Chapter 4
FOUR
Bren wakes in his old single bed and takes a long, slow-motion moment to remember where he is. Textured wallpaper. Floral smell.
Home. Actual home.
Teenage bedspread, hockey trophies, radiators-on-all-year-round home in the middle of an English village in Hertfordshire, county of opportunity, whatever that means; dehydrated, jet-lagged, several beers and two surprise greetings down.
He breathes out. Rubs his eyes with one hand.
Looks at the old posters stuck to his wall of places that, oddly, he still hasn’t been.
Mount Fuji, Lake Louise, the Teotihuacán Pyramids.
Clichés he never actually got around to visiting because he got caught up living and working in normal places, because living and working, it turns out, are two things you need to do wherever you are.
Doing abnormal things, sometimes, sure, as a part of his poorly paid, richly rewarding day job.
Kayaking through gorges or abseiling down rock faces.
Coaching someone to jump from a canyon into the pool below, it is canyoning, after all, they did pay to do it, they can turn around and go back if they want but that’s not such a good story, is it, fear just means you’re alive, and do you want to live, really live, or do you want to get back in the minibus with dry feet because we can, if you want to, but I don’t reckon that is what you want, is it, so let’s do this.
Screams, then, from fully grown men as they jump or soar or reach the summit.
So much of that, in his line of work. Tears, too, and elation.
Pulling pints, as well, between the more seasonal work, doing whatever he needed to make rent and buy his next plane ticket.
Settling for months, even years at a time, before going again, because he could.
Because he wanted to. Because there was nothing to stay for.
And now here he is, back in his childhood bedroom, looking again at these posters. Surprised to be here. Surprised, too, that the Blu-tack has held firm.
There are muffled noises from downstairs; it’s less surprising that he is attuned to his mother’s movements, still, to the layout of this house.
Fridge door opened, whoosh of gas for the frying pan.
Everything else, though, is silent, as it so often was in this cramped cottage in the middle of nowhere.
Surrounded by farmers’ fields, so much mud and grass, miles from town, from school, from his friends.
Most of them, anyway.
Bren rolls over, then, faces Nora’s old room on the other side of the wall.
Thinks about the moment she saw it was him on her doorstep last night.
The shock on her face, which didn’t fade; didn’t turn to surprise, or delight.
Something else, too, he thinks, like sadness.
Which troubled him more than he’d let on.
Meant he didn’t know how to approach her, afterwards; couldn’t forgive her, either, when she herself couldn’t seem to move past it even when he stayed behind, was looking for a sponge or a dishcloth to help her clear up, thought talking to her in the late-night hours might be a better time for a discussion, a proper hello.
There’s something about kitchens, he’s learned, after years of communal living, the excuse to be doing something with your hands that makes them a good place to start talking.
Not that they ever stopped, really.
Which meant he’d thought she’d be happy to see him, at least.
Didn’t know how to handle it, when she wasn’t.
Still. New day and all. He sits up, pulls some joggers out of his bag, gets dressed.
Readjusts his St Christopher medallion, which always twists to the back when he sleeps, then follows the smell of frying sausages, ignoring the family photographs mounted on the walls as he descends the stairs.
Pink carpet, soft as moss, then outside the kitchen, he pauses.
He has never known how to talk to her, this mother of his.
Best to keep it brief. Jovial.
Good mooooorning, Mother Hen, he says in the voice of Robin Williams as he walks through the door.
She turns and beams at him, her floral apron tied over her dress.
Such love in her eyes, for the film he’s referenced, perhaps, because he remembered it’s one of her favourites; or because it’s him, maybe, because he came home.
Because she got to hold him at two in the morning in the driveway and didn’t shed a single tear or say a single word except his name, like she knew this moment would come, like she’d been patient and rewarded but any emotion around this situation had dried up long ago.
A lump, hard and painful, in Bren’s own throat, when she’d suggested bed, for the both of them, soon afterwards.
Twelve years passed, without seeing each other, but come on now, lights out.
Routine was always a vital component of her existence; television until midnight, word searches and warm cocoa until the early hours, sleeping through until six.
