TWNS-2-6-Kindle Master Page 7

  April sighs and nods. She swipes at one eye with the back of her index finger. “That’s still… I don’t know…”

  “Unpleasant?” Sean offers. “Hard to bear?”

  “Well, yes.”

  Sean nods. “You’re right. It is. But her brain’s frazzled and her filter’s gone haywire. It was never very good, to be honest – the filter. But now it’s completely packed up, so she just says the first thing she can think of whether it makes any sense or not. Try not to take it to heart.”

  “Does she even know about Mum… you know…?”

  “Does she know about her dying?” Sean asks.

  April nods.

  Sean shakes his head gently. “No,” he says, looking pained. “No. I didn’t tell her. There’s no point, really. She doesn’t… you know… retain anything. Even if she did understand, it would only be fleeting. And she’d probably just say she was glad or something. There’s really no point.”

  April nods and reaches out to squeeze her father’s arm. “You’re too nice to her, Dad.”

  “Hum,” Sean says. “I’ve heard that before.”

  “From Mum?”

  Sean nods and bites his bottom lip.

  “So, are you going back in there?” April asks.

  “I have to, really,” Sean says. “I mean, there’s not much point, but now I’ve driven all this way…”

  “I’ll come back in if you want me to.”

  Sean shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I think it’s easier without you, to be honest. You just relax or go for a walk or whatever. And then…” He glances at his watch before continuing. “At, say, twelve thirty, we can go for lunch. There’s a nice pub down the road. How does that sound?”

  “OK,” April says. “I’m sorry Dad, really I am. But the truth is that she does my head in.”

  Sean laughs sourly and as he turns and starts to head back towards room twenty-three, he says, “Don’t worry, honey. She does my head in too.”

  • • •

  As they enter the Langford Poacher, April pulls a face. “God,” she says, “it looks more like an old people’s home in here than back there.”

  “Really?” Sean asks, looking around. “I quite like it. Well, the food’s good, anyway. And they’re friendly.”

  “Sorry,” April says. “I suppose it’s just the carpet, really.”

  “Hum,” Sean says, looking down at his feet. “Yes, I see what you mean. It is a bit 1970s.”

  Once they have ordered food and carried their drinks to a table, April asks, “So? How was it?”

  Sean shrugs. “You saw how she was, today. I just sat and read the newspaper to her, really. I’m not even sure if she understood who I am. But you know… These things have to be done. Sometimes she has good days and she’s almost like normal. But you just can’t tell.”

  “What about Perry? Does he still come regularly?”

  Sean nods. “Mum always got on better with Perry than with me. I don’t think she’s quite such hard work when he comes. But yeah. He comes every weekend, I think.”

  “So she must recognise you. I mean, if she treats you differently.”

  “On some level, she does, I suppose,” Sean says, sipping at his pint of IPA. “Though I don’t think she’s really conscious of who I am. Not on days like today, anyway. It’s more as if my presence brings out a habit of behaviour, you know? She’s always been grumpy towards me, so she still is, but it’s just a habit really. It’s the same with Perry. She was always nicer to him so, out of habit, she still behaves the same way, automatically.”

  “I still think it’s weird,” April says, “to like one of your kids more than the other.”

  “Ha,” Sean says. “It’s more common than you’d imagine. You’re just lucky you were an only child. You got smothered in love.”

  April pulls a face. She’s pretending to be unconvinced. “Will you go and see him afterwards?” she asks.

  “Perry?”

  April nods.

  “Oh, no,” Sean says. “No, I saw him at the funeral. Once a year’s enough.”

  “You’re right,” April says. “I am lucky to be an only child.”

  “Anyway, the Patricks are a depressing bunch,” Sean says. “Tell me about you.”

  “I’m a Patrick,” April protests.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do. And I’m fine. All things considered, I’m OK.”

  “How are things with Ronan?”

