Queen Mum (24 page)

‘That’s too bleak for me at this time of the evening,’ she said, pushing her hair behind her ear.

‘How well do you feel you know Manny, then?’

‘We’ve been married for fifteen years,’ she said. ‘So maybe hardly at all.’

Manny proposed to Juno in the town square in Le Havre, she’s told me about it. When she said yes, he climbed on a bench and sang ‘C’est merveilleux’ and the baker from
across the street came out and gave them each a madeleine. Afterwards they went for a boat ride and she says she remembers looking up into the sky and thinking, This is where my life begins! Tom
asked me to marry him while we were walking across a car park in Bolton on the way to Benson’s For Beds. ‘Because if we are going to get hitched, I’ll order a double,’
he’d said.

Pascale whirled into the lounge. ‘Ally, did you know your mobile’s going off in the hall? Mum, have we got any plastic bags anywhere?’

I was up at once, because whenever my mobile goes I assume it’s going to be bad news. I shoved past Pascale and went to stand by the bottom of the stairs with the phone pressed to my ear.
As Juno went by on her way to the kitchen, I turned my back on her smile.

The screen was showing Ben’s number, but the voice on the other end was someone I didn’t recognize and there was a rushing noise in the background that made it difficult to hear.

‘What? Ben? That’s not you, is it?’

‘Can you come and pick him up?’

‘Who is this?’

‘Is that Mrs Weaver?’

‘Yes! Who are you?’

‘He’s by the Fountains roundabout. He’s had an accident and he can’t walk.’

The phone bleeped and the voice disappeared. I stood for a second in front of the willow-pattern wallpaper, and my head and chest felt as if they were filling up with helium. Then I tried redial
but whoever I’d been speaking to had turned the phone off.

Without waiting to explain, I wrenched the front door open and ran outside. Thank God I’d only had half a glass of wine.

As I reached the gate I heard Juno.

‘Ally? Ally? Whatever’s the matter?’

‘Have to pick Ben up,’ I called into the air.

‘Hang on, let me—’ she shouted, but I was over the little wall and into our garden, wrestling the lining of my handbag for my car keys, pressing, clunk, then in, throwing the
bag into the passenger foot-well and the phone on the seat where I could get at it.

It would take me ten minutes to get to the Fountains, fifteen or twenty if the traffic was heavy. The tyres squealed under me; Mr Kirk, sweeping leaves at the end of the avenue, looked up and
frowned. When Joe died, he’d sent a card with a country bridge on it and a sentimental verse, even though he’s never spoken to us before or since.

At the end of the road, I turned left and at once heard Tom saying, No, take a right, fewer traffic lights. Too late now. Or could I try an illegal U-turn? I had ten seconds till I drew level
with the break in the central barrier.

Can’t walk, the boy had said. What did that mean? Paralytic again? A broken leg? Bleeding to death on the pavement; comatose?

Now: I trod on the brakes and swung the car round across the chevrons. Someone bibbed their horn at me and headlights signalled furiously, but I didn’t care. I barged my way out into the
stream of cars, with my heart pounding somewhere up near my neck.

I’m law-abiding by nature. I was always the one at school who waited sensibly for the teacher to come, who never turned over her paper till told to do so. It was my short-term ambition to
keep out of trouble, my long-term one to be ordinary; all I ever wanted was to have a family, a quiet life.

A winking light on the other side of the road made me draw in my breath but it was only roadworks, not an ambulance speeding to my dying son.

I never took risks with the boys. Even when I was pregnant I did everything I was told to. If the midwife had said stand on your head for nine months, I would have done. My babies never had cot
bumpers or baby walkers, any of the paraphernalia that’s now considered to be dangerous. All our sockets had safety plugs in them. Yet every day you see people walking their kids along high
walls, leaving their newborns outside shops to be abducted.

The traffic round the Fountains was jammed right the way up, the lights at the top only turning green for what looked like five seconds at a time. Chester’s rush hour. I let out a howl and
revved the engine in anguish. What if, at this very second, Ben’s blood was pooling on the ground in some dark corner of the Northgate car park? I thought I could see blue flashing lights
ahead.

In a burst of adrenaline, I swerved the car off the road and onto the pavement, nudging the side of the bumper up to the wooden railings. What would they do? Fine me?

