From Something Old

by Alexander, Nick

  ‘Sure, whatever. It’s your call,’ she said. Then, ‘Fuck, though . . . A baby!’

  When we got to the house, Kerry used her key to let us in, so we surprised Mum snoozing on the sofa in front of the television. She looked shocking when she woke up, and it was one of those moments when I suddenly noticed she had aged.

  ‘Oh! Girls!’ Mum said, standing and rubbing her face with her hands until the colour returned to her cheeks. ‘Gosh, I fell sound asleep.’

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ Kerry said, leaning in to embrace her, an annoying dope-induced smile on her lips.

  Mum sniffed at her, prompting Kerry to pre-empt any criticism by moaning, ‘And yes, Mum, I’m still smoking.’

  Kerry stepped aside and I took my turn to hug our mother. ‘Gosh, you look well,’ Mum told me, prompting Kerry to snigger. I suspected the joint had been stronger than she’d admitted and shot her a glare, warning her not to say anything.

  Growing up, hiding anything from Mum had been impossible. It had always felt as if she had invisible nerves running through the house, and it didn’t matter if you were stealing a bit of cooking chocolate or merely thinking about maybe staying out late . . . whatever it was, Mum already knew.

  It was the same, even now. She’d noted Kerry’s snigger and had sensed my glare even though her back was turned. ‘You’re not pregnant, are you?’ she asked, now piercing me with her blue eyes. I was stunned. No matter how many times it’s demonstrated, you can never get used to that kind of prescience.

  Kerry laughed out loud. ‘Amazing!’ she said, forming a gun with two fingers and pointing at Mum, gangster-style. ‘Our mother is amazing.’

  By now, there was no point even trying to lie, so I admitted it. ‘I might be,’ I said. ‘I don’t know yet.’

  Mum started to cry then. ‘Oh, you are!’ she said, through tears. ‘Oh, you are! I can tell! Oh, I’m so happy for you, sweetheart!’

  It took half an hour before we could have anything that resembled a reasoned discussion about the fact that I might or might not be pregnant.

  Over drinks – orange juice for ‘pregnant’ me – I tried to convince them that even if I did turn out to be pregnant, I might choose not to keep it. But I don’t think I convinced anyone. I couldn’t really convince myself.

  Once lunch had been served, an unusually lazy vegan lasagne from the freezer, I tried to change the subject by asking Mum about Morocco.

  ‘I’ll tell you once we’ve eaten,’ she replied mysteriously.

  ‘Why?’ Kerry asked, her fork suspended in mid-air. ‘What happened?’

  I frowned at Mum, then glanced at Kerry and back at Mum again. ‘You’re pale,’ I said, noticing it as I said it. ‘If you’d been to Morocco, you’d have a suntan. But you’re as white as a sheet.’

  ‘I know,’ Mum said. ‘I didn’t go.’

  ‘But the postcard,’ Kerry said. ‘You sent me a postcard.’

  ‘Me too,’ I agreed. ‘It said you were on a beach.’

  ‘Ada sent them for me,’ Mum said. ‘I had to cancel. I wasn’t able to go and I didn’t want to worry you.’

  ‘You weren’t able to go because . . . ?’ I asked.

  ‘I was in Broomfield Hospital,’ Mum said. ‘I had to go in for some tests.’

  From that point on, I don’t remember much. I suspect that our minds protect us from reliving the pain of such moments by erasing, or at least blurring, our memories. Suffice to say that lots of tears were shed and many hours were spent having heart-to-hearts while holding hands.

  Kerry smoked even more than usual and much of the time she was only half there. I envied her emotional opt-out, but it struck me that at least one of us needed to be fully present to share Mum’s pain.

  ‘I’m so happy you’ve found yourself a lovely man,’ Mum told me on the doorstep as we were leaving on Sunday afternoon, and I wondered where she’d magicked that titbit up from. With hindsight, I think that, what with everything else she was facing, it was just something she needed to believe and so she’d decided that it was true. ‘And if you’re going to have a baby, then that’s the best news you could possibly have given me,’ she said. ‘It’ll give me an extra reason to stick around.’

