Out on a Limb

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  As proper presents go, it’s a stunner. Dee yanks it open and diamonds wink up at her. Roses. Diamonds. Cliché upon cliché. But then, hey, what was our affair if not that? ‘Wow!’ she says. ‘Wow, Abs. It’s stunning .’

  I take it back and lever the lid closed with a snap. ‘It is,’ I agree, shaking my head sadly. ‘Such a waste.’

  I watch her scurry back across the car park as I rummage once again in my bag for my phone. We’ve been such good friends for such a long time, and I know I’m going to spend an inordinate amount of time fretting about her, now I’m all freed up from fretting about myself.

  But for now I must shrug off the last threads of memories and fret in the moment – about tea. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that Jake will have forgotten I told him I’d be home late about fifteen seconds after me having told him this morning, so I open my phone fully expecting to find I’ve been sent a text saying where U??????. But the display, when I switch it back on, shows that voicemail have been trying to contact me, which is the sort of thing Jake would never do. Being male and fifteen, he would no more send me a voicemail message than consider a coat hanger as being related to clothes. Sebastian, then? Now, that would be nice.

  I connect. It’s not Seb. It’s my mother.

  My mother has just the two main modes of operation. Either slightly dramatic or seriously dramatic. That this is the latter means just the one thing. That my day is about to get worse. ‘Oh, darling! she warbles. ‘Where are you? I need you! It’s Hugo! He’s left me! He’s gone!’

  Chapter 2

  DAMN. I SHOULD HAVE known my mother would muscle in on the day somehow. Should have, but didn’t, even so. I sometimes wonder if being someone who should have known things (instead of belatedly remembering I knew them in the first place) is genetically coded somehow. Perhaps it’s just the downside of having an optimistic nature. I should know it’s going to rain, and yet I don’t bring an umbrella. I should know I’m a twelve but I still try on tens. I should have known, in the first minutes, the first seconds of meeting Charlie, that here was dangerous territory in a Hugo Boss suit. But I didn’t. I just thought (as we all did) ‘gosh, he’s nice’, never thinking where that sort of thinking might lead.

  And I should know, because it’s obvious, because everyone knows it, that bad things always happen in threes. Except in my defence, I do actually know that. I just thought I’d had three already.

  Sitting in my car with my mobile in my lap, therefore, it occurs to me (as is so often the case where my mum is concerned) that, foresight aside, she really has no business riding roughshod over such a timeless and well established principle. Or maybe, once I consider it a little further, it’s me that’s got the sums wrong. There’s Charlie, of course. Disentangling myself from Charlie is definitely the number one bad thing in my life right now. And then Sebastian. Though, when you think about it, your first born flying off to partake of his gap year can’t really be classed as a bad thing. Yes, bad for me – obviously – because a week in and I’m already tearful at the newly diminutive ironing pile and there not being any need to get Peach Iced Tea from Sainsbury’s any more. And sitting on his bed a lot. Sighing. Such is every mother’s rite of passage. And there’ll be more of that, for sure.

  But not bad for him . And my own sense of sadness is of course somewhat leavened by my feelings of motherly pride and being able to bang on about his place at Uni and the brilliant A level results that I just know he’s going to get, and what a very lovely young man he is and so on. But on balance, on my balance sheet, anyhow, bad- ish . A thing to have to come to terms with and adjust to.

  And then there’s leaving here. Unquestionably a bad thing, because I’ve liked working here very much. Yes, I know it’s a cruel-to-be-kind kind of bad thing, and I know that it’s a bad thing that will ultimately lead to at least the possibility of other good things, but like giving birth, it hurts just the same.

  But maybe because the Charlie bad thing and the leaving bad thing are really just manifestations of the same bad thing, I have made a major miscalculation. Perhaps my mother phoning and wailing at me is, in fact, not the fourth but only the third bad thing after all. Which means I really should have seen it coming, shouldn’t I?

