“Oh, yes. Of course. How many were there again?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“Twenty-nine weeks? Gosh, that’s…”
“Almost seven months. Yes.”
“I hope they’re nice, Sean. I mean, I hope they’re doing you good. Because I do worry if that’s really healthy for someone in your position.”
Forgetting momentarily that he’s on the phone and that Maggie can’t see him, Sean shrugs. “I don’t know really,” he says. “Some are a bit… Actually, I’m sorry Mags, but I don’t think I want to talk about them at the moment.”
“Of course. I can understand that,” Maggie replies. “But just remember that… Look, this is difficult to say, but she’s gone, Sean.”
“I know that.”
“I just mean that it’s your life. So open them as fast or as slowly as you need to. Do whatever’s best for you.”
“Right,” Sean says, feeling vaguely irked – he feels as if Maggie might be dissing his dead wife and that’s not really OK. “Um, there’s someone at the door, Mags,” Sean lies. “The postman, I think. So I’ll have to go, OK?”
“OK, honey. Look after yourself. And remember we all love you, OK?”
“Thanks,” Sean says. “Bye Mags.”
He hangs up the phone and then blows noisily through pursed lips. “Well, that’s that done,” he mutters.
He makes himself a cup of coffee and sits and stares at the box of envelopes. He thinks about what Maggie said and allows himself to wonder if it is healthy.
Because she’s right, of course. Catherine isn’t here. And only he can decide what works best for him.
The thing is that he can’t decide what works best for him. Because though there’s a certain appeal to bingeing on the tapes, to getting it all over with, the image of him sitting with that pile of opened envelopes, the idea that there would be no more to look forward to and no more surprises to be afraid of, is terrifying to him.
In a way, of course, the tapes are keeping Catherine alive. As long as she remains unpredictable, as long as he doesn’t know what she’s going to say next, it’s as if she hasn’t, entirely, ceased to exist.
For want of a better idea, he decides that, for now, he’ll stick to the plan.
Snapshot #7
35 mm format, colour. A young woman stands behind the counter of a local store. Her face is framed by the numerous products crowding the counter – a rack of multicoloured chewing gum packets to the right and another containing lollipops and bars of chocolate on the left. Behind her, a refrigerated cabinet is stacked high with cans of beer and beside this a rack of cigarette packets can be clearly seen.
Sean peers into the photo and can actually remember the smell of the place: musky and spicy. For this is the corner shop where he once worked, his first ever part-time job. And it’s also where Catherine, who is manning the counter in the photo, worked once he had returned to college. In the photo, she looks young and excited, and beautiful.
It’s a stunning photo, but Sean has no recollection of it being taken, nor, in fact, of ever having seen it before. He scans the products in the store and remembers the taste of Tennent’s Extra and the sensation of Toffee Treets melting in the mouth.
Cassette #7
Hello Sean.
I’m not feeling so well, today, so this is my third attempt at recording a message. Hopefully this time I’ll make it through.
So here we have the “Paki Shop”. Of course no one says that anymore, thank God.
It’s quite shocking to realise how naturally we used to say that. “I’m just popping to the Paki shop.” Horrific, isn’t it?
I even heard Bilal, the owner’s son, call it that once, but then I suppose that’s probably OK. I guess it’s like the gays reclaiming the word “queer”, or the blacks calling each other “nigger”.
The shop is the reason you had to return to Wolverhampton that first weekend we met, only you were too embarrassed to tell me. How silly, eh? As if I of all people would judge you badly for something like that. But then, I suppose, you didn’t know me yet.
Your parents had cut you off and refused to pay their contribution to your student grant, as I recall, so you were earning a bit of money when and wherever you could. You also did envelope stuffing and newspaper delivery. But back to Salman’s Mini Mart, because that’s the bit of history I want to tell you today. I want to tell you why I loved Theresa so much.
When your courses started again in September, I got the job instead. Do you remember how ecstatic I was to be working there? You had all agreed to let me live rent-free but I was so proud to be able to earn a little money and occasionally supply you all with dinner.
