Mother had commented that you’d liked me and for some reason I found I hadn’t told her that we had promised to meet. I’d paid money on the coconut shy, no other customers around so we had talked. You had leant against the wooden stall, straw on the ground, and in a soft voice you told me you had moved to be nearer home as your dad was ill, you’d left Bristol, where you’d be training to be a chef. Your dad normally ran the coconut shy but he hadn’t been able. Your face filled with hurt. I knew what it was like to love a parent yet still feel trapped. I stayed there as others threw the wooden balls at the coconuts, the two of us both aware of each other as you hurried the children along, giving out balls, wanting the bushel box to empty, wanting to keep talking.
Mother had come along and I had gone to say a quiet goodbye. She had seen Stanley on a stall, wanted to buy some horseradish sauce, and my whole body drooped with relief as she stepped away.
You’d asked me, quickly then, if you could take me out and I’d blurted a yes. I couldn’t have you telephone the house and it was that thought that made me so bold. This was my moment. Mother would be back soon with her horseradish. I suggested the museum in the town centre. You’d never been. You said you’d find it. Next Saturday. Alright. Two o’clock. I’ll be there.
I’d hugged the secret to my chest all week. I meant to tell her but Mother had always been so intense, I felt the house and the things inside it had become part of me, always there. I wanted something just for me.
The months that followed were the happiest of my life. That summer felt like an endless day of sunshine, walks along the river, lying in our copse on the bank, hidden by a curtain of willow trees, holding hands, kissing, whispering sweet nothings. Once the summer was over, I introduced you, pretended to Mother that we had only just met. She didn’t remember the boy from the coconut shy.
Your dad’s health improved and you asked me to move back to Bristol with you. I had to think about it. I didn’t have to think about it.
I said yes.
Mother cried.
‘Don’t, please, don’t leave me.’
She pleaded but I was firm. I needed to leave. The small world we lived in was too claustrophobic, too much. The endless card games, the tick of the clock, the cleaning rituals, the same rooms, the same figurines, the same way she breathed, the same look in her eye: such love. Sometimes I had to look away.
I tried to keep a reassuring smile on my face as I painted the picture of a future.
‘You can visit!, Bristol isn’t far. Of course we’ll spend Christmas together, nothing will change.’
I was convincing myself too. She begged me not to go, not to leave her on her own.
You told me it was my choice.
I chose you.
But we never moved to Bristol. You collapsed in a Saturday football match I was watching, the ambulance ride a terrifying blur of memory and then the hospital, the faces of the doctor, and holding your dad as he collapsed against me. Leaving.
Home to the only other person I had ever loved. The world I had been about to discover over, I was grateful over the coming weeks and months for her cloying affection, quick to immerse myself in the pretence that it had always been just the two of us.
She let me grieve for you. I wept and wailed.
She told me to write to you, to pour my love, my memories, onto the page. Every Wednesday I sit and imagine you reading the words, my letters to you, reliving our precious moments, unveiling memories from my past, reminiscing about our times together.
I lost you and now I might lose Billy. The energetic, lonely, angry, gorgeous little boy with his cheeky humour and his green fingers. He might leave the hospital but I have lost him. And I know now that loss will hurt me just as much.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
BILLY
I felt woozy as I came to, unsure for a moment where I was, the room a strange blue hue, a figure bent over me in a chair next to the bed I was lying on.
‘Mum?’ I croaked, the word barely recognisable.
The figure shot up, Mum’s hair askew, wiping at her face. ‘Billy, thank God, hey…’ she whispered, her eyes crinkling, red-rimmed even in this light.
I tried to move, feeling my body ache, my head spin.
She placed a hand on my arm. ‘Stay still, darling, you’ve got concussion, they’ve said. They’re checking up on you.’
‘What… how…?’ I needed a sip of water, a strange blur of images in my mind, made weirder by this room, the dark windows, the flashes on machines above me, the odd beep.
‘Do you remember much?’
