Out on a Limb

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  ‘Of course it is,’ I sa id anyway, because it would take a much doughtier person than me to make any other sort of response to that question in these circumstances. ‘But Nana needs peace and quiet – she needs her own routine, her own space, Jake. And there’s precious little of that around here, is there?’ I added a laugh. For levity. But it didn’t leaven much. Just hung in the air, like a smell.

  ‘And so does your mother,’ mine added, smiling nicely. ‘Oh, and speaking of which, I’ll be out from under your feet tonight, dear. Bridge Club’s at Mary’s. Can you drop me there at seven?’

  I breathed out. First round over. ‘No problem,’ I told her.

  ‘And I imagine I’ll need you to pick me up at ten-ish. But naturally I’ll phone and let you know.’

  And thus we roll around to yet another Sabbath, which is why I only swear under my breath.

  In The Beginning, as is documented in the Bible, God was a pretty busy Deity. What with heaven and earth to get made, day, night, moon, clouds, sun, rain and so on to get organised (not to mention preparing the foundations for a later-date flood), plus with all those fig trees, asps, wanton women etc. to fashion, he must have been pretty darn knackered. God, however, being the Supreme Being (or so I imagine) didn’t have to concern himself with kip.

  Sadly, supremacy is not my main forte. Thus sleep (shut-eye, rest, slumber, repose, any form of unconsciousness will do, frankly) is now very much my major concern. Much as I thought I empathised with Pru’s bleats on the noise front, the reality that is living with my mother is so very much worse than I’d ever imagined.

  Which may sound rich coming from someone whose existence happens to a background of decibels in three figures, but the noise my mother generates is just horrible. Fingernails down a blackboard horrible. From the dawn chorus (show songs, phlegm removal, chanting, Darth Vader breathing) right through to the small hours night watch (channel five, tea cup banging, phlegm removal, gargling) there is a constant backdrop of insidious, irritating noise.

  I know, I know. It’s probably just because it’s her. Though I hold fast on anyone’s phlegm removal, frankly, I dare say I’d have no issue with most of the rest of it were it emanating from Jude Law or Ewan McGregor. But there are times in every relationship where one person’s endearing trait becomes another person’s incitement to murder most foul. This is very nearly that time.

  Worse than that, being woken in the small hours is one thing. Being woken in the small hours when your brain is actively looking for things to be awake about , is quite another. My brain goes ‘yeehah, gal! Let’s fire up those neurones!’, so, once conscious, I simply cannot get back to sleep. I fret about Charlie being unhappy, I fret about Sebastian getting mugged, I fret that I should re-locate Jake to stage school (how? why?), I fret about Spike being ten and a half. Memos to self (urgent) Monday thru Friday: Get over yourself, will you? Just STOP IT.

  Because everything seems worse at three in the morning. Everyone knows that. I certainly know that. But at three in the morning I always forget.

  And I’m always wide awake at three in the morning. Thus by Thursday night, seven-ish, when Charlie calls my mobile, I am almost asleep on my feet.

  Charlie calling, moreover, again. Two weeks, three days and seven hours. That’s exactly how long it’s been since I’ve spoken to him. I know I shouldn’t be counting (I’m way too busy to be counting), but, like a prisoner in Alcatraz, I find the notches on the calendar are soothing somehow. Will take me steadily, week by week, towards freedom. In that time, he’s phoned me five times. He’s left voicemail messages. Sent texts. Made enquiries via Dee. He’s even sent a postcard of the hospital (where’d you get them from? And who would want one anyway? ‘Hi all! It’s me! I’m feeling dreadful!’) on which he wrote, rather unimaginatively, ‘wish you were here’. But I have been strong. I have resisted. I have failed to respond. And I certainly don’t intend responding now.

  Five minutes later, he calls me again. I don’t respond.

  When he calls me a third time in as many more minutes, I do, I am the first to admit, teeter on the brink of doing so. But then he rings off in any case. And then I get a text.

  ‘Okay,’ the text says. ‘Ignore me if you must. On your own head be it. Okay?’

  And that’s it.

