Fandango in the Apse! (12 page)

The patterned red and blue carpet was still in place, unmarked except for
a flattened pathway down the middle.  Still as hideous as ever, the wrought-iron
telephone table held the same objects as I’d remembered.  The phone was new,
but the small Ainsley dish my mother used for keys was there, alongside a gilt
notepad holder with a pen laid precisely parallel to it.  The last thing my
mother had jotted down was still there and the sight of her neat handwriting
had me swallowing past a lump in my throat.

In case you hadn’t realised, my mother’s house wasn’t where I wanted to
be.  As you can imagine, I’d felt uncomfortable.  At any moment, I was expecting
her to appear, her acid tones asking me what I was doing in her house.  I felt
I was intruding.

Even though I had never laid eyes on her in fifteen years, I could feel
her presence everywhere as I took in the few changes to the living room.  The
carpet was new, as was the three-piece suite, but everything else was
unchanged.  As I’d watched, a flurry of disturbed dust motes floated in the
dull light from the dirty window.  I couldn’t help smiling.  She would have been
mortified at the layer of dirt covering every surface.

‘Would you like to take a seat, Mrs Roberts?’

 Dragging my attention back to Mr Bowman, I’d chosen a seat furthest away
from the one I knew would have been my mothers.  Sitting opposite, Mr Bowman
opened a folder he had successfully extracted from his case.  Clearing his
throat, he began.

‘Mrs Roberts, this is your mother’s Last Will and Testament.  Would you
like me to read it in full or would you like me to summarise?’ 

‘If you just summarise it, please.’  I didn’t want to hear it at all,
never mind listen to a pile of legal jargon.

He cleared his throat again. 

‘Well, briefly then, your mother has bequeathed her estate in its
entirety, between St Bartholomew’s Church and two favourite charities,’ he
said, while casting a sympathetic glance in my direction. 

I had no idea how I was feeling just then, definitely not surprised or
upset – my mother had nothing I wanted.

            ‘Right, well if that’s it, Mr Bowman…’

            ‘Err… no, there is one final thing.  Your mother asked that
you be given a grey box from the sideboard.’ 

My eyes immediately slid to that piece of furniture.  Mr Bowman, his
joints creaking, got to his feet and opened the left side door.  A moment
later, he handed me a shoebox. 

            ‘That concludes our business, Mrs Roberts, but perhaps you’d
like a few moments alone.  Would you like me to wait outside?’ 

I nodded and gave him a smile intended to show my gratitude for his
thoughtfulness.

            By now, you know just as well as me that my mother was a
nasty piece of work.  Therefore, it’s fair for me to assume you will understand
when I tell you how terrified I was of opening that box.  The odds on it
containing something I’d be better off not having were stacked high, don’t you
think?  I don’t mind admitting, I’d had a cowardly urge to shove it back in the
sideboard unopened.  Unfortunately, I conquered the urge and took the lid off
the damned box.  It was a mistake and one that would cost me dearly.

I looked at the contents in disbelief.  Since I’d left home, I’d made a
point of writing to my mother at least once a year.  I also sent her birthday
and Christmas cards.  Eddie often commented on what a waste of time it was, but
even though I neither expected, nor received a reply, I continued.  Don’t ask
me why, because I couldn’t answer you.  It was just something I felt the need
to do.  Now, staring me in the face was every one of those letters and cards. 
She had only opened the most recent one – to get my address, I assumed. 

Fifteen years of unopened news about my life, pictures of my wedding, and
later of the boys at various stages of their lives.  Their baptism, first steps
and birthday parties.  Images of their first day at nursery, and later school –
small snippets of my life, that although I knew she would never comment on, I
hoped she might be interested in. 

The hurt I felt in that moment settled like a dark cloak over me.  Then I
noticed another opened letter at the bottom of the pile.  The envelope, addressed
to my mother, was larger and had an Australian postmark dated three years
previously.  It contained one sheet of paper and a newspaper cutting.  

Dear Margaret,

It is with regret that I write to inform you of Jack’s death.  It
happened last month and I have enclosed a cutting giving you the details. 