  I try to call her back but the line is engaged. My mother’s line being engaged is fairly typical, of course. (Only marginally less typical than her being engaged herself, for she has a whole hand’s worth of rings.) If my mother gets it into her head to ring someone then she generally, if that someone is not available and all-ears, finds someone else to telephone instead. She is probably on the phone wailing at someone else now. My sister, perhaps. But there’s no one at her house. So I get on and ring Jake instead.

  ‘Where are you, Mum?’ he asks me.’ I’m starving.’

  ‘I told you,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve been at my leaving do.’

  He grunts. ‘Are you coming home now, then?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I might have to pop round to Nana’s. Make yourself some toast or something. I’ll try not to be too long.’

  ‘What’s wrong with Nana?’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure it’ll be something and nothing. You know Nana.’

  How could he not? ‘Can I go down the shop and get a microwave pizza, then?’

  ‘If you must. Oh, and Jake, take Spike with you, can you?’

  He groans. ‘Do I have to?’

  Poor Spike is missing Seb. Seb always used to walk him. Whereas Jake doesn’t like to because he’s such a small dog. We called him Spike largely for self-esteem reasons. But Jake’s self esteem is a fragile beast also. He’ll stress in case he’s spotted with a mop on a lead. ‘Please?’ I add. ‘Pleeeeze? I’ll be back as soon as I can, promise.’

  ‘Can Ben have a microwave pizza as well?’

  Ben is Jake’s friend. He plays bass and has these quite astounding blond dreadlocks. Not a million miles away from having spike on his head, come to think of it. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘He can as long as you promise you’ll take Spike to the shop with you. I’ll call you again once I’m there.’

  Once I’m there . At my mother’s. Which was absolutely not where I’d intended to be at this point, and the irritation rises with the aftertaste of Twiglets. My first thought, listening again to my mother’s message is, somewhat uncharitably, ‘rats’. All I wanted was a metaphorical five minutes to myself, and I have been stymied not ten seconds into the exercise by my mother, who everyone who knows my mother knows has needs so much greater than most.

  I try her again but the line’s still engaged, so I’ll just have to go round there, which galls me. My actual plan for this evening was to go straight home, eat something trashy with Jake, open a bottle of wine and feel sorry for myself. I had already figured that I was allowed to feel sorry for myself on this occasion. Indeed, I’d decided that feeling sorry for myself, as long as it was in carefully metered doses and didn’t encroach much beyond Sunday, would be good for me. They say that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, so I figure that having felt bad about myself for so long (which territory also means I have been denied the luxury of feeling sorry for myself thus far, having made and lain on my own bed etc.), I must now be due at least a little bit of self-indulgence. Not that I want to pig-out on self-pity or anything. I did make my bed. And, yes, I – we – did lie on it. And, as it happens, I’m not feeling sorry for myself right now. But that’s not the point. There’s a principle at stake here. I’m quite sure I’m going to be feeling sorry for myself later. And I’d like to do it on my own. With some candles. In the bath.

  But, hey-ho, as I am in no way as experienced and naturally competent in feeling sorry for myself as my mother is (though there’s a fifty percent chance it’s in my genes, which is a worry) I am not going to be allowed to in any case. Not yet.

  Not for the first time, I find myself wishing my mother was a bit more like other people’s mothers. It’s a truism, I know, but that’s only because
it’s true. Most of us covet the things we don’t have, and my sister and I were probably no different from anyone else in that respect. What we wanted was a proper mother. Who wore an apron, who sewed costumes, who rationed squash and biscuits. Free rein at her ginger ale and carte blanche with the Quality Street soon palled as treats when they were all there was for breakfast. She was exotic, bohemian, beautiful and difficult. Which is not necessarily what you want your mum to be.

  And our mum was not necessarily what she wanted to be. She had lots of other, more important, things to do. My mother, first and foremost was – still is – Diana Garland. That’s Diana, take note, with a lingering middle ‘a’; Di- a na. Di a -na Gar -land. All a long time ago now, of course, but there was a period when Pru and I couldn’t even walk to the laundrette without someone stopping us (us two embarrassed and diminutive envoys) to tell us what a wonder she was. Such was the marvel of television exposure at a time when television had just the three channels and almost all the population tuned in.

