It's Gone Dark Over Bill's Mother's

by Lisa Blower

  Praise for

  It’s Gone Dark Over Bill’s Mother’s

  ‘The title says it all. Close up and personal yet universal stories of childhood yearning, misunderstandings, loss and triumph. Beautifully written from inside, real people, ordinary homes. Set pieces, hilarious and tragic, the caravan site, the spring cleaning, the drinking game, crafted to perfection, short stories, to die for.’

  —Kit de Waal

  ‘She picks the roofs off people’s houses, then the tops off their minds and delves into the innermost heartaches and eccentricities of all of those diverse and beautiful and terrible human beings whose stories we hardly ever hear.’

  —Hollie McNish

  ‘Her stories combine the laugh-out-loud funny of Alan Bennett and the achingly sad of the great David Constantine.’

  —Paul McVeigh

  ‘Look out for this. With a sharp eye and tough warmth, Lisa Blower brings to life the silent histories and harsh realities of those living on the margins.’

  —Shropshire Star

  For my two Nells—

  from one storyteller to the next

  Contents

  Title Page

  Barmouth

  Pot Luck

  Broken Crockery

  Oceans of Stories

  Dirty Laundry

  Happenstance

  The Cherry Tree

  Johnny Dangerously

  Featherbed Lane

  Smear Campaign

  Pick Up Your Socks

  The Land of Make Believe

  Chuck and Di

  Hoops

  Prawn Cocktail

  Love, Alvin and Ramona

  Drive [in 17 meanings]

  The Trees in the Wood

  Fron

  Abdul

  Original sources

  Ta, duck

  About the author

  Copyright

  Barmouth

  Leek New Road, Stoke-on-Trent

  THE CAR WAS second-hand: a Triumph Herald soft-top the colour of my daddy’s overalls. He would drive, Mummy sitting aside of him in the passenger seat surrounded by food: barley sugars on the dashboard, sandwiches and flasks at her feet—it was the only time she was ever thankful for being short. She’d be knackered by the time she buckled herself in—baggy-eyed, short-tempered, hair rush-dyed with a home-snipped fringe—she’d been packing and shopping for weeks, filling up a box on the kitchen floor marked ‘holiday’. I’d look down on it and think, when I grow up I won’t be nothing like you. We’ll eat fish and chips twice a week.

  On the back seat were Nanny and Grandy Jack, Grandy Jack’s chest wheezing like a burglar alarm. Nanny would press a fiver in my hand for holiday spends and make a big deal out of it, say, ‘I know it’s not much but we give you what we can,’ and that chocolate would rot my teeth.

  Then there was my sister. Four years younger, prettier and carsick, she’d be passed around the car to perch on knees. Every year we’d squabble over the caravan’s top bunk and every year I’d be told, ‘It’s Looby’s turn.’ But she was even carsick on top bunk.

  As for me, I’d been fashioned a bench from a plank of wood that slotted in behind the front seat. I’d spend the first half of the journey sitting astride of the handbrake navigating—‘Second left at the roundabout’, and ‘33 miles to Shrewsbury’—as if Daddy had never been down this road before.

  The Amoco

  We’d get going and stop five minutes later for petrol.

  Why didn’t you fill up last night?

  Jen’s on the till, isn’t she?

  Dad would ask, ‘Does anyone want any chocolate?’ and we’d watch him chatting with Jen on the till. Jen would wave. Aunty Jen. Sweet-toothed Jen. Nice as you like then she’d blow up like a chip-pan fire. ‘Whatever’s she done with her hair?’ Nan would say, and Mum would tell us that Jen was going Majorca in a fortnight—all six of them, taking her mother, self-catering, only went Greece back in May—and then she’d stare out of the windscreen, her eyes filled with tears.

  Dad would be back with a bagful of chocolate—Bounty, Mars Bars, Fry’s Chocolate Cream bought special for Mum. ‘Jen’s looking well,’ he’d say. ‘Done something lovely with her hair,’ and he’d get the face. ‘For God’s sake,’ he’d mutter, pulling out of the forecourt, ‘we’re going on holiday, aren’t we?’ and we’d finally get on our way.

