‘How did you know?’
‘You always had a style unlike anyone else I’ve known. The way you use colour in particular. It’s striking.’
Mary walked into the kitchen, and Bill sucked in his breath in surprise at the room. He wasn’t expecting the large open space in front of him. Floor-to-ceiling windows framed the spectacular views of the ocean and skyline from every side from the back of the house.
‘Wow!’ he said in appreciation. It was breathtaking.
‘It catches you unawares, doesn’t it?’ Mary acknowledged. ‘I can’t believe how lucky I am to live here.’
‘Have you been here long?’ Bill asked.
‘I moved home to Coleraine about five years ago,’ Mary said. ‘Despite the fact that Mam died, I still felt the whispers of family ghosts here, pulling me back.’
‘I heard your mum passed on. I was sorry to hear it. I liked Esther,’ Bill said.
‘She used to like you too.’
He smiled without humour at the words ‘used to’. They all stopped liking him when they found out his truth. He tucked that to one side. Raking up the past wouldn’t accomplish what he had come here for: to reunite a mother and her son. ‘Are you happy to be back?’ Bill asked, moving to safer ground.
She nodded, turning away to look out to the sea. ‘There was nothing left for me in Manchester.’
Bill still could not fathom that this woman, who adored their son, who made him her life, her every thought, could say such a thing.
She turned around and filled the kettle with water. ‘You still a tea man, strong and black?’
He nodded. She remembered. But then again, so did he. ‘And you prefer coffee, with milk and two sugars.’
She acknowledged this with a slight smile. Then she busied herself making their drinks. She took a lemon drizzle cake out from a pretty rose-covered tin. She sliced four thick pieces and placed them on the huge dining room table that flanked one side of the large open-plan room.
When she sat down beside him, he smelled her perfume, still the same. If he closed his eyes, he could have been back in their kitchen in Didsbury, albeit without the stunning views. He wondered if there was another world, another life where he was doing that.
‘You still wear Chloé,’ he said.
‘Old habits die hard,’ Mary replied. Decades of birthdays, Christmasses and Mother’s Days, with gift boxes of this perfume bought by him and then Adam, flashed between them.
‘I never meant to hurt you,’ Bill blurted out. So much for playing it cool and not raking up old hurts. ‘I loved you.’
‘And yet somehow you still did,’ Mary said.
‘I couldn’t help myself, no more than the sun cannot stop itself rising every morning.’
‘There’s always a choice,’ Mary replied. ‘You had a wife and a son, but you chose to ignore that when you took him to your bed.’
Bill thought about all the times he’d pushed Christian away, the years he told himself that he was confused, that he didn’t really love him. He knew how much he had to lose. He fought hard to keep it. But in his worst nightmares, he never expected the fallout to be so catastrophic.
‘I paid a high price for that love,’ Bill said.
She acknowledged this with a blink of her eyes. ‘Are you still with him? Christian?’ She swallowed, just saying his name out loud was clearly painful to her.
He shook his head, feeling a familiar ache that always stabbed him when he thought of Christian. ‘He died when we were in France.’
She didn’t look surprised or sorry, just accepting of his fate.
‘We were together for nine years. Neither of us knew that he had a heart problem, undetected from childhood. He had a massive heart attack one day while reading Le Figaro. One moment he was laughing, then he was gone.’ Bill still felt pain at that memory. It never faded.
‘And now? Are you with someone? Man or woman?’ Mary asked.
Bill laughed and Mary snapped, ‘What’s so funny?’
‘The way you said that. You sound just like Adam.’
‘Oh.’ Her face clouded when she heard her son’s name.
Bill wondered what she would make of his flings with George and Jane. He thought it best to keep all that to himself. ‘Let’s just say, I date,’ he replied.
‘I’ve no doubt you do,’ Mary sniffed.
‘And what about you? This idyll you have here, is there someone to share it with?’ Bill hoped there was.
‘I date too,’ she answered. He saw pain in her eyes again, despite the defiant tilt of her chin. Shame made him lower his head. He had damaged her all those years ago and there was nothing he could do about it.
