Chapter 6 Jacob
Jacob
On Saturday, one of Jacob’s days off from the tea room, he took his bicycle and rode out to his mother’s place on the outskirts of Brentwell.
In the middle of a pretty terrace of five former council houses down a side road off the main route from Brentwell to Exeter, it was nevertheless a step down from the beautiful house out in the country in which Jacob had grown up.
Julie Black, his mother, was out in the small front garden, raking the leaves that had blown across from the line of tall oaks that bordered a neighbouring field.
Jacob smiled as he always did when he saw his mother, but couldn’t shake the familiar feeling of regret that things hadn’t turned out differently.
Barely sixty, her hair was already three-quarters grey, her face prematurely lined.
Shoulders hunched to pull weeds out from beneath the green mounds of her hydrangeas, the flowers now gone, the tips pruned, when she stood up she remained a little hunched as though the weight of the sky were too much to bear.
When she smiled though, the woman who had used to race a six-year-old Jacob to the school bus stop at the end of their old lane was still there, a hint of gold hidden inside tarnished, faded packaging.
‘Ah, there’s my boy.’ She rubbed her back, then looked at his mode of transport and cocked her head, frowning. ‘Haven’t you got rid of that bike yet?’
His mother’s old bike, complete with a wire basket at the front, took its fair share of whistles, jibes and laughter, particularly around the time kids were walking home from school.
For Jacob, who refused to buy a car simply because he preferred the open air, one truth was that it was convenient for deliveries, even though Marjorie had offered several times to upgrade him to a moped on the company account.
The other truth, the more important one, was that he still rode it in honour of his mother, and of her better days, years after her disability left her unable to ride.
‘I could never get rid of it,’ he said with a smile. ‘Something about the lilac frame that inspires me.’
‘You could just repaint it.’
‘Oh, I have done. Twice. The same colour.’
Julie studied his face, the cool December sun filling every line of hers. The years had not been kind to his mother. Jacob reached forward, gently pulling her into a hug.
‘My wonderful boy,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I just wish you’d get on and give me some grandchildren, before I’m too old to play with them.’
‘I’m only thirty,’ he said. ‘There’s still time.’
‘For you, maybe. Not sure how long before I’ll be in a wheelchair.
’ She sighed. ‘Are there any love children hiding away somewhere?’ she said, patting him on the arm.
‘A good-looking lad like you, I don’t know why women aren’t falling over you.
You know I always told you to sow your oats while you had the chance.
When you get to my age, you’ll wish you’d played the field a little more. ’
‘Mum, please,’ Jacob said, blushing. As a teenager, her words would have horrified him, but he was used to them by now.
‘Look, let’s not talk about my non-existent love life and instead talk about your other favourite thing.
’ He reached into the bicycle basket and lifted out a paper bag.
‘I bring gifts from Aunt Marjorie. Scones.’
Julie clapped her hands together. ‘Oh, goody. What’s my sister laced them with this time?’
‘Maple syrup and walnuts.’
‘My God, has she really?’
‘I tested one for breakfast. They’re something else.’
‘Let’s get inside then before they get too cold.’
Cramped and cluttered, the results of a major downsize, the little terrace was nevertheless cozy and comfortable.
Julie, who had been a nurse before her back injury had left her officially disabled, was the most organised person Jacob knew, even though it didn’t look like it, with cupboards and bookshelves turning the narrow hallway into a precarious squeeze, and reminding Jacob to take it easy with Aunt Marjorie’s scones.
Julie’s kitchen looked out over a narrow strip of neat garden that backed onto a field.
With a little pond and several flowerbeds which Jacob had built, a manicured lawn and a patio large enough for a couple of deckchairs, it was pleasant and peaceful.
The neighbours on either side were kind and good friends to his mother, and the whole terrace regularly took part in casual local events, meaning his mother still had a decent friend group.
Even so, Jacob worried constantly, and no matter how busy he was, he made sure he stopped by at least once a week.
Julie made a pot of tea then took some plates out of the cupboard. She warmed the scones up in a microwave and served out some jam and cream.
