Lonie15

Audrey completed the journey home in a daze of irritation. Men drivers, in their fancy cars, cut in front of her Hillman Imp, to the side of her car, and overtook her, blaring horns as if they were waving their penises at her. She kept within the speed limit, or just under it, to make sure and wondered if women should have separate lanes, like the bike lanes in Amesterdam, only broader. The rain fell in luminous sheets, when she came through the Clyde Tunnel. In the rear view mirror she saw the flashing lights of a Panda Police car and heard its mournful wail. She slowed down and pulled into the side of the dual carriageway to the consternation of the Ford Escort van behind her and she saw a ball headed, red angry face, flash by her. She passed the familiar landmarks of shops flashing tat at her, and Pelican crossings, which people didn’t seem to want to use, preferring, instead to dash out in front of her with their hand up, as if they were traffic cops and found herself passing the red post-box and turning into Park Road and home.

Audrey left the car door open and the engine running as she got out to open the black cast-iron gates. She edged the car through the gap, careful to keep the front tyres lined up with the slabs and off the red stone chips, which mother said made a terrible mess of the garden. Then again mother said everything made a terrible mess of the garden from the weather, to the tabby cat next door, to a watering hose that had been left lying by delphiniums, lilacs and peonies and not been rolled up properly. Her worldview was that the Nazis could not have been all that bad because they wore nice clean cut uniforms and an atrocity was wearing two mismatched socks. She chuckled when she thought of what her mother would make of Lonie.

Next door’s cat was waiting to shadow her to the front door. She bent down to pet it, her hands running up and down the ginger fur of its flank and, as it pressed against her legs, up under its chin. The cat purred with satisfaction; its tail sinuously twitching with delight. She noticed the upstairs light in Craig’s room had been left on and shone dully, between half closed curtains, in the gathering gloom - a warning, or a call to come home soon.

The hard black bristles of the tan doormat on the front step were arranged to read Welcome Home. Audrey, as was her habit, made sure she wiped her black shoes on it, to dislodge any dirt or cat poo, which would have been a disaster of the highest magnitude, but she was vaguely aware that her clothes had the ingrained taint of cigarette smoke and she’d need to shower and change. The cat followed her in. She had to shoo it away with her foot and quickly close the front door. But she stood for a minute in the part of the house before the opaque glass door that was neither inside or out, weighed down with the soft weight of coats and hats and the hard weight of shoes and gardening boots. She could have been at school again with each item name tagged. Her jacket was hung up in its proper place on the coat rack. A row of geraniums had been potted and coloured the top of the old shoe rack with a splash of green and red and married the fusty smell of earth and orient. She kicked off her shoes and left them higgledy-piggledy in front of the shoe rack in a way that she knew would infuriate her mother and pushed open the door into the hallway proper.

Every radiator blasted out heat and the house was stifling. This was for the supposed benefit of Craig, who came roaring down the stairs to meet her and fastened himself to her leg and whined. He had nothing on but a small white t-shirt and a large lopsided ill-fitting nappy that stunk the place out and needed changing. His hair was matted and he was sweating profusely. She began sweating too. Everything in the house sweated. Crystal vases of cut flower dotted the house which helped mask his smell. They were aided by the most expensive air-fresheners, which had a tendency to clog the back of the throat, cause sniffles, and make all food taste vaguely medicinal. Radio 4 was allowed to play in the kitchen. Craig wasn’t, of course, because he might get hurt. The living room was out of bounds, because of the many valued ornaments. He was allowed to crawl around and under the chairs in the sitting room. Upstairs he was allowed in Audrey’s room, but mother would rather not have him in her room, as he had a room of his own. He was most definitely not allowed in father’s room, or study, which were shrines to his passing. When he was younger and even more cumbersome, knocking everything over, Audrey had often wondered if he would be better, and happier, chained up like a baby bear in the corner of his room, with her chained up beside him. Craig’s motor skills were not much better now, but he was, very slowly, getting there. She took his hand and took him up the stairs and into the bathroom.

‘Mm, Mm,’ Craig moaned, looking up at Audrey, his black pudding hair covering up much of his face, which he kept swatting angrily away, with his other hand, but unable to cover the smile that creased his little face.

Audrey translated this as Mum, Mum, without even thinking about it. He also called Audrey’s mother, Grace, ‘Mm, Mm,’ which she castigated her daughter for, not directly, but by reference to ‘special children needing that bit more discipline,’ especially with respect to their vocabulary, as if life was one big elocution lesson, which he continued to fail, because Audrey failed to teach him properly. Grace had wanted to put him in a home with other special children. But her other sisters, to their credit, had dissuaded her. How much better they had suggested it would look if the boy went to a normal school, despite Down’s syndrome, as some of them, a few of the brighter ones did, perhaps her old school, Clarkston Primary, where she had been headmistress. There seemed little to no chance of that now.

