Watching Over Me

by M K Farrar

  “Yes, you’re right. Sorry. I’m just on edge ’cause it’s Wednesday, and you know what I have to do on a Wednesday.”

  “I don’t know why you even bother to phone her,” Gary commented, as he had many times before. “I don’t think either of you get any joy out of it.”

  “She’s my mother. I have to call her.”

  “Why? She never bothers to make any effort with you. A card on birthdays and at Christmas, and that’s about it, apart from these bloody phone calls. Why don’t you just let it go and stop putting yourself through the stress?”

  Her mother and father had separated when she was only small. Her mother had controlled everything, including her father, and the times they got to spend together when she was growing up. Secretly, she’d always wished she could have lived with her dad instead of her mum, but she would never have dared say that to her face. Deep down, she was scared of her—she always had been. Amy had felt like nothing but a disappointment her whole life, no matter what she did, or achieved, or how hard she worked.

  Gary let out an exasperated sigh. “If someone walked into your office and described their relationship with their mother in exactly the same way you have with yours, you would tell them it was a dangerous idea to hold on to someone simply because they’re related to you.”

  “No, I wouldn’t!” She knew she was being defensive, her hackles rising. “I’d explore the reasons behind the relationship being that way and see if there’s anything that can be done to change it.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “And is there?”

  “She’s my mother, Gary. She gave birth to me and raised me. I owe her a phone call, surely.”

  “You never asked to be born, Amy.”

  She couldn’t argue with that.

  She didn’t know how her father could have fallen in love with her mother. Maybe she’d been different before Amy had come along, and it had been the birth of her only child that had changed her into the cold, emotionless person Amy had grown up with. Maybe that was the reason Amy continued with the weekly phone calls. A part of her felt responsible for her mother’s unhappiness—as though she’d been the one who’d caused it.

  Everything had always been structured in their lives. There was a day to do everything. Her mother would only ever call the doctor on a Tuesday, even if it was a Thursday that she or Amy had come down ill. Mondays and Fridays were for laundry, and even if Amy had wet the bed, and it was the weekend, she’d been forced to put up with urine-stinking sheets until Monday rolled around. The food shop was done on a Saturday morning and was never topped up during the week, so often by Friday Amy was drinking her tea black and eating dry cereal—if she was lucky enough to have any left—knowing that suggesting she might pick a pint of milk up on the way home from school would be met with utter horror.

  Growing up, Amy hadn’t known that other households didn’t work in such a way. It wasn’t until she was ten years old and was invited around to a friend’s house—a new girl had started at school and was also desperate for friendship, and the other pupils hadn’t passed on all the whispers about how strange Amy was yet—that she finally realised not everyone lived like this. She’d got a few glimpses during her mum and dad’s arguments, when her dad was exasperated and angry at her mother’s insistence at doing things a certain way

  He hadn’t been able to live with it, and she knew he’d felt horrible leaving her with her mother, but he didn’t have any choice. He went out to work from seven in the morning until six at night, and he wouldn’t be able to keep paying the bills if he wasn’t working. Besides, it had been the mother’s place to take care of the children—that’s just how things were done—and he continued to support them both financially, even after they were divorced.

  The money he’d left Amy when he’d died had enabled her to study instead of going straight into work, and she’d be forever grateful to him for that. It didn’t make up for no longer having him in her life, but it had allowed her to escape her mother’s house as soon as possible. Of course, she’d much rather have had him around, but life could be cruel.

  Amy went to get her Filofax out of her handbag so she could check which appointments she had on Friday and make sure there weren’t any meetings that would make her late. Something was wrong, and she rifled through her bag, her stomach dropping.

  “Oh, shit. My purse is missing.”

  Gary frowned. “Are you sure? Have you looked properly?”

  She tipped the bag upside down and emptied out the contents. A lipstick, chewing gum, a hair band, and comb all fell onto the carpet, but there was no sign of her purse.

  “Damn it.”

  “When did you last have it?” he asked.

  Amy thought back, mentally trying to retrace her steps. “Well, I had my travelcard, and it was in my coat pocket, so I didn’t need my purse to get home.” She remembered buying her lunch. “So, I think I must have left it in the shop when I bought my chicken sandwich at lunchtime.”

  “Maybe they still have it then?” he suggested. “If you left it on the counter after you paid.”

  “Yes, I hope so.”

  “Did it have anything important in it?”

  “My cheque card,” she said, thinking, “and my library card. My old student ID, as well, but nothing that can’t be replaced. I was sure I’d put it back in my handbag after I’d paid for the sandwich, though.”

  “Maybe you were distracted, and it fell on the floor, and you just didn’t notice.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  She had been distracted, worried about the appointment with Edward Swain. It was more than likely that she’d not put the purse back in her handbag. She thought she remembered doing it, but she went to that same place for lunch almost every day, and the memory could easily have been from one of the times before.

  Amy let out a sigh and rubbed her hand across her eyes. “I’ll have to go back tomorrow and see if they’ve got it.”

