‘If it makes you feel any better then I’ll apologise.’
He considers this while he tests the eggs.
‘That’s the kind of offer that puts the onus on the other person, and it’s not really an apology at all. I’m not looking for contrition. I imagine that might be considered weakness where you come from. I’m not. Lorraine is.’
‘I can’t stay forever.’
‘Forever is terrifying.’
‘I never said I would.’
‘No. You didn’t.’
‘I didn’t break a promise.’ Her voice is rising. He has seen her despondent but never agitated.
‘You didn’t do that either but you did offend common decency. And not just to me.’
‘I don’t owe!’
‘But of course you do. We all do. You can’t sever everything. We’re all implicated in ties. It’s what it means to be human.’
His words collide. She stands stock still, like some charging animal stopped by a shot before it slumps, and sits opposite him. He starts to eat.
‘Where did you go?’
‘Newcastle.’
‘Why?’
‘Mum.’
He has a childish image of passing her on the way up, waving from the carriage to a lighted window framing a Christmas tree, the woman an older version of Gina.
‘You never mentioned your mother. You never mentioned anyone.’
‘Neither did you.’
‘I’m not complaining. I’m not the one who left. I’m just trying to understand what compelled you to go.’
‘You did. Your talk. Christmas. Families. She left us. That’s why Dad is the way he is, or one of the reasons. I never forgave her. I had a brother, Kevin, and he died... He died you see. And she left. And I thought it couldn’t have come at a worse time. I thought she deserted a sinking ship. I never realised what it does to you. Not until Millie.’
‘Was she any help?’
‘No.’ She turns suddenly bitter. ‘You’d think being mother and daughter was enough. It was with me and Millie. But not her. And even if blood wasn’t enough in common, we’ve got the same loss. But she’s a drunk and she’s trapped inside her own hurt. Nothing exists outside. No one else is allowed to be sad. It’s like a tragic film she just keeps playing over and over in her head, cranking up the pathos till she batters it down with drink. She needs it now because it’s her only story. It defines her. She doesn’t ever think she needs an excuse. Any other sad story is just a distraction she doesn’t need, even if it’s me.’
‘Did you talk about Millie with her?’
‘You don’t understand. She doesn’t talk. She puts up this front, like she’s insanely happy. I think she needs the drink to keep it up. She’s done it so long I don’t even know if there’s anything left behind it any more.’
‘Would you like to talk to her?’
‘I’d like lots of things. I’d like ordinary parents. I aspire to ordinary problems.’
He eats the remainder of the meal in silence. The presents still lie unopened beneath the tree. They unwrap them in turn. When finally he climbs the stairs she watches anxiously from the bottom. His pyjamas seem more of an effort than normal. As he lies down his organs sigh in a chorus of relief.
Before he falls asleep he decides on a better present for her.
* * *
She returns to work next day. She’d phoned from Newcastle, working on the basis that it was easier to seek forgiveness than permission. He makes the phone calls while she is out. It’s difficult getting any information from Lolly. Rather than answer any of his questions she deluges him with questions of her own. She says she’s on the point of putting some slap on and running to Central to get a train right there. He has to tell her what he intends to forestall her. She snorts down the phone. Ruth offers more encouragement and even provides a phone number.
He makes that call the following day. He introduces himself and explains his proposition. There’s an almost narcotic tardiness to all the responses. He apologises if he’s woken her up. She asks if she can take his number and call him back. Of course she can. When he replaces the receiver he realises he can’t infer anything about her from the call, not her age or appearance or enthusiasm for the invitation.
He waits.
Two days later he calls back. This sounds like a totally different person. There is music in the background. She gushes excitement down the receiver. He apologises if he’s interrupted a party, but she says there’s just her. She says she lost the bit of paper. She says she’s glad he called back. She says can he send her the train fare because she’s a bit short just at the moment. Before he can agree she provides an immediate list of contingencies. There’s the electric, and the physio for her back because it’ll be locked solid before the NHS appointment comes through, and unspecified prescription costs, and the washing machine’s gone on strike, and the TV people are cracking down so she might finally have to bite the bullet with the licence thing and isn’t it just like the thing with one thing after another and she says she’ll have it for him when she gets there.
