by Alison Moore
Tina dried the glasses and opened the cupboard to put them away, and immediately she could see that the one she had pushed to the back was gone.
‘We must say, Tina,’ said Uncle, ‘when we make a mistake.’
She put the baby to bed, lingering long after he fell asleep. She couldn’t bear to go back to the smoky, suffocating kitchen. Her top was wet under the armpits. Her back and her scalp were sweating. She went to the bathroom, ran the cold tap, and splashed lukewarm water on her face. She opened the tiny window wide, hoping for a little air, but instead she felt the day’s warmth slumping through like dead weight.
She nears the top of the iron staircase, and now she is climbing so slowly but still she is almost there.
She went from the bathroom to her bedroom and stopped outside the door. She looked back towards the kitchen, where they were all busy talking, and then stepped across the hallway and slowly opened Grandmother’s bedroom door. The baby was asleep in his cot, with his night-light on. She crossed the quiet room, hearing the noise of the carpet beneath her feet. She went first to Grandmother’s bedside table and opened the drawer, but inside there was just a Bible. She slid her hand under the mattress and ran it all the way down to the foot of the bed, feeling the bare slats. Under the bed, there were only slippers; in the chest of drawers there were only clothes.
Tina went to the cot. She slipped her fingers down between the bars and the baby’s mattress. The baby sighed and Tina froze, willing him not to wake, not to cry – she did not want Grandmother coming down the hallway. She wondered whether she dared to look in the room the men shared. She could still hear the debate going on in the kitchen.
Suddenly, she looked up. A figure stood in the doorway, looking at her with her hands in the baby’s cot. Her heart bucked inside her chest like a wild horse roped.
‘I was just checking on the baby,’ said Tina, and her voice sounded strange to her, disembodied in the dim room.
‘My mother does not like you,’ said Uncle, the diamond glinting on his tooth as he spoke. ‘She does not trust you.’
Tina wondered how long he had been standing there.
‘I want my things back,’ she said.
‘You do not need your passport now,’ he said. ‘But I will bring you money.’
Tina went to her room and sat on the edge of her bed. When there was a knock at her door, she went and opened it. Uncle held out a couple of notes in the local currency, just pocket money. She looked at him, and he said, ‘It is enough now. Why do you want more?’
She took the notes, and closed her door again.
It was so hot. It was unbearable. The window in her room did not open; the frame appeared to have been painted shut. But it seemed that there was no cool air anyway, anywhere. Her heart was beating fast and she felt nauseous. Her mouth was dry; she wanted a glass of water but she did not want to leave her room. She got into bed and lay awake, sweating into these strangers’ sheets, loathing the dragging summer, just wanting it to end.
In the morning, she took the baby out early, and quietly, leaving Grandmother sleeping. She walked him slowly through the market while it was setting up, and through the still-calm streets, delaying her return. He fell asleep, and she thought that she would have liked to just keep walking, walking with the dozing baby, never to go back.
She stopped at a payphone and thought of calling her parents. She had coins, or she could reverse the charges. She put the brake on the pram, lifted the receiver, and dialled the international number. It rang – she saw the phone at home ringing in the empty kitchen, ringing through the dark house, because, she realised, if it was early morning here then it was very early at home, still nighttime. She pictured her parents asleep in their bed, or half-woken, frowning into their pillows and turning over. She stood with the receiver pressed to her ear long after she knew that nobody was going to answer.
She heard the factory whistle blow, signalling the end of the night shift. Now Uncle would go drinking, and then he would return home for breakfast.
She replaced the receiver and collected her returned coins. She walked back through the market, and saw the glassware stall again. She had her pocket money from Uncle in her purse. She stopped and looked at the cut-glass tumblers which were not too different from the one she had damaged. She bought one, as a peace offering, and then she walked slowly back to the flats.
She parked the pram on the wet slabs underneath the iron staircase. Grandmother was up – she had done a wash already. Damp laundry hung in the morning sunshine. Tina lifted the sleepy baby out of the pram and began the climb up to the top. She felt queasy at the thought of sitting down to breakfast. She had no appetite. She had a twitch under her eye.
