I silently thanked her for it.

  I could just imagine Kate’s face if she was looking down on me now. She would be giving me a knowing smile of encouragement, a little nod to say it was OK to feel elated and distraught, excited and bereaved all at the same time. “Dive in!” she would say. “Enjoy the memories!” The more I read the more I wanted to read, and I greedily devoured page after page after page, gorging on the next before the full pleasure of the last one had sunk in.

  I lifted one of Kate’s poems to my nose and sniffed. She had a habit of spraying flowery perfume on her love letters, and I remembered the sweet clouds that floated from each envelope the first time I opened them. The smell always sparked a powerful reaction in me, making me count the hours or the days until I could see her and touch her and smell her again. As a teenager Kate always wore Le Jardin by Max Factor. I could see the bottle so clearly in her dainty white handbag, as if it were in the handbag I’d just emptied out. I could smell it on her neck, all fresh and feminine, just like Kate. Now I thought there was still the faintest trace of scent buried deep in the fibers of the faded paper, but I couldn’t be sure.

  I lay back on the bed and turned my head into Kate’s pillow, to smell her again. Recently she’d worn Charlie Red, which she adored. One of the young nurses at the hospital wore it, and Kate asked her what it was and asked me to buy her a bottle. It became Kate’s favorite perfume, and I loved it too. I expected to breathe in a satisfying, familiar fix of the lingering scent on the pillow, as I had done when Kate was here, and as I had done every night since she was gone. She never got the chance to sleep in the big new bed, but I had kept the pillow from the old one. It helped me get to sleep, feeling her so close I could smell her, but I was dismayed to find there was nothing there.

  I sniffed again, this time more urgently. I picked up the weakest smell of her perfume, almost as faded as the one on the love letter. I looked at the poem in my hand again. The handwritten date on the top was June 1987, and I had an upsetting thought. How could the thirty-eight-year-old Kate, who had lain in this room just weeks before, have already started to fade as much as the sixteen-year-old Kate?

  It was a depressing moment, and it made me confront an unpalatable truth; every version of Kate was a memory now, and there would be no new memories to make with her. At least I had a heck of a lot of reminders of the past, I thought, turning back to the boxes and picking out a piece of paper. It was the sort with the old-fashioned red-ink margin you used to get in school, and Kate had set out a kind of lover’s list of commandments on it. I remembered it well. The “Contract of Toad Ship,” as she had called it, cast me as the toad-like villain and herself as the princess in our own little fairy-tale world. With a fountain pen Kate had neatly written:

  You need to:-

  Phone at least twice a day

  Flatter me (remember flattering can get you everywhere)

  Supply a flower once a week

  Complete fidelity, soul ownership

  Take me out Saturday evenings

  Be loved and to love

  Tell no lies, and give straight answers

  Sign and return contract of mate-ship.

  Sign here:__________

  Her last commandment made me fill up, and I read it again and again. “Tell no lies, and give straight answers.” “Tell no lies, and give straight answers.” I reached over to my bedside table. Kate’s diary was in there. It took me several minutes to find what I was looking for, but I knew it was there somewhere. I eventually found it on one of the pages she had scribbled on when she had stayed up through the night, jotting down the list of things she wanted me to pass on to the boys. There it was, the entry Kate’s teenage commandments had just reminded me of. “Please teach them to say what they mean.”

  Those words were etched on my brain. They had helped me when I had to tell the boys Mummy was dead, but I wanted to see them in black and white, in Kate’s pretty handwriting. I started to cry, but they were happy tears. Values Kate had wanted in me all those years ago were now being instilled in her boys. I’d make sure I brought Reef and Finn up to be truthful and give straight answers, especially to the women in their lives, and I would make sure I taught them to always say what they meant.

  I really hoped they’d be as lucky in love as we were.

  * * *


  I remembered the first time I ever saw Kate. For me it was business as usual at the Robin Cousins roller disco rink near Bristol, where I worked on a Saturday night. The place was teeming with teenagers. Hot, excited bodies whirled round the skate rink, pulsating to the beat of eighties hits like “Part-time Lover” by Stevie Wonder, Duran Duran’s “Wild Boys” and Madonna’s “Like a Virgin.” When the girls fell over I picked them up as quickly as possible to stop them causing a pileup. If they were injured I took them to the first-aid room and sorted them out.