  *

  Which wakes me up and then sends me into a panic. What does he mean by ‘On your own head be it’? What’s happened? What’s that all about? I put my phone on the kitchen table while I fashion a few frames of a slash movie, most of which feature his wife coming at me with a meat cleaver, yelling ‘Adultress! Temptress! Jezebel! Trollop!’, and cleaving said cleaver to cleave off my head. On my own head be it. Oh, damn him. Should I ring? Or should I not ring? Is this just another ploy to engage my sympathies? And why is he after my sympathy anyhow? Sympathy is nothing like sex.

  And not sexy either, which is fine from where I stand. If only he could see that as well and move on.

  ‘Are you all right, dear?’ says my mother, entering the kitchen. She sees me trying to stare out my mobile, and leans across me to inspect it. ‘Who was that?’

  I snap it shut. ‘Oh, no one,’ I say breezily, as I have managed to do a thousand times and in a thousand similar situations before this one.

  ‘I’m going to get myself a sherry,’ she announces. ‘Can I pour you one, dear?’

  ‘No thanks.’ Not for at least another twenty-five years hopefully. I’m sure drinking sherry will do things to my brain. Perhaps I should send a text. Just to check he’s okay. I fashion another few frames. Soft focus ones this time, in which Charlie has become a sort of Nelson-come-Russell Crowe in Master and Commander fusion, and is sprawled on the deck of his clipper, shot to buggery, and telling his first mate that he needs…groan …to get …gasp… a message…wheeze, death rattle etc…to his beloved Lady Hamilton (or whoever that woman is Russell Crowe married in the end) and he can die a happy(ish) man… Except the ship’s sinking fast and Morse Code hasn’t been invented yet, and the boy who’s supposed to do the flag signalling thing is holed up in the rum store saying prayers…

  And then the doorbell rings.

  ‘Door!’ chir rups my mother, causing Russell’s anguished features to dissolve into the cannon smoke. She always does this. The doorbell goes (which I, of course, hear) and she goes ‘door!’. The phone rings (which I also, of course, hear) and she goes ‘phone!’. All this despite the fact that, for the past twenty-four-odd years of my life, I have been responding to doorbells and phone bells quite successfully without any vocal contribution from her. In a domestic situation full of major irritations, this is, admittedly, only a minor irritation, but it’s a sad fact of life that irritations, like radiation, are cumulative beasties. Give it six months and it will become major. Give it twelve and I might need therapy.

  ‘I know. I heard it,’ I say (preternaturally nicely), walking across the kitchen. ‘It’ll doubtless be someone for Jake. JAAAKKE! DOOORRRR!!!’ I then bellow up the stairs. Because that’s different. He doesn’t hear, obviously.

  My mother winces, as she always does, at my unmaidenly pitch and volume. All this shouty stuff visibly pains her. But then she’s never done boys, has she? Perhaps it will remind her just how very much she does value her peace and quiet. One can but hope (and – memo to self – be very noisy). She takes her sherry back off to the living room and whatever soap opera it is that she’s currently perched in front of. She watches them all, and it doesn’t escape my notice that we’re all busy starring in one of our own.

  Jake clatters down the stairs. ‘Probably Hamish’s mum come to pick him up,’ he says, loping past me to yank open the front door. But it isn’t Hamish’s mum. It’s not anyone’s mum. It is Charlie who is standing on the doorstep.

  ‘Good evening,’ he says pleasantly, while eyeing my tonsils. ‘I’ve come to collect my…er… son.’

  One thing that immediately becomes apparent is that as neither Jake nor Char
lie seems in the least aghast at this state of affairs, I am the only person in the environs of my hallway who is mute and in a state of utter shock. I lean against the kitchen door in the hopes that it will absorb some.

  ‘For Hamish, right?’ says Jake. He yanks the door open wider. ‘Come in,’ he says brightly. ‘We’re just getting his stuff.’ Charlie wipes his feet then does as instructed. ‘Righty-ho,’ he says. This has got to be a dream. ‘Righty-ho.’

  Another thing that almost as immediately becomes apparent as well is that things are clearly not as they might seem. Hamish, then, (for there is only Hamish left residing in Jake’s bedroom right now, the other two having been picked up by Tom’s mother half an hour back) is – must be – Charlie’s son. But Charlie doesn’t have a son called Hamish. Charlie has a son called Oliver, who lives just outside Oxford, with his mother and his half-sister and his brother. And a cat.

  Except he obviously does. He just said so , didn’t he? He said ‘I’ve come for my son’ and Jake said ‘for Hamish, right?’. What the hell is going on here?

