Queen Mum (27 page)

*

When I first woke I thought I was in the back bedroom at our old Bolton house. I could hear traffic, which you can’t at Cestrian Park, and the light coming in through the
curtains was different. I kept my eyes closed and listened to the room while I remembered. Against my cheek there was an unfamiliar satiny bedcover, and there was a clock ticking hollowly. The
smell of the place was like very old faint perfume or the face powder Mum kept in her handbag for years. Juno’s parents’ house.

There was also the sense of someone beside me, but when I did open my eyes, the pillow next to mine was empty.

I threw back the covers and shivered at the chill. Juno had found me one of her mum’s bathrobes and laid it across my chair the night before. ‘You’re not squeamish, are
you?’ she’d said.

I’d told her no because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings and anyway, she was so strung out. Now I was stumbling along the narrow landing in a dead woman’s dressing gown, with
pieces of last night coming back to me in no order.

Juno opening the front door, clicking on the light, and sniffing.

‘Don’t you think you can smell when a house is empty of love?’ she’d said. That’s only damp, I’d thought. There was mould round the door jamb.

I’d made myself go and face Juno over Sophie’s behaviour. I hadn’t done it at once, I’d waited two days, on the grounds that delay would make me more rational. I
rehearsed what I was going to say until I sounded like a talk-show host. And then, when I got there, Juno was packing.

‘They want me in Bradford.’ She held a blouse up to the light, then dropped it in the case. ‘The hospital. They think this is it.’

If it had been anyone else, I’d have known what to say. But the coldness was coming off her in waves.

‘What can I do to help? Do you need to get away right now?’

‘They said— Well, I do.’

‘OK. I can collect the girls for you, they can stay at mine till Manny gets home.’

She pulled some boots out of the bottom of the wardrobe and a brown stiletto fell on the floor. Instead of picking it up and putting it back, she kicked it under the bed. ‘Manny’s
away. Damn him.’

‘Oh, Juno. How long will it take him to get back?’

She shook her head. ‘He can’t get back, at least not straight away. He’s in bloody Ireland, a Celtic bloody arts festival. Trust him.’

I wanted to say, ‘Then I’ll go with you, Juno, so you won’t be on your own.’ But someone had to have the kids.

She stopped packing for a moment, checked her watch and frowned. ‘This is so like my mother. She always made her own time. We were late for everything I wanted to go to, but when it was a
place she liked, we were always there on the dot. She was in charge of time. Everyone else did the running around. I should have known that this was how she’d die, hanging on and on, then a
last-minute rush. Serve her right if I missed it.’

I drew in my breath. ‘You don’t mean that.’

‘I do. Gohhhd. Where
is
my sponge bag? It was right here a minute ago.’

I leant across the bed and moved the case lid. ‘There. Look, Juno, you’ll make yourself so you’re not fit to drive.’

‘Ally—’

‘Why don’t you book a taxi, for once? I know it’ll be expensive, but it’d be worth it. I could maybe come and pick you up tomorrow, or Tom could. He wouldn’t
mind.’

In the pause I had a sudden memory of Joe waving a Lego hammer. ‘Mummy, you say, “Hello, monster,” and then I hit you.’ Juno was leaning towards me. Her eyes ranged over
my face, pleading. ‘Ally, will you – I can’t believe I’m asking you this—’

‘What?’

‘Will you come with me? It’s just that I can’t bear the thought of being in that house on my own. It should all be over by tomorrow.’

She looked so lovely and sad. I’m always surprised no one’s ever painted her.

Juno’s mum had a brown suite in her bathroom and pink and white towels in the airing cupboard. The water from the hot tap was freezing; maybe you had to switch an immersion heater on. I
splashed my face anyway. It had been past two when we’d got into bed.

In the medicine cabinet, behind bottles of prescription pills and a tin of Ralgex and three types of cough medicine, I found a box of aspirin and took a couple. I wondered how Juno was feeling
and when we were going home.

When I got downstairs Juno was sitting, dressed, at the minute fold-down table in the kitchen drinking murky coffee.

‘You shouldn’t have come,’ she said at once. ‘Tom’ll be cursing me.’

‘Stop it, Juno.’ She’d said the same thing on the drive over, again just after her mother died at midnight, and later, when we were trying to make some kind of meal from the
poor collection of tins in the kitchenette. ‘It won’t have done Tom any harm to take the reins for once, work owes him some flexi days. Are you sure you don’t want him to bring
the girls across, though?’