‘Why are you here, Bill?’ Mary asked, sighing softly.
‘For Adam.’
Her face instantly crumpled as she asked in a whisper, ‘What’s wrong?’
He quickly waved her worry away reassuring her that Adam was alive and well. ‘But he’s not okay. He needs his mother.’
‘He hasn’t needed me for a long time.’ Stubbornness lined her face again. He’d seen that look before. When Mary Williams decided something, it was near impossible to change her course.
‘What did he do that was so bad?’
Mary closed her eyes for a moment, before answering, ‘He didn’t do anything. It was all me. He walked away ten years ago and he made it clear every day since then, that he doesn’t need me, by staying away.’
‘By God, you’re a stubborn woman, Mary Williams.’
‘And what if I am?’ she shouted back to him.
‘You’re wrong,’ Bill said. ‘A child always needs their parents.’
‘And I take it from that statement that you and him are as thick as thieves again,’ Mary said, her voice acerbic.
‘We’re getting there. I went looking for him this year. We’ve a lot of time to make up. And he had a lot of questions and hurt he’d been carrying around for a long time.’ Bill had promised himself that he wouldn’t dwell on the past with Mary, but he found that once again he surprised himself when he said, ‘Why did you do that to me? Did I hurt you that bad that you had to take away everybody I loved?’
She poured herself another cup of coffee and stirred in her sugar and milk. She didn’t answer him.
‘Not enough that you told your family and mine in Coleraine that I was gay, so that they all cut me out of their lives, you turned my son against me too.’ Bill felt his heart quicken as anger nipped at him.
Mary remained silent. He couldn’t read her face. He continued, ‘You know, my parents both died and went to their graves, having not spoken to me for over a decade. I kept trying to make them understand that I was still me. I hadn’t changed from their loving son, just because I was in love with Christian.’
Mary stared out to the sea and blinked back tears.
‘I begged them to forgive me,’ Bill went on, ‘but in truth I wasn’t even sure what I needed forgiveness for. Our marriage broke up and yes, I fell in love with someone else. But I told you, as soon as it started. I asked for a divorce.’
He looked down at his hands and rubbed the third finger on his left hand. He’d worn a ring there for years and still, all this time later it felt bare. A circle of love they’d said, when she put it on him.
With every part of him he wished it could have ended any other way than it did.
Her roar, her anguished cry, knocked him off his stool. He looked up from the floor to see her standing above him, eyes wild and face flushed. ‘You humiliated me!’
‘Is that what it was about? You were humiliated?’ Bill roared back, picking himself off the ground. ‘So you made damn sure that you did the same to me!’
She laughed at that and shouted back, ‘Yes! I did. And I’m glad.’
But her laugh rang hollow and the tears that sprang to her eyes made a liar of her.
Pacing the room, he said, ‘I wanted to be the one to tell them. On my terms. Gently. Give them time to understand. But you took that away from me. Y
ou turned something that was beautiful into something that was sordid and dirty.’
Mary grabbed his arm, digging her fingers painfully into his flesh. ‘I lost everything because of you! Have you any concept what it was like for me? I had no idea you didn’t love me. I thought we had the perfect marriage. I was the stupid bloody idiot who thought we had everything.’
Her body slumped at this and she pulled her hand back from his arm, as if in shock, that she was touching him.
‘I loved you Mary, I swear to you, that’s true,’ Bill said sadly. ‘But then, when I met Christian, I realised I wasn’t in love with you. There’s a difference.’
Mary stood up and walked to the sliding doors, pulling them across and letting the sea breeze rush over her. ‘I need some air.’ She turned to face him. ‘Come with me. You still like to walk, I take it?’
She didn’t wait for his answer, just strode down her garden path. He ran after her, catching up at the gate at the end, that led to a sandy path to the beach.
‘This is breath-taking,’ Bill said, taking in the expanse of blue sea, meeting the horizon. The waves rushed on to the beach, white foam bubbling on the sand. And the faint cry of gulls, winging their way overhead, echoed through the air.
