Elocution lessons

‘Och, Mum, you never bought it did you?’

Jean came to the front door wearing her red Macintosh that brightened the day. Her front door keys were in her hand. She lowered her bag with her purse, Rosary beads and bread for the ducks onto the seat where the phone sat. There was a tightness and tiredness in her hips that spread to her arms, her legs wobbled and her head felt like a cauliflower. She glimpsed her face in the dark brown-mottled mirror, with the yellowing leaves of Palm Sunday wedged in behind it, bent into the knotted shape of a cross, her eyes skidded away from recognition and settled on her son, standing with his car keys in his hand, not giving her time to settle. ‘I wis just going out.’

‘Wssst.’ Stanley’s hands flapped in front of him as he guided his Mum backwards and along the worn track of the hallway carpet.

Jean grunted in acknowledgement they’d be no resting. Stanley was like his Da, the one with all the get up and go. If she’d have flung him into the coal fire he was that determined to get his own way he wouldn’t have come out until he was ready. He’d done well for himself with his big fancy-dan house in Bearsden, his fancy cars --with spoilers, young people called them. She’d laughed at that. Spoilers made lots of noise for no particular reason. Stanley was on his third catalogue wife now. There seemed to her no good reason for that either. Jean braced herself against the couch, before slumping down into the seat beside the living room door. ‘I’ve not hoovered yet,’ she warned him.

Stanley’s green eyes moved in their watery sockets glinting like marbles left out in the rain, taking in the frame of the antiquated telly still with dials for changing channels, the crooked chain of the blanched bleeding heart of Jesus, hanging crook above the fireplace and Mum’s worn slippers, sitting beside the nestled tables, on top of a nest of gaudy women’s magazines by her armchair,. ‘I suppose you’ll be wanting tea?’ His eyes settled on his mum’s face.

Jean, puckered out, shut her eyes. She remembered them all, eight of them, two born dead, pulling and pushing at her in this room, grunting and groaning, me-me-me, crushing her like a moving, many-headed machine, she kept well-oiled, day after day, with her love. Stanley was the last drop spilled from her worn heart. Spoilt rotten of course. The older girls were little mothers to him and his brothers his protectors, his childhood capital, in playground disputes.

He watched her for a few seconds. ‘Mum!’ Cheeks spider-veined flushed with baby-blue mildew. She was doolally now of course and smelled of melting wax. He didn’t much believe in doctors and pills and getting jabbed with injections. The house was in his name, but if she went into a care home there would be no way of telling what extra costs would be incurred. His mouth widened and turned down in disgust, but his brothers would pay nothing because they were just scroungers that didn’t want to work.

‘Aye son, a cup of tea, would be nice.’ Jean opened her eyes. She’d been dreaming and a smile remained on her lips. She looked up at him, suddenly breathless, and thought he looked older than forty-six. He wasn’t long gone before he returned, standing framed by the fluorescent light of the kitchen.

‘Who done up the kitchen?’

He’d the same hectoring tone of his Da. And it was in her nature to placate him. ‘The sink broke and the council widnae replace it. Archie came down. You’re sisters chipped in. Him and John started and they widnae stop until they’d new cupboards and worktops, a new fridge freezer- not that I needed one mind you- and that cork flooring.’

His high forehead corrugated his balding head and he took a deep breath as if he was going to say something.

‘Don’t worry,’ cut in Jean, ‘I didnae let them do anything in here. I like things to be the way they were.’

‘I was just going to ask where the t-bags were?’

Stanley’s face fell and she minded him sickly white and needy with his arms stretching out to her. She caught her breath and pushed herself up off the couch and past him into the kitchen. There was a pain in her side. It frightened her. She didn’t want to think about the word cancer, far less say it. She moved the coffee jar aside and pulled the box of tea-bags forward and leaned on the sink to take a rest before flicking the kettle on.

‘Don’t worry Mum, I’ll get it.’ Stanley looked at his Rolex and got two mugs out of the cupboard and positioned them in front of the kettle to show he had it covered. ‘Goin’ sit down.’ It was more an order than a request.

Mum was sitting on her usual seat when he brought the tea through. He handed her a mug and took a sip out of other and grimaced, but he wasn’t staying long, he just wanted to sort out this thing about somebody trying to sell his mum something.

Jean sat sprawled out in the chair with her feet ontop of the nest of tables. ‘Do my ankles look swelled up? I hate goin’ to those doctors.’

‘No. They look like they always look.’ Sidney glanced at them again. ‘Maybe a bit fatter. Look Mum I need to go, I just wanted to ask you about that –'

Mum sipped at her tea. ‘They’re definitely swollen. You don’t think I need to go to the doctors? Cause I don’t want to go to the doctors.’

‘No.’ Stanley’s mobile rang. He went into the hall to take the call. When he came back Mum had finished her tea and was just sitting. ‘Mum,’ he said.

‘Whit?’ she snapped. ‘Whit kinds of mess have you gone and got yourself into now? Always wanting something. Never content.’ She rubbed her hands across her belly and skirt, feeling the swelling in her side.

‘Mum!’

‘Whit is it son?’ She leaned across and peered up at him.

Stanley started again, spoke gently. ‘This man that what was trying to sell you something –‘

‘Whit man?’

Stanley sighed. ‘The man that you talked about to me on the phone.’

‘That wisnae a man. That was yer father. He wisnae selling me something. He wis tellin’ me something.’

Stanley looked up at the picture of The Sacred Heart and Jesus’ brown eyes seemed to be looking straight at him. His mouth was dry and in his head he heard his Da saying --. Sweat soaked his armpits. ‘Whit did he say?’ He struggled for breath. All those elocution lessons had been wasted.

Mum’s mouth fell open. ‘He said you would know.’

Stanley clutched at his chest and felt himself falling, falling, falling.