Karen
The bedside clock is ticking. Already five past seven. The toilet flushes and I hear her shuffling back across the landing. I can’t leave it like this. Mum’s bed so crowded with stuff I don’t even know where to start. The girls from college will already be ordering drinks and garlic mushrooms, letting the waiter remove the extra setting. They’ll wonder where I’ve got to for all of five minutes and then carry on regardless. I start lifting piles of clothes and tipping them straight into the washing basket. It’s like she hasn’t put a load on for weeks. Overdue library books, talcum powder, unopened charity letters and Alex’s latest school photo un-mounted and already creased at the corners. I feel the dread seeping in. There’s no way I’m going to make it now.
The room smells stale. Worse than mine did the time she unearthed the mouldy lunchbox from under my bed at the end of the summer holidays. She stands in the doorway and I can’t even look at her. I look at a photo of Dad on the dressing table instead. It’s hard to see him through the dust.
‘He’d be ashamed,’ I say, ‘if he could see you.’
She narrows her eyes. ‘You’ve got no right to move my things.’
‘You shouldn’t have let it get this bad,’ I say, sorting the post into a pile and balancing it on the windowsill, ‘it’s not healthy. And where on earth have you been sleeping?’
She moves towards me and snatches the photo off the bed.
‘Careful!’ I say, ‘it’s creased enough as it is.’
She holds it to her chest, facing outwards so that I can see the bottom of Alex’s chin through her fingers.
‘You’ve got no right to interfere with my life,’ she says, ‘not when you’ve made such a fine mess of your own.’
If I’d dropped Alex off at the door like usual, I’d be none the wiser. If I hadn’t popped in to leave the Avon catalogue, and seen the mess in the hall, I’d be at the restaurant now on my third Bellini. I lean on the bannister, close my eyes and focus on my breathing. Sniff my fingertips. It’s still there – bergamot, geranium and clary sage. An anti-stress blend. For a minute it drives everything out. The murmur of the TV from downstairs. I don’t think about the wasted French manicure, don’t notice the state of the carpet. I open her bedroom door as quietly as I can. She’s asleep, or pretending to be, curled up on her side facing away from me towards the window.
When I go downstairs Alex is sprawled across the full length of the sofa. He’s watching a nature programme. Something about rainforests. A parrot moving its arse back and forth in an attempt to attract a mate.
‘Can you turn it down for a minute?’ I say.
He doesn’t move.
‘Alex!’
‘What?’
‘Turn it down!’
He sits up and passes me the remote. I put it on mute and balance on the arm of the chair next to him. He angles himself away, pretending to be really interested in the fringe on the footstool.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I say. He doesn’t move. I want to shake him but I sit on my hands and try to be patient.
‘Answer me, Alex.’
‘Tell you what?’
‘How bad things are with your Nan.’
‘I did.’
‘No, you didn’t.’
‘I told you I didn’t want to come here anymore.’
‘You said you were old enough to stay in on your own. You didn’t say anything about this.’
He rolls his eyes.
‘What?’
‘You never listen,’ he says.
His voice is all wobbly. He’s embarrassed and when I try to put my arms around him he pushes me away. How could I have missed so many signs? How could I not have seen that something was wrong?
He covers the side of his face with his hand. All elbows and knees. I should leave him alone, I know I should. But I have to explain.
‘We’ll sort it,’ I say, ‘we’ll make sure she’s alright.’
He shrugs.
‘No, really,’ I say, ‘I haven’t been around a lot lately and you’ve been here too much and it must’ve been hard. But I thought you’d take care of each other. You always liked coming here. And it’s only a couple more months until I’m qualified. Things will be different. I can earn extra. Maybe even stop working at the shop and start my own business.’
‘Great. Stinking the house out and massaging strangers in the living room.’
‘Alex!’
‘Well, it’s true isn’t it?’
‘It’s aromatherapy. It’s about healing and relaxation. And the money will pay for driving lessons, university.’
‘I’m thirteen.’
‘You won’t be thirteen forever.’
He looks at me. His eyes are almost blue tonight. Always changing. He’s too thin no matter what I feed him. Skinny and hunched as though he’s constantly expecting the world to kick him in the guts. And his hair. So bright even when it’s flattened and moulded to his head. He’d still be wearing his hat now if I hadn’t made him take it off. I look for traces of Ian in his face. I watch out for little signs but I never really see it. It’s been so long. And with him everything was on the surface. The way he clenched his jaw when he was angry, the muscle in his eyebrow that used to twitch just before he lost control. I see Ian in faces of the lads who hang out next to the Spar shop round the corner, rummaging around in their trackie bottoms and hoiking spit onto the kerb. Their pasty shaved heads, and all that macho energy. But not here. I look at Alex and it’s like he never existed.
‘It’s not always this bad,’ he says and his voice is calmer, ‘sometimes it’s ok. I think she just really misses Granddad.’
