Murder Most Fab (8 page)

We
clapped and cheered our way through the show. As we watched a female
contortionist dangling from a rope, pulling her legs up behind her and flipping
a calf over each shoulder, Grandma Rita leant over to me and said, ‘Goodness. I
can’t even get my tights on in the morning.’

Afterwards
we travelled back to Blackheath and sat in the kitchen drinking tea and eating
muffins with Parmesan.

‘Mother
always says that cheese before we go to bed will make us dream,’ I said.

‘And
what will you dream about?’ she asked me.

‘Chinese
men bouncing off trampolines,’ I said, without hesitation.

‘Then
take off your St Christopher before you go to sleep. You never know where such
dreams might lead at your age.’

‘Thank
you for a lovely day, Grandma.’

‘You’re
very good company, Johnny. I shall be sorry when you go. The doctors say your
mother’s almost better. You’ll be able to go home soon, it seems.’

She
looked so sad it didn’t seem right to be too thrilled at the news, but I was
glad to hear I’d soon be seeing my mother again. I’d missed her desperately,
despite the security, comfort and stability of life in Blackheath. ‘Really? I
can go home?’ I thought of the cottage and my little bedroom, and longed to see
them again.

‘In
about a week.’ She reached across the kitchen counter and took my hand. ‘I
shall miss you. For all her faults, you’re a credit to her.’

I saw
my opportunity. This was the moment to ask the question that was never far
from my thoughts. My heart thumping, I said, ‘Am I a credit to my father, too?’

Grandma
Rita stroked my hair, as if she were contemplating the purchase of an expensive
fabric. ‘Well, any man would be proud to have you as a son, I’d have thought.’

‘Who
was my father?’ I spoke quietly and clearly, but my voice trembled.

‘As far
as his identity is concerned … we have narrowed it down to Kent, but there
are the cross-Channel ferries, you understand. We can’t rule out a European
kitchen hand.’ She gave a sniff. ‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’

I
covered my eyes with thumb and forefinger and pressed hard, willing the tears
away. ‘You really don’t know?’ It sounded more like a plea than I had intended.

‘No. I
don’t.’ She stood up and draped her arm rather awkwardly across my back. I
could feel her bony forearm resting on my spine. She attempted a trio of
comforting rubs, but I think it bruised her a bit because she stopped.
‘Sometimes it’s better not to know.’

She was
thinking of the kitchen hand, I imagined, and tried not to feel too
disappointed.

It
seemed that my paternity was destined to remain a mystery.

By the time my mother’s
malaise had passed and I went home, I had been away almost two months. I hadn’t
seen or spoken to her in all that time, and our quaint country life had seemed
a world away. I had become used to formal dinners with my grandmother, polite
enquiries about each other’s health and bland comments regarding the weather. I
felt older and more grown-up. I had seen television, newspapers, the great
metropolis. I knew of life outside our village.

As a
mark of my new maturity I arrived by train, via Ashford. I was to get a taxi
from there. ‘Don’t hang about in Ashford, whatever you do,’ warned Grandma Rita
firmly, as she saw me into the train at Charing Cross. ‘You might slip into a
coma. People do, you know. It’s a well-known fact.’

I
kissed her goodbye. ‘I’ll see you soon, Grandma, and thank you!’ I didn’t stop
to discover if she was upset by my departure, but hurried to my seat on the
train that would take me back to Kent. I couldn’t wait to get home: would my
mother notice my new-found maturity?

As it turned
out, my mother wasn’t the same either. When the taxi drew up outside our
cottage, I was disappointed not to see her standing on the doorstep waiting to
greet me. Perhaps she’s busy in the kitchen making our celebratory tea, I
thought, as I paid the driver. I hurried down the side path and barged in
through the kitchen door. The first thing I saw was that the plants on the
window-sill were dead from neglect.

I found
my mother in the lounge, wrapped in her overcoat before an empty hearth. She
looked up as I tumbled into the room and smiled weakly. ‘There you are, Johnny!
Is the taxi driver still here? Why not invite him in?’ She was pale and thinner
than before.

‘Hello,’
I said. ‘The driver’s gone, silly.’ I kissed her forehead. There was an
antiseptic, hospital smell about her. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Clean
and scrubbed up. Full of antidepressants, antibiotics, and anything else with
“anti” on the bottle.’

‘Shall
I light the fire to warm you up a bit?’ I asked. My mother’s robustness had gone,
she seemed delicate and uncharacteristically bitter.

‘I
don’t know where to begin,’ she said, casting a bewildered glance round the
room. ‘Look at all the dust and cobwebs. And the garden! I know it’s winter but
it’s so dismal. The birds have gone feral. Not one of them came when I called.’

‘We’ll
soon get everything back to normal, don’t you worry,’ I reassured her, as I
rolled up some newspaper to build a fire.

I was
happy to be home and overjoyed to see my mother, but she wasn’t her usual self
by a long chalk. I was sure that if I could just get our cottage neat and tidy
we would both feel more comfortable. I enjoyed the challenge and the
responsibility. Mother didn’t have much energy, it seemed, so while she rested
I dusted and swept, cleaned windows and made the place as warm and cheerful as
I could. I changed the sheets, aired the bedrooms and cycled to the village
shop for some provisions.

