All the time I’m trying very hard not to look round at the man because I can feel that he’s looking at me.
I walk past the old scooter and stand at the door to the Ladies’ loo. The hinges are broken at the bottom so it’s rocking to and fro, and quite soon the hinges at the top will break, and the whole door will fall right off. That probably started to happen during the big storm. It’s extra dark inside, and I can just see a little high window with broken glass and ivy beginning to come through from outside. It’s letting a bit of light through which is just as well because I can see that the electric bulb on the side of the wall is all smashed up and probably hasn’t been working for a very long time. No one’s going to put it right anyway because quite soon it’s all going to be pulled down and made into a car park.
There’s a smell of mould and mushy paper and wet wood. I can hear echoey water, which I think is from a broken tap or a cistern that’s overflowing. I don’t think that anyone uses this loo nowadays, but Mummy must be in here somewhere because I saw her going in, and she’s not come out.
I call her ever so quietly from the door.
‘Mummy? Mummy, are you there?’ I wait for a little while and I’m listening for the slightest noise.
‘Can you hear me Mummy? Are you alright?’
‘Is that you, Ben?’ She’s talking in a very soft voice that I can hardly hear.
‘Yes, Mummy. Are you alright? I was getting to be bit worried about you. You’ve been in there for ever such a long time.’
I hear her laughing a bit then, ever so softly.
‘It’s the funniest thing, Ben. I just sat down here for a second, and I fell asleep. Isn’t that the oddest thing?’
‘Yes, Mummy. But I really think you should come out of there now. Let’s go. Please, Mummy—I’m getting a bit fed up of this park actually…’
‘Alright, Only One. I’m coming out right away—in just a minute…’
‘Okay,’ I say, ‘but as soon as possible, because we’ve been here a long time now.’
‘Two minutes, Darling. I’ll be out in two minutes.’ She doesn’t sound to be so bad now, so perhaps everything is going to be alright after all.
When I step away from the door it’s raining again, and there’s nowhere for me to shelter unless I go right into the Ladies. But I don’t want to. It’s creepy. I think there are bats and mice in there, and it reminds me of scary places that I used to be frightened of, and anyway, it’s the Ladies’ lavatory.
‘It’s raining again, Mummy. I’ll wait for you by the café, okay?’
I don’t hear her answer, but I run across the broken slabs back to the café. I jump over the puddles and try to make sure I don’t slip on the wet leaves and bits of rubbish. When I’m halfway across, something moves inside the bag, and I feel it slipping away before I can do anything about it. There’s a huge crash because the sherry bottle has fallen right out. I stop and look down at tons of broken glass. The bottle’s not a secret anymore. The man in the café’s going to know that it’s Mummy’s sherry bottle, and she’s drunk nearly the whole of it. That’s the one thing that I didn’t want him to know about. For a minute I just don’t know what to do, and I stand still in the rain looking at the café to see if the man is watching, but I can’t really see him through the steamy glass. At the same time I know that there’s nothing I can do about it, and when I look at the smashed up glass again, I see that the sherry is slowly being washed away by the rain. I start running again, and I hope I’m not going to be in trouble with the man for not clearing up the mess, but now it’s raining so hard that I’ll just have to tell him that I’ll do it later. I push myself up against the wall by the side of the café door. I’m hiding from the man and sheltering from the rain. I’m getting wet, though. The rain’s not coming down straight; the wind is blowing it everywhere, and if Mummy’s not very quick I’m going to be soaked through. I don’t know what we will do then because for a start we’re going to look very bedraggled when we walk back to Saxham. Everyone will be looking at us.
There’s a screeching noise, and the door of the café is pulled open.
‘Better come back in here, sonny. You’re going to get wet through if you stay out there.’ The Oliver Hardy man is leaning halfway out of the door.
‘I’m waiting for my mother.’
‘I know you are, but you may as well wait in the dry. In you come.’
