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. . . BUT, SWEETHEART, THERE was no need to be bad-tempered. Your father says boys of your age don’t like to be questioned about their doings and having their parents interfere, he says he was like that himself. Well, he might have been but that doesn’t mean you have to be, does it, and I wasn’t interfering but only wanting to be helpful. After all, as I have to keep reminding him, you’re on your own for the first time in your life, with no one to look out for your wellbeing, and I am your mother, darling, aren’t I, it’s only natural, isn’t it, that I should want to know how you are and how you spend your time. You’ve never been secretive before. And I don’t think your father is right anyhow. Your Uncle Bill was always full of himself when he was your age and told us about everything he did, and Mrs Fletcher’s Brian doesn’t hold back either, I know because she tells me in great detail all his news when we have our Friday coffee, he seems to be doing very well at college, just as you will next year, I’m sure, and probably a lot better because you were always much cleverer than Brian Fletcher, that I do know.
I can only think you’re so reserved about your doings because you aren’t really happy and don’t want to say so in case it upsets your father and me. I know you, when you go quiet that means trouble. I expect something’s going on that doesn’t suit. You were always like that. But when you were a child you were a sweet-natured good little boy who always tried to please, and I could soon make you smile again, I knew the trick, as I still could if you were here. Well, it won’t be long before Christmas when you’ll be home again and we can have a good old heart-to-heart. Would you like us to drive down and pick you up? Your father says the car could do with a good long run, and there’s no need for you to take the bus, even if it is supposed to be express, the car would be far more comfortable, and save on expense, and we’d be together for that bit longer. Your father and I do think it admirable of you to want to survive without taking money from us or depending on us at all, but things can go too far in this respect and fetching you home would give us great pleasure. So just let’s take this as settled, shall we?
Gill is looking forward to seeing you then too. She was here on Sunday after you phoned as usual and told us funny but awful stories about the dreadful behaviour of customers at the bookshop. I must say I thank goodness your father and I never had to deal with members of the public in the service industries, there do seem to be some very strange people about and courtesy has gone out of the window, which I notice myself when shopping, as I said to Mrs Fletcher only last Friday after an embarrassing altercation at the cosmetics counter in Binns. Though it is bad enough for Gill it can’t be any fun at all for you taking money in all weathers from people in cars, which, as I’ve said to your father many a time, seem to bring out the worst in people. They certainly do in him. He almost ran down a man in a Vauxhall the other day, you know how prejudiced he is against Vauxhalls. At least Gill is in the warm and dry, and working in a bookshop is quite respectable, if you have to work in a shop at all, besides being, as Mrs Fletcher remarked after we’d given Gill a wave on our way past, probably educational as well. She brought your father a very nice book on pruning roses which, as she admitted, she got cheap being an employee, but never mind, it was thoughtful of her.
Your father, being your father, said she was just trying to curry favour with him, but at least he went for his jab today. I told you he would if you had a word with him. You see how much we miss you and how much we need you. But as I say, my darling, Christmas soon, and we’ll be together again . . .
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. . . but I can’t wait till then, can you? I’m desperate! Worse every day. Like thirst. I see Carole and Felicity with Daniel and Rod and can’t stand it. I want you want you want you want you want you want you.
Besides, beloved, there’s an important anniversary coming up. December 14th. One year. Twelve months. 365 days (and nights).
Remember the first time? I do, every second of it. Couldn’t I come to you for our anniversary? I know it’s near Christmas and you’ll be home then. But we could celebrate all on our own, a whole weekend together with no one to worry about, no one to interrupt or spoil things or to have to think about at all. Just you and me. Us.
I could come down on the Friday evening. There’s a train would get me to you about 9.0. And I could stay till late Monday afternoon. I could skip school that day. There wouldn’t be too much fuss. Worth it however much. Three whole blissful days together. Three whole even more blissful nights together. It would be like never before, wouldn’t it. Say yes. On a postcard. Just the one word. Or phone. We won’t talk if you don’t want to. Just say yes. That’s enough. All I want. We can talk when we’re together. And make love. Oh how I want to make love. I want you. Now. This second.
I love you love you love you
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. . . but I’ve tried to, honest. None of them was right.
It’s all so complicated. How I feel, I mean, what I’m thinking. The depression isn’t as bad, which is one good thing. I feel better most of the time. But sometimes it all comes flooding back. Not so often though. Like a wound healing. Some days it hurts, some days it just aches, some days, more and more often, I feel OK. Maybe depression is a kind of wound. A psychic wound, a ghostly wound that haunts you till somehow it’s laid. (And not the sort of laid you mean.) Still, though, I need more time to get things sorted out in my mind.
I like it here. It’s good for me. I like being on my own. That’s something I’ve learned about myself. Actually physically enjoy it. It gives me pleasure. I don’t know, maybe I’m one of those people who are best left to themselves, the sort who prefer their own company.
Not that this place is anything to write home about. Hardly even basic, in fact. Which is another reason I like it. It’s stripped down to the essentials. Maybe I like it like this because I’m trying to strip myself down to my own essentials. To get to know the real me. Who is the real me? I don’t know. There’s so much garbage inside me already, so much clutter. And most of it dumped there by other people – parents, teachers, friends, neighbours, the telly, I don’t know. Everybody. But not a lot of it put there by me.
Anyhow, what I’m really trying to say is please don’t come here. I don’t mean to be nasty or anything. But it’s hard to explain. It’s just – I’m not ready yet. Mother wants me home for Christmas. I suppose I’ll have to. We can talk about it then. OK? What I mean is, you said letters get misunderstood. Which is true.
And the same is true about memories. I remember our first time, of course I do. But memories don’t help. They can even get in the way. It seems to me that most of the time people use their memories to make their past life seem better than it was, or happier. Or just the opposite. They only remember the worst. Either way, memories aren’t real. They’re a kind of fiction, if you ask me. Anyhow, people make them into what they want them to be, and then believe their life was like that. But I want to know what my life really was, really is now not then.
And yes, I enjoyed screwing you. You know that. But that’s another of the reasons why I don’t want you to come here. We’d screw all the time and I’d like it but it would only confuse things again. Confuse me anyway, about me and about you, and about me-and-you. Just when I’m beginning to sort myself out.
OK, so I’m crazy and mixed up. That’s what people are saying, I expect. Well, I don’t care what they’re saying. I don’t have to listen to them. Not here. Which is another reason why I like this place, and being on my own, and out of range of home and everybody who knows me. Or think they do! Maybe the truth is I’m not like they think I am. Maybe I’m quite different. When I find out, you’ll be the first to know.
So let’s leave it like that for now, yes? Till Christmas anyway.
I think about you.