All Bones and Lies

by Anne Fine

  Oh, should he hell! His whole damn life was one long wail of ‘Colin this’ and ‘Colin that’. Damned if he wanted any more people of flesh and blood to drain him dry and send him whimpering in one direction after another to serve their own purposes. Suzie was his. That was the point of her. Over the years, he’d built the two of them a little world in which he pulled the cigarettes he’d never smoked from his lips, dropped them where no one dared frown at him for careless littering, and ground them beneath the heel of boots he’d feel a fool to wear. ‘Come here,’ he told her. And she came. And stood obediently while he peeled off her itsy-bitsy top and frilly skirt, and turned her round to that strange, featureless ledge that always materialized at just the right moment, just the right height, and took her – hard, successfully, and very fast.

  Christ! Where were the tissues? Standing on tiptoes to scrabble behind the paint tins, he caught a glimpse of willie dangling and felt an idiot. The matches were so damp it took an age to start the bonfire in the tobacco tin. And by the time he’d prudently transferred the old toaster from the dustbin to the back of his car, and peeled the stickers off the apples, it was late enough to leave Mother to telly and one of her mysterious invisible suppers.

  He found her sitting on the three-legged stool beneath the stairs. He found the sight of it oddly unnerving. In all the years they’d lived in Holly House, he’d never seen his mother on that seat (nor sat on it himself since the first time, in teenage, she’d told him sharply to go park his fat bum on something more his own size). It was disquieting to see her perched somewhere so strange, yet so familiar.

  Wisps of her hair were lifting in the draught that he himself brought in with him.

  ‘I’ll see you upstairs, shall I?’

  She opened her eyes with a start. ‘No, no. I’ve one or two small things to do before I settle.’

  She launched into her usual evening litany about turning down heaters and putting out bottles. It didn’t ease his sense of deep disquiet. Somehow, not having seen her on that stool before, he saw her differently. Like someone else’s mum. Frail, valiant, vulnerable. This was no time to scold her about toasters, or even tick her off for ruining his reputation along the backs. He’d end up having to explain how the whole story got started. She’d miss the start of her programme and get ratty. And he was starving.

  It could wait a day.

  ‘Right, then,’ he said. ‘I’ll just pop in tomorrow, shall I?’

  She shooed the idea away with her hand. ‘You don’t have to drag your carcass round here two nights in a row just because it’s my birthday.’

  Her birthday?

  ‘No, no,’ he said, without a flicker. ‘I’ve got it planned. I’ll be here.’

  He pulled the door behind him, close to tears. Oh, things were very wrong. What was the matter with her? How could a woman who had spent her days so primed for self-pity, skilled at brewing rancour and brilliant at inspiring guilt, have handed over, seemingly without a thought, a chance like this? Could greed for victimhood, like any other human appetite, suddenly fail, to leave a nicer – but a different – person? No one he recognized, that was for sure. Why, that last little exchange could have been with a stranger. The mother he knew would never, ever, in all the years he could remember, have tossed away that quite extraordinary opportunity – almost a Martyr’s Holy Grail – of letting her own son forget her birthday.

  He brooded on it down the path, and through the long root in his pockets to find his keys. At least the car started. As he pulled out from the kerb, a dark van further down the street nosed out as well. He hated people on his tail – especially neighbours, who from his very first days behind the wheel had been anxious to report to his mother his most venial infraction. Tonight, after his supposed perfidy, the curtains would be twitching all down the street. Slamming the brakes on more out of prudence than from courtesy, he gave a little flash, and waited.

  The van stayed put.

  ‘Fine,’ Colin murmured. ‘Don’t mind me. I’ve got all night.’ And he did truly feel, for once, as if time didn’t really matter. Tired by the endless fretting about his mother, already his mind was straying back to more seductive poolside matters. And such was his fondness for Suzie and her sheer trouble-free amenability, even in retrospect, that it was quite a while before he even noticed that the van was so close it was blocking his mirror.

  And, even when he noticed, he didn’t mind.

