Chapter 20
We get back from the restaurant around nine, stuffed full of pizza and pasta.
Sadie had seemed a little quiet over dinner, but I decided not to push it. She was probably just tired. If she wanted to talk, she would. Sometimes you need to let them ease it out on their own.
I crack open another beer, and we slump on the sofa to watch TV for a while. It’s the first time we’ve used the giant flatscreen and, annoyingly, half the channels seem to be missing. The remaining ones are only showing re-runs. I add ‘broadband’ to my mental list of things to call people about.
‘Oh, look.’ Sadie points at the screen. ‘Frasier. The one with the platinum door. This is a good one.’
We settle companionably to enjoy Niles and Frasier’s fruitless quest for greater exclusivity at the secret spa.
After it finishes Sadie heads up to bed.
I flick through the available TV channels and think about opening another beer (my fourth).
I decide against it. I don’t want it becoming a habit.
Two beers creep to three. Four to five, and before you know it, you’re driving round four different shops every night to buy alcohol because you don’t want the cashier at your local corner shop to think you’re a lush.
I click off the TV, stand and stretch. Things click and creak.
That happens once you pass forty. Your middle-age percussion section.
I check the time: 10.15 p.m. I realize I feel a little tense.
This was the time I saw Arnie before. I wander to the sliding doors, unlatch them and peer outside.
The pool glows and outdoor lights illuminate the patio.
It’s empty for now. Distantly, some unidentifiable bird or creature yowls.
I jump. Everything here is strange, I think.
Strange and unusual. I pull the doors closed.
I don’t feel quite ready for bed, but I need something to distract me from the lure of the beer in the fridge.
I could make a coffee, I suppose, but more caffeine probably isn’t a good idea either.
I wander out into the hall and stare around aimlessly.
It occurs to me that there are two more rooms off this gigantic space we haven’t even used yet.
Once again, I wonder how and why Mum bought this house.
I went through piles of her old documents before we moved.
Mum kept everything. Bank statements going back two decades, council tax bills, piles of receipts, warranties and official letters, but nothing about a mansion in Florida.
I understand that all the legal documents were kept by the solicitors, but surely there would be something?
My eyes fall on the unpacked boxes. There’s only one box of Mum’s stuff that I haven’t sorted through yet.
Sealed with yellowing Sellotape and labelled: Photos and Memories.
I didn’t have the heart to look through it after she died.
But I brought it here in case there’s anything that can explain this.
Fuck it. No time like the present. Which is a stupid saying. There are plenty of times like the present, better than the present, even. Procrastination is an underrated skill. But right now, it’s this or beer. And I choose this.
I find the box right at the back of the pile.
I pick it up and take it over to the dining table.
It feels light, insubstantial. A whole life lived.
Eighty-three years, and yet all the important stuff can be fitted into one small, battered box.
The sum of our lives is always far smaller than we care to admit.
But then, I guess the real important stuff isn’t what we save in boxes, it’s what we leave in the hearts of others; in love given and missed.
I feel a sudden stab of grief. One I haven’t felt since we arrived here. Mum. All those years, everything she did for me and Sadie, and yet, all those years she kept a secret. And I can’t ask her about it.
There are lots of stages of grieving, and some are predictable: the feeling of loss, the guilt, the confrontation with your own mortality, especially when you lose a parent.
You’ve moved up the ladder. Your number is a little closer to being called.
Time is a slippery little fucker. It passes you by and catches up with you all at once.
The other stages are more random. Grief is a long-term guest. It doesn’t magically go away.
It just manifests in different ways. Several times a day I think of something I would like to tell Mum or ask her.
Questions I never asked when she was alive and now will never know the answers to.
Small things like how did I get the small scar on my head?
Bigger ones like why did Dad leave? And then this one huge thing.
I rip off the Sellotape (which long ago lost it potency and seems to be holding the box together by sheer willpower) and pull back the flaps.
Inside, I find birthday and Christmas cards from me and Sadie, a key ring I must have made for Mum at school, a badly malformed pottery owl that I guess Sadie made in primary.
There’s other stuff too – Mother’s Day cards, a few badly drawn pictures.
A lump rises in my throat. Tears burn behind my eyes.
I put the mementos to one side and rub at my face. Fuck.
I pick up a worn envelope and open it. Photographs. I hesitate, then tip them out. They’re old, some are black and white, some that yellow-tinged colour I instantly associate with childhood if, like me, you were born in the seventies.
I flick through, starting with the black-and-white ones.
I presume these must be old photos of mum’s family.
I don’t recognize any of these people. I suppose that’s only to be expected.
Mum’s family all died young. I had one gran, who we lived with until she died when I was ten.
These dark-haired boys and girls in their post-war clothing are desperately unfamiliar to me.
The same goes for the slightly stern-looking adults.
I guess there wasn’t much time for humour or frivolities after five long, hard years of war.
Life was something tough and merciless that you just had to get through.
I put the loose photos down and come to a framed photograph.
A wedding photo. A skinny dark-haired man in a suit with flared trousers smiles nervously next to a glamorous woman with long dark hair and a seventies maxi dress.
My parents. They look so young and hopeful.
All the future ahead of them. And yet … just eight years after this, my dad walked out.
Unlike Nat, he packed a case and left a note.
I can’t do this. Mum never heard from him again.
Nor did I. Not a birthday card or Christmas present.
He just disappeared from our lives. I was only a few months old.
And that’s when it strikes me. My dad left in 1979.
The same year Mum acquired the house in Serenity Falls.
I mean, it might just be a coincidence. But could there be a connection?
Something else catches my eye. Maybe because it’s out of place in this box of memories.
It’s a business card. I reach in and pick it up.
It’s a deep, midnight-blue. Closing Time is etched on the front in silver writing and, beneath this, a picture of a clock face fashioned as a skull.
It looks like a card for a trendy bar or private members club.
I frown. I’m pretty sure my mum wasn’t the type to hang out in late-night bars in the city.
The only pub she ever visited was the Harvester and the strongest thing I ever saw her drink was a small sherry at Christmas.
But then, Mum worked a few jobs when I was little.
Even before I was born, she was the main wage earner after Dad lost his job.
I seem to recall her saying she waitressed.
Could she have waitressed here? I suppose it’s possible.
The card feels old, a little soft. I flip it over to see if there’s an address on the back.
There isn’t, but there is more writing: Enjoy the hour. It’s later than you think.
Where have I seen that quote before? Then I remember.
On Harold Winsom’s statue in the town square.
I tap the card against my chin, staring at the abstract picture on the wall opposite.
The vortex of colours seems like it’s moving, swirling around hypnotically.
I wince at a sudden sharp pain in the side of my head.
What the hell? It comes again. A shooting pain in my forehead.
So severe this time I bend double and my hand flies out to clutch the tabletop, knocking the paperwork and photos to the floor.
I remain bent over for a moment, breathing deeply, scared I might throw up.
Gradually, the pain in my head subsides.
I straighten and take a few more deep breaths.
Tentatively, I rub my head. It feels okay but a little tender.
Maybe some kind of migraine attack. Nothing to panic about.
If it happens again, I’ll call a doctor.
I start to pick up the paperwork and photos.
I realize I can feel something damp above my lip.
I raise a hand and wipe it. Then I glance down.
My fingers are smeared with bright red blood.
Shit. I start to walk over to the sink to grab a tissue.
Something stops me. A wave of dizziness.
My legs give and I sit down on the sofa.
I can’t move. I’m suddenly ridiculously exhausted.
I glance blearily at the clock. The minute hand ticks over to eleven.
Everything goes black.