by Jon Bauer
We always say the punchline together, even Robert used to.
I put my spoon in the bowl to rest and Auntie D looks round and shouts at me to EAT UP and I jump and the spoon catches under my wrist and flicks soup over me.
While she’s wiping my face and t-shirt with the same sponge she probably uses to clean meaty dishes and disgusting stuff, she’s saying ‘And you better not go wetting the bed here like you have been. You better pull yourself together and toughen up, my boy.’
I’m not hers. I’ll never be hers.
She throws the cloth at the sink and it lands on the floor and she says a French word then takes a tea towel and wipes my face, my bottom lip rolling down and my nose squashed flat. Through the tea towel I can hear her saying that every time I mess up, my bedtime will get earlier by half an hour and my wakey-wakey time later by half an hour, until I’m trapped in my room the whole time if that’s what it takes to pull me together.
I’m not staying. No way. The longer I stay the more likely I’ll get stuck here forever. Like if you pull a funny face for too long you can get stuck like that too.
If I stay here with Deadly I’ll definitely go mad and talk to myself and think there’s rats in bed with me eating into my skin until they reach the white of bone like when Jimmy McGee broke his arm in the playground and you could see how perfectly white the bone was next to the blood. Like the bone was white cos of how it had never ever seen the light of day. Which is what Dad says about Auntie Deadly’s purse.
It’s night and once I hear her snoring I uncover myself from the blankets and TADAAA! I already have my clothes on. She came in to say goodnight and didn’t notice!
I rule.
I spy on her and she’s fast asleep in front of the TV which is turned down quiet. I sneak to the front door and open it, peeking out at the street. It’s all silent and scary and I’m scared to walk home but scared to stay. I want to be with Mum and Dad, not sent away like a bad person.
I look up and down at the dark street then at Auntie D’s car right under a lamppost like it’s had an idea.
I go back inside and there’s her keys with a car one on them. I don’t shut the front door, I’m just running away from monster hands that are about to grab me from behind.
Auntie D’s car doesn’t smell so good, ashtray and gone off yoghurt. But I like it in here cos I can lock the doors. Plus it’s a different type of quiet.
Only problem is when I can reach the pedals I can’t see much of the road. I look for a first aid kit or something but there’s only empty cigarette packets and chocolate wrappers.
I push the driving seat back so I can sort of perch on the edge and look through the gap in the steering wheel. Lucky I’m tall for my height though cos my feet can reach the …
There’s only TWO! I look at the gearstick and it’s an automatic one. Trust Auntie D.
I’ll just see if it starts. That’s all. Just to see.
I get the squeals then with the engine running and me out here in the night. I check Deadly’s door and the dark street. Three Lips Macavoy would be lighting a match on his stubble, smoking a fat cigar.
The gearstick says P then R then N then D then 2 then 1. I set the mirror so I can see myself, like Mum does. I’ll just take the handbrake off. That’s all. I don’t know what the letters mean so I set it to 1 and the car starts moving by itself and I’m not even pushing the pedal!
I turn the wheel fast and hardly really touched the parked car in front much and I’M DRIVING ALL BY MYSELF.
I put it in 2 and it goes faster without me revving.
I can do everything on my own now. Mum says nobody likes you if you’re needy, independent is the safest way.
A car goes past me and hoots. I give it the sign.
I’m really scared and really happy and really sad and really excited. All at once like Robert.
Right up until I see the big roundabout at the end of Deadly’s street. I try to work out what Three Lips Macavoy would do but he’d be doing 90 and driving with his knees.
I stop at the roundabout. I can’t do roundabouts and I can’t get out and walk because I have to keep pushing the brake or the car moves by itself, plus drivers are angry at me. Meanwhile Mum and Dad are playing happy families with Robert and nobody loves me anymore.
Cars are queuing and hooting and revving round me and I’m crying and shouting at them and pushing the brake, my leg hurting from holding the car with a mind of its own.
