Chapter EIGHTEEN
ALL THAT AFTERNOON, MABEL INSISTED THAT MY FATHER WOULD return soon, but as afternoon shifted rapidly into dusk she seemed to have doubts. “I just don’t know where he’s got to,” she said as she looked out the window at the last weak threads of sunlight shimmering at the western edges of the sky. “I mean, even the pubs aren’t open on Christmas Day.”
Of course, the pub was the only place we could imagine that he had gone. There was nowhere else I could think of that he might seek refuge. In the pub, he could sit in a darkened corner, nursing his wounds and a pint of warm, frothy beer. But if there were no pubs open I had no idea where he might be—except driving along empty roads, away from us.
When he’d yelled at my mother in the kitchen, all that anger he usually directed at the television had found its true mark. For the first time, I realized that he resented my mother as much as I did. Perhaps he had shocked himself with his anger as much as he had shocked me. But surely, now that he had admitted it, he would not return. I knew that if, like him, I was able to drive away and put miles and miles between me, this house, and my family, I’d find another life altogether and never feel the urge to come back.
After he’d eaten, Granddad dozed in his armchair. Across the room, Frank stared stonily at the television, and, on the settee next to me, Mabel’s eyes moved ever more anxiously to the window, which, with the sky now completely dark, only reflected back our cheerless gathering.
When A Christmas Carol came on, rather than wishing for Scrooge’s redemption I found myself despising Bob Cratchit for his ridiculous subservience and for burdening himself with such overwhelming responsibilities. When the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come arrived to visit Scrooge, pointing to the future’s possibilities with its outstretched, spectral hand, I wished instead that it had visited the penniless clerk to warn him of his life ahead when he was still a young man and had a chance to make different choices.
Almost as soon as A Christmas Carol ended, Granddad roused himself. “That useless dollop come back yet?” he asked.
“He’s not a useless dollop,” I said, feeling, more than ever, that there was nothing to keep my father here.
Granddad ignored me and checked his watch. “I don’t know about you, Frank, lad,” he said, “but I wouldn’t mind getting a move on. Can’t wait all night for our bloody Michael. I’ve got to get home. And, anyway, maybe he’s finally found himself a bloody backbone and left that lunatic….” He nodded toward the ceiling.
“I’d be grateful if you didn’t talk about my sister in that manner, Harry,” Mabel said, grabbing her cigarettes and shaking one from the packet. “That’s no way to talk about family, and especially in front of Jesse here.”
“Harry’s got a point, though, Mabel,” Frank said. “I mean, the woman’s a danger to herself and others, she—”
“Frank!” Mabel flashed him a beseeching look. She pressed a cigarette into her mouth, lit it, and took a gasping drag.
“All right, all right,” Frank said. “But we had better get home. It’s late. Time we hit the road.” He slapped his hands down on the arms of his chair and stood up. “Come on, Mabel. We’ll drop Harry off on our way.”
I turned to Mabel. “You’re leaving? You’re leaving me here by myself?” I was surprised at the way my voice rose, high and thin and quavering.
“Well, no, love, I …” She looked uncertainly over at Frank.
I hadn’t anticipated this moment, the moment when, my father not having returned, decisions had to be made. And, after my mother’s meltdown in the kitchen earlier, I certainly hadn’t anticipated that I would be left alone with her. Naturally, I didn’t want Frank to stay, and I wasn’t that keen for Granddad to remain, either, but surely Mabel wouldn’t leave me.
“Can’t hang around here all night, can we?” Frank said, shoving his hands into the pockets of my father’s oversized trousers. “She’ll be all right.” He nodded in my direction. “What, thirteen, isn’t she? That’s old enough to take care of herself. Come on, Mabel, get your coat.”
Mabel rolled her lips together, her eyes moving to Frank and then to me.
“Oh, come on, Mabel. It’s not like we’re leaving her by herself, is it?” Frank said, his tone indignant. “I mean, after all, her mother’s upstairs.”
I looked at him, incredulous. “You already said yourself she’s a danger to herself and others.”
Mabel still sat on the settee, taking fast, urgent puffs on her cigarette. “Jesse’s got a point, Frank. I mean, Evelyn was a bit beside herself today. And we all know that”—she paused—“well, she can go over the edge when she gets like that.”
“Oh, don’t be daft, Mabel.” Frank said. “Besides, I came over here for my Christmas dinner, not to bloody babysit.”
