You Be Mother

by Meg Mason

  ‘So Birj,’ he said in a purr. ‘Sylvie has decided to take Ludo with her next week after all, so I find myself quite, quite alone. We obviously can’t leave town, what with the little production of ours, but I thought we might go to ground, if you felt so inclined.’

  ‘At yours?’ Brigitta asked hopefully.

  ‘No, darling. Best not. But I’m thinking quite seriously of splashing out on a toothbrush for Kentish Town. I know it’s not a weekend in Venice, but what do you think?’

  ‘All right then, why don’t you?’ she said. ‘I’m sure Venice is horrible anyway.’

  Although privately she was disappointed that she was yet to see the inside of his house, she knew better than to let Guy see her sulk. His affection had a way of cooling when she showed displeasure.

  ‘Right, well, that’s sorted then. Unless that’s you trembling in my presence, I think you’ve a phone call so I’ll leave you to it, Birj. Be sweet will you and kill those lights off before you punch out.’

  She could have done with a kiss but he was already sauntering towards the exit.

  ‘Pol, hi,’ she said, tucking the phone under her hair and making no mention of her sister’s twelve missed calls.

  ‘Brigitta, bloody hell. Did you see I’ve been trying to ring?’ Polly gave one of her expansive sighs, which in Brigitta’s experience could mean anything from Freddie’s written off another rental car, to Toby’s suddenly refusing to eat anything that isn’t white. ‘Mum called. She did something to her foot. Broken it, possibly, although it could be a greenstick sort of thing. I really think one of us should go over. I’ll pay for your flights of course.’

  ‘My flights? Polly, I can’t go. How on earth could I go? Did you hear I’m in a play?’

  ‘There’s no need to be chippy, Brigitta. I obviously can’t go. I’ve already used up every kind of leave there is, and did you hear I’ve got two children?’

  ‘Did she actually say she needs one of us to go and see her?’

  ‘No, but it’s our duty. She sounded so pitiful on the phone, Briggy. You’d have wept.’

  ‘Why can’t Freddie go? He’s nearest. I assume.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Briggy. He’d have her bringing him breakfast in bed. Can you not just sneak off for a week? It’s not like you’re the lead. Or is there another reason you can’t be away?’

  ‘Gosh, do you need to be so bossy, Polly?’ Brigitta asked. ‘Really, unattractively mannish. I’m not going. Sorry. I can’t. Philly will just have to tough this one out.’

  Polly hung up without saying goodbye, which gave Brigitta a start.

  ‘Fuck,’ she said, into the empty theatre. And then three times more, louder and louder each time, until she felt sure she’d reached the back row. Our target should always be the pensioner who’s paid twelve pounds for a spot against the wall, Guy was always saying.

  Brigitta held her resolve as she let herself out of the theatre, but when an image of her mother hobbling around the big house by herself, trying to manage the stairs with a stick, invaded her thoughts in the Australian pinots section of Majestic Wine Warehouse, she texted Polly. ‘Fine, book it. A week max. Premium economy or better. I honestly think I might hate you.’

  ‘Good girl. Be ready for a Tuesday a.m.’ Polly immediately wrote back, which made Brigitta want to hurl her phone under a passing bus.

  She phoned Guy next and told him she was going to have to fly home, an emergency, and miss most of next week’s rehearsals.

  ‘Domestic drama isn’t my genre, Birj,’ he said, cutting her off. ‘Sorry, but you knew that. I’ll see you if and when you come back. Goodbye, lovely.’

  ‘I will be back,’ she said, ‘Of course I will. In time for dress!’ But he had already hung up.

  34.

  You must go

  Phil chose a French thing with subtitles and decided they could do with the fire lit. Somehow she knelt to set it while calling instructions through to Abi as to the making of tea and English muffins and where to find the tray, which she loaded and carried back to the front room.