Craig would not let go of Audrey’s hand. She had to reassure him with cooing noises and switch hands quickly while she ran the bath and tested the water. He helped her take off his t-shirt by holding his hands up. She tickled him and had him shouting and giggling, squirming, and pulling away from her as she finally pulled his t-shirt off. His nappy was, however, a trial. Shit had begun to run down the back of his chubby leg and hardened like lava flow at the back of his knee. She used half her ration of bubble-bath, whipped up foam, spun bubbles and dotted his nose with them. Holding her breath, his legs stiffing like Lego blocks, she tore at his nappy and whipped it off, leaving it sitting on the tiled floor, to deal with later, like a malevolent sponge creature. He buckled open his mouth to scream and kicked out at her in a tantrum, but she grabbed him by the two arms, lifted him, and plunged him into the bath. His mouth closed as she incey-winsey-spidered- him-climbing-up-the-spout until he giggled and laughed. She ran the taps to show him what she meant by spout, and tapping her thrust out chin with bath water,with a funny face, to show what she meant by pout. Taking turns, tapping the song into his chin and mouth, tickling, and splashing water on him; all of it becoming part of their bedtime game, as she surreptitiously cleaned shit from his bum and legs with a big submarine yellow sponge. It would need to go into the bin, wrapped in two black plastic bags, with the nappy. Her mother had an obsession with cleanliness. She undid the plug, letting the water trickle away, letting the heat of the house work to her advantage, until she grabbed for bath towel and swooped for him, leaving only his head showing. She kissed and smooched at this strange aquatic creature’s cheeks and ears as he writhed fishlike trying to escape from her grasp. His screams brought mother to the foot of the stairs.

‘Wheesht that noise immediately,’ Grace shouted up.

Audrey stuck Craig’s bum on the raised lavatory seat, as she towel dried his hair. He had not mastered using the seat for doing the toilet yet, and that too was her fault, as she should be at home, training and tricking him with praise and threats until he performed. All mother’s children, including herself, had been fully toilet-trained by the age of two. Even allowing for Craig’s unfortunate condition…Audrey heard mother climbing the stairs, her fingers clicking as she clutched the bannisters with lacquer red talons. She appeared in the doorway in her nightgown and quilted pink robe, with rose buds around the rounded white collar and carrying a book.

‘Is everything quite all right dear?’ Grace asked.

Craig pulled at Audrey’s hair as she dried between his toes. ‘Yes, perfectly mother.’ She didn’t look round at her.

‘Quite sure?’

Audrey knelt and pulled Craig up against her breasts, in a standing up position, so that she could towel dry his back and bum. ‘Yes,’ she said, quite clearly.

‘Cup of tea?’ Grace’s nose crinkled in distaste when she spotted the nappy.

‘Maybe later.’

‘How about some hot milk and hot chocolate for Craig?’ Audrey had her son locked to her chest, with his hands round her neck, his feet off the floor, covered over with a towel, and clutching to her like a baby joey in its pouch. ‘That would be great mother,’ she said, and wondering if her mother would watch Craig long enough for her to dash into his room and get another outsized nappy to put on.

‘Oh, Grace put her hand to her head in dismay. ‘We’ve not got any hot chocolate. With you not coming in last night I didn’t have time to get to the shops. I also had to miss my hairdresser appointment at Collete’s.’

‘I’m sorry mother.’ Audrey clutched onto Craig and lifted him up, planning to take him into his room to change him, but her mother faced her and stood guard at the bathroom door. She hoped that Craig wouldn’t pee, or worse shit, before she had got a nappy on him.

‘The thing is I planned to have an early night, last night, and do a bit of reading.’ Grace held the book out as evidence. She frowned like a headmistress that was faced with a slovenly pupil that just wouldn’t do and refused to admit to some gross misdemeanour. ‘I phoned all of your girlfriends.’ She looked to see what affect her words had on her daughter. ‘Not that you’ve got that many now dear.’

‘I’m sorry mother. I’ll need to put Craig to bed.’ Audrey rocked on the balls of her feet, unsure whether to make a dash for it past her mum. ‘It was a girlfriend from work.’ She felt her son tugging at her hair and knew he was going to begin to cry.

‘Yes dear. He does look tired.’ Grace stepped away from the door to let her daughter rush past. ‘I just hope your girlfriend used precautions. You know what happened the last time.’ She held up her book. ‘This is a real good book. Henry James. A Wordsworth Classic. Portrait of a Lady. I’ll let you read it when I’m finished.’

Audrey banged the door shut in Craig’s room. It was painted blue and still equipped as if he were a baby with a cot in the corner and toys hanging from the ceiling on springs that baby hands could hit. She placed him down on the mat, near the window. The nappies were in the bottom drawer. She felt like putting one over her mouth and screaming, but she tickled at his tummy and he laughed and happily gurgled spit out of the corner of his mouth for her to wipe.