501

by Robert Field

  I don’t know what to say, how to answer that, so I wait a few moments and then start to call the drinks in.

  No one seems in a hurry to go tonight; well, except for the opposition. We, Six of the Best minus Lena, sit and jaw, clean up the sandwiches, insult Danny. Things we’ve done for years. There’s a comfort to it, a familiarity. I suppose this it what Maggie meant when she said, ‘Let’s not spoil it.’

  And she’s right.

  I make the mistake, when I get home, of pouring myself a large nightcap, but what I thought would help me sleep keeps me awake. I’m tossing and turning and I’m thinking that what I need is a good, strong man to curl up to at night.

  Then I laugh to myself because who would want an old fleabag like me, withered empty tits and as dry as a bone in you know where.

  I’m thinking about getting up to make a cup of tea when I hear a sound like a meow. I stop breathing, listen. There it is again. Clear. Distinct.

  Meow. Meow. Meow. Long and plaintive and coming from the back of the house, the patio.

  You know what? I’m shaking because it can’t be, not after all these weeks. But all the same a prayer, a fucking prayer, is forming in my head.

  When I’m downstairs he’s there, one little runaway who escaped the slaughter. He’s pushing himself against the glass, squinting at the light. My own holocaust survivor come back to me.

  My own Robert the Bruce.

  And I forget about the blood in the toilet bowl until the next morning. Until it happens again.

  Thursday night practice – February.

  Katy.

  It’s Thursday night and I should be having a drink and laughing with the girls, but I’m driving back to Mum’s in Johnny James’s car. I feel like I’ve been kicked in the stomach and the only thing I want tonight is some honesty from Mum.

  I’m thinking that an hour ago the world was nearly a settled place and one thing, just one thing, has opened a can of worms.

  Earlier Johnny James says, ‘Take my car, Katy, pick up Pegs and I’ll come down to the pub later, drive you home.’ He gives me that look that makes me think I’m the only girl in the whole world.

  I say, ‘What if I have an accident?’

  ‘You don’t drive fast enough to do any damage.’

  ‘Cheeky sod.’

  He kisses me them, wraps his arms around me so tightly you’d have to peel us apart.

  ‘I bet you’ll be really grateful for this,’ he whispers. My man’s breath is warm and sweet and… and if I don’t go now I never will.

  And later I wish I hadn’t.

  It’s dusk when I drive down the narrow lane into the site. I say ‘lane’ but really it’s a rough track. Mum says that when she was a young girl it was a proper road to the station, but now the hedges have spread and the verges have closed in.

  Mum says, ‘That was before the gypsies came.’

  Johnny’s car is a low-slung Beema and it glides over the humps and through the potholes like it’s on the highway. This motor is Johnny James’s pride and joy. He keeps it spotless and I tell him it’s clean enough to live in.

  He says, ‘Why not? We’ve done everything else in it.’

  He nods towards the back seat.

  It’s this way about him about him that makes me laugh: his directness. No smutty porn for Johnny James; he wants the real thing.

  Like when we were having a smoke together outside the George and he just leaned forward and kissed me.

  And started all of this.

  So it’s dusk and I’m pulling onto Pegs’ site and I get that feeling of déjà vu, but not counting all the times I’ve been here. It’s something distant, something older that slips away from me. You know how something puzzles you sometimes and you don’t quite know why, but so, so, nearly do. Well, it’s like that.

  Anyway, when I knock on the door Pegs isn’t ready and her mum says, ‘Come in, Katy, and wait.’

  I haven’t been in their home before but I’ve seen the inside of gypsy places on the telly, so I’m expecting lots of cut glass and ornaments, like on Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. But this park home isn’t cluttered up; it’s quite roomy. Well, apart from a wall of framed photographs that’s crowded with people.

  Pegs’ mum shouts through the bathroom door, ‘Katy’s here, Peggy.’

  Then she takes two cans of beer out of the fridge and says to me, ‘You all right here? Henry and Big Dave are working in the shed. I better take them a livvener.’

  Then it’s like she corrects herself, like she’s given away a secret word. ‘Beer. I mean take them a beer, Katy.’

