September Starlings (74 page)

She sighs, stands up. ‘Laura, don’t go all poetic on me. What do you want me to do? Shall I come and be with you when you unearth whatever this is?’

I shake my head. ‘He wouldn’t want that.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘I just am.’ I shouldn’t have come. Like a child, I have run away from whatever’s new and difficult, am trying to hide behind Ruth’s skirts. The man in the park suddenly appears before my mind’s eye, that stranger who gave me sweets and told me to be my own keeper. I have to stop hiding, I must cope alone. ‘If … if I get upset later on tonight, I’ll phone you.’ There has to be someone there, someone who will help me through the aftermath. Even the park man would understand that, I’m sure. ‘Anyway, I could be wrong, I may not find anything.’ I will. It’s there, in those boxes. And I have to be alone.

I still haven’t gone home. Soon, I’ll be needed as a disher-out of catfood, dogfood, kitten slops. And another tin of pilchards must bite the Just before I sleep, or the imprisoned gulls will be mortallious. I am sitting in Elsie outside the George. The George is one of those schizophrenic pubs, civilized at lunchtimes, bulging with teenagers every night. They are spilling into Moor Lane, shouting and laughing, advertising their youthful silliness. A policeman approaches, so I move on, anxious not to be caught in a no-parking zone. I wish I could work out why I’m here.

Elsie knows her way around, so I give her her head, finish up outside Confetti’s refuge. A girl with a swollen belly leans against a lamppost, cigarette smoke making her eyes narrow as it floats upward from her mouth. Smoking is not allowed inside Confetti’s place. Through a lighted window, I see my old friend. And she is old, seventy if a day. She is folding towels, is having an animated conversation with someone who is out of sight. Her hair is grey and thinning, and she is still wearing those awful clothes. She would tell me not to think of helping Ben to leave the world and all its horrors. She would tell me that life is valuable, no matter what its quality. She would sentence Ben to live right to the bitterest of ends.

I pass Robert’s house, park across the road, see one of his dogs shambling about the front garden. Robert is in his daughter’s room. He bends over, is probably kissing her good night. He’s been a good parent, an excellent mother-cum-dad to those kids. What would you say, Robert? How many sick animals do you release from pain each week? My Ben has rights, too. He cannot be allowed to continue incontinent, tormented, afraid.

Outside Heaton Lodge, I turn off the engine, climb out of Elsie’s uncomfortable body, stroll round the garden and look at the faded bedding plants. It’s over, Ben. Summer is over. The marigolds are crunched up, wrinkled, aged.

Susan Jenkinson accosts me in the lobby. ‘Hello, love. I never expected to see you at this time.’

‘Is he asleep?’

She shakes her head slowly, draws me through the entrance and into Matron’s office. ‘Sit down,’ she says. ‘We can have a good chinwag here, no interruptions.’

I sit, wait.

‘He’s had a rough day, Laura.’ She puts the matron’s desk between us, settles her bulk, rests gnarled elbows on the blotter pad. ‘He’s needing more sedation. We can’t let him carry on like this, because he’s a danger to himself, you know. He’s been throwing cups at doors, falling out of chairs, trying to run after somebody who isn’t there.’

I place my keys on the desk, look into her eyes. ‘I want him home, Susan. And before you start, I’m intending to have round-the-clock nursing, three nurses, eight hours each.’

She draws in her lips, takes a hissing breath, puts me in mind of a plumber who has just been asked when the lavatory will be fixed. ‘That’ll cost you a bomb. And it might take more than one to manage him when he’s at his worst.’

‘I’ll be there.’

‘But—’

‘I’ll be there, Susan. And if we need more than one nurse, or a strong man as well as a nurse, then we’ll employ as many as are needed. He can’t stay here. I put him here because I was ill. I’m no longer sick, so he can come back where he belongs.’

She studies me for a few moments, then rises from the chair. ‘Come with me, Laura. Come and look at him.’

She leads the way to Ben’s room, bustles along as if she means business. I have no doubt that she is intending to put me off, but I shall bring him out of here no matter what. He is mine, my husband, my beloved burden.

At his door, she stops and draws breath. It seems an age before we enter the room, she first, me bringing up the rear with a huge grin on my face. Ben has routed her. As if
he expected to be caught in bad order, he is sitting in his chair with the television flickering on his face. Some aged singer is assassinating ‘Always’, and Ben has joined in. ‘Hello, Laura,’ he beams. ‘Come in and listen to the singing. It is so beautiful.’

