part0016

M other knew that I’d be out until late this afternoon; I’d made her sandwiches for lunch and told her that I’d be back in time to make her dinner. She knew that she had most of the day on her own.

But how? How did she manage to get downstairs? She’s always been able to get to the bathroom on her own but never bothered unless she’s desperate; too afraid of falling and hurting herself and ending up in hospital. Also, she likes me to be at her beck and call. She can’t be as disabled as she pretends to be.

It must have taken her forever to get downstairs and even longer to get back up, she must have dragged herself on her elbows. She’s determined, I’ll give her that. Motivated. Maybe that’s where I get it from. I have a sudden panicked thought; the phone – what if she’s called someone? I rush back into the lounge and look at the phone holder on top of the mantelpiece; empty.

Panicked, I scan the room and see the handset lying on the coffee table on top of a magazine. Was that where I left it? I can’t remember. I pick the phone up press the last number redial button and hold it to my ear.

Nothing. The phone is dead.

Think. When was the last time I used the phone?

It very rarely rings, and on the rare occasion I make a call I use my mobile. Wednesday, that’s it, on Wednesday I answered a call from someone selling water softeners. I remember I told them I wasn’t interested, hung up and then tossed the phone onto the sofa next to me, not the coffee table.

Which proves she’s been down here. Luckily for me the battery has died because it wasn’t in the charger, bad luck for Mother. I pick the handset up and put it back on the stand.

Luck has been on my side this time but I need to make sure this never happens again. I knew she was plotting but I’ve become over confident, got too sure of myself and thought that it was impossible for Mother to get the better of me. I’ve underestimated her and only complete luck has prevented the end of my new life.

I go out into the hall and stand silently and listen; no sound of Mother’s television from upstairs. This alone should have alarmed me enough to rush up there, instead I was distracted by that solicitor’s letter. I knew something wasn’t right when I came in, her television is always on, all day and every day. Even if she’d taken ill it would still be blaring because the first thing she does on waking is point the remote and turn it on; it stays on until I turn it off when she goes to sleep at night. She must have turned it off so she could hear if I was here.

I slip my shoes off and walk quietly up the stairs and pad silently along to her bedroom. The door is nearly closed, only an inch gap; more evidence that she’s been out of her room as I always leave it half open. I stand at the door and listen; I can hear the sound of her breathing. She doesn’t snore but breathes heavily when she’s asleep, blowing the air noisily out of her mouth.

I think she’s pretending; the breathing is too rhythmic, too perfect. I slowly open the door and step into the room. The curtains are half open as normal, she wouldn’t be able to reach over the dressing table to move them and the mirror covers a good portion of the window anyway. The mirror blocks a lot of the light out but Mother wouldn’t hear of me moving it, she likes semi-darkness, says it’s more restful.

In the half-light I can see her face is turned to the wall and she has the eiderdown pulled up tight around her neck, just the top of her grey hair peeping out. This confirms that she’s not asleep; she normally sleeps on her back, mouth open, arms by her side. Like a corpse.

I snap the light switch and the harsh glare of the ceiling light illuminates the room.

‘I know you’re not asleep Mother so you can stop pretending.’

Her breathing doesn’t alter.

‘I know you’ve been downstairs.’

The pretend breathing halts for a moment and then with a grunt of effort Mother turns over onto her back, opens her eyes and stares at me.

I walk over to the bed and stand over her. ‘Don’t bother denying it.’

She hauls herself up onto her elbows and I watch her with interest, making no move to help her.

‘Aren’t you going to help me?’ I’m surprised at the plaintive tone in her voice; I’d expected nastiness, shouting.

‘You’ve managed to get downstairs so I’m sure you can sit up on your own.’

She doesn’t move and we stare at each other.

I finally give in and walk over to the bed and grab hold of her underneath the arms and sit her up. I pull her forward and plump the pillows behind her and then settle her back onto them. She takes a long, silent look at me.

‘How did you know?’

I laugh. ‘You left too much evidence Mother, made it too obvious.’

‘I’m not naturally devious like you.’ Ah, the nastiness is still there.

‘Must have taken you a long time,’ I say. ‘I’m surprised you managed to get down the stairs and even more impressed that you got back up them.’

‘I don’t know how I did it either. It certainly took it out of me.’ She does look exhausted. And old.

‘Why? What did you intend doing? Ringing the police? Tell them I’m keeping you prisoner?’

She shrugs. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Yes, you do. If you want me to leave, just say the word and I’ll go and live somewhere else. You can pay for carers or go into a home, you only have to say the word.’

