I last saw my mother in October 1984. I was in the kitchen with her, ready for school.
They were desperate days. Dad had been dead a month. Mother and I rarely spoke; when we did, it was only to communicate necessary information, no more.
‘Good morning.’
‘Goodnight.’
‘I’m off.’
‘Bye.’
My last sight of her was as she stood in the kitchen, staring out of the window at the back garden. She had let her hair grow the way it wanted to, and some blonde highlights that had been applied before the accident were growing out, so now her natural colour was showing at the roots. She hadn’t brushed it in the morning, she was wearing her nightie and dressing-gown.
There were fences between us and the people either side. These fences were six feet tall, flimsy, made of thin wood, but they could have been made of concrete blocks, topped with barbed wire, thirty feet tall, mined either side. While our neighbours lived — by the sound of it — happy lives, we lived in gloom and silence. When Dad had been alive, he had filled the house and garden, he had been friendly with everyone in the street, and everyone had been friendly with him. Nothing phased him, he enjoyed his work. He was the factory manager. The factory made beef pies, beef and vegetable pies, pasties, chicken and mushroom pies, sausage rolls, and was developing a line of fish products. He was responsible for a work-force of one hundred and twenty-five, he believed that management should be seen on the shop floor, he was captain of the factory general knowledge quiz team. He never got drunk, he never came home late, he never raised his voice at me, or hit me.
One day… I was going to tell the story of his death, how he died in the factory, but I find it difficult to think about. It was a gruesome accident.
So I left my mother standing over the sink, twirling her fingers in her hair, and went to school. I used school as a means of escape, never something to escape from. A gate to life and that. I had friends there, but after his death, I withdrew into my lessons. At home, after I had done my homework, I either walked to the beach and tried the dead waves Margate blows, or I settled down on my bed with headphones on, listening to music and reading surf mags. Also I designed wicked new boards, and drew perfect barrelling waves, the sort I saw in my dreams. Dreams of waves were the best times in those times. Waves so beautiful, so complete and long, high as buildings but soft as pillows, blue as my Dad’s eyes, frothing with all our tears. Kind waves and waves that spoke, kissing lips and impossibly hollow tubes. I dream in colour, sound and smell. I sleep in a foetal ball. My favourite subject at school was Geography, and I was good at it. I have the grades to prove it, and a place at Exeter University. Other people choose Exeter because it’s one of the best, but I chose it because it’s best for the best waves in the country. I know about commitment, and will not allow my studies to suffer, but I cannot let the sea suffer either. Surfers Against Sewage, The Old Counthouse Warehouse, Wheal Kitty, St Agnes, Cornwall, will not let the sea suffer. They know their stuff, and I wouldn’t mind working for them. Geography is about understanding the earth. It was created from gas and dust five hundred million years ago, and is in danger now. To understand what we are doing to it and the peril we are in, you have to understand its whole life, and the parts that make it up. Join now!
Mother was thinner than I had ever seen her, hunched like a snapped insect over the sink. Completely gone in her loss and her inability to absorb the truth. Dad had given her reason, and had been the opposite to her. She wanted his bustle and optimism. She didn’t turn to watch me go, the last syllable she spoke to me came softly, creeping like a mouse across the floor. ‘Bye.’ I’m gone.
Now I’m here, standing outside room sixteen, at the end of the corridor. I can hear her in the room, moving from the bathroom to the bed, rustling her coat off and putting her boots by the wardrobe. My fist is up, held over the door. There’s movement behind me; when I turn to look I see Estelle. She looked at me, held my eyes for as long as it took to buzz my root, but she didn’t stop walking. She was wearing flat black shoes with rubber soles, and black tights.
The number sixteen on the door was not screwed on straight. The number was pierced by three holes; one of the screws was missing, the other two had been screwed in crooked. I heard a tap being run and a glass chinking on the side of the sink. So close to her, my heart began to flutter, it began to slow, and I knocked.
How close can you be without touching? As close as my mother and I when I saw her last; now she came to the door and opened it, and I saw her again.
What had been brown was grey, and what skin had been smooth was now covered in wrinkles and the shadows of capillaries. She looked like a ghost, she looked like smoke from a dampened fire, my mother. She looked taut but she still looked elegant, controlled. She’d been thin but she was thinner now; as she’d thinned so she appeared to be taller. Her nose and cheeks were lightly dusted with powder, her lips were flat and pale, and her eyes had darkened. I remembered them as blue, but now they were brown. Can this be possible?
‘Mother?’ I said.
‘Duncan,’ she said.
She stood back to let me into her room; as I passed her, she touched me gently on the elbow, but we didn’t embrace, we didn’t kiss. ‘Should I have rung?’ I said.