Susan shakes her head, gives me a nudge of warning as if telling me not to be taken in by my husband’s improved mood. ‘I’ll be off, then. Don’t keep him up late. It’s as if he’s ready for me.’ She pats Ben’s hand. ‘Be good.’

He gives her a withering look. ‘Go away,’ he says imperiously. ‘I wish to talk to my wife.’

After she has left, he seems to forget me, is wrapped up in the songs of yesteryear. But ‘My Way’ proves too much for him. He looks at me, a temporary intelligence in the fading eyes. ‘How is Chewbacca?’ he asks.

Ben doesn’t like dogs any more. ‘Fine. We have another cat, too.’

He nods. ‘There were dogs, but no cats. We had rats, you know. Even the wild ones are trainable, very clever. And we didn’t see many birds. I’ve been back, and there are still few birds.’

I wait until he seems to have finished. My spine is tingling, crawling with cold. I am beginning to know where he has been. ‘Was this during the war, Ben?’

‘It’s over.’ He frowns at the television. ‘For most, it is over. For some, it continues. They cut my toenails today, I think. Yes, it was today. I don’t like scissors. Are the children at school? Did you find Gerald’s geometry set? He will be a mathematician, you know. Keep the door closed.’

He is leaving me. I drop to my knees, take his hands, am reminded of how Ruth held on to me just half an hour ago. ‘Is it under the birds, Ben? Is it in the Kellogg’s box?’

He nods jerkily, like a child who has barely mastered the art of tacit agreement. ‘Strawberry yoghurt.’ There is pride on his face. ‘I knew I would never forget that. The key.’

‘To the bottom safe?’

He is vague again. ‘They went a bit crisp under the stove, but we got them out. The jewels too. Well, they paid for their own destruction, so we merely used what was left as a deposit on retribution. Diamonds, rubies and sapphires, she wanted. I made it for her, but she died.’ A grim smile hovers on his lips. ‘So gaudy, it was, so we broke it later in Paris. Valuable. Watch the gendarme in the Rue Albertine. What?’ He is questioning an invisible companion. ‘
Non, c’est fini. Je vais maintenant en Angleterre
. Laura.’

‘Yes?’

But he is speaking of me, not to me. He repeats that he is going to England, that he is going to Laura, that everything is finished.

‘Ben? Would you like to come home?’

He focuses, recognizes, jerks the balding head. ‘I am better here,’ he says. ‘Soon, I shall get my wings.’

‘What do you want?’

I step inside, catch sight of a Fry’s Chocolate Cream bar that betrays her by peeping out from its hiding place. I glance at the cushion, then at her. No sweet stuff, the doctor said. But why should I remind her? ‘What’s all this about McNally’s?’ I ask without further preamble.

‘I’m tired.’

She looks about as tired as a three-week-old foal. ‘Mother, you can’t go picking up people like Diana. How do you know she’ll be suitable?’

‘I know. I know people.’

I sit on the chair that faces her throne. The throne is high, made taller for old bones. It has wings and braided joints, lacks only a royal crest and a bit of gold thread. ‘I can’t leave Ben.’

She fumbles with a Regal packet, picks out a fag, lights it. ‘We shall take him home. He can live with me at the farm and I shall hire help – nurses and so on.’

What is the matter with her? She’s never cared before, has never catered for anyone but herself. ‘Why?’ I ask.

She shrugs, the lifting of the shoulders emphasizing twin cavernous salt-cellars at the base of her throat. ‘I’m not sure.’ She has always been certain, and this ambivalence sits uncomfortably on her features. ‘I’ve …’ A long drag of nicotine disappears into her gullet. ‘I’ve not been much of a mother, have I?’

There is nowhere for me to look. I am staring ahead into nothingness, would not be surprised if Jesus Christ Himself materialized in the face of so tremendous a miracle. ‘No,’ I reply at last. ‘You were not much of a mother.’

She is plucking at her skirt, is smoking so fast that the cigarette behaves like a joint, burns hot, red, quick. ‘It was not in my nature,’ she offers after a few seconds. ‘And I had no help, no support from your father. That is not to say that he was a bad man. We were … different, poles apart. And you were in the middle of it. I suppose you were our equator.’

