The toilet door thrusts open as I’m shaking off the residue.
‘Shit, I’ve been holdin’ this throughout that whole goddam meetin’,’ Lou says as he unbuckles his belt. I put mine away; he pulls his out. I make my way to the taps. ‘Oh, sweet Jesus,’ Lou exhales, almost bouncing on his heels. ‘That feels like heaven.’ His pissing stance is how I expected it to be.
I wash my hands, twice.
‘You OK, dude?’ he says over his shoulder.
‘Yeah, fine,’ I say. ‘Why?’
‘You seem a little … distant. Fuck, I dunno. Down maybe. You seem a little down.’
He noticed!
I flick off the excess water, dry what remains on my arse. Lou theatrically shakes it and fastens himself. I look away. He approaches and puts his hand on my shoulder … same one that recently held his cock. Thanks for that! It takes effort not to flinch.
‘You sure you’re OK?’ he says.
‘Just Mum, Lou. She’s just in a bad place at the moment,’ I say.
‘I hear you, Bobby.’
‘Thinks she’s starting to get affected up here now.’ I point to my temple.
‘It’s a psychological battle. It affects everyone.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Illness is a damn wreckin’ ball, Bobby. We’re all beaten down by it.’
‘Does the same thing happen to your mum?’ I ask.
Lou removes his hand from my shoulder, skips past me to the sinks. The rushing water is loud.
‘Look, Bobby, it’s this wax and wane shit that fucks with our minds. You just need to stay positive for your mom, do exactly as you’ve always done, don’t change routines, don’t change the way you treat her. Show consistency. Rely on good friends,’ he says, opening his arms. ‘Keep your balls up.’
I laugh at this, definitely a Louism as opposed to an Americanism.
‘Is that how it is with your mum, Lou?’
He begins to button his denim jacket up to his neck. Deals with his imperfections in the mirror then checks the time on his phone.
‘Shit!’ he says.
‘Is it, Lou?’ I ask again. ‘The same with your mum?’ I don’t want to seem as if I’m interrogating him. I guess I’m looking to make more of a connection. Solidify the chemistry. Do we even have any chemistry?
‘Look, Bobby, when a person’s confidence is shot to shit, someone else needs to be a solid. In this case that’s you. You get me?’
Not really.
‘Yeah … I think so.’
‘I’m here any time you need to blow off some steam, dude.’
‘Thanks, Lou.’
‘I’m late, but I can give you a quick ride home.’
‘Cheers.’
*
Whenever Mum wants to listen to her when-I-was-younger music, I prop her up and we listen together. Actually, I’m ordered to ‘appreciate’ as opposed to listen. I’ve now garnered a healthy appreciation for an array of bands: Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine, Cud, The Wedding Present, The Smiths, Gene and Ned’s Atomic Dustbin. The list, and education, never stops. I can just imagine Mum flouncing around to these groups back in the day when she was a different person, rejoicing in an alternative universe: no kids, just herself, her friends, great songs and the thrill of youth; life’s blank canvas to splatter. Exactly the place where I’m at now, I suppose.
This music transports her to a much happier and gratified world. A place she’s regretted leaving ever since. Not my fault. Not hers. Life!
While listening to Portishead, Mum drops a little bombshell, not an earth-shattering cluster bomb, more like one of those child–parent awkward I-want-a-giant-hole-to-swallow-me-up conversations.
‘This takes me back, Bobby,’ Mum says, eyes closed. Remembering those days when she answered only to Anne. When nobody referred to her as ‘Mum’.
‘Bet it does.’ Portishead isn’t doing it for me; whatever floats your boat and all that.
‘This album … God, I loved this album,’ she murmurs. No point expressing my honest opinion of the music. I want her bubble to float beyond height.
‘I’d say it brings back loads of memories, Mum.’
‘Oh, it does, Bobby. It really does.’ She utters something to herself that I can’t make out.
‘What was that?’
‘I said, if you only knew the half of it.’
