It's Gone Dark Over Bill's Mother's Read online

  You buy biscuits. The celebration sort. Belgian chocolate. It’s like you’ve never been away. It’s takes less than five minutes for you to don your tabard and help out the temp who’s struggling with the jet-spray on the industrial iron. Colin appears. He’s a lenient sort who carries no weight and he shouts you a vending-machine cup of tea. He thanks you for the biscuits, but next time you’ll need to sign in and wait at reception. ‘Had there been a fire no one would’ve known you were here to be saved,’ he says.

  ‘Wouldn’t you have saved me?’ And that is your voice, Alma. Your voice.

  ‘Alma,’ he says. ‘You shouldn’t even be here.’

  It comes out of the blue. ‘Please, Colin. Just a few hours. You don’t understand.’

  He looks down on you like he can barely see you. ‘Alma,’ he says. ‘Give it a few weeks and we’ll be the last thing on your mind.’

  He smiles. You blush.

  ‘Alma,’ he says. ‘You’re wearing your slippers.’

  You look down and then flee. You don’t remember how you get to your street but once home you throw those tropical stalks in the bin because they’re a pathetic bunch. Past salvaging.

  There’s a woman at your door. She has a wicker basket and is talking into a mobile. You don’t recognise her but she’s seen your ad. ‘Any chance you can do this by five?’

  You nod then she’s gone; still talking to whomever it is on her phone.

  The basket is crammed with clothes. You count twenty-three shirts. You need coat hangers. Because once ironed, those shirts cannot go back into that thin basket. You realise you haven’t thought this through. Tools of the trade. Props of the professional: so you remove your own clothes from their coat hangers and most of Clive’s because there were forty-six shirts in the end. They’d cleverly put one inside the other.

  Pauline Roper comes round dragging a large basket and asks if you do mate’s rates.

  ‘I can’t tell you how many people I’ve told about you,’ she says. She clocks the other baskets in your kitchen that have replied to your ad. ‘Well some of us are doing alright,’ she sneers.

  You tell her this one is on you. For old times’ sake.

  You go to the newsagent with a new postcard. You need to replace the last one, you say, because some of the details are wrong. The newsagent looks at the card and smirks.

  ‘Putting your prices up already?’ she asks. ‘You’re getting ahead of yourself.’

  You put the new postcards in the bin on the way home and find someone has left a washing basket on your doorstep with a note: from number 9. Nine grandchildren, and you don’t know anyone at number 9 when you live at 133. There’s no phone number either. Instead, they call you. At 9 p.m. Clive answers. He doesn’t know anything about ironing and puts down the phone. He says, ‘Ruddy sales, at this time of night,’ and you still don’t know why you’ve not told Clive about your business: that you know there’s a second daughter, and that you know. You know. So you tell him for the first time, ‘I know.’ But he’s either not listening or he can’t hear a thing because what he says in reply is, ‘I thought we was ex-directory. You should call BT and complain.’

  The basket from number 9 is full of baby clothes. You keep one of the baby-gros and put it in your knicker drawer because you like how it looks so pure. As you go back downstairs, you pass your own laundry basket which is very full. You’ve not washed your own clothes for almost a fortnight but you’re a businesswoman now and you are busy. Busy, busy. And here is someone else at your door.

  No one from number 9 has come to collect the clothes. You worry about the baby, there’s a nip in the air, so you go and knock. It’s Pauline Roper’s pregnant daughter and she’s not long moved in. She can’t pay you either because her dole doesn’t come through till Monday. You tell her she can owe you till then, it’s fine. ‘For the baby,’ you say.

  She says, ‘Thanks,’ and ‘Always knew your Julia was a dyke. Don’t that explain a lot?’

  You rip open your knuckles on the way home by dragging them against the walls. Then you pack away all Julia’s books into cardboard boxes and leave them on the street with the bins.

  You are covered in plasters and smell of antiseptic. You think about those postcards with the new price and wonder what made you throw them away.

  Homework. Studious. Debra Winger. Just quiet.

  Some of us are doing alright.

  You also told the bin-men to leave that cardboard box of books because it wasn’t meant to be there. Hang around long enough, you joke, and my husband would throw me out too.

  Clive’s got a headache and not going into work. You tell him he has to. You’ve four ironing baskets to get through which you’ve stashed in the coal shed and you don’t want them going damp. ‘But I’m none too good, Alma,’ he says, and wants toast, tea and a pill.

  You go downstairs and have an idea. You crumble up one, then another for good luck, because last time you used them they didn’t touch the sides. You put the ground-up sleeping pills in Clive’s tea then take up his breakfast with the newspaper. You tell him to get some rest. You’ll be as quiet as a mouse downstairs. Then you pat him on the leg.

  It’s practically a bear hug in your world.

  Clive sleeps all day. This is no bad thing because the quietness is what you’ve been after. At 8 p.m. you check Clive’s pulse. You convince yourself that everything’s OK and set about syringing his ears because he’s either stopped listening or gone deaf. There’s another knock at the door.

