Chapter 48
My mum dips a chip into the runny yolk of a fried egg. It explodes on the first poke, sending yellow droplets spitting out over the table. It’s a meal that always reminds me of my childhood. I think it’s the only meal my mum knows how to make, that and alphabet spaghetti.
‘Out with it,’ she says.
I place a few chips on a half slice of bread and butter and fold it over, taking a big bite. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Don’t talk with your mouth full, I taught you better than that. Look at you, you’ve got a right cob on you.’ She opens her mouth wide flashing the silver of her fillings before shovelling three chips in her gob.
I cover my mouth with my hand as I chew. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘Is it buggery. I know you.’ She puts down her knife and fork, takes a tissue out of her oversized fake designer handbag and spits on it to dampen, then attacks me with it. ‘Come here, you’ve got ketchup all over your chin.’
‘Get off.’
She puts the tissue down and I wipe my beard with my sleeve.
‘Suit yourself.’
The kitchen sink overspills with pots and pans. Mum has used every utensil to cook the simple meal she insisted making. An empty bottle of cooking oil lays on its side next to the sink while potato peel litters the floor.
‘Mum, what are you doing here?’
‘Does it have to be Christmas for me to want to see my son?’
‘No, but it’s normally Easter you visit.’
She pulls back a strand of her hair which has fallen over her face like she’s opening a pair of curtains. It reveals deep creases across her forehead which she’s tried to conceal with a cheap foundation.
‘I thought you might need cheering up.’
‘How do you know I need cheering up?’ I don’t wait for a response; I shout through to the front room. ‘Soumia!’
Looking sheepish, Soumia pops her head into the kitchen. ‘I’ll be upstairs if you need me.’ She scuttles off down the hallway.
Mum licks egg yolk from one of her fingers, then grabs her plate and knife and fork and drops them in the sink.
Her black tights can’t disguise her skinny legs; they’re like thin scaffolding poles holding up a body.
Her two-piece skirt and blouse, black and white like a chess board, is faded, like her features, with age. ‘
You still being good?’ She asks.
I dip a final chip in a squirt of ketchup whilst I contemplate an answer.
‘Don’t think about lying to me, Callum Moore. I always know when you’ve been at the biscuit tin without asking.’
‘Liam came back.’
‘I never liked him. Eyes like a Pit Bull, just like your father. Bloody hell, it’s cold in here.’ She reaches up to the window above the sink and closes it. She opened it 45 minutes earlier after complaining she was too hot. ‘Did you take him back?’
‘No. But I hurt someone else by believing him.’
She comes and sits back down at the table and grabs my hand, the big plastic beads around her wrist make a din as they crash against the wood.
‘Don’t you go blaming yourself for anything, do you ‘ear me? You’re a good ’un you are, Callum, in here.
’ Her smokers’ fingers tap my chest. ‘Heart of gold. I should know, I made you.’
‘I’ve been selfish.’
‘You boy, are not selfish. When Gareth Connelly dropped his ice-cream on the pavement and bawled his eyes out you gave him your screwball.’
‘Who’s Gareth Connelly?’
‘The lad from across the road. You were five and he were three. His mum had an eye patch, but that’s not the point. Have you finished?’ She points at my plate and scoops it up before I have the chance to nod. She drops it on top of hers in the sink.
I don’t think anyone sets out to be selfish, at least I know I didn’t.
Yes, I went a bit crazy in New York and got so pissed that Ivy covered for me and I let the whole crew down.
Yes, I was too wrapped up in my own drama that I didn’t see how hurt Olly was when Liam sent me the picture.
Yes, I didn’t check in on Soumia after that shit house McBride told everyone she was an easy shag.
And yes, I wasn’t immediately there for her after she was attacked by a piece of scum on board, but I genuinely didn’t mean to be selfish.
‘I messed up.’
My mum has her back to me now as she turns the tap on and begins to attack the greasy plates with a soapy cloth.
‘Everyone messes up. I know that more than most. Some things I’ve done are unforgivable.’ She’s talking to her reflection in the steamed-up window.
I’ve never seen this side to my mum before. Brash, yes; reflective, never. She’s someone that speeds through life and doesn’t look back, the debris of a hurricane in her wake.
‘Mum, I never blamed you for leaving.’ I mean it.