I can’t talk for a minute. The photos on the mantelpiece. The one of me from high school with my hair the colour of tea sludge. Parted down the middle. Layered and flicked, hanging on either side of my face like a bloody cocker spaniel. I wish I could go back to that moment. Make better fashion choices, undo all the mess. But then I wouldn’t have him.
‘It’s ok,’ I say, ‘we’ll sort something out. But first we need to eat.’
‘There’s nothing in. I’ve already looked.’
I reach down for my bag and hand him my purse. ‘Go on,’ I say, ‘take a fiver out and nip across to the chippy.’
By the time he gets back my stomach’s started to eat itself. The smell of vinegar from the flimsy plastic bag. Everything’s such a mess. I root through the drawer for forks. Elastic bands and half-burnt birthday candles. A bereavement card bent and smeared with grease, resting on top of the wooden spoons. And something else. Poking out from underneath the plastic cutlery tray. The corner of a photograph. I have to lift everything up to get it out.
‘Alex! Come and look at this!’
‘What?’ he says, coming into the kitchen.
I hand him the photo and balance the sweaty bag of food on top of the plates. ‘Bring it with you. We’ll eat on our knees.’
‘It’s her dad,’ he says once we’re settled.
I put my fork down for a minute and grab the photo back. Black and white, crumpled up and speckled with age. The man is standing outside a Post Office holding his police helmet. The uniform looks like something from a comedy sketch. He’s tall and lanky. He looks too fragile to hold a truncheon, let alone use one. My Grandfather. I’ve never seen him before in my life.
‘Bloody hell he looks just like you.’ I look up at Alex and back to the photo. ‘When did she show you this?’
He shrugs. ‘I dunno. Not that long ago. She wanted me to know who I had to thank for the hair.’
‘I thought that came from the other side.’
‘No. Granddad’s was auburn. That’s different. It’s almost normal.’
I laugh. I reach out to touch his head. He leans back into the sofa, away from me.
I didn’t think there were any photos. All she ever said was that he died in the war. And Dad never mentioned anything about him. Only her Mum. Be thankful she kicked the bucket before you came along, he whispered once under his breath, between you and me she was a right piece of work.
‘What’s Ned short for?’ Alex says, out of the blue.
‘What?’
‘Ned. The name.’
‘Edward, I think. Or Edgar. Something like that.’
He points at the photo. ‘But he was called William.’
‘Yes.’
‘Who’s Ned then?’
‘No idea. Why d’you ask?’
He shrugs. ‘No reason, really.’
But his cheeks are going pink. And his face. It’s the look he used to have when I caught him hiding cabbage under his mashed potato or stashing conkers in his sock drawer.
‘Alex.’
‘It’s nothing. Just sometimes she calls me Ned by accident,’ he says.
I don’t know what to say. I sniff my fingers again but the smell is wearing off.
‘Sorry, can’t help you with that one, buddy.’
I turn the sound up on the TV and he watches monkeys swinging through the rainforest canopy. We pretend it’s like any other Friday night. But the photo is there in the corner of my eye. My grandfather, who looks too weak to go to war, to carry stretchers on the battle field, to give commands and solve crimes and make any kind of name for himself. This photo that no one ever showed me. And Ned, whoever he is. It bothers me, this mystery name. Something about it gives me the creeps. There’s a noise like falling ash in the chimney. The sound of someone running up the stairs in the house next door.
‘Maybe we should take her home with us for a few days, just till she’s feeling better,’ I say, just thinking out loud.
Alex snorts. ‘Good luck with that,’ he says, ‘she’d never come.’
He’s right. She’s never liked staying in other people’s houses. Being away from her own routine.
‘We’ll just have to stay here then. I can call in sick tomorrow. Drive home and pick up a few things.’
He shrugs.
‘You can help me clean, get things back in a decent state.’
‘Whatever.’
We sit on the sofa with our arms almost touching, just watching whatever happens to be on. The leftover chips going cold on the coffee table. Lights flashing through the net curtains every time a car goes past. I want to put my arm round Alex’s shoulder, to pull him into me. But there’s no point. He’d only move further away. For the time being this – right here – is the closest I’m likely to get.
The day after he was born Mum came to visit me in the hospital. She held him and held him and wouldn’t stop looking.
‘Oh Karen!’ she said, ‘he’s beautiful. There’s just something about little boys isn’t there? He’s an absolute little love.’
It should’ve made me happy, her being so besotted. I should’ve been grateful. All the time they spent together. The country walks, Saturday sleepovers, church on a Sunday, picking him up and making polite conversation over roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. He used to tell me he wanted to move in. If I close my eyes it’s like everything is tipping over. The whole world turning upside down.
The fine mess I’ve made of my life.
And the girls in town will be sipping coffee and sharing a tiramisu. They’ll be walking down Church Street, laughing, tripping over their own feet, just seeing where the night will take them. I can’t get it out of my mind. That moment. Alex in the hospital. The other babies crying. The smell of disinfectant and the ache and shock of it all. And Mum. The way she looked at him. Like nobody else really existed. Like someone had finally given her the thing she’d always really wanted.