I say ‘Okay then,’ and sit down at the table nearest to the door. As I wipe my forehead with my hand, I notice that I’m shaking a bit and hope the man doesn’t see that. There are drips coming off the rim of my boater and bouncing on the table. The old lady says ‘tut-tut’ again. She must have seen the bottle breaking, but the man says ‘That’s enough, Nora,’ as though he’s talking to a dog that won’t stop barking. Then I know that she can’t help making the ‘tut-tut’ sound just like Hughes who keeps scrunching up his nose even though he doesn’t want to, and the teachers tell him not to.
I look out of the misty window, staring at the broken door of the Ladies waiting to see if Mummy ever comes out.
‘She alright?’ The man’s looking at me and doesn’t seem so cross as he was before. He’s got a cigarette in his mouth again, and he’s drying teacups with the dirty cloth.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Your Mum—she alright?’
‘Oh yes, she’s fine, thank you very much. She’s just tidying herself up a bit before we go.’
‘I see…’ There’s a bit of a silence, and I’m back to just waiting. Then the big fridge behind the counter turns itself on again with a loud whirr and he says, ‘Where you going, then?’ I look at him, and I think what to say for a bit.
‘Back to school. I’m going back to school when she’s ready. I’m just having a day out.’
I feel a bit cold which is funny really because it’s not such a cold day. I fold my arms around the bag in front of myself and pull it tight towards me. It feels different without the bottle in it, empty and scrunched up. Then just as I look out of the window again at the broken door of the Ladies I see it swing open in the wind, and Mummy comes out. A bit of ivy hangs down over the doorway and begins to wrap itself around her. She throws her arms around so it looks as though she’s having a battle with a whole swarm of bees. But then she’s free of it, and I feel so relieved that she’s out, and there’s nothing wrong at all.
She walks ever so slowly towards the café as if she’s not thinking of the rain, although now it’s as heavy as can be. I pray that she won’t start running because if she does she’s going to fall over.
Then she stops. She stands still in the rain with her arms flopped down by her sides.
I stand up very slowly and can’t take my eyes off her. All of a sudden everything is really not alright again—just when I was feeling relieved, so it just goes to show you never can tell with Mummy. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I quickly look at the Oliver Hardy man, and his mouth is moving again to tell himself things about her. Then I look at the picture of the lakes in Italy and wish I was there and not here and pray that everything will be alright. It’s only for a second, though, and I can’t stop myself from looking out of the window again.
Mummy stares up at the sky for a bit as though she’s got to make an important decision and starts to walk away from the café towards one of the flower beds. She kneels down even though she’s right in the middle of a puddle, puts her hands round some old plants with dead flowers, pulls them out of the ground, and clutches them tightly. She’s doing it quickly as though she’s going to run out of time, but I can’t see what she’s thinking because she’s facing away from me. The rain’s pouring down more than ever. Her clothes stick to her as though they’re her skin, and the curls are coming out of her hair which is flat against her back. She’s getting to look tinier and tinier.
Very slowly I take my eyes off Mummy and look at the
man even though I don’t want to. He’s stopped halfway through drying a cup, and he’s completely still. He looks out of the window with his mouth open. The old lady’s staring out sideways. There’s a terrible silence for a while and then she does another ‘tut-tut,’ and the man says very slowly, ‘Lord love a duck. She’s away with the fairies, she is—away with the bloody fairies…’
Suddenly, an orange light flashes on the wet window, and I think it must be a reflection from behind the counter. But when I look round there’s nothing there at all. It gets bigger and bigger. When I wipe the window with my hand I see it’s coming from the top of a car stopped halfway up on the pavement of the road to Gloucester.
It’s a police car.
There’s a flashing light on top of it but no noise. Two policemen jump out and slam the doors so hard I can hear it even though I’m inside. They run along the road, and when they get to the little wall of the park they jump straight over and run through the flower bed on the other side. One of the policemen is very tall with his helmet clutched under his arm and lanky legs that are shooting out in front of him while he’s running. The other one is smaller and a bit fat so he’s having to use his legs very hard to keep up.