He says he’ll send her the tickets and she says the money will do instead. He realises he has no leverage at all. They agree a date.
She’s due the following Saturday. The night before he summons himself.
‘I hope you won’t be angry with me.’
‘I don’t think you’d even know what that would be like. Has anyone ever been angry at you for long?’
‘Not really. But there’s always a first time.’ Pause. ‘Your mother’s arriving here tomorrow night.’
She absorbs this in silence, stares at the table. He has no idea what her real reaction behind this assumed composure is. Finally she looks up.
‘I know you intended it kindly. Don’t hold your breath for her coming here. I don’t think it’s possible for her to disappoint me anymore. I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.’
Despite what she says he waits in readiness the following evening. The mother doesn’t arrive. Gina has only laid two settings. He doesn’t know if there’s an additional portion heating in the oven. She goes to bed before he does.
‘The trick of getting by,’ she says, from the bottom of the stairs, ‘is having low expectations.’
He thinks of phoning but thinks better of it. He’s written his little investment off when almost two weeks later a taxi rolls up at ten o’clock at night. Gina, unsurprised, finds her purse before answering the door.
‘Could you bring her in and I’ll see to the taxi.’
‘How do you know it’s her?’
‘How many visitors do you ever get, never mind at this time of night?’
‘Perhaps she’s already seen to the taxi.’
She ignores the remark and pulls the door open. Over her shoulder he sees a woman leaning on the cab talking amicably with the driver through the open window. She shrieks at Gina’s approach and stands. There’s something overtly theatrical in all this. Her manic enthusiasm and Gina’s reticence results in a stilted embrace. Gina, behind her mother’s back, deals with the fare. He trundles out for her luggage. In the dark interval between the door and the gate the mother somehow manages to flit past him without noticing her host. He swivels, undecided, until he sees Gina attempt to lift the case.
‘Please.’
‘I’m not the one risking a hernia.’
‘Please. I invited her.’
It clinks very obviously and he is obliged to put it down twice before reaching the door. They find her in the lounge, appraising the fittings. She’s standing directly beneath the overhead light she has put on. The columnar glare is unflattering. She reminds him of a pantomime dame. She’s wearing sling backs, maroon leggings and some kind of tight acrylic top patterned like leopard skin. It is the kind of outfit designed to accentuate the curves of a zaftig teenager. She’s stick thin. There are hollows at the backs of her knees he associates with photographs in African aid literature. Her legs do not meet at the top. Her hair is pulled up
into some kind of arrangement that resembles a foreshortened palm tree. The dry ends look electrified in the harsh glare. The upward tug of the hairband is so severe it appears to have pulled back her eyebrows in an expression of permanent surprise. Her eyes are liquid bright.
‘She’s drunk,’ Gina observes. If she hears she doesn’t register.
‘You’ve got a lovely...’ a pause while she gropes for the appropriate word. He finds himself leaning forward, ‘...room.’
‘I’m glad you like it, Mrs...’ He realises he doesn’t know her surname.
‘Betty.’
‘Betty.’ He shakes her hand. It rattles like dice, all jewellery and bones. ‘There’s a spare room been made up for you upstairs.’
The dog sits neglected. He stoops to tousle it. When he turns back Betty is rifling through his music collection pulling out CD s at random and discarding each on the floor after a cursory glance.
‘There doesn’t seem to be any order.’
‘They’re ordered by composer.’ Within categories they are further subdivided by dates of recording, one of the foibles that survived Marjory.
‘Any Julio Iglesias?’
‘No. Sorry.’
‘Frankie Vaughan?’