  You spend the rest of the evening ironing for whomever they are because, as seems to be the way, no one ever tells you their name or wishes to pass the time of day. At 10 p.m. a taxi honks. You use Clive’s best belt to strap the basket into the taxi because you don’t want all those lovely dresses spilling onto the floor. You ask the taxi driver where the dresses are going.

  ‘Manchester,’ he says.

  You are sick in the street.

  You run inside and check the side effects of the pills and wonder if it’s an allergic reaction. Or maybe you’ve put Clive in a coma. In a panic, you dial two nines but put down the phone before the third. You root through the medicine tub again because maybe you’ve mixed up the pills and ground up something else. That’s when you find your wedding ring. It must’ve slipped off your finger and dropped into the medicine tub one day as you rifled about for a cure.

  But you have to call someone. So you call Julia. And when the answer-machine clicks in you tell her everything. That you’ve been retired and got these stupid modern flowers and not everyone had signed your card. That some banking hot-shot invested your pension in Iceland so you’re ironing. Like your mother. So much you can’t think. ‘Because you,’ you say. ‘You and the women don’t matter. It’s me that’s the problem. It’s me.’

  You remember Clive and run back upstairs. You find him on the landing rooting in the laundry basket. You mutter thank God and, ‘What are you looking for, Clive?’

  ‘Alma,’ he says solemnly, as if he’s about to come clean.

  But no. He’s counting underpants. He’s no underwear left in his drawer. ‘You’ve not been yourself awhile,’ he says, putting the lid back on the basket. ‘But this’—barely looking at you—‘is bloody silly.’

  You take the stairs two at a time, stand in the hallway and shout for Clive. As he comes towards you, you’re surprised at how well he looks, how handsome all of a sudden, how lithe his legs, but because it’s about time you started being brave, you kick at the hatch under the stairs until the panel comes loose. ‘You’ve clean underpants in there!’ you shout. ‘Underpants you can bloody wipe down!’ And you snatch the phone up from the hallway table and hand it to Clive. ‘Ring her,’ you instruct. ‘If you can make your woman wear a pair of those rubber things you can accept your daughter for who she is.’

  Now he looks at you. ‘Woman?’ he repeats. ‘Christ, Alma. Is that what you think?’

  What you think is what you thought you knew for a very long tim
e and you could put two and two together and make the frigid wife to a cold-hearted man wired not to mind. But you don’t. Instead, you watch Clive reach for the phone. ‘No,’ you say. ‘We’ll take the train to her.’

  He looks alarmed and then starts to weep. ‘Yes,’ he agrees. ‘It’s time we took the train.’

  You both take indigestion tablets before bed.

  Happenstance

  TEQUILA?

  Why not?

  Another?

  No. Thank you. I’m done.

  Come on. It’s a celebration. I want to celebrate. Let me celebrate with you.

  Why me?

  You’re the only person here.

  You could celebrate alone.

  I could celebrate with you.

  What you celebrating?

  Life.

  Your life?

  Your life, my life, all these lives with nowhere to go.

  That’s what you’re celebrating? Dead-end lives?

  All lives reach a dead end.

  It depends upon what you believe.

  I believe that all lives reach a dead end.

  And you want to drink to that?

  No. I want to drink to life.

  With a dead end.

  Then we’ll drink to something without end if you’d prefer. We’ll drink to love.

  No. I’m too drunk to drink to love.

  Why would you not want to drink to love?

  Because I’m drinking alone.

  You’re drinking with me.

  I’m drinking at this bar. You’re stood behind it.

  Then I’ll come the other side and sit with you. Then you’re not drinking alone.

  But who will serve me?

  I’ll bring the bottle with me.

  You’re allowed to do that?

  It’s my bar.

  Your bar?

  You don’t believe me?

  How old are you?

  How old are you?

  It’s just that, I don’t know, at your age, I wasn’t this, well, sorted in life.

  You think because I own a bar I have a sorted life?

  You’re a lot more together than I was.

  You only think that because you’re drunk.

  I think it because I’m old. Because my past’s happened all too quickly. Because I’d like some parts of it back.

  And what parts would you like?

  I don’t know. The good parts.

  Like what?

  That’s none of your business.

  Then they can’t be that good.

  That’s not true.

  Then tell me.

  No.

  No?

  No.

  Why?

  Because they’re my good parts. They belong to me.

  But you only wish for those good parts, right?

  I wish for my naivety. My strength. For all those lies I used to believe in.

  And all those lies are what you want back? They’re the good parts?

  What is this?

  I just wanted someone to have a drink with me.

  Because you’re celebrating your dead-end life?

  No. Because this is what life’s about.

  Drinking?

  Not drinking alone is a start.

  There is more to life than drinking.

  And yet we’re drinking away our lives.

  OK. I’ll drink to something else with you but not for love. I never drink to love.