Please be kind enough to pass on the news of her father’s death to
Katie.  It was always a great sadness to Jack that she refused contact with
him.  I know my brother always hoped she would one day take up his offer to
visit him, unfortunately, that wasn’t to be. However, I thought it was fitting
that she should know of his passing.

Jethro Hessey

           
My eyes were stinging with unshed tears as I read and
re-read the letter.
My brother always hoped she would take up his offer to
visit him,
leapt off the page. 

Oh Jesus!  What had she done?  With shaking hands, I unfolded the
newspaper cutting.  A man I didn’t recognise smiled out at me.  He was standing
on a beach with his arms resting on the shoulders of a woman and a teenage
boy.  An older girl was sitting cross-legged in front of them; they all looked
carefree and happy.  I read the caption beneath.

Experienced diver, Jack Hessey, has drowned just off Tangalooma on
Morton Island.  The freak accident happened when Mr Hessey went to the aid of a
less experienced diver who was disorientated due to the unseasonable storm,
which swept the Island yesterday.  The treacherous current, combined with high
waves swept Mr Hessey out to sea.  The coastguard later recovered his body. 
His wife Pamela and children, Jonathan and Sophie, were too upset to comment on
the tragedy.  The other diver survived.

As the awful truth embedded itself in my brain, I started to shake.  An
all-consuming white-hot rage seared my soul.  I held in my hand proof of the
extent of my mother’s evil machinations.  Looking now at the years of unopened
mail, I couldn’t help but let out a laugh at my own stupidity.  The hollow
sound startled me in the otherwise deathly silence of the room. 

What had I been thinking?  How could I have imagined for one minute that she
would have had any interest in my life?  I rose from the chair unsure of what
to do, but knowing I had to do something. 

Then it came to me – I walked to the fireplace and dumped the contents of
the box into the grate, all except Jethro’s letter, which I slipped into my bag. 
Reaching for matches still in their customary place on the mantle, I struck one
and set light to the letters. 

As I watched the blue-grey smoke of the charred paper and curling
photographs furl up the chimney, my anger increased.   How could she have done
it?  This woman, who had given me life.  She had begrudged it of course – the
life she had given me, it rankled with her and she had set about to systematically
take back as much of it as she could.  But how could she have kept it up to the
bitter end?  Not even in the face of her own death could she right the wrongs. 
She had denied me all those years when I could have had a relationship with my
father, and then denied me the knowledge of his death.  I felt sick.

I stood and looked around the room; the atmosphere felt noxious,
permeated with the miasmic residue of my mother’s bitter life.  I could hear
her sneering voice, see her pinched features everywhere, I needed to get out of
there – I couldn’t breathe.

As I’d crossed the room to the door, I passed the lamps still sitting on
the sideboard.  It sounds petty now, but the urge of all those years ago proved
too much to resist.  Grabbing first one, then the other, I ripped off the
goddamn yellowed cellophane, not caring that I was destroying the shades in the
process.  It was a small but satisfying victory. 

At the living room door, I turned for one last look, and I promise you
this is not my imagination – I could feel the chill of my mother’s presence. 

‘FUCK YOU, MARGARET HESSEY,’ I roared at the top of my lungs as I’d
slammed out the door.

Mr Bowman gave no impression of having heard my outburst, when I passed
him with a brief nod on the garden path a moment later.  As I got into my car
and drove off without a backward glance, I imagined the conversation between
him and his wife later that evening.

‘Mrs Roberts seemed a trifle upset to hear her inheritance was nothing
more than a cardboard box.’

‘Well, she should have been a better daughter then, shouldn’t she? 
Margaret was a saint.’  I could lay odds on it. 

‘Well fuck you too, Mr Bowman,’ I said savagely, as I missed third gear.

I didn’t
whinge, sob or shed a tear over my findings in my mother’s sitting room. 
However, you need to bear with me a little longer while I explain the immediate
aftermath, then I’ll shut up about it, I promise.

For the first couple of weeks my rage was so intense, tears were
impossible.  I left Eddie – the poor sod – trying to make sense of my
irrational behaviour on the barest of information.  Unwilling or unable (I’m
not sure which) to share my discoveries, I told him the details of my
conversation with Mr Bowman and of the letter from my father’s brother –
nothing else.  If he was wondering why the deaths of my parents with whom I’d
had little or no contact for years was having such an impact, he wisely kept
his mouth shut. 