  “Great,” April says. “He’s working loads at the moment, which is why I’m off to Cardiff on my own. He couldn’t afford to take a break right now.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  “Well, you know how it is. He’s self-employed. He has to take the work when it comes. He’s doing a whole bunch of stuff for Pfizer at the moment.”

  “Brochures and what-have-you?”

  April nods. “I’ve been helping a bit in my free time, too. Which is why I’m off to see Simon, to be honest. I don’t really want to spend my week’s holiday writing copy about anti-depressants.”

  “No,” Sean says. “I can understand that.”

  “What about you?”

  “Work?”

  April shrugs. “Work, home, everything. How are you doing?”

  “I’m OK, too,” Sean says. “I have my ups and downs but I’m basically OK.”

  “Do you get lonely?” April asks. “I think about you, you know, watching telly on your own, heating up your own meals and all that stuff. It must be really hard after all those years.”

  “Sometimes it is,” Sean admits. “But I just feel sad when I feel sad and lonely when I’m lonely. And I tell myself it’s OK to feel fine some days, too. You can over-analyse this stuff.”

  “That sounds quite wise. I hope Mags and Dave and everyone are looking after you, are they?”

  Sean laughs. “Oh, they try. But to be honest, I’ve not been feeling that sociable. I tried to force myself a couple of times, but in the end I decided to let myself off the hook. I mean, I’m out at work all day. It’s not like I’m a hermit or anything. And if I don’t want to see anyone at the weekend then I reckon that’s up to me. Right?”

  “I suppose,” April says. “As long as it doesn’t go on forever, I suppose that’s fine. But you’ll need to get up and out there at some point. You realise that, right?”

  “Hum,” Sean says, vaguely. He’d rather not even try to imagine what getting “up and out there” implies. “Are you still seeing your counsellor guy?”

  April laughs and sips at her Coke before replying. “It’s a woman. Oh God, I haven't told you about her, have I? She was a bit rubbish, to be honest.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah… She told me all this really obvious stuff that everyone knows. You know, the different stages of grief. Denial, anger, all that stuff. And then she started banging on about crystals.”

  “Crystals?”

  April wrinkles her nose cutely and nods. “Yeah. She said I needed to get myself some Rose Quartz. She said it was the most compassionate crystal of all.”

  “Compassionate, eh?”

  “Uh-huh. And you know what I’m like about anything that even remotely smacks of mumbo-jumbo. I suddenly felt like I was paying the most unstable girlfriend I ever had at college for counselling. It’s funny really, because half the time the women who become counsellors can’t even make a cup of tea without bursting into tears. It’s nearly always the emotional wrecks who suddenly want to become counsellors.”

  Sean laughs. “Yes, I know what you mean, actually. There’s definitely some truth in that.”

  “Oh!” April says, reaching down for her handbag and rummaging inside it. “She actually gave me a bit of compassionate quartz. I’ve got it here somewhere.”

  “Yeah?” Sean asks.

  “Ha!” April says, producing a small rose coloured stone from the depths of her bag. “Ta-dah!”

  “Ooh, my,” Sean says mockingly, peering in to study the stone. “That
does look like a compassionate bit of rock.”

  “You can have it,” April says, pushing it towards Sean with her fingertip. “I think it’s healed me now, so…”

  “Well, thanks,” Sean says, taking the stone and rolling it between finger and thumb. “I, um, don’t know what to say.”

  “Om, maybe?” April says.

  “Om?”

  “As in, Ommmmmmm,” she says, making meditational O signs with her fingers and thumbs.

  “Ah, Om… Yes,” Sean says.

  A waitress appears at their table. “Cod and chips and a Niçoise Salad?” she asks.

  “Yep,” Sean says, sliding the stone into his trouser pocket. “Yep, that’s us.”

  Snapshot #8

  35 mm format, colour. A young couple stand in front of a red brick council building. The woman is wearing a simple white satin dress with translucent lacy sleeves. She has back-brushed her hair to increase its volume and is holding a posy of pink flowers. The man is dressed in a black, wide-lapelled, pinstripe suit, a white shirt and a wide red tie. He’s wearing oversized aviator-style glasses and grinning broadly.