  She leaves with the cans and I can hear Pegs singing softly, sweetly to herself as she gets ready for our practice night. She sounds so happy, not a care in the world.

  I’ve never been too good at sitting still and after a few minutes I have a nose around. Not prying, just curious, I look down the wall of photos.

  There’s pictures of old-fashioned caravans and tethered horses.

  There’s a family sitting around a fire where a big pot is hanging above the flames and they’re giving the camera a broad-grinned thumbs-up.

  There’s a picture of an old lady with a basket of bunched flowers.

  Then there’s another one of her holding hands, caught in a walk with who I think must be a young Pegs.

  This old lady’s hair is in two long plaits and she looks like a Comanche off the reservation. But she also looks slightly familiar and then I think that I must have seen her years ago in town, maybe.

  I scan the rest of the pictures and, just when I’m nearly done, I hear Pegs open the bathroom door.

  ‘Katy,’ she says.

  Now if she’d have stepped out a fraction of a second sooner, I wouldn’t have seen the framed photo at the end of the bottom row. But she doesn’t and I do.

  It draws me in, this close-up of the same old lady with hooped earrings, cradling a baby.

  Behind me, Pegs says, ‘Katy?’

  I don’t know what she must think when all I can answer is, ‘Who’s this?’ I’ve got my finger on the picture. ‘Who’s this, Pegs?’

  Pegs is looking at me quizzically. ‘You all right, Katy?’

  ‘Yes. Yes. Who is it?’

  Pegs says, ‘That’s my gran.’

  ‘Your gran? And the baby. Who’s the baby?’

  ‘What’s the matter, Katy?’

  I don’t know what’s the matter. I don’t know anything. I only know that it’s the same photo that’s in Mum’s Huntley and Palmers tin.

  Now Pegs is speaking slowly and she’s not looking at me. It’s as though she doesn’t want to see me.

  She says, ‘Gran never said. Reckoned we’d meet her one day. Gran was like that, talking in riddles.’

  Then she says, ‘We should get going, else we’ll be late.’ She laughs. ‘I spent too long getting ready. Was it worth it?’ She laughs like she’s nervous of something and then little, gentle Pegs revolves in front of me, in front of that picture.

  We climb into Johnny James’s Beema and we head for the George. My mobile rings on the way and, although I know it’s him, I don’t answer it.

  And me and Pegs hardly speak at all.

  You know all I do when we reach the pub is to buy a round for the girls. Then I leave them all to their simple fucking lives and do what I should have done months ago. I’ll do like I promised myself; I’ll empty that biscuit box on the kitchen table and I’ll sit Mum there and make her answer every question.

  But when I get home, Mum’s not in and there’s a note on the worktop.

  Gone with Moira to Bingo. Might be a bit late back.

  So I get Mum’s photos, make myself a cup of tea, light a cigarette and dip into the box. I lay these pictures out in order of date and look for clues. But they tell me nothing and I shuffle them like cards, lay them down again and again. I do it time after time but there’s not anything given away.

  I’ve smoked three cigarettes and drunk two cups of tea before the door opens behind m
e.

  ‘Right, I’m going to tell her what for.’

  I’m turning around as I say, ‘Mum, I want the truth and I won’t take no for...’

  But it’s not Mum.

  Laura says, ‘I didn’t think you’d be here. Where’s Gran?’

  ‘Bingo.’

  ‘I’ll go then.’

  ‘No, Laura. Stay. I’ll make you a drink.’

  She hesitates, half-in and half-out of the night.

  ‘Can I have one of your fags?’

  She’s never smoked in front of me, she knows my illogical disapproval.

  ‘Dad lets me,’ she says.

  It’s all there, isn’t it? A ‘no’ and she’ll be gone. A ‘yes’, a victory won and she’ll stay.

  I say, ‘Okay,’ and she lights a cigarette and takes a deep exaggerated drag. I half expect her to blow the smoke into my face.

  We sit in silence for a while, with me frantically searching for some common ground. All I come out with is, ‘How’s your father?’ and this sounds so formal, like I’m talking about a stranger.

  She’s straight onto it.

  ‘Your father,’ she mocks. ‘Your father. Don’t you mean your husband? As if you cared how he is anyway.’

