Junk - Melvin Burgess [19]
She just said, ‘David…’ Then she waited for me to explain myself.
I started to talk. I can’t remember what – stuff about me being all right, about finding somewhere to live and everything being okay, and the people being okay and how I was eating enough and looking after myself. You know.
When I finished there was nothing. I could hear her smoking, that was all. Half the time my mother is falling about, or grabbing hold of me or the tablecloth or the wall or anything else that’s nearby. But this time I felt that she was wide, wide awake, like a bird or a fish that never slept, listening to everything and waiting.
‘I’m sorry I went away,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to… I didn’t want to, I mean. And… are you all right, Mum? Mum, say something, won’t you?’
‘I can’t say much, Tar,’ she said in a fairly ordinary voice. ‘He’s upstairs listening.’ Then she dropped her voice to a harsh whisper and she said, ‘He’s started to beat me…’
And the bottom just fell out of everything.
You know, I’d never thought of that. I’d never thought he might do that. But it was so obvious! It was only me being there that stopped him. It felt like someone had picked up the entire world about ten feet and then dropped it on a concrete floor. And it was all my fault.
She started then, the way she does. I’d thought she was stone cold sober at first, but she was as drunk as ever, really. It was night time after all.
‘I’ve been so scared,’ she said. ‘Every night he gets so drunk and I never know what he’ll do next. It’s so lonely. I can’t get the housework done, darling. I try… you know what he’s like… so fussy, so angry when things aren’t right. It’s not his fault, I’ve been a bad wife and a bad mother. You shouldn’t have left me, David; you know that, don’t you?’
There was a pause. ‘Yes,’ I said. Well, what else could I say?
‘You know how much I’ve relied on you… and I’ve been trying so hard… oh, darling, how could you…?’
I could almost feel her sliding down the sofa on to the floor and dissolving, weeping. I felt that her tears would trickle out of the telephone and on to my hands.
‘Listen, Mum…’ I could hear the sound of her sobs. ‘Mum, just stop crying, please stop and we’ll talk about it. Is it bad, Mum? Is he hitting you hard?’
‘Darling, please come home, please… He’s been saying that I drove you away…’ And she was weeping and weeping and weeping…
‘All right, Mum, please stop… look, I’ll come home, I’ll come home. It’s not forever. I’ll come home.’ I would have said anything, then. It was so terrible him saying that it was her who drove me away, because it wasn’t true at all. It was him who drove me away. But… it was true, too.
‘I’ll come home. All right?’
‘When?’
‘Soon. Mum, there’s just a couple of things I have to do first.’
‘You could do it now. You could walk away and catch a coach…’
‘I haven’t got any money.’
I could hear her drawing a breath of cigarette smoke as she thought about it. ‘Hitchhike,’ she told me.
‘I’ll come as soon as I can.’
‘And you haven’t got any money? But I thought you said you were all right…’
Then she was off about me looking after myself. She always worries about me. She always wants to know that I’ve eaten properly and that I’m wearing decent clothes. That sort of thing. She’s a good mother really. Or she would be if she managed to get off the bottle.
Then she started asking me questions. I was scared about saying too much… she was asking me about the people I was with, where I was, what my address was, what their names were. She said she wanted to thank them in some way, but I didn’t trust her. She got angry because I wouldn’t tell her.
‘Don’t you trust me, David? Don’t you trust me?’ she kept saying. And of course I didn’t but I could never say, ‘No, I don’t trust you,’ so I had to make excuses. It went on and on. The pips kept going but I stuffed more money