‘No. I was expecting you,’ she said. The voice! Of course! It was precise and quiet, with layers of possibilities. It could be kind and it could admonish, or encourage or coo, all with the slightest changes. The words came slowly, as if she practised them.
‘Thanks for the card.’
‘Did the hotel stamp it?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I didn’t have the strength to tell you myself. I tried, but I lost.’
‘Mother...’ I said, and I moved towards her. She spread her right hand and pointed to a chair.
‘Please sit down.’
I did.
‘Would you like something to drink?’
‘Thanks.’
‘Tea? I’m afraid I haven’t got anything stronger.’
‘Tea’s fine.’
She went to a table and flicked on a kettle. As she moved, she stalked, like a heron or a flamingo, long, steady and elegant movements, each worked out in advance, her eyes looking straight at what she was doing, as if they controlled her hands. She dropped tea-bags in mugs, she licked her lips, she was wearing smart grey trousers and a patterned blue and grey pullover. Her fingers looked like bones. The kettle boiled, she made the tea, I stared out of the window.
‘There you are,’ she said, and she passed me my mug before sitting opposite me. She crossed her legs, and now the bottom half of her body looked like a relief map of ocean currents, sweeping from — say — the Indian Ocean, through the Arafura Sea to the Pacific. She kept still as she sat, took a sip of her tea, and I stared at her. I think I knew then what was to come, what I should expect, but I threw the awful thought away. Grief comes at its own pace, it doesn’t need hurrying. She caught my eye once, then looked away; she caught it again, and had to look away again. She looked as though I scorched her when I looked at her; I got in there with ‘It’s good to see you again,’ a banal thing to say, but each syllable was carrying more emotion than you could stack in a palace. Worse than catching a psycho wave, worse than knowing you’ve failed. I couldn’t look at her when she said, ‘I’m sorry.’
Her voice was as thin as she was, quiet as wing-beats. She licked her lips, but it didn’t help her.
‘How long’s it been?’ she said.
‘Eight years.’
She shook her head and looked straight at me. ‘You’ve changed.’
‘Yeah...’
‘I knew you would have, of course, but looking at you; I wonder if I’d have recognised you in the street.’
‘I’d have known you.’
‘And your voice,’ she said. ‘You are your father’s son.’
‘Of course I am.’
‘No; what I mean is...’ and she looked away, searched the floor for something that wasn’t there and looked at me again ‘… some sons are lost, you know? They’re drifting between their parents, they don’t seem to belong to one or the other. I’m happy for you.’ She put her hand out and twitched her fingers towards me. I looked at her nails and the creases on her knuckles. I almost reached out and touched her, but something stopped me. What was the something? The seductive sound of waves beating at the base of the cliffs, the smell of salt in the air or the cry of a luminescent gull as it flashed by the window? She searched my face for something. ‘Did you get spots?’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘When I wasn’t around. I used to wonder sometimes; what teenage ailments were upsetting you...’
‘I was alright.’ I cleared my throat. ‘I survived.’
‘Marcus and Susan looked after you?’
‘Yes.’
Silence. Wing-beats and cotton.
Piles of fresh towels and milky nipples.
‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘Do you believe me?’
I nodded, but said nothing.
‘Say you do.’
‘Mother,’ I said, ‘I believe you.’
‘Really?’
‘Please.’
She looked away suddenly, tipped her head and I thought she was going to cry. Her bottom lip began to quiver, but when she looked back at me, her lips were dry. ‘When I left,’ she said, ‘I didn’t know what I was doing, but I knew I was lost without your Dad. There was never anyone like him; it was unfair.’
‘I know.’
‘And I was unfair.’
‘No.’
‘I was.’
I cleared my throat. ‘Where did you go?’
The trace of a smile tapped the corners of her mouth. ‘Where didn’t I go?’
‘I don’t know...’
‘You think you can escape by running, but the pain’s in your head, and unless you cut that off, you’ll never lose it. And I thought about that...’
‘What?’
‘Cutting it off. I got close…’
I wanted to move to her now. I pressed my feet down hard and shifted forward. I imagined a speeding sea behind me, I wanted to lose it and hold her; she noticed my movement and stiffened. She hugged herself around the waist.
‘Mother...’
‘I know.’
‘Please...’
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Wait.’
Now, racing towards the feeling of happiness and relief, I felt the beginning of anger in me, growing like a ball grows in size as it approaches you. The ball appears to get smaller to the thrower, and larger to the catcher. Travel with the ball and it’s the same size; obvious to anyone, but I had to control myself. It passes happiness, it overtakes relief; I wouldn’t shout, but I said, ‘Wait? How much longer? And you say you know!’
