“Jess,” she said when she answered. I wasn’t holding my breath to hear what followed, not really. “Long time, no hear.”
“Things must be bad, Mum, if you’ve had to put your phone to incoming calls only.” Two sentences-one each-and we were fighting. I took a deep breath and tried again. “How’s Allan and Penny?”
“Fine, as you’d know if you ever called them.”
“Oh, they’re feeling the pinch too, are they? Can’t afford to call me?”
“Penny’s busy with the children,” said Mum. “It’s all right for you.”
“Yeah, lucky me. Okay, now you ask me a question and before you know, it’ll be a conversation.”
“Any man among you who bridleth not his tongue,” said my mother.
“James, Chapter 1, I forget the verse,” I said. “I’m rusty.”
“Well, I suppose you’ve no call for it, in your everyday life,” she said. “Just pick a saint and light a candle.”
“Actually, Mother, what I do is sort clothes and wash them and help people who really need them to choose what’s best and try not to make them feel too crap for being there. What have you done for anyone except yourself lately?”
“My prayer group-”
“Exactly,” I said. “Well, it was lovely to catch up, as always.”
“That’s it?” She almost shrieked it. “Not a word for months-”
“From either one of us,” I said. “Not until I phoned you.”
“I shouldn’t have to phone you,” she said. “I’m your mother.”
“How often do you phone Allan?” I said.
“Penny’s busy with the little ones,” she said again. “That’s different.”
“If I was busy with kids, would you phone me?” I asked.
“Don’t tell me you’ve disgraced yourself on top of everything,” she said. “I’m not stepping in, Jess, if the social workers take it off you. I can’t start all that at my age.”
“You are unbelievable,” I said. “No, I haven’t disgraced myself. I’m still single and childless and living alone in my thirties. Is that what you want to hear? Is that what you want for me?”
“Well, that’s a mercy,” she said. “But don’t try to make me feel guilty because you set your face against everyone. I didn’t train you to turn people away. I’ve done my best to help you make friends. If you were part of a community… ”
“I’m not joining the church, Mother. I don’t believe any of it. Why don’t you join a mosque first and tell me how it’s done when you don’t actually buy a single word?”
“Oh, Jess,” she said. “You push people away. You don’t keep in touch. You ignore people who’re trying to be in touch with you.”
“Give my love to Allan. And Penny as well if she’s not too busy with the children to take it.”
“I try to help,” she said. “I suppose nothing came of it?”
“And remember where I am, every weekday except Thursday. Don’t pass the door.”
“I’m not in the habit of going into such places, Jess,” said my mother. “You know how easily upset I am by… unpleasantness.”
“Yeah, beggars and lepers can whistle as far as you’re concerned.”
“I don’t share your taste for long-haired layabouts, Jess. That’s no need to-”
“Just as well there’s plenty of folk who don’t mind them. Like Jesus and me.”
“Do not take the Lord’s name-”
“I didn’t. I was referring to him in a completely normal-”
“-in vain, if you’ll let me finish.”
“-way. As opposed to Jesus motherfucking Christ in a”-the phone went dead in my hand-“cummerbund.”
“What’s a cumblebund?” said Ruby. She was right beside me, standing on the cold lino in her bare feet, her toes white. Her circulation must be as bad her daddy’s. I peeled off my bed socks and put them on her.
“You’re a cumblebund,” I said. “You’re the best little bundle of cumbles I’ve seen today, anyway.”
“Can I keep these socks?” she said, sliding them up the lino at the edge of the carpet strip towards the living room. She turned. “Dillon’s got a minging nappy, by the way.” She smiled and disappeared through the doorway.
It was long gone eight before Gus got up. He came into the kitchen wearing the old hairy suit and a white shirt and tie. His hair was in a pony tail. He had his everyday black work boots on.
“I know,” he told me. “It’s the best I can do.”
“You look daft, Dad,” said Ruby.
“Thank you, my sweetheart,” he said.
“But where are you going?” I asked him. He opened his eyes very wide and then glanced between both the kids.
“Quick word in the living room, Jess?” he said. I followed him. “Have you forgotten? I know you were upset last night, but… do you have black-outs?”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s Becky’s funeral today. You’re watching the kids.”
“I have absolutely no memory of this,” I said.
“You said days ago you would watch them whenever it was,” he told me. “I said I was taking them, and you said no. So I asked if you would watch them.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I said. “I remember that.”
“You just said you didn’t.”
“No-yes. Oh, shit. Look. What I meant was I didn’t remember that it was today.”
“But I just told you last night.”
“I forgot.”
“You just said you remembered.”
I turned away and walked towards the front window. There must be a way to work this out; there had to be. I was freaking out at Gus because my mother had just scrambled me. That was all. Then I froze.
It was caught in a cobweb in the corner of the frame. Four inches long, grey and white, with a weird brown streak through it. It was kind of separating, like greasy hair combed away from a parting, and it blew gently back and forward.
“What’s up?” said Gus.
“Nothing,” I told him. I couldn’t drag my eyes away from it. The sheen on the curve of it, where it all held together; the little gaps on the straight bit where it spiked into points like the teeth of a comb. And the brown bit that didn’t belong. “Look, I was really upset last night, like you said. And I think you’re more upset than you know this morning. So I’ll phone in sick, you go to the funeral. I’ll see you tonight. I’ll get a hold of myself, I promise. Stop… fretting about things that don’t matter.”
“What things?” he said.
At last, I managed to turn my head. I turned my whole body, faced him.
He was looking at me in one of his many special, creepy ways. I had the thought before I could block it. Not creepy, I told myself. Just really alert, with his head on one side, slightly off to the side, like a bird with a worm. That bloody bird with a worm again.
“Stupid things,” I answered. “Like why Becky put the bins out last Tuesday before she drove away.”
“What?” There were two spots of colour high up on his cheeks.
“Things like that,” I said. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, right there behind me. What if a gust of wind blew it free? Was the window closed all the way? Could it blow in through a gap and land on my neck? I could feel my skin crawling.
“Tidying up,” said Gus. “Putting her affairs in order, they call it. Seems about right to me.”
“Okay,” I said. “But she must have waited for the binmen to come and then brought them back over too,” I said. “And that’s bothering me. Fine, I agree, she’d clear out the nappies, but why would she wait until the men came and then wheel them back? This week it was dead late before they showed up.”