  Jude had been fed the moment they walked in and was now in a faded bouncy chair that had appeared since Abi’s last visit, eyelids already drooping. Phil telephoned Polly, then arranged herself at one end of the deep, velvet sofa with her foot propped on a cushion, and Abi took the other end, shuffling backwards until her feet did not touch the ground. She folded them under her bottom, and tried to focus on the film, although there was so much to look at in the large room, which she’d only seen from the kitchen, that she struggled to keep her eyes on the screen. The low coffee table was piled with hard-covered books about art and copies of The Times Literary Supplement. On top of it all was a large hand of bleached white coral. More family photographs decorated the piano and a large bowl of mustard-coloured roses were shedding cupped petals onto the keys. Abi tried to memorise it all, but as the warmth spread across the room and the wind picked up outside, her eyes began to ache. The murmuring French dialogue felt like a lullaby and eventually, she closed one gravelly eye, then the other, just for a minute. Soon she was tugged backwards into a thick sleep.

  When she woke again, darkness had fallen outside the French doors and ashes smouldered in the grate. A blanket had been put over her, another tucked in around Jude, who was still asleep in the bouncer, breathing softly. Phil was not in the room. Abi had no idea of the time, but her bladder was pounding and two coin-size circles of wetness were forming on her T-shirt. An hour, longer.

  As she stood in the quiet room, listening to the tick of the mantel clock and deciding whether to let herself out or establish first that Phil had managed to get upstairs and into bed, a sense of trespass began to gather. But she was a carer who had lost her charge, Abi told herself, and leaving Jude where he was, she took the passage to the stairs and crept up in bare feet.

  Three doors off each side of the landing, all closed. The only light came from downstairs, and Abi ran her hand along the wall until she reached the first door, opening it to find an airing cupboard. For an instant, she pressed her face into a pile of folded towels. Lavender, powder, dust. Abi longed to take one, but closed the door and moved on. The next room was a small lavatory and the sight of it sent it pulse through her bladder. With no choice, she slipped in, leaving the light off and the door ajar in case of Jude.

  As soon as she let go, Phil’s voice, sharp with panic, came from further down the hall.

  ‘Fred?’ she called. ‘Who’s there? Frederick? Is that you?’

  Abi stood up too fast. A hot stream ran down the inside of her legs, and as she tried to tug up her underwear against wet skin, Phil appeared in the gap in the door, leaning on the crutch.

  ‘Frederick?’

  ‘It’s just me. It’s Abi. I fell asleep and I was just coming to see where you were.’ As the door opened further, the light from downstairs revealed Phil’s face, bare and creased with sleep, and Abi saw her awful confusion. ‘I was downstairs, Phil. I just woke up.’ She hurried to get her jeans up, but her fingers would only mash at buttons. ‘We were watching a film, remember?’

  Phil let out a cry, pure in its agony, and took a heavy step back, trying to close the door on Abi with the crutch. ‘Frederick!’

  Abi heard her move off. She emerged and as she slipped silently down the stairs, she heard Phil call out, ‘Go. You must go please.’

  A closing door, then a muffled howl from the other side. ‘Fred, my darling. Frederick.’

  The sound of Phil’s wailing, ‘my darling, my darling,’ followed Abi to the last step, which she skidded over, losing her footing. She pulled Jude out of the bouncer, catching up the blanket, and ran out the back door, still in her socks.

  It was not until she got upstairs to the flat that she realised her house keys were sitting on Phil’s piano, beside the dying roses and a photo of wicked Freddie on a white sand beach with a T-shirt wrapped around his head like a silly turban.

  35.

  Fresh-ish

  Abi w
as sitting against the flat door, feeding Jude, when Stu came up the stairs an hour or so later. The baby’s nappy was heavy and sharp-smelling but there had been no question of going back to retrieve her key. After trying to kick then scratch then paw the door open, she had sat miserably on the communal carpet, waiting and thinking and seeing over and over the moment in Phil’s hallway. Her lined face, her bare feet, the cry of horror that turned to sobbing as Abi ran away. The thought raised gooseflesh on her arms.

  ‘Just hanging out?’ Stu asked, seeing her first. ‘Should I ask what happened?’

  After twenty-four hours away, it seemed he’d moved on from their unhappy Saturday morning. Or forgotten, Abi wasn’t sure. ‘Jude and I just fancied some fresh air. Well, fresh-ish. Not fully fresh, but you know, hallway fresh.’

  Then, as simple as that, Stu unlocked the door and stood to the side so Abi could carry Jude in ahead. ‘You look a bit over it, babe. Shall I put him to bed?’