  William Hill’s

  We’d have gone less than a mile before we’d pull in at the bookies. The men would get out and Mum would say to her mother, ‘Can you believe this? Now, do you see? Do you see?’

  But it might pay for the holiday.

  Get the girls something nice to wear.

  Just think, we could all be going Majorca next year.

  We’re all off to sunny Spain.

  But you never win.

  Mug’s game.

  I’m the bloody mug.

  Yeah well, you know what you can do, don’t you?

  And as the car door slammed shut, Nan would start to tell us the story about the two little girls—one who had a posh pram and one who had a rusty one whose wheel fell off and rolled into the pond.

  Loggerheads

  Just past Loggerheads and my sister would be sick on the verge. Mum would be with her, holding her hair up in the air, and shouting at the car.

  It’s the way you drive, like it’s some race track.

  You took that last corner on two wheels.

  One sat on our knees, the other on a plank. We’ll get stopped one day. The police will have us, and then what? Then what? I’m pig sick of making do!

  And Dad swivels round in the driving seat and says to me, ‘Have I ever told you how I met your mum in Loggerheads?’

  He has. A million times.

  ‘She was on the back of another man’s motorbike swigging from a bottle of sweet sherry and her hair was as dark as treacle. It was love at first sight,’ though he’s not looking at my mum when he says it. He’s looking down at his Mars Bar, his stomach lurching at Jen’s fingerprints on the wrapper.

  My sister gets back in the car. Dad fiddles with the car radio. Fleetwood Mac. I want to be with you everywhere. We’d sing. We’d get back on our way. Mum reaching over to put a hand on Dad’s thigh. She pats his leg in time to the music. He flinches. She moves her hand away and makes a bony little fist she cannot use.

  Ford, just outside of Shrewsbury on the A458

  We called it dinner—meat-paste sandwiches, salt-your-own crisps, apples and pears and what was left of the chocolate. We’d sit in the lay-by, taking it in turns to wee behind the hedge. We’d have left the house almost two hours ago. Mum would be looking as if she’d walked there. There’d be dents on her knees from where the cooler box had been. I say, ‘If we stopped for fish and chips you wouldn’t have to carry the picnic on your knees.’

  Me and my mum: we become our own worst enemies and yet each other’s only friend.

  Or, Montford Bridge off the A5

  We should call and see Aunty Bobby. She’d love to see the girls.

  But they’re in their holiday clothes.

  What does that matter?

  They’ll be covered in dog hairs. Filled up on biscuits. That woman will be there. You know I don’t like it in front of the girls.

  Why do you have to be like that? If it wasn’t for Aunty Bobby and her caravans!

  Do you hear that, Mother? Married beneath him, he has. As if I need reminding.

  We don’t take the turning to Aunty Bobby’s and carry on.

  Dinas Mawddwy

  We’d see the road sign and hold our breath.

  You should’ve gone through Bala.

  You do this every year.

&
nbsp; The car’s too old for the hill.

  What do you want to prove?

  The car can’t take it. I can’t take it!

  Dad would shove the car into first gear, an eight-car tailback chugging behind. He’d crunch into second. It’d labour. It’d be quicker for us to pick it up, walk with it. He’d put the car back into first. The car behind us would toot, flash its lights, start to pull out.

  Lord, give me strength! We’re all going to die!

  There’d be a funny smell coming from the engine, like the front wheels were coming away. Dad would stare straight ahead, and shift into third gear.

  First one to see the sea!

  He always did want a bit better. Always did ache to overtake.

  Tal-y-bont

  Three miles outside of Barmouth, and Looby is sick again. We all get out of the car to stretch our legs.

  ‘Look at the colour of that sky,’ says Mum, and orders Dad to get the camera. He asks where it is. ‘Wherever you put it,’ she says.

  ‘Didn’t you pack it?’ he asks, and Mum closes her eyes.

  ‘I ask you to do nothing but pack the camera, fill up the night before.’

  I now know why we never have any holiday snaps.

  ‘Just go!’ Mum yells at Dad. ‘You don’t want to be here. For crying out loud, I don’t want to be here.’

  ‘This isn’t about Barmouth!’