“It’s not me that needs a babysitter,” I protested. “Someone’s got to help me take care of her.” I could feel the tears welling up behind my eyes. I felt desperate, helpless, but I didn’t want to let Frank see me cry. “Don’t go, Auntie Mabel,” I said. “You could stay in my bed. I wouldn’t mind sleeping down here on the settee.”
“Come on, Mabel, I said get your coat,” Frank growled. “I’m not waiting here all bloody night.”
“Oh, Frank, I just don’t know that I should leave the lass. I could stay, I—”
“This is bloody ridiculous,” Frank interrupted. “I’ve had boiling bloody gravy poured over my privates and my sodding Christmas ruined. If you think I’m going to stop here until Boxing Day, Mabel, well, you’ve got another thing coming. She’ll be all right. It’s not like she doesn’t know how to use a phone. Come on, Harry,” he said, turning to Granddad. “Let’s me and you get our coats on. I’ll wait for you, Mabel. Out in the car.” He turned and left the room, Granddad following close behind.
As soon as he left, I reached over to Mabel, brushing my fingers over the pudgy softness of her forearm. “You’re not going to go, are you, Auntie Mabel?” I wanted to tighten my grip around her wrist, to pin her down, refuse to let her go the same way Frank had held my hand on the kitchen floor.
Mabel sighed, her expansive chest heaving outward then sinking as if deflated. “I’m ever so sorry, darling,” she said. “But I know what Frank’s like and he’ll be in a nasty mood for days if I don’t go. He’s got a bit of a temper on him, I’m sad to say.”
I wanted to tell her that I’d seen his temper, and his cruelty, and that I knew exactly how nasty Frank could be. I wanted to ask her how she could possibly leave me now to follow after a man like that. But I didn’t. I felt too dazed, too panicked, to speak.
“I tell you what,” Mabel offered, “I’ll pop upstairs before I go and take a look at your mam and make sure she’s sleeping soundly. And first thing in the morning I’ll give you a ring. If you need me to come over then, no matter what Frank says, I’ll come. Even if it means I have to get a taxi all the way.” She took my hand and pressed it into hers, wrapping my fingers in her clammy warmth. “You know I wouldn’t leave you if you really needed me, darling.”
After Frank, Mabel, and Granddad left, I tried to make myself feel better by writing to Amanda. I lay on my bed, The Girl’s Book of Heroines by my side, and I wrote a letter to her telling her that if I lived in the past I’d dress like Saint Joan in a suit of armor. I’d travel astride a trusty mare, swinging my sword wildly above my head as I chased villains and invaders away. Peasants would bow down in my presence and ladies would swoon at the mention of my name, but it would be Lady Amanda who won my heart. I would rescue her from an evil Catholic pretender to the English throne, and, in her fervent gratitude, she’d throw herself into my arms, plant her lips on mine, and declare her undying love.
For the first time, however, composing a letter to Amanda was little distraction. And, as much as I tried not to, I kept thinking about my father, wondering if he was gone forever or he was really coming back. Through all the terrible events of the day, I had forced myself not to cry, but now big tears rolled down my cheeks and fell onto my letter so that the blue ink bled across the paper. Finally, I just lay down, next to my sodden letter, curled my knees to my chest, and let myself sob.
At some point I must have fallen asleep, because I woke, a few hours later, splayed on my bed with my cheek pressed into my wrinkled letter. I looked over at my alarm clock; it was just after two o’clock. I felt clammy and cold, and I was still wearing my clothes. I sat up and was about to get into my pajamas when I heard the door of my parents’ bedroom ease open and my mother’s soft patter along the hall. The bathroom light clicked on and then I heard the clink of bottles, glass clattering against the hard enamel of the sink. I sat there listening as the noise went on for a while, wondering, in my sleepy haze, if she had decided to rearrange the bathroom cabinet in the middle of the night. But then, recalling the catastrophe of our Christmas dinner, I had another thought, and, suddenly alert, I jumped off my bed, ran down the hall, and into the bathroom.
My mother was still wearing the ridiculous dress she’d donned for Christmas dinner, but she had taken off her stockings and, her bare feet planted on the floorboards, she was sitting on the closed lid of the toilet, a bottle of aspirin in one hand, a bottle of something the doctors at Delapole had prescribed for her in the other. They were both empty. She had tipped their contents into the valley that her dress formed between her legs and was frowning down at them, a bright pile of tiny yellow and white disks, as if trying to determine how many pills she held. I guessed there were at least a hundred.
