Rocks in the Belly (19 page)

Darkness is why animals cry out at night and why owls have to be wise.

Alfie's crying now too, like me. Mum comes home tomorrow which should be good but I'm going to have all the feelings that happen to me when Robert and Mum are around.

Because Mum and Robert are like having darkness around.

Maybe I'm a fox. Foxes cry alone at night too. I hear them sometimes and it's the saddest sound, after seagulls.

The world's so sad even animals cry.

I wake to the sound of Alfie snoring even though she's awake. Her face is up close to mine, the growth bigger than her nose now and I realise her snoring's been percolating thunderstorms and bears into my dreams.

It feels late but I refuse to give up on sleep, my eyes shut, my body stilled, willing my mind to slip away again but it's thinking about how I let the cat out of the bag yesterday. And wondering whether Mum's addled brain will have ushered the cat straight back into that black bag. Which will mean maybe I've had the relief of finally saying it, without the shame of her knowing.

Or the pain of sharing it, without the freedom of not having to carry it anymore.

Mum fell asleep on me in the garden yesterday and wouldn't rouse properly so I carried her in and put her on the couch, wrapped her in blankets and took those strangers down off the walls.

The longer I lie here the more nervous I'm getting so I dislodge Alfie and get up, check on Mum's bedroom in case she made it off the couch in the night and up to bed.

Empty.

I pad quietly back, turning off the landing light I left on for
her — stand here at the top of the stairs listening for signs of life.

Silence, except for Alfie's impersonation of Darth Vader.

I dress slowly, the cat gone now that my bed has cooled. I check my phone again — no Patricia. I put in my Canadian SIM card in case there's any love coming from there. Another silence.

Downstairs, I look in on Mum from the doorway and she's in a tight ball on the couch, the blankets on the floor. Alfie is with her now, breathing that incessant noise.

‘Mum?' I say from the threshold, examining her all curled up, foetal and frowning, wet with sweat.

I cross the room and pick up her bedding, touch a hand to her shoulder. ‘Mum.' I check for a pulse, the skin clammy but there's a beat there. I shake her and she brings a hand up to her forehead.

‘You got a headache?' A slight nod. ‘I'll get you your tablets.' I'm rushing out to the kitchen. ‘And painkillers.'

I don't bother with the days of the week box but empty a load of steroids out of the giant pill bottle, adding a few paracetamol. I grab a glass and turn on the tap, stuff the glass under the stream and the water cascades round and out over my clothes.

I cradle her head like it's made of burnt-through matches, still she winces from the pain. It takes an age to get all the tablets in, her gagging in between — the pressure in her brain pushing her up against those white and immovable skull walls.

I start dialling emergency then hang up and try the nurse instead, bullet points sitting on the card she gave me:

• Are you sure your question isn't answered on our website?

• Is your call absolutely necessary? You may be preventing another caller with a genuine emergency.

After the phone call I put Alfie and her nasal earthquake outside with some milk then head round to the front and smoke, pacing in the garden, checking on Mum through the window — pacing
again, looking up and down the road for the nurse who said she'd be here soon.

The hedges are still half cut from where I told myself I'd do the top later but left it at what I could reach from the ground.

It's a long time before the little branded car pulls up about fifteen metres down the road. I head for the gate to go and meet her but peek round instead, watching her leaning into the rear-view mirror, applying make-up, doing her hair. This takes her something like two minutes. And despite the
genuine emergency
, seeing her do this wakes up the doughboy.

She gets out and I head quickly inside and click the front door shut, wondering why I'm taking the trouble to pretend I don't know she's arrived. It's stupid. Another of those little-white-lie acts we put on. Like when you're meeting someone and you're there first, eagerly looking for them but when you see them you pretend not to have noticed — assume the pose of someone engrossed in the paper, the menu, a book. White liars, all of us.

‘The nurse is here, Mum.'

I watch her through the security eyelet as she comes up the path. She looks even more volumptuous seen through that glass. Dad's word, not mine. He always noticed volumptuous women, but married the opposite.

