by Ray Robinson
— Would you like to come and see her?
— No.
— She wants you to scatter her ashes.
— Oh?
— Up on Cloud Hill.
It shocked him.
The train pulled into the station.
— I need to go, Hattie. I’ll phone later.
He took a deep breath and said, — Thank you.
9.
Early morning. He’d failed to engage with the photonic mong-inducing flux of the TV. Sleep was in another hemisphere, another time-zone, another season, another bed—it was another body sweating in a hot room as a soft breeze gently stirred the curtains and cicadas strummed a soft vibrato outside.
He wondered what was behind this need of Jade’s to know everything, to delve, to share, to make connections that weren’t really there. He found himself wanting to lie, to create a new biography. He felt explosive and hated what was inside his head. He’d had the past two days off work, building up his sleep-debt, but thoughts and images tumbled through his mind and he couldn’t make them stop. That dead-hour between three and four a.m. was the worst—the weird, ghostly silence of the city—he felt lost in time, experiencing suspended animation. He made a note to himself: go to the clinic today and fill in a repeat prescription form. He needed the mirtazapine, the sweet narcosis. The comfort of sleep.
* * *
For some reason he lied to her, — Mother’s OK, thanks.
He could tell Jade was in a bar somewhere, and maybe it was alcohol but something in her voice had changed. A remoteness.
But then she invited him to Pete and Eileen’s for tea the following week. He gathered she hadn’t blabbed to them: by the way, Antony’s not the man you think he is. He likes wearing dresses and hanging himself for kicks; but it’s not a problem, it’s not an issue.
— Eileen said you’re more than welcome to bring Kenneth along.
— Really?
— Really.
— Thank you, Jade.
— For what?
He whispered a demonstrative, — Everything.
She cleared her throat, said goodbye and hung up.
* * *
He discovered he hardly knew his mother at all. She’d changed a lot over the past few years; mellowed, become interested in life. Hattie told him they’d even been planning to get married.
— Great, he said. My two step-mums.
Hattie was upset he didn’t want to be at the crematorium.
— Mother was an atheist, he said. What would she care?
— Well I’m coming up to Manchester in a couple of weeks, whether you like it or not. To give you the urn in person. It’s only right.
— You can send it by Parcel Force.
— Will it ever end?
Her anger shocked him.
— What?
— Your hostility towards Rita.
He swallowed audibly.
* * *
Mother knew so much. The church. His glue sniffing.
A name shot into his brain like adrenalin.
Cynthia.
His patience had paid off. One night, her bedroom light came on and he spotted her long yellow hair. He puckered his mouth, kissed the back of his hand. She walked over to her bed; she wasn’t wearing any knickers. He pressed himself into the tree. Oh Cynthia. The image of her nakedness was so unMotherlike – belly flat, hips narrow. He pulled himself out into the cool night air as her arms rose into a pink dressing gown and she turned, moving towards the window. But she drew the curtains and faded to a silhouette.
The dark circle of nipple, the fuzz of pubic—that’s all he wanted.
Or better still, to see her unbuttoning slowly.
Then he saw the billow of clothes on her washing line. Brightly coloured, near-human shapes. Bras. Knickers. Limbless tights. Waiting for her body.
He sneaked across her lawn and then away into the night.
And so it began: the consummation of his fantasy; the rough feminisation of the boy in the mirror; impersonating the girl that slipped in and out of his life.
Observing, mimicking, invoking, denying.
* * *
Kenneth had locked himself in his room and then forgotten why.
Nurse Bog Breath showed Antony the letter.
Lizzie was filing for divorce.
Nurse Bog Breath placed a hand on Antony’s shoulder.
— Fuck them, he said.
* * *
He pressed play on his Dictaphone, picked up his glass and stood before the mirror.
— Perhaps your fantasies are a way of preserving your masculinity?
— I’m not sure.
— Over and over again, you succeed. Survive the trauma they put you through.
He sipped the vodka, turned his head slowly, pouting.
— I’m talking about being made to feel bad for being a boy, a young male.
— I guess.
Lit from above, his cheekbones looked so prominent. He licked his lips and tried to smile; he had the same crow’s feet laughter-lines as his mother.
— What’s the one thing your mother and Lou lacked?
There was a long pause. Antony stepped back from the mirror and twisted his body, throwing his hair over a shoulder.
— Femininity?
— And?
— Affection. Warmth. Love.
— And?
He ran a hand up his leg and over his arse.
— Cocks.
— But you have a cock.
— Are we still talking about this?
Another drawn-out silence during which a child can be heard crying in the corridor outside the therapy room. Bad timing.
Antony put his drink on the mantelpiece and sat in his chair, listening.
— You dress to disguise your masculinity. And then you imagine they try to overpower you, they try to kill you. But ultimately you win because you survive, and you are potent because you have a penis.