‘I fell… I…’ I wanted water. Mum seemed to work that out, twisting the top from a bottle and holding it up to me. My head screamed with pain as I leant forward to take a sip, the water dribbling down my chin.
She dabbed at me. ‘I’m sorry, I’m… Oh God, I’m so relieved, Billy! I thought…’ She was crying, tears smattering my arm, the thin gown I was wearing.
I’d been at Elsie’s house, I’d fallen.
‘I fell…’ I said.
Mum nodded, one hand to her mouth as if she wanted to cram the tears back in.
‘They X-rayed your wrist,’ she said, ‘no fracture.’
A head peeked around the door, a large black nurse in a well-ironed pale blue uniform. ‘He’s awake,’ she said, smiling.
Mum gave her a nod.
‘Your mother hasn’t left your side,’ the nurse said, moving across to the bed, her voice a little too loud, making me squint. ‘She’s been worried sick. You are a lucky boy to have a mum who loves you like that.’
I wanted to nod but everything ached and my eyes were fluttering shut.
‘I’ll come round again when it’s time for medication,’ the nurse said over me as I struggled to stay in the room. ‘What are you doing, young man, leaping off buildings?’
I couldn’t laugh or smile, couldn’t join in, the strange blue room spinning.
‘Well, you let us look after you now, and stop your mum worrying, eh?’
‘Thank you,’ Mum said, stroking my hand.
The nurse left and I felt so tired, glad of the pillow, my mum’s hand.
It was only then that I saw it, lying on the bedspread.
Mum saw my panic. I reached for it, felt a sharp pain, and I was lying back again.
‘Hey,’ she said, stilling me with an arm.
She picked up the mobile and turned it over, her mouth turned down, her eyes sad. ‘I found it in your jeans pocket. I didn’t know… I…’
Normally she’d be angry but there was no way she could shout at me in this blue room, when I was like this, and for a second I was glad we were in the hospital.
‘Where did you get it?’ she asked, turning it over again. ‘I haven’t looked at it,’ she added, her eyes solemn.
Suddenly it all felt so much worse and I wished she was angry at me. I stared at it, feeling an unease in the pit of my stomach, remembering then what I had done.
‘A friend gave it to me,’ I said, wanting to draw away her attention.
Mum nodded. ‘I should have got you one. I… I was worried that…’ She tailed away, her whole body hunched over.
‘It’s OK,’ I whispered, ‘I should have told you about it.’
‘You didn’t, haven’t…’ Mum looked up, wiping uselessly at her face again. ‘You haven’t contacted Dad?’ she asked, her eyes rounded.
I swallowed, eyes flickering for a moment to the side before I shook my head, a pain swift and sudden. ‘No,’ I replied quietly.
She slumped in relief and I felt sickness, a swirl in my stomach. Should I tell her? Would anything come of it? What could really be so wrong?
‘I’m sorry, Billy,’ she started to cry, turning the phone over again in her hand, ‘I don’t blame you hiding it, I know I’ve kept things from you, I haven’t wanted to… to ruin things for you. Haven’t really known how to explain…’
I was too weak to say anything in response, Mum so sad and broken, bunched up in
the chair, stroking my good arm. Memories rose up and were quickly pushed down again. Dad’s face, my heart beating in my chest as I studied the change in his expression. Did I know what Mum was trying to say? He was my dad, he loved me. He could say nice things, he let me do stuff Mum didn’t. He’s a good man, isn’t he? He misses me, doesn’t he?
‘I had to leave him. I… I was so frightened that he might, that he might…’ she swallowed, ‘start on you…’ She glanced at the door to the room, lowering her voice. ‘He was, I…’
She was struggling with whatever it was she was trying to say and I watched her frown, open her mouth, shut it again. My head was heavy on the pillow, woozy and full of too many thoughts.