  It was a dream job for a red-blooded nineteen-year-old, and I did my utmost to live the dream. With my spiky bleached-blond hair and black headband I fancied myself as Billy Idol. I also had the coolest skates on the planet, covered in designer graffiti, plus I had a six-pack to die for. Needless to say, I loved my macho nickname, “Rambo,” and I thought I was God’s gift to women. To my delight, lots of girls seemed to agree with my high opinion of myself. I lapped up the attention when they flirted with me, and I flirted back outrageously.

  One night I spotted a veil of ultra blonde hair shimmering under the disco lights as it danced toward me. Moments later its pretty owner stopped in front of me. She was wearing incredibly tight jeans, and it was impossible not to notice her amazing figure.

  “My friend Anna has hurt her wrist,” the girl said.

  She was looking at me intently through two blonde curtains, which framed her face. I stopped and looked straight at her, and that’s when I realized she wasn’t just pretty, she was very, very pretty—stunning, in fact. What stood out the most were her eyes. They were a gorgeous pale ice-blue and were absolutely captivating.

  “And there’s a gang of girls over there who’ve been picking on us . . .”

  The girl’s pink-glossed lower lip wobbled slightly, and I was afraid she might cry. I didn’t want those pools of blue to spill down that exceedingly pretty face.

  “Come on, show me where Anna is, and we’ll sort this out,” I said. “I’m Singe.”

  I put my arm around the girl’s shoulder.

  “I’m Kate,” she said.

  I could feel her trembling slightly, poor girl.

  “Don’t worry, everything will be fine,” I reassured her, puffing out my chest and enjoying playing the knight in shining armor.

  “Thanks,” she smiled. It was a dazzling smile that seemed to light up her whole face, and I couldn’t believe she’d cheered up so quickly.

  It didn’t take long to strap up Anna’s sprained wrist. I was aware of Kate looking at me, and I enjoyed the buzz of being eyed up by such a good-looking girl, even though she did look several years younger than me.

  “Are you working next weekend?” she asked unexpectedly.

  “Yes, I am.”

  She had a confident tone in her voice now and was standing with her shoulders back and head held high.

  “That’s good. It’s my birthday, and I want a birthday kiss.”

  Kate then winked at me, one luminous blue eye disappearing momentarily behind a sparkling blue eyelid.

  “All right,” I said, smiling.

  Kate didn’t look like a girl who was going to take no for an answer, and I didn’t want to say no even though I should have. I already had a girlfriend and was dating a string of other girls, but Kate was very pretty, not to mention insistent, and it was only a kiss, wasn’t it? It was a perk of the job, I figured.

  I also worked as a lifeguard and taught trampolining at rec centers all around Bristol. I was paid to have fun, and the girls seemed to like me. I think, if I’m truthful, I was seeing a total of eight girls at that time, and I kept up with them all by roaring between dates on my motorbike, dressed in cool black leathers.

  “Can you teach me to skate backward?” Kate asked when she turned up the following week, moments after the rink doors were open.

  It was good to see her, and she looked even more stunning than I remembered. She was wearing the same spray-on jeans and the fantastic view from the rear was definitely worth giving a few backward skating lessons for.

  “How about that kiss then?” she asked almost as soon as we got started with the lesson.

  “I can’t kiss you here!” I laughed.

  “I want my birthday kiss. You promised!”

  “There’s too many people around,” I said, surprised by how seriously she seemed to be taking this.

  “Where, then?” she insisted.

  “Meet me by the fire doors when I lock up at the end.”

  I did wonder whether she’d actually bother to hang around that long just for a kiss, but I had a funny feeling she probably would.

  Sure enough, at 9 p.m. Kate was standing there with the same confident look I’d seen before, her eyes shining expectantly.

  “Wish me happy birthday, then,” she said excitedly

  “Happy birthday!” I beamed, and leaned in to kiss her.

  It turned out to be a surprisingly erotic kiss. I hadn’t expected Kate to kiss me back so passionately, but I certainly didn’t complain, and it was extremely enjoyable.