  Nan ushers us back into the car. Let them argue in peace. Me and Looby crouch under the headlamps and count the dead insects. She takes the right, I take the left, the one with the most dead on their lamp wins.

  Barmouth

  It’s 1982, around five o’clock. We’re at war with Argentina. My dad hasn’t yet been called up. He’s waiting. The sparkies are next, he says. They’ll need sparkies to rewire the guns, keep the power running through the sockets. Grandad tells him to shut up. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. You’ve no idea what war does to a man. Dad says that’s exactly the point. He wants to feel like a man.

  Mum thumps his shoulder and tells him to shut up. She says if he got called up he’d shit himself and bend every rule in the book not to go.

  We drive along the promenade in silence until Nan says, ‘It’s gone downhill.’

  ‘It looks the same as last year to me.’

  ‘And the year before that, and the year before that.’

  I see all the things that haven’t changed and cheer at each one. The black spindle towers of the railway bridge, the flags at the top of the helter-skelter, the neon lights of the prize bingo, the Shell Shop where I’d buy gifts for schoolfriends, the Smuggler’s Rest where I’d be allowed scampi, adult portion, and cheesecake.

  We pull into the car park by the beach. I hope it’s for ice cream, a cone of chips, but no. Grandad’s legs have gone dead again. Nan has to rub at his shins. Mum sprays Ralgex. We all cough. I turn around, straddle the bench the other way, and start to help. Grandad pushes me away. ‘You’re too old for that,’ he warns.

  Mum’s face reddens. ‘Do you realise how that sounds?’ she shouts. ‘Can this family show no one any affection?’

  Dad opens the car door but doesn’t actually leave the car. He just sighs. Then he sighs again. When I look at Mum she’s crying. That’s the fourth time today. There’ll be a fifth and sixth time before she goes to bed and then in the morning she’ll bustle about the kitchen frying up as if nothing is wrong with us at all.

  Gwyn Evans’s Caravan Site

  Grandad asks for a different inhaler. The one that jump-starts his breath. He says he can’t feel his right foot and his chest heaves like a tired racehorse. We pull up at their caravan first. Dad carries in their cases. Grandad sits on the step of the caravan, wheezing. Nan steps over him. ‘We’ve only just got here and look at the state of you!’ but Grandad has no clean breath left. Mum tells him to breathe in the sea air. It’ll do him good. He does as she says but we all know that nothing can do him much good any more; fifty years of pot-banks fogging up his lungs.

  Nan’s in the caravan making tea, making the bed, bleaching the toilet, disinfecting the sinks. She tells Mum they’ll be over once they’ve had a brew and unpacked. ‘You can grill that gammon,’ she says. ‘I’ll peel some spuds once I’ve washed my feet.’

  Every year, the same blue bowl, bunions soothed, spuds peeled.

  Golygfa Glân

  It means beautiful view, or the view is beautiful. Either way, we can see the sea out of every window. I lie on top bunk and listen to the rain. It hammers down like hailstones on the roof and makes the gas bottles sing. Looby is asleep. Dad has gone down the site pub for a swifty with Roger from the caravan next door. Roger comes up from Solihull with his wife Charmaine every weekend. He sells cars, second-hand ones, and car accessories like ice scrapers and hub polish that Charmaine sells from the caravan hatch. He keeps telling Dad that if he doesn’t branch out on his own he’ll get left behind—be your own boss, cook your own books, life’s going to get a lot more selfish, squire—and as he laughs like a drain down his ear, he offers Dad a good price for the Triumph he doesn’t take.

  Mum and Charmaine kiss each other hello but they don’t mean it. Charmaine goes about in a bikini and raffia wedge heels with matching handbag. Mum covers up because the sun burns her skin and she has to lie down on her front while one of us dots her back with calamine lotion. Before Dad went to the pub, he said, ‘The girls are fine. They know where we are. Ask your mother over if you’re that worried. And we are on holiday, love. One drink won’t hurt.’

  There was a lot of quiet before my mum seethed through gritted teeth that ‘this is never a holiday for me.’

