Lonie54

Outside the secure unit, wind caught under Audrey’s dress and coat, and tried to lift it and her into the air. Squalls of rain danced around her and she had to chase her headscarf along the car park, mussing her hair. She was glad to be back in the safety of her car and turned the heaters on full blast. Traffic was busy at that time of day. She felt like a naughty school girl going home rather than back to the office, but she knew other reporters hung around bars, getting steadily drunker, whilst claiming to be interviewing sources. The salvation of a hot bath and a good sleep were more enticing than heaven.

Grace was in the driveway wearing her gardening clothes and gloves when Audrey parked her car. Mother did not seem surprised to see her.

‘Moles.’ Grace pointed with her trowel toward the lawn. Three hillocks of loose soil were her evidence of subterranean activity. What she expected to achieve with a trowel Audrey had no idea.

‘Where’s Craig?’ He loved being outside. Audrey scanned the shrubs and bushes to find his dumpy little body.

‘I put him to bed.’ Grace crouched and stabbed under the soil and lifted chickweed from the border. Pincering it between two gloved fingers, she held her arm horizontally out and carried it back toward where the car was parked. She dropped it into a black bag, opened like a plastic nest, near the metal gate. Some bindweed climbing from the edged border and spilling onto the grass caught her attention and made her frown. She stooped and slashed, taking some of the lawn with it.

Audrey stood clutching her bag, waiting for Grace to say more, but a long rooted Cat’s ear had her pawing frantically at the loose soil. There was little use waiting. Red stone chips crunched under Audrey’s feet as she made her way into the house. Her shoes were kicked off in the hall, before climbing the stairs, the fatigue in her legs coming more from what she expected to meet.

Craig’s room door opened without much noise. He was standing barefoot, clutching his comfort blanket by the window, looking out into the garden, all the world before his eyes, but nobody to take him out. It took a few seconds before his eyes registered her presence and his feet stomped across the room to meet her. His nappy smell alerted her. He flung himself into her arms, but she held him off at arm’s length. She carried him through the hall and into the bathroom.

Craig stroked her face and hair. ‘Mm Mm Mm,’ he repeated as she changed his nappy, and ran the bath. His smiles were infectious and she couldn’t help smiling back. It seemed a time for a celebration -- of being cleaned up-- by having an early dinner of fish fingers and chips. Mother, Audrey convinced herself, could pick at something more nutritious and to her taste.

The evening in the living room with Grace was a blur of television sucking the life out of Audrey. Grace held on until Softly, Softly, was finished. She went to bed, with her usual belated warnings about locking doors and turning out lights.

The electric light hanging almost over Audrey’s bed was the last one to be switched off. She felt awkward and shy as a school girl wearing a polyester nightgown in a roomful of fully dressed boys, not sure if she should kneel down at the side of her bed to pray. The covers on her bed were pulled back inviting her tired body to rest, but she decided to try praying. The bed springs creaked and her bum made a dent on the bed, her hands were clasped together in a pyramid shape, with two bare feet on the floor. Eyes shut, she tried to think of something to say to God, but nothing seemed to spring to mind. Her head jerked round and her eyes opened. There was a definite burning smell, but she wasn’t sure where it was coming from. Her nose sniffed the air like a Cocker Spaniel. She got down on her knees and looked under the bed.

Out in the hall the smell was stronger. She poked her nose into Craig’s room. The crest of the moon illuminated his squarish little head, the rest of him was safely tucked in under the blankets. There was stillness about his room that made her step inside and linger. But she heard something in the hall. Her thought were of screaming for help, flinging open his bedroom window and of running and jumping into the Buxus bush below. The lumping weight of carrying Craig made that seem impossibly silly. She sneaked to the door and looked out. Audrey’s scream woke Craig up.

‘Is it morning mummy?’ Craig rubbed at his eyes.

‘No darling. It’s just granny.’ Audrey flitted back to his bed and kissed him on the cheek and went to meet her mother.

Grace stood in the hall tying up the belt on her nightgown. ‘You gave me a start!’ she complained.

Audrey brushed past her the need to find the source of the burning smell more urgent than trying to change her mother’s downturned mouth. ‘Don’t you smell burning?’

Grace was put on full alert, and turned her head towards her room and back down towards the hall. She looked for signs of smoke coming from downstairs: the kitchen, living room and dining room. ‘No,’ she finally admitted. Her eyes searched Audrey’s face for an explanation, but she behaved strangely, leaning forward like a dumb animal and sniffing her nightgown. ‘Audrey!’ There was a shocked tone in her voice that made her daughter step back. ‘What in god’s name are you doing?’

‘Can’t you smell it?’ Audrey looked at her mother, but the burning smell was becoming stronger. She darted along to mother’s room and pushed open her bedroom door to check it wasn’t ablaze. Her eyes didn’t seem to satisfy her other senses. She began sniffing inside round the blanket on her mother’s bed, pulling open one cupboard door after another and checking inside, but there was only an old woman’s costly clothes growing into the shape of their hangers, with a tinge of whatever expensive perfume was fashionable at that time.

‘What are you doing rifling through my wardrobe Audrey?’ Mother’s words and bearing were that of a woman not to be trifled with.

‘Can’t you smell it?’ Audrey dashed round her mother’s statuesque figure. ‘Something’s burning,’ she shouted back from the hall.

Audrey’s feet beat a furious tempo on the hallway stairs. Her head was turned towards the living room, but her nose pointed her firmly in the direction of the kitchen. Her mother quietly descended the stairs behind her and stood like a ghost, with her hand on the banister waiting to see which way her daughter would jump next.

Mother shouted through to the dining room. ‘Do you think I should call the fire brigade?’ She could see the space through the door, where her daughter now was, on her hands and knees, opening and shutting sideboards and peering into the spaces between the good china and silver plated coffee pots and tea spoons. ‘Perhaps I should phone for our doctor?’ There was a quaver in her voice as she spoke.

Audrey returned to the hall. The burning smell was still strong, but she could see no smoke or flames. She was convinced it was something under the floorboards. A list of things that were needed was ticked off in her head: claw hammer, torch, and iron crowbar for prising the wood up. But she was distracted by her mother’s calm indifference and her need for a doctor. ‘Why Mother are you feeling a bit sick?’ Audrey’s mind was racing ahead. Maybe they should call the fire brigade to be on the safe side.

It was the early hours of the morning before Grace convinced Audrey it was safe to go to bed and that she must have some kind of nasal problem, some damnable winter bug. Neither of them slept. Audrey was glad to finally have a good reason to get up and change Craig before she went to work. Grace was glad to hear the front door click shut and, for once, to be left alone with her grandson.