We lie on her bed listening to the songs in silence. Mum’s eyes clam shut; mine spy small cobwebs that have assembled in the top of the lampshade. I think I need to change the sheets too. More jobs to the list. Portishead continues to massage Mum’s senses and assault mine.
‘We used to get as stoned as fuck to this album back then,’ she says with a girly giggle, before adding, ‘completely zonked out our fucking faces.’ More giggling.
I keep my eyes fixed on an ailing cobweb.
I don’t blink.
I don’t face her.
I kind of freeze, not because I’m offended or anything like that – and definitely not due to any moral stance I have either – I freeze because of the image in my head: seeing the younger and healthier version of your mother monged out her nut as the colourless tones of Portishead echo in the background is … immensely unsettling. No, I take that back. It’s not unsettling, it’s completely disturbing. An image too potent for any son to bear. Just glad it isn’t The Sundays she was getting stoned to. Maybe it was. Maybe it was every band she listened to. Maybe Mum was this wild hedonistic stoner in her day. I don’t ask. No desire to know. Let her skeletons remain where they are.
Before she got sick she was a proper mum: principled, virtuous and discouraging of all society’s ills. All she wanted was to protect her boys. But the illness has gradually made her give zero fucks about that. It’s down to Danny and me to navigate life with our own compass now.
‘Be honest with me, Bobby?’ she says.
‘About what?’
‘Just be honest.’
‘Of course I will.’
There’s a pause as long as a song.
‘Am I a decent mother?’
‘What?’
‘Was I a decent mother to you and Danny?’
‘What do mean was? You are and always will be.’
‘That’s all I wanted to be.’
‘You’re a brilliant mother,’ I say. ‘You’re amazing.’
‘Even like this?’
‘You’ve given me more than you’ll ever know, Mum.’
‘I love you so much, Bobby. You and Danny.’
‘It’s the same for us.’
‘I know it is. I know it is.’
‘But I have a tiny confession,’ I say.
‘You can tell me anything.’
‘Don’t hate me.’
‘Can’t guarantee it.’
‘I’m not feeling the Portishead thing. I actually think they’re bland and a bit rubbish.’
‘That’s cos you’re a tasteless idiot with very few brain cells.’
‘While you’re all taste and intelligence, I suppose?’
‘And you call yourself a poet?’
NO, I DON’T.
GOD, SHE HAS READ SOME, HASN’T SHE? SHE DID A PARENTAL SNOOP THROUGH MY STUFF IN THE DAYS WHEN HER BODY COULD SHIFT. BET SHE HAS.
As the final Portishead tune plays, Mum slides her bony fingers into mine. Icy cold. The rings she once wore have long since gone. Her thumb gently rubs the back of my hand until the song finishes.
‘You’ve nice hands, Bobby,’ she says.
‘So have you,’ I lie.
‘Promise you won’t waste them by strangling people.’
‘I’ve no intention of following your profession.’
‘Do something with your brain, son. You’ve a good one in there. You’re clever. Kind.’
‘That’s the plan, just waiting for the cells to mutate.’
‘Manual labour leads to a manual life,’ she says. ‘And a manual life leads to an unhappy life. I always had big dreams for you, Bobby.’
Mum lifts my hand to her mouth and kisses it. One short and two long ones. Needs her lip balm. I mentally fix it to the chores list.
‘There’s no way I’ll stop dreaming of you,’ she says.
‘Thanks, Mum.’
‘Guaranteed.’
We lie in silence for a moment longer.
‘Can you put The Jesus and Mary Chain on for me, son?’ she asks.
‘Which one? The depressing one?’
Which one? Stupid question. They all have an air of gloom about them.
‘Darklands,’ she says.
‘I was right, the depressing one.’ I get up from the bed, search for what she wants.
‘Sorry for not liking Ed Sheeran or one of them boy bands you’re into.’
‘But I don’t like either of –’
‘Sorry for liking good music,’ she says.