  I’m thinking that feeling sorry for someone is caring but I can’t tell her that because it won’t make things better.

  ‘How’s school?’

  ‘I go sometimes.’ She adds, ‘When I feel like it.’

  My daughter, this young woman in her time of puppy-fat and too-tight jeans, is perched on her kitchen chair, trying to be detached. She’s drawing on her cigarette and showing the attitude of her age.

  But it’s me I see there; like I was. And I’m seeing me with Mum’s eyes.

  And I’m saying, ‘But I love Jerry; we want to be together. You just don’t understand.’

  I purse my lips and whistle a plume of smoke into the air.

  Then Laura says, ‘What are you doing anyway? What’s those?’

  ‘Just some of Gran’s old photos.’

  ‘Can I see?’

  I pass her the one of Mum on the seafront in the ‘Kiss me quick’ hat, where she’s wrapped up with her young man.

  Laura studies it.

  ‘Is it Gran? She was a looker. And he was a bit of all right.’

  She laughs at herself for this description, studies it a bit more.

  ‘So who is – was – he?’

  My head’s whirling with all the questions that I have and now I’m being asked to explain. All of a sudden I’ve had enough. I’ve had enough of trying to explain, I’ve had enough of being denied. I’ve just had a fucking enough.

  ‘It’s my dad.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s my dad.’

  Laura’s mouth hangs open. ‘Your dad?’ she says disbelievingly. ‘Your father? But how?’

  But then I’ve got to get out before I scream. I need space and air so I walk out then, leave her with her mouth gaping open.

  ‘Ask your Gran,’ I say over my shoulder. ‘She might tell you more than she ever told me.’

  So I drive around for a while in Johnny James’ car until my mobile rings and it’s him, asking where I am, whether I’m looking after his car. Although I’ve pulled over, I tell him I can’t talk for long because I’m on the motorway and the police are trying to get by me.

  I tell him this and he’s laughing and I’m laughing.

  And then I’m crying, just like that, and I’m saying, ‘I need to see you, Johnny. Now, please, Johnny.’

  ‘What’s the matter, Katy? What’s happened?’

  ‘Fucking everything,’ I say.

  ‘Just come and get me, Katy,’ he says, and I love him so much it nearly chokes me.

  But later, when Johnny James is softly, lovingly, questioning me, why do I tell him that it’s just because I saw Laura? That was the reason.

  Afterwards Johnny drops me at home, reclaims his beloved car.

  And when I walk through the garden gate the kitchen light is shining onto the path and I know that Mum is waiting up for me.

  She’s waiting up all right, the Huntley and Palmers tin is on the table, and her face is set into ‘I’m going to give you what for, Katy’.

  But I pre-empt her. Before she can even open her mouth I say, ‘You know what I saw today at Pegs’?’

  ‘Look, Katy, I can’t have you sneaking into my things. You’ve no right.’

  ‘I saw that photograph. You know the one with the old lady. The one that you keep with my dad’s.’

  ‘Your dad’s? Oh Katy. You’ve no right, Katy.’

  ‘I’ve got every right, Mum.’

  I pull up a chair, sit opposite her: mother and daughter across the kitchen table.

  ‘Mum,’ I say. ‘I’ve got to know. I have to know. No more covering up.’ (I was going to say ‘lies’ but that word is too harsh to say to Mum.)

  She goes white. ‘Please, Katy. Please. You don’t know where this is going.’

  And I don’t, do I? I’m trembling and I’ve got to have a fag. But when I fumble one out of the packet, Mum wipes her forehead with her hand and says, ‘I’ll have one, Katy.’

  I light it and pass her the first cigarette in five years and then I dip the photographs from the biscuit tin, lay them out, and say, ‘Tell me, Mum. Please tell me.’

  And when Mum tells, each picture is a chapter of her long-ago love affair and she talks it from beginning to end.

  And it’s nineteen seventy-five and Mum’s sipping her Coke in the disco. Donna Summer is singing ‘Love to Love You Baby’ and Mum’s waiting for her friend to come back from the Ladies. Then this boy’s there and he’s leaning to Mum, asking for a dance. Even through the fan of flickering lights she can see his smile.

