Gift: A Son's Story (extract) - Last Words (ii)

When we got back to my flat, I asked him if he wanted to come in for a coffee.  He hesitated a moment, then said okay - though he couldn't stop long.  He said he also had some stuff of mum's in the boot and thought I might want it - including the photo album from Harberton.  I'd wondered about that and was glad that it had come to light.  I'd half-thought he wouldn't come in, but was glad he'd agreed.  There were a couple of things I needed to ask him.

            When we were settled with our coffees, he passed two carrier bags over to me.  There was the photo album, plus a couple of others.  Then a bag containing mum's fridge magnets.  She'd had a huge collection, covering both doors and one side of the fridge-freezer.  Another bag was filled with her tea towels - again a big collection, made up mainly of holiday souvenirs.  Finally, there was a blue plastic folio case that had once belonged to me, but which I'd given to mum for her papers when I started storing most of my 'documents' on the computer.  I opened it.  Inside, she'd saved all of the pieces of my writing that I'd given to her over the years.  Poetry chap-books, stories, articles, memoir-pieces, instalments of a blog I'd been writing for a while.  Some of it was stuff I'd printed from my first Amstrad word-processor - stuff I'd long forgotten about.  Seeing it all - those dog-eared pages and early efforts - felt like being punched in the chest.  I closed the case up again quickly and put it with the bags. 

            "I'll put it all away somewhere.  I don't think I'm ready to look at it now.  Thanks, though."

            He asked if there was anything else that I wanted.

            "Not for me, no.  But there are some other things that I thought I'd mention."

            I'd spoken to Phyllis on the phone a few times over the months.  Every week or two I'd call her, or she would call me.  Time and again, she'd mentioned that mum had promised her a particular ring.  Not just in recent years, either, but going back a long way.  It was a special ring that dad had bought for her - not an engagement or wedding ring, but a present that she'd treasured.  I told her that Russell had taken most of the jewellery and that I'd ask him about it.  She said she'd asked him several times, too, and he'd told her he was going to look it out.  But she'd never received it.  Then, one day, I'd asked him about it over the phone.

            "Ah," he'd said.  "There's a small problem there.  In the final weeks, mum had promised a ring each to Molly and Lucy, and that was one of them.  Molly's got it."

            Molly and Lucy were Nicole's young daughters.  Mum was always fond of them both, as she was all of her great-grandchildren.  They'd last seen her a week before she passed, and she must have said it then.  It was obvious, with her deteriorating cognitive state, that she'd become confused, or had forgotten her promise to Phyllis.  If, indeed, that was the truth of it.  I had no proof.  It was just his saying so.  He said he'd been afraid to tell Phyllis this.  To me, though, it was clear what he needed to do.  Phyllis was mum's sister.  They'd known each other for life.  It was only right that Phyllis should have the ring.  I'd said to him that maybe Molly could have another ring, as mum had quite a few.  He said he'd sort it.  But when I'd last spoken to Phyllis, she still hadn't received it. 

            I brought the matter up again then.

            "That's in hand," he said.  "Molly will be upset, but I'm sure we can work a way around it.  Maybe by telling her that it's just for now, until anything should happen to Phyllis."

            I was taken aback at that.

            "Well, with respect... no.  Mum promised it to Phyllis.  It's up to Phyllis what she does with it, surely?"

            He shifted in his seat.  "Okay.  Well... I'll sort it, whatever."

            Somehow, I thought he'd still do what he'd suggested.  I doubted he'd tell Phyllis that, though.  I didn't like that kind of deceit.  And I know, if it had been me, Phyllis would have had the ring given to her at the funeral - and Molly would simply have had to understand.  It was only right.  His suggestion was not only deceitful, but manipulative.  I didn't need to think too hard about where that trait came from - especially as Lynn's blood relatives were concerned in it.