I could tell each time I snapped at him or the children he wanted to
shout back, to tell me to pull myself together and not be such a drama queen –
if I’m honest, I couldn’t blame him.  The children began shooting me fearful
glances whenever I entered a room, unsure if I was going to start ranting
again.

I know what you’re thinking, but honestly, I couldn’t help it. I felt I
was suffocating in the vacuum of a wildly spinning vortex of emotion, I
couldn’t free myself, and each day seemed to suck me in deeper.  However, by
the third week everything suddenly changed.

I opened my eyes one morning and waited for the familiar churning knot of
anger to take hold, but it wasn’t there.  It had completely gone and in its
place was a void, a grey nothingness.  My relief was immediate, until a flutter
of panic at the thought of the anger returning, and the feeling of not being
able to control it, terrified me.  Willingly, out of the need for protection I
sank into the nothingness. 

As the weeks wore on, the protective vacuum became the most important
thing in my life.  If I didn’t think, I didn’t hurt.  In some vague part of my
brain I knew what I was doing, I was hiding – not from the anger, no, anger was
good, healthy – I wasn’t hiding from that, I was hiding from guilt. 

My father had wanted to see me and never once in my life had I thought to
try to contact him.  Why not?  Why had I never gone on my birthday and demanded
my parcel from my mother?  I knew why – I was a coward, I was afraid of her,
and now the only way to make the guilt tolerable was to ignore it, pretend it
wasn’t there – hide from it.

A few days later, persistent buzzing had disturbed my sleep; I turned
over, rammed a pillow over my head and tried to ignore it, but it wouldn’t
stop. The beat of a finger on the doorbell increased in its urgency.  Flinging
the covers aside, I looked at the clock on the bedside table and was surprised
to see it was twelve-thirty.  Eddie must have got the kids ready for school. 

I made for the stairs shouting that I was coming, to stop the damned
bell.  At the door, I could see John from next door through the glass.  He
looked surprised when I appeared, and feeling vaguely embarrassed by my less
than clean pyjamas and unkempt hair, I attempted to smooth the latter.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Katie, are you ill?’

‘No, I’m not… what do you want, John?’ 

He bristled at my rudeness. ‘Katie, I’m sorry, but something’s happened
to Jester.  I think he’s choked on a chicken bone.’  Shock cleared my befuddled
brain.

‘Oh God! Where is he, is he OK?’  Stupid question.

‘No, I’ve just found him, I’m sorry, Katie, he’s dead.’ 

‘Where is he?’  I followed John round to his back garden where Jester was
lying dead amongst the bones of a chicken carcass.  I dropped to my knees and
looked at the beautiful animal.  His mouth was open and his eyes had rolled in
the back of his head.  I couldn’t understand it, although famed for eating just
about anything, Jester had never raided dustbins.  Then a horrendous thought
hit me.  When had I last fed him?  I couldn’t remember.  I knew Eddie wouldn’t
have done it; it would never have entered his head.

I couldn’t take any more, I heard myself scream, and then huge sobs
racked my throat.  I wrapped my arms round myself and tried to rock the hurt
away.  I couldn’t stop crying, I couldn’t stop the pain, the emotion was
frightening.  John’s voice vaguely penetrated, but I couldn’t make out what he
was saying.  I know he tried to lift me but I couldn’t move.  I entered a dark
place in my head and willed my mind to go blank.  Then I heard Eddie’s voice. I
wondered why he wasn’t at work.  He and John were talking as if I wasn’t there.

‘She’s been like this since her parents died.  I don’t understand it,
you’d have thought six months down the line she’d be getting over it.’

‘It takes time, mate.’

‘But she wasn’t even close to them.’  Eddie’s confusion was evident.  I
felt sorry for him – how could he understand?  It was impossible.

‘I should get her home and phone the doctor, if I were you; she’s been
kneeling there for over an hour, I hadn’t a clue what to do – Susan’s not in.’