  When I was a gaunt fourteen-year-old and Pru was still in the juniors, my mother became ‘Dance-with-Diana’ Diana, having landed, after several glittering years in musical theatre, the then much coveted role of being the new television face of fitness, cementing her position as an exercise icon and ensuring that wall-to-wall shame and embarrassment would be our constant companions for several excruciating years. She wore an all in one purple body stocking, stripy legwarmers and a pink headband, and had a regular slot on the new Wake Up! TV channel, during which, having been spirited away before dawn Mondays to Fridays, she would energise the nation’s sleepy thirty-somethings through the medium of stretching and dance. It was a kind of sexed-up music, movement and mime, for people too old to pretend to be trees.

  I’m not remotely surprised Hugo’s left her. Though I’m absolutely sure he will be back, or at least on his way back, by the time I get there, the business of him leaving her (having left her, being about to leave her again, being left by her – there have been many permutations) has become very much the theme du jour just lately. She blames her knee, of course, and, by extension, me, That-Wretched-Hospital, (though, typically, not Charlie, who was the one who replaced it) and, of course, the Friday Tea Dance Club, which among other things boasts a male:female ratio of about one to twenty, which means competition is hot .

  God, don’t most people get too old for this stuff? I put the key into the ignition and allow myself a little sigh. My mother, regrettably, is still not most people. I switch on the engine, almost cheered up to note that I’m feeling sorry for myself now in any case.

  Mum and Hugo (who is her fourth husband – my dad was her second) live in a three bedroom semi on the other side of Cardiff, six or so miles from my own. She used to live closer, in a little flat in Heath, but she moved in with Hugo just before they got married, and they spent much of what she got from the sale of her flat on a seven week cruise around some fiords.

  My mother’s marital history reads rather like Hello! Magazine. Not quite the same celebrity head count, admittedly, but pretty much the same emphasis on weddings. A little wistful pang flutters down onto my shoulder at this thought. But, one day, one degree of separation at a time.

  When I pull into my mother’s close, however, what I see straight away replaces the rumblings of regret with very different ones. Ones of alarm. As well they might be, because what my eyes first alight on is an ambulance. It’s parked, admittedly, at least three houses down, but some powerful sense alerts me immediately that it is here, without a doubt, because of her. And the feeling is endorsed when I see my sister’s car parked across the road as well, which means she’s already driven here from Bristol. Oh, God. Is something really the matter? Has the shock of Hugo’s departure caused her to collapse in a swoon? I park quickly and untidily in the first gap I can find, and hurry back towards the house, pulling out my door keys as I run.

  There’s no need to let myself in, however, because the front door is already open. The kitchen door is pulled almost shut, though, and I can hear a muted voice from behind it. The kind of voice I hear all the time when I’m at work. A solicitous voice. A gentle, caring voice. And then my mother’s, which sounds neither. I push open the door.

  ‘Darling!’ she shrieks at me. ‘You got here! Oh, darling…oh, oh, oh…’ And more stuff along the same lines.

  I take in what at first seems a highly improbable scene. My mother is sitting at the little bistro table-for-two she has in her kitchen, one leg up on the remaining bistro chair, and a large glass of dry sherry in her hand. Beside her stands a paramedic. A cheery-looking guy in his mid thirties. Or at least a guy who has the sort of face that would be cheery looking, if he wasn’t so steadfastly in role. But there is no sign of a medical emergency in action, and I am at a loss to know what’s going on.

  ‘Mum, what’s happened? Why the ambulance?’ I take note of her seated position and frown. Then I squat down beside her. ‘Where does it hurt? God, you haven’t fallen and broken your knee again, have you?

  My mother is now on her second knee replacement, having snapped the first one into two perfect pieces, a mere four months since Charlie put the thing in.

  The paramedic shakes his head and starts telling me not to worry, but as I don’t know what it is I should be worrying about exactly, it falls to my mother to fill me in, just as soon as she’s flapped a dismissive arm at me, and paused to swig another mouthful of sherry.

  ‘Of course not!’ she says.

  ‘Then why the ambulance, Mum?’

  ‘Why the ambulance ?’ she parrots at me, as if I’m really thick.

