by Kerrie Noor
“Mum, do we have to talk about him again?” I said, flushing the toilet.
“She just too easygoing for her own good,” said Mum, like she hadn’t said that a millions times.
I opened the door and practically tripped over Mum.
“Has he seen her on a roof?” said Mum without moving.
I eased myself and my bump past.
“I mean, that woman is like Spiderman.”
“I’ve been on a few roofs too, you know,” I said.
Mum, feigning deafness, followed me into the kitchen and flicked on the kettle.
“We don’t have time for coffee,” I said. The thought of it made me want to balk.
Mum, still feigning deafness, pulled coffee from the cupboard and began to circle the kitchen for milk.
“I don’t know why you’re getting so het up, he’s not your husband,” I said.
Mum, now engrossed in mug searching, began to mutter like I wasn’t even there.
“Slap a bit of writing on the side of your gangster car and people think you’re a big man . . .”
“There’s writing on the side of my van,” I shouted.
“I know, dear,” said Mum still in search of mugs, “but it hardly an impressive van is it?”
I jumped as Mum wheeled herself inches from my toes, pulling open a cupboard.
“Where’s Helen?” she said.
“Emptying the unimpressive van,” I snapped.
Mum peered out of the window and watched Helen slide a couple of pipes from the back of the van like she was lifting a crisp packet.
“She’s some woman,” muttered Mum.
I huffed.
“One of Steven’s better ideas,” she said.
I looked at Mum. “I lift pipes too, you know.”
Mum eyed me. “In that state? I hope not.”
“I’m not sick,” I said.
Mum didn’t hear; she was busy waving a “you want a coffee?” wave.
“I told you, Mum, we have no time for coffee.” I closed the mugs cupboard. “Pipes don’t get laid on their own.”
Mum looked at me and, with an annoying ruffle of my hair, let out a loud laugh. “You and your pipes—you can hardly lay one now.”
Chapter Eight
The Library
Getting the better of a bully is as exhilarating as a tax return.
I never for a moment saw myself with Steven; he was a man who seemed ineffectual. How wrong I was—he was anything but ineffectual. I mean, he not only put up with my mother, he managed her.
Steven ran the library like an expert. He made it the hub of the community, and his quirky Westerns were part of that hub. People loved being served by an author; even Mum sprouted on about his books, not that she had read any. In fact, she banged on about his books almost as much as her retiring and what she would do if she didn’t have to “run this place” (meaning the library).
According to her, the only thing that was stopping her leaving was the library’s inability to function without her, like she had personally built it, bought the books, and paid the rent.
Steven sussed her out within the first week of stamping books alongside her, but then he is a writer, an expert of human nature. People come to the library just to confide in him. What he doesn’t know about humans is not worth knowing; he makes a physiologist look like an agony aunt.
Steven managed Mum like a sheepdog with sheep; he herded her away from the children before she scared them, took over when she lectured the late returners, and quieted her with her favorite coffee when she talked of the “library crumbling on its periodicals” when she retired.
Until, those in the council not only cut the opening times to three days a week but also Mum’s job.
A week after I had come home from hospital, Steven walked in and sighed. “They’re getting rid of Beatrice.”
“Mum?” I said.
“What are we going to do?” said Steven. “Your Mum is unbearable as it is.”
Every morning she burst into the room, startling Baby Bea mid-feed. One breast would be empty and the other still dribbling as Mum would scoop her from me with a “here, let me help—you take a rest.”
Twenty minutes later, after several burps, Baby Bea was starving and my huge breast felt like it was bursting.
Steven told me to lock the door, and when I told him that Mum had a key, he offered to change the lock.
It seemed that as soon as Mum was mobile, she just had to see Baby Bea, and before I had time to slip my nipple under its cover, she was practicing her latest story on Baby Bea–until hunger hit, and then it was . . .
“Is she hungry?”
“Do you want me to feed her?”
“Thought you had a dairy in those breasts of yours.”
I looked at Steven. “How did they manage it?”
“What?” said Steven.
“Getting rid of her?”
“With a letter.”
“She’ll be devastated. We can’t leave now—can we?”
“She didn’t seem to take it too badly,” muttered Steven.
“Oh? Was she silent?”
“Yes.”
“Shit! A silent mum . . . the worst is yet to come.” I sighed. “Better go and see if she’s okay or circling the kitchen in a temper.”
Beatrice wasn’t circling the kitchen; she was staring out the window watching me walk up the path. I waved at her as she looked down. She didn’t look miserable at all, let alone angry, just sort of weird. She lifted a mug, gesturing a “coffee?” I, confused, nodded.
“Who needs the library?” she said.
I looked at her. “You love the library—you said it would collapse without you.”
“Did I?” she muttered, drying a mug with unconvincing intensity.
“‘I am as necessary as a drain to a toilet,’ that’s what you said.”
I looked at George entering the room. “You heard about the library then?” he said.
Mum pulled an as if I care face. She looked at me.
“Now I have time to clear things out properly when you leave.”
“Leave?” I said.
