The If Game (15 page)

‘Same to you,' Stephen said.

‘And I've brought you a sort of present.'

She saw his face fall and said hurriedly, ‘It's not a proper present. I didn't go out and buy it. It's just something my mum had and I thought you might like it.'

Stephen said, Tm afraid I didn't. . .'

‘No, you shouldn't have. But I saw this in one of Mum's cupboards and I thought, as you're collecting them, you might like it. Though it's fairly horrible to look at.'

She held out a key. It was large and dark and somehow rather forbidding. Stephen took it from her. It was immensely heavy and it was much the largest key he'd had. He said, ‘Doesn't your mum want it?'

‘No. It's ages old. She said it came from a barn that was on the farm her dad had, when she was little. She didn't remember why she'd kept it. But when I said you were collecting keys . . . sort of ... she said I could have it in case you'd like it.'

Stephen said, ‘You didn't tell her . . . ?'

‘Of course not. I just said you had a sort of collection of keys and could I have it to ask you if you'd like it.'

‘Thanks.' Stephen felt as tongue-tied as his dad.

That's all.'

‘Thanks. And thank your mum too.'

‘She didn't want it.'

‘I'm sorry I haven't anything for you.'

‘Don't be silly. I don't want anything.'

‘Are you staying here over Christmas?'

‘No. My dad's coming with the car to fetch Mum's uncle to spend Christmas with us. So he won't be here all alone. It's going to be terrible having him, but Mum said we must.'

‘Why is it going to be terrible?'

‘Because he forgets everything. He'll put everything in the wrong places and we won't be able to find them for weeks.'

‘How long are you here for, then?'

‘Going this evening. That's why I came round now.'

There was a long pause.

It was several minutes before Alex said, hesitantly, ‘I think I've guessed what was wrong that time last month when you didn't want to tell me.'

Could she have? He hoped she couldn't. He said, ‘I don't want to talk about it now, either.'

She took no notice. ‘Your dad's told you about your mum, hasn't he?'

‘What do you mean?' he asked, angry and frightened.

‘He's told you that she's dead.'

Before he meant to, he had cried out, ‘No!'

‘She isn't dead?'

‘No.'

‘You mean she left you? When you were a baby?'

This was worse. ‘She didn't want to.'

‘Is she ill? In hospital or something?'

There could be only one reason for someone being in hospital all that time. He said, ‘She isn't in a madhouse, if that's what you mean.'

She began, ‘I don't understand …'

He said, violently, ‘Why don't you leave me alone?'

‘I'm sorry. I thought it might help.'

He was too angry to speak. He turned and pushed her away and she half fell sideways. He was pleased. But when she stood up again, he saw that she had cut her cheek against the corner of the kitchen dresser. He had cut his own face on that corner before now. He could see blood running down from the wound. She was pulling out a handkerchief to staunch it, but drops were falling on to her sweater. He was no longer pleased, he was appalled. He took out his own handkerchief, fortunately almost unused, and handed it to her. She said, ‘Thanks.'

‘I'm sorry.'

She didn't answer.

‘I'm really sorry.'

He saw that she was trying not to cry. He wondered
how much damage he had done. Could she have broken a bone in her face? He said, ‘Does it hurt a lot?'

‘It hurts a bit.'

‘Do you think anything's broken?'

She felt the cheek with cautious fingers. ‘No. It's just the skin.'

Relief. He said again, ‘I'm sorry. I don't know why I did that.'

‘You were angry with me.'

‘I'm not now.'

‘You've got a terrific temper.'

‘I've said I'm sorry.'

‘All right. I'm sorry I went on about it.'

They sat for another minute or two without speaking. Then Stephen said, ‘Oughtn't you to get it cleaned up?'

‘Suppose I should.'

‘I think we've got something Dad used to put on me when I got hurt.'

‘All right. I don't know where Uncle Joe keeps that sort of thing.'