  On the mat under his letterbox was one of those cheap, almost furry, brown envelopes into which Clarrie spent a large part of her day resentfully shovelling letters. He tore it open, hoping for one mad moment it was her resignation, and was put out to find a letter from his own council threatening him with legal action on the matter of a two-year-old bill for a gas fire.

  He dropped it in his briefcase, wondering if he should phone up Dil to get a tip or two on how to sort out Arif in Accounts. At the same time he could fish for suggestions on what to get Mother for her birthday. Unlike the girls in the office, Dilys would understand the difficulty of finding the right thing – though, to be fair, their mother couldn’t be the only old person in the world to make a virtue of not wanting anything. In this respect, the lofty-minded pensioner could be a real pain. It wasn’t, after all, as if they didn’t need things. But what they needed were the sorts of things you weren’t allowed to get for birthdays. ‘Oh, lovely, dear! I’d been thinking about getting a sturdier hand rail.’ ‘A brand-new panic button! And in my colour – silver-grey!’ A tragic waste, especially with those who made a point of not appreciating proper presents. ‘But, dear. There’s nothing wrong with my old bath sponge.’ ‘What would I want with any mobile telephone? I’m barely mobile.’

  Neither could Norah be alone in making a point of being grumpy on birthdays. ‘Oh, don’t remind me! I did at least have hopes of celebrating this one underground.’ No, there were fortunes to be made in presents for the ageing citizen. The Old Folk’s Anti-Birthday Hamper. It could include all those expensive luxuries they’d always thought so over-rated: champagne and caviare, foie gras, organic jams – maybe even a few exotic fruits they could leave ostentatiously rotting in the bowl. Sometimes it seemed to Colin that nothing brought greater pleasure to his mother and her neighbours than simple disapproval – unless it were being able to ram home with condolences the very worst of news. ‘I’m told that Dora will be laid up for several months. And you with your bad back! How awful for you both. You’ll be pretty well housebound now, the two of you. I am sorry.’

  A way of offering that sort of birthday pleasure would take some detailed working out. No time to muse. To get advice from Dilys, he’d have to make the phone call now. He could begin with an apology for rushing away from her private little get-together – ask after Marjorie, that kind of thing.

  It might seem natural. Other people did it.

  Give it a try.

  She picked up on the first ring. ‘Colin! The very man! Have you only just got back? I’ve been ringing and ringing.’

  ‘Me? Why?’

  ‘Why? To apologize, of course.’

  If he had ever heard the word from her before, he had no memory of it. ‘Apologize?’ Stifling the astonished, ‘You?’, he managed to ask instead, ‘What on earth for?’

  ‘For letting that awful Marjorie fix her infected fangs into your leg and shake you about like that.’

  That awful Marjorie?

  ‘Oh, so she’s gone, then?’

  He heard her sip from what he guessed was one more little top-up, and with a rare stab of fraternal sympathy asked, ‘Are you sorry?’

  ‘Sorry? I was glad to see the back of her.’ He heard ice tinkling. ‘In fact I’m having a field day. Tara just rang—’

  (Tara. Try to remember that.)

  ‘-to tell me Perdita’s been given the push.’

  ‘Perdita’s sacked?’

  ‘Not sacked, exactly. But moved out of Sales back to Insurance.’

  Thank Christ he’d swapped that toaster. �
�I expect she’ll enjoy it back there,’ he said bitterly. ‘Poking through Mum’s insurance for irregularities.’

  ‘No.’ Dil’s voice was mellow with gin and satisfaction. ‘Not even that bit. They’ve shunted her into a little sideline called Policy Promotions.’ She waited for his gasp, then, realizing he wasn’t informed enough to offer one, told him, ‘It’s where they shove all the board members’ work-experience children for the summer, and anyone they’re scared will sue them if they’re sacked outright.’ She snorted. ‘I’m afraid that the rest of us tend to refer to it as “The Tor Pit”!’

  Clearly the news had brought her unadulterated pleasure. And that was good, since, in her merry state, she for once might manage to advise him without delivering a lecture.

  ‘Dil, any ideas for something for Mother’s birthday?’

  Out it came, pat. ‘A snowstorm.’

  How drunk was she, for God’s sake? ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Not a real one, silly. One of those glass domes you pick up and shake.’

