Falling Fast - L.S

20 - part two

As he straightened up, I noticed him glance over at his mum. She'd turned on the TV and was tapping her fingers on her lap, very carefully ignoring us.

I turned away from him and stood there awkwardly. His mum looked up and smiled at me again. She patted the beanbag next to her. "Come and sit down - Harry's told me a little about you, but not much... you know how he is, not a big one for talking."

I nodded, as she went on.

"Louis such a pretty name. I'm Anne, by the way."

I wandered over and sat down next to her. The bright overhead light cast shadows across her face.

She was almost pretty when she talked - her face lit up and animated. But when she fell silent, as she was now, her face sagged with what seemed like a bone-deep weariness. I realised with a jolt that if She'd only been sixteen or so when she'd had Gemma, she couldn't be more than thirty-two or -three now. That was fifteen years younger than my mother.

Yet she looked at least ten years older.

"Now, I know you and Paddy met doing the play at his school." She smiled warmly. "I'm so pleased he's finally introduced me to a friend of his. I was beginning to think he was ashamed of me. Are you enjoying doing Romeo and Juliet?"

"I love it," i said. "It's a great play."

"Oh yes." She glasped her hands together. "So romantic. I will not marry yet; and when I do, I swear it shall be Romeo.... That Juliet was a bold piece, wasn't she, talking to her mother like that!"

My mouth must have dropped open.

Harry's mum laughed. "Now you didn't think I'd know that, did you? I've been reading Paddy's play to test him on his lines - he's so good in the part and with his school studies and so hard-working. He's going to be a lawyer, you know."

"Stop it, Mum," Harry grunted, walking towards us with a mug in each hand.

His mum beamed up at him as she took one of the mugs.

"Go on with you," she said. "You know that you're loving me talking you up to your boy here." She turned back to me. "Now, Louis, you will stay for something to eat, won't you?"

I blinked at her. Stay for dinner? I looked around, wondering where on earth they all ate. There was no sign of a table and no space for chairs. There would barely be room for all four of them to sit down on the three beanbags as it was.

"We eat out of tins," Harry said solemnly. "Sometimes just out of our hands. It saves washing up."

"Paddy." His mum flapped her hands at him exasperatedly. "Get off with you. Leave Louis here to help me with the tea. Go and do some of the homework you're always complaining you don't get enough time to---"

"I don't complain," Harry grinned. "I---"

"Go on."

And he went.

I stood at the kitchen counter with his mum peeling potatoes. Her hands were red raw and chafed. She yawned constantly as she worked, in between keeping up a non-stop chatter about her jobs and her two girls.

I learned that Caitlin was good at school, but lazy and prone to answer back "like her brother", Harry's mum said darkly. And I picked up that, like Harry, she worried about Gemma. She didn't exactly say so, but her whole face grew concerned as she told me how hard Gemma found talking to people.

Harry's mum asked me questions too. Subtle ones about my family - I found myself saying how difficult it was to talk to my mum, how close I felt to my dad - and I'm sure she realised how I felt about Harry. I went bright red whenever she mentioned him.