  In the five seconds it has taken me to reach the conclusion that I have failed to reach any sort of conclusion, Charlie has shut the front door behind him and engaged me in the sort of wordless conversation that goes ‘See? You silly mare. I did try to tell you. But would you listen? Not a bit of it.’ (I, of course, am still going ‘ whhaaaattt???? ’) And now he’s grimacing a bit too. I close my mouth and let go of the door jamb.

  ‘Hamish ?’ I mouth.

  He nods. He looks sheepish. ‘Oliver,’ he says. ‘Hamish to his friends. It’s the Scott bit, of course.’

  Of cour se. I should have realised. No. There’s no ‘of course’ about it. How would I disseminate that from that? Gawd, and of all the bands in all the world, how come he walked into Jake’s one? I’m stupefied. ‘But he lives in Oxford.’

  Charlie shakes his head. ‘Not any more. They’re here now.’

  As in Cardiff. They’re all here now. ‘And he’s joined Jake’s band. Good God.’

  Charlie frowns. ‘It would seem so. I believe he answered an advert.’ We’ve been keeping our voices low, but a series of bumps and bangs and guffaws overhead seem to indicate that the getting of stuff is still in mid-operation. We both look upwards. He takes a step towards me and speaks normally again. ‘I had absolutely no idea, Abbie,’ he says. ‘No idea whatsoever. Not until Claire rang me and asked me to fetch him. I couldn’t believe it when she gave me the address.’

  Claire. Claire. I try to recall the last time Hamish was collected after band practice, and more specifically if I saw whoever it was that collected him. I can’t. But then I often can’t. I’m often out, or in the kitchen, or just simply not involved. They come, they practice, they get collected at some point. I sometimes have a chat with Tom’s mum (they’ve been pals for some years now), and I used to see David’s dad from time to time. But not much. Their parents usually wait in the car. We don’t engage much. That’s the way it works once they’re older. Which means – and I start at this thought – that Charlie’s wife has probably been here at some point. Collecting Hamish – well Hamish/Oliver – and I never even knew.

  And neither did she. ‘Oh, God. This is awful,’ I say. And I mean it. It doesn’t take a genius to collate the implications, from the jolly doorstep encounters with Charlie’s wife over amp leads, all the way up to One Black Lung’s ‘best of’ farewell gig at the Royal Albert Hall, in fact. Will I ever be free of him? Them ?

  ‘You’re looking good,’ observes Charlie.

  ‘You’re not,’ I respond. And I mean that as well. ‘You’ve lost weight.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Are you ill?’

  ‘No. Well, not as in –’ He stops and glances upwards. ‘Look, Abbie, can’t we do dinner one night? Just dinner. That’s all. No games. I just need to –’

  ‘No, Charlie! God, please don’t go there. Not now.’ Oh, this is too, too dreadful. And what’s most dreadful about it is not that he won’t stop asking such things, but the realisation that what I would most like to do at this moment is to take three steps across the hall and gather him into my arms for a cuddle. To make him feel better. To stop him hurting so much. But, no. I’m wrong. Most dreadful is making eye contact with him, and the realisation in doing so that that is precisely what he’d like me to do too.

  We spen d a moment in silent contemplation of each other, because neither of us knows what to say. ‘Are they good?’ he ventures eventually, while the bangs and bumps resolve themselves into the unmistakeable sound – and then vision – of an amp being lugged down the stairs.

  ‘They’re very good,’ I tell him. ‘Hamish – sorry, Oliver – has a beautiful voice.’ Hamish, halfway down now, hears this, and blushes. ‘But you know that already, I guess.’

  ‘Not really,’ he says. He smiles at his son, and I’m beginning to get all choked up at the wonder that the sweet, polite boy who has been coming here just lately – has become my own son’s friend – is the actual, physical, flesh and blood child of the man who I’ve been so horribly infatuated with. It’s a strange and unsettling web of relationships, and a strange and unsettling feeling. A feeling I don’t know quite what to do with. The boys hit the hall and we move out of the way to let them out through the front door to put Hamish’s amp in Charlie’s car. He hands his son his car keys as he passes, then watches them both go down the front path. He is visibly proud and it makes me catch my breath. I’ve never seen him in his role as a father. ‘He’s very reticent about his singing at home,’ he says. ‘Doesn’t warble in the bath or anything.’