She shook her head emphatically. ‘I don’t want them missing school.’

‘Not even for their grandma?’

‘She’s dead now. What good would it do? Anyway, they’ll have to take time off for the funeral.’

What did your mum and dad do that was so terrible? I wanted to ask. It wasn’t Juno, this coldness; Juno was warm and kind. It was a relief when she announced, ‘I’ve had it with
this nasty powder, I’m going down to the garage to get some proper milk. Want anything?’

‘Some hot water, if there is any. What’s the trick?’

‘No trick. It’s broken. Something else for me to sort out,’ she said, pulling on her coat. ‘If there’s any point. Look, I’ve got to go back to the hospital
this morning and pick up the death certificate. Are you in a rush to get back to Chester, or can you hang on till after lunch?’

‘I’m fine. Milk would be good, though.’

‘You’re such a friend,’ she said, from the hall. The door banged and she was gone.

I got dressed, then I settled myself in the fat armchair next to the table with the crocheted mat on it, and phoned Tom.

‘Everything’s OK here. Yep, got Hop-along and the girls off to school, and now I’m going to get that pile of bricks shifted from behind the shed. It’s needed doing for
ages. How’s Juno’s mum?’

‘Died last night.’

‘Shit. Were you there?’

‘Outside in the waiting area. I didn’t think it was right to be at the bedside. I thought Juno would want some time to say, you know, goodbye.’

‘So how is Juno?’

High, I could have said. By the small hours, hyper. I wondered briefly whether to say we’d shared a bed, but he might have been smutty about it.

‘This morning she’s icy, like she is when she mentions her dad. It’s weird. Not what you’d expect.’

‘Must be her way of coping. When will you be home?’

‘Mid-afternoon, I’d guess. Juno needs to sort some things out.’

I dragged the cushion out from under my back and hugged it to my chest for warmth. When I got off the phone I was going to put my coat on. I don’t suppose there’d been any point
heating the house while it was empty.

‘Take it steady on the roads, don’t go rushing.’ Tom’s voice sounded far away.

‘That’s my line.’

He laughed. ‘Hey, you’ll never guess who I met last night.’

‘Go on.’

‘Our friend Ian. Ian Nuttall.’

‘How did you manage that? Did he come round to our house?’

Tom gave a little snort. ‘Are you worried he’d nick the silver? Joke, joke, Ally. He’s a nice lad. I went with Ben to check out this famous building site—’

‘With Sophie and Pascale?’

‘No. I dropped them off at a music lesson. There was quite a row about that, because Soph didn’t think they should have to go with their mum away but Pascale wanted to. I
wasn’t arguing, I just bundled them all in the car. So, while we were over Sealand way, I thought Ben could show me where he had his accident. And when we pulled up, Ian was on there kicking
a football about. I called him over and we had a chat. He’s all right, you’d like him.’

There was something very slightly patronizing about the tone of this.

‘I’m not saying I wouldn’t. Who said I wouldn’t?’

‘Ben thinks Ian’s not posh enough for you.’

‘Well, Ben’s wrong. You can tell Ben that his mother judges people on their individual merits, and not by which estate they happen to live on. How could he say that? Where does he
think his own roots lie?’

I could hear Tom laughing again.

‘It’s not funny, Tom.’

‘Of course it isn’t. I’ll pass the message on. Anyway, I’ve invited Ian round sometime.’

‘Fine.’

I squirmed irritably against the chair back and the antimacassar fell across my shoulders. Bloody house.

‘And it’s been good to have some time with Ben. I’ve enjoyed talking to him, just us two; he’s a sensible boy. He really is ashamed of what happened with Soph, you know.
He’s positively allergic to her presence now, it’s quite funny to watch.’

‘Is it.’

‘Although, she needs some sorting out. I suppose now’s not the time.’

‘I wouldn’t have thought so.’

‘Oh, come on, Ally,’ Tom said. ‘I miss you. We miss you. Glad when you’re back.’

‘Yeah. Mid-afternoon, teatime, I should be home. We’ll have a takeaway tonight.’

‘Great.’

‘See you.’

‘See you.’

It was only as I was putting the receiver down that I thought to ask if there’d been any sign of Manny.

