‘Henry’s gone,’ she said, opening the door to him, tears streaming down her face, leaving dark tracks of mascara that faded as they reached her chin.
‘Mum,’ said Daniel, ‘who is Henry? What’s happened? Come on. I’m here now.’
Daniel wiped his shoes on the mat and slipped them off. With his hand on the small of his mother’s back he steered her through the hallway, with its flowered wallpaper and everything with either a polka dot or a love heart on it. He’d never understood how his father could bear it. It was like Dunelm had had sickness and diarrhoea, and his parents’ semi was the result. He sat beside her on the sofa that sagged a little in ‘her’ part, worn from a nightly place in front of the TV, next to the armchair that had been, until recently, his dad’s. Maybe it always will be dad’s, he thought, realizing how he hadn’t wanted to sit there because it ‘belonged’ to somebody else.
He put his hand on his mum’s arm. ‘Who is Henry?’
‘Henry! The hoover!’ his mum said, shaking her head as if he was stupid for not understanding right away. How could he have not immediately understood that his mother was crying over the vacuum cleaner? Is that why he’d left his date – the thing that he had wanted more than almost anything else in the world? For a missing hoover? ‘He’s gone!’
Daniel searched her eyes as a way to try and understand what she was getting at. She’d been doing really well: hadn’t endlessly cried to him weeks now. She’d been a pillar of strength, which was good, because whilst Daniel knew his mother’s emotions weren’t his responsibility (his therapist told him that at every session), it was a lot easier to keep his own head above water when she was doing well. Maybe now, though, it was his turn to be strong for her.
His mother sighed, frustrated.
‘Henry. The hoover. We’ve had him almost as long as you’ve been alive. And he’s been good – you know – he’s lasted a long time. Things did last a long time back then. It’s not like now, where they build stuff to automatically break down in two years so you have to replace it. You know. What do they call it? When they make things break after two years?’
‘Planned obsolescence.’
‘Yes. Planned adolescence.’
‘Planned obsolescence. Or built-in obsolescence – the policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful—’
‘Oh shut up,’ she snapped lightheartedly, through tears. ‘You sound just like your father. Knowing everything.’ She sounded as if she wasn’t sorry that her son sounded like his dad at all. Daniel noticed that her mascara had run to the inner corner of her eyes, so each one had a little black dot in the corner.
‘Well. That. Your father wouldn’t let me replace Henry because even though he’s started to smell a bit, and isn’t sucking up as well as he used to, he’s still in good shape. And you know, it can be hundreds of pounds for a new one! That’s a holiday!’
Daniel really didn’t understand where this was going.
‘And you’re upset about …?’ he said, while thinking to himself, I’ll bet she’s there, now. I’ll bet she waited and I never came and she thinks I don’t care. That I’m an asshole.
‘He’s gone!’ She was talking quite calmly, now. ‘I put him outside, under the car port, thinking how I must clean the car out. It’s a mess, and I took Tracey from darts home the other night and was suddenly so embarrassed by the state of it. I bet she thought I was a right pig – there were wrappers and it was dusty, and I suppose after your father … well. I spring-cleaned the house today too, because I realized I’d not really been looking after the place.’
Maybe she doesn’t care anyway. Maybe she never showed. Maybe she’s there, and already being chatted up by the barman, or one of the guys from the corner table out with his fancy City-boy friends.
Daniel looked around and nodded. ‘It looks great, Mum.’ And it did. His mother had always prided herself on a pristine home. A pristine, very floral and chintzy home.
I shouldn’t have left.
‘No! No, it doesn’t!’ she insisted. ‘Because Henry is gone! I never got around to doing the car. I left Henry out by the bin and I thought I’d do it tomorrow, and then that became the day after and the day after, and the truth is, I couldn’t really be arsed, so he sat out there for maybe a week, and today I needed to vacuum the house, and I went to get him and he’s gone.’
Daniel stood up and went towards the front door. He felt his frustration at having had to leave his date leaking into how he was talking to his mother. He hated that version of himself: even as a teenager he’d talked to both of his parents with respect. That was how he was raised.
‘I’m sure he’s not, Mum. Where would he have gone?’
‘Stolen! I bet he’s been stolen!’
Daniel put his shoes back on and went outside to look by the bins, and when he couldn’t see the hoover there, he looked in the bin.
‘You’re not looking anywhere I haven’t already!’ His mother sank down to sit on the doorstep. ‘Oh, Danny,’ she said, her bottom lip wobbling again. ‘Right before he met you at the pub, on the day he … on that day, we had such a big fight. He said no way was I to buy a new hoover, and I thought he was being a tight bastard, and got mad. And he’ll think … well, I’ll bet he thinks I’ve done it on purpose!’
Daniel wandered back over to his mum. ‘He doesn’t think that, Mum. He doesn’t think anything. He’s …’
‘Oh, I know he’s dead. But he’s here. Watching over us all. And he’ll be all crossed arms and big angry scowl thinking I “lost” –’ his mother made air quotes in front of her face ‘– Henry, and with him gone I thought I’d get away with it.’
‘Mum, your husband has died and your hoover smelled bad. I think you’re allowed a new one.’
‘So you don’t believe me either!’
‘Either?’
‘First your father, and now you!’ She pulled a tissue from the pocket of her dress and blew her nose. She was back to talking hysterically, her words all tumbling over each other. ‘Well, I’m telling you, Henry was out here by the bins, and now he isn’t. He’s been stolen and it wasn’t my fault.’
Daniel dropped down on the outdoor step beside his mother. He didn’t say anything, but knocked his knee against hers as a sign of solidarity. She was officially nuts, but he didn’t mind. He was half in love with a woman he’d never met and wrote to via the newspaper because he thought his dad would like it. He could understand his mother feeling strongly about the vacuum cleaner on his dead dad’s behalf too.
He hoped he hadn’t upset Nadia. He hoped that maybe she hadn’t even turned up at all, and so had no idea he’d stood her up. It would have sucked if he’d stayed there, though, and been the one to have been stood up. But he’d rather that than her, waiting, alone, thinking he didn’t care.
After a while, his mother said, ‘I miss the miserable bugger.’
Daniel smiled. ‘I know, Mum. Me too.’
‘I wake up in the middle of the night and think he’s gone for a wee, and I wait for him to come back to bed. And then I remember.’
‘I know.’
‘And I feel … angry. I’m so mad at him for dying.’
‘I know,’ Daniel said sadly.
‘I want to scream and shout at somebody. But at who? The bloody scrap man who probably nicked the hoover?’
‘Ahhhh,’ said Daniel. ‘The scrap man. Yes. If Henry was out here for a week that would make sense.’
‘Yeah,’ his mum said.
Daniel reached out his arm to give her a squeeze.
‘I know it’s awful. You don’t deserve this. You don’t deserve to be without him.’
He didn’t realize until his voice cracked that he was crying too. Big tears rolled down his face, matching his mother’s. She’d stopped crying until she looked up at her son, and the pair of them sat in the late evening sun, partly laughing at their big display of emotion, and partly continuing to sob, mother and son united in the grief of missing the man of their lives, wondering how they might carry on without him.
Daniel was glad he’d come after all. It was just the two of them now. They were a team. They needed each other.