I remember the keys and turn off the engine, pull up the handbrake very hard, climb into the back, my stomach gone and all the doors locked again but no Robert and no Mum and no rain, only angry cars and darkness.
Three Lips would know what to do about the police lights. He waves them round but they won’t go. Three Lips definitely isn’t speeding but they just sit behind him with the flashing lights going round inside the car like it’s a disco. If they’re in a hurry they should just squeeze by. He gives them the sign, then goes back up the business end in case he needs to make a quick getaway.
Three Lips turns the headlights on. He didn’t forget them, he’s been in stealth mode until he was far enough away from the evil lobster.
Now an enormous cop is walking up to Three Lips’ sports car and trying to see in through the window. Meanwhile Three Lips is just puffing on his cigar, casual as. He’s on a tough enough case as it is without the law on his tail too. Maybe the law are involved.
The cop taps on the glass. He probably wants a bribe. Three Lips Macavoy can’t be bribed. He winds down his window and the officer seems surprised. Three Lips takes a puff on his cigar, casual as.
‘Beat it, cop. I’m on a case.’
26
All the hedges are out, nothing between me and the street but little stumps poking up. I’m slouched on the lawn in the bright, early morning, torn-out hedge all around me as if I’m nesting in our front garden. My front garden. The ladder is over on its side, the orange power cord scribbled across the grass.
I stand and take my torn-up hands into the house, bits of green flecked in with the scratches and bleeding on my palms. Indoors everything is thick and cloying, some peculiar gravity emanating from her body on the kitchen floor.
I sit at the family table sipping vodka from the bottle and watching my scarred hand shaking. My wrist resting on the table edge, my hand shaking. I watch it. There’s a part of me making that happen, a part of me I can’t reach.
Who do you phone when someone has died. What’s the official procedure.
I go over to her body. To her. The vodka tagging along in the hand at my side, a fist wobbling up in front of my mouth, my palm hurting with all the hedge cuts in it.
Her body is still but I notice the chest going up and down and even my hand stops trembling. I watch for another sign of movement.
‘Mum?’
I remember being told about this now. Just one item on the talking-shit agenda during the night shift at work. One of the other guards, Frank, who was once a hospital orderly, telling me how a dead body can look like it’s breathing. Your brain is so used to seeing chests going up and down it puts it there. That fictional step we live away from the world.
Just like when I think back to childhood I don’t know what’s real anymore, the neglect or the jealousy. Which really happened? Was there just my jealousy or was there neglect too?
I picture an ambulance coming and men in gloves taking her from me. No sirens. No lights.
She looks like an apple left too long in the fruit bowl.
I’ve known that face forever but this is the beginning of another part of my life. The part without her. For the first time this is the beginning of life after Mum. One day I’ll have lived longer without her than with her. And Dad. One day I’ll have been alone more than I’ve been a part of something. Even if it was something painful.
I imagine the men coming and taking her away all messed up like that. Me sitting at her unattended funeral and staring at the coffin, knowing she’s in it looki
ng that way.
I put my hands in my pockets to stop them shaking, the scratches hurting me. There isn’t much in my head and I rummage around for a feeling. There should be lots of them but there’s emptiness, the odd thought bubbling up out of the numb. Mainly of them burying her in that mucky outfit. Her rotting like that. One slipper on, one slipper off.
I meander down the side of the house and start rolling a cigarette in the shed, the birds chirruping, the bicycle overhead.
I can smoke in the house now so I walk in, the cigarette smoking into one closed eye. I stand looking at her shape. She’s mine now, finally. I can get as close to her as I like. I can touch her all I want. Yet I can also feel the same forcefield around her.
I take swig after swig of drink, chuck the cigarette in the sink, put the bottle down — standing here breathing through the anxiety and the chemical sharpness of the vodka.