  Sean studies the photo as he eats his Sunday breakfast of toast and Marmite. He can remember the sensation and the mothball smell of the too-big suit, purchased from the local Oxfam shop.

  He looks at his own beaming grin, his wispy beard and his huge NHS prescription glasses. “The eighties…” he mumbles. “Jesus!”

  It had been an incredibly stressful day and he had been smiling because that was the moment he realised that they had made it through. They had, despite all of the objections, managed it.

  His father had refused to come. Because his mother had made an excuse for him, Catherine had never known this. Cynthia had said that her husband’s back was bad. But yes, he had refused, point blank, to come. If Sean wanted to ruin his life, that was up to him, he said. But he was damned if he was going to bear witness to it.

  Cynthia had come, though, driven by Perry in his brand new Jaguar. Perry was in real estate and these were the Thatcher years. Perry’s double-breasted suit had probably cost more than Sean’s entire student grant.

  But the truth was that it would have been better if they had all just stayed away. Perry seemed to think that his brotherly duty was to ask Sean repeatedly if he was absolutely certain he wanted to get married. And his mother had spent the day looking thin-lipped and inexplicably angry.

  Even Catherine’s mother had been against the wedding to start with. But being of a more pragmatic nature than Sean’s, she had performed an impressive U turn once she realised that it couldn’t be stopped. The second her daughter had entered the register office, Wendy had switched from sucking lemons to become their most enthusiastic cheerleader. Once the deed had been done, she had even, somewhat bizarrely, thanked Sean.

  “I think this is incredible, what you’re doing,” she had said. “Thank you so much.”

  When he had asked Catherine about this a few days later, she had simply laughed. “She’s just thankful someone’s taken me off her hands,” she said. “She never thought anyone would be mad enough.”

  Cassette #8

  Hello Fiancé.

  So, the big day! The 27th of November, 1982. I was freezing in that dress, but I didn’t have a nice coat I could wear, so I grinned and put up with it. Just look at how young we were!

  Looking at this photo now, I can see why Mum was so upset. We were too young to get married. And I was too young to have a baby. Not that I regret any of it, but lord, can you imagine how we would have felt if April had got pregnant at eighteen? You would have had a hissy-fit.

  I found a couple of wedding photos, actually, but as they all also featured your mum and Perry looking as miserable as sin, I chose this one. But do hunt them out and have a look because Theresa and Alistair are in there as well and for some reason it quite cheered me up to see their faces again. I wonder where they are now?

  God, the parents were a bit of a nightmare though, weren’t they?

  Your dad was laid up with sciatica and your mum was furious, I think, because he wasn’t there. Well, that was the official version, anyway.

  We all knew that the truth was simply that they thought I was too common for you, which is unsurprising in a way. My own mother thought that. God, I thought that!

  I think your mum thought I was slutty because I’d got pregnant, too. As if that was something I could do on my own!

  Anyway, you know when Mum came with me in the taxi? Well, I know how perfect you’ve always thought she is, but I have to tell you that even she tried to talk me out of getting married until the last possible moment. “Are you sure you want to do this?” she kept asking. “You don’t have to marry him just because he’s got you up the duff.” She always had a way with words, my mum. “Look at me!” she said. “I had you but didn’t marry the guy. Even I knew better than that!”

  Unlike your mother, who was angry with me, mine thought it was all your fault, of course. “Just because he’s been irresponsible,” she said. “It’s not like we’re living in the fifties anymore. It’s not like he’s never heard of johnnies.”

  In the end, I couldn’t stand it anymore, so I told her about Phil. It was meant to shut her up. I told her that I didn’t even know who the father was.

  She got upset then about what would happen if you found out. “He’ll dump you in a second,” she told me.

  So I lied and said that you knew. I told her that you didn’t care. And that did the trick.