I watch her through the peephole as she does her hair on the doorstep, looks down at her cleavage, undoes a tunic button. Does it back up, then reaches in and lifts her tits higher in her bra. Finally she rings the bell and I wait a bit, my heart going.

‘Vicky, I was starting to think you weren't coming.' I step back only a little so she has to squeeze by. She goes to give me her front side but does an awkward exchange and gives me the back.

I can't wait.

‘I was with another patient.'

‘She's in the lounge.'

I watch her waddle off before I close the door.

‘Hello, Mary. You feeling poorly, eh? Let's have a look at you then.'

Vicky perches on the edge of the couch and it's clear Mum's been sick while I've been pacing outside.

‘Can you get me a bowl or a bucket.'

I head off, my heart beating with a different urgency. I bring the bowl and Mum is vomiting, Vicky having got her over on her side, Mum's head cradled gently. Green coming out. Such withering retching sounds, Vicky stroking and shooshing — no sign of disgust, only tenderness for a stranger. Vicky right up close to something I'm not sure I could face and it's my own mum. Although maybe Vicky wouldn't be so calm if it was her mum. I don't know. I just know nurses are amazing.

‘I'll need a tissue too,' she says in the same tender voice she's been using on Mum. I go for the tissues, Alfie outside the window, steaming up the glass. That piece of mica rock glistening at me from the window ledge.

Michael rock, Dad called it.

Mum is reclined and panting when I return with tissues, Vicky stroking her forehead. She mops at Mum's mouth and hands me the bowl. I can't look at it, carrying it finger and thumb into the bathroom and turning away, pouring, my breath held. Perhaps a few drops joining with Grandma's blood on the U-bend. I flush the toilet and come back with a bucket.

‘
Can you hear me, Mary?
' Vicky's voice raised as if to be heard over the sound of the wrecking ball swinging inside Mum's head. ‘I'm going to give you your medication by injection, Mare. It'll make you feel better. And something for the nausea.'

She opens her bag, one of her hands never leaving Mum's. Mum holding on too.

Then there's me a few steps away from the back of the couch.
I couldn't hold Mum's hand from here.

‘I gave her some painkillers and steroids just before, Vicky.'

‘I noticed,' she says.

After the injection she lifts Mum's eyelids and shines a light.

‘What does that tell you?'

‘I can see how the pupil reacts, but also distortion to the optic nerve from the intra-cranial pressure. Pressure in the skull. Can you do me a favour? Go and get your mum some ice cubes to suck on, she's probably thirsty. And put the kettle on, eh? She's not the only one.'

When she's finished her examination she makes some notes, then sits for a moment just stroking Mum's forehead, the room so quiet, just the three of us breathing.

‘
I'm going to have a chat to your son now, Mary.
You'll be alright here for a bit. Just rest. Stay on your side. There's a bucket in case you feel sick
but the medicine works very quickly
. We won't be far.'

We both creep away as if from a sleeping baby.

I've opened up the back door to let some breathing in, Vicky and me at the kitchen table, teas steaming. I take my phone out of my pocket to make room, plonk it on the table.

‘She's on the maximum steroid dosage now. That mightn't necessarily stabilise her, we'll just have to see. I'm concerned though. Have you had a chance to go through the leaflet I gave you, about the hospice?'

I nod. I am intent on what she's saying. I really am. But even her South African accent is starting to seem attractive. Her cleavage soft and inviting. My desire tainted by a stab of guilt that I'm capable of thinking about this with Mum ill in the next room. But what better time for comfort than this? And what better comfort.

‘So you're ok for me to go ahead and call them, put a bed on standby for her? I don't think she'll be at home much longer. It's not fair on either of you. If the system were better there'd be more
support available earlier in the …' She's got nice hands. The one not cradling her mug of tea is a little towards me on the table, no wedding ring and no tan line from where she might take it off for work ‘… In any case, your mum's reached the stage where she does qualify, and the Santa Christi is just lovely, I promise you. They'll make her very …' My heart is that squishing of a kinked hose, my good hand ready, her chest a little exposed ‘… do you think? Someone who can give you some support too?'

