Mum seems to be on edge tonight. I suppose I can’t blame her. It’s been a horrible day all round. I feel guilty for putting her through it. In fact, I feel guilty for everything at the moment. Everything I touch seems to be turning to dirt. I feel as if I’m on a roller coaster that I can’t get off. I don’t know when it’ll end – and the safety harnesses seem to be on the blink.
The episode earlier, in the car, had scared me. For a moment I wondered, was she going to have a heart attack? She was so pale and clammy. She looked so frightened. I was terrified that I was going to lose her, too, on top of everything else.
It’s clear the stress is getting to her and how could it not? She’d been downstairs when whoever it was had thrown that rock through my window. She’d seen my face when the text message arrived. She’d tried to keep me calm all way to Derry today for the meeting at the hospice.
I feel so ashamed. I’d not only let Mrs Doherty down when it mattered the most, but I’d let myself down, and I’d let my mother down. She’s always been so proud of me. How can she be now? Between work and seeing the horror show my marriage is becoming, her rose-tinted glasses must be well and truly shattered.
I know she says I’m welcome to stay with her for as long as I need to, but I’m sure this wasn’t in her plan. Having her pregnant daughter back under her roof – her marriage crumbling round her ears. Her pregnant daughter who killed someone – regardless of what any internal inquiry has found.
She’s been tetchy with me ever since I came downstairs after my bath. She seems tense.
I ask her if everything’s okay and she blinks at me for a second. I half expect her to tell me that of course nothing is okay. Everything is messed up. But she doesn’t.
‘I think I’m probably just tired, too,’ she says, but her eyes don’t quite meet mine.
She doesn’t seem able to sit still. Keeps getting up to do things. Put a wash on. Brush the floor. Make a cup of tea. Her answer to everything – a cup of tea. When she brings one in to me, I haven’t the heart to tell her I really don’t think I can face it. So I take it and sip from it gingerly while she sits at the other end of the sofa, seemingly lost in her own thoughts.
‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ I ask. ‘You’d tell me, wouldn’t you? If something was wrong. Do you feel okay after that funny turn earlier?’
‘For goodness’ sake, Eli, stop fussing. You’ll give me a headache.’
Her tone is so sharp, I feel completely taken aback. I feel tears prick at my eyes, but I hold them in. I won’t cry. It’s my fault she’s wound up.
I just finish my tea, make my excuses and go to bed. She doesn’t try to stop me, or ask me to sit with her for just a few more minutes as she normally does. She simply nods, as if she hasn’t quite heard me, then goes back to staring at the fire.
By the time I reach the top of the stairs, I start to realise just how very tired I am. I’ve barely the energy left to brush my teeth.
I’m just about to climb into bed, when I remember I need to charge my phone, so I reach for my bag to find it. Martin always teases me about the weight of my handbag, fakes a pulled muscle if I ask him to hand it to me. I don’t think it’s that bad but it’s bad enough that things often get lost amid the detritus.
I rifle through it. A notebook. My purse. A pocket-sized packet of tissues. Receipts. A half-used box of Rennies. A small hairbrush, pressed powder, two lipsticks. Keys, of course. Some letters from work that I need to file away. An appointment card or two. An empty Polo Mints wrapper. But no phone.
I’m sure I put it in my bag. I try to go over my actions in my head.
I had it before the meeting at the hospice. I’d put it on silent just before we got out of the car. I didn’t take it out of my bag while I was inside. I’d brought my bag into my house when I went to pick up my things, but had I taken my phone out then? I can’t remember. It’s possible I’d got an email, but my brain’s increasingly fuzzy and foggy, and I’m not sure even a gun to my head will make me remember with 100 per cent clarity.
I’m too tired to go back downstairs. I’m sure it must have fallen out in the car but it can stay there until morning. My limbs are leaden and I feel my head spin a little. I lie down and let sleep wash over me. I’ll worry about everything else tomorrow.
*
I can hear my mother moving about in the kitchen below me when I wake. Silly domestic sounds. Familiar sounds. It sounds different to my home in Derry. My mother’s listening to Radio Ulster, a host of Northern Irish voices talking about the news of the day. She’s always been a morning person and always hits the ground running. No sitting around in her nightdress. She’s up and ready to go within ten minutes of waking. The washing machine will be on. The vacuum will be pulled around the floors whether they need it or not. Windows open to the world. Purse in the pocket of her coat and off she trots to the shops and back again. A newspaper, which she barely looks at these days, and a pint of milk in a bag she pays ten pence for.
There’s a comforting routine to it. Or it had been comforting at one stage. As I lie in bed this morning I don’t feel comfortable. Yes, I’d slept, but my dreams were strange. Disturbing. In one I could hear a baby cry, a baby I knew was mine, but I couldn’t find her, no matter how hard I looked. I feel as if I’ve spent the night tossing and turning.
I struggle to pull myself away from sleep and sit up. The usual morning bout of nausea washes over me and my need to run and be sick is what gets me out of bed.