Again he’s sorry. He further apologises in turn for the absence of Engelbert Humperdinck and several names he doesn’t know.
‘I love Julio, me. It’s that accent. Listening to him is like being licked all over by a big Latin dog. Never mind.’ She rises from the mess and walks from the room. He looks from the scattered collection to the door. Her manner baffles rather than upsets him.
‘Is she all right?’
‘I told you, she’s drunk. Don’t worry. She won’t fall down the stairs. She can take enough to stop a regiment and still keep up a conversation of sorts. You get to know the signs.’
They find her in the kitchen, opening cupboards at random, apparently pleased with the number of bottles.
‘Good to know it’s not a dry area.’
‘They’re waiting to go downstairs. I haven’t had a chance to put them in the cellar.’
‘The cellar. Posh.’ She’s looking at Gina.
‘It sounds much more grandiose than it is. It’s just a few wine racks the merchant put up for me as a favour.’
‘Posh.’ Betty repeats. He doesn’t know if this refers to him or the wine downstairs. ‘Has this room been knocked through?’
‘Yes.’
‘Nice. More space. I love space, me. I mean living space, not outer space.’
‘Of course.’
‘What’s that?’ The finger points, almost accusingly.
‘It’s the bottle of wine you just took out the cupboard.’
‘Is it any good?’
‘I’m no connoisseur. I like it. Would you like to try some?’
‘What I always say is, why not? Eh...?’
He realises Betty is waiting for a response. The remark is so banal he’s stuck for a moment. Gina just looks tired.
‘It would cover most situations – if you’re game.’
She laughs uproariously as if he has said the funniest thing in the world. He uncorks the bottle. Betty waits with an outstretched glass.
‘Would you like something to eat?’
‘Maybe later.’
In the next few days he will be astonished at her ability to live on fumes, caffeine and alcohol. Food is something haphazard, eaten distractedly and without relish.
‘I’ve got work in the morning. I’m going to bed,’ Gina says. Christopher offers to show Betty her room.
‘Just leave the door open lover, I’m sure I’ll find it.’
Christopher stays till his head is drooping and finally, apologising for the bad form of leaving a guest alone, excuses himself. As she requested, he leaves the guest door slightly ajar, the night light on. As he shuffles along the hall he hears a distant rumble of recorded laughter. She has turned the television on. He is trying to gauge the disruption of the volume to Gina when he hears the popping of a second cork and the closing of the lounge door.
He expects to find her crapulous the following morning but she’s animated, sitting cross-legged on a kitchen chair, the ashtray before her already quarter full. She wears another gaudy and unflatteringly tight outfit. He notices there is lipstick on her teeth as she drains her third coffee.
‘This coffee of yours doesn’t touch the sides.’
As soon as she is upstairs Gina outlines the arrangements.
‘I’ll take her into town.’
‘The High Street?’
‘Town. I’m not advertising her in the High Street. If we’re back early afternoon maybe you could distract her for a couple of hours. Then dinner and a video and that’s tonight taken care of.’
‘That sounds like surveillance.’
‘No it isn’t. I just want an eye kept on her every moment she’s awake. You’ve no idea what that woman can get up to.’
This isn’t turning out to be the purging resolution he had hoped for. He realises how hopelessly primitive his private equation was: intimacy plus him as some kind of emotional umpire equals reconciliation.
‘I’d like to help as much as I can.’
‘Get one of Dorothy’s boys to put the wine in the cellar.’
The week is one of alternate supervision. Betty is tractable with Gina but won’t be supervised by him.
Next afternoon she gives Christopher the slip three feet from the fishmongers. Worried about Gina’s disappointment he trudges the streets until exhausted. When he gets home Betty is unconscious at the foot of the cellar steps. He assumes she’s fallen till he sees the discarded bottles. He hauls her into a sitting position, crouches behind her and loops his arms under hers, hands clinched on her concave stomach. He can feel the articulation in her joints, her washboard ribs, the prominence of her shoulder blades as he slowly stands, ignoring his back, shuffles towards the stairs and hauls her incrementally up, reversing step by step. He knows he’s only capable of doing this because she weighs nothing.