‘If we have ugly things to say to each other, I want to say them out here. I don’t want them filling my house, tainting it,’ Mary said, then she sighed, looking out to the sea. ‘Maybe it’s time we let some of them go . . .’
Bill smiled. She always was a dreamer, fanciful. Adam was like that too.
‘He’s his mother’s son,’ Bill said.
She shook her head. ‘No, he’s more like you. That’s why we argued. I behaved so badly. I don’t know what came over me.’
‘I understand why you did what you did to me. But I’m at a loss as to why you would behave like that with Adam. You adored him.’
She didn’t answer at first. Just kept on walking along the sand, near the water’s edge. The wind whipped her hair around her face.
‘Did you know my father was unfaithful to my mother for most of their marriage?’ Mary asked.
‘I didn’t. But now that you say it, I’m not surprised.’
Bill had once raised his suspicions about her father’s wandering eye, but Mary maintained her parents lived in married bliss. It was the confession that she had known about her father, rather than the infidelity itself, that shocked him.
‘After you and I broke up, there was a scandal. At home in Coleraine. Did you hear about it?’
He shook his head. ‘No. I was in France.’
‘He was caught with a young girl half his age. One of his friend’s daughters.’
‘What happened?’ Bill fell into step beside her.
Mary pulled her sandals off and caught them in her hand and he did the same with his shoes and socks.
‘My mother was humiliated. And once the affair became public knowledge, she couldn’t hide the fact that she’d known my dad had cheated on her, pretty much on and off the whole of their married life. Like a badly written soap opera, they fought, she ranted, he apologised, they fought some more, then she took him back,’ Mary said.
‘That must have been hard,’ Bill acknowledged. ‘Esther was a proud woman, I would imagine she’d have found gossiping neighbours particularly hard to take.’
Mary picked up a stone from the beach and skimmed it across the sea, three times before it disappeared, with a plop.
She continued skimming pebbles as she spoke. ‘When I was eleven, I saw my dad with his secretary. Terribly clichéd I’m afraid.’ Mary threw a pebble back to the sand and turned towards the sea, looking out to the vast expanse. ‘I called in unexpectedly one day. I needed money for a school tour and Mam had forgotten to give it to me that morning. I was too lazy to walk home at lunchtime, so decided to go to Dad’s firm instead. Claire, his secretary wasn’t at her desk, I found out why pretty quickly, when I walked in unannounced.’
‘And you were only eleven?’ Bill was horrified.
‘Yes. It was such a shock. I backed out of the room quietly and I never told anyone. I felt I should keep it hidden. And that made me feel guilty, like I was somehow complicit in his infidelity. It was a head wreck.’
Bill’s eyes filled with tears for the young child that had to live with a secret that was too big for anyone so young. ‘No child should have to see something like that.’
‘Up until that moment, I didn’t even know what sex was. But I swore, when I got married, I’d not make the same mistakes my mother did. I’d marry a good man. And I really thought I had found that with you.’
Two gulls flew by and swooped down low on the surf of the wave, picking at the water. Then with a loud chorus of caws, flew off into the horizon.
‘I fell in love with you on our first date. You made me laugh, you made me question myself and my life, you made me want you,’ Mary said.
‘I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever met,’ Bill said. Then he caught her arm and said, ‘And I still do. I mean that sincerely.’
She shrugged. ‘But not quite beautiful enough.’ She continued walking and he followed her, at a loss as to what to say next. Because she was right and mere words would not change that.
‘After you left, things got a bit messed up here.’ She pointed to her head. ‘You, my father, all became tangled up in a mixture of hatred and disgust. I know I became bitter. I know I was unspeakably horrid to you, destroying your relationship with your family. There is no excuse for that. And I’m sorry. I truly am.’
He was staggered by the apology. He hadn’t expected one. And he wasn’t sure what to do with it.