Salman was never anything but lovely to me. Do you remember how he used to give me all the stuff that was past its sell-by date? I used to feed the whole house with dodgy tuna sandwiches, out of date individual trifles and boxes of chocolates that had bloomed because of the summer heat. But it wasn’t all roses.
Did you see what I did there?
Anyway, Bilal, Salman’s eldest, was revolting. He used to push past me when I was behind the counter. He could always find an excuse to squeeze his way behind me when I was serving someone and couldn’t say anything. I used to feel him pressing his hard-on against my arse as he reached up for the batteries or lighters that were on that shelf above the counter. And after a couple of weeks, he started talking dirty to me as well. He used to ask me for blow jobs. “How much?” he used to ask, over and over again. “How much for a blow job in the store room? A fiver? A tenner?”
Now, I understood that he had grown up in Pakistan and everything and I realised that he was struggling to understand that a woman in makeup and a skirt wasn’t necessarily a prostitute, so I did my best to just ignore him. “More than you can afford,” I used to say, thinking that taking the mickey out of him might help keep him at bay.
But it just got worse and worse and I started to become afraid that he’d actually try something on with me, especially when I was working evenings and it was dark.
These days, I would have recorded him on my phone or something and sued the arse off him for sexual harassment, but these were the eighties and this was Wolverhampton. And we needed that money so badly…
I nearly told you about it a couple of times, but I was scared that you’d kill him and end up in prison. Really. I really thought that might happen.
In the end, I told Theresa and she was simply amazing.
I came home one afternoon and she was the only person in the house. Alistair was off scoring dope somewhere, I expect, and you were still at college.
Theresa asked me, jokingly, how it was going with Bilal. She thought that he was cute, which, purely in aesthetic terms, I suppose he was. He was neatly groomed and smooth skinned and muscular; he had olive skin and that amazingly shiny jet-black hair. But it was the wrong question at the wrong time. I’d been having my first bouts of morning sickness and I’d been feeling tired and irritable even before I had spent the day being hassled by Bilal. So the minute she asked me the question, I burst into tears.
Theresa was furious. She let me cry myself out and then she marched me back to the store.
Now Theresa, as you’ll remember, was a pretty full-on feminist. She spent all her free time blockading Cruise missile convoys with the women at Greenham Common and she certainly wasn’t afraid of Bilal.
“I want to talk to you,” she said, once we had entered the store. There were three or four people queuing to pay, but she didn’t give a damn. “I want to know why you’re harassing my friend here.”
“I don’t harass no one,” Bilal said, continuing to serve the next customer.
“Yes you did!” Theresa shouted. “You’ve been rubbing your erect penis against her arse and trying to force her to give you oral gratification.” She sounded like a lawyer in a television programme cross-examining someone.
The people in the shop were all mortified. So was I. A woman with a child muttered something disapproving and bus
tled her kid out of the store.
“My friend, your employee, is married!” Theresa said, which was a lie at the time. “And she’s also pregnant!”
Bilal was speechless. He didn’t know where to look, so he just kept on serving people.
“Now if I ever hear you’ve said anything inappropriate to her ever again, you’ll regret it because, one, I will tell her husband – and he’s a big man with a nasty temper – and two, I’ll have fifty women from the S.U. outside your store with banners and placards and we’ll demonstrate until every newspaper covers it and everyone in the community knows what a pervert you are. And three, I’ll call the police and get you arrested. I’m a law student, by the way, so I do know how to do that.”
Oh, you should have seen her, Sean, she was shaking all that hennaed hair of hers around. She was on fire, and I remember thinking that she’d be some great human rights lawyer one day, which of course, she turned out to be.
The shop had emptied by now and Bilal didn’t know what to say or what to do, so he just stared at his feet.
“Is that clear?” Theresa asked him. When he didn’t reply, she shouted it. “IS THAT CLEAR, Bilal?”
“Yes,” Bilal mumbled.