She drops the plate she’s been scrubbing back into the sink then turns to me and reaches out a wet hand to take mine.
‘Then who did you blame?’
I’m back inside that first cupboard I climbed into, hiding away from the violence. If I could have made my dad stop, she might have stayed.
‘Me.’
‘Ssshhh. You silly sod. Nothing was your fault. When your dad did… when he did those things,’ she smiles, ‘you were my light. A big sunshine amongst all the shit. I thought about you every day.’
I gulp. ‘Why didn’t you come back for me?’
She reaches into her handbag. ‘Can I smoke?’
‘Not inside.’
She opens the back door, taps her cigarette box three times, lights one, then inhales so much the paper burns down a third.
‘I didn’t know how to look after a child, son.
I could barely look after myself. I ran from one disaster to the next.
’ She cups a hand to form a makeshift ash tray.
‘But I didn’t leave you behind, not really.
You can’t run away from the love of your life, and you were always mine.
I couldn’t escape you if I wanted to. If you weren’t in here,’ she taps her head, ‘you were in here,’ she points at her heart.
She takes another drag, finishing the cigarette all the way down to the tab. She stumps it out on the brickwork, then opens the pedal bin with her stiletto and drops the smelly ash into it.
‘I’ll let you into a secret though: I knew you were strong enough back then to cope with whatever the world could throw at you. Even with parents like me and your dad you were still the brightest boy in the school.’
My voice breaks, my eyes flood like a dam burst open. ‘I’m scared, Mum. I’m always scared.’
I’m four years old and I’m sat at the top of the stairs with my Thomas the Tank Engine pyjamas on, waiting for my dad to come back in from the pub.
I’m trying to guess if tonight he’ll be the sort of drunk who sings one of his favourite Simon and Garfunkel songs, or the drunk man who’ll come into my room and shake my shoulders to wake me and tell me how a dad like him deserves a better son.
I’m ten years old and I’m sat inside a cupboard listening to plates being smashed downstairs, praying that my mum will come home to get me soon.
I’m fourteen years old and I know I’m not like the other boys and I’m terrified of anyone finding out that I don’t like girls.
I’m hiding from Paul Bracegirdle and his fists and his shouts of “faggot” on the way home from school.
I’m nineteen and wondering if I’ve been to the soup kitchen enough this Christmas to be good, scared of having to ever tell my mum that I wasn’t quite good enough.
I’m twenty-five and moving to London, sat on the coach with no one to wave me off from the station, scared of not being able to make it on my own in the big smoke.
I’m thirty-six and I’m watching Liam walk out the door, knowing I’m not loveable and scared to face the rest of my life completely alone.
‘Life is scary, but I know whatever it was that led you here, you weren’t being selfish. You don’t have it in you. You were surviving. You, son, are a lover, never a fighter.’ She kisses my forehead then wipes the lipstick mark she’s left behind away with her fingers.
‘I love you, mum.’ Even with all her faults.
‘Of course you do. You don’t have it in you to hate anyone.’
‘I don’t think I know how to trust either. I’ve blown it.’
She walks back over to the sink, her stiff upper lift returning, and plunges her hands into the bowl to fish for cutlery.
‘You can’t change the past; Lord knows I’ve tried. I’d give my left tit to go back and change things.’
‘Mum!’
‘What? It’s my good one.’ She looks down left and right, giving her breasts the quick once over. ‘You can only change the now.’
‘It’s not that easy.’
‘Don’t be so dramatic. Is he worth it, this what’s-he-called?’
‘Olly.’
‘Well, is he?’
‘Yes, mum. I think he is.’
‘Why? Why is he worth my beautiful son?’
‘He’s kind. He has the cheekiest smile. He loves prawn cocktail crisps, and he always wins at Mario Kart and doesn’t even cheat. He looks after his brother and his mum. I think you’d like him.’
‘I like anyone who can make your face light up like that.’
I feel my cheeks flush. ‘He’s great in bed, too.’
‘Well then, he’s definitely worth fighting for.’ Mum says, laughing. ‘There’s nothing in this world that can’t be fixed. Do you hear me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then what are you going to do about it?’
‘Flowers?’
‘Flowers? No chance. What you need is a big gesture.’
My mind takes me back to Blackpool.
‘Oh, and Callum.’
‘Yes.’
‘Can I lend a tenner?’