  ‘Yes please. Thank you. That would be so nice. He needs a change and new clothes. Sorry, I’m so tired.’

  Abi handed him over, and retreated to the bathroom where she ran the shower until the walls were slick with moisture. After peeling off her clothes, she got in, remembering just in time that sitting down in the shower and letting the water run forwards over her bowed head, screaming without making a sound, was only for Highside Circuit. She stood with her back against the tiles and tried to think. If she went back to Phil’s tomorrow, she could apologise for the intrusion then, explain that she was only trying to be helpful, but had accidently nodded off. It would be all right, Abi could somehow make Phil understand. And either way, Phil would need someone to help her for the next little while. There was no one else, Abi thought, apart from her.

  When she got out and walked into the living room in her towel, Stu seemed to be waiting for her. Phil’s blanket had found its way to the sofa and was caught behind his back. ‘Feel better?’

  ‘Much. Thanks. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Hey, listen though.’ Stu pummelled the tops of his legs with his fists, like a drum roll.

  ‘You don’t have to say sorry about the fight. I was just tired.’ Abi looked at her hands. ‘It’s just that I’ve been practising swimming and I wanted to show you. That’s all.’

  ‘Good one,’ he continued. ‘Anyway, what I was going to say was, I got heaps of work done up at Mum and Dad’s today. I was thinking about it on the train back and I think I should stay up there during the week and come back here on the weekend.’

  Abi tightened the towel and tried to follow what he was saying.

  ‘It’s a massive year and I can’t afford to stuff it up. Abi, I’m so rubbish during the week anyway, so I may as well. I doubt you’ll even notice.’

  ‘Do you mean, this weekend? Or, on weekends.’

  He exhaled heavily, as though her need for specifics had quickly become exhausting. ‘I haven’t really thought about it. Mum and Dad are for it though.’

  ‘But if you were only thinking about it on the train, how do you know they’re for it?’

  Stu tugged the blanket out from behind him and tossed it on the floor. ‘Well, it was their idea. Originally. At the start of my semester.’

  ‘Does your dad think that?’ Abi could not bear the idea that Roger would be involved in a conspiracy against her.

  ‘Well, more Mum, I guess. It’s nothing against you. She just knows how much work I’ve got on, it’s probably easier on everyone if I just – Mum can do all my cooking and washing and stuff. I’ll smash it Monday to Friday, see a mate or two, whatever, and then be way better with Jude when I am here. I think it would be good for us, as in long term, because you’d probably see more of me, ultimately.’

  Abi reeled. Did he mean they were breaking up? She made to ask, but stopped herself. Because what if he said yes, and here she was, standing only in a towel?

  ‘But you do love me and everything though?’ she said after a lengthy silence.

  Stu took a fraction too long to reply. ‘Yeah, of course I do. It’s not about that. It’s just what’s best for me at the moment. I mean, us obviously. Going forward. And I’ll still flick you money and everything. I’ll set it up properly even. Have it go straight into your bank. And actually, you’ll probably be better off, because I’ll be eating all Mum and Dad’s food.’

  ‘Okay,’ Abi said flatly. ‘Sure. If that’s what you need. It’s totally fine.’ She walked slowly back to the bathroom. The prospect of so many hours alone, all day and all night by herself with Jude, filled her with dread but she would not let herself turn back and beg Stu to change his mind.

  ‘Thanks babe, I knew you’d understand,’ he called after her. Again, she wrenched the shower on, sitting under it until it ran cold.

  36.

  One of my foremost traits

  There was no reason to get up the next day when Stu left for university with a week’s worth of things crammed into his hiking pack. Abi lay face down listening to him dress and open and close drawers, zip a thousand zips and tear noisily at Velcro. Softly, he kissed the top of her head but she did not move until she heard the door click shut. Eventually she rolled over and stared at the dusty ceiling fan. Falling and falling and falling. Pushed from a high building into nothingness.

  There was nothing. Nothing. Except for the perfect, unknowing baby slowly waking up in the cot beside her. She lifted a hand – it felt heavy, as though filled with lead or too much blood – and slid it through the slats, running her bent finger along the curved sole of Jude’s foot.

