by Amy Mason
The woman tried to charge Ida for a child’s ticket as well as her own and seemed taken aback that she was travelling alone. In fact, she gave the distinct impression that she did not like the cut of Ida’s jib, and for some reason Ida felt compelled to thank her effusively.
Clutching the pink raffle ticket that had cost her 60p, Ida boarded the train, jamming herself into the seat that was meant for two children. It was the last train of the day and was almost empty apart from a stern-looking man wearing socks and sandals with two young boys that she supposed were his. The younger one turned round and stared at her and she waved at him and stuck out her tongue. The father smacked the boy on the knee, giving Ida a suspicious sideways glance. She put her feet up on the opposite seat and clutched the sides of the carriage.
The train began to move very slowly indeed. Ida watched two girls playing football and a mother holding up her baby’s chubby fist, making him wave, his arms stiff in his coat. Ida waved back and the child giggled. She waved at the geese, the sky, and even at two teenage boys who were smoking behind a tree, and who swore back at her and spat.
As they neared the end of the track Ida noticed the ends of her fingers were tingling. For a few minutes she hoped it was the cold, but by the time the train came to a creaky halt and she had warmed her hands in her armpits, she realised that the tingling was nothing to do with the temperature. Instead, it was the alarming, magical feeling that always came when something big and surprising was about to happen.
Chapter six
~ 1975 ~
Ida hit her head on something – her wardrobe or the wall – and warm liquid began trickling from her forehead. She put out her hands and felt the pointed plastic roof of her Sindy house and the dusty top of her chest of drawers. There was no use shouting out – her parents could sleep through most things – so she fumbled for the door handle and walked out onto the landing. A light was on downstairs.
Ida bit her lip, sucked in her tears and gripped the banister, feeling her way down each step, with her eyes still almost closed. Someone was on the phone in the hall below and they sounded really cross.
Only babies were frightened. She would try not to be frightened.
She reached the bottom of the stairs and stood with her arms out, waiting for someone to notice her.
The phone clattered onto the table and she felt her da’s hands around her.
“Jesus, darling, what on earth? Is it a full moon or something?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t wet myself.”
“No you didn’t, darling. Look – you must have hit your head trying to get to the loo. Want to see?” He lifted her up, took her over to the mirror and held her in front of it.
Ida’s tears came all at once. The girl in the mirror was covered in blood. It was on her chin and in her hair and all over her nightie.
“Shit. I’m sorry,” Bryan said, putting her down. “I didn’t know you’d be scared. I thought you’d be interested.”
“I am interested, Da,” she said in between sobs.
He started wiping her face with his hankie. “I thought your mother was bad enough. What a night. There, a small cut, just lots of blood. You’re going to be fine.”
“Where is she, Da?”
“I’m not sure sweetie, I’m trying to find out. Let’s clean you up and put you back to bed.”
“No,” Ida said. “I want to stay here.” She’d never said no to Da before and she wasn’t sure what he’d do.
“Alright,” he said. “Why not? Do you know how to put the kettle on?”
Ida didn’t know how to put the kettle on, so she’d made tea with the hot tap, and they sat drinking it – the teabags still bobbing in their cups – as they waited for the police to bring back her ma.
She wished she and Da could go out and look together, down through the woods with torches, but he said they couldn’t. He said they had to stay in for Ally, but Ida knew that he was frightened. Ida certainly wasn’t, she had learnt to love the woods and the dark. She was Mowgli and the chine and the beach were hers.
She had never been up this late and they were having fun. Da didn’t understand the kitchen any better than she did, so together they’d made a tray of unusual, brilliant snacks – unwashed carrots, two slices of white bread, and the last bit of a tub of Neapolitan ice cream that had been re-frozen so many times it went to powder in your mouth.
The road was quiet at this time of night and any car they heard was likely to be the police. Ida knew Da was worried, but she was excited. Things were nearly always fine, and if they weren’t at least it would be an adventure.