I hold her under the armpits and lift, her head lolling back, her mouth open — her eyes. I set her down again, her feet parting outwards. With an uncertain hand I close her eyes, then take her in my arms, not looking at her face, my head turned. Looking away and yet greedy for the looking. Having to turn side-on to fit us through doorways.
At the bottom of the stairs I’m tempted to carry her out into the street and roar at everyone to wake up and see what’s happened. My mum’s dead and they’re sleeping.
I place her at the foot of the stairs and sit panting, staring, my eyes unfocused, such a final silence gathered around us. The vodka clogging my head.
I scoop her up in my arms and strain to a standing position again, her head lolling and mine brimming with bursting at the strain.
I take the fourth step, the fifth, each footfall an uncertain thud as I carry her up, my innards held taut against this proximity. The early morning light changing quickly now, colour filling the house, altering the atmosphere. The sound of birdsong such a gentle unkindness.
I stagger across the landing but can’t hold her anymore, putting her as carefully as possible onto the floor.
In the bathroom I turn on the bath taps and sit on the edge, letting the cold water run down over my wrists and hands, a little of my blood colouring the water.
The temperature starts to warm and I adjust the taps to get it just right for my dead mother. I leave it running and go out and kneel in front of her on the landing, her chest seeming to move for a second again. My brain playing with me. The taps thundering into the bath.
‘Let’s get you cleaned up, Mum.’ I lift her, struggling to stand, pivoting her on her legs, both of us teetering towards toppling down the staircase but my shoulder braces against the wall and I lurch us into the bathroom, setting her down again beside the bath, the windows fogged over. My own chest going up and down.
I turn off the taps and there’s that silence again, louder somehow because I’m sharing it with this absent presence. I wipe my eyes, wiping away tears I’m still not attached to. I’m dreading the ones I’ll be attached to.
Sitting on the bath edge, leaning over her again, my arms hooking her armpits. I haul her up onto my knees and then have to slide out from under, holding her torso on the side of the bath, her shoulder blades catching on the edge and keeping her there, my hand pushing into her stomach to hold her. Her body not yet cooled. I hurry around to lift her legs, cradling the head as she slips in, her foot clattering across the taps and turning one to a trickle — my face and chest covered with water as it seesaws back and forth in the bath, licking right up the walls on one side, then thumping onto me and the lino on the other. The spillage spreading silently across the floor and darkening the hallway carpet.
I hold her head above the water, her clothes wanting to float up away, her eyes open again. I close them then pull my other hand from behind her head and stand.
She stays there, her head squashed a little awkwardly against the end of the bath, perpendicular to her body so that her chin is on her chest, staring at her belly. Checking for meningitis. And I can’t help but mimic it, taking me back to the day when she was that butter colour in hospital. Robert sitting on her bed looking like he was loving her so hard, when actually he was just trying so hard to be loved.
I traipse downstairs for the vodka, wincing at the taste but savouring something clean. Me and the bottle heading back up a heavy step at a time, her engagement ring left behind on the carpet halfway up.
Back in the bathroom I get a jolt when I see her. A swig from the bottle tries to wash it away. I turn the dripping tap, hating the quiet that comes after.
With finger and thumb I take the one slipper off her and help that foot slide off the side of the bath and into the water. Her ankle such a raw rainbow of bruising. My hands shaking again.
I go to her bedroom and start rifling through her wardrobe for an outfit she might think elegant. I pull out clothes and throw them onto the carpet. Take a dress and hold it up against me for size — toss it aside, open a bottom drawer but there’s just a large dress box, clothes behind it. I go to bring the box closer and it’s heavier than it should be so I lift its lid enough for a peek, then take the whole thing out.
Inside is my childhood. Every picture, every school report, even the bad ones, a baby book with its sections filled in — records of my growth rate and first solids and first crawling, a lock of baby hair. Pictures of me in the crib. It looks like me. A picture of that big rock in the cemetery too, just like that black chunk of it we still have downstairs. Here’s some milk teeth.