I know why they’re here. They’ve come for me and Mummy. They’re heading straight for her and are going to reach her ever so quickly. She hasn’t noticed because she’s far too busy pulling the old flower plants out of the ground, and now she’s got a huge bunch that’s nearly as big as she is. And then just before they get to her I see Mr. Burston who’s huffing and puffing his way through the gates of the park with his big old Rover, parked right behind the police car. He’s not running, but he’s walking more quickly than I’ve ever seen before.
When the policemen reach Mummy, they stop for just a second as though they’re going to catch their breath, and then the tall one puts his helmet on the ground, bends over and taps her shoulder. Not roughly. Not at all roughly—a bit as though you’re gently trying to wake someone up. Then he starts talking to her with one hand on her elbow and the other on his knee. The other policeman folds his arms and stands up straight and looks around. Mr. Burston has stopped a little way off, probably not wanting to interfere. He’s fiddling with his jacket and is just now beginning to notice that it’s raining. Then he starts looking from side to side, and I realise that he’s most probably wondering where I am.
I don’t want him to see me. I’m just thinking that if there was another door at the back of the café I would like to go through it and run along the Gloucester road and then when I get to the school playing field I could run right across to the other side and over the stream into the Forest of Dean, and there I would shelter all by myself till everything is alright again.
Mummy suddenly looks up at the policeman, and it’s as though she’s had an electric shock because she lets go of all the old flowers and stands up. Straightaway she pushes the policeman in the chest, and even though she’s so small, he goes quite wobbly. And then I can see that the two policemen who had started off trying to be as polite and nice as possible have now got a very difficult person to deal with. Mummy’s starting to shout, but I can’t hear what she’s saying. Both of them grab her by the arms, and she’s in between them and struggling to get away. It’s like they’re all doing a little dance, and the tall policeman accidentally kicks his helmet which he put on the ground into the flower bed. The fat one’s helmet falls over the front of his face so he can’t see for a bit; he looks like he’s playing blind man’s buff.
I run to the door of the café because now I’ve just got to go out and look after Mummy. I pull it so hard that it opens too suddenly and bangs me on the forehead, but I don’t care. Just before I get to her, she sees me and looks at me as though she’s forgotten that I was here in the first place.
‘Leave me alone! Leave me alone!’ she’s shouting, ‘Stop them, Ben—please stop them. You’ve no right to do this. You’ve no right to arrest me…’
‘It’s all right, Madam, we’re not arresting you—we just want a little word,’ says the tall policeman, and then Mummy manages to free her arm. Her hand goes up in a big circle and smacks him full in the face. And then both her arms are being held tight behind her back and the top buttons of her blouse are popping undone one by one. There’s soaking wet mud from the plants all down her front, and it’s hard to see that her jacket is meant to be white.
The shouting gets louder and louder. She’s crying as well now and struggling as hard as ever, but the policemen have managed to get hold of her very firmly and are marching her along quite quickly towards their police car.
‘Stop it! Stop it! Please let me go! Please, please let me go! Ben, do something—you must stop them…’ The crying turns to screaming—terrible screaming like I’ve never heard in my life before. I put my arm over my face and my hand over my ear because I don’t want to see it, and I don’t want to hear it. But at the same time I walk behind the policemen and don’t try to stop them, because I absolutely know that Mummy must go with them for her own good.
Then she turns her head to look at me, and I can see that it’s not that she’s angry but that she’s frightened. It reminds me of a little girl who fell into our pool when she came to lunch with her mum and dad at our house in Beirut. Before we helped her out, when she was swallowing water and thought she was going to drown, she had exactly the same expression that Mummy’s got on now.