There was the sound of a distant car, and Bryan sat up to listen. It got nearer, slowed, and pulled into the drive.
He ran into the hall and unlocked the door.
Coming up the steps was her mother, wearing a blue kimono and no shoes, sandy and shivering, with two policemen holding her arms. “I wanted to make it all better, Bry. Why won’t you let me?”
Ida walked over to the stairs and sat part way up, watching. She had never seen her mother cry.
The policemen lifted and pushed her ma into the hall but she tried to run back out. Bryan held onto the kimono while all three men prised Bridie’s fingers from the doorframe. They slammed the front door.
“Let me get you a drink, let me get you a drink,” Bryan was saying over and over again. “If you still want to leave you can go after that.”
Bridie sat on the floor with her head in her hands as she rocked backwards and forwards, wailing like a cat.
Ida’s head was starting to hurt.
Chapter seven
~ 1999 ~
Despite having cooked dinner, Tom insisted on doing the washing up, while Ida helped Alice in the sitting room, rooting through Bridie’s disintegrating address book and phoning people about the funeral. They hadn’t mentioned the incident in the car since Ida came back to the house and Alice appeared to have got over it. In fact, she was making a list of people for Ida to call tomorrow – all the particularly boring ones who’d sent the nastiest flowers.
“We’ve got no family to ring,” Alice said. “And hardly any friends. She pissed off everyone she ever met.”
“Well, at least a few of them are coming out of the woodwork. It’s horrible to say, but if it hadn’t been in the paper who would have known?”
“Mrs Dewani from the offy?” They both started laughing.
“We shouldn’t laugh,” said Ida, “the poor cow’s going to go out of business.”
They laughed until their stomachs hurt and they both took deep breaths, rubbing their eyes and trying not to look at each other or they knew they’d start again.
“Will you go and help Tom?” Alice asked. “I can’t do this phoning with you sitting here, I’ll wet myself.”
Ida nodded, grateful to be able to leave the room. Despite the occasional laughter it was depressing and boring hearing Alice on the phone, putting on her telephone voice and smiling like a twat, saying the same things again and again.
She walked into the kitchen where Tom was sweeping the floor. “You okay?” he asked. “I think I found more mouse droppings under the cupboard. I’d buy traps but Alice won’t let me.”
“Oh, don’t worry about the mice, they’ve been here longer than we have. God, we’re gross aren’t we? Must be weird being thrown into all of this – the situation, and, you know… us.”
“It is a bit odd, I’ve only been seeing Ally seriously for two months or something, and then to find out her Mum had died... You know I saw it in the paper before she even had a chance to tell me. I rushed down as soon as I heard. I can’t imagine how hard it must be for you, being on the news so soon. It’s horrible.”
His face showed genuine concern and Ida realised it was years since anyone had looked at her like that.
“Thank you,” she said qui
etly, picking up a plate to put away. She had grown up with obituaries; the hard-living friends of her parents died young more often than most. In fact, she had written her own mother’s obituary so many times in her mind that seeing the actual thing wasn’t much of a shock in the end. But the look he gave her was a surprise. Not pity, really. Actual sympathy, she supposed.
“I don’t know. I’m surprised it hadn’t happened sooner,” she said, “and anyway, I mean I’ve never responded properly to things. I get upset about weird things, not the things I’m meant to get upset about. It’s like how I’ve always remembered strange stuff. You know, there are certain things that happen to you that you know you’re going to remember for the rest of your life.”
“Like births and deaths? Or your first snog?”