‘I’m not sure if these will go with the usuals, but we’ll try,’ she said, slicing one of the scones down the middle, filling the room with a sweet but nutty aroma. ‘These are a bit autumnal, aren’t they?’
‘She’s using up the old ingredients,’ Jacob said.
‘She’s probably onto the Christmas batches as we speak.
Scones topped with icing, filled with cinnamon and ginger.
Last week she tried to make this castella cake, marbled with the shape of a robin, but it just looked like a splodge of red and green paint. Tasted divine, though.’
‘I’d love to come down and see her over Christmas,’ Julie said.
‘I’ll come and pick you up. She’s planning to have the usual Christmas party on the 21st of December. You’ll definitely have to come for that.’
Julie sighed. ‘I do so miss getting out and about,’ she said. ‘I only get about half an hour before the pain gets too much, though. And when you dose yourself up on painkillers, you can’t have so much fun.’
Jacob squeezed his mother’s shoulder, then leaned his head against hers. Her pain felt like his pain, sometimes. He wished that when he left, he could take it with him.
‘Are there any jobs that need doing while I’m here?’
Julie grinned. ‘Well, since you ask … the pond needs a bit of a mucking out, but not too much as I think there might be frogs in there. And the drainpipe beside the bedroom window has come loose and rattles when it’s windy.’
‘Are you getting plenty of sleep?’
Julie lifted an eyebrow. ‘Which one of us is the mother here? I should be asking you that.’
‘I’m just trying to look out for you.’ He paused, took a sip of his tea, figuring he might as well bring up what was mostly on his mind. ‘Has … he … contacted you yet?’
‘The Lord Jesus Christ? To ask which plot I’d like in the churchyard?’
At her smile, Jacob couldn’t help smiling back. ‘No, the one who thinks he is.’
‘Oh, your stepbrother?’
‘Yes.’
‘After you called me the other day, I’ve been keeping an eye on my phone for any unfamiliar numbers or messages.
There was a nice chap from Bangladesh who needed to talk about the release fee on his army general uncle’s multimillion dollar fortune that’s apparently been left to me, but otherwise none of note.
’ She took a bite of her scone, wiped a crumb off her chin, and added, ‘You don’t really think he’d contact me, do you? ’
‘I’m more worried about him showing up here and hassling you.’
‘There’s nothing I have that he could possibly want.’
‘You know that’s not what he thinks. After the fire … he thinks you hoarded what was left. That you’re keeping it hidden somewhere.’
‘I wish I was. Does he think I’d be living here if I had all his father’s hidden money?’
‘He doesn’t live in the real world. Not as we know it, at any rate. Who knows what he thinks?’
Julie finished her scone and stood up, wincing a little. ‘Perhaps I’d better get the ladder out, get you up fixing that drainpipe. I really don’t want to talk about James or Bill, I’m afraid.’
Jacob nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’
They went out into the garden, Jacob taking over as Julie stumbled towards the shed, grimly in denial of her chronic back problems. In the end, she settled for perching on the edge of a flowerbed wall and giving instructions, while Jacob climbed the ladder and tightened the screws securing the loose section of drainpipe to the wall.
‘You know, if you really wanted to make me happy, you could come back and live with me,’ Julie said. ‘Your room’s always there if you want it.’
‘I know, Mum. If they put my rent up again, I’ll think about it. I’ll come and stay over Christmas for sure.’
What his mother considered to be Jacob’s room was a closet-sized second bedroom at the top of the stairs. That he was aware, there wasn’t even a bed in it, just a pile of boxes of his mother’s old things, still waiting, years after her move, to be sorted through.
‘It would be nice to have you around more,’ Julie said. ‘Sometimes … I even wish Colin were still here. I know what he did and everything, but I didn’t know that until after. The man I thought I knew … he was a good man.’
Very little made Jacob angry, but thinking of his dead stepfather made him seethe. He stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets, clenching his fists tight, waiting for his heart to stop racing.
‘I tell you what,’ he said, trying to lighten the mood. ‘You put on the kettle, and I’ll get the box of Christmas things down from upstairs. Then we can set up the tree together. You know like we used to do when I was a kid.’
Julie sniffed. ‘That would be lovely.’