Chapter 30 #2
‘Ron.’ The arms. The hug. She’s smaller than I remember.
Every time. I haven’t seen her since Christmas.
The first visit was the wine and the one chair.
On the phone she said ‘bring them’ and I didn’t, not yet, because the timing wasn’t, because I was scared.
Of what it meant. That if she met Celyn then Celyn was real in the Sunday roast sense.
And once that door opens there’s no going back.
It’s open. Been open since the phone call. The ‘they’ she chose before I asked. The cup of tea she left on the table and never took back.
‘You look thin,’ she says. I’m not thin. I’m the same. Mum says this like breathing.
‘I’m the same, Mum.’
‘You’re thin. Are you eating?’
‘I’m eating.’
‘Is Celyn feeding you up? Because they ought to be.’
‘Mum.’
She pulls back, looks at me. The look, not the assessing one. The other one. The one that sees the kid who broke his arm falling off a wall at nine and didn’t cry until she got to the hospital and then cried for an hour.
Celyn’s at mine. Offered to come to the station and I said no because. I don’t know. Something about needing Mum on home ground first, something about not doing it on a platform with the noise and the crowds and the announcement about the 9:15 to Leeds.
She’s been up before. Last time she had the bed and I took the sofa. This time she rang ahead to offer to book a hotel, not wanting to be in the way now Celyn’s on the scene, and I told her no, don’t be daft, you’re having my bed like before. Me and Celyn’ll go to Celyn’s.
The flat, the stairs.
I put the key in. The door, the hallway. The flat that’s. Ours. What I still think and don’t say and think again.
Celyn’s in the kitchen, the kettle’s on. Of course the kettle’s on and the mugs are out, three mugs, the good ones, not the chipped one, and there’s biscuits on a plate. Actual biscuits, on a plate. Like a person who has their life together, which neither of us does.
Celyn. Today.
The skirt, midi, dark green, the buttons down the front. The cream shirt, the collar open. Eyeliner, soft. A lip tint. The jaw shaved smooth, clean, no stubble today, because it’s my mum this time and Celyn’s dressed for it. Every version. Every time.
Celyn stands. The hands, the violet nails, on the counter behind. Steady, present.
Mum stops.
One second. Two. Mum’s eyes, the same brown as mine, move. Skirt, eyeliner, earring. The whole thing.
Three seconds.
‘You must be Celyn.’ The voice. The warm one. The one she uses at the door when the neighbours bring round a baby. ‘I’m Eileen. The kettle’s on. Good. Sit down, love, I’ll pour.’
She takes the kitchen, in four seconds. The mugs, the kettle, the milk, ‘where’s the milk, Ron, this fridge is a disgrace’, and Celyn sits and I sit and Mum pours and the kitchen is Mum’s now, like every kitchen is Mum’s within ninety seconds of her entering it.
‘Tea,’ she says. Puts the mug in front of Celyn. The mug. The one with the crack that I should’ve hidden.
‘Thank you,’ Celyn says. Voice. Vowels. Mum’s hearing them for the first time.
‘You’re Welsh,’ Mum says. Sits, her mug. The biscuit, she takes one without looking. ‘Where?’
‘Beddgelert. Snowdonia.’
‘Lovely. I went once. It rained for six days and your dad, Sean, fell in a stream.’ She drinks. ‘He deserved it.’
Celyn laughs, the real one. The one that uses the face, the eyes, the hand that comes up to the mouth.
And Mum, Mum watching Celyn laugh. What happens on her face. Not surprise, not adjustment.
‘Ron says you write,’ Mum says. ‘Horror.’
‘Yeah. Well. Literary horror. The kind where nobody believes the house is alive but the sentence structure tells you it is.’
Mum blinks. ‘Right.’
‘Sorry. That’s. I do that. Get technical.’ The mouth tilts. ‘Scary stories. I write scary stories.’
‘He watches scary films,’ Mum says. Meaning me. ‘Has done since he was twelve. Wouldn’t sleep without the landing light on but he wouldn’t stop watching them. Stubborn.’ She looks at me. ‘Gets it from his dad.’
The word, Dad, in the kitchen. Between the mugs and the biscuits. I feel it land, not heavy. Just, there. A stone in a pocket.
‘He told me,’ Celyn says. Quiet. ‘About Sean.’
Mum puts the mug down. The hands, Mum’s hands, the hands that did the tins and the roasts and the tiles and the bills and the ironing, flat on the table.
‘Sean’s not a bad man,’ she says. Factual. The way you’d say the boiler needs fixing. ‘He’s, he grew up a certain way. His dad was worse.’ She stops. ‘He’s trying, love. In his way.’
‘I know,’ Celyn says.
Mum looks at Celyn, really looks, the skirt.
‘She. They.’ The correction. Fast. A gear shift. ‘They’re lovely, Ron.’
Lovely. In Mum’s mouth.
My chest tightens, higher, behind the ribs.