A complete lie but I say it with confidence. There’s no way I’m leaving but she doesn’t know that.

‘Maybe that would be for the best,’ I continue with a smile when she doesn’t answer. ‘I could have a life then and you can get a stair lift and go downstairs whenever you want. I could give them a ring if you like, get them to come out and give you a quote. You decide. I’m not bothered, I’ve got a job now, I can easily find somewhere else to live. ’

Mother looks uncertain, not sure if I’m bluffing.

‘There’s no need for you to move out,’ she says. ‘If we had a stair lift I could come downstairs and I wouldn’t feel so isolated. We could watch TV together – I could help, you know, with a bit of dusting and that. Be like it was before I had the stroke.’’

Ah yes, that idyllic life before she was ill. I remember it well; I couldn’t so much as move without her permission. She doesn’t fool me with her pathetic act; she’s being nice to try and get what she wants but I don’t trust her one bit. The threat of my leaving is working for the moment but I know Mother; once she’s got her own way it won’t stop there, she won’t be happy until things are back the way they were before. The sweet little old lady act doesn’t take me in; give her access to a phone and my access to her account will be blocked and she’ll have the doctor and social services around here in a flash.

‘Anyway,’ I say. ‘Enough of that, we have more important things to talk about.’

She looks confused, unsure where this is going.

‘Like my father, for instance.’

Mother’s lips clamp even tighter and her eyes narrow.

‘I have nothing to say about him .’

‘No? Well, apparently, he’s died and I’m his next of kin. Or so the solicitor’s letter says.’

She doesn’t bat an eyelid, no acknowledgement at all of the death of my father and her one-time lover. She glares at me in defiance.

‘Nothing to say at all? Because what I’m wondering, Mother, is why he’d put me as his next of kin when he’s never even met me or made any attempt to contact me.’

She still says nothing.

‘So you’ve nothing to say?’

‘Okay.’ I walk over to her dressing table and attempt to pull out the top drawer, but it’s locked as usual.

‘Where’s the key Mother?’

‘There’s nothing in there that concerns you.’ She tightens her crossed arms across her chest.

‘Okay. Last chance, Mother, give me the key or I’m going to get a crowbar and break it open.’

She sits silently and can’t hide the hint of a smile on her face.

She doesn’t believe me; even now she still thinks she can control me. I could look for the key, there are only so many places that she could hide it but I won’t give her the satisfaction of watching me grubbing through her things to find it. Attacking the dressing table with a crowbar suddenly seems very appealing.

Without another word I leave the room and run down the stairs. I don’t even know if we have a crowbar, or actually, what a crowbar even looks like but there must be something that I can break the drawer open with.

I go into the kitchen, yank open the cupboard door and start pulling the clutter out from under the sink. Bleach, washing powder, a myriad of cleaning sprays and old dusters. The only tools are a plunger and a bottle brush and they aren’t going to do it are they? Would a kitchen knife do it? I dismiss the idea immediately; the dressing table is old and built when furniture was made to last a lifetime. The knife would probably break first.

I know where there are some tools but I don’t want to go there. Grandfather’s toolbox is in the cellar, along with all of the other old rubbish that we’ve never got rid of. I hate going down into the cellar and I haven’t been down there for years, it’s cold, damp and full of spiders. Small and dark, it doesn’t even have a proper floor, just compacted earth.

I’ll have to go down there though or she’s won. I go out into the hall and put my shoes back on in readiness and go into the dining room. The door is hidden behind the heavy Welsh dresser that I dragged in front of it shortly after Mother had her stroke. So that I wouldn’t have to see it or think about it ever again.

The key is in a jug on the top shelf of the dresser; a large, yellow hued pottery jug that I have vague memories of being filled with gravy for our Sunday roasts. I take the jug down from the shelf and put my hand in and pull the key out and put it in my jeans pocket. I then remove all of the plates and crockery from the dresser and place them on the dining table.

It would have been so much easier if Mother had given me the key but I won’t give her the satisfaction of asking her for it again.

Dresser emptied I stand at one end and attempt to push it; it doesn’t budge an inch. When I put it here I had a lot more weight to put behind it. I decide the best thing to do is try and drag it out from the doorway to give myself just enough room to get in there .

Somehow, I manage to pull it out from the wall by about a foot; this should be enough as the cellar door opens inwards.