  No pressure, then! I remember thinking.

  I didn’t bother repeating that I might not be having a baby at all. Because the subject had suddenly become so vast and complex and loaded, involving as it did not only myself and Ant but my mother as well, that I no longer seemed to have space in my brain to sort through it all.

  Instead, all I could think as I trundled homeward, blinking back tears, was, She’s got cancer. She’s got cancer. She’s got cancer. My wonderful mother has got cancer.

  Ant called in to see me on the Monday. When I opened the door to greet him, he looked as grave as I was feeling. Was he preparing to leave me? I still wonder to this day.

  ‘We need to talk,’ he said, once he’d sat on the couch.

  ‘I know,’ I said, trying to think about all the things we indeed needed to talk about: about the fact that I might, or might not, be pregnant. About the fact that if I was pregnant I might, or might not, decide to keep the baby, and that if I were to decide to keep it, then I might, or might not, decide to stay with Ant. But there were too many conditionals in there for me to even begin to know where to start untangling them, let alone explain the whole process to Ant. Plus, in truth, the only subject I could really concentrate on was my poor mother. So instead I began to cry.

  Ant held me in his arms as I wept, and that was the start of what I think of as his ‘nice’ period. In the end it was Mum’s illness, not the baby, that changed him, albeit temporarily. Being so close to his mother, it was maybe something he could relate to. Then again, another part of me has always suspected him of being a scheming monster, so perhaps he simply saw a door opening as I collapsed, heartbroken and needy, into his arms.

  Whatever the reason, he was lovely for the duration of Mum’s illness, far nicer than he ever was before or afterwards, driving me back and forth to Oxen End, and then, later, to the hospital in Braintree; cooking meals for me when I got home exhausted from a stint at Mum’s, and even taking in Dandy – who he hated – when I had to stay over towards the end. OK, Ant didn’t hate Dandy, but he did get very upset when he sharpened his claws on Ant’s Italian furniture, and the cat hair that clung to his suits could send him into such a tizzy that it would have been funny to watch had his raging not been so scary.

  Mum kept things quiet for a month or so by telling us she was having tests or waiting for appointments, and as this was perfectly possible, we believed her. In truth, she’d known from the start that the cancer had metastasised all over, and she had already decided not to bother with chemo – it could only give her a few extra weeks anyway. She was simply sparing us the pain of it all for as long as she possibly could.

  I could fill a book with details of Mum’s illness, but it would be a miserable book that no one would want to read, and it’s a story that was horrific to live through once, without having to go through it all again. Plus, if I’m honest, a lot of my memories are blurred, recorded, as they were, through tears.

  I coped better with it all than Kerry, and though this was a surprise, because I’d always thought of Kerry as the tough one, it shouldn’t have been, I suppose. Though nothing can truly prepare you for that kind of thing – not when it’s your own mother – as a nurse, unlike Kerry, at least I’d seen it all before. I knew how fast these things could move, whereas Kerry was totally blindsided.

  Mum never did get to meet her first grandchild, and that’s a fact that brings tears to my eyes even now. But she did at least get to break the news to Anthony.

  I’d been struggling to breathe at her hospital bedside, on the verge of emotional collapse, I feared. And I’d thought that some fresh air might help me be brave again, so had gone for a walk around Braintree. It was sunny, I remember, but cold.

  Mum called for me while I was out, and it was Anthony who sat and took
her frail hand in his own. I like to imagine that Mum knew what she was doing, that she was enjoying fiddling around with my destiny, but I suspect that she was simply delirious from all the morphine she was on.

  ‘Have you thought about names?’ she asked, apparently, and Anthony twigged immediately what she meant.

  ‘I like Luke,’ he said, after a pause. It was the first name that popped into his mind.

  ‘Is it a boy then?’ Mum asked him.

  ‘We don’t know,’ Ant told her. ‘If it’s a girl, we’re thinking maybe . . . um . . . Lucy.’

  ‘Oh yes!’ Mum said, ‘Lucy! Lucy’s a lovely name.’

  When I got back from my walk, Anthony seemed strange, avoiding eye contact and fleeing the room. As I sat down to take his place, the seat was still warm.