On the last step she opens her eyes, twists round and looks at him levelly.
‘You know Kevin’s dead.’
‘Yes. I know. I’m sorry.’
‘You an’ me both.’
There is almost a tragic dignity. For a moment he’s confused into mistaking her sudden reminiscence for sobriety, the shock of the old, as if the gravity of what she has just mentioned has traumatised her out of her stupor. She gestures to be left alone. He lets his hands fall to his sides. She lurches and nearly falls down the cellar steps. He clutches her arm. Her head lolls against his neck in a blurt of sound. He can feel the spasm pass through her. He guides her towards the stairs and the spare room, steers her towards the bed. She sits resignedly. He waits, entirely at a loss. Her shoulders and head droop in complete dejection till he realises she is asleep. He rolls her onto her side and covers her with the duvet.
He anticipates an embarrassing exchange the following day. If Gina is there and witnesses it he’ll be obliged to tell her what happened. Betty is carelessly cheerful and seems to remember nothing. He doesn’t get the impression of a woman suppressing embarrassment. The same afternoon, stoking an unseasonably cold barbecue to produce a surprise meal for her host, Betty pours lighter fluid to enliven the coals and sets the whole affair ablaze. She tries to extinguish it by kicking the barbecue over and succeeds in burning a hole in the fence separating Christopher’s garden from Dorothy’s. There’s now a blasted patch that looks like the aftermath of small meteor collision. They couldn’t be nicer about it.
‘Convenient access for the dog,’ Oscar says.
He receives a call from the wine merchant.
‘Excuse me. A lady here is asking us to let her have some merchandise ‘on tick’ as she puts it. She insists we charge your account.’
‘I’ll be right there.’
She isn’t cowed by the interrupted fraud and companionably takes his arm as they walk back. He’s astonished at
her resourcefulness. She can manage to sustain a state of near drunkenness for the best part of an afternoon and evening with no visible means of financial support.
‘Sub me for some fags, Christopher.’
‘Would you prefer a cigar?’
‘No. Fags.’
He gives her money. He only has a twenty. She comes out the shop. He gives it five minutes.
‘Cigarettes?’
‘Filthy habit. I’m thinking of chucking it.’
‘She only ever smokes other people’s,’ Gina confides, when he tells her. ‘She’s got a boyfriend in the merchant navy. Polish or something. Long name with a ‘z’ in it somewhere. He brings her duty free when he’s in port and she obliges in the usual way. You can just see her, can’t you, puffing away on a Polish fag leaking tobacco, and watching the telly over his shoulder while he bangs in six months’ ballast?’
Christopher confesses that he can’t.
‘And she’s got some Asian guy. He’s got a corner shop near her digs and a battalion of kids. Mum told me she goes round early closing and he keeps her in fags and samosas. You can just see them too, going at it on the basmati sacks.’
‘If you don’t mind me saying so, her transactions add up to prostitution.’
‘I don’t mind. Don’t let her hear you say it. She’s not shy at raising her voice and what’s obvious to you would offend her to the point of going supersonic.’
He’s in the music shop, browsing when he feels the pressure of someone clumsily brushing past, recording, from the corner of his eye, a familiar stagger. It’s impossible not to hear with the volume and careful tipsy enunciation of each individual word.
‘Do you have any Julio?’
‘I’m sorry, we operate a strictly no-smoking policy in this shop.’
‘Never mind that. Any Julio?’
He makes his escape unseen.
‘Sometimes cowardice is the better part of valour.’
‘You’re speaking in code again, Christopher.’
‘Your mother was in the music shop this afternoon. I ran away.’
‘Did she steal anything?’
‘Does she steal as well?’
‘As well as what?’
Four New Words for Love Page 20