  ‘Lovely he was. Lovely.’

  Anyway one thing leads to another and he offers her a lift home and in the car park he opens the door of a Transit pick-up. The back of the vehicle is loaded with old fridges and washing machines and Mum suddenly puts together this stranger and his occupation, his quick way of speaking and his accent. And when he tells her that he’s staying with his mother at the old railway yard she knows for certain.

  He drives her home, stops at the end of her road, comes around and opens her door like he’s a chauffeur.

  ‘Manners he had. Such manners.’

  Then he kisses her goodnight, soft and gentle, and she’s lost and this is the beginning.

  They never go out locally and she keeps him a secret. There’d always been trouble in town with the gypsies coming and going, and her father wasn’t the most understanding of people.

  ‘Bloody pikeys. Don’t pay no taxes. Steal anything that isn’t bolted down. I didn’t fight a war for the likes of them.’

  So she couldn’t take him home, could she?

  Mum’s got a friend in Weston-super-Mare and that’s her excuse for a bank-holiday weekend away. Mum’s eighteen and he’s twenty and they sign in a hotel as Mr and Mrs Smith, and he laughs because that’s his real surname.

  ‘Common as muck, I am,’ he says and Mum laughs.

  But his Christian name? What’s his Christian name?

  ‘Henry,’ Mum says, and I begin to go cold. I pick up a photograph, hold it close, and study his face for a confirmation.

  At Weston he buys her the kiss-me-quick hat and they have their picture taken for a quid. Mum reckons that it’s the happiest she’s been in her life and she wishes the weekend could last forever.

  ‘But nothing does, Katy. Nothing can.’

  He’s a gypsy boy and there’s business to be done on the summer rounds, and the briefness of a three-month affair is over. Of course there’re the promises of waiting, the clinging together in a long goodbye, but she can feel the restlessness in him.

  ‘I cried myself to sleep for a week but I was young then and you soon get over these things.’

  But Mum didn’t get over it because when That Time of the Month came, nothing else did. And it was the sa
me the following month so she went to see Dr. Andrews, although she already knew she was pregnant.

  ‘I was going to have an abortion, everything was arranged, but I met your Auntie Doreen in the street. Little Sammy was in her pram and she looked so small, so helpless.’

  Mum, eyes brimming, looks at me.

  ‘I couldn’t do it, Katy. I couldn’t kill you.’

  I’m crying now and then I’m holding Mum and we’re sobbing together.

  Then I make a pot of tea, give Mum another cigarette and let her catch her breath before she starts again.

  In the bright kitchen of her council home, she tells me of leaving home, of walking out of her parents’ house to live with a girlfriend on the other side of town.

  ‘I couldn’t have stayed at home, what with Dad…’ She sighs. ‘Well, Dad was Dad and Mum wasn’t going to cross him.’

  So Mum cuts herself adrift, works at the supermarket ’til her waters break and then goes on the Social. It wasn’t much in those days but she was good with money and she managed.

  She used to wheel me out in the lanes around the town.

  ‘Because I didn’t want to see anyone, Katy. I didn’t want any questions.’

  One hot summer’s day she’s wheeling me past the lane to the railway yard and sitting on the verge in the sunshine is Henry’s mother, Mrs Smith.

  Mum didn’t know her then, of course, just knew there was this gypsy woman, sitting with a shopping bag and a Jack Russell at her side.

  She gets up, stops Mum, pulls her into a conversation about the weather.

  ‘But she kept looking at you, Katy, and then she took an old coin, a half a crown, and put it into your hand, closed your fingers around it.

  She looks at me then, right into my eyes, like she could see inside me, and she says, ‘I’d like a picture of this child. A picture, that’s all I’m asking.’

  But I’m spooked then and I mumble something about getting back and hurry away as fast as I can.

  But the next week when I’m passing she’s there again, sitting in the same place with her dog by her side, on another hot sunny afternoon.

  She says to me, ‘You must be thirsty, my dear.’ She’s all kindness and concern and it makes me feel a bit ashamed of rushing away before. She fusses over you in the pram and then she says, ‘Come and have a cool drink,’ and when I hesitate she says quietly, ‘I’m Henry’s mother.’