I looked at her blank face. She was being all cryptic again.
“We are still looking,” I said.
“Steven said you found a place,” said Mum.
“Well, sort of . . .”
“That’s not what he said,” said George.
Panic hit my throat . . .
Steven and I had spent months looking for another place to live. Now at home with a baby, he was more determined than ever and had found a home we could afford.
He loved it. I wasn’t too keen.
Most of the houses we looked at were old and damp, but this was completely new inside. I should have been jumping for joy. The kitchen hadn’t been used, the lounge room was like a hotel reception, the bathroom had a Jacuzzi, and there was a hot tub outside . . . it was enormous.
The sort of house that took all day to tidy . . .
In the sort of place that was in the middle of nowhere and took an hour to get to, most of which was up a single dirt road. It did have incredible views of the loch at the front, but at the back lurked a dark, creaking forest, and there was not a neighbor in sight.
I had never been alone before. I had always been surrounded by shops and noisy neighbors, the sort that bang on the wall if you make too much noise.
This house was isolated—miles from anywhere with no way out but a car, somehow, despite Steven’s “What more would you want?”
I wasn’t sure.
“No, no, you should go,” said Mum. “We all have to move on, don’t we, George?”
George threw her a queer look.
“Well . . . yes.”
She eyed me. “Don’t let me stop you.”
“What about Baby Bea?” I stuttered.
“I can still see her,” she muttered.
George patted her shoulder.
“It’s on the way to my folks’.” George laughed
. “We’ll be passing all the time.”
Mum pushed the over-polished mug into the cupboard and, with a sigh, picked up another.
“George says you need space,” she muttered, sliding the tea towel around another mug. “Perhaps he’s right.”
I was about to ask if she was okay, if she’d been at the whisky, when in walked Helen.
“That’s the boiler sorted,” she said, looking annoyingly at home.
She glanced at me with an uncomfortable smile as George offered her coffee and food. I wondered what else she had been sorting for my mother and why I hadn’t been asked.
“What was wrong with the boiler?” I muttered.
“Just a bit of tweaking.” Helen smiled.
“Tweaking?”
“Well yes,” sniffed Beatrice, “but you’ve a baby to see to.” She smiled at Helen. “Let someone else tweak for a while.”
“It was just a small job,” said Helen.
“Nothing small with that boiler,” I said.
“Didn’t mean to interfere,” said Helen.
I looked at Mum. “Just because I have a baby doesn’t mean . . . I can’t do things . . .”
I suddenly felt like crying. I felt replaced, like an old battery.
“I know, but you’re just home and, well, a bit emotional,” said Mum.
“Me, emotional! What do you mean emotional?” Tears welled in my eyes.
“Forget I said anything,” said Mum.
“I can still hold a screwdriver,” I sniffed.
“We all know you can,” said George, “but you need some rest; how about a coffee and . . . chocolate biscuits?”
I looked at the three of them—cozy, George posing with a packet of Tunnock’s Teacakes.
For a moment, I wanted to slap all of them senseless, including George.
“No thanks,” I huffed. “I’ll think go home, I’ve packing to do.”
Chapter Nine
Home
A fresh start is over quicker than a sunrise.
We moved a few weeks later.
The thought of moving so soon after having a baby didn’t thrill me, but Steven was ecstatic. I guess he was fed up with Mum bounding in unannounced and obsessing about Baby Bea.
Helen, George, and friends from the belly dancing class helped, including my teacher Nefertiti, or “Neff,” as we all called her.
Mum watched us empty the bedsit from the window.
I thought she would put up a fight, but she didn’t. Instead, she, who hates cooking, packed a snack for all and arrived late in the day when the house was full of boxes.
It was already dark by the time she wheeled herself in, and as she dumped her sandwiches and whisky on the kitchen table, I looked out the window at the forest.
The dark shadows of trees whistled in the wind . . .
We were sitting around the kitchen table chomping into cheese and pickle sandwiches, apart from Mum circling in her wheelchair, when a lull fell on the group. Mum looked across at me and muttered, “This house has a bad vibe.”
“Vibe?” Steven looked at me.
“It’s full of boxes,” said George. “How can there be a vibe?”
With a sniff, Mum handed me a lukewarm dram. “Yes, it’s haunted,” she said.
The knob on the curtain rail clattered to ground.
No one said anything.
Steven picked up the knob.
“That’s why it was sold so cheap,” said Mum.
“They sold it cheap because someone died,” said Neff.
The hot tub burst into life under its cover. Mum looked about with an I told you so look. “Try telling that to the ghost,” she sniffed.
“I switched it on,” muttered Steven.
“One guest was seen screaming from the house about a headless chicken,” said Mum, “and . . . a headless man with the chicken’s head in his hand.”
I caught my reflection in the large kitchen window. Behind it blew the trees, creating shadows, creaking and groaning . . . like in a Stephen King movie.
Neff and the others began to clear up, sensing a Beatrice tale a mile long. Neff slid some mugs into the dishwasher as Mum, ignoring the clear-up, continued on about the “mysterious crowing of an invisible chicken.”