“Come on,” she said, taking my hand. “We’re done here.”
As we reached the door, Bilal mumbled, “Fucking lesbians,” so Theresa spun back to look at him. “What did you say?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Bilal said.
“That’s what I thought,” she said. “Well, I am a lesbian and you’d do well to be afraid because we lesbians are a sisterhood and we’re mad, bad and dangerous to know. Oh, and Bilal. Don’t even think about sacking her over this, OK? Because the laws on undeclared workers are extremely severe and you’ll end up in jail. And all those beefy men in prison would certainly know what to do with a pretty boy like yourself. Your arse wouldn’t know what’d hit it.”
As we walked home, she put her arm around me. I was still shaking.
“Is that true?” I asked, eventually.
“What, me being lesbian? Not really. I prefer to remain undefined,” she said. “I don’t like to submit to other people’s sexual stereotypes.”
“No, I meant about going to prison?”
“Oh. I’ve no idea to be honest,” Theresa said. “We haven’t done employment law yet. It put the wind up him though.”
I never had a problem with Bilal again. In fact, from that day on, he was always extra-nice to me. And God, I loved Theresa after that.
• • •
It’s just after eleven in the morning when Sean pulls up outside The Cedars care home. He levers himself from the driving seat and places his hands behind his head as he stretches after the long drive.
It’s a beautiful May morning – the first time this year that it has actually felt like summer – and as he looks up into the deep blue sky and notices the tweeting of the birds in the tree above him, his spirits momentarily lift.
He scans the car park for April’s Mini and on spotting it – lazily parked diagonally across one of the visitor’s bays – he pulls his coat from the car and heads indoors.
April, who is sitting in the lobby, fiddling with her smartphone, glances up as he enters, returns her gaze to her phone for a fraction of a second and then, once his presence registers, looks up anew. “Oh! Hi Dad!” she says, dumping her phone in her handbag and jumping up.
Sean crosses the lobby to meet her and pecks her on the cheek. “You found it OK, then?”
April nods. “The GPS did,” she says.
“You haven’t been waiting too long, have you?” he asks.
April shakes her head. “Ten minutes, max. The traffic was easy, that’s all. I should really have just gone in, but…” By way of explanation, she shrugs.
“It’s scary,” Sean says. “You know you don’t have to come at all. I know how upsetting she can be.”
“I’d feel bad if I never came,” April says. “And I’m overdue. I haven’t been once since she changed homes. Plus, like I said on the phone, I’m on my way to Cardiff.”
“Cardiff, eh?” Sean says, as they cross the lobby to the reception desk. “The lives of the rich and famous, eh?”
“It’s where Simon’s living now,” April explains. Simon is her oldest, most faithful friend from her student years and Sean has met him on a number of occasions.
“And how is Simon these days?” he asks.
“He’s good. Writing for the Beeb, these days. And still dating Gavin.”
“That’s good,” Sean says.
“Hello? Can I help you?”
Sean turns to face the receptionist. “Hi, yes,” he says. “Sean Patrick. Here to see Cynthia Patrick, my mother. This is my daughter, April.”
The receptionist checks her computer screen, then gives Sean’s driving licence a cursory glance before handing it back.
“Room twenty-three,” she says, then, glancing at the clock, she adds, “She should be in her room at the moment. You know the way, right?”
Sean nods. “I do, indeed,” he says.
She buzzes them through the glass security door, and they walk past the empty dining room and on through the open-plan lounge area. It’s a large, airy space, elegantly furnished with blue wing-back armchairs and comfortable blue velour sofas. Large French windows look out onto a pretty garden area. A dozen elderly residents are dotted around the room in various states of wakefulness.
“It’s not bad here,” April says. “It’s definitely better than the old place, anyway.”
“Well, it needs to be,” Sean says. “It’s costing a bloody fortune.”
When they get to room twenty-three the door is slightly ajar. “Ready?” Sean asks, his hand raised in preparation to knock.
April takes a deep breath and smiles tightly. “Go for it,” she says.