‘Duncan…’
‘You don’t know anything! Do you think I wasn’t screwed by Dad’s death? Do you think I just carried on, that the surf never changed? Didn’t you ever think that I could have been the only person to help you? That we could have seen it through together?’
‘Seen it through?’ She smiled at these words, but the smile was not a smile anyone would recognise. The corners of her mouth went up and she showed her teeth, but her eyes didn’t change, and the muscles in her face didn’t relax. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know, and maybe I don’t care any more.’ I took a deep breath and air wheezed into me. ‘You rejected me for nothing; nothing ever rejected you!’
Blood drained from her face. ‘I rejected you? You thought that? You think that?’
‘What else could I think?’
‘But…’
‘You even changed your name! Mrs Leaf? For God’s sake!’ My voice hit a high note that split the back of my nose. ‘What the hell was wrong with Blaine?’
‘I was overcome.’ There were tears in the corners of her eyes. ‘I thought I could forget, become anonymous; then I thought I might be happy. I didn’t want to take you down with me, and I could have.’
‘And you’re here now.’
‘Yes.’
‘And we’re arguing,’ I said.
‘Yes.’
‘I never knew what I’d say to you, never exactly. There were always too many questions, and I knew the answers would never be the right ones, even if they were the ones I wanted.’
‘What do you mean?’ she said. Tears dropped from her cheeks and spotted her blouse.
Now I put down my tea, said, ‘I don’t know,’ and stood up. Everything she had given me I wanted to give to her, and anything to relieve her. The composure and calm, her carefully made-up face, her smart trousers and the little gold brooch on her blouse; her neatly cut hair, her delicate fingers, her correct voice; these things began to crumble in front of me. A piece dropped here, another piece there, and they gathered together in a pile on the floor. One piece leaked and another wept. I went to her. For a second she cringed, then she let herself go, and could not resist.
I knelt on the floor, she put her mug down, and I put my arms around her waist and my head in her lap. I heard her stomach gurgling, she smelt like an autumn meadow after rain. I squeezed her gently, and heard her squeak, as if I was forcing air out of a balloon. She moved her hand, it hovered over my head and then she touched my hair. First she just lay her fingers there, but then she took some strands and began to twirl them. She did this very gently, as if I was a pet and never a son. She whispered my name, I said nothing, she said it again, and laid her other hand on my back. I could feel her skin through my shirt and it was cold. She was trembling slightly, as an injured mouse trembles at a cat, but I did not want to hurt her. I understood her. I knew the answers to the questions I had; I just wanted to hear the answers from her. I wanted her to understand, but I think she did. ‘I can’t say any more than sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I know that now.’ I believed her, and nodded into her lap. When I opened my eyes, they were full of tears, and I hadn’t expected that. I keep my emotions carefully, I keep them in separate boxes, tied with string. I closed my eyes and turned my head so my cheek was resting on the damp I had put on her blouse.
An hour later, we sat in chairs on the balcony. The sea rolled and tossed beneath us, the sound of other hotel guests drifted up from the restaurant. We’d talked generally. Was I still surfing? Was Susan still the most honest woman in the world? Was Marcus the highest earning insurance salesman in the country? Did I ever go back to Margate? Was I looking forward to university? I asked her where she’d been and she told me — she’d lived in Ireland, travelled to America and crossed it from east to west, she’d spent six months in Indonesia, three in India, a year in Africa, another year in Spain and Portugal. All the time she was trying to lose and forget, travelling light and staying in the cheapest hotels. Her only luxury was drink, her only vice was misery. But the further she travelled from it, the closer it shadowed her; ‘When I was in Spain, it finally didn’t matter any more…’
‘What didn’t?’
She shrugged. ‘Anything. Anything beautiful, any happiness I saw, or grief. I was numb, and that’s when I knew what I had to do.’
‘What was that?’
She looked at me, and I saw the edge of her old eyes in the new. ‘I’ll tell you.’
‘What?’
‘I was staying in Gerona, in a room the size of a wardrobe, high in a house that backed on to a street of prostitutes. I could lean out of the window and watch a madam tap her feet, sing snatches of song and shout at her girls, while the girls leered at men, and the men put their hands in their pockets and rattled their change. There was also this family of cats in the street; the kittens used to wail all the time. And there was a cathedral behind the house, and another church below. At midnight, the cathedral bells would strike twelve; on the eleventh strike, the other church would begin to strike. I’d stick moist tissue in my ears, but I couldn’t sleep.