Neff grabbed Mum’s unfinished glass. “I’d give half my scarf collection to stay here,” she said.
“You might have to. Sheryl’s not keen on chickens, especially ones that have a man’s head in its beak.”
Mum looked from one face to the other.
“A chicken with a man’s head in its beak?” said Neff. She slammed the dishwasher shut. “Must have been a big chicken.”
“Definitely,” said Mum.
“Aye right,” said Steven, “you should keep those stories for the library.”
Mum continued talking about the woman who burst into a “Kentucky fried screaming . . . like something from a Stephen King film.”
Even I didn’t believe, but the image followed me to bed that night and for the next week.
A few hours later, my breast aching to feed, I headed into Baby Bea’s room and found Mum cuddling her, her face soft and sad.
As soon as Mum saw me, she handed Baby Bea to me.
I looked down at my daughter as I began to feed her, wondering when all this “love” so many mothers spoke about was going to come.
I didn’t hear Helen enter until Mum asked her when she was moving in.
I stopped.
Helen blushed. “I haven’t said yes yet,” she said.
“Come on, it will be way better than that caravan,” said Mum. “You know it makes sense.”
I looked at Helen. “You just put a porch on your caravan.”
“It leaks,” said Mum.
“I haven’t even unpacked my kettle and you’ve got someone else moving in?” I said.
“You have so unpacked your kettle,” she said with a tilt of her mug. “What’s this I’m drinking, Irn-Bru?”
“It was a figure of speech, Mum,” I said, tucking a sleeping Baby Bea back into her bed.
“You have been harping on about moving for months now,” said Mum.
“I know but . . . well . . .”
“I haven’t said yes yet,” interrupted Helen.
Mum looked at Helen. “You can store all your tools below.”
Helen coughed and, with a “let’s talk about this outside,” attempted to steer my Mum away.
I guess I should have been pleased. I’d gotten what I wanted—away from Mum and her interfering—and yet somehow, it made me cry.
But then everything made me cry, and crying made me angry.
I wiped a tear as George and Steven entered. They filled the room with their talk and laughter; I felt like I was suffocating with tears.
I must have looked miserable, because they soon stopped. Mum even gave me one of her annoying it’ll be okay pats . . .
“It’s just your hormones,” she said.
Steven said I was tired, which helped about as much as a mobile without a signal. In fact, it enraged me as much as a mobile without a signal, until George chipped in with a “cheer up, it may never happen”. . . and another friggin’ pat.
I would have bitten his arm off if it wasn’t illegal.
“Come on,” said Helen, thoughtfully ushering everyone outside.
She was always friggin’ thoughtful.
When Helen visited me in the hospital, she took a quick scan of my tearful face and, without one mention of Baby Bea, talked about the next job. The others in the ward looked at her like she was from another planet, pulling faces as she talked of plumbing.
Helen hardly noticed. Instead, as the room filled with visitors cooing over the babies, Helen spread a set of plans onto the bedside table.
“The kitchen’s a nightmare,” she said, holding the corners of the plans with mugs.
Focusing on the drawings, I wiped my tears, sipped my tea, and nodded. “There is a way around it.”
“I knew you would know
what to do,” said Helen.
I knew what she was doing, and she knew I knew what she was doing . . . and it worked, until the nurse walked in.
“Is that laminated?” she snapped.
The room fell silent.
“Because if it isn’t, it’s going into the bin. Christ knows how many germs that’s carrying—probably enough to contaminate half of Africa.”
I watched them all leave Baby Bea’s bedroom. The trees rustled outside, Baby Bea’s soft breathing filled the room, and I had never felt more alone . . . until I heard George laugh from the kitchen.
“Headless chicken? Not your best story.”
I wanted to punch someone in the face.
Chapter Ten
Redundancy
A new beginning often leads to the “same old” ending.
When Mum received her redundancy money, she installed a wet room with piped music, claiming that the only thing better than a hot shower was a hot shower to Jimmy Shan blaring.
George didn’t argue.
Instead, he encouraged her to explore her other talents, and when she saw a storyteller in the library, inspiration hit her. She watched a thin Dutch man telling stories of goblins and mice and declared she had “found her calling” and would “just need a lift to the library.”
Mum began searching through books for stories, embellishing where she saw fit. Finally, inspired by Halloween, she came up with a pumpkin that refused to be cut, grew legs after midnight, and ran from the kitchen . . . along with her standard spiders, wasps, crocodiles, and vampires.
She had always liked a bit of blood and gore . . .
My mum could make a chocolate cake recipe scary; she had a Bette Davis look that could silence a football hooligan.
When I was a child, a hiccup was enough to get that glare and send you into a spasm of gulping; they could make you sick. The idea of her reading to children was as believable as Steven wanting to drive (until of course I fell pregnant). The only thing she liked doing with children was scaring them, poking her tongue out at them, and shouting ridiculous truths at them, such as “If you eat that, your head will turn inside out.”