Sean raps with his knuckles and eases the door open. “Hello?” he asks, gently pushing at it until they can step inside.
The room is clean and pretty if minimally furnished. It has a blue carpet and matching blue bedspread and curtains. It contains an unmade double bed, a chest of drawers, a small desk with a chair and another blue wing-back armchair. The interior designer at The Cedars clearly has a favourite colour.
Sean’s mother is sitting in the armchair. She’s staring into the middle distance and working her mouth.
“Hello?” Sean says again more loudly as he steps into her line of vision. “Hello, Mum? Look who I’ve brought to see you!”
Cynthia turns her head only slightly. Her eyes flick towards April and then back again to face Sean.
“Hi Gran,” April says, wiggling her fingers and looking doubtful.
Cynthia wrinkles her brow.
At that moment a pretty black nurse appears in the doorway. “Oh, hello!” she says with fake-sounding enthusiasm. “Got visitors have we?” Her accent is an unusual combination of Caribbean and West Country.
She enters the room and crosses to Cynthia’s side, then gently reaches out and tucks a stray wisp of grey hair behind Cynthia’s ear, before turning to face Sean and April. “It’s good that you’ve come see her. You’s her son, yes?”
Sean nods. “Yes, and this is my daughter.”
“Of course,” the nurse says. “Yes, it’s good of you to come, only…” She blinks slowly and shakes her head almost imperceptibly.
“Not a good day for it?” Sean asks.
The nurse shrugs. “You know how it is,” she says. “It be coming and going. There’s no harm you sitting with her. She’ll probably like that. But I wouldn’t be hoping for much more this morning.”
Sean nods. “Fair enough,” he says.
“Can I get you a tea, maybe? Or a coffee?”
“Tea would be nice,” Sean says.
“Yes, tea would be great,” April agrees.
“OK. I’ll, um, just fetch those for you. I’ll be getting you a chair too,” she tells April.
“Oh, I’m fine,” April replies. “I’ll just
sit on the bed if that’s OK?”
“So, how are you, Mum?” Sean asks as he pulls the chair from the desk and sets it opposite his mother.
Cynthia grinds her teeth noisily and continues to frown at him as if, from wherever she currently thinks she is, Sean’s presence presents her with some unsolvable riddle.
“I’m Sean. Your son.”
Cynthia frowns more deeply. “Sean?” she repeats.
Sean reaches out for her boney hand and places it between his own. “Yes. Sean. Your youngest son.”
“Sean?” Cynthia says again.
“Yes, Mum. Sean. That’s right.”
“Hello, Sean,” his mother says, flatly.
“Hello, Mum,” he replies, patting her hand gently with his own and then casting a discreet grimace at his daughter.
“Do you know who I am?” April asks, her own brow beginning to furrow.
Cynthia wrinkles her nose and nods vaguely in April’s direction.
“April’s asking if you remember her,” Sean says. “You remember April, don’t you?”
Cynthia shakes her head. “I don’t like her,” she mumbles. “I never liked her. I don’t know why you brought her here.”
“Mum!” Sean says. “That’s April. It’s not…”
But April, whose mouth has dropped, is already standing, already heading for the door. “I’ll see you outside,” she croaks. “Take your time.”
Sean catches up with April at the security door, where she is trapped waiting for the receptionist to notice her presence and buzz her out. “Hey,” he says, catching her by the elbow. “Honey…”
“Oh… no…” April protests. “No, go back. I didn’t mean… Go back and take your time.” Her eyes, Sean notices, are glistening.
“She doesn’t mean that, you know,” Sean says. “She thinks you’re Catherine, that’s all.”
“Really?”
The door buzzes to signal that they can push it open, but April raises her hand and makes a gimme five gesture to the receptionist, so she locks it again.
“Yes,” Sean says, reaching out to stroke his daughter’s back. “She never liked your mother much. And the only memories she has these days are from way back. She thinks you’re Catherine. And she thinks this is nineteen-eighty-something.”
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