I don’t remember any variety in our days, each one beginning with the same routine: wash mother gently, following strict instructions; dress her in faded clothes of her choosing and not in anything which might be, dare I say it, creased; give her breakfast in the aged ceramic crockery with a flower motif from her wedding day – she says these words each morning, wedding day, as though this alone will keep her from forgetting him, as though I am not a part of her day or her family – feed bird and draw the curtains, then tend to my own needs. I am allowed one, maybe two.
‘Girl, you look deathly.’ My name is never used. I sometimes wonder if she remembers, or whether she dislikes it. ‘Get some food into you and find me some fresh milk.’ Her tone makes bird squawk and turn away, back towards the window, his eyes gazing out into an open space. Unreachable. It is wasted, the space outside beyond the window, never used. ‘It’s for viewing,’ she says with a feint smugness that makes me freeze.
I nod and go in to the kitchen to fetch some milk, poured into her favourite jug, chipped a little at the spout. It is possibly the only fault she allows in the house. She has favourite items but no favourite people, apart from the one person that she is afraid of forgetting.
Bird turns on his perch towards Mother, his feathers, blue, yellow and pristine, trapped within the confines of the elaborate wire cage. A thing of beauty, an ornament, Mother once said in a moment of delirium. She watches bird each morning, singing a song of yearning and looking out beyond the double glazed barricade that is our living room, on 34 Fenn Street.
When I come back to the table by the window, by bird, Mother has finished her tea. Her empty cup sits on its saucer on the edge of the table waiting to escape.
‘Would you like another cup?’ I ask, wondering where I should put the milk.
‘Chirp,’ says bird. I do not know whether he has said cheer up or cup, as in cup ‘o tea. They make almost the same sound. His chirp might have been the generic sound of any avian creature, but for bird it is usually cup ‘o tea. He mimics Mother’s phrases with startling accuracy but she rarely notices, and when she does, it is put down to a coincidence or a mishearing.
Mother puts her cup down just as the phone rings. This time, bird mimics the ring tone in a disturbing display of accuracy. He never misses a thing. Mother never misses a thing.
‘Oh, lovely,’ she says, in her telephone voice, which says that nothing in the world will disturb her. ‘Yes, Helen. Yes, I will be here tomorrow. Good. See you then.’
She passes me the receiver to put back onto its hook and her facial expression changes. ‘So, where is the other cup then?’ Her words tear through me, even if they are veiled in frailty; sugar coated in a way that leaves a sickly aftertaste in my mouth.
‘I wasn’t sure if you wanted one, Mother. Here’s the milk.’
‘And what use is the milk to me if there is no tea? Come on girl, I haven’t got all day.’
I wonder where she is thinking of going. I cannot visualise her wheeling the chair out of the house and into town, not with a face like that, with its grimace and the remnants of breakfast crusted across her chin. I had tried to wipe it away but she flapped at me as she would a fly or a nasty insect. Nasty was a familiar word in our house, one which she used to describe those who deigned to disagree.
The days were tolerable only because I could read while she was sleeping, and watch the trees moving gently in the breeze beyond the glass wall, and look into the distance at the cornfields. They were captivating in the early morning light, long before mother was awake. I could observe without a commentary or a criticism, watch their sheaves flicker in the sunlight, a blanket of gold leaf across the horizon.
Mother wouldn’t go out into the fields, preferring the musty air inside the house with her patterned crockery and her snappy fingers. She might catch a cold, she had said. I knew better, I knew that she was afraid of the memories.
This is an extract. Read the rest on Amazon.