When the opening guitar chords of Darklands kick in, Mum’s left foot tries to tap along with the rhythm. Once again she’s back in that place. She doesn’t notice me, the lump, lying beside her. Darklands is all about dying or wanting to die. Painful. I need to cleanse the mood.
It’s Mum’s birthday soon. I want to do something memorable for her, cook her a nice meal – just the three of us eating together like a proper family. I could also ask Bel. Maybe I could also get Mum a professional massage? She wouldn’t go for that though.
‘Mum.’ I nudge her.
‘What?’ she says, as though I’ve interrupted something enormous.
‘You know your birthday’s coming up soon?’
‘I can still say my name, you know, Bobby.’
‘Don’t make me test you.’
‘Who are you anyway, and why are you lying next to me?’
‘Listen …’
‘Don’t forget your mother still has a sense of humour floating around in here.’
I laugh. Feels good.
‘So, what would you like for your birthday then?’ I ask.
‘Birthday, birthday … let me think … let me think,’ she says, gazing wistfully up at one of the cobwebs.
I’m about to hit her with my massage and meal idea, but she gets there before me with her own brand of humour. Humour helps her forget, like sprinkles of gold dust. These moments are unbeatable, however gold dust never floats for long, does it? When Mum shares fragments of her past it’s as though I am drowning in golden delights. When she jokes, I joke. When she scoffs, so do I. When she laughs, it spreads like a virus. When she writhes around in pain I want nothing more than to suck it out of her and have it as my own.
‘What about a nice –’ I begin to say.
‘Walking holiday in northern Spain?’ she says.
‘Sorry, no can do.’
‘Skiing in the Alps?’
‘Sold out.’
‘Trekking in Nepal?’
‘Too far away.’
‘El Camino?’
‘Is that a dress?’
‘I know what you can get me,’ she says.
‘What?’
Now a pause so long I could’ve driven an articulated lorry right down the length of it.
‘Promise you won’t go all teenage angsty on me?’
She lets go of my hand.
Suddenly the nerves jangle.
‘OK, no angst,’ I say.
‘Turn the music down first.’
I slide myself off the bed and lower the volume.
‘So, what would you like then?’ I sit at the bed’s edge to create a protective barrier between us. ‘I’m ready,’ I say.
Mum has a solemn look about her. She’s wearing her I’m-on-a-mission face. She tries to push herself upright. I help. As I sling my arms around her waist I become physically locked into whatever sordid plan she’s concocting; she has me in her clutches. Mum is right about one thing: she hasn’t lost any of her mental faculties. I place my arms behind her lower back, hoosh her up.
She takes my hand again, only this time with some severe thumb-rubbing included. She looks intense. Talk about shitting bricks!
‘What is it, Mum?’ I say, breaking my promise not to go all teenage angsty. She frowns. ‘What is it you want to say?’
‘Bobby.’
‘Mum.’
‘I’m going to talk. You’re going to listen, OK?’
‘OK.’
‘No interruptions.’
‘Lips zipped.’
‘If I slur, give me a sec?’
‘Right.’
She inhales a gulp of air into her lungs, concentrating hard.
‘You know how much I love you, Bobby. You and Danny are the most precious things I’ve ever had in my life. Bar none. Nothing else even comes close. I know caring for me has been tough going on you, don’t pretend otherwise. It’s something no child should ever have to do – you’ve no idea what having you around means to me. I’m beyond proud, Bobby. And I do understand how much effort Danny is as well.’ My turn to swig the air, trying to disguise the bulge inflating my throat.
‘I’m not going to get any better,’ she says. I’m about to add some futile phrase of encouragement, but Mum’s hand rises to halt me. ‘We both know this, so let’s not kid ourselves, OK? Things are going to get worse, Bobby. Things are going to get much worse, but that’s not the scariest thing. The scariest thing is leaving you and Danny behind, seeing you two suffer because of –’
‘Mum, don’t …’
‘No, let me finish.’
‘OK.’ I focus on our entangled hands.
‘You shouldn’t see me suffer, Bobby. I don’t want to be in severe pain day after day, night after night, waiting for the inevitable to happen. And you having to do the most unimaginable things.’