I slammed the door and darted out into the road, weaving between stationary car bonnets. In my head I heard Ben’s scared voice, he’d have been six years old and we were watching
White Fang
on TV:
Anyone who’s not watching this film is really lucky, Mum
. Across the central reservation the cars were moving faster but I still ran out. Trusting to luck,
which was stupid when you think about it.

Then I was pounding up the hill, eyes roaming around the bushes and the low wall that became part of the entrance to the baths at the top. ‘Ben!’ I shouted as I ran, and saw in my
mind’s eye Joe lying on the tarmac. I thought of the memory board they’d had at school, where the teachers had written kind things and his classmates had drawn pictures of Joe and
crosses and flowers, and afterwards, after the children had talked about death and asked their questions and said goodbye over a cherry tree sapling, we were given the postings in a scrapbook that
the headmistress had put together. And as my lungs went on forcing out breath I found myself wondering what Ben’s headmaster would do, and where they’d have the special assembly; and
then, there he was: there Ben was, head between his knees, sitting on the coping stones just past the entrance and looking like a beggar.

I stumbled up to him, my legs shaking, and yelled, ‘Where’s your phone?’

I hadn’t meant to make that the first thing I said to him. He raised his head and, dear God, how pale his skin was.

He reached stiffly into his coat pocket and pulled his mobile out. ‘Oh. It’s not switched on. No, battery’s dead.’

‘So, what’s the matter with you?’ Relief had evaporated within seconds. I couldn’t believe how angry I felt. ‘That – who was it on the phone? – said you
couldn’t walk.’

Ben cast me a sorrowful glance and lifted up his foot. It took a moment to register what was wrong.

‘Oh, Jesus.’

I’d assumed he was resting his shoe on a piece of wood, for idleness. But when he moved his leg, the wood came up too.

‘It’s a nail,’ he said, grimacing. Looking again had made him weaken. I could tell he wanted to cry, his voice had that little waver in it. ‘It’s gone through my
sole and into my foot. I didn’t want to pull it out on my own.’

I was pressing my hand over my mouth and staring. But that was no good, was it?

‘Does it hurt?

He let out a sob-laugh. ‘What do you think, Mum?’

‘Stay where you are, I’ll get the car.’

‘Like I’m going anywhere.’

The triage nurse saw him straight away, but after that the board in A&E said it was a two-hour wait to see a doctor. The smell of the place was the smell of Joe dying.

‘So tell me, how the hell did you get a nail through your foot when you were swimming?’

‘I haven’t been swimming, Mum.’

I phoned Tom and gave him the bare facts; I knew if he got home to a dark and empty house he’d have a fit. I played it right down. Ben’s hurt himself at the Northgate, I said.
Nothing serious, but he’ll need a tetanus shot. I know, it’s a nuisance. So, there’s some fish in batter you could just stick in the oven, whatever you can find. See you when I
see you.

We sat in casualty and watched the news on a TV mounted near to the ceiling. A car bomb had gone off somewhere but the sound was turned so low you couldn’t follow the story. It might have
been the Middle East.

After half an hour Ben was sick on the empty seat next to him. I tried to mop the fluid up with a magazine but it had pooled in the plastic dip towards the back and the pages weren’t
absorbent enough. I had to go and get pleated green paper towels from the toilet. No one seemed to be around to help.

‘So where have you been?’

‘Blacon.’

‘Blacon? Why? Doing what?’

‘Seeing Ian Nuttall. Playing footie on the building site near his house.’

‘Ian
who
?’

You’d think that if a patient vomited in the waiting room, it might bring forward his appointment time. I went over to the receptionist. ‘My son’s in a lot of pain,’ I
said.

‘Yes, his notes are here,’ she said. ‘You’ll be seen as soon as possible.’ What kind of an answer is that? I wanted to shout. It wasn’t her fault, but I still
itched to grab her by the hair and scream abuse into her eyes. No wonder they have protective screens in these places now.

‘Ian Nuttall, used to go to my school, left after Year Seven.’

‘The one who went to live in Spain?’

‘Yeah. He came back, well, him and his mum did, and he goes to Gladhills now. I saw him at the baths.’

‘Did I ever meet him?’

‘Dunno. Don’t think so.’

‘So how long have you been going to his house?’

‘About four months. I’ve been going there instead of swimming.’