In the tiny bathroom, he told her to wash her face with soap. Then she dabbed the wound with the antiseptic. ‘Ow! Stings!' she said. It was no longer bleeding, but a dark blue bruise was already beginning to show.

‘What'll you say when your mum asks how you did it?' Stephen asked.

She looked in the glass over the basin. ‘I'll say I walked into a lamp-post. Isn't that what drunks always say?'

‘She won't believe you.'

‘Then I'll say I got punched by a friend.' She was laughing at him, and he didn't mind.

‘Funny sort of friend she'll think you have.'

‘I'll think of something. Don't worry. I won't tell her it was you.'

‘I am sorry,' he said, and meant it.

‘All right. You don't have to go on saying that.'

‘Tea?' he said.

Back in the kitchen he made mugs of tea. He ladled the sugar into hers. He knew about people in shock. She seemed all right, though, drinking the too-hot liquid in loud gulps.

He said, ‘Why did you go on? About my mum?'

She said, ‘Because I know something bad has happened about her. I thought it might help if you said what it was. After all, it can't be worse than her leaving you. Or being dead.'

Couldn't it? There wasn't time to weigh up the different possibilities, but he had a feeling that she might be right. His mum wasn't dead, she hadn't deserted him. A great many instant thoughts flashed through his mind. Then he decided. She knew so much already, it was better to tell her the lot. He said, ‘I'd always thought my mum was dead.'

‘And she isn't after all. Where is she?'

He told her. By degrees, he told her everything. She sat looking at him, not interrupting except to ask a question when she didn't understand. She asked the same questions that he had asked his dad, and he couldn't answer them. When he'd finished, she said, ‘Poor you.'

It was the sympathy that made his eyes water and the lump come in his throat. He swallowed and said, ‘So I don't know what's going to happen.'

‘When she comes out?'

‘That's right.'

‘Aren't you pleased she'll be around? After all this time?'

He was angry again. ‘How can I be pleased? I don't know her, what she's like. I might not like her.'

‘She's your mum!'

‘Not really, she isn't. She hasn't been my mum all these years, has she? She'll be like a stranger.'

‘I'd be pleased if it was my mum coming back.'

‘Even if she'd . . . whatever she'd done?'

She almost shouted at him, ‘Yes!'

‘But you know yours. What she's like as a person. I don't know what mine's like. I only know she killed someone.'

‘You said your dad said he was a nasty piece of work?'

‘But you can't go round killing anyone who's a nasty piece of work.' Stephen thought of several people at school who fitted this description and suddenly he laughed.

‘What are you laughing at?'

‘Thinking of Beve at school. He's the nastiest piece of work I know.'

She sat silent. Then she said, ‘Couldn't you use one of your keys to find out?'

‘Find out what?'

‘What your mother's really like.'

‘How?'

‘Go to somewhere where she's around and talk to her.' He noticed that she hadn't said the word prison.

‘Every time I've used a key I've been in Australia. She's somewhere in England. I don't see that that's going to be a lot of help.'

‘You don't think you might be able to choose?'

‘I've never known where I was going to be with any of the keys. I don't choose, do I?'

‘You've never tried.'

It was true. But he didn't want to.

‘How many keys have you got that you haven't tried yet?'

‘Just the one you've just given me.'

‘Why don't you try? Getting to see her? Your mum.'

‘I might.' He was tired of this conversation. He wanted Alex to leave.

As if she'd heard his wish, she drank her tea quickly. She got up and said, ‘I'll be off, then.' He saw her to the door. She said, ‘Thanks for the tea.'

‘That's all right.'

She was gone. He wasn't sure whether he was glad he'd told her, or not.

Perhaps Alex's mum had been right. Stephen reluctantly admitted to himself that it had been a relief to talk. And he had also to admit that he couldn't have found anyone better to talk to. Alex hadn't reacted badly. She hadn't seemed particularly shocked, she hadn't turned soppy about mothers in general, she had asked the same questions that he had asked of his dad. He began to feel that next time she was visiting next door, he'd talk to her again.