“No, no, the opposite. I don’t mean events, everyone remembers events, I mean certain points in time when everything suddenly stops and I think, ahhhh yes, here I am, this is me, here now, and it kind of links me to all the other points where I felt like that. You know? I don’t know if this is coming out right. I mean, I had one the other day, just before Ma died. I was standing in Sainsbury’s, when it started raining. That wouldn’t normally be a big deal, I’m in London after all, but the way it started raining was with this massive devastating roar, y’know? It had been so sunny and then, bam! And it didn’t just rain, it hailed too, and there were these winds. It was like we were on some tropical island or something. It was so weird, in London! So everyone stopped and faced the windows, and I could tell that everyone was thinking, well, this is it... this could be the end of the world. It sounds ridiculous now but I know that was what they were thinking. And we were all elated and free-feeling and smiling at each other because we were all in it together, like we were in some air raid shelter. I thought, am I going to die here? Among these people with their fat, shiny faces, and their wanky expensive shoes? If I really have to stay here, and we’re the last people on Earth, would I have to have sex with one of these men to ensure the future of the human race?”
“Were they all that bad?”
“I’ve got unexpectedly high standards, I’ll have you know. Anyway, I’m talking bollocks and I’m pissed. It’s been a long day.”
“Not at all, you’re bloody funny,” said Tom, putting away a saucepan. “You should write that story down. My mate’s got this fanzine, well, more of a magazine; there are book reviews, not only music stuff, and some weird short stories. You could write something for that.”
“Bah. I spend too much time drinking. Don’t tell Alice I said that.”
“That doesn’t need to be all you do. I’m in a band. We’re rubbish, but it’s fun.”
“Yeah, everyone’s got bloody interests,” Ida said, “everyone except me.”
He paused. “Shit, I’m so sorry. I’m not having a go at you. I don’t even know you. And your mother’s just died. I’m trying so hard to keep Alice going that I forgot it’s not my job to help you too.”
There was something so earnest, so open about him, that Ida spontaneously squeezed his arm. “Thank you,” she said.
There was a bang from the hall as the sitting room door slammed. “Right, that’s it for now,” Alice shouted, “I’ve had it, let’s go to bed. Two of them say they can’t come because they’re ‘under the weather’. Somehow I don’t think they’re as ‘under the weather’ as Ma was. I nearly pointed that out to them.” She appeared in the doorway. “Leave the rest of the washing up, we can do it tomorrow.”
“Sweetness, you look knackered,” said Tom, stepping towards Alice, hugging her and kissing her forehead. “Let’s get you upstairs.”
Ida looked away.
“And Uncle Peter wasn’t in,” Alice said as she left. “You get to call him tomorrow.”
Ida slept through her alarm.
“Shit,” she said to herself.
She’d fully intended to help out this morning, to try and show that she was capable and mature. Inexplicably she felt angry with her sister, as if she’d been tricked into failure. Sitting up, she saw there was a note under the door.
Morning Ida.
Could you please do some stuff around the house? Cleaning? We’re going to need to sort through Mum’s things too as I want to sell the house as soon as poss. Could you make a start? Please put anything you might want to keep to one side so I have a chance to look at it too. There’s a list on the back of this note of people who need to be called – their numbers are in the book.
PLEASE HELP. I’M SICK OF FIGHTING BUT I REALLY NEED HELP! Al x
Ida turned the note over.
Margot
Dianne
Julie and James
Uncle Peter
Ida sat on the sofa, flicking through her mother’s address book. It was virtually incomprehensible, full of crossings-out, and Ida noticed how like her own spidery writing her mother’s had been. In some places there were notes about people: ‘wonderful actress’ or ‘total prick’, making Ida laugh. Still, she held the book at a distance, as if she were holding something precious but vaguely nasty you might find in a museum. It was interesting to see all the names she didn’t recognise, next to long defunct dialling codes. Who were all these people that her mother had once had a reason to call? It made her realise how little she really knew about her ma.
Ida stared at the phone. She hadn’t spoken to Elliot since she’d arrived and ached for him to ring. There was no way for her to contact him – it had been months since his phone had been cut off – so all she could do was wait.