I rinse my mouth with mouthwash, not feeling quite brave enough to risk brushing my teeth and sending my gag reflex into overdrive. Then I walk downstairs, where the smell of fresh coffee almost turns my stomach again.
‘Mum, have you seen my phone?’ I ask, walking into the kitchen.
My mother’s sitting at the table, coffee mug cradled in her hands, reading some celebrity gossip in the newspaper. Fully dressed, her greying hair perfectly coiffed, she looks up at me and shakes her head.
‘Do you want me to ring it from mine?’
She seems, perhaps, less on edge this morning.
‘Could you?’ I ask, sitting down at the table and wondering if I dare risk eating anything.
My mother lifts her phone and dials my number. I listen out for my ringtone, but there’s only silence.
‘It’s gone straight to answer. The battery must’ve died. Where did you last see it?’
‘I’m not sure. My head’s gone these days,’ I tell her, eyeing the slice of wholemeal toast she’s eating. ‘I might have left it in the car. I’ll go and check in a bit.’
I stand up and slip a slice of wholemeal bread into the toaster.
‘I hope I didn’t leave it at home. I don’t think I did, but you know, I wouldn’t put it past me at the moment.’
‘Wouldn’t do you any harm to be without it for a while anyway. Get a proper break. I don’t know how you young ones tolerate it, being on call 24/7. Never getting away from those blasted phones. I doubt all those radio waves or whatever can be good for you either. You work with cancer patients, Eli, you should know how dangerous things can be more than most people.’
‘Phones are fairly necessary these days, Mum. You know, for work and stuff …’ I pause.
For work. I feel my stomach sink. There’s no work to think of just now. I suppose I don’t really have much need for my phone. Who would call me anyway? My estranged husband? The friend he’s cheating on me with?
I butter my toast, just a thin skim. Watching it sink into the toasted bread, I pour myself a cup of tea and sit down, but my appetite has left as quickly as it arrived.
‘So,’ my mother says, closing her paper and declaring there’s nothing worth reading in it anyway. ‘What shall we do today? Do you fancy going to Victoria Square for a wee run out again? Or there’s a lovely new coffee shop opened just down …’
‘Actually, Mum, I think I might just take it easy. Maybe go and see Kate later. After she’s finished at the bakery.’
Mum looks taken aback. She tenses.
‘Why not invite her and that lovely wee boy of hers over for tea? I’m sure I could rustle something up. And he’s such a dote.’
There’s no denying that, Liam’s as lovely a little boy as they come, but I feel the need to get out and about. I can’t help but feel the growing tension between us is related to just how much time we’ve spent in close quarters this last week. I think we could both do with a breather from each other.
That’s not to mention that it’d be lovely to see Kate again. It had amazed me, really amazed me, how quickly Kate and I had fallen back into old patterns when she visited. When she gave me a big hug and told me everything would be okay, there was something in the timbre of her voice that made me believe her. We’d talked, briefly, about school and about what our old friends were doing, and then she’d asked me, sincerely, her brown eyes fixed on mine, how I really was, and I’d told her.
Kate doesn’t know Martin. She doesn’t really know the me I’ve become, if I’m honest, so she’s able to look at the situation objectively. Our chat gave me hope that no matter what the outcome, I’ll cope.
‘You know, Mum, I think it’d be nice just to get out for a bit. Clear my head – besides, you must be getting sick of looking at me by now. You’ve your own life to lead. Why don’t you go and see one of your friends and sure, we can share all the mutual gossip when we get back. I can even message Kate and see if she can save some of her pastries, so we can indulge ourselves at supper.’
I see my mother try her best to hide her upset at my plans not including her, but she’s failing miserably. It seems in trying to reduce her stress, I’m only causing her more.
‘No,’ she says, stone-faced. ‘You do your thing and don’t worry about me. I’ve cancelled everything to be here for you, but I’m sure I can find something to do with my time.’
I tell her I love her, try to file her passive-aggressive response in a ‘she’s stressed and doesn’t really mean it’ folder in my brain, and offer to go for a walk with her before lunch. It’s a half-hearted attempt at appeasement but she seems happier.
First, I just have to call the bakery to see if Kate will be free later. I hate that I can’t just text her, which reminds me how much I value having a mobile phone, even if my mother isn’t keen on them.
Standing in my mother’s hall while she cleans in the kitchen, I think of all the times I called Martin from this spot. All those conversations that went on for hours even though we’d only just left each other a short time before. Things were so much simpler then. We were less complicated. Life was less complicated. We were so in love. I’d have still said we were in love until last week – yes, things were tougher, but we were still in love. Weren’t we?
Suddenly, I find myself missing him. Regretting the things I’d done and said yesterday. Maybe I could ring him. Perhaps he’ll have found my phone. I could ask him to post it to me. It’s a legitimate reason to call him – one not caught up in this mess we’ve found ourselves in.
I hear my mother call my name and I leave the phone sitting untouched. She’d never understand. She’s never had what we have. What we had.
At times, it crosses my mind that she may even be jealous of Martin and of the relationship I had with him.