“Where did you get those tablets, Mum?” I asked, moving to perch on the side of the bathtub close to her. I shivered as I felt the hard cold of the enamel against my palms.
She ignored me and continued to stare down at her cache of pills.
“Mum,” I said, more insistently, “where did you get them?” I had no idea where my father had been hiding my mother’s medicines. All I knew was that he’d stashed them away and had been dispensing them to her. My mother must have scoured the house to find them. I imagined how she must have waited for my father and me to depart before she leaped out of bed to search for them. The thought made me furious.
“What are you doing?” I demanded. “What are you doing, sitting here like this in the middle of the night?”
“Your father’s gone,” she said, defeated.
My anger evaporated. I felt my father’s absence like a cavern inside me. “He’ll be back, Mum,” I said. “Really, he’ll be back. I think he just needed to get a break.” I didn’t believe it myself, but I felt the urgency of making her believe it.
“You think so?” She looked up. Under the harsh, unshaded bulb of the bathroom, her face looked colorless, almost gray. There were big dark circles under her eyes and, for the first time, I noticed the fine pattern of lines fanning out from beneath her eyes, like tiny channels carved by water across rock. She looked older, as if age had washed over her in the night. It made me aware of my mother’s utter vulnerability. She could never, no matter how hard I wanted it or willed it, rise above the capricious tides of her moods. I was the one who had to hold her up.
I looked down at the pills, which were bright and shiny; small children would want to put them into their mouths. And, for a moment, I could see their attraction. All those innocent little tablets could take my mother into oblivion. She wouldn’t have to flail and fight. And I could let her go, a lost swimmer falling through my arms, going under. I wouldn’t have to try to save her anymore.
“I didn’t mean to spoil your Christmas, you know, love,” she said, her bleary eyes beseeching me.
“I know, Mum. I know.” I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with air the way someone might before diving underwater, holding it in me, before I let it out in a steady sigh. Then I reached over and took the two empty pill bottles from her hands, brushing her fingers; they were icy cold. I placed the bottles on the floor.
I stood up and began looking around the bathroom. Behind the sink, I spotted one of the buckets that we had used to catch the leaks. I pulled it out and took it over to my mother. “Stand up,” I commanded, tugging her up from the toilet so that the pills spilled into the bucket as I held it next to her. They fell like the sound of a downpour. A few missed the bucket and bounced over the floor, dancing brightly until they rolled into the cracks between the floorboards or settled silently against the bath and the sink. I bent down and began picking them up, tossing them into the bucket until I could find no more. Then I took my mother by the sleeve. “Come on, Mum,” I said. “Let’s get you back to bed.”
After I had accompanied my mother to her bedroom, I went back to the bathroom, took the bucket of pills into my bedroom, tipped them into a pillowcase, and stuffed the pillowcase into the bottom of my dirty-laundry basket, the same place I’d hidden the whiskey I’d brought back from the disco a few days earlier. Then I undressed, put on my pajamas, and went back into my mother’s room. I climbed into bed with her, pushing myself against her and wrapping my arm across her shoulder. Her whole body was cold, and her feet—curled up beneath her so she lay next to me pressed into the shape of a shrunken S—were like little slabs of ice. But after a while we both began to warm, and eventually my mother fell into soft, steady breaths and then rhythmic snores, before I, too, drifted into sleep.
I woke to such familiar smells—my parents’ musky blankets, the scent of their room (a blend of my mother’s makeup and hair lacquer, my father’s aftershave, and the polish on their chest of drawers)—that I had the sensation of having fallen back into my early childhood, when I was three or four years old and I’d climb into my parents’ bed in the morning, squirm between them, and listen to their snuffles and groans as they folded themselves around me until I fell into a warm and delicious sleep. But then I opened my eyes and the recollections of the previous day’s events came to me, and I wished that I could have stayed in that moment of memory. My mother, I was relieved to see, was still sleeping, but when I got up and peeked through the curtains there was no sign of my father’s car.
For the rest of the day I watched television, feeling increasingly stupefied as I sat in front of the gas fire, snacking on the remnants of our Christmas dinner and staring at the Boxing Day programming, indifferent to everything I watched. When the telephone rang, I picked it up hoping that it was my father calling to tell us that he was coming back, but it was only Mabel, asking me how my mother was. I didn’t tell her about the pills; I didn’t want to ruin Mabel’s Boxing Day as well as her Christmas, and though I would have liked, more than anything, for her to come over and take care of me, I knew that if she did she would bring Frank with her. The cut on my hand still hurt, reminding me of his brittle anger. I knew I’d be thrilled when he went the way of all Mabel’s other boyfriends and she moved on to someone else.