‘It’s a good thing you didn’t try to remove it yourself,’ the doctor said when we were finally called through. People try – ’ he shone a light on the tender
puckered flesh under Ben’s curled foot – ‘to take foreign bodies out and often end up causing even more harm. Hmm. It’s gone right through, can you see? You didn’t
just step on this did you?’

‘No, I jumped onto it,’ said Ben wearily.

‘Trying to be Superman?’

He’s fifteen, I could have said, not five. But it wasn’t the doctor’s fault we were here.

‘It’s going to hurt,’ said the doctor, writing on his clipboard, ‘I can’t pretend it won’t. What I need you to do is stay as still as you can. Perhaps hold
Mum’s hand, if you feel—’

Ben looked at me, gulped and began to heave again. I held the cardboard dish under his chin for him.

‘That’ll be shock,’ said the doctor. ‘I’ll give you a minute.’

‘So, let me get this right, Ben; you’ve been saying you were at the Northgate when in fact you’ve been going somewhere else entirely?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And instead of swimming, you’ve been going to this Ian’s house?’

‘Not all the time.’

‘Where, then?’

‘All over. The shops, the building site. Nothing illegal, in case you’re wondering. I haven’t been doing
drugs
. I’m not stupid.’

‘Why not tell me where you were? I wouldn’t have stopped you.’

‘You’d have been—’

‘What?’

‘Like you are now.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean? Ben?’

Afterwards, the doctor gave him his tetanus jab and a bottle of antibiotics. ‘Because we don’t know what kind of nasties might have been living on that nail, do we? The wound was
quite, mmm, dirty. And these are painkillers, take as necessary but not more than four in a twenty-four-hour period; and I’ll get you a pair of crutches before you go. I’m assuming
you’ll want to be back at school as soon as possible?’ He smiled at his own joke. ‘Crutches will help you get around till it settles down. You shouldn’t need them for more
than two weeks. Is Mum OK with changing the dressing? Any problems, pop down to your GP. And no more playing around on building sites. Hey, Mum?’

Thanks, Doc, I could have said, I wasn’t feeling nearly inadequate enough.

‘Ben, talk to me.’

‘I wanted to be on my own.’

‘But you weren’t, you were with this Ian.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Tell me about him. What kind of a boy is he?’

‘
You
wouldn’t like him.’

‘Why not? You could bring him back to our house, better then playing on a manky old building site. He could come for his tea.’

‘I don’t think so, Mum.’

A nurse dropped by with a leaflet that explained about flesh-eating bugs and another that was all pie charts about why it was important to return NHS equipment. In the rack outside our bay there
was a new booklet on bereavement that I took in case Juno might need it.

‘What makes you want to spend so much time with Ian?’

‘He’s a laugh. We were mates in Year Seven. I was sad he left, I was glad he’d come back – God!’

‘Some mate, leaving you sitting on your own with a nail through your foot.’

‘Ian didn’t leave me. He took me to his house but his mum wasn’t in, so his brother gave us a lift to the Northgate because I told him to, I thought it would be easier for you
to find me. But Ian was with me up till you came.’

‘So where was he?’

‘He ran off when he saw you coming. He thought you’d be angry.’

I wanted to slap his face so damned hard it made my whole arm tingle. My jaw ached from being clenched and I knew my expression was murderous. Forcing my face into a smile, I said:

‘You like being with your other friends, Felix, Jase. When you go round to theirs, I know where you are.

‘I wanted to be . . . away.’

‘From what? Me?’

‘No. Just
away
. I wanted to be – out of the loop.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Well, look at you now, Mum, the way you are with me, this interrogation.’

‘So it’s my fault?’

‘It’s—’

‘What? Don’t turn away from me like that.’

‘I think I’m going to be sick again.’

When we got home the kitchen windows were running with condensation and the smoke alarm was going off because Tom had gone up for a shower and forgotten the tea. Ben flopped on the sofa and
reached for the remote, but I shouted at him to leave the TV off. I gutted the alarm of its batteries and slid the charred fish out of the oven, burning myself on the glass door in my haste. Tom
found me standing by the sink with my arm under the cold tap.

‘You in the wars again? Ben’s in there looking like thunder. Did he get jabbed in the bum? What did the doctor say?’ I took my arm out of the stream and began folding kitchen
towel into a pad.