Meanwhile ordinary life went on. He began to forget. Or rather, he never completely forgot, but he was able to think about other things for quite long periods at a time. Football. School work. To his own astonishment, he found that he was quite interested in the science lessons which were new that term. It intrigued him to learn that ‘metals' were not, as he'd always thought, things like gold bars and silver coins and tin cans and iron posts, but atoms of chemical substances which each had its own peculiar properties. Different from non-metals. He liked the idea of these atoms linking on to each other in their billions to make what could actually be seen with the naked eye. It gave him the feeling that what he saw in everyday life and what he had always accepted as just what it looked like, was really a whole unknown world of fizzing activity. The thought made him mentally dizzy. But he found that he could hold both ideas at once. Here was the kitchen table at which he sat and ate and on which he spread his books and papers, and at the same time, here was a centre of
energy, all those tiny particles rushing together to make—wood. Which had once been alive, a tree. He supposed that everything in the world was made up of as many different explanations. So that you could never look at anything simply again. You only saw what it was being for you at this moment. A millionth part of its whole existence.

It was deepest winter. On rainy mornings he seemed to be going to school in the dark and it was dusk when he came home. He was growing suddenly immensely fast. Dad grumbled when he had to buy new boots, new shoes, new trousers and jacket. ‘I can't help it, can I?' Stephen complained.

‘Hope you slow down soon,' Dad said. But he didn't stop Stephen choosing the shirts and trousers he wanted, even when they were not the cheapest. ‘Just make them last,' he said.

They seemed to be on the usual terms. A sort of unexpressed cool friendship. Dad mostly silent, more often out than at home, hardly ever asking questions about Stephen's daily occupations, not talking about his own.

And between them was always the unexpressed question of when? Where? How? Stephen knew that the time for his mother's release from prison must be near. But he did not ask and his dad never spoke of it.

It was because he could think of nothing he wanted to do, that on the last weekend before Christmas he looked again at the keys. Was it possible that, as Alex had suggested, he might be able to learn what sort of a mother he would have? He took the key Alex had given him and examined it. It was the largest he had had, and with its long straight stem and the loop at the top, it looked somehow formal. A severe key. The wards were simple. Straightforward. An official key. Not made for fantasy.

Because he couldn't think of anything else to do, he put it in his pocket and went out on his bike. He rode away from the town. It didn't take very long to be out in what was almost country. The road was bordered by hedges, there were fields on either side, and the houses were few and far between. He cycled on, not caring where he went, wondering occasionally whether he was going to be able to find his way back. There was no sun to steer by, the sky was grey and woolly, and he had very little idea in which direction he was going. Presently he came to a village. There was a village green with several houses round it, a church with a small crowded churchyard, and two immense chestnut trees, now almost bare of leaves, near a duck pond. There was nothing to tempt him to stop. He rode on. He passed a farm and saw a yard full of farm machinery. An old man called out to him, ‘Where're you off to?'

Stephen called back, ‘Don't know,' and hurried on. He did not want to stop and talk.

Presently the hedge on one side of the road gave way to a high stone wall. It had curved iron spikes on top of it, and he wondered what the owner was so anxious to keep out. When he came to a gate, he dismounted and went to peer through the bars to see what was so precious inside. He saw a long drive bordered by dark trees, leading uphill. It disappeared round the side of the hill. He couldn't see any house.

He rode on further and came to another gate. He tried to spy through this one too, but the bars were backed by metal sheeting. He could see nothing. Annoyed, he rattled the gate, but it was too heavy to move. It was taller than the first he had seen and immensely solid. Which was perhaps why, when he saw a gaping keyhole below his left hand, he thought of his last key and tried it in the lock. It won't work, he thought. This immense gate hadn't
given him the feeling he'd had about the other doors he'd been through. It wouldn't have anything to do with him. It wouldn't be Australia he would find himself in.