Early in the afternoon, I coaxed my mother out of bed and got her to take a bath. She obeyed me like an automaton, moving about wordlessly. Once she was dressed, I had her come downstairs, where I made her a plate of leftovers and told her to eat it. She picked up a knife and fork and began pushing mouthfuls of food into her mouth, chewing so lethargically and swallowing with such effort that it was as if I were forcing her to eat poison—though, given her interest in taking all those tablets, perhaps she would have eaten poison more eagerly.
I wondered what I was going to do if my father didn’t return. Should I call my mother’s doctor and tell him what had happened? And if I did, would they take my mother off to Delapole again? And if they did that, what would happen to me? Would my father come back and take care of me, or had he simply had enough of everything and gone off to find a place that would give him solitude and peace? If it weren’t for Frank, I’d want to go and live with Auntie Mabel, but with him around I’d need to go somewhere else. Maybe I’d be sent to live with Granddad, which, in some ways, wouldn’t be so bad. After all, as long as I delivered his tea and regular plates of sandwiches he probably wouldn’t bother me very much. Or perhaps I could ask to be sent to Australia, where I could live with Grandma and her fiancé in all that sun and heat. Or maybe I’d get sent to live with a foster family who lived in a neat little house on a neat little street? I found myself wondering if Tracey and Amanda’s parents might take me in.
For a while, I managed to buoy myself up as I thought about these possibilities, but then, as darkness began to ease over the dull gray sky outside, I felt my optimism deflate. It was ridiculous for me to think that anyone would really want me. The other night, I’d been ignored by Tracey at the disco, and my father had forgotten me and left me to walk home alone in the snow. Yesterday, if he had wanted, he could have taken me with him, but he didn’t care about me enough for that. He’d left me with my mother so that he could become someone like Frank—a man who carried a photograph of his children in his wallet, looking at their picture with fondness when he was no longer burdened by them every day. I would become a smiling face, frozen in a remembered moment, so that he could think of me as happy when, really, I was miserable and raw.
All of this seemed too much to bear until I thought again of how I had walked home with Amanda and how, beneath the warm lights of the village Christmas tree, she had placed that kiss on my lips. And I realized then that Amanda had not left me. In fact, she had given me something to hold on to, a piece of certainty in this baffling and desolate world. I knew that this meant that Amanda must like me, must really care for me—and, in a way, that wasn’t so different from the way I cared for her. Girls didn’t kiss girls unless, like those housewives on the problem page, they had different kinds of feelings for them.
I saw all the ways that Amanda had signaled this to me—how, that first time we’d met, she’d invited me to stand close to her under her umbrella, and how, the second time we saw each other, she’d asked me to smooth suntan lotion over her skin. How she’d defended me when everyone had teased me, how she’d confided in me at the bus stop about all her difficulties with Stan. How she’d pulled me up to dance with her at the disco, and how she’d leaned so close to me I’d felt her breath against my ear. It seemed no coincidence that, immediately after breaking up with Stan, she had kissed me. Clearly, she had been trying to tell me something. Clearly, she knew how I felt about her and she felt something similar in return. At the thought of all this, my hope rose, no longer held down in the terrible reality of this day.
IT WAS LATE WHEN I heard a car growl up the driveway. I ran over to the window, and as I saw my father pull up in front of the house I wanted to wave, bang on the window, shout in excitement. But I didn’t. After all, he might just be coming back for his things. I turned and took a seat beside my mother, who had been making a study of her lap. “Dad’s here,” I said. She looked up, her eyes showing a slight glimmer, and then she turned expectantly toward the door.
He entered, his clothes rumpled and clearly slept in, his pullover stretched out and saggy at the elbows. His hair was windblown, exposing his bald patch. While the skin under his eyes was dark and saggy, his face had a waxy tinge.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said after lowering himself into his armchair. “I’ve been thinking a lot. And I’ve decided that things can’t go on like this.”
I looked at him steadily, my stomach a knot, knowing that he was about to announce his permanent departure, that he was going to leave my mother and me alone. It was all I could do to stop myself jumping up and throwing myself on the floor in front of him, pleading, “Take me with you, take me with you. Don’t leave me here with her.” Instead, I gripped the edges of the settee cushion with both hands.
