Susan’s father Susan’s fatherI was stumbling as I walked along the lane, I couldn’t work out what was wrong then I realised it was the clothes, Calum’s trousers were too long for me. But I was ravenous as well, once I began to move. I was clear. It would happen now, no point in going softly or attempting to control it. It would happen now and I would deal with the consequences afterwards. She had to be finished before any other life could take place.
I went in my own back door and crammed some biscuits into my mouth, standing there in the dark chewing and gulping them down as fast as I could, unable to think about her or anything that was happening until I had something in my belly. Like putting petrol in a car.
Then I went through to her hall. The TV was chattering softly in her sitting room. I knocked on the door and went in. She was in her chair in front of the TV, when she saw me she scrabbled to get up and her paper fell off her lap.
‘Where’s Calum? What’s happened to Calum?’
‘Did you think you’d drowned him?’
‘Drowned?’
‘You nearly did.’
‘Is he alright?’ She came close to me and clutched at my clothes. ‘These are his – where is he?’
‘He’s at home. At his home.’ I didn’t want her near me. I moved away.
‘Did he go–?’
‘How could he go? How could we go? In that storm.’
‘But he didn’t come for his dinner–’ She seemed completely stumped by this. She let herself down slowly onto the edge of a chair, took off her glasses and dropped them. Then she stared at me as if it was a deep mystery only I could solve.
‘Well no he didn’t. Surprise surprise. And you know damn well why.’
‘Why?’
What a performance. What a poor, vague, confused, incomprehending innocent. All her massive power carefully shrunk down into this harmless-looking fragile vessel. But I don’t want to play this game. It’s making me shake with anger and there are things to be said before I do it. I make myself sit down. Her remote is on the chair arm. I turn the sound down to nothing. ‘What is the point in pretending?’
‘What?’
‘Fuck it I know.’ I kicked the side of her chair. ‘Forget the four-star acting I fucking know. I know what you are I know you tried to drown us there’s no point in all this bullshit anymore.’
She opens her mouth then closes it. I go over to the other side of the room and look out the window at the dark. I am breathless with anger. ‘Admit it.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘I know who you are. You’re my mother and you just tried to drown me.’
She stares at me without replying then she starts to get up.
‘I’ve traced you. I’ve been to your parents’ house. You can stop pretending now.’
She is going past the fireplace. The fire is burning, it is too hot in this room.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I want to phone Calum.’
I am across the room before she can get the door half open. I slam it shut. ‘No.’
‘I want to hear him say he’s all right.’
‘If I was you I wouldn’t call up a storm unless I was damn sure who it would and wouldn’t drown.’
She is edging away from me, feeling her way along the wall backwards.
‘Stand still!’
She stops. I suddenly feel like laughing. She is trying to get away from me and she can’t, after all that. She is my victim. I sit back across the arm of her wing chair. ‘Those magical powers always backfire, don’t they? You know the one where he wishes everything he touches will turn to gold? Then dies of starvation?’
‘What d’you want?’
‘I want you to admit it.’
‘Admit what?’
‘Who you are.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
I rest my head back against the chair and let my eyes close for a minute. Why won’t she give up?
‘Have you found somewhere else to stay?’
‘What?’
‘I asked you to move out by the end of the week. Have you found somewhere else?’
‘OK. Listen to me. I am Susan Lovage. I was born October 2 1968. I was wrapped in a white towel and left on the steps of Camden post office. OK? I was found by a cleaner at 6.30 a.m. and taken to hospital and my mother’s name is Phyllis Lovage and her address was on the birth certificate. So there’s no point in you pretending anymore.’
There’s a short silence. I can hear the rain dashing against the window.
‘What d’you want?’ She is polite as ice. ‘Money?’
‘Sure. Money would be nice. I’ll have money. But I want to know why, OK. For a start, why?’
She comes away from the wall and moves slowly to her usual chair. She sits. ‘Whoever told you this. They should have told you Susan died.’
‘I’m not dead.’
‘Susan died when she was ten months old.’
‘What of?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know what your own daughter died of.’
‘Get out.’
‘You what?’
‘Get out.’
‘Well, no. That’s not the plan.’
She’s shuffling to her feet again. ‘I’m going to call the police.’
‘Are you? What’re you going to say to them?’
She doesn’t reply. I let her get close enough to reach for the handle then I slam my foot against it.
‘Let me out.’
‘No.’
‘Let me out!’ She raises her arm to strike my leg but doesn’t. After a bit she goes and sits down again.
‘Why don’t you know what your daughter died of?’
‘I wasn’t there. I was in Italy.’
‘So how d’you know she died?’
‘My mother told me.’
I open my mouth but nothing comes out.
‘This is none of your business.’
‘Where did she die? In care?’
She speaks with slightly exaggerated patience as if to an idiot. ‘It is none of your business.’
‘You’re going to get tired of this before I am.’
She shakes her head.
‘D’you want more proof? I’ve got my birth certificate. School reports. Social workers’ assessments.’
No reaction.
‘You know. You’ve known since the day I got here – before. You know. You can’t play games with me anymore because I know you know.’
She doesn’t even flicker. Just sits there in her chair staring at her hands clasped in her lap.
‘You hear? I know.’
Out of the weariness and the aches and pains from the buffeting water and the weight of the boat and the sharp stinging grazing of the rocks and the choked expanded half-drowned lungs and gasped raw throat, anger is coming. A big strong hot slow wave of anger builds. That woman sits there looking away from me.
‘Who was my father?’
She looks up briefly. ‘Susan’s father was my father.’ She looks at her hands again.
Anger is red. A hot flood of red across the eyeball. A warm waterfall of blood.