I take the key out of my pocket and squeeze behind the dresser, the door is only a foot along from the edge of the dresser and I shuffle behind it until I’m in front of the door. I push the key in and turn it and the door flies inward and a blast of cold dank air hits me. I carefully put the key back in my pocket and grope with my hand around the doorway onto the cellar wall until I feel the familiar shape of the old Bakelite switch. I press it down, praying that the bulb still works; if it doesn’t then I’m not going down there. I’ll have to search Mother’s room for the key, instead.

A weak light from the bare bulb throws the middle of the cellar into view, the corners of the room in darkness. I should have bought a torch with me. I know if I go back to get one I won’t have the nerve to come in here again. I take a deep breath and step gingerly onto to the stone cellar steps. Ten steps down. How many times did I count those steps when I was a child? I look above me to make sure there aren’t any cobwebs, or God forbid, spiders. Treading carefully down the steps, making sure not to slip, I grip the wooden handrail, shiny and slippery with age. When I reach the bottom, I stop and look around me and wonder why I’m doing this to myself.

A memory jolts me and I am five-years-old again; Mother has shut me in here for misbehaving. I am terrified of the dark, of spiders, of being alone. I’d stand here on the cellar steps, shivering and crying, too afraid to sit down in case the spiders got me. Terrified that she’d forget about me and leave me here forever. Mother said I was a drama queen, said she’d been locked down here many times when she was a child and it never did her any harm, did it?

She said I was weak ; that the cellar wasn’t haunted so what was I afraid of? Of course, as soon as she said that I was afraid there were ghosts too. I very rarely misbehaved after the first time she locked me in, the threat of the cellar enough to deter me. I must have been like a robot child, one look from Mother and I did exactly what I was told.

Mother liked it when I was frightened of her – and that does make me sound like a drama queen, but it’s true. If I wet the bed or fell over and grazed my new shoes, that too ensured a spell in the cellar to teach me a lesson .

Is it any wonder I’ve spent most of my life doing exactly what she says? I shudder, the dampness seems to permeate my very skin and I wonder if the ghosts of my grandparents are watching me.

Too many years of being afraid; time to grow up now. I scan the room for signs of a tool box, the far wall looks likely; an ancient sideboard is piled high with boxes, old lampshades and assorted debris. As I move closer to the sideboard out of the corner of my eye I see something scuttle across the floor and then freeze in the middle of the room. I slowly turn my head to see an enormous black spider crouched a foot away from me. It senses me looking at it and does its horrible spider walk for a few more inches before it stops.

I stand immobile, the thought of touching anything in here makes me break out into a cold sweat; there will be others like that in here. Will they pounce as I hunt for the crowbar? What if they get upstairs? What if they creep into my bedroom?

My head starts to spin and I feel sick. Vivid memories of my childhood come back; banging on the door begging to be let out, standing on the steps, my legs aching because I was too scared to sit down.

I close my eyes and breathe in deeply. I’m not a child anymore and I won’t let her win.

I step towards the sideboard; Grandfather’s wooden toolbox is in front of me underneath a lampshade and a pile of old TV Times . I push the magazines off and a cloud of dust billows upwards. I quickly pick up the lampshade and drop it to the floor. So far, so good. The toolbox lid is heavy and I have to use both hands to lift it open. I push the lid up and it falls back with a thunk and I jump back in case something nasty jumps out at me.

The inside is surprisingly neat and tidy; screwdrivers and hammers, spanners, handles with metal points, large metal files, even a hacksaw, all tucked in neatly, side by side. But nothing that looks like a crowbar.

I pick up the largest hammer, the wooden handle is worn smooth with use and the head is heavy. I can’t bear to stay down here any longer. I heft the hammer in my hand, I’m sure it’ll make short work of the dressing table drawer.

I turn around and step across the cellar, the huge spider has moved to the fifth step of the stairs. It’s watching me. As I get closer it scuttles up the stairs and disappears through the doorway. I gingerly walk up the stairs after it and can see through the doorway that it’s run up the back of the dresser and is right in front of me. I stand in the doorway afraid that if I move it’ll run – who knows where – up to my bedroom? In one swift movement I bring the hammer up and crash it onto the spider. I pull the hammer back and the spider is well and truly dead, several of its legs stuck to the hammer head. I notice that the back of the dresser now bears the imprint of the hammer head. I flick the remains of the spider onto the floor with the hammer head and then wipe it on the cellar steps.

I come out of the cellar backwards so that I can close the door and take the key from my pocket and lock it. I feel the tension leave me as I squeeze along the wall behind the dresser and I leave the dankness of the cellar behind me. Once out in the open I stand for a moment while my eyes adjust to the brightness of the room and then I realise that I’ve left the cellar light on.