“I think things call for drastic measures,” he continued.
I felt hot, woozy. I thought I might be sick.
“So,” my father said, looking at my mother and sweeping a wayward strand of hair from his face. “I’ve had a word with your Ted, Evelyn. He’s getting out of the nick in the middle of February, and when he does he’s coming to live here.”
“And where are you going, Dad?” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm while panic rose in me in swirling, frantic waves.
“Me?” he asked.
“Yes. Where will you go when you leave us?”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“You’re not?”
“No,” he said with a shrug. “Just needed to get away for a bit to get a chance to think. And while I was thinking, well”—his lips extended into a smile—“I realized that if Ted came to stay he could keep your mam company, cheer her up, help her out, while we could help him get on his feet. Seems like it’s an arrangement that could benefit all of us and—”
Unable to control myself any longer, I pushed myself from the settee and launched myself across the room toward him, landing against his chest with a thud and wrapping my arms around his neck.
“Bloody hell, Jesse, what on earth’s got into you?” I heard his words echoing through his chest as I pressed my cheek there, and then, when he put an arm around me and sat there wordless, I could hear the unwavering rhythm of his heart.
THE NEXT MORNING, I was woken at six o’clock by the sound of furniture scraping over floorboards. When I got up to investigate, I discovered my mother in the spare bedroom at the front of the house, dragging an old armchair into the middle of the room, where she had already piled boxes, cartons, and other miscellaneous items. “What are you doing, Mum?” I asked, bleary-eyed under the glare of the unshaded bulb that hung from the flaking ceiling.
“Decorating,” she said. “If we leave it to your father, it’s going to take forever. And I’ll not have our Ted thinking that we live in a pigsty. It’s bad enough him having to be in prison. Last thing he needs is to get out and find himself in a dump like this.” She swung an arm to indicate the chaos around her. “Now, that would be depressing.”
“Are you all right, Mum?”
“All right? Of course I’m all right,” she said, setting the chair beside an ancient lamp with a moth-eaten shade. “I’ve never felt better in my life.”
I looked at her, mouth agape. Just over twenty-four hours ago, she’d been on the verge of swallowing several dozen pills, and now here she was telling me she’d never felt better, as if that moment in the bathroom had never taken place. I imagined myself holding on to the rear bumper of a wildly careening car, a fool for thinking I might slow a speeding vehicle or prevent it from colliding with whatever was in the way.
“I’ll have to take a lot of this plaster down,” she said, pointing at the crumbling ceiling. “And that window frame needs replacing as well. Of course, I’ll have to put a carpet in. But I already know what color scheme I’m using. I’m going to do burgundy walls with a light red on the woodwork. And I’ll make some nice purple curtains and a matching bedspread. I’ll see if I can get a nice red carpet as well. What do you think?”
“Sounds nice.” Actually, I was more than a little dubious about the aesthetic merits of a room done entirely in shades of red and purple, but I’d long given up on either of my parents exhibiting even the tiniest skill in interior decorating. And, if it was going to help her remain in her present mood, that was fine with me.
“I know our Ted will love it,” my mother continued, gazing dreamily up at the blotchy ceiling. “Men like strong colors. And I bet those prisons aren’t exactly painted nice and bright. This’ll cheer him up. And if he’s going to be here in a few weeks, then I’d better get started right away.”
After that, my mother engaged herself in a whirlwind of activity. She managed to change out of her nightclothes, but now she wore the same paint-spattered slacks and oversized shirt every day. (I suspected that she also slept in this outfit, but since she never went to bed until after I’d gone to sleep and was up before I ventured out of my bedroom in the mornings I couldn’t be sure.) She stopped watching television altogether; instead, she hummed the tunes of songs sung by Engelbert Humperdinck, Tom Jones, and Perry Como while she knocked down the ceiling, banged away at the window frame, and hauled bags of plaster up the stairs.
While I was pleased that my father’s decision to invite Ted to stay with us had energized my mother, I wasn’t convinced that this was my father’s best plan. Ted, after all, was not known for his stabilizing influence on anyone. And, after hearing Mabel’s anecdote about his stealing her neighbor’s television, I wondered if having him here was really worth the risk. For the first time, I found some consolation in the fact that our house was in the middle of nowhere, with no neighbors nearby at all. Perhaps without those kinds of temptations Ted would behave himself. I decided to cling firmly to this flimsy hope.