‘I was scared of him,’ she said in a whisper. ‘I didn’t want to admit it. There was no warning, I didn’t know what might set him off.’ She was sat straighter, the mobile turning, turning in her hands as she talked. ‘He hadn’t done anything in years, had promised me when you were born all of that was behind him. He had been a bad drunk, knew it made him worse, and I’d believed him. And it did stop. We were happy, weren’t we?’ She smiled, choking on her words. ‘And I convinced myself it was all different, he was a father, the change was real. But then he got into trouble on some of his jobs, I was nagging him, he’d said I was always on at him…’ She paused, licking her lips.
She hadn’t nagged him, a voice inside me said. I remembered those days, getting back from school and Dad sat on the sofa, in the clothes we’d left him in. I had homework and he wanted to help but explained it all wrong, not like the teacher, and he slammed two hands down on the side of the textbook and that made me jump, like I’d been burnt. And I was too scared to look at him. Little dots of his spit on the page. The teacher was an idiot. Yes, she was.
I blinked. An ache behind my eyes, building as the scene played over and over again in my head, as Mum’s quiet voice continued.
‘Sometimes he’d raise his voice, or he’d, he’d…’ Her eyes slid from my face to a spot above my shoulder. ‘He’d hold me, bruise me, but,’ she said, putting on a cheerful voice as if she was back there, convincing herself, ‘it was small, not often enough. Everyone’s allowed a slip up or two, I thought.’
I’d seen her hold her arm and wince when she opened the fridge, going all small, her eyes looking down when he’d walked into the room. I’d seen it. But how had I not realised?
‘And then, slowly, things got worse and I knew I had to save us, had to get us out of there before he… You were getting bigger, you’d challenge him too and I couldn’t let him, I couldn’t let him…’ She broke down then, her face crumpling, a watery mess before she pulled herself together, dabbing at her eyes. ‘And then, that day, you were at school, he…’
I squeezed her hand. She stopped talking. I didn’t know what he’d done that last day. I’d got home from school and the coffee table was broken and the glass all smashed. Dad had gone out and Mum was acting all funny, not really looking at me as she told me to get to bed early, wincing as she washed something up at the sink. Something had happened, I knew that, but I knew not to ask any questions. Then she’d shaken me awake in the night. I’d followed her, knowing, the secret part of me knowing why we weren’t telling Dad, why we were leaving in the dark.
She stared at my hand, squeezed me back. ‘But we are safe, Billy.’ She leant forward, resting her forehead on my arm. ‘We are safe and I’m talking to solicitors and I’m getting a divorce, a restraining order too, and we won’t have to see him again. He can’t get to us, he doesn’t know where we live.’
I couldn’t speak, going over everything she was saying.
Her eyes were large and round, face pale, as she looked up at me. ‘And I’m so sorry, Billy, I’m so sorry for not telling you all this before.’
She sat back, the confession over.
My eyes flicked to the phone in her hand and I thought of the message I had sent him. Swallowing, I felt dizzy again: he knew where we lived, he knew exactly where we lived.
‘Mum, I’m going to—’
Leaning over the side of the bed, I vomited.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
ELSIE
She had barely slept, wrapping herself in a blanket on her sofa, jumping every time headlights passed in the road outside, dozing in fitful spurts.
They didn’t come home.
She lingered the next day beside the telephone. Could she call the hospital? What would they tell her? Perhaps he had taken a turn in the night? She lifted the receiver, going to dial, before returning it.
She needed bread, cereal, things to eat, the kitchen practically bare these days. She daren’t leave the house to get them, might miss them returning. She needed to see that he was alright, that he hadn’t done any serious damage. She couldn’t get the image of him lying on that silver trolley, head lolling as she clung to him, out of her head.
Blinking, she got up, boiling the kettle for the sixth time, forgetting why, walking off again and beginning the whole process once more.
‘But I don’t deserve him,’ she said aloud, ‘and you are to blame for that too.’
How she would squeeze him if she saw him now, tell him how sorry she was, make him feel safe and secure. He had just been an inquisitive little boy, he had just wanted friends and she had behaved abominably. Then she thought of Samantha’s face and knew there was no way she would be allowed to see him, the damage had been done. She didn’t deserve him; she didn’t.