She only needs four hours, a side effect of the pills or, Bren has long suspected, of never leaving the house.
Never tiring herself out enough to require proper rest.
How did you sleep, sweetheart, she asks him.
Like the dead, he says. It’s the jet lag.
His mother nods, her pale blue eyes not leaving his face. She’s aged considerably since he’s been away; her hair is colourless, almost transparent, lines crinkled across her neck.
Always best to soldier through, he says, when she does not ask him anything else.
My seasoned traveller, she says.
Perfectly salt and peppered, he says, which she doesn’t understand, at first; takes a beat before she gives her low, bellowing laugh, a sound that has never suited her but he likes, all the same. Good sign. She returns to the frying pan, turns the spitting sausages with a pair of tongs.
I can do that, Bren says, but she says don’t be silly, pet. Why don’t you go on into the dining room, I’ll bring it through.
The dining room, with its patterned carpet and even more family photographs; the window that looks out onto the gravel driveway that Bren does not like to think about.
I’m good, he says, I can help.
I don’t need help, sweetheart, she says with her back to him, and it is his turn to nod, at that. At the pointed, pleasant nature of that sentence; you’ve been away, but I’m fine, he thinks she’s implying; see here, just how fine I am.
It is a mild morning, almost March. She’s opened the window to let out the sausage smell, and he hauls himself onto the kitchen counter like he used to, the cool air like breath on his back.
Finds, as ever, that he can’t sit still.
He slumps back to the floor, turns to the fridge and pulls out butter and ketchup and milk, all in the same places as before.
Only a few changes, he notes. Almond milk, now, in the door. Low-cholesterol margarine.
I couldn’t sleep, Josie tells him, out of nowhere. The kettle boils and, thrilled for something to do, Bren pours the hot water into the two teacups she’s laid out on saucers.
Oh, no? How come?
I was too excited, she says. Let it steep, for a minute or two, pet, before you add the milk.
Bren pauses in unscrewing the lid, says oh, sure.
I just lay there all night, she goes on. Couldn’t wait for morning.
And yet we went to bed ten minutes after my arrival, he thinks, but does not say. Old confusion, like a knot in his stomach.
His mother has turned back to the sausages now. Bren swallows, says ah, that’s nice. Thinking, this changes nothing. This sentiment expressed in this kitchen: it’ll change nothing.
She butters his bread for him like he’s a child.
Squirts ketchup on the side of his plate.
He finishes making the tea – gets it wrong, probably, too much or not enough milk – and they carry it all through to the dining room, same table, same upholstered chairs.
Bren does not look at the one at the head of the table as he sits, takes the napkin his mother hands him and tucks it into his neckline, for jokes.
Meat juice, sweet tang of sauce. Josie watching him as he eats, as if awaiting his review.
Delicious, he tells her, and she beams again. You not having one?
Oh, no. I had my porridge, first thing.
Water and salt?
You remember!
Course, he says. She tells him she has it with a drop of almond milk, now, though.
Good for her gut health, apparently. Although Freya is aghast because of the air miles, importing all the almonds.
It’s impossible to get organic ones from Europe, so if she asks, don’t tell her, all right?
As far as Freya knows, it’s just water and salt, like before.
I’ve not even seen Freya to say hi yet, Bren says, thinking of Nora’s mad-haired mother; the way she’d let him spend hours next door, when his own mother was frantic, or else not speaking – existing, as though he didn’t.
But if and when the topic of almond milk arises?
he ventures. Your secret is safe with me.
Josie doesn’t chuckle at this, like he’d hoped; just nods, blows on her tea.
The clock thunks loudly, a wooden grandfather clock that had, in fact, belonged to his mother’s grandfather.
Muscle memory of meals spent at this table, scanning for something, anything, to say.
She has not asked him about his travels, or his flight, his life or his heart or his reasons for being home, after all this time.
Which would’ve hurt, when he was younger.
The lack of questions about school or his friends or his feelings.
Not now, though. Nope. Another bite of his sandwich.
Thick swallow of bread. Long drink of his hot tea, eyes down on the tablecloth, which is starched. Pristine.
So, Josie says. How was Nora’s last night?
Small cough, then, caught in his throat.