  “See, you’re tired and stressed out.” Gary squeezed her shoulder. “A night out with friends, a couple of drinks, and nice food will do you good.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Of course, I am,” he teased. “I’m always right.”

  Amy changed her skirt suit and white shirt for jeans and a T-shirt and whisked up a pasta and sauce dinner for them both. They ate and then washed up the dishes together, and Amy dried while keeping an eye on the time. She put the plates away and checked the clock. Six twenty-five. It was time.

  Gary didn’t need to say anything. “I’ll leave you to it.”

  She gave him a smile of thanks.

  Her stomach churned, and she swallowed down nausea as she picked up the handset of the phone, twirling the rubbery, spiral cord around her finger. Gary had left the room, knowing she needed her privacy to make this call. She dreaded doing it but couldn’t bring herself not to. It was like a buildup each week, the pressure getting greater and greater until she reached the Wednesday, got the call out of the way, and then she could relax again, for a short while anyway, until the following week. The idea of not calling meant that pressure would only continue to grow. She didn’t trust what her mother would do if she didn’t hear from Amy. Normally, Louise Penrose was the most predictable of women, but if something happened that threw all of her rigid plans and expectations out of line, there was no saying what she might do. Amy dreaded the possibility of her mother showing up at her flat, or, even worse, at her office. It was as though Louise would expose Amy for who she really was. How could she treat other people and help their relationships with each other when the relationship she had with her own mother was as fragile as ice?

  So, she made the call each week to keep things on an even keel, even though she hated doing it.

  Amy checked the kitchen clock, making sure it was exactly six-thirty, then dialled the phone number. Louise Penrose would allow the phone to ring three times before she picked up. Three was a safe number for her. One too many, or one too less, was enough to send
her into a panic.

  Sure enough, after the third ring, her mother’s voice sounded down the phone, repeating back the numbers Amy had just dialled.

  “Hello, Mum. It’s me,” Amy said.

  “Hello, Amy. Thank you for calling.” Her voice was brittle, just as always. It rarely contained any kind of emotion, apart from frustration or anger.

  “I always call, Mum. Every Wednesday at exactly six-thirty.”

  “Yes, I know you do. You’re a good girl.”

  Despite herself, her traitorous little heart filled with warmth at the praise from her mum. She might be a grown woman now, with a successful career and a home of her own, but she still wanted to hear those kind things coming from her mother’s mouth.

  She sighed and pressed the handset closer to her ear and sat back in her chair. “So, how have you been?”

  “Oh, same old, same old.”

  “I could always come and visit you, Mum? It’s not really that far away.”

  There was a hint of panic to her tone. “No, you can’t do that. I haven’t got you scheduled in.”

  “You could schedule me in,” she tried again. “Or I could come at the time I normally phone you instead.”

  “But then when would you phone me? No, that won’t do at all, Amy. I’m sorry, but you’re really making things very complicated for me.”

  She sighed again. “I’m really not, Mum, but that’s fine. I won’t come and visit. I don’t want to upset you.”

  It wouldn’t only be her mother she’d be upsetting. It would upset her, too. It had been over a year since she’d last seen her mum face to face, even though she only lived a forty-minute train ride away. The last time she’d tried to drop by, knowing that telling Louise she was coming would only make things worse, she’d let herself into the house using her own key. Amy had gone to where she knew her mum would be sitting, on her chair in the lounge, and had announced herself with a chirpy little ‘surprise!’

  The visit definitely hadn’t gone down as planned. She’d hoped her mother would have been overwhelmed with emotion at seeing her daughter again, but instead she’d screamed, and not in a good way.

  Louise had shot out of her favourite chair, moving faster than Amy had given her credit for, and shoved Amy back out of the lounge door. Both hands on her, pushing, pushing, pushing. Amy had been in shock, unable to even think of what to do or how to react. Instead, she allowed her mother to hustle her out of her childhood home until she’d found herself standing on the doorstep again.

  “You can’t just show up like this,” her mum had screamed at her. “You’ll ruin everything, you stupid girl. Go away!”

  Then the door had slammed shut in her face, and that had been the last time she’d seen her only living parent in person.

  Tears filled Amy’s eyes at the memory, and she blinked them away. She’d have given anything for a normal parent, or for her father not to have died. Maybe that was why she was fixating so much on Edward Swain. He’d had a mother—he might still have one somewhere—but instead he’d been left with a brute of a father and no answers as to what had happened to her.

  Chapter Five

  Amy had gone to bed, emotional and exhausted, and fell asleep the moment her head hit the pillow.

  Now, she was awake again. The room was in darkness, and a glance at the clock on her Teasmade told her it was two-thirty in the morning.

  She suddenly realised what had woken her. The phone was ringing.

  Gary groaned beside her and rolled over, taking half of the covers with him. He didn’t wake fully, though, and she could tell by his breathing that he was sound asleep again within seconds. He’d always slept far deeper than her.