He turned the laptop off, lay down, and closed his eyes.
With the strenuous shunt of his heart in his ears, he remembered the train journey back from Cornwall, watching the tracks as they extended into the distance where everything appeared to meet, and it felt like his life was going in reverse, that he was always travelling in the wrong direction. Train stations, waiting for it all to begin, to end.
They were all dead. Eddie. Val. Mother.
No one left.
He wondered if this might tell him something.
* * *
He found the old woman in the church again. That woody, churchy smell—he could feel the tug of his mother’s hand. Could almost see the glowering eyes above the pews.
He walked through fractals of coloured light. Jesus, Mary, Joseph. Saints in dark niches, banks of semi-melted candles, effigies rigid with Godliness. Flowers in the font and carvings of ancient knights. The large stone columns twisting upwards, the ceiling vaulted like the tail of a fantail dove.
He stood in the church, his eyes adjusting to bars of coloured light, and let the childhood memories wash over him.
The old woman seemed pleased to see him. She asked after Kenneth; Antony told her he’d been ill, about the amnesia.
— So I’m trying to find the woman, Antony said. The one he had the affair with.
The old woman sat on a pew and drummed her fingers on her knees.
— Isn’t forgiveness a Christian tenet?
She looked vexed.
— My husband died of Alzheimer’s last year. It pains me to admit it, but it was like a relief when he passed.
— I’m really sorry to hear that.
She looked up at him with milky, glistening eyes.
— Why do you want to find her?
— Because other than me he has no one left.
— What about Elizabeth?
— She’s filing for divorce.
— Oh no. No-o. That’s terrible.
— Yes. It is.
— That’s the trouble nowadays.
— What is?
— No values.
— I’m not here to judge. I just want this woman’s name.
She shrugged, tutted, sighed. Shook her old grey head.
* * *
When he got home he booted up and went to the BT.com website. He typed in the woman’s surname and initial, and then the name of the village.
Searched for Cape, J, in and around Christleton.
An address and telephone number.
All day he’d been wondering what to say, how to open the conversation without totally freaking her out. What if her daughter answered? What if she was married and her husband was a jealous psycho? What if, what if?
He pressed the number.
— You’ll have to speak up.
— Kenneth, he shouted. I’m a friend of Kenneth’s.
— Yes?
— My name’s Antony.
— What’s happened?
— He’s in a care unit. Lizzie’s filing for divorce.
He listened to her breathe for a long five seconds.
* * *
Dear Antony,
I am sorry not to have seen you for your last few appointments with me. I hope that things are OK with you? If you wish to arrange another appointment with me, please contact me at the above address. You may have decided that you no longer wish to attend sessions with me, but should you change your mind in the future, please do not hesitate to contact me and we can arrange a time to meet.
With best wishes…
He ripped the letter in half and dropped it in the bin.
* * *
The chill bathroom, knickers around her ankles, his mother looked at him, groaned, and then lowered her head.
— Need to pee, he said.
He walked around the side of her as she shuffled forward.
The shutters of her eyes were down. They were silent together. The lino was chilly beneath his bare feet and the stench of her booze-breath was sickly sweet as he trickled and splashed behind her.
Later, the wind began blowing as if the planet had become unhinged. Wind whistling along the window ledge, howling across the gables, coughing through the trees. He climbed out of his bed and whispered into her room.
Lou had gone again. Blood on the walls.
But he knew she’d be back.
Broad-backed Mam.
He wanted to climb in beside her, to snuggle into warm, heavy flesh. To feel the consoling weight of her. To know that she loved him and he loved her. That immutable touch that says simply: I love you. I will let nothing happen to you. But she recoiled whenever he touched her.
The silvery hue coming though the window made her look younger, like the girl he kept in his back pocket.
He looked at her for a long time before pulling the bed-sheet up a little.
And then a little more.
When he woke up during night, he could still see her mean lips. Eyes like hot coals.
* * *
Kenneth’s language was as flowery as ever, but he remained relatively sober and Antony realised what an expert he was at improvising in new situations with complete strangers. Antony asked Pete to put The Who on the stereo and Kenneth repeated the same lewd jokes Antony had heard a hundred times before. They had the courtesy to humour him and laugh at the right points, though there were a few times they slipped up and started quizzing him about The Past. Antony thought Kenneth would get upset. Where is she? Where’s my Lizzie? But he just chain-smoked his way through the meal and looked around the room every two minutes to remind himself where he was.
Then he saw a piece of paper sticking out of Kenneth’s jacket pocket.
The word ‘forget’.
Pete and Kenneth headed into the lounge to admire his vinyl collection.
Eileen approached Antony in the kitchen.
— I have a lot of respect for what you do. You really care for him, don’t you?