  Because love’s let you down.

  Because love drives you mad.

  Then let’s drink to madness.

  Madness?

  Yes, madness. Madness that you should be drinking alone. Madness that you won’t drink to love.

  Madness is love.

  Life is madness.

  I’ll drink to that.

  And now we’ll drink to love.

  No. I will not drink to love.

  Come on. Life is mad and short and filled with love. Drink to that.

  No. You’ll have to drink this one alone. I should go home.

  Now you’re making me drink alone.

  No one is drinking alone because you will close this bar and I am going home.

  Then drink this one with me to tomorrow.

  What about tomorrow?

  We’re already in it.

  No. Tomorrow is tomorrow. Now is today.

  And you’re certain about that?

  I’m certain that you’re mad.

  One more won’t hurt. We can drink to whatever you’d like to drink to. What about the good parts?

  I don’t want another.

  I thought you wanted your good parts back?

  But not in another drink.

  You haven’t moved an inch though.

  I’m about to. I’m just finding my legs.

  Legs that’ll carry you home to who?

  Me. I carry myself home to me.

  And that’s why you won’t drink to love?

  It’s why I won’t drink until tomorrow.

  Then drink this one to hope.

  We’re drinking to hope now?

  Yes, hope.

  Hope for what?

  Hope that there’ll be somebody else to worry about you tomorrow.

  There you go again. Making me drink to love.

  I didn’t even say the word.

  You suggested it.

  I don’t think so.

  You said that you hoped to be worrying about me tomorrow.

  Me?

  Yes, me. No, you.

  You are drunk.

  And that’s why I won’t drink to love.

  Because there is no love?

  No.

  And no hope of love?

  No.

  And no tomorrow?

  Well that depends.

  Upon what?

  Whether I can see it, whether it comes.

  Doesn’t it always?

  Not always. Sometimes it passes you by and makes you wish you’d done it today.

  Done what today?

  Lived. Loved. Drunk.

  Not hoped?

  I hope every day.

  You hope every day?

  Don’t we all?

  What do you hope for?

  I don’t know. The stuff we all hope for. Love, life, tomorrow to be better than yesterday.

  So you’ll drink to hope but not for love and yet you’re drunk because of all the hopes love never brought you?

  That’s not what I said.

  But it’s true.

  I thought we were celebrating.

  We are.

  You’ve still not told me what we’re celebrating.

  I’ve told you. Life.

  But what about life?

  You won’t drink to that.

  So you are celebrating love?

  I’m celebrating the hope of meeting the love of my life again tomorrow.

  The love of your life again?

  Yes.

  And who is that?

  You.

  Me?

  Yes.

  What are you on about? You don’t even know me.

  Yes I do.

  No you don’t. We’ve only just met.

  And you don’t want another drink to celebrate that?

  No.

  But what are the chances of us meeting like this?

  We could’ve met at the bus stop.

  But we didn’t. We met here. And we both hoped for it.

  I didn’t. I just wanted a drink.

  But ask yourself why you wanted a drink.

  I just wanted a drink.

  And yet now you don’t.

  Don’t what?

  Want a drink.

  I don’t want another drink.

  Because you’re drunk or because you don’t want another drink with me?

  Both.

  Both?

  Yes, both.

  So we’ll have one for the road then and just say goodbye.

  No. Really.

  Come on. One for the road.
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  And where does the road go?

  Nowhere. It’s a dead end.

  And that’s the road you want me to take with you?

  It’s one road we can take. Or we can take another. That’s up to you.

  Why is everything up to me?

  Because you want to drink alone.

  That doesn’t mean I want to go down the road on my own.

  So it is about love.

  No. It’s about one for the right road.

  One for the right road then. And then I’ll go.

  You’ll go?

  Yes.

  But you own this bar.

  I know.

  So you can’t go.

  I can. I can leave you the bar.

  But I need to go home.

  You don’t want the bar?

  You want me to have the bar?

  Yes. If you want it. It’s all yours.

  You’re giving me the bar?

  I need someone to have it. Why not you?

  You’re giving me the bar?

  Yes. If you’d like it. You can have it.

  I think I will have another drink.

  Because now you’re celebrating, right?

  No. Because I need a drink.

  Because what you hoped for you got?

  I didn’t hope for a bar.

  You hoped for love though.

  I never said that.

  You hoped something would happen to change your dead-end life.

  I never said that either.

  So take the bar.

  I don’t want the bar.

  It’s yours. It’s free. Take it.

  I don’t want the bar. I don’t know how to run a bar.

  It’s easy. That’s the good part.

  But your bar is empty.

  My bar is empty because there are other bars to choose from.

  So you’re giving me an empty bar?

  Yes.

  And you think that’s a good thing to give the love of your life?

  I think an empty bar is better than a full bar.

  You sure about that?

  Well you get to start from scratch. Fill the bar with what you want.

  You’re giving me this bar.