She’s caught every drop of my childhood. My Alonely poem, the creases still in it from where she screwed it up. Ribbons from sports day. I move more paintings and scribbles and homespun birthday cards aside and there’s a travel book on Canada that opens naturally to my town. Even a brochure about a career in the prison service here.
I can’t help but let out a sound at the thought of her trying to understand my life. And the idea of her living over here alone, sad. Me over there, alone and sad. And sulking.
There’s the beginning of a letter to me too — many stalled beginnings, words crossed out and written over. I can read as far as the first sentence before the paper blurs and I have to replace the lid for now. Her half-written letter slipping into my wet pocket.
I go to return the box but at the back of the drawer is that video of Robert. I sit and look at it, the spools of tape showing through the plastic window, then I stand and carry it with me, putting it at the top of the stairs.
Back in the bathroom I get a stronger jolt, her face under the water, eyes open and staring again, a few bubbles trickling out of her nose. I get on my knees in the wet, pierce the water with my arms and lift her back above the surface — brush her hair aside, some water running from her mouth.
Tugging the bathroom curtains shut to hide the morning light, I swig from the bottle then begin to undress her.
By the time I’ve finished the water is cold and discoloured and I’ve put a big dent in the contents of the vodka bottle. I reach between her feet to pull up the plug and then can’t help but watch as the water slips away, the plughole slurping desperately, her body crumpling slowly in on itself. Deflating. One of her fists clenched tight.
I lay a towel over her then go downstairs with the vodka and the video, switch on the radio for company, run the hot tap into a bucket in the sink. I turn off the radio again, wake up the old video player and slip the tape in.
I mop the kitchen floor, going to the TV occasionally and watching the footage of Robert sat there on the edge of all that sky, his hair fluttering madly in the rush of air.
‘1’
Such unbridled happiness for such a tragic life.
‘2’
Me having to mop round Mum’s single slipper left here, before finally giving in and taking it out, chucking it onto the back lawn, the sound of Robert’s recorded squeals coming at me from inside the house. As if it’s back in the days when he was still alive. When we all were.
I add bleach to a final bucket, starting to feel a k
indling of warmth inside me — some illusion of regained control, that I’m finally doing right by her, even if it feels too late.
I stop in the twilight of the kitchen and the smell of bleach, my chin on the top of the mop handle, the video ended, just static on the screen, my eyes staring out the windows. Slow tears running like somebody else’s tears.
I take a cloth, dipping a corner of it in bleach and go through to the bathroom and the faded ochre stain on the wall-side of the U-bend. Grandma’s stain.
My dad got down on his knees in this tight space and cleaned up all her blood rather than let Mum face the reality. Or to save him facing hers. I kneel where he knelt in this small, tight space and finish the job for him, the old blood stain resisting for a while then lifting in granular stages.
I wash my hands for about the thirtieth time today, my skin creased as if from a long, luxurious bath.
Upstairs again I stand in the bathroom doorway, expecting to see goosebumps on her skin but there’s no such life on it, only that slowly dimming colour. The house clogged full of silence.
Getting her out the bath is harder. Especially now she’s heavier, the sound of water sloshing inside her every time I pause for breath. Reminding me of when I was a boy, filling up on water so I could hear it slop about inside me when I wriggled my belly.
By the time she’s dressed and in bed I’m drenched, Mum’s outfit not sitting on her right. She looks worse now somehow, like waxwork.
And although she’s in bed, she doesn’t look like she’s in bed. She’s there and the bed’s there too, that’s all.
I perch on the edge for a second, then rush downstairs, hit the eject button on the video player but it gets the tape caught in its throat. I bang the top over and over, pushing the eject button, the old motors whining. Out it comes and I hold it against me, walking back to the stairs but catch sight of the mica rock sat there on the windowsill. I collect that too and go up to her, lay the rock and the video on the bed — tease that fist of hers out into a hand.
It feels good seeing her with these important artefacts of her life. I smooth the care out of her forehead and lie down beside her.