Is this an apology, an explanation? I am counting the roses on her border. They are large and pink, extend dado-fashion around the comfortable room. There are seventeen in the alcove at one side of the chimney, seventeen and a half at the other side. The fractured flower turns a corner, marries up to another broken bloom. They are slightly offset, rather untrue. Truth. Is she telling her truth now? ‘Why did you hit me, Mother?’

She coughs, clears the phlegm from her chest. She has been a good cougher, has perhaps found a way of clearing the muck of years from her lungs. ‘I don’t know that, either.’

My eyes stray to her face. ‘You never loved me.’

‘No.’ She brushes non-existent ash from her blouse, stares downward at the floor. ‘But you are my daughter. I don’t have long, Laura, and I can’t put anything right. It was all done a long time ago. I have learned …’ She swallows as if in pain. ‘I’ve come to respect you.’

There’s a dreadful clock on the mantelpiece, one of those domed things with gold-coloured globes that swirl
back and forth, back and forth. It’s a timepiece that mocks time, makes it boring and uneventful. The silly thing wheezes, spits out a tune to illustrate the hour. Nine o’clock. It’s nine o’clock on a September evening in 1992, and my mother has just spoken to me for the first time ever. The clock that marks this occasion is bland, unimpressive, a quartz thing with no character, no guts. ‘I used to hate you,’ I say tonelessly.

‘Yes.’ The cigarette end is being murdered in an onyx ashtray. Mother likes onyx and silver, is surrounded by ornaments culled from such cold substances. In fact, I am beginning to warm towards the clock, because it isn’t as dead as the rest of Mother’s collection. ‘Do you still dislike me so intensely?’ she asks in a whisper.

I shake my head. ‘I’ve not the energy for it.’

‘Nor have I.’ She straightens, pushes her head against the chair’s high back. ‘You are all I have in this world, Laura. You are a living creature, the only one that comes directly from me. I want a new start before it’s too late. McNally’s is yours. Sell it or work it, whatever you wish. If you work it, take on that thin girl. She looks frail, but she’s as tough as shoe-leather.’

I still don’t know where to rest my eyes. ‘But if I don’t go to Bolton, if I stay here—’

‘No. I said those things to the girl, to Diana, but it’s of no importance, really. I’m going home before Christmas. I came here all those years ago, followed you to Liverpool and sat here until I plucked up the courage to talk to you. You are a grown woman with responsibilities. Do whatever you need to do, but I’d be grateful if you carried on the McNally tradition.’ She sniffs. ‘He was a fool in many ways, but he knew his onions – well – his medicines.’

This is as near as I am going to get. She is sorry, but she can’t say it, was wrong, can’t admit her error. My mother is a human being after all. And that is almost enough for me. ‘Thank you,’ I tell her. ‘This wasn’t easy for you, Mother. You are right, it’s no longer a question of right and wrong. We have to negotiate the terms of a treaty, and
you’ve taken a very brave step. I admire you for that.’

She stares at me. The eyes are wet, as wet as they used to be when she missed her aim with the little mascara brush. ‘You’ve turned out quite well after all,’ she mouths. ‘Close the door on your way out.’

So I secure one door and march onward to open another. I am still in shock, still reeling from this strange encounter with a woman who has breathed fire over my whole life. Now, I go towards the key to another mystery. Having found a sort of mother, I shall seek my husband in an upstairs safe.

THE TROUBLE WITH WINGS by
Kevin McCann

At first

They were just nodules

Protruding from behind

His shoulder blades

And after that

The rapid growth of membrane and quill

Was not an altogether

Unpleasant sensation.

But having wings

Can create

All kinds

Of problems:

His wife refused

To sleep with him,

He was made suddenly redundant,

Children followed him

Silently in the street.

He flew

Fishtailing and chandelle

After the wild geese

That drew him

With their cadences

As sirens drew sailors

Towards a promise

They could never keep.

Only to return,

Hedgehopping

To avoid the guns

Of frightened farmers

And the cautions

Of police.

Finally,

Tired and hounded,

He went to a surgeon,

Had his wings removed

And burned.

Now

He’s got a new job

With prospects of promotion,

He makes love to his wife

Three times a week

And children

No longer regard him

With awe.

But sometimes

He will look

Towards the sky

And the flesh

Between his shoulder blades