  ‘Yes, Lucy’s a lovely name,’ Mum said.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ I said, shrugging my way out of my coat.

  ‘He says you’re going to call her Lucy,’ Mum said. ‘If it’s a girl.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, swallowing with difficulty. ‘Did he?’

  ‘Or Luke,’ Mum said, ‘if it’s a boy.’

  ‘Yeah.’ I coughed. ‘Do you, erm, approve?’

  ‘Completely,’ Mum said. ‘They’re lovely names.’

  I apologised in the car as we were leaving. ‘I didn’t want you to find out like that,’ I explained. ‘I was going to tell you, but there’s just never been a right moment.’ I couldn’t find words to explain that I hadn’t wanted to taint this news with that news, but that when one event so strongly influenced the other, it seemed hard to avoid putting them within the same set of brackets.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Ant said, surprising me. ‘I get it. There’s been a lot going on.’

  After driving in total silence to Mum’s house, where we were staying, he asked me if I wanted to get married.

  ‘Married,’ I repeated flatly. My mind felt too numb to properly consider the concept.

  ‘Yes, I thought you might want to get married before . . .’

  ‘Oh, before the baby’s born?’ I said, trying to use logic to fill the void left by my inability to actually feel anything about his suggestion. It seemed, indeed, to be something we should consider.

  ‘Yeah . . . No . . .’ Ant spluttered. ‘I mean, before . . . um . . . While your mum can still make it to the wedding.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, turning to look out of the side window and fighting back tears. I think it was only at that moment the inevitability of her death finally dawned on me.

  ‘I think it would make her happy, don’t you? To know that you’re all safe and sound.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said, barely able to breathe. ‘Maybe it would.’

  We booked a mid-May wedding, but had to cancel a week before. We dealt with both cancelling the wedding and registering Mum’s death during a single trip to the register office, something that would forever link those two concepts in my brain.

  After the funeral, I went to Ant’s place. I couldn’t face being alone, and my beloved cat was there, after all. Other than to pick up my stuff, clean the flat and hand over the keys, I never went back to my own place again.

  In June, we drove down to Broadstairs to give Marjory the news. She guessed as soon as she opened the door – I was, after all, starting to show.

  ‘I know it’s a sad time for you, darlin’,’ she said, ‘but try to let yerself be ’appy.’

  I’m sure that she was right and, perhaps, for once, what she said was intended kindly. But my hand balled into a fist and it was as much as I could do not to punch her.

  Have you ever looked at a couple and thought, simply, how? How on earth did he manage to snag her? How on earth does she put up with him? What could they possibly have in common? I certainly have, which is something I suppose you might describe as ‘ironic’.

  But the thing about other people’s relationships is that you only ever see the tip of the iceberg. So you never get to understand that your dumpy friend’s drop-dead-gorgeous boyfriend is broke, or lazy, or impotent – or all three. You don’t get to see quite how nice Brian’s horrible girlfriend was when they met way back when. Or how much trauma he was dealing with. Or how needy, or depressed, or suicidal he was before she helped him. You never get to understand quite how big the debt he’s paying off might be.

  In my case there were plenty of warning signs, I’ll admit it. Anthony was too tidy, he did have too much hi-fi; he did make too many rules and was far too subservient to his really-not-very-nice mother.

  But I was lonely and needy and quite probably a little traumatised too. And when I was at my neediest, Anthony was at his nicest. He genuinely helped me through the worst period of my life, and by the time I came out the other side of what felt like a very dark cloud, we were living as a family with our daughter, Lucy, with another one on the way as well.

  Did I think about leaving him as things soured over the years? Constantly. But did I ever make a plan to escape? Inexplicably, no, I didn’t.

  I want to explain to you how he made me dependent on him, but I’m struggling with that word: made. It seems like such a black hole of a word – a black hole into which personal responsibility vanishes. He made me. Because, did he? Can someone make you do something? Does anyone really have that power? And yet that’s honestly how it feels, looking back.