She was back in the front room, her heart lifting at the sight of a taxi on the other side of the road. A man stepped out and her shoulders dropped. He looked left and right before crossing the road, a slip of paper in his hand, something familiar in his gait.
She frowned as he walked up to her gate, closely-shaven dark hair, a muscular build: where had she seen him before? Surprising her, he turned and pushed the gate to next door, moving up the path, a set expression on his face that made her edge sideways, half-hidden behind her curtain as she watched him. He cupped his hand to the glass and then dropped back, staring up at the house. Something about the way he was looking gave her a chill and she hugged her arms to her chest. What did he want?
The man had gone, walking back through the gate and left towards the village, as Elsie crept back into the middle of the room. Something wasn’t right. She needed to stay and keep watch.
The day dragged on, Elsie’s movements sluggish, her stomach empty. She would be gone a matter of minutes, she decided, knowing she was close to falling asleep on her feet, the long, broken night catching up with her. She fetched her handbag and locked the door quickly, surprised by the warmth of the day, a hopeful sun in the cornflower-blue sky, a gentle breeze as she stepped onto the pavement.
She walked quickly, wanting to get back, fearful she would miss him. A few people were out in the village today, shopping bags slung over shoulders, the sign outside the library advertising Rhyme Time. As she approached two mothers, she recognised Scarlet dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, her baby facing outward in a carrier on her front. She was stroking his little feet and he was giggling as she chatted with another young mum, her baby in a pram, waving a toy giraffe. Elsie nodded as she passed, a quiet hello, flushing as Scarlet turned to acknowledge her and then clamped up on seeing who it was who had greeted her with a mumble. Shame flamed through her as she thought back to her rudeness in the library, a brand-new connection and she had fallen at the first hurdle. She walked quicker, only just avoiding the man in front of her.
She almost walked into him. He was staring at the noticeboard in the window of the Post Office, scowling as she drew up short. It was the same man she had seen outside the house. Tall with wide shoulders, his eyebrows drawn together as she fussed an apology.
Her fist squeezed tightly to the strap of her handbag as she looked into his eyes, a familiar shade of grey. ‘Sorry, I wasn’t looking,’ she said, still aware she was staring.
He had already turned back, scanning the noticeboard. Then with a huff he step
ped inside and Elsie felt her whole body relax as he disappeared through the door.
Milk, bread, cereal… she loaded what she could and moved back up the road, sweat pooling – she was impossibly overdressed for the day. As she approached home, she looked for signs that something had changed but their windows were still in darkness, the gate set at the same angle it had been before: they were still not back.
She felt an added urgency now, knowing the man in the village was significant, certainty forming like a stone in her stomach.
As if she conjured them up, a taxi drew up outside the house and she stood in the street watching as Samantha stepped out, glaring as Elsie stood, breath suspended, watching the open door of the car. And then, ever so slowly, he stepped out, his arm in a sling, purple shadows under his eyes: Billy.
She bit her lip, took a step forward. ‘Billy, oh thank God, I…’
Samantha was ushering him through their gate. ‘Don’t,’ she called, ‘don’t talk to my son.’
Elsie felt her eyes fill with tears, nodded. It was what she deserved. Hadn’t she just wanted to see that he was alright? Her heart filled with the sight of him, slowly moving up his path, wincing as his mother hurried him. He glanced over his shoulder and Elsie couldn’t help the tearful smile that filled her face, his expression unreadable as he disappeared into the house.
Then she remembered, dithering on the pavement before making up her mind. This was important. She moved up the path, ringing the doorbell. Samantha pulled the door back on its chain. A suspicious eye.
‘I wanted to tell you someone…’ she began.
‘I don’t want to hear it,’ Samantha replied, going to close the door. Elsie placed her foot in the gap, surprising both of them, bracing herself for the pain. ‘What are you…? I’ve got to get to work,’ Samantha said.
The Garden of Lost Memories Page 20