  “Do you know how old I am?” she said cheekily when we pulled apart.

  “Sixteen?”

  “No, fifteen . . . in a few days,” she said jubilantly.

  I felt a little quiver in my stomach. I was about to turn twenty. This wasn’t right; she was a full five years younger than me.

  “You’re a very pretty girl but you’re also a very bad girl,” I scolded gently. “You’re too young for this.”

  Kate’s face fell.

  “No, I’m not!” she said indignantly.

  I laughed and said good-bye. She was a lovely girl but was far too young for me.

  I thought that would be the end of that, but I didn’t bank on Kate’s determination. Unbeknown to me, when we kissed Kate had decided I was “the one.” Years later she would relate to me how she went “all peculiar” the first time I put my arm round her shoulder, when I told her Anna would be OK. That’s why I felt her tremble: it had nothing to do with her being upset by the skate-rink bullies. Kate told me she decided there and then that I was going to be hers, and the kiss sealed her decision. She was most definitely not going to take no for an answer; I was her man, and that was the end of it.

  Thank God she didn’t give up, I thought, my eyes flicking between the love letters and Kate’s diary. We had all those years together, thanks to my feisty Kate never giving up. When I’d told her she was too young for me at fifteen she had insisted that at least we could be good friends “for the time being.”

  She persuaded me to go to her house for coffee after the roller disco one Saturday night, and her dad reluctantly agreed that I could follow his car back to their house when he picked her up. Like an idiot, I couldn’t resist showing off on my motorbike, overtaking Kate’s dad and looping round his family saloon. I’d got my racy Suzuki engine from Silverstone and I revved it up noisily, thinking I looked the business with my pointy shoes and Alien II bike helmet.

  By the time we pulled up at their extremely smart suburban house in Portishead, Kate’s dad, Martin, practically had steam coming out of his ears. I don’t think Kate’s more tolerant but protective mum, Christine, was too impressed either, especially when she saw me strutting up the drive in my black leathers, Kate’s eyes feasting on me. My reputation preceded me too. It didn’t take Kate’s savvy parents long to find out I already had a steady girlfriend, not to mention a string of other girls in tow, and they banned Kate forthwith from the roller disco.

  Looking back, I can’t blame them being concerned about their only daughter. Kate had never had a serious relationship before, and I was hardly ideal first boyfriend material—in fact I was every parents’ worst nightmare. I was prepared to accept the situation, because even though I fancied the pants off Kate she was simply too young. Pr
ecocious Kate had other ideas, of course, and she told me to “watch this space” as she was not giving in without a fight.

  She was certainly true to her word. Kate played badminton and started to turn up at the rec centers where I worked all over town. I enjoyed the attention—what bloke wouldn’t? But she was still so young, and I still had a lot of other pretty girls around me. I told her I really wanted her to be my friend, but I didn’t want any hassle about her age and her parents, and I couldn’t see how we could separate the two.

  “Will you wait for me?” she asked over and over again. “Will you be my boyfriend when I am sixteen?”

  “We’ll have to see,” I told her. “You’re a stunning girl. You’ll probably go off with somebody else before then.”

  “I don’t want anybody else but you, Singe,” she said. “I want to marry you. I want to be with you forever and ever.”

  I smiled and laughed and lapped up the attention, but Kate was deadly serious, bless her.

  I thought it was cool at the time to wear thin silver bangles right up my arm, and lots of the girls I knew used to give me a bangle as a gift. One day Kate turned up out of the blue and gave me a silver bangle too. It was thicker than the rest, and I thanked her for it and put it on alongside all the others. Every time Kate turned up she’d ask me if I still had the bangle.

  “It’s right here,” I told her. “I wear it every day.”

  “Good,” she said, giving a secretive smile. “Don’t lose it. You never know when you might need it.”

  Over the months we became good mates, chatting over a Coke or a coffee at various rec centers, whenever Kate managed to sneak out of the house. Kate’s intentions were always clear, but we fell into a comfortable friendship, chatting like old mates, and Kate would actually give me advice about how to handle girls. She was open and honest, and talking to her gave a Romeo like me a real insight into the workings of the female brain.