  ‘They’ve got their first gig planned, you know,’ I find myself saying without thinking. ‘Tom’s sister works at Club One. You know? In town? Actually, perhaps you don’t. But anyway, she arranged it. October, I think. They have these teen nights. They’re very excited.’ And then a thought pops into my head. ‘God, Charlie, how did we never talk about this?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘This. The fact that you have a son who sings. And plays the guitar – no, I lie, you did mention that once, I think – but, you know, them. Our children. Just the fact of who they are, what they are. You know?’

  He shrugs. And it all suddenly seems like such a terrible shame. But it’s a shame with a point to it. A shame with a reason. Our lives were never, could never be, connected like that. We were just each other’s guilty secret, and so we didn’t want to dwell. Which thought makes me want to hug him even more. I wish he looked better. Looked happier. Looked more just, well, okay.

  ‘Well I never did! Mr Scott-Downing!’

  My mother, with timing that could outdo an atomic clock, appears in the hall at this point. Actually, I’m rather glad of it. I’m beginning to feel terribly tearful. And if Charlie were to spot it, repercussions would ensue. Grave repercussions. Giving in and moaning kind of repercussions, most probably.Que Sera into his neck

  ‘Diana!’ He feigns a comparable look of wonder. ‘What a night for surprises this is turning out to be! How’s that knee doing? Still managing to keep it in one piece?’

  She nods and she tinkles. ‘Gracious, doctor. Is this a house call?’ Then she tinkles some more. Because she’s never learned you really shouldn’t laugh at your own jokes.

  ‘In a manner of speaking,’ he says. ‘I’ve – we’ve – just found out that my son has joined your grandson’s band. How about that?’

  Mum looks from him to me. ‘Well, what are the chances of that ? How delightful!’

  And she means it. She always did have a thing about doctors. The only man to break her heart (which apparently happened between husband number one and my father) was a Consultant Cardiologist. Cruel irony, that. And he didn’t even offer to fix it.

  And, well, l ike mother like daughter, perhaps? Except it’s not my heart that’s broken. It’s his.

  Jake comes back in now, while Hamish hovers on the doorstep. ‘All set, Dad,’ he says. Then he turns to me.
‘Thanks for having me,’ he says shyly. He’s so sweet.

  ‘Best be off, then,’ says Charlie. ‘Nice to see you again, Diana. And er…Abbie.’ He turns to Jake and holds out his hand. ‘And you too, mate.’ Jake shakes it self-consciously. And then they’re back off down the path.

  Charlie turns to wave before getting into the driver’s seat. I wave back. So does Jake. ‘He’s pretty safe, isn’t he?’ he says.

  ‘Safe? That’s a new one,’ says Mum. ‘What does ‘safe’ mean?’

  ‘Cool. A good bloke. Okay. That sort of thing.’

  Yes, he’s probably all those. But not safe. Not Charlie. Not to be around anyway. Not for me.

  Chapter 13

  HURRAH, HURRAH! A TEXT at last!

  Yep ok u can open them. Txt me back l8r… Sxx

  I don’t of course. I’m way too excited. Though I know he only sent the text to stop his mobile from warbling at him (and in fairness, he does sound as if he’s sitting at the bottom of a pond with caddis fly larvae up each nostril) I am way too euphoric for w8ing till l8r. I need 2 spk 2 him NOW.

  ‘Maths – A! – Yessss!!!! D.T. – A! – Yessss!!!! History – B – well, no worries, B is fine , darling, fine. General Studies – A! – A again!!!. Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! Oh, darling, this is brilliant!’

  Sebastian says , ‘bleurrgh.’

  ‘Oh, I am so proud of you, darling!’

  Sebastian says, ‘bleurrgh.’

  ‘You see? I knew you could do it. I just knew!’

  ‘Bleurrrgh,’ says Sebastian again.

  A few more bleurrrghs into the conversation and I am persuaded that though he is indeed thrilled with his A level results he has insufficient brain capacity to express very much more than bleurrrghs in response until such time that his hangover has receded sufficiently that he is capable of sentient thought.

  ‘I’ll ring you back later, then, shall I?’ I ask him. ‘But in the meantime, can I tell everyone else? Can I? And what about dad? Shall I call him as well for you? Oh, this is fantastic, Seb! Oh, I’m so happy !’