It's like I'm surrounded by static electricity as I reach for her, my hand on hers, my face set to earnest, and feeling it too.

‘Thank you for the way you've been with my mum. Seriously.'

She stiffens a bit from the touch, looks down at her tea, sits up a little straighter, my hand on hers, eyes burning into the top of her head, then her cleavage. My touch wandering up her arm and I can see her uniform going in and out, in and out from her breathing deep and full and I don't care, I run my hand up over her shoulder, caress her neck, and the line is crossed and way back behind me. I'm out in no man's land and there's that glorious finish line. She looks at me now, her face flushed and anguished with wanting, both of us panting. It's pathetic.

Push a lever …

‘You look even better than in your photos,' she says, breathless, shy. ‘But this is totally against the …'

My whole body standing on end, my caress nearing her chest and as I'm about to cup a breast her mouth comes at me, wide open long before her lunge has brought it to mine, her teeth clashing on my lips, hurting, her saliva plentiful and warm and then we sort it out, a rhythm, standing as we kiss, her hip bumping the table and tea spilling, hands everywhere, mouths locked, my mouth not leaving hers as I bend my knees enough to get a hand lower than the hem of her skirt, and I'm standing full height again, my phone starting up ringing, making us both issue a short giggle but she
gnaws so hard on my neck my mouth's wrenched open by the pain, her hands at my belt,
Patricia
showing up on my ringing mobilephone screen and I could almost answer it but we're locked in that flesh madness, the table banging against the wall.

Mum is in bed upstairs, steroids fighting the wildfires burning in her head, the hospice brochures down here on the table among all the empty beer cans. I'm pacing, beer swilling in my stomach, the TV on but down low, the carpet damp from where I had to mop up that mess.

I've got a date with Patricia but it's hours away and I shouldn't be going out at all. But I can't stay in and I can't go out, like I've got an itch in the centre of my brain. An itch all the alcohol I've had is failing to scratch.

I head upstairs and dress for the date, then go check on Mum, hoping she'll look tucked up and peaceful in bed so I'm allowed out to play.

She's in bed, that's true, but she's not quite tucked up, her face dappled with perfect beads of sweat.

I plonk myself beside her and undo my shirt button, trying to resign myself to staying home — a quiet night in with the screaming in my head.

I sigh, looking at the telephone sat silent on her bedside table.

Bingo.

I snatch up the receiver from its cradle and dial my mobile
from it. Once it's ringing I place her phone down beside her pillow and march off in the direction of my jingling mobile and answer it.

Contact! With her phone off the hook and connected to my mobile, I'm the world's most portable babysitter.

I'm almost skipping up the road, my phone warm in my breast pocket, the charger with me and a cigarette smoking in my mouth. One of the smokes you actually really enjoy, one of those rare ones that doesn't feel like injury, or servile, pointless addiction.

I take my mobile out and listen to the phone-call silence. Still, I'll hear her if she shouts out.

‘I've drunk too much again, Mum.'

It's dark now, mid-evening, not long till Patricia and my half-nine dinner date. Her idea to make it late. Nice and late. I can tell what she's thinking and I like it.

In the meantime I don't know where I'm going but at least there's movement, plus more fleshy comfort to look forward to, my shirt collar buttoned up close against my neck to hide the regrettable love bite Nursey left behind. She was all panicked afterwards, worrying about her transgression.

It's so easy to disown pleasure, once you've had it.

Up ahead is another beacon of my unsightliness, the photographer's studio, the pavement outside it ablaze with light from inside. Even at this hour.

I can't resist peeking in through the window and that must be Gary or Bill or Don Vincenzo or whatever. He's in his forties. New family photos up on the walls. New window glass. He's at the desk working on a picture. I can't tell what it's of but it's a large image, no made-up faces in it. No pretence of happy. Only colour and shape. Looks like he's just finished framing it — his face calm and content as he wipes the glass down with a cloth.