Going Home

He Went Home
by
Kim West

"I'll just slip out Paul and see if I can catch the corner shop before
it closes. You stay here and pop the kettle on. I'll be back with some
milk." The door slammed and he could hear the sound of her feet running
away down the street. He wondered if she would come back. He knew that
he had given her an awful shock just turning up this way, but surely
not enough for her to abandon her house and just vanish. Things hadn't
been that terrible had they? He had knocked at the door with the cheery
hope of an optimist seeking a new start. She had answered, ushered him
through to the kitchen and swiftly and simply run out of the house on
this errand. He was not convinced by that 'errand' excuse. His mother
hadn't seemed so very shocked really, more embarrassed; perhaps in need
of a moment to gather herself. He looked around the little kitchen, in
which there was hardly room to turn and having located the kettle,
filled it and switched it on.

He heard a sound in the street, went to the window and pulled aside the
nets, but there was nobody in sight. He began to search for teabags and
while scuffling through his mother's dingy cabinets, he became aware of
what a shambles she was living in. One shelf was filled to overflowing
with packets of sugar. There was every variety that you could think of.
Her cupboards were like part of a museum display for a 1950s kitchen:
There was an old tattered box of cubes that told a tale of posh Sunday
afternoon cups of tea with visitors when sugar would be served with the
aid of his mothers little silver tongues. A split bag of caster sugar,
that old staple of his childhood favourite the Victoria Sandwich,
spewed out through the side of its bag. Icing sugar dust had tipped
everywhere; and a bag of demerara, obviously a recent purchase as it
was still in one piece, was balanced near the edge. Another shelf
hoarded a similar selection half empty/half full bags of flour, and
packets of dried fruit and cake mixes. Elsewhere his investigations led
him to a grimy undersink hellhole, where unwholesome saucepans lurked
and a chip pan full of solid fat sneered at him. Yet still no
teabags.

A woman walked past the front window and he rushed to the door. He
opened it and saw the woman look nervously at him and hurry into a
house three doors up. In the street, some kids were booting a ball
about aimlessly. They all turned to stare at him and feeling like an
intruder, with still no sign of his mother, he once more retreated back
inside her house.

Teabags. Ah Yes! His hunt was becoming obsessive. It was something to
keep him occupied. Next to the draining board there was a small work
surface with an old circular breadboard coated in crumbs. A selection
of old tins at the back of this work surface caught his eye and having
settled himself to the task of discovering their contents, he was
startled by a rattling at the door. He spun round but sighed, as the
evening paper dropped to the mat.

"My God she's been gone for ages. Surely she'll be back soon. What on
earth is she playing at?" he murmured to himself

Some people were talking in the garden next door.

"Needs cutting Jo. Needs cutting badly."
Paul crept to the back door, cutting a furtive figure in the shadows,
as he listened.
"Shut up moaning. Won't you ever give up? I never cut it after October.
You know that. It won't matter if it's a bit long over winter."
"She's going to notice."
"Let her!" and a door slammed.
Through the half net of the back door window he could see an old woman
standing in next door's garden with her hands on her hips, staring at a
prim square of lawn that was identical to his mother's. The woman
sighed and started to collect her washing, struggling to snatch several
voluminous pairs of lady's pants from the buffeting of a strong
wind.
Out of modesty Paul retreated from this cameo.

A surge of anger rippled through him. Where was his mother? He felt
trapped in her claustrophobic world. The walls began to creep in on
him. If he went out to look for her, he would have no key to get back
in and she might not have taken hers. Attempting in vain to reconcile
to a relaxed stance for what must surely be her imminent return, he now
sank too low for comfort into the tectonic plates of her worn out sofa.
His legs felt big and clumsy as they spread-eagled before him over the
autumnal shades of a nylon carpet and he then recalled his mother's
pride in his early ascent towards six foot. When aged twelve he had
already needed adult sizes, she paraded him to the High Street to
purchase his long trousers at a gentlemens' outfitters rather than the
school uniform shop. He had felt like a street show, as she stopped to
chatter along the way, telling all and sundry the tale of her
incredible tall son who shuffled beside her, desperately yearning for
cloak of invisibility.

He scanned the photos crowded onto her mantle piece, amongst one
hundred and one cheap knick-knacks. He noted that she still had her
treasured Mills and Boon collection in a glass fronted cupboard.
Reminding him of the everlasting nature of sturdy plain home-knit
winter jumpers, there was the eternal knitting, balanced on the arm of
her chair. He pondered that next door's front room would most likely be
indistinguishable from this one, and the same next door to that and so
on. He allowed himself to conjecture that there were probably fifty
houses in this street with these identical interiors.

With a struggle he released himself from the clutches of the hideously
uncomfortable, clapped out sofa.

"She'll be back soon" he tried to reassure himself, "I'm just
overwrought and anxious after all this time away."

In an effort to restore some optimism into this difficult day, he took
a deep breath and stretched, nearly touching the walls either side of
him. He decided to return to the teabag hunt in the hope that this
would provide a focus for his thoughts.

"Those tins yes it must be in one of them" he thought. But a Colman's
mustard tin would not reveal its contents, its lid being securely
sealed with rust. A tin decorated with roses, whose lid slip open
easily, proved to be empty. A third contained something that lumped
around inside, but would not open, and so there were still no teabags.
Just for something to do, he flicked the kettle on and off a few times,
feeling irritated now. He washed out the teapot and two chipped
mugs.
"She's probably met someone she knows. She never could resist a
gossip."

It had been eighteen years since Paul moved her from the old family
home into this house and he had not seen her since.
Fragments of memory kept surfacing now as he paced around awaiting the
return of his mother. The slightly repugnant scent of a bygone era
pervaded the place, drawing him once again into the texture of his
oppression. All around him the muted colours of his mothers way of
being reminded him of the overwhelming need that he had felt as a
younger man to escape. He caught an image of his beautiful wife waving
him off on the platform.

" Keep it simple" he told himself. "Don't clutter the place with your
poetic thoