Another Mother's Son (21 page)

I leave a message on the academy's answerphone, saying that Ross has flu. This is despicable but buys us a little time. He has imposed an additional ordeal on himself, some made-up, painful thing that he has to go through and that I have to go through because we are connected and I am responsible for him.

I visit the page of the Lloyd-Barron Academy website that deals with attendance and absenteeism. Zero tolerance, written in bold, jumps from the screen. I laugh. I could have predicted the term, embraced by New York cops and petty office tyrants the world over, though my cynicism has a masochistic kick to it that strengthens when, delving further, I find that support and help for vulnerable students can be obtained from the LBA Family Advocate, Mary de Silva, by appointment. I laugh like a madwoman.

I check my diary. A virulent strain of flu, followed by post-viral fatigue, should take us to the Easter holidays. I also see that Oliver's term is about to end. I had forgotten about Oliver. I send him a text saying that I can pick him up next Saturday, or Sunday. Name a time. The prospect of setting off alone along the A23 is blissful.

The rest of the week goes by more temperately. I am amazed as I have been in the past that adjustments to new, undesirable circumstances can be made. My appetite is reduced and my sleep pattern poor but I go to work, prepare food, stick laundry in the washing machine and dishes in the dishwasher, shove a damp cloth over the kitchen surfaces. I communicate with my sons. I do not hate them. I touch their hair and share a joke. I raise blinds and open curtains. I pick up used mugs from the floor.

Ross tries to take a plate of beef stew out of the kitchen. I forbid it. On this I am firm. I cannot allow him to eat his dinner in his bedroom. We wrestle over the full plate, tugging in opposite directions as the contents slop and slide. Ross shouts obscenities and I yell, ‘Did you feel good when you wrote that bile?' Globs of meat and carrot land on the floor. My phone beeps. It is a text from Oliver. He will go straight from Brighton to Cornwall. Night diving again. The details that I looked up in September return to me. The dead men's fingers, the chimney cave, the cauldron with vertical sides, the former MoD range station where the divers set out from. I recall the word ‘gully'. I think of entanglements with nets and lines, torch failure, the perils of getting lost in the dark. Seawater is bone cold in spring. I begin to cry. Ross leaves the room. I hold onto the edge of the table while I heave and sob. Then stop. I cannot bring my middle son home. I wipe my face, pick up the phone and call Randal. As soon as I hear his evening-at-home voice, I realise I could have managed alone. I sense that I have made a bad situation worse but, having spoken, I can't go back. He will set off directly after lunch tomorrow. For the first time since he left I have asked for his help.

‘
EWAN'S OUT. ROSS
is here, though.'

‘He's the one I've come to see.' Randal's expression is purposeful as he places his helmet on the floor and removes his motorcycling jacket. ‘Better have a word with you first before I go up. I need the full picture.'

‘OK.'

Randal has had a new, boyish haircut. Classy. I am wearing crystal dangly earrings and a top that I discarded and then rescued from the bag destined for the charity shop. The top is black with a silver thread running through it. Randal's surprised glance when he straightens up confirms that I look like a half-decorated Christmas tree.

‘Jude?' he says.

He climbs out of the biker's trousers, more adeptly this time though I detect a certain geriatric stiffness in his right knee.

‘Not here.'

‘Any particular reason? I thought she stayed over at the weekend.'

‘She didn't turn up.'

‘Right.' He shepherds me into the living room and closes the door behind him. ‘Sit down, Lorna. We need to do this properly.'

He indicates the dining table and we sit down opposite each other. He has arrived from North Hertfordshire and is sorting out our problems.

I have already given a brief outline of events on the phone but I go over them again. He lets me speak without interrupting and his expression becomes increasingly stern.

‘
When
exactly did they exclude him?'

I give him the date.

‘You should have involved me right away.'

‘Would it have made any difference?'

‘Well, yes. It might have done. But we don't know now, do we? We're another stage on.'

‘We are.'

‘Does he say why he won't go back to school?'

‘No.'

‘Have you any idea why not?'

‘Pride, humiliation, shame – those kinds of things.'

‘He'll have to get over them, won't he? I'll go and speak to him.' Randal stands up. ‘Is there anything else I should know?'

‘I don't think so. Oh, he asked me not to tell you.'

‘I bet he did. And does he now know I know?'

I shake my head.

‘Good. Did you know there's a scratch there?' He points at a particular spot on the table.

‘There are probably several. I haven't counted recently.'

‘Pity. It was a good table.'

He goes upstairs. I hear the knock and then the door shuts. I get up, close the living-room door and turn on the television. I do not want to hear the muffled sound of Randal's voice, or Ross's indecipherable replies, or failures to reply – or shouting. Raised male voices that explode and reverberate like a cathedral organ in a space suited to a harmonium. A woman in Edwardian-style drag is playing a tack piano. Her hands shimmy up and down the keyboard. The tinny music is insistent enough to overcome normal levels of talk from upstairs though not an uproar. Then she starts to sing. I thought as I bedecked myself in the crystal earrings that the day might end up in Accident and Emergency at North Middlesex University Hospital. A huge motorbike in the front garden, chained to the gatepost. A defiant son in the back bedroom.

‘Oh, the TV's on. Is this a documentary?'

‘Probably,' I say. ‘It doesn't look like drama.'

Randal comes over and sits down next to me on the sofa. The leather squeaks and I feel a slight rebound on my side. For a couple of minutes we both stare at the screen. The entertainer bashes out the chorus of ‘My Old Man Said Follow the Van'. Her audience is a small and unresponsive audience of old folk. One ancient lady begins to tap the arm of her wheelchair.

‘Actually, I think I might have seen this before.' I click the remote and kill the scene dead. ‘So, how did you get on?'

‘He says he's got a headache. I didn't get much out of him.'

‘You said your bit and he said nothing?'

‘That's about it. But, hey, I might have done some good. I'll go up again and have another go. See if anything I said has sunk in.'

I nod.

‘What about you? Are you still sleeping badly?' He takes a good look at me.

‘Oh, it got better, then it came back. It's not bad sleep. I just wake at half-past four. I get up. It's dark.'

‘Of course it is. Stop in bed. You'll never break the pattern if you keep getting up. Don't open your eyes. What do you do, anyway, at that time in the morning?'

‘I come downstairs and read. Sit in front of the oven. I'm getting through a lot of books.'

‘I don't care how many books you're getting through. You'll turn into a ghost.'

We sit in silence, thinking our own thoughts, I suppose, but each also conscious that the other is there.

‘Sad words when they'll never go home again, drunk or sober,' I say. ‘The song,' I add, since Randal looks baffled.

‘Oh, that. Yes. Why do people always assume that when you get to a hundred you'll develop a liking for old-time music hall? It's more likely that our current centenarians listened to Tommy Steele and Danny Kaye, isn't it?'

‘“Little White Bull”?' As I say the words, I feel an urge to put a hand on Randal's thigh. The impulse – it can no longer be called a habit – disconcerts me. Is it triggered by some verbal prompt, in which case, what? Bull? I stand up and go and sit in the armchair.

‘What's the matter?'

‘Nothing.'

‘You're jumpy.' Randal leans back and locks his hands behind his head. ‘I could get into that stuff. I'll spend my final years in
Downton Abbey
or
The Forsyte Saga
. I must buy a collared waistcoat.' He unclasps his hands. ‘So is Jude coming round later?'

‘I honestly don't know. You've already asked that.' I pause. ‘Did your brother fancy me?'

‘Michael? What? Where's that come from?'

‘Just answer.'

‘Well, I'd say absolutely not.'

‘Oh. OK. You're probably right.'

‘Have you heard from him or something?'

I consider this and think back to the last time I heard from Mike Doig. I seem to remember that I sent a birthday card the year after Randal left. Mike used to pull up outside the house in a volley of hooting. He once ate twelve barbecued pork sausages. I do not think I ever had a serious conversation with him. It was nothing but jokes with Mike.

‘Lorna?'

‘No, of course not. I don't mean now. I meant years ago. When we were young.'

‘Same. Same answer. You were never his type, Lorna.'

‘I wasn't? What was his type?' I feel faintly miffed.

‘Well, Marilyn, I suppose. Or Susie. What's this about?'

‘Nothing. I was thinking of brothers and relationships and rivalry. In general, you know. I live with these boys but I don't really grasp what goes on between them.'

‘Of course you do. This is just navel-gazing. You go in for these intellectual sideshows.' Randal picks up his phone. His thumb slides and his face relaxes as he communes with a different world. ‘By the way, we're still young,' he says, without looking up.

He could never stand to be in the same room as his brother and mother. Individually, yes. Together, no. Ursula has dementia now so the situation might have eased. I consider asking after her but hold back. The conversation always ends up in the same place with Randal saying, ‘I've told Charmian to shoot me.'

‘Jude was here last weekend – but things were rocky,' I say.

‘She's cute.' His hand still busy with the phone.

‘Cute?'

‘Yes, she is. She's more mature than Ross, that's perfectly—'

I cut in. ‘Yes, it was clear to me—'

‘Oh, calm down, Lorna.' He sets the phone down.

I take a few deep breaths.

A slow smile spreads across Randal's face.

‘What's funny?'

‘I get it. Why didn't you just tell me? That's great, isn't it? I'm really glad to hear he shows signs of life.'

I glance at the door to make sure that it is properly shut.

‘I always guessed a girl was at the bottom of his troubles. He's come out of it. That's good. I thought he looked brighter. I said so, didn't I, last time I was here? You're ridiculous, Lorna. This is fantastic news. Ewan fancies the girl. So what? For once he's animated and you come down on him like a ton of bricks.'

I take a few breaths. ‘They are brothers. They're meant to look out for each other.'

‘They're young. These things happen. But
has
anything happened? Why are you being so bloody cagey? One minute it's supposition and the next you're hinting at wife stealing. In a way, he's quite glamorous, our eldest son. He's on the premises. It's natural that a girl would be curious about him. At the same age, you would have been the same. He's shagging her? I suppose that might be a bit awkward. On or off the premises?'

‘I don't speculate,' I hiss through bared teeth.

‘And Ross? What does he think's going on?'

‘I've no idea.'

‘It'll resolve itself.'

‘These things always do?'

‘Don't look at me like that. Yes, sooner or later they do. Situations of high tension find release. Where are you in all this? You've been locked in this weird bonding thing with Ewan. You're just pissed off he's cutting loose.'

‘That's the front door. Here he is.' I get up. ‘I'm going to find out where he's been.'

‘Lorna,' Randal says in a warning voice.

Soft, regular steps, lighter than Ross's, cross the hall. Through the gap at the door jamb, I see someone pass. The kettle is switched on. Then the toaster. The fridge door thuds as it is shut. I smell burnt crumbs.

There is a kink in the ground-floor layout of the Dairyman's Road houses. The stairs stand in the way of a clear sightline from the front door to the kitchen. The passage lies offset to one side. I have no more than a tunnelled view when I step into the hall. I see one half of the back door, the end of the table that sticks out, and part of the dresser.

No one is visible – and then he is. He takes a mug and a plate from the dresser shelves. He is ordinary, lovable, nothing remarkable. He goes accompanied by a collection of sad shadows. His hair is at its longest. Ewan looks, whatever the weather, as if he has been left out in the rain.

THE THING IS,
nothing beats family life. The three of us are sitting at the kitchen table on a Saturday afternoon. You do not need a fissure in the earth's crust opening up under the Central line. Accident, medical emergency, death, betrayal, or news of any of these, they can all happen at home. My discovery of Charmian – source of delight, according to the
Name Your Baby
book – involved a phone in the bathroom, as did my second foray into spying, though on neither occasion did I act with intent. Like a master key, shock unlocks some barrier in perception. Time collapses.
Can't wait to see you Cx
. There is always another world through the mirror, on the far side of the wardrobe, when the clock strikes thirteen. Over in that place, Frances Bennet is not with the horses.