From
time to time I checked on my mother. She wasn’t very chatty, but once she
managed to quote Yeats to me:

‘Move most gently if move you must

In this lonely place.’

It was from ‘Long Legged
Fly’ and I couldn’t remember the next line, but I thought it was something to
do with being part woman and part child, so I felt it unwise to complete the
poem anyway.

By
eight o’clock that evening, when we sat down to a bowl of soup and warm toasted
rolls, everything was cosy and clean. My mother had had a bath and changed into
a cream lace blouse with a ruffled red polka-dot skirt. Sitting by a roaring
fire, rubbing her hair dry with a towel, she gave a contented sigh. ‘Ah, thank
you, Johnny … thank you.’ Her smile was wide and heartfelt.

I felt
the warm glow of satisfaction at a job well done when, after tea, she looked
into the fire and recited a poem of lighter sentiment:

‘There is so much good in the worst of us,

And so much bad in the best of us,

That it hardly becomes any of us

To talk about the rest of us.’

I laughed. ‘That’s a new
one. Who’s it by?’

‘My
favourite,’ said my mother. ‘Anonymous.’

I felt
relief wash over me. It seemed the worst might soon be over and we could begin
to be happy again.

Over the next few weeks my
sole concern was my mother’s recovery. I cooked us a hearty breakfast before I
went to school each day and rushed home afterwards. Then we would stay inside
in the warm, reading together and occasionally listening to a play on the
radio. Like my mother, the house plants filled out slowly and began to flourish
again. A social worker from the hospital visited now and then, checking that
medication was being taken and that family life was progressing along
acceptable lines. I was delighted to see the colour returning to my mother’s
cheeks and to hear her laugh once again at the antics of a ladybird or the
impertinence of a sparrow.

Outside
our happy home, though, things were not so rosy. I already knew from the
whispers and titters at school that my mother’s naked ascent of Hythe town-hall
clock had not been forgotten.

Boys on
the bus, knowing of my fondness for poetry, would sing unkindly:

‘Hickory, dickory, dock,

Whose mum ran up the clock?

Johnny’s ma forgot her bra,

Hickory, dickory, dock!’

Within the village
community it was less of a laughing matter. Mental illness was clearly regarded
by some with great suspicion.

‘I hear
they’ve allowed your mother home, then,’ said Mrs Brampton, one of our local
busybodies, outside the post office one day.

‘Yes,
thank you. She’s doing fine.’

‘Don’t
thank me, young man. Our Bible-studies group has been praying for her — praying
they’d leave her in there and throw away the key!’

I
wanted to protect my mother from these malicious remarks, and that was easy
while she remained at home in isolation. But within a few months she was as
robust as she had ever been, and as spring came and nature began to awaken,
there was an added glint in her eye. Late one night I found her standing by an
open window, inhaling deeply. She held her breath for thirty seconds, then
exhaled through her mouth, letting out an animal groan. ‘Aaaeeuugh!’

‘Are
you all right?’ I asked, afraid a relapse was heralded.

‘Never
better, sweetness. The marsh … it’s calling me! Listen!’

Indeed,
I could hear a strange, goose-like croak in the distance. My mother had always
had a passion for Romney Marsh, and didn’t much care for life outside it.
Ashford, the nearest town, she declared dull and suburban, and she loathed
supermarkets with a passion. We grew our own vegetables and got our eggs from
the six new hens that clucked about the garden like mini Dora Bryans. Where
possible everything, from logs to loganberries, was born and bred on the
marsh. We were organic before the word had been invented.

The
next morning Mother dusted down her bicycle and was off, as excited and bubbly
as if she were to be reunited with a long-lost love. Our roles now somewhat
reversed, I worried about her all day but, flushed and invigorated, she made it
home about six o’clock, celery and watercress sprouting from the basket
attached to her handlebars. She was back to normal. Or so I thought.

I
enjoyed school and was moderately good at all subjects, but I had become so
used to being responsible for everything at home that I was a little bemused by
authority when I had the misfortune to encounter it. If I was told off at
school, I raised my eyebrows and smiled — but I wasn’t told off very often. It
wasn’t in my nature to be rebellious so I didn’t clash with authority, which
helped to disguise the fact that I had no respect for it whatsoever.

Besides,
my mother’s illness and curious behaviour were common knowledge. I sensed that
the teachers were particularly kind and tolerant towards me on account of the
‘situation’ at home.

It took
a while for the rumours to reach me — rumours that my mother would leave her
bicycle in a hedge if a shirtless farmhand caught her eye. Then she’d trudge
across the field to reach him, discarding her clothing as she went. The boys at
school teased me about it, of course. I defended my mother’s honour in a couple
of playground scraps, but my informers were full of admiration rather than
scorn. They were hoping I’d invite them over so they could see what a brazen
hussy looked like.

Then
she was said to have been spotted emerging from behind a haystack with three
‘Folkestone-type lads’. That she had come home a few nights previously and
asked me to help her pick out the straw clogging her bicycle chain seemed to
back up the story. And there was straw in the bath plughole next morning, too.

It was
true, then. Mother had rediscovered the free love and going-with-the-flow she
had found in her youth — and after her breakdown she went with the flow in a
big way, seemingly at the mercy of her sexual desires.