She continued, her words spilling out fast. ‘But I thought to myself, I need to save Adam. Keep him away from you and your influence. So I hid your letters, your presents. Told him you didn’t want to see either of us any more. That you’d left both of us, not just me. I want you to know that I lie awake at night, feeling guilty about that. I know I was wicked.’
‘I’ve told him the truth of that. I had to, Mary. I didn’t want to stick the boot in you, but I could not let him believe that I didn’t love him. That I walked away.’
She didn’t answer him. He was worried that this would sever whatever small connection they were brokering, with her earlier apology. So he said again, ‘I had to tell him, Mary. I had to get him to speak to me, know that I loved him.’
‘Any boot you gave, I deserved,’ Mary said. ‘The crazy thing is, that by cutting you out of his life, I lost him anyway. We fought constantly. Every time he did something that reminded me of you, of my father, I found myself panicking. And the guilt of my actions weighed heavy on me. I stopped painting. I stopped living. It was almost as if I was punishing myself. Then I found out he was seeing two girls at once and I just saw red. We fought, worse than any other fight we’d ever had. I said some terrible things. So did he. And then he walked out, swearing he’d never cross any threshold I was in, ever again.’
‘What a waste,’ Bill said.
‘I made a right old mess of things,’ Mary’s voice broke. ‘You know, I used to think that I was a non-judgemental person. And I think I am again, now. I live a life, where I pretty much live and let live. I get all sorts here. And I welcome them all. But when it came to my family, I got it so wrong, I became intractable, unyielding, judgemental. I’ll never forgive myself for that.’
‘There’s time for you to sort this out,’ Bill replied.
‘Adam doesn’t want me,’ Mary said. ‘And who could blame him?’
‘He might not know that he wants you, but I can see that he does,’ Bill said. ‘You needn’t have worried about him, because he fell in love with a lass. Rachel. The most beautiful woman, inside and out. The truest of hearts. And they got married. They have a son. Matthew. The love between those two, it was pure.’
Mary sobbed at this news. ‘I’m a grandmother?’
Bill pulled out his wallet and took out a photograph of Adam, Rachel and Matthew. H
e’d taken the shot, in the back garden of their house in Didsbury.
‘Oh, they look so happy. What a gorgeous snap,’ Mary said. Her hand hovered over Matthew’s face.
‘They were happy on that day. I watched them from their kitchen window and felt their happiness bounce around the garden and into the house. It was a joy to be around, infectious.’
‘Was?’ Mary said. Her face blanched and she gripped his arm, as if to prepare herself for bad news that she knew was coming at her with great speed.
Bill placed his hand on hers and said, as gently as he could, ‘Rachel was killed in a car accident three months ago.’
Her head buzzed and tears splashed down her cheeks. She was dumbstruck with horror.
‘You see, he needs you, Mary. Our boy needs his mother.’
CHAPTER THIRTY
The unclean shirt and the return of the prodigal mother
Bill’s House, Malone Road, Stranmillis, Belfast
If Adam knew that on this day he would be seeing his mother again for the first time in a decade, he would have changed his shirt. He’d have put something decent on, as he father would say.
Bill had left early this morning, forgoing their usual porridge and song-filled breakfast. He had been shifty for days, in fact. Adam assumed he was up to no good again, stringing some poor fella or lady along.
Adam was in the kitchen, peeling spuds for dinner, when he heard the front door open.
‘In here, Dad,’ he shouted, not turning around from the sink. ‘His lordship is upstairs asleep.’
‘Hello, son.’ A voice, a ghost, a hidden heartbreak, whispered.
Adam didn’t turn around. He didn’t trust his ears. His mother’s voice? But that was impossible. Wherever she would be, it would not be in his father’s house. He looked up from the sink, into the window in front of him. And in the reflection of the glass he saw her, standing a foot behind him. His father hovered behind her, his face unsure, wearing that same frown he adopted when worrying about his son.
Adam dropped the vegetable peeler into the sink with a clatter and wiped his hands slowly on his jeans. He gulped, trying to get rid of the saliva that was choking him.
Cold Feet: The Lost Years Page 23