  Barmouth beach

  It’s 1984. The miners are striking back home. My dad is not a miner but he works at the colliery, tinkering, as my mum calls it, with the wires and fuse boxes that keep the lifts going up and down the shafts. He is not striking. He says we live hand to mouth as it is and if he strikes, what will happen to the men who want to work if the lift stops working? Mum says, ‘It’s going to close whether you like it or not.’

  We all lie on Barmouth beach hemmed in by windbreaks and sunbathing on pebbles. My sister’s making sand pies. Rhubarb and custard, chicken and ham, the shells she collects in her bucket are the spuds and peas on the side. Grandad snoozes in a deckchair, his breathing rugged and raspy, an old raggedy cowboy paperback going up and down on his chest. Nan is sitting aside of him covered head to toe in blankets doing a word search. Brrr, she goes, and Brrr just in case. ‘I told you we should have come last week,’ she moans. ‘Blazing sunshine last week.’

  ‘Yes,’ snarls Mum. ‘The weather is all my fault too.’ And she looks across at my dad who looks out to sea and says, ‘There’s got to be somewhere better than this.’

  He picks up my sister’s spade and starts to dig in the sand like a dog.

  The Smuggler’s Rest

  A year later and we come in August for a change, as if the time of year will make the place different. It is not. We go to the Smuggler’s Rest and my sister is sick in three napkins. She’d been allowed the scampi then had had the peach melba. The waiter brings us the bill. Mum gasps. ‘We don’t have enough cash.’ She roots in her handbag, asks Dad, ‘Have you got the cheque book?’

  ‘Why would I bring the cheque book?’

  ‘We haven’t brought the cheque book?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t bring the cheque book.’

  ‘You didn’t think to bring the cheque book?’

  And they still don’t look at each other in case the other turns to stone.

  After the strikes didn’t work and the men lost their jobs, Dad took what he could and went in the office. Paper-shuffling, my nan calls it. Head of paperclips, sarks my mum. Keeping a roof over our heads, shouts Dad. We don’t get pocket money any more and we pay for everything with the cheque book.

  Nan pipes up, ‘Well, just how short are you?’

  Mum says it’s embarrassing. ‘We’re £12 short.’ She looks down at Nan’s
handbag.

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ says Nan.

  ‘But you get a free holiday, every year, and it’s only £12. We’ll pay you back.’

  ‘I know you will, we’re pensioners.’ Nan asks for my purse too. ‘I know you haven’t spent it,’ she says.

  My mum’s mouth drops open. ‘You’re not seriously taking her holiday money?’

  Nan folds her arms and tells me that like the little girl with the rusty pram and the wonky wheel, if you want something nice you’ve either got to pay for it or go without.

  I remember that I got out my fiver. It looked so expensive in my hand. Mum cried and left the restaurant. I watched her go and felt sad. She looked so small, like she’d fit in my Nan’s handbag, and she’d tried, she’d really tried, but I was sad mainly because I wished I’d had the peach melba. It was so much bigger than the cheesecake. When we came back two years later, without Dad and by taxi, the Smuggler’s Rest was a Chinese takeaway.

  Swallow Falls

  I’m fifteen and reading a book, swotting up for my GCSEs. I don’t remember the book. I’m mediocre in everything, shine in nothing, and certainly not up there with my sister whose art is already winning prizes. Mum calls out, ‘Oi, bookworm, get yourself off up that hill, get the blood flowing, some fresh air in your lungs!’

  I carry on reading. I’ve been up that hill fourteen times. I can draw the view in my mind, tell you what shade of green goes where. They trudge off and leave me with Grandad parked up on a rock. He says, ‘How’s school?’

  I think about the girls who don’t speak to me. The one who says I copy her hair. The teacher who tells me I upset people, especially the girl with the demi-wave and the Russian wedding ring on her engagement finger. He tells me, ‘You know she hasn’t got a dad, so why are you so mean?’ I tell him I’m not mean. My dad left too and they make things up. I ask them, ‘What is it that I’ve done to you?’ They say, ‘If you don’t know then we’re not going to tell you,’ and I hide in the toilets, punching at the spots that are ruining my face. Nor do I tell him that I’ve already done it with Christian Davis because the girl with the demi-wave is doing it with Robbie Hannan, or that I’ve had a persistent sickness bug since May and no bleed.