She was more than halfway up when she realised she had left the glass from the market in the bottom of the pram. Wanting to give it to Grandmother before breakfast, she started back down, down the slick steps with the baby in her arms, and perhaps it was because she had not slept or eaten; perhaps it was because she felt sick and was too hot; perhaps it was because she was hurrying, not wanting to meet Uncle on the stairs, smelling of alcohol and aniseed; but in any case, she tripped.
At the top of the staircase, she takes the weight in the crook of one arm and, with a deep breath, opens the door with her free hand. She steps into the bright hallway and pulls the door to behind her, and when the door closes, it is dark.
Humming and Pinging
We are like my Nana and Grandpa, the way we are sitting there, just quietly sitting, saying not a word. They can sit and sit, with the clock chiming every quarter hour, and every now and again Nana will say, ‘Perhaps we’ll have a cup of tea,’ or, ‘I’ll think about supper soon,’ and Grandpa will say, ‘Right-o.’
Leanne’s my best friend, but today she hasn’t a thing to say to me. I say, ‘Shall we play something?’ but she shakes her head. She’s pretending to read a comic but she isn’t turning any pages and it doesn’t take that long to read a few speech bubbles and thought bubbles, a few Thump!s and Thwack!s and Kapow!s. I say, ‘Can I read that with you?’ and she shrugs her shoulders but that means no. I sit for a few minutes more, folding the boy band faces on her duvet so that they become one-eyed, no-nosed, pursed-mouthed.
I say, ‘Shall I go then?’ and she shrugs again, but this time she means yes. I say, ‘I’ll call for you tomorrow morning then.’ She doesn’t say or do anything for a moment, but then she nods. ‘OK then,’ I say, and then, ‘Right-o,’ to make her laugh. She’s sat with me at my Nana and Grandpa’s before, and when Nana says, ‘Shall we have some telly on?’ and Grandpa says, ‘Right-o,’ we say, ‘Right-o,’ and sit shaking with the giggles. But Leanne’s having none of it today. I put my shoes on and say, ‘Ta-ra,’ and she says, ‘Ta-ra,’ back to me, so we’re still friends.
It’s quiet downstairs too. In the kitchen I say, ‘Ta-ra,’ to Leanne’s mum. She says, ‘Goodbye, Carla, see you tomorrow.’ I run home, down the road, sixty houses, sixty even numbers, from 128 to 8. I can run all the way but I usually get a stitch by the time I reach the bend in the road where the weeping willow is.
Nana and Grandpa are still up. It’s only eight and they don’t go to bed until nine or sometimes ten. When I lived with my dad, he went to bed at midnight or after – I knew because I would hear the clock chime and then he would check the doors and switch off the lights and come upstairs. Now he lives in Australia and I live with my Nana and Grandpa and Ruth, my sister.
Ruth’s older than me – really too old to be living with her grandparents. She says that and so does Leanne’s mother, but Ruth says it’s because they cramp her style whereas Leanne’s mother says it’s because Ruth stays out too late and makes Nana and Grandpa worried and tired.
Nana says, ‘We’ll have some milk then, shall we?’ and Grandpa says, ‘Right-o.’ Nana and I go through to the kitchen to make it. She heats it up on the hob, and I fetch the cups and cut up the br
ead to put in Grandpa’s. We all have our milk different. We sit in the lounge, Grandpa eating his pobs with a spoon, Nana drinking her cocoa, and me with my milk ‘neat’ as Grandpa calls it. Nobody says anything much and the clock chimes the quarter-hours away until nine-thirty, and then Nana says, ‘Shall we head to bed?’ and Grandpa says, ‘Right-o.’ I run ahead because I’m fastest in the bathroom. I can do my ablutions in four minutes flat, but Grandpa takes an age even though it sounds as if he’s just standing still in there, every once in a while coughing and making the floorboards creak.
