“Luke!”
It was starting to get dark already, you could see the street lights clearly. Shapes of the cars parked on either side beginning to blur. She hated it when the nights started drawing in so fast.
“Luke!”
She’d told him, she’d told him half-a-dozen times if she’d told him once: back indoors by half-past four. What if I don’t know the time, he’d said? What do you think that watch is for? It’s bust. What do you mean, it’s bust? It won’t work any more. Look. Then ask somebody. You’ve got a tongue in your head, haven’t you?
Oh, Christ!
She rocked back against the edge of the open door. She shouldn’t…that wasn’t…what was she doing, telling him to go up to some stranger and ask the time? Telling him. All the air seemed to be sucked from her body. Her stomach cramped. Skin was cold to the touch. Goose pimples. Telling him. Please, can you tell me…can you tell me…can you tell me the time?
Pictures formed at the backs of her eyes and wouldn’t go away.
“Mummy. Mummy! What’s the matter?”
She forced herself to breathe, to smile at four-year-old Sarah pulling at the side of her skirt.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. It’s nothing. Come and have your tea.”
“Luke’s not here.”
Pushing the child through to the back room. “That’s all right. We don’t have to wait. You can have yours now. Luke eats twice as fast as you do anyway. He’ll soon catch up.”
“Mummy…”
She sat the child down in front of a plate, bread and butter cut, spaghetti hoops on the stove, bubbling up the sides of the pan. Six fish fingers under the grill, two for Sarah and…
Mary’s legs went at the knees, a moment, nothing more, enough to spill her across the narrow room; her hand, catching out, catching at anything, caught the handle of the kettle and sent it clattering across the floor.
Water pooled about her feet, luke warm.
She was at the sink, squeezing out a cloth before she realized that Sarah was pressed against the door jamb, tears on her face, staring.
“It’s all right, darling. Mummy just spilt the water. You go back and get on with your tea and I’ll clean this up. It won’t take a minute.”
She gave the girl a quick hug, felt her own tears pricking at her eyes. Ask somebody. You’ve got a tongue in your head, haven’t you? Mary bent low with the cloth; the water seemed to have got everywhere. On the third trip back to the sink, she switched on the gas over the grill, tipped half of the spaghetti out on to a plate.
“Mummy?”
“Mmm?”
“Here’s Luke.”
She spun round and saw him across the room. The street door had been open and he had come running in to stand there, still a little out of breath, head held to one side and a lick of brown hair falling, across it.
“I’m not late, I…”
The flat of her hand struck sharp across his face. There were seconds when he seemed not to have realized what had happened, rocked back against the wall, feeling needling back to his cheeks, stinging him to screams and tears.
At the table Sarah sat with her head bowed, not looking, not wanting to look, crying too.
“Whatever’s the matter with them?”
“With who?”
“The children?”
“Nothing.”
“Mary, you can’t tell me…”
“Mother, nothing’s the matter with them.”
“They’ve scarce said a word since they got here.”
“That was only ten minutes back. Give them a chance.”
“You were here at close to six as…”
“Oh, what does it matter what time we got here? What possible difference does it make?”
“Mary, it’s not the time I’m concerned with.”
“Then…then don’t go on about it so.”
“I am not going on about the time.”
“All right, you’re not…”
“It’s my grandchildren that…” If Vera Barnett had been able to get from her chair quickly enough, she would have caught hold of her daughter’s arm and kept her physically in the room. As it was, all she could do was stare at her, will her not to leave, to do as she wanted, just as she had done when Mary had been herself a child of small unvoiced regrets and sullen silences.
A moment later, the sound of water splashing back from the inside of the kettle, cups and saucers being shuffled along the draining board. Luke knelt before the television, too close to images of black-and-white outlaws waiting for the overland stage, the sound turned too low to hear. Wedged into the corner of the two-seater settee, Sarah gazed at her grandmother’s face, the sucked-in cheeks, the collapse of curls, gray against the gray of her neck.
When Mary came back into the living-room, it was with the tea things on a patterned metal tray, biscuits tipped out on to a cracked bone china plate. Avoiding her mother’s eyes, she sat on the settee and held saucer in one hand, cup in the other. Over Luke’s shoulder she watched the stage-coach passengers dropping money and valuables into a sack. Sarah, cuddling up alongside her, spilt milky tea on to the flowers of her dress.
“Well, this is very nice, I must say.”
Mary tried not to react to her mother’s voice, the cold challenge of its irony.
“Nobody visits me for over a week and when they do it’s like a morgue.”
For a moment, Mary closed her eyes and slipped an arm around her daughter, drawing her closer still. It was enough.
“That’s right, you don’t have to pay any attention to me. Why should you? Bring the children round for tea and sit watching some stupid thing on television. I don’t know why you bother.”
Mary was up from the settee quickly, leaning past Luke so that he flinched, clicking the set off.
“That’s not fair,” Luke’s protest started but got no further.
Vera Barnett’s head was angled towards her daughter in a look of petty triumph.
“There’s no winning with you, is there?” Mary was unable to keep silent.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“If we don’t come to see you, that’s wrong, and if we do, that’s wrong too.”
“I don’t sit here to be ignored.”
“Nobody’s ignoring you.”
“That’s not what it looks like.”
“You can’t expect to be made a fuss of all the time.”
“Fuss! A civil word would be something. A kiss from my own grandchildren.”
“Mother, they kissed you when they got here. You know very well.”
“A peck.”
“Oh, now you’re being ridiculous!”
“Ridiculous, am I? Well, at least I know how to behave.”
Mary couldn’t believe it. She was starting this all over again. “Perhaps behaving’s easy when you never get out of your chair from morning till night.”
“How dare you!”
Oh, God! thought Mary. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean that.”
Whether she had meant it or not didn’t matter.
“I suppose you think I like to sit here every day, day after day? I suppose you think I do it on purpose?”
Mary shook her head slowly. “No, Mother.”
Luke switched the television back on in time to see one of the posse tumble sideways from his horse and cartwheel through sagebrush and dust.
“These bones of mine-you think I’m a cripple through choice?”
“Mother, you are not a cripple!” Mary was on her feet, standing over her mother, staring down at her. Sarah pushed back against the cushions, watching and listening, making herself small. “I know you have a lot of pain, I know it’s difficult for you to move around, but you are not a cripple.”
“Well, I’m sorry.”
“What do you mean, you’re sorry?”
“That I’m not ill enough for you to do what you’ve been wanting to do ever since…ever since…”
“Mother!” She had hold of her arms, lifting her forwards in the chair. She could see the envelopes of skin, like chicken flesh, spreading out from the corners of her eyes. After some moments she was conscious of the narrow hardness of her mother’s bones beneath her finger ends.