It wasn’t only because she loved him so much, there was more to it than that. She was desperate to speak to someone who understood her, someone normal, who got up late and got wasted and forgot to wash their hair. She tried hard to put aside the other constant worries she felt about Elliot, that he’d take too much, or take something bad, or get beaten up for unpaid debts. She hoped somebody would have got in touch if something like that had happened.
The phone was an old fashioned one with a circular dial, and she misdialled Peter’s number four times.
“054,” said a young-ish man, to Ida’s surprise.
“Oh, hello, can I speak to Peter please? It’s Ida Irons.”
“Ida! The famous Ida! I’ll get him, so sorry about your mum, I’m Jonathon, his friend. One mo.”
There was rustling then some distant shouts and then a deep, older voice.
“My darling, darling, fabulous thing – Princess of Bournemouth! How are you sweetheart? Crying into your wine or ‘Ding Dong the Witch is Dead’?”
“Neither really.”
“Oh it will come, you mark my words. Now, when do I need to come down? And where shall I stay? John’s working but I’ll be there. We’ve been praying all over the shop, me and John, and had a mass said at St. Mary’s.”
“It’s on Tuesday. You can come down whenever though. And stay here of course, we’ll find room. I can’t wait to see you. Oh Peter, you couldn’t just talk to me, for a bit, about any old crap? Make me laugh.”
When she put down the phone she noticed a pain in her side. She decided she must be hungry and put the list on the floor. Breakfast first; the rest of the calls could wait.
For a full forty-five minutes Ida stood outside her mother’s bedroom, staring at the unmade bed and rubbish-strewn floor through the foot-wide crack in the door. She couldn’t go in. The thought of it made her exhausted and then panicky – it would be like cleaning her own room times fifty and she couldn’t face it, not yet. She would clean the bathroom, cut the grass, vacuum the house, anything, except sorting out that room. Alice could do the sentimental stuff; she actually enjoyed sentimental stuff. She would let Alice boss her around as much as she wanted to if she would let her off the grown up jobs and give her some clear instruction. Ida was disorganised, she was scatterbrained, she was ruthless and lazy, and drunk. Why would Alice want her to sor
t through her mother’s room? She’d be sure to do it all wrong.
But she couldn’t quite stop staring inside. Somewhere in that room there were important things. Her mother rarely threw anything away and Ida knew that somewhere there’d be a draft of the play, or a notebook that Ida could turn into something for The Guardian culture bit at the very least. ‘Ida – the true story’, or ‘The Elusive Bridie Adair’.
There might be other things too, personal stuff. Little bits of information she could piece together for herself, to make more sense of her strange, solitary ma.
And even though she tried not to care, maybe it would be interesting to work out why her mother had written one strange, violent play, and nothing ever again.
“That was awful. The man was a total weirdo,” said Alice as she stood in the doorway, watching Ida scrub the sides of the bath. It was so old the enamel had gone, leaving it rough with bare patches of metal in places, and Ida was having a hard time getting it clean.
“Well he would be, wouldn’t he, he dresses corpses for a living.”
Alice hesitated. “If you want any proper input let me know. It’s going to be pretty simple. I thought I’d put her in her nice cotton nightdress with a rosary…” she waited for Ida to reply but she carried on scrubbing. “Anyway, thanks for doing the cleaning. Did you start on Mum’s room?”
“No. Not yet. I’m not sure I’m the best person to do it. I’ll do other stuff, tidying and whatever.”
“Please help me. I can’t do it on my own. And, I know you’ll laugh at me for the pop psychology crap, but I think it would be good for you. You still haven’t faced up to it all.”
“I faced up to it a long time ago, actually, Alice. But fine, whatever, I’ll help you. Can you take the bath mat with you when you go down? It needs to go in the wash.”
By the time they started on the bedroom most of the cleaning had been done. Ida marched through her mother’s door, staring at the opposite wall and concentrating on simply putting one foot in front of the other until she reached the clothes-covered bed. It didn’t smell of Bridie which was one good thing; instead it smelled of antiseptic and air freshener. She sat down on its edge.