  By the time that had sunk in, she had completely changed her mind about you; she had decided that you were the bee’s knees after all!

  The ceremony was a bit lacklustre. This was, after all, Wolverhampton Civic Centre, not Canterbury Cathedral. But we didn’t give a damn, did we? We’d made it to the altar, or the registrar’s desk at any rate. We were in our little private bubble of happiness and we didn’t care about any of them.

  Afterwards, we went back to the house for our little party. There were quite a few people, though I can only really remember Theresa and Alistair, oh, and that Welsh girl, Bronwen. That tall, bald guy, Dave, was there too, I think, but then he was always at all the parties. He was always wherever there was free beer. Alistair soon had music blasting out and everyone got drunk except your mother, but even she didn’t get me down for long.

  She complained about the state of the house, I remember, and she was upset that there wasn’t a wedding cake, too. She moaned about the cigarette smoke and the loud music, but we just partied on regardless, dancing around her and Perry looking outraged together in the corner of the room.

  At one point, I went over to try to get her involved. I was tipsy (we didn’t worry about drinking when pregnant back then and, thank God, April turned out just fine).

  My mum was drunk on Alistair’s home-brew and stoned on Alistair’s joints, too. She was dancing around like a Dervish to Dexys Midnight Runners and I felt sorry for your poor Mum looking so out-of-it in the corner, watching us all dancing. I suddenly wanted us all to be friends.

  So I grooved up to her and said something like, “Come on Cynthia, let your hair down a bit. You might as well.”

  Now, I’ve never told you this because I knew it would upset you, but you’ve probably always wondered why we got off to such a bad start. Well, your mum didn’t want to be friends, that’s the thing. She said, “How dare you call me that. It’s Mrs Patrick to you.”

  “Oh,” I said, thinking that this must be another one of those posh rules I knew so little about.

  “And don’t think I don’t know what you are,” she said. Her voice was quite unpleasant. It was a sort of snarl, really. “I wasn’t born yesterday. I know exactly what you are.”

  Theresa, who was watching all of this, swooped in to save me again. She yanked me back to the middle of the room where everyone was whooping and dancing to Come On Eileen. She leaned into my ear and said, “Don’t worry about her. She’s so uptight, she doesn’t even know what letting her hair
down means.”

  I glanced over at your mum – I was on the verge of tears – and she said something to Perry and pointed at me and Perry laughed.

  Mum, who was dancing beside me, had noticed something was up. She leant in between Theresa and me and said, really loudly, “She probably hasn’t had a shag since Sean was conceived. That’s her trouble. She just needs a good bonk.”

  All three of us fell about laughing.

  I’m sorry, Sean, because that was a bit rude, really, wasn’t it? But it was better than me crying all over everyone, I suppose. And we were, after all, very drunk by then.

  Anyway, that’s when I realised that your mum and I were never going to be mates. I found that out on my wedding day.

  • • •

  It is Sunday morning and Sean is at work.

  He’s alone in the vast open-plan offices of Nicholson-Wallace and is enjoying the eerie silence of the place. Despite it being nearly eleven o’clock, it’s almost dark outside and his desk lamp casts a warm glow across his workspace.

  Sean’s behind schedule on a retirement home he’s supposed to be working on. He’s been putting it off, he has just realised, because it reminds him of his mother, and being reminded of his mother makes him feel very angry at the moment.

  Actually, thinking about his parents has almost always made him feel angry, but since last week’s tape, that feeling has become even more acute than normal.

  He has always known that neither of his parents approved of his marriage to Catherine, but he always saw it as little more than part and parcel of their generalised disapproval of everything he did.

  But he hadn’t known that his mother had actually had words with Catherine. He never knew that she had been rude to her, and on their wedding day to boot.

  As he clicks on the corner of a window and resizes it to fit the proportions of the wall, a rattling sound startles him and he looks up to see that it has started to rain heavily. The wind is blowing the rain against the eastern windows with gusto.