‘When I wasn’t trying to sleep, I used to sit in cafés, drinking wine and watching the world go by. I remember a man approaching me and asking for a cigarette. He was wearing a straw hat and carried a large stick and three bulging plastic bags. He had this long face; I gave him a cigarette, and then he sat on a bench, took out some staved paper, and began composing music. He conducted with one hand and whistled as he wrote. He was a beggar but I envied him; he had his bags and he had his music, and I felt useless. What did I have?’
‘Me?’
‘You. I know,’ she said. ‘I thought about you in the cathedral. I gate-crashed a wedding in the chapel there; I sat with the groom’s party, at the back. Behind me, a man sat at a little organ, and another man sat with a violin on his knees. The priest was fat and moved slowly. After rings were exchanged and the blessing had been given, the principals moved behind the altar and signed a register. Arc lights were moved from one position to another so a pair of photographers could take their pictures, and as the groom put pen to paper, the priest coughed, the organist looked up, nudged the violinist and they started to play the most beautiful tune. The music rose to the ceiling and hung there; I listened to the end, then stood and left the chapel, and made my way to the cathedral doors. The rest of the party followed, and while they waited in the sunshine for the happy couple, everyone lit cigarettes. Children were armed with bags of rice, clouds of smoke rose into the sky, women kissed and men slapped each other on the back. Then the groom appeared, followed by the bride, who stepped, squinting into the sunshine. She was wearing a cream dress with patterns of pearls on the sleeves and front, and carried a bouquet of roses. Everyone was happy, and I thought then that I would never, ever be happy again. And I realised that trying to escape had only imprisoned me; I finished my travels the next day, and I knew what I had to do.’
‘What was that?’
‘Guess.’
‘No.’
Now my mother began to cry. Tears filled her eyes and began to flood her cheeks. She heaved with effort, I passed her a handkerchief, she took it and held it to her face. ‘I was in London, dead as a living thing can be, so I decided to do the thing properly.’ She blew her nose. ‘I decided to throw myself under a train. I thought it would be the easiest way to do it, that there’d be no chance of surviving. I didn’t want to make a mistake, to have people think it was just a cry for help.’
‘So I went to Clapham Junction. The platform was busy but not crowded. It was easy to find a place to be alone. I stood near the edge and looked at the tracks. I thought about you. I thought about you and I thought about Dad, I remembered the holidays we had together. Every one, one after another, and little things that happened to us. You remember the first board you had?’
‘The one Dad made?’
‘Yes.’
‘How could I forget it?’
‘Have you still got it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does it still work?’
‘I should think so.’
Mother nodded her head. There was a sudden still in the air, a pause as long as sleep. She took a deep breath, held it, blew and said, ‘And I thought about my miscarriage.’
‘What miscarriage?’
‘I had one, a couple of years after you were born…’
‘Oh God.’
‘You could have had a sister,’ she said.
‘No...’
‘I always wanted a daughter; I was five months gone when I lost her…’
‘I never knew.’
‘You were never told.’
‘Why not?’
‘Why don’t parents tell their children things? I don’t know.’
I could have had a sister. ‘So?’
‘So what?’
‘So you’re at Clapham Junction...’ I said.
‘And I was going to die. I was there,’ she said, ‘absolutely convinced. All the thoughts and the meaning behind every one; how could I have been so stupid?’
‘Were you?’
‘Yes. I see that now, but only because of Clive. Have I told you about him?’
‘You know you haven’t.’
‘He was there. He’d watched me. He knew what I was going to do, he knew the Express was coming before I did. I was staring at the sky, the station had dissolved around me, like ice in a warm drink, and all I had to do was sink in the drink, swallow it as I went down, and all the pain would go away. I’m sorry; I don’t mean to sound self-pitying, but it’s how I felt, what I felt. For a moment I was absolutely free, as sure about what I was doing as I’d ever been. I heard the station announcer say something, but I couldn’t work out what he meant. It was a babble of names, stations, apologies for lateness, but all the words were strung together, they banged around inside my head; I remember, I put my hands to my ears, I felt my mouth fill up with salt and my mind teemed with voices and memories. Our holidays. Do you remember them?’
‘How could I forget?’ I said.
‘They were the happiest times of my life.’
‘And mine.’
‘Holidays,’ she said again, holding the word like I can hold a wave, hidden from all the surfers who crowd the beach they think they own. ‘I was standing at the edge of the platform, and I had this voice in my head, whispering at an echo of your father’s voice. Do you remember his voice, Duncan?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And his whistling.’
‘Oh yes,’ she said weakly. ‘Gershwin, wasn’t it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Couldn’t he whistle the whole of Porgy and Bess?’
