“But not you. And by withholding from you, he withheld from me—from us, Nige and Annie, too.”
“They’d agree with you, I’m sure. But they don’t say so.”
“Is saying the truth more of a sin than knowing it and keeping mum?”
She looked miserably tired all of a sudden. Why was he arguing, needling her? The emotions stirred up were mostly his.
“I don’t know,” she said. “But the more you succeed in what you’ve chosen to do, the more I worry you’ll be…Americanized. Do you know what I mean?”
“I don’t.” He did his best to look receptive. As much as he loved her, Mum hadn’t a clue what his work entailed, what distortions and deceptions—nor what abasements and fawnings. Perhaps he had inherited his father’s knack for opportunistic flattery.
“What I mean is, keep the right parts of yourself to yourself. Contain yourself when it’s tempting to let too much out. Don’t go and…” She closed her eyes.
“Mum, we don’t need to talk about this. Let’s not.”
“No,” she said. “I’m glad we are. I’m trying to say that the values of your grandparents, if I’d paid closer attention and had more respect, would have served me better. Keeping more of myself to myself. Well. I guess it’s true that you grow more conservative as you age.” She started to laugh, but her laughter subsided toward coughing.
Nick put down his teacup and stood.
She held up a hand and whispered, “I am fine.”
The phone rang; Nick answered it in the kitchen. He turned on the tap to screen his words, and he whispered, “Tell her your news. She already knows it. No, not from me. What do you take me for?”
Then he turned off the tap and called out, “It’s Annie. I’ll bring her in there.”
He handed the phone to his mother and took the tea tray into the kitchen. He could hear the delight in her voice. He might have liked to sit close to her while she seemed so joyful—whatever her flaws and follies, Mum knew how to be genuinely happy for her children—but he left the two women alone and went to the loo. He washed the air-travel grime from his face and neck, and he checked to see if he reeked: crikey. After a quick rinse with the flannel, he went into his room to find a clean shirt.
When he came out, he noticed through the nearest window that dusk had fallen. The flat was silent. In the dim living room, he could just make out Mum, sitting where he’d left her, the phone in her lap. Nick turned on a lamp and said her name.
“I’m here, Nick. I’m fine. Don’t worry so much. You young people worry more than we did. Do you know, your sister was holding out on me because she wanted to ‘make it through’ the first few months, in case she lost the baby? As if pregnancy’s a foot race. She says it’s customary, among her friends, to keep it a secret till then. So you’re compelled to be not just knackered and queasy but fearful.” Mum shook her head, but she was smiling.
“So you were right.”
Her smile tightened. “You knew, Nick.”
He sat beside her. “Caught.”
“From reel to creel,” she said.
“A bounder of a flounder.”
“Which makes you my supper.” She leaned over, opening her mouth as if to take a bite, then kissed him on the cheek—all of it the routine they’d had years ago when any of them, as children, told an innocent fib.
“So you know, too, that they’re in touch with their father.”
Nick took this in, tempted to fib again. But he said, “I didn’t.”
Mum was silent for a moment. “I suppose it’ll take some time to sort it all out, whatever relationship they want to have. It’s good for Annie, with the baby. Babies make for easy reconciliations.” She considered this. “Well, sometimes.”
“How long?” He tried to sound casual.
“Six months or so.”
“Did you…?”
“Nick,” she scolded. “I have no desire. He was around long enough that I can’t forgive how short a time it was. Your father, on the other hand, never came close to a promise of sticking around. Him I might forgive—never trust, mind you.”
“Mum, you’re wise despite yourself.”
“Sheer survival does that. To a degree.”
The word survival hung between them, a dark flag held high.
“Now look,” she said. “You’ve come to care for me, and all you’ve done is wear me out. So help me to bed, will you?” She spoke from her throat, tightly, in a way that conveyed the onset of pain.
“Won’t you take something?” he asked.
“Let’s get to the bedroom and see, shall we?”
He stayed with her through the next day and night and another day, of which he spent an absurd amount of time cajoling her to eat. He bought Cadbury bars at the news shop, toffee biscuits and trifle from a posh new confectioner down the street. He made macaroni swimming in butter, eggs with cheese, toad-in-the-hole—the food she’d made for her children when they were out of sorts. Most of it she hardly touched. She did drink the orange squash he squeezed by hand, even after his palms cramped up.
He succeeded in holding back from asking anything more about his siblings’ dad. He was less successful at convincing himself not to mind their keeping that news to themselves.
A scant month later, he was back, rushing to the airport the very minute the director released him, the first season wrapped. (And his instincts were right: Men of the Table would run for only the one season, though what a boon it was for Nick.) Mum was in hospital by then. By happenstance, only Nick was in her room the morning when the cancer, or the soul-stealing opiates, brought her heart to an unexpectedly sudden halt.
Late that afternoon, all the urgent formalities divided and done, the three siblings shared a meal, neither lunch nor dinner, at an empty curry house. When they parted ways, Annabelle and Nigel in a taxi, Nick alone on foot, it occurred to him that he was now the only orphan. His siblings had gained a father, as if to exchange one parent for another. He went to Mum’s flat, abandoned for days, and opened all six of its windows. He fell asleep on her bed, lulled by the incessant surf of traffic in the streets below.
Thirteen
SATURDAY EVENING
The kitchen looks, as it did on the odd occasion when Soren offered to cook for friends, like an epicurean war zone: spattered saucepans and stockpots colonizing the stove; plates, bowls, and glasses well outnumbering the people present; several dish towels cast aside, an oven mitt and a wooden spoon marooned in the pantry—and five empty or almost empty wine bottles scattered hither and yon. Strangely, Tommy doesn’t care (possibly because of the wine).