  He had a sudden memory of perfect happiness – of sitting drenched in moonlight, safe out of sight between the winter curtains and cold panes, shaking his precious glass ball and watching trapped flecks of snow swirl round and round some jovial Santa in another world.

  ‘Colin?’

  ‘Sorry. Miles away.’

  ‘I saw the most fabulous one only today in “Gifts from the Gods”. A man in a blue cloak striding through snow. Could he have been Good King Wenceslas? It struck me the moment I saw it as the sort of thing I would have bought as a present for Mother.’

  Was Norah so much in her mind, after five years? He trod as carefully as he could. ‘Well, if you happened to be thinking of getting her something yourself . . .’

  ‘Don’t be so silly, Colin.’

  It was worth trying. ‘But you could.’

  ‘Why should I?’

  He was astonished not to hear himself saying hastily, ‘No reason,’ but rather, ‘Well, someone has to start up again.’

  She sounded more puzzled than hostile. ‘Why?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, somewhat desperately. ‘For one thing, she’d be pleased.’

  Out came the snort. ‘Pleased? Do me a favour, Colin! A bit intrigued, perhaps. Suspicious, definitely. But never pleased.’

  Spot on, as usual. She couldn’t have drunk that much since Marjorie walked out the door. So why did he persist in arguing? ‘No, I think it would mean a lot.’ Why was he lying? What was this drive in him to make her think about putting things right between herself and Mother before they reached the state where nothing mattered any more? ‘I think she’d care. Really.’

  ‘Colin, we’ve talked about this before. You can’t be nasty to people all your life, then expect them to come round again just because you’re old.’

  He could tell from her tone that she thought what she said would wrap up the whole matter. She wasn’t expecting him to bounce back as he did. ‘She hasn’t been that bad.’

  That lit the fuse. ‘Oh yes, she has. You know she bloody has. Don’t get forgetful on me now, Col. You shared it. You were there.’

  He couldn’t stop. It was exhilarating. (And possibly unprecedented, unless you counted that feverish spat the day he came down with the chicken pox.) ‘But maybe she was trying. By her lights.’

  Clearly his sister would take a very tough line on You Be the Judge. ‘Not bloody hard enough.’

  ‘And we’re not children any more.’

  ‘No. But she still puts the boot in when she’s bored. See how she fell on that crap about you marrying behind her back because it gave her the chance to blacken you in front of her friends and the neighbours.’

  He felt light-hearted, just from the business of holding his corner. ‘Be fair. Perdita probably made it sound pretty convincing.’

  ‘Oh, really, Col! Do try not to be more of a dim bulb than the good Lord made you. People like Mother, they’re like witches stirring trouble. The truth means nothing. Nothing! And nor does anyone else’s reputation. They’re so wrapped up in their own little ways of burning up their twisted energies that they forget other people actually exist.’

  ‘You’re making her sound practically psychotic.’

  ‘All right, then. Other people exist. But their feelings don’t matter – well, certainly not enough to stop her snaring them in her horrible, mean-minded little pursuits whenever it suits her.’

  And she was right. His mother knew that she’d been spreading lies. And lies did matter. He had a sudden memory of Val curled at the very end of the sofa, explaining why they had to tell even their youngest patients they were going to die. ‘We have to,’ she’d said simply. ‘Lies and deception just can’t be reconciled with trust and respect.’ Or with love, he had thought since. And now his sister was only saying the same thing in a different way. ‘People like her, they spread their own sort of immoral ooze that poisons everything between people.’ But Val’s line had been born from caring. And Dilys’s was different, because it stemmed from old resentments, ancient hates. And it was always easier to be a moralist where it most suited. So he pressed on. ‘But things are different now.’

  ‘How, different?’

  ‘Mother’s changing.’

  ‘Because it suits her! Colin, you’re such a fool to let her get away with it! It’s so damn brazen – like that loophole for Catholics in that poem Mrs Barker made you learn when you brought all those maggots into the lunch hall.’

  ‘I didn’t bring them in. Somebody in that foul gang of yours tipped out my sandwiches and filled—’

  ‘Something about “mercy this” and “mercy that”.’

