Same Time Next Week

Chapter 37

Ingrid had been on intravenous antibiotics for a couple of days to help shift the infection in her system. Amanda sat at the side of her mother’s bed, hurting that this woman whom she loved, whom she worried about and had cared for and watched out for didn’t love her anything near as much as she did the offspring of a vile old pervert. She knew that Bradley must have cajoled their mother into allowing him to have the power of attorney over her affairs, but also that she would have been willingly cajoled. She didn’t entirely blame her mother, who should be able to trust her children, and she only hoped that Bradley did look out for their mother’s best interests because if she smelt as much as a whiff of misappropriation, she would not only challenge it but have Bradley’s balls in a meat grinder. Maybe she was overreacting, she decided. He might be a selfish twat but that was no real reason to suspect the very worst of him. She’d always presumed that Bradley got his self-centredness from his father, but he was just as likely to have inherited it from his mother.

Ingrid’s eyes fluttered open and focused in on her daughter.

‘Hi, Mum.’

‘Oh, hello,’ said Ingrid. ‘Have you been here long?’

‘A couple of hours.’

‘Have you been at work?’

‘Not today, it’s Saturday.’

‘Bradley’s just left.’

She went with it, knowing he hadn’t been near since he’d dropped his power of attorney bomb on her on Thursday. ‘Has he?’

‘He’s been here all night.’ Ingrid smiled. ‘He loves his old mum.’

‘So do I, Mum. I love you too,’ Amanda said softly, putting her hand on top of Ingrid’s.

‘I know you do, but…’ Her voice trailed off.

‘But what, Mum?’

Ingrid sighed. ‘Her dad.’

‘Whose dad?’ asked Amanda.

Ingrid closed her eyes. ‘Amanda’s dad. I always told her I loved him, but… I never did. I only married him because I was pregnant. He loved me though, and I felt guilty. I was his forever lady, that’s what he used to say.’

‘That’s lovely though, isn’t it?’ said Amanda, feeling her throat clog up because she knew that whatever was coming next wasn’t going to be lovely.

‘I just felt trapped. When he died it was like I was free.’

Amanda had no idea who Ingrid thought she was talking to but she had to know more, even if she didn’t want to. She spoke softly, so as not to break the spell.

She dared the question she must ask. ‘Is that why you didn’t love Amanda?’

‘Aw, I shouldn’t have been like I was with her, I always felt bad. I wanted to, she was a lovely little thing and I know she loves me, she’s ever so good to me… but…’

Ingrid fell silent. The ‘but’ was such a small word but its weight was significant; a key to a door that Amanda did not want to open. But she had to.

She swallowed. ‘But?’

Ingrid sighed, then leaned forward as if to impart a confidence. ‘If the truth be told, I couldn’t stand her being inside me, I just wanted her out.’

Jesus. As mixed up as her mum was, Amanda knew this was true.

‘I didn’t want children. Bradley was another accident, but I felt different with him, from the moment I knew I was carrying him. And when he was born I just felt this… tidal wave of happiness. A little boy, my little boy.’

Amanda dashed the tears from her eyes away with her hands. She willed herself to stay in control, until all the questions sitting inside her were answered.

‘Did you know that Arnold wasn’t very nice to Amanda?’

Ingrid opened her eyes and gave a hard huff of laughter. ‘He only smacked her bum when she was naughty. He would ask me, you know. He’d say she was giving him cheek and I’d say well, you’re the man of the house, you sort it.’

Amanda could still feel the heat of the indignity, of that wiry little man with the pincer-like grip grabbing her arm, forcing her over his knee, yanking down her knickers, the smart of his slaps. She’d never known that Ingrid had not so much stopped him as encouraged it.

‘She spoilt it. Arnold left me because he couldn’t stand her. It scared him being near children again after what she was saying about him, he didn’t even want to be with his own son because of her. We were all right. I liked his company, but he said it was her or me. I thought about putting her in a home at one point. Do you remember me saying that to you? You said, you can’t do that, Ingrid, what’ll folk say? So I had no choice, did I? I gave him some money to buy the shop, you know, the money that her dad had left for her. I thought that was only fair after what she’d done to him. And he did well with that shop, never missed paying me maintenance for Bradley.’

Amanda felt sick.

‘But you didn’t give him Fred’s box under the carpet? Were you saving that for Amanda?’

Please, please, mum, say yes.

‘Oh, is that where it is. I couldn’t remember where I’d put it. Oh I am glad you’ve found it.’ Ingrid was overjoyed as she looked into her daughter’s eyes but saw someone else. ‘I’ve been saving it all these years for Bradley for when I’m gone. I wish I could be around to see his face. You will tell him where to find it, won’t you? Promise me.’

‘Yes, I promise,’ said Amanda, sad, defeated, broken. ‘I will.’