I went into the dingy hall to get my coat and there, on the inside doormat, was a two-pint carton of milk. Juno must have dropped it off then gone straight on to the hospital. How thoughtful was
that? I picked up the carton, and took a moment to survey the view down the hallway into the dim sitting room. Juno would have come in through this door every day when she was growing up. There
were photographs of her on the wall, lots of when she was little and plump but just the one of her grown-up; an unmounted wedding photo in a cheap white plastic frame. It looked as if her parents
had lost interest in her after about seven.

In the back bedroom, where I went next, it was so gloomy that I had to flick the light on. An elder branch was shading the window frame and the pane itself was filthy. Thin grey moth bodies lay
across the sill. The rail held no curtains.

I was looking for evidence of a little girl, and I found it. Half the floor was covered with boxes and the only furniture remaining was a table with a sewing machine on it, but you could see by
the circular dents on the carpet where a bed had once been. Two feet off the ground, in one corner, someone had stuck a whole lot of pictures of animals cut from magazines. Dogs in baskets were
favourite, followed by horses, but there were some chicks and a couple of kittens. I could imagine the bedhead underneath, girl-Juno lying there and gazing up at her collection of ragged-edged
pets. The wallpaper around had fruit on it, as though it had been meant for a kitchen.

Near the door was a box of
Jackie
annuals and a pot of make-up brushes. Had the Clairol hairdryer in the brown-and-cream box been hers too? What had she looked like, back then? Impossible
to imagine her awkward and gangly; all I could conjure was my Juno but in school uniform.

In the corner there was a black-framed mirror propped against the wall; it must have once hung from the hook hammered into the plaster above it. Teenage Juno getting ready to go out, listening
to the top forty on the transistor radio that sat on the windowsill. She’d have done her homework up here, probably. Did she have friends round, giggling together? Is this where she had her
first kiss?

I went back downstairs to turn on the television, anything to break the quiet. I also pulled the curtains right back, nearly off their rail, but it was as if the sunlight stopped at the entrance
to the yard. There was a lot about this house that reminded me of where I grew up, and of our first married home. I’d cooked for years in a kitchen that cramped, and I’d hauled myself
up stairs just as steep and narrow, and yet this place was so much gloomier.

When Tom and I first moved in together, we painted our walls cream and had pine and bamboo furniture because it was cheap and compact. Later, the place was strewn with toys and baby
paraphernalia in a cheerful, crowded way. I couldn’t imagine this house feeling so happy. It wasn’t the old-fashioned decoration here, either; Mum likes her lacy mats and flowered
carpets, but however kitsch she goes, the overall effect stays cosy.

There was a lamp in the corner with a tall, thin shade made of orange hessian. Someone had glued coils of brown string to the cloth in an abstract decoration. I switched the lamp on for the
extra light, and wondered at its ugliness.

It was a TV choice between news, news, programmes for schools or fly-on-the-wall in a children’s ward. I watched thirty seconds of a little girl being given an injection before I turned
over to
Come Outside
. This week, Aunty Mabel and Pippin the dog were investigating what happens to all the rubbish we put in our dustbins. Aunty Mabel took Pippin to the council tip and
looked at all the different piles of waste. She talked about recycling and fly-tipping. One of the council workers gave her a guided tour. When it was time to go, though, Pippin had disappeared.
Aunty Mabel searched and searched, calling Pippin’s name, but there was no sign. Eventually she decided that the dog had fallen in the crusher or something because she said again what
dangerous places rubbish tips can be, and went home alone, hanging the lead up by the door and wiping her eyes. But wait! Just as the door was swinging closed, there was a joyful bark and who
should come round the corner wagging her tail etc. To my embarrassment I found there were tears running down my cheeks. Thank God Juno wasn’t there to see. Crying over a TV dog and dry-eyed
over my best friend’s mother.

I mopped my face and went to make a drink, remembering now, out of nowhere, the way Mum had dealt with Dad leaving us. What she’d done was to establish new routines, so that instead of
waiting for him to come home from the Labour Club on a Saturday night before we had our supper, we had our fish and chips early and watched the sort of film we wanted right the way through; no more
changing over for
Match of the Day
. The food-shop route was different too; we didn’t go down the beer aisle at all. Instead we bought extra chocolate, and took our time over the
magazines and toiletries. Easter we could spend at home, baking and reading, not trailing up to see his sister in Dundee. Sometimes it seemed as though time had been suspended or even gone
backwards because Mum would do all the things I loved as a child, like reading aloud ‘The Robin Family’ in
Woman’s Weekly
, and buying mallow wafers and playing hangman. I
reckon I got an extra three or four years of childhood out of my dad going.