— I do.
— You’re so patient.
And behind him Jade said, — Yes, he is.
Antony excused himself and nipped upstairs to the loo. He took a quick peek in Jade’s old bedroom. Suitcases. Poster tubes. CDs in boxes.
She was packing for university.
* * *
— Ant, you OK?
He blew his nose and opened the bathroom door.
— What is it?
She pulled him into her bedroom.
— My mother’s dead.
— Oh, Ant.
He felt so ugly inside.
— She’s gone and drunk herself to death and I…
Her eyes softened into his. Tenderly she touched his cheek. He flinched.
A car blasted its horn outside. He looked at his watch: the cab driver.
— I’m so sorry, Ant.
— How’s my face?
— When did you find out?
— You can’t tell I’ve been beefing?
— Come here.
Ignoring her open arms, he glanced around for a mirror, but then couldn’t bring himself to look at his reflection, scared of what he’d see. He straightened his hair with her brush, tied it back, and headed back down the stairs. She repeated his name behind him.
Downstairs, they were engaged in a raucous round of Shit Scrabble Fuck.
Kenneth didn’t want to leave. Pete and Eileen said they’d had such a good time and that he was to bring Kenneth around again whenever he wanted. Eileen asked him if he was OK?
He had to get out of there.
He took Kenneth’s arm down the garden path and helped him into the cab. Jade followed them out.
— Ant, do you want me to come with you? Do you want to stay? Ant?
He tried, but failed, to smile at her through the windscreen.
* * *
Kenneth stared at him from the doorway and Antony wondered if contacting Julia was the wrong thing to do, if perhaps she would only make the situation worse. He wanted to save Kenneth, to make his life better, to change the way Kenneth saw the world, to create new memories, better memories for him to live by. But he knew it was hopeless.
Antony and Kenneth moved into each other, embracing tightly. It was just like the first time Eddie held him. The first time he’d ever been held by a man. They broke away awkwardly, their eyes carrying the same implicit message.
* * *
He watched Hattie walk towards him along the platform. She kissed his cheek and put her arm through his.
— I need a drink.
They went to the Station Inn and when Antony was at the bar he saw her fiddling with her bag and he thought: not here. He took the drinks over and there she was: his mother in a rectangular, white plastic box, sitting on the table.
Hattie raised her glass into the air.
— To Rita.
They chinged glasses and he took a heavy mouthful and saw the image of a cardboard coffin with the word HEAD printed at one end. He saw the cremator flicking the temperature gauge before sliding his mother into the retort.
He downed his vodka in one.
— Want another?
He didn’t wait for a reply. He went to the bar and bought two more drinks. He felt giddy. Wanted to laugh out loud.
Hattie touched his hand as he sat back down.
— Why didn’t you come?
— She was an atheist.
— So you keep saying.
— She wouldn’t have cared. Trust me.
— She wanted to contact you, six months ago. There was talk of her having a split liver transplant.
— I don’t think anyone would want my liver.
The fade of Hattie’s ebullient beam, it made something dim inside of him.
— Really? You wouldn’t give your own mother? To save her life?
He tried not to raise his voice, — No.
Hattie rummaged in her bag and pulled something out.
— Rita wanted you to have this.
She slapped a black book down. Addresses.
He opened it and the s
chool photo of him dropped out.
— Why’d she leave me this?
Hattie necked her drink, shrugged.
— Haven’t the foggiest. It was all she seemed to have.
He flicked through the names and addresses and phone numbers.
Each of them had lines through.
— Thanks.
She nodded at the drinks.
— I shouldn’t be doing this. I’m on a new program: Moderation Management. But I can’t…
Antony put a hand on her shoulder and watched her heave.
— Let’s make this the last one, eh?
She pulled a hanky from her sleeve and blew her nose loudly.
He went, — How long are you here for?
— I’m heading to Scotland first thing, to see my brother and his family. I can’t be on my own right now.
He wanted to tell her that he’d stay with her in Cornwall. He’d be company.
— Thank you, he said.
She rubbed her eyes.
— For what?
— For giving Mum something she never had before.
Hattie put her hand on his.
— She never stopped loving you. Despite everything.
— Why Cloud Hill?
Hattie stared into the bottom of her empty glass.
— Hattie?
— I don’t know. Here.
She handed him a piece of paper.
— The certificate from the crematorium, thought you might like it.
Then she pulled a goldy, heart-shaped locket from inside her blouse.
— It’s a keepsake, she said. I was wondering if you’d mind.
She eyed the plastic box.
— Help yourself, he said.
She dabbed her eyes and took the box into the Ladies.
* * *
He walked Hattie back to her hotel and then milled absentmindedly around the Northern Quarter until a rat-faced junkie shoved a Styrofoam cup into his face.