Celyn takes Mum to the Northern Quarter, the bar, the one, the table.
Mum has a half of Guinness because ‘I’m not drinking that Northern Soul nonsense’ and Celyn has the cider and they talk.
They talk for an hour. I sit between them and I don’t say much.
Mum asks about the writing, Celyn asks about Lewisham.
Mum tells the story about Dad and the tiles, the crooked ones, the ones that never got fixed.
Celyn says ‘Ron told me about the tiles’ and Mum says ‘of course he did, he tells everyone about the tiles.’ They both look at me and I’m sat there with the pint going warm in my hand.
Mum with Celyn. How Mum’s body changes, the shoulders come down, the laugh that comes more easily after the second half of Guinness. Her presence with Ewan, with the neighbours, with the woman at the cheese stall.
And Celyn, Celyn’s different with Mum. Softer.
The mouth quicker to give the smile away.
The stories flowing, the restaurant, Catrin, the novel.
Celyn tells Mum about the time the risotto got sent back four times and Mum laughs until the Guinness goes up her nose and Celyn hands her a napkin and says ‘careful, Mrs Carrick’ and Mum says ‘oh call me Eileen, none of this Mrs Carrick nonsense’ and I’m falling deeper.
I’m sat at the table where everything started. The corner table, the laptop table. The table where I sat and watched a stranger type for thirty minutes and didn’t know what was happening. Mum’s here, Celyn’s here, the bar’s the bar. The beer’s the same beer.
The toilet. Mum pulls me aside on the way back, the corridor by the loos, the sticky carpet and the hand dryer that doesn’t work.
‘She-they’ Mum waves the hand. The Eileen wave, the one that means: you know what I mean. ‘They’re not what I expected.’
‘What’d you expect?’
‘I don’t know, love. Something. Difficult. You sounded so scared on the phone. I thought something was wrong.’ She stops. The hands on my arms. The grip. Strong. ‘I thought you were in trouble.’
‘I’m not in trouble.’
‘I can see that.’ The eyes. Wet. Mum doesn’t cry in corridors. But wet. ‘I can see that, Ron.’
She pulls me, the hug, the arms. The coat that’s too warm for May. The smell, the Eileen smell, the washing powder and the kitchen and what’s underneath, just her, just Mum, the first smell I ever knew.
‘I’m ok,’ I say. Into the coat.
‘I know, love.’ The arms tighter. The voice in my hair. ‘Both of you.’
Both of you.
The same words, Sean’s words. In the Lewisham living room with the football and the half-finished can. Both of you, like a disease. Like a thing that happened to him.
And Mum’s words. In a corridor with the sticky carpet and the broken hand dryer. Both of you, like a fact she’s known longer than I have.
Same phrase, two parents, worlds apart.
I hold Mum, the coat, the arms. The tapestry bag and the biscuits on a plate and the she-they correction and the half of Guinness and the woman who never let go.
‘Right,’ Mum says. Pulls back. Wipes nothing from the eye. ‘Right. Another half. And tell Celyn I want that pasta recipe off them.’
She turns, then stops. The Eileen stop, the one that looks casual and isn’t.
‘Oh. Your dad rang Ewan.’
The corridor. The sticky carpet. The hand dryer.
‘When.’
‘Week before last. About the—Ewan’s got a paper coming out in some journal.
Your dad found it online.’ She adjusts the bag on her shoulder.
The gesture that means: this is a small thing I’m telling you, don’t make it big.
‘Forty seconds, Ewan said. Maybe a minute. He asked about the research. Said he’d read the abstract.
’ A pause. ‘Ewan said he didn’t know what an abstract was. But he’d read it.’
Sean Carrick. Sat in the flat above the bookmakers. Googling his son’s name. Finding a journal article full of words he doesn’t understand. Reading the abstract, whatever he thinks an abstract is. Picking up the phone.
‘How was Ewan.’
‘You know Ewan.’ Mum’s voice. Steady. The steadiness that costs. ‘Said it was fine. Said he doesn’t need me to report on it.’ The mouth tightens. ‘He cried after. Laurence told me. Don’t tell Ewan I said that.’
I won’t.
She goes back to the table. The sticky carpet doesn’t stick when you’re walking towards something you want. The hand dryer in the corner doesn’t sound broken anymore. I stand in the corridor and I think about Dad in the flat. The laptop. A search bar with his son’s name in it.
That first call, eight months in, was the football: “you seeing this,” United going down, gone before it meant anything. Safe ground. This one’s different. This one he had to go and find. A pattern. Two data points make a line, Ewan would say. The line’s not straight. But it exists.
Fourteen months ago I sat at Mum’s table and she made roast and poured tea and asked me how work was going and I said ‘good’ and she said ‘and Ewan?’ and I said ‘good’ and she watched me lie with my whole body and she didn’t push.
Just let me sit there eating roast and drinking tea and being someone she loved who wasn’t ready.
Now she’s in the corridor with the broken hand dryer and she’s asking about pasta.