  It flooded back, to startle him. ‘Betwixt the stirrup and the ground, Mercy I asked, mercy I found.’

  ‘Well, I remember Mother being scathing. And now look. She acts mean and nasty all her life, then cops out at the end. No, it’s despicable.’ Again, he heard ice tinkling. ‘And whatever you’re up to, Colin, I don’t want anything to do with it. She’s like a sort of moral syphilis. I’m staying away.’

  And who could blame her, he wondered, putting down the phone. Who could say she was wrong? Like so many other things to do with Mother, this was nothing to do with ‘good’ or ‘right’. It was a matter of temperament, and if his sister had been born with a leaning to fatwa, then bloody good luck to her. It must save a fortune in greetings cards. No Mum. No Val. No Perdita. And now no Marjorie. No doubt it was important to have both sorts of person in the world. With judgement strewn all over, there’d be no room for charity or mercy. And if the forgiving ruled, there’d be no judgement (and, as Mrs Barker used to say when she marked down his messy work after Tess had been kicking his chair back all morning, ‘To spare the bad, Colin Riley, is tantamount to injuring the good’). Neither could sinners like Mother be excused on grounds of ignorance, or ‘Things were different then’. That sort of line might wash with trespasses like doctors not washing their hands before germs were discovered, or Clarrie’s teachers leaving her pretty well totally to her own benighted devices in the misguided hope she might still learn things. But how could it be that someone of Norah’s quick intelligence could ever truly have believed her children must take on the chin whatever she, in her frustrated miseries, had simply felt like dishing out?

  So, yes. Good luck to Dilys. Stay away. Don’t come back now. Don’t lend a hand. Hold firm, as things get worse and more and more visits have to be made, and toasters confiscated and windchimes stuffed with paper. But how come he didn’t feel, as usual, that he was being dealt the poorer hand? Because he didn’t. He couldn’t help it. Usually at times like these, a little wallow in self-pity had been his compensation. This time it didn’t come. He sat there waiting, but he just felt chirpy. Somehow he was sure in his bones that, right as his sister might be in principle – and she had justice on her side, no doubt of that – not only was he utterly incapable of slamming the door between himself and his mother, but there was something in it for him over and above more b
loody drudgery.

  It’s just he wasn’t yet sure what it was. Or how he’d recognize it when it came.

  8

  CLARRIE WAS ON him before he’d even got through the door. ‘No point in taking your jacket off. The police rang. You’re to go down Sperivale Road.’

  ‘Sperivale Road?’ His heart flipped. ‘Why? Is it the restaurants?’

  She gave her little how-should-I-know? shrug before swivelling back to whatever it was she’d just lost on the computer. No need to ask. It had to be the restaurants. And what with it still being early enough for the snarl-up at Hammer Road not to have cleared yet, it was quite possible that, by the time he arrived, the police would have sorted the matter out nicely. It was a cheerful Colin who walked down the stairs and found that, even after the slightly unpleasant stand-off with Herbert in the Mice’n’Maggots van in the narrow car-park entrance, it was his gears, and not his spirits, that had slid hastily in reverse.

  After a satisfactorily long wait at the Sperivale lights, he pulled round the corner. The narrow strip of pavement outside the restaurants was bright with condiments. Mr Haksar stood flanked by brothers, uncles and sons, watching his sister-in-law shriek from an upstairs window. All the Lees stood in a line, alternately jeering and looking bored. And the pair of police officers appeared to have parked their buttocks so very comfortably on the wall as to practically invite accusations of idling. ‘Waiting for you,’ they explained when Colin pulled up the van outside New China Heaven and stepped out, crunching on a sea of coriander.

  Colin said hopefully, ‘I suppose it’s a police matter now,’ and then, disquieted by two blank looks, added firmly and hastily, ‘What with the public disturbance.’

  One of the officers lifted an eyebrow.

  ‘All this palaver,’ insisted Colin, taking care not to step in a pile of boiled noodles.

  The younger of the policemen jerked a thumb. ‘Well, when that tin of yellow stuff hit the side door, Geoffrey here did think we might have an “intentional or reckless” on our hands . . .’