  With her heart racing, she threw back her side of the covers and got to her feet. No one called at this time. The only person she could think who would phone her in the middle of the night would be her mother, and something truly terrible must have happened for her to have broken her strict routine. Amy’s head filled with images of Louise having fallen down the stairs on the way to the bathroom, and barely able to crawl to the phone to call her only daughter.

  Amy raced to the kitchen where the phone was located. It was still ringing, and she snatched up the handset and jammed it to her ear.

  “Hello? Mum?”

  No reply came back.

  “Mum? Are you there? Are you okay?”

  Listening hard, she tried to pick up on any sign that her mother might be hurt. She froze, the hair on the back of her neck prickling. Could she hear breathing? Slow and deep and steady. The person on the other end didn’t sound frightened or hurt—not in the slightest. Or was she imagining things, her panicked mind creating sounds that weren’t there? Maybe she was simply hearing the whoosh of blood through her ears as her heart pounded.

  The weight of a hand closed on her shoulder.

  Amy jumped, barely holding in a shriek, her heart galloping. She clutched a hand to her chest, as though that could slow the beat. “Jesus, Gary. You almost gave me a heart attack.”

  He stood behind her, his hair mussed from sleep. He was dressed in only the boxer shorts he’d worn to bed. “What’s going on?”

  She realised she no longer thought it was her mother on the other end of the line. She was sure it was someone else.

  Amy held the handset to her chest, just in case whoever was on the other end was still listening, and lowered her voice to a whisper. “The phone was ringing, and I answered it. I thought something might have happened to Mum, but I think I can hear someone heavy breathing down the line.”

  His frown deepened, and he took the phone out of her hand and put it to his ear. She held froze, waiting.

  “Whoever this is, you can fuck off right now. Do you hear me? Some of us have jobs to go to in the morning.” He slammed down the phone.

  She watched on anxiously, studying his face for his thoughts. “Did you hear something? I wasn’t imagining things?”

  “I’m not sure, to be honest, Amy. I couldn’t really tell. But I thought it would be worth giving them a piece of my mind, just in case.”

  “So, you didn’t hear the breathing?”

  He scrunched up his nose. “No, sorry. I didn’t hear the phone ringing either.”

  “What?” She stared at him. “How can you not have heard the phone?”

  “I didn’t. I was asleep.” He must have thought of something because his forehead furrowed further. “Are you sure you weren’t asleep? Maybe you dreamed it.”

  Emotion punched her in the chest. “I didn’t dream racing to answer the phone.”

  “You might have been sleepwalking.”

  “Or you just sleep like the dead and didn’t hear the phone! What’s more likely?”

  He exhaled a sigh and dragged his fingers through his curly hair. “It was just a suggestion, that’s all. It does happen, and you have been stressed lately, and you had that call with your mother this evening, which always makes things worse. You might have had the call on your mind and your subconscious created the ringing phone.”

  “Oh, for goodness sake, Gary! You can’t actually believe that.”

  “Like I said, I’m just making a suggestion. Who calls someone at two in the morning?”

  “It might have been a wrong number.”

  “Why didn’t they say anything then?”

  She threw her hands up in the air in exasperation. “I don’t know.”

  He sighed again, and it turned into a yawn which he stifled behind the back of his hand. “Come on, let’s get back to bed. It’s going to be hard enough getting up in the morning without us having another argument in the middle of the night.”

  She opened her mouth to protest that it wasn’t her starting the fight but clamped it shut again. He was right about that, at least. It wasn’t going to help for them to lose any more sleep by fighting about this.

  But he was wrong about her dreaming the phone ringing, wasn’t he? Her tired, muddled, stressed-out mind tried to hang on to her certainty, and
failed.

  Chapter Six

  Amy dragged herself through the following morning at work.

  She’d never been one of those people who could manage on only a couple of hours and still be fine the next day. Even when she’d been a student, she’d suffered if she’d stayed out too late.

  The disturbed night hadn’t been helped by her being unable to sleep even after she’d gone back to bed. Gary had passed right out almost instantly, and she’d been forced to listen to his snoring, like it was mocking her for not being asleep as well. She knew the phone call wasn’t his fault, but she’d hated him a little bit in that moment.

  She’d done her best to focus on her patients that morning, though her concentration was shot. Normally, she was happy with a couple of cups of tea to get her through the day, but this morning she’d switched it up to coffee, and now her heart felt like it was beating too fast and she was slightly nauseated. She should have stuck to tea.

  A part of her was also a little worried that the phone call had originated from her mother. Knowing what her mum was like if she tried to do anything outside of pre-arranged times, Amy hadn’t tried to call back to check on her. She was frightened of her mother’s reaction if she did, but what if Louise had been so hurt that she had only been able to dial the number then had fallen and was unable to speak? By not calling because of her fear of her mother’s reaction for not phoning on the right day, wasn’t Amy becoming just like her mother? Before she knew it, she’d be only contacting the doctor on a certain day or only doing the laundry on a Friday. Maybe there was some of that need to control and need for routine inside her after all.