            There was something else, too.  Mum had an earthenware ashtray that we'd bought on holiday in Cornwall way back in the late sixties.  It was a whimsical thing, in the shape of a Cornish tin mine.  There was a 'doorway' opening at the base of the chimney, which was where you would rest a cigarette.  Then the smoke would come out of the chimney.  The glaze had picked up a chip or two over the years, and the bowl was discoloured from the countless cigarettes it had held.  But mum had always been very fond of it and had kept it out on display ever since - even after she'd stopped smoking in 1983.  Joanne, too, had always liked it.  So mum had promised it to her.  Again, this wasn't a recent thing, but went right back to Joanne's childhood.  Russell and Carole had divorced when she was six, so it was a traumatic time for her.  Like all children (especially sensitive ones, as she was), she wanted stability, and to feel loved and cherished.  When she was a little older, she used to come and spend weekends with us - mum, dad and me - and always enjoyed them (a different experience for her to the weekends she spent with Russell and Lynn when they got married, where she always played second fiddle to Nicole and never felt truly welcome).  Dad, being a child at heart and having a great way with children, always enjoyed having Joanne with us.  It was he who had first shown her how the ashtray worked.  She'd sit in fascination and watch the smoke from his constant roll-ups curl out of that chimney.  So that ashtray had come to encapsulate those times for her: a talisman of love and happiness, and a sense of being wanted.  It wasn't just an artefact: it meant a great deal to her.  As with Phyllis and the ring, Joanne had mentioned it to me several times.  She'd asked Russell, too, and he'd told her he'd look it out when he had time.  When he had time!  Whatever his relationship now was with her, and whatever the reasons were for their distancing... it was important.  Could he not appreciate that?  Aside from that, it was something that mum had promised to her.  I began to wonder if, in his scheme of things, mum's promises to others counted for anything at all any more.

            As with the ring, I also brought that matter up.  Again, he shifted around in his seat.

            "I know it's packed away somewhere.  I've told her I'll let her have it when I can find it.  There's so many boxes to go through, though, and I can't remember which one it went in."

            "Maybe she should have just taken it when she had the chance," I said. 

            He didn't respond to that.  He was probably irritated, too, to discover that Joanne and I kept in touch.  I couldn't care less about that, though.

            "Okay," I said, sitting back.  "I'll leave it all with you, then."

            Which he took as his cue to finish his coffee and get up.  I saw him down to the door, thanking him for picking me up and for the things he'd brought over.  I gave him a final reminder about Christmas, too.  I added that I was sorry if anyone thought me odd because of it.  Again, he didn't comment.

            I shook his hand at the door.  And then he was off.  It looked like he couldn't get away quick enough.  It made me wonder then if it was because, in my presence, he was out of his safety bubble.  He was vulnerable in a way he never was with Lynn there.  He was afraid, all the time, that I'd bring something up and he wouldn't know what to say, whereas Lynn most certainly would, and would always be sharp to argue, put down, deviate away - defend him when he was incapable of defending himself.

            He still had a lot to find out, I thought.  Particularly about how he'd had his eyes closed for so long.  How he'd been led for so long.  It was probably far too late for that, though.

            Time would tell.

 

            A week later, Phyllis rang me to say she'd received the ring at last.  Or a ring, at least.  It wasn't the one mum had promised her.

            "What?"  I felt my gorge rising again.

            "It doesn't matter.  I'm not going to say anything.  It's a ring, and it was hers.  It just wasn't the one she always said I could have."

            "Well, I'll bloody well say something!"

            "No, don't," she said.  "I'd sooner you didn't.  I'd sooner just let sleeping dogs lie.  I'm alright about it."

            So she might have been - but I certainly wasn't.  But I thought it was more important to respect her wishes on this.  If I said anything to Russell, it would only get back to her and create more upset.  So I left it.  Once again - keeping quiet in order to keep the peace. 

            For now, at least.  But I wouldn't forget it.

 

*

 

This book is finished now.  But before I sign off, there's one other thing that I wanted to mention.  Something that happened about a year after mum's death.  I was at home one day, going through my old phone - deleting a few contacts I no longer needed, checking the settings, etc.  Scrolling through the Voicemail box, I noticed a message that I'd somehow missed.  It was a couple of years old.

            And I couldn't believe it.

            It was from mum. 

            I played it... and her voice came to me, bright and cheerful, as it always had over all those years.

            "Hello, Dan.  It's only me.  I just though I'd ring to make sure you're alright.  I'll speak to you later, though.  'Bye."

            It was overwhelming.  I played it again.  And again.

            "Yes, mum," I said at last.  "I'm alright."

            And I am.

            I'm alright.

            I'm alright now.

           

THE END