I have already been asleep when I hear Ruth come in. Sometimes I am woken in the early hours by her boyfriends’ noisy old bangers revving and farting outside our house before they finally drive away. But tonight, I only stir when I hear her trying to be quiet closing the door and coming up the stairs, forgetting to miss the squeaky steps. In the bathroom she flushes the toilet, and all the plumbing starts humming and pinging. I know she’s woken Nana and Grandpa up because as soon as she’s closed her bedroom door I hear them go to the bathroom one after the other, and then I hear Grandpa coughing for half an hour after.
At breakfast they curse the creaking of the stairs and the humming and pinging of the pipes; they say that in the early hours there’s nothing that keeps you awake more than that. Ruth picks through her scrambled eggs, and Nana says that Ruth needs to go to bed earlier. Ruth says that she doesn’t need much sleep, and Nana says, ‘No, maybe not, but look at my eye-bags.’
Nana comes to the door with me and leans down to let me kiss her cheek. I say, ‘Ta-ra,’ and she says, ‘Ta-ra,’ and I go off up the road to Leanne’s.
Her dad is coming out of the house when I get there, which is not the usual thing. Normally Leanne’s mum lets me in and sits me down at the kitchen table to wait for Leanne, who’s always ages getting ready. Her father will sit there and have just one more piece of toast and just one more cup of coffee and then just one more until he’s late and has to rush to work. It’s nice in their kitchen in the mornings, but not today.
Today there’s nobody in there, and it’s cold. The kettle’s boiled but there’s only his cup, and propped against the wall is a camp-bed. Leanne shouts for me to go upstairs, and as I pass her parents’ bedroom I see her mother sitting on the end of the bed. I know she smokes, but I have never seen her smoke in the house before, because Leanne’s father doesn’t like it. But today she is smoking in the house, on their bed, in her dressing gown.
While Leanne finishes getting ready, I look out of her window. I watch her father climbing into his new red car. When he got it, Leanne’s mother said who was he trying to impress with such a big flashy car? He starts the engine and rolls smoothly out of the driveway and onto the street.
We walk to school.
I say, ‘Have you got a visitor?’
‘What?’ says Leanne.
‘Have you got someone staying over? I saw the camp-bed.’
‘Oh,’ says Leanne, ‘Dad snores. Mum wanted a good night’s sleep.’
‘Oh,’ I say, ‘Right.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she says, and I flinch.
‘Nothing. I just mean, fine.’
‘Glad you think so,’ she says.
We walk on awkwardly. I would like to start again, to say, Have you done your maths homework? What have you got first thing? I would like not to have mentioned the camp-bed.
I say, ‘Have you done your maths homework?’
She says, ‘I suppose you think your family’s just perfect, don’t you?’ She pauses, but not long enough for me to think of an answer. ‘But your mum didn’t want you and your dad didn’t want you and your grandparents just want some company till they die.’
‘Leanne!’ I say, horrified.
‘Oh, piss off,’ she says. She has seen some other girls in our class, and she runs on ahead, leaving me crumpled and unhappy.
They have to wait at the pedestrian crossing, and I panic as I draw near, willing the lights to turn red and allow them across ahead of me, but they don’t. I stand behind them and wish I hadn’t asked about the camp-bed.
Before the lights have changed, Leanne has bad-mouthed me, Ruth and my grandparents, and it’s this last that makes me the most miserable. I try to stick up for them, to stop her mocking their slippers, the stairlift, the pobs and false teeth and early bed-times, but she just talks louder and louder until I let it go. I drop so far back that I arrive at school late and get told off. There is no note-passing in class or sandwich-swapping at lunch-time, and at the end of the day I walk home alone.
‘Not seeing Leanne tonight?’ Nana asks.
‘No,’ I say. ‘Not tonight.’
‘Shall we have some telly on then?’
Grandpa says, ‘Right-o.’
I don’t answer. I knot myself up in an armchair and we watch Coronation Street while Nana worries about my spine.