  A thought, the pushing back of the thought, and then Fuck it, what else is there? Phil and Stu had been kicked out from under her, like chair legs. She couldn’t stand on her own. She picked up her phone and dialled. Who cared what time it would be? How much it would cost.

  ‘Hello?’ She heard her mother’s rasping voice, the sound of the telly in the background. ‘Who’s this please? Who’s phoning me?’

  Abi jerked the phone away from her ear and stabbed at the off button. When it wouldn’t hang up, she pulled the back off, tore out the batteries and threw all of it onto the floor. She picked up Jude, held him tightly against her chest. He dug around, nuzzling at her neck. She sat up and let him feed, feeling her hands shaking against his tiny back. When she looked down at him, the side of his face was wet with tears. ‘Oh little boy,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ve snotted all over you, and you don’t even mind. We’ll get up after this, Jude. We will. We’ll get up.’ After a day, then another, she did.

  * * *

  Soup. The solution was soup and once she’d come to it, it was only a matter of making herself do each bit, one at a time. Getting up on legs that felt wobbly and wasted, combing the matted bits out of her hair, collecting all the balled-up nappies on the floor into a single rubbish bag, and pushing the pram up to Supa FoodBarn to buy ingredients.

  There wasn’t much on offer by way of fresh. Potatoes, a leek and another green vegetable Abi thought was definitely courgette, sat in a cardboard carton near a rack of bread marked ‘Day Old’, its original price scored through. Stock cubes, a tall squeezy thing of table salt (they didn’t have the posh kind she knew Phil used), a Crunchie for the way home and a pack of Marlboro Lights. Outside, Abi emptied all but three cigarettes into the bin and hid the packet under the pram. As though someone, anyone, was watching.

  When she returned to the flat, it smelt stale from the previous days of incarceration. She slid open the kitchen windows and put her big laptop on the bench so she could find a recipe, and chop the vegetables and talk gaily to Jude who lay on his tummy on a towel, headed raised, and followed her movements around the kitchen with his dark gaze.

  The soup didn’t look like the picture when it was finished – most likely, Abi decided, because she had had to mash hers with a slotted spoon, noticing too late that the final step in the process involved an electric food processor. She tipped it into two takeaway containers, grimacing at the foul plopping sound
as it fell in, and pressed on the lids. Although she’d meant to return Phil’s blanket at the same time, she decided against it at the last minute, realising it needed a wash after being worn around her shoulders as she’d lain in bed or dashed madly around the flat to bring food and drink back to the mattress.

  When Abi arrived at Phil’s back door, she saw that it was open. She hovered on the threshold before calling out in her cheeriest voice, ‘Hello?’

  Abi waited, patted Jude in the carrier, and adjusted the soup bag on her shoulder. ‘Hello? Phil?’

  Just as she turned to leave, Phil appeared in the doorway, leaning on the crutch, which now had a silk scarf in a botanical print wound up its shaft and knotted underneath the handle. ‘I thought I heard a voice. Hello Abigail.’ Phil looked flustered, as though she’d been interrupted. ‘Well come in then. Don’t hover there like Prufrock,’ she said, before abruptly turning back inside.

  Abi followed and as she backed herself into a position beside the kitchen door, a youngish woman wandered in from the living room. She had light brown wavy hair that came to her shoulders and caught the light whenever she turned her head. She was barefoot and wearing one of Phil’s long cardigans over a thin white singlet. The bottom few buttons were done up in a way that made it impossible to tell if she had shorts, or anything, on above the long expanse of bare thigh.

  Abi stood, frozen, watching as she came up behind Phil and rested her chin on her mother’s shoulders. Phil’s whole person seemed to relax. The girl smiled expectantly in Abi’s direction.

  ‘Abigail, this is my daughter Brigitta. She came in very late last night from London. All very spontaneous.’

  ‘Hello,’ Abi said, in a strangled half-whisper.

  ‘I was hardly not going to come, was I mother?’ Brigitta said. She shot Abi a look, drawing her into some sort of joke at her mother’s expense. ‘Once we found out about your run-in with the puddle of pesto. Abi, can you believe I came all this way for a bad sprain? My sister made it seem like the whole leg was going to have to come off. Anyway, Mummy loves surprises.’ She jutted her chin forward and rested it on the top of Phil’s shoulder. ‘Don’t you, Philly?’