  Anthony dug away at my sense of worth in such a sustained, methodical way that it’s hard for me to see it as an accident. It’s almost impossible for me to imagine that he wasn’t following some nasty plan of his own.

  Slowly but surely, he chiselled away at my confidence in the things that I was good at, while obtusely complimenting me on attributes I knew that I didn’t have.

  Thus I came, over time, to believe that I’d never been much good at my job (and so there was no point going back), that my cooking was terrible, that I was lazy around the home, inept at social interaction, and that my friends didn’t really like me that much.

  On the other hand, he’d intersperse this grinding undermining of my ego with compliments about my body, my beauty (!) and how ‘hot’ I was ‘in the sack’.

  Understand that these aspects of our relationship crept in over a long, long period of time. Anthony never actually said, ‘Have you ever suspected that your friends don’t really like you?’ – because to do so would have given the game away. Instead, if Sheena cancelled on me, he’d say, ‘Hmm, I wonder why she did that? I suppose she must have just had a better offer or something. Still, you’ve got me. At least I’d rather spend the night with you.’ So I thought I was receiving a compliment.

  When I spoke about going back to work, he’d say, ‘Has anyone actually asked you to go back? Or don’t they really care that much either way?’ And when I admitted that no one had shown a great deal of interest in my return, he’d say, ‘Lucky me! Getting you all to myself!’

  The process being so stealthy, it’s a tough one to explain to an outsider, but I hope you’re at least getting a glimpse of how I came to depend on Anthony, and Anthony alone, for any remaining sense of worth.

  By the time our second child, Sarah, was born, my life had changed completely. I’d given up any idea of returning to work, become so uncomfortable in social situations that I avoided them like the plague, and believed myself to be at my best – or let’s say at my least worst – when mothering or trying to please my man, either domestically or sexually.

  I kept a spotless house, constantly mopping and dusting and bleaching as I tried to prove the erroneous nature of the ‘lazy’ label Ant had given me.

  On the sexual side of things, I’ll spare you the gruesome details; suffice to say that Anthony had quite specific tastes. And he used the births of our daughters – claiming they had made me ‘loose’ – to justify pursuing those, let’s say tighter interests, with vigour. Heaven help me, I managed to pretend, even, to enjoy that. And that really took some doing.

  So did he make me do anything? Can someone make you do something? I ask the question again, and
the only honest answer I can give you is yes. A determined, calculating person can override the will of a weak, insecure, eager-to-please one.

  The progression was so subtle that I rarely noticed it was happening. In fact, the only moments his hostility burst into plain view were in the presence of his mother.

  During Marge’s visits, I would field a barrage of snide digs and smoothly delivered insults – it was truly horrific. But I put up and shut up and turned the other cheek.

  What little confidence I’d once had – and let’s face it, I’d never been exactly cocky – was long gone, so I sat and smiled placidly as they delivered their alternate blows. I mopped and dusted and looked after my gorgeous daughters, and at night I rolled over, spread my legs and cried out just loud enough that Marge – in the spare room next door – might hear, because I’d finally understood that this was what my husband required of me and that he would go at it with increasing vigour until that happened.

  Marge would die soon anyway, I told myself, and any gasps or groans she’d heard would be buried along with her body. Does that make me a terrible person, do you think?

  My mother once told me that the only way to deal with Ant’s difficult mother was to wait until she either ‘came around’ or died, but Marjorie refused to do either. She was younger than she looked, it transpired. And she was in far better health than I would have guessed, too.

  All the same, for a few years her influence waned. Because it was clear that she didn’t like me, and because Ant and I had children who she didn’t seem that keen on either, my presence was no longer required during his now fortnightly visits to Broadstairs. Looking after Lucy and Sarah was the perfect alibi, and one I exploited to the max.

  Once we’d moved Sarah to what had been the spare room, Marge’s regular visits to Sturry stopped as well.

  Ant’s desire to hear me squeal ceased around the same time. I suspected that he was having affairs – he’d come home very late from work and jump straight in the shower – but I convinced myself that I didn’t care. My evenings alone with Lucy, Sarah and Walt Disney were pretty much perfect, and as far as lack of sex was concerned, my primary sensation was one of relief.