‘That’s what he used to say.’
Her smile was thin and tight, like a crinkled leaf had grown on her face, and was opening up for me. ‘I don’t think he could.’
‘Nor do I,’ I said.
‘Not a whole three hours of music.’
‘Maybe he meant that he could whistle along with it.’
Mother nodded, staring at me, and then blinked. The blink took her back to Clapham Junction, and the train that came hurtling down the line towards her. A train with innocent passengers sitting in their seats, people sleeping, reading, talking, sniffing, writing, dreaming. She said, ‘A whole three hours…’
‘Yeah,’ I said.
‘That music; as it filled my head it fixed me to the spot. I couldn’t move though I wanted to. There was nothing I wanted more; I had to force it out of my head. I leaned forward, I could see the train as it came around the bend towards the station, so then I closed my eyes, took a couple of steps towards the edge and Clive grabbed me, pulled me back and stood between the train and what I’d planned. I still tried to throw myself forward, but he’s a big man. He’s big in every way...’
‘I’m sure he is.’ I spoke to the floor.
‘Duncan…’
‘What?’
‘He saved my life.’
‘He must be special.’ I didn’t look up.
‘He is.’
‘Am I?’ I looked at her.
‘Are you what?’ she said.
‘Special?’
‘Of course you are.’
‘As him?’
‘You,’ she said, ‘are a different kind of special. You give me a link, memories, the past, but he gives me the future. Hope.’
I know I’m jealous, but it’s not just for myself, but for Dad. I should have saved Mother’s life, I should have been allowed to watch her. I said, ‘I suppose he persuaded you to let me know you were here.’
‘No. That was my decision.’
‘Why?’
‘Why do you think?’
‘Because you love me?’
‘Yes...’ she said.
‘And?’
‘How can I tell you?’
‘Just say it...’
‘What’s the point?’
‘The point is, Mother, that I’m your son. I never spent a day without wondering where you were, what had happened to you, what was happening to you.’
‘I never spent a day not thinking the same about you.’
‘And now we’re together again.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘we are.’
‘And you’re going to tell me why. Why, after all this time...’
‘I don’t think I can.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because whatever I say would never be enough for you.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I said.
‘I was sick, Duncan, I know that now. Melancholia was my child...’
‘I’m your child.’ My voice was up.
‘Then it’s your brother.’
‘Melancholia?’
‘And not just that. Something deeper, a thing I was born with, and God knows what that was. And who wants to know, anyway?’
‘I do.’
‘What good would that do you?’
‘The knowledge that it might do you good.’
‘That’s the sort of thing Clive would say...’
‘Is it?’
‘Duncan. I had to see you again because I wanted to say goodbye, and properly this time.’
My ears blew. My tongue felt as though it was red-hot, I opened my mouth, but only made a whining sound.
‘Duncan?’
‘Wheeeeee...’
‘Duncan!’
‘Goodbye?’
‘Yes.’
‘Goodbye?’
‘Duncan...’ She put her hand out to me, but I moved from it.
‘Where are you going now?’
‘Away.’
‘But where?’ She turned away from me, I raised my voice. ‘Mother! This is crazy! I find you after all this time, only to have you tell me that you’re going away again.’
‘I knew you wouldn’t understand.’
‘It’s not a question of understanding.’
‘Isn’t it?’ She knew it wasn’t. You could tell.
‘No.’
‘Honestly, Duncan, I can’t change my mind, and I won’t have it changed.’ She pushed her head back and spoke firmly. ‘Clive and I are going to Canada.’
‘Canada?’
‘It’s a beautiful country.’ That’s a fact.
‘When?’
‘Monday.’
It was Tuesday evening.
‘Next Monday.’
‘Fuck.’
‘Duncan!’
‘Fuck, Mother.’
‘Don’t use that word!’
‘Fuck,’ I said. ‘Fuck, fuck.’
‘I know you’re upset…’
‘Upset? Is that what you call it?’
‘I love him...’
‘I love you…’
‘I love you, but...’
‘If there’s one thing I’d give everything up for, it’s you. Anything, Mother. But some, some...’
‘Duncan!’ Now her voice was up, and she had some strength. ‘You don’t know anything about him so don’t jump to conclusions.’
‘Will I ever?’
‘What?’
‘Know anything about him?’
‘Maybe. He’s coming tomorrow.’
‘Here?’
‘Yes.’
‘To stay?’
‘Of course.’
I took a deep breath and said ‘OK,’ but I was tipping. I was being pushed and I was sweating. I tried to focus on a memory of some wave, but none came. All I thought was that I should have been the one. I should be my mother’s son.