‘It’s alright, Mummy—please don’t be frightened. Actually, these policemen are here to help you really. Everything will be alright, and we’ll phone Dad up in a bit. He’ll sort it all out. Just be good and go with them, Mummy…’ But she’s screaming so much I don’t think she can hear me. Then all of a sudden, the screaming turns to wailing like those Arab ladies do when they’re going to a funeral. Mummy’s legs stop working, and she goes all like a rag doll. The policemen drag her along with her feet following behind. When they get to the car, the tall policeman lets her go while he opens the door, and she slumps onto the ground. She’s got a cut on her knee, and blood’s starting to run down towards her ankle. The policeman puts his hands under her arms, picks her up, and just about throws her on the back seat. She lies down flat on it. While the fat policeman opens the driver’s seat, the tall one looks over my shoulder and calls out, ‘You alright with the young lad, Sir?’ and then I see that Mr. Burston is right behind me. ‘Yes—yes, absolutely,’ he says. He’s taking a big white handkerchief out of his pocket. The tall policeman goes round to the other side of the car, opens the door, and gets in beside Mummy. But I don’t think he’ll have to hold her because it doesn’t look as though she’s going to struggle anymore. I think she’s going to go quietly after all.
Mr. Burston’s suddenly dabbing the great white handkerchief on my forehead, and there are big red blobs on it.
‘I think you’ve managed to cut yourself, young man. Nothing that Miss Carson can’t patch up, though. Are you alright?’
‘Yes, thank you, Sir—perfectly fine, thank you. Why have they arrested my mother, Sir? Where are they taking her?’
‘They’re not arresting her, Ben. They’re just looking after her for a bit. We’ll explain it all to you later when we get back to school.’
Mummy sits up and looks at me through the back window of the car. She’s gone quiet, and there’s no expression on her face. She’s crying black mascara tears which are running down her face and onto her neck, and as the car turns onto the road, she puts the palm of her hand, all grazed and red raw, flat against the glass like a starfish in a rock pool on the beach. She doesn’t move, and she doesn’t stop looking at me until the car turns the corner by the telephone exchange and is out of sight.
‘Anything I can do, Mr. Burston?’ The man from the café’s standing at the door with his hands cupped to his mouth and the dirty tea towel over his shoulder.
‘No thank you, Mr. Norton—you’ve been very helpful.’ Then Mr. Burston looks at
me sadly and says in a very gentle voice that I’ve never heard him using before, ‘Come on, let’s get you back to school for a tidy-up. Looks as though you could do with a nice hot bath. You’re soaked through.’ He puts his hand on my shoulder, and we start to walk towards his big Rover car.
And then I see it on the pavement. At first I think it’s an injured bird, a white dove only a little bit conscious, with its feathers moving ever so slightly as the raindrops are hitting them. But when I look at it for a little bit longer, I realise it’s one of Mummy’s shoes with the plastic daisy on top. I run over and pick it up and hold it in both my hands.
‘It’s one of Mummy’s shoes, Sir. She’s left behind one of her shoes.’ I can feel that I’m crying, and when I wipe my face with my sleeve I see that the tears have mixed with the rain and the blood from where I banged my head on the door of the café.
III.
Monday, 29 September, 2008
At the end of a narrow silver pathway, a pool of light shimmers where the sea meets the horizon. Above it floats an improbably large moon surrounded by an ostentatious display of stars.
I’d affected my usual air of casual disinterest walking past this little taverna before coming in, trying to decide whether it might be the right place for the first meal of my holiday. It’s important that it’s not so full that my lack of a dining partner makes me feel conspicuous, but neither must it be so empty that I’m in danger of being too fussed over by the staff. So, on a second or third look through the window, I decided that the Golden Hen—a brightly lit establishment perched directly above the sea on a little cliff in the centre of the village—fitted the bill. Three occupied tables—two couples and a singleton—perfect, and a vacant table waiting for me out on the balcony. I walked in, averting my eyes from the display cabinet occupied by a mini-holocaust of dead mullet glaring at me through outraged, accusing eyes. Dead fish. I’m funny about that.
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