‘It doesn’t bother me.’
‘Well, it bloody bothers me,’ she spits. ‘Bobby, look, son, when a person loses their ability to communicate there’s just no point in –’
‘Why you talking like this, Mum?’ I say. ‘We’re doing fine.’
‘We’re just ticking along, but I feel the gaps between the ticks, Bobby. You don’t.’
‘I know it comes in waves, but lots of times we have a laugh,’ I say.
‘I’m spending more and more time in this room.’
‘That’s because you need to lie down. You’re exhausted by it.’
‘It’s not living, Bobby. It’s existing, existing inside a bag of bones. I’m turning into a shell.’
‘Can we not talk about something else?’
‘I don’t want my mind, my imagination, to be a prisoner to a lifeless body. I don’t.’
‘What about books and films and music?’ I offer.
‘What’s the point if I can’t discuss those things? Without a voice, what’s the point?’ I don’t know if these are genuine questions or not. I don’t know what to say. ‘Once the voice goes, this won’t be too far behind.’ She taps her head.
I’m locked in her eyes.
‘But I know you won’t let that happen, will you?’ Mum pauses, her stare harder, serious intent behind it. ‘Will you, Bobby? You won’t let that happen?’
‘What’s this all got to do with your birthday?’ I say, trying to steer the conversation on to a more pleasant path. Just tell me what you want for your birthday and let me get on with the planning, for God’s sake, I want to scream.
‘I’m getting to it, Bobby.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘What I want for my birthday is to be taken back,’ she says.
‘Taken back?’ I say, perplexed.
‘That’s right, taken back,’ Mum says, as if I should know what she’s going on about.
‘Taken back to where?’
‘To my youth.’
‘Your youth?’
‘To a time when I was blissfully loved-up with life and everything in it. To a time when I didn’t hate this world.’
‘Erm … Right.’
‘I want
to experience those feelings again, Bobby.’
‘I’m not really getting this, Mum. What feelings?’
‘The feelings I had when I watched my favourite films or listened to my favourite bands.’
‘But you do listen to your favourite bands.’
‘I can’t feel them the way I used to. I can’t move around to the songs, can I?’
‘But you can watch your favourite films whenever you want.’
‘Not the same, Bobby. Something’s missing,’ she says.
‘What then?’ I say. ‘What’s missing?’
Then, between a break in one of the songs, she drops that bombshell.
KABOOM!
‘I want to get stoned once more. Just once.’ Mum looks at me with these little lost-kitten peepers. My mouth gapes. Maybe if I’d been a stoner myself I’d have understood, but I’m not. I don’t have a clue about that stuff. When people at school brag about their weekend stoner escapades, I smile and nod like everyone else, each wading in our own sea of bullshit.
I’m not sure if my mouth remains open or not. I’ve an inability to speak.
‘I want to watch Grease or The Breakfast Club or Pretty in Pink as stoned as I used to get back in the day.’ Back in the day? Really? ‘Maybe I’ll watch all three.’
‘God, I was thinking that I’d cook a nice dinner and maybe organise someone to come in and give you a massage,’ I say.
‘This is what I want, Bobby.’ Mum’s voice takes on a tone of seriousness, as does her face. ‘And you know why?’
This is more profound than Mum existing in a lifeless body.
‘Course I know why,’ I say, but I’m not sure that I do.
‘So, can I have my birthday wish then?’
‘Why not.’
‘One problem though,’ she adds.
‘What?’
‘You need to get the stuff.’
You might have thought that would knock me for six, but I was expecting her to say something like this. I awaited its arrival.
‘The films, no bother, I can download them,’ I say. ‘But the other stuff …’
‘Hash. Grass.’
‘Yes, well, whatever. I can’t exactly charge over to the local shop, can I?’
‘Come on, you must know someone at school.’
‘I’m like an angel, Mum. I’m whiter than white.’
The Weight of a Thousand Feathers Page 7