Twenty-five years earlier
The tower block seems to sway toward me. Clouds scud overhead and I gaze at the aerial on its very top, pointing into the sky, until I’m too close and it vanishes. As I drop my eyes they home in on a familiar denim jacket. Nick is pacing back and forth on the litter-strewn grass verge outside the main entrance. He’s started appearing at ours earlier and earlier, so I’ve been pushing myself to get home sooner, but it’s never enough.
Why’s he smoking out here instead of on our balcony, or his own? He’s stomping over the brown grass, flattening the weeds, tapping his cigarette so ash flies away on the wind. I’m sure he sees me but he acts like he doesn’t, staring toward the road as if watching or waiting for something.
I wish I could lock the main door behind me, keep him out of the entire block. By the time I’ve dashed up the stairs, sweat is leaking in tentacles down my back. I dump my rucksack and shout for Mum.
She doesn’t answer. She’s not in the kitchen. There are two un-drunk mugs of tea on the table. I burst into her room and find her lying on her side on her bed, scrunched up like one of the pale blind puppies Auntie Rach’s dog gave birth to.
“Mum?” I’m out of breath. “Are you okay?”
Her eyes are red-rimmed, face white as flour, dark hair spread across the pillow. “Hello, love.”
“What’s wrong?” I perch on the edge of her bed, wanting to yank up her work shirt to check for more bruises.
She eases herself into a sitting position, cautiously, as if everything aches. “I’m just knackered. Long day.”
“Why’s Nick outside?”
“He’s on his way to the shop. We’re out of milk, toilet paper . . . basically everything. I’ve been a bit useless. Thank God for Nick, eh?”
I can’t bring myself to agree. Thank God for Nick. “Have you two argued?”
“’Course not. I just needed a lie-down and he offered to pop out. Now, are you going to make some tea?”
“You haven’t drunk the ones out there.”
She adjusts her position and there it is again, the wince of pain, but she forces chirpiness into her voice. “I’d forgotten about those. Better make some fresh, eh?”
Reluctantly I go back to the kitchen. As the kettle boils I hear next door’s kids squealing, and Mrs. Begum watching a game show on the other side, the volume so high her speakers become a death rattle. Outside the window a plane draws its frothy trail across the sky and I wonder about the people on board, who they are and where they’re escaping to.
I can’t find the mug that Mum likes her tea in, the purple one with the daffodils on it that I bought her for Mother’s Day. It makes me cross, frustrated. Nothing’s going right, nothing’s as it should be. I give up and use her second favorite, but when I chuck away the tea bags I catch sight of a glinting purple shard inside the bin. I reach my hand in deep. Carefully I dig out smashed pieces of crockery, painted yellow petals: Mum’s favorite mug, broken.
The kettle peaks and falls silent. Still staring at the rubbish, I tune back in to the noises in our own flat. Mum moving around her room, opening her wardrobe, the rustle of clothes. She’s getting changed. This is my chance. I drop the shards back into the bin and tiptoe to the slightly open door of her bedroom. And though I feel weird about spying, I put my eye to the gap.
Ever since I saw that bruise I’ve been frantic. Watching her. Watching him. The way she sometimes flinches when he touches her, the way he pulls back and they both look at me. At school, as it gets to the time he usually finishes work in the big British Telecom office on the industrial estate, I can’t concentrate for thinking about what might be happening at home. Even in English class, which I usually don’t ever want to end, all I’m doing is waiting for the bell, trying not to feel sad that I’m disappointing my favorite teacher with my distraction.
I do my best to minimize the time they have alone together. It’s hard to stop them going out to the pub or spending the night at his flat, though. I feel out of control if they disappear off there, even though it’s just downstairs, and when Mum comes back her movements seem even more slow-motion. I’ve tried pretending to be ill so she’ll stay, and sometimes she looks like she might, but then he appears, asking if she’s ready, drawing her away.
We need a bit of time to ourselves, Kate, she’ll say, tucking my hair behind my ear. You’ll be okay for a few hours, won’t you? Put a film on? I’m just downstairs, love.
I sit there watching reruns of cheesy old sitcoms, wishing he’d picked somebody else’s mum in this block of flats to ask out. Why mine? Why us? And why did she say yes to that first drink, then to another, when we were happy as we were? Before long it was dinners at our place, his bare feet in the mornings and his razor next to the sink.
Two nights ago, when Becca rang, all my fears about him came pouring out. For a while there was silence at the other end of the line. Then an uncertain little snort: “Your mum wouldn’t stand for that!” But she hasn’t seen Mum lately, doesn’t know how she’s changed. I told her it could happen to anyone, and if she could feel the atmosphere . . . When I started crying I think it shocked her into taking me seriously. “I’m sorry, Kay-Kay,” she said. “How ’bout I come stay with you next week? I need a break from this bloody job-hunting, anyway . . . It’s all right, Kate, everything will be all right.” I felt better then. Becca’s eighteen, older than me. Those two years somehow give her more power to fight this with.
Mum is standing in her underwear, leaning against her wardrobe in a moment of private stillness. And I can see that nothing I’ve tried to do over the last fortnight has been enough. There are bruises on her stomach, her legs, her arms. Some are yellow-green, like islands of mold, others fresh and dark, like stains of red wine. I clap a hand to my mouth and stumble back. Behind me the front door opens, and I turn to watch Nick’s tall silhouette eclipsing our hall.