  I get up again and plonk my bag down on the worktop. ‘Yes, Mum,’ I say levelly. ‘Why the am-bu-lance?’

  She blinks. ‘What else would they take the poor man away in? A horse and cart? A Sainsbury’s To You van?’

  I gape at her. ‘ Hugo? ’

  ‘Of course Hugo! Who else?’ Unusually, she now looks as lost as I am.

  ‘But you said…’ I trail off as it suddenly hits me. ‘Hugo? You mean Hugo’s been hurt ?’ Is this the ultimate solution to his philandering ways? Has she hit him with her NHS crutches? What?

  The paramedic looks at me as if I’m quite, quite mad. As does my mother. She shakes her head and lifts a delicate hand to her mouth.

  The man clears his throat before addressing me, frowning. ‘I’m so sorry. He’s dead,’ he says gravely.

  I look from one to the other. Clear my own throat as well. ‘But you said he’d left you. You said he’d gone .’

  ‘But darling, he has . Oh, oh, oh…’

  ‘Cup of tea?’ suggests the paramedic, patting her absently. ‘I did make a fresh pot. It’s still warm.’

  It’s about now that I become aware of noises coming from the ceiling above us.

  ‘Pru’s up there, is she?’ I ask, essentially to my mother, but as she is too busy pouring herself more sherry to respond, it’s the paramedic who answers me again.

  ‘That’ll be your sister? Yes, she’s just sorting out a few bits and pieces. My colleague’s up there –’ He nods his head slightly towards my mother, ‘doing, you know, the usuals.’

  I realise he has probably spotted my uniform under my jacket. I nod absently at him, still taking it in while I’m taking it off. My mother’s house is, as ever, like a sauna.

  ‘What does it look like?’

  ‘His heart, we imagine. GP’s en route, but it certainly looks that way.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ I say, because there doesn’t seem to be anything else to say. I bend now to where my mother is sitting, feeling all at once terribly guilty.

  ‘What happened, Mum? Were you with him?’

  She sniffs back a fresh wave of tears. I am, albeit ever so slowly, beginning to absorb the weight of her shock. Whatever he was, whatever their differences, whatever the shambolic state of their short marriage, a moribund relationship is really no competition for one that’s now dead by default. She shakes
her head. ‘No. I was in here. I was doing my crossword. He was upstairs getting ready to go out.’ I see though, even now, a wave of exasperation infiltrate her grief-stricken features. It’s a Friday, I remember. It’s a dance day. Whatever else happens, a part of her will always hold a certain someone responsible. A certain someone called Hester, who now dances – danced – with Hugo, and who has been Mum’s nemesis since the beginning of this year. It won’t be long, I imagine, before her name’s on Mum’s lips. Along with two other ones; ‘just’ and ‘desserts’. But for now she seems genuinely traumatised and shaky.

  As there’s nowhere to sit, I take her hand and kneel beside her, on the floor. ‘I just heard this noise,’ she goes on. ‘This dreadful noise. Not a shout or a scream or anything. Just this horrible gurgling sound. And then a really loud bang. No. Not one. It was two. So of course I called out, but he didn’t answer, so then I got myself up the stairs to see what had happened. Which took for ever, of course, what with this wretched knee of mine. And when I got into the bedroom there he was, sprawled on the floor. Still in his underpants, God rest him, and with his bedside table on top of him.’ She laces her fingers on the tabletop and swallows. ‘So I got down as best I could to feel for a pulse, and then I called for an ambulance. The phone was right by his head. But I already knew he was dead. Even then. You just do, don’t you? You just do.’

  She’s right. You just do. I’ve seen it often enough. And though she’s not medical herself, so has she. ‘Tea,’ says the paramedic, passing me a mugful.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘Good God. Poor Hugo.’

  Then, as if on some sort of celestial cue, the re is another loud bang overhead and for a moment I consider resurrection. But no. It’s obviously just the other paramedic, doing what he has to upstairs. The one in the kitchen with us calls out. ‘You need me up there, Daniel?’ Then he heads off up the hall to do what needs to be done, closing the kitchen door behind him.