Later, she says, ‘We’ll have some milk then, shall we?’
Grandpa says, ‘Right-o.’
I say, ‘No, thanks.’ Both she and Grandpa look up at me, startled. I relent. I drink my milk, neat, and then we head to bed. Nana tries to bustle me up the stairs playfully, and I am resistant at first, not at all playful; but I see her become sad, and so I smile, I laugh, I run ahead and into the bathroom to do my four-minute ablutions before jumping into bed and pulling the starched white cotton sheets up to my chin. Nana comes and kisses me goodnight, and then leaves me in the dark and quiet room listening to the sparse and gentle traffic on the street beneath my window.
Tonight, I can’t sleep. I sit up and watch the comings and goings outside. Had I been asleep, I would not have been disturbed by the car that brings Ruth home, that purrs and rolls smoothly to a stop. This car is not a noisy old banger; it is new and red, big and flashy.
There is a long, slow kiss before Ruth climbs out and adjusts her clothing. The driver pulls away, sneaking off up the street and disappearing around the bend where the weeping willow is.
While the stairs creak beneath Ruth’s feet, I slip back down under my covers and listen to Ruth and then Nana and then Grandpa making the plumbing hum and ping, and in the early hours there’s nothing that keeps you awake more than that.
The Egg
William stands at the window, looking out through the snow-speckled glass. There was no summer to speak of, and now, already, it is winter. The first frost arrived overnight, and now the snow. In the small garden, and over the wall in the sprawling park, on the heath and the paths and the frozen lake, it is starting to settle.
Water drips from his damp hair, the greyed remains of it, trickling down the neck of his dressing gown. He looks down at his bare feet, at the blue veins in his winter-pale and water-softened skin, at his bloated ankles, their waxy appearance. They do not look like his; they look like somebody else’s.
In the bathroom, his wet footprints are already evaporating from the tiled floor.
The boy was in the park, standing in the wet grass, when William went into the garden to fill the bird table. He watched the boy bending and picking up a stone, holding it in both hands and inspecting it, and then dropping it back into the long grass.
William, standing on his lawn with his hands full of leftovers, said, ‘Have you lost something?’
The boy looked up at him, came closer and stood near the gate, resting his hands on the low wall, on the damp stones. His canvas shoes were soaked and his trousers were wet around the ankles as if the water were climbing his legs. Under the gate, by the boy’s feet, there was a puddle full of dead leaves.
Downstairs, William makes breakfast, cutting the rind from the bacon and cracking an egg into a bowl, finding a blood spot in the yolk. His bare feet chill on the kitchen’s cold stone floor. The snow is falling densely now, settling on the windowsill, pressing up against the windowpane. There is no traffic on the road behind the cottage, and
nobody in the park. It is almost silent; any sound is muffled. William whisks his egg.
On the table, there is a shard of rock. He looks at it while he drinks his coffee.
He takes the rinds and crusts out to the bird table, gazing out at the trees, at their cold, bare limbs, and up at the empty sky, looking for the birds.
There are pigeons on the roof. He hears them in the night, the scrabbling and scratching of their claws on the slate. There are geese and swans in the park. There is bird mess spattered and encrusted on the sandstone; there is dark green slime on the grass.
Not much has changed about the sandstone cottage since he was a boy. The garden is just the same, the grass a little long, the shrubs a little overgrown. On the front door there is a lion’s head knocker. When William was little he liked to touch it, tracing the cold curves of the lion’s face. In the hallway, by the door, are his mother’s shoes with mud still on the heel, as if she has just stepped out of them, as if they would still be warm inside. In the living room, her vinyl is stacked by the record player, a favourite on the turntable. Her clothes, hanging in the wardrobe in the master bedroom, smell of mothballs.
The boy moved his hands from the cold coping stones into the deep pockets of his duffel coat. The coat was the colour of holly berries and made William think of winter.
‘How old are you?’ asked the boy.
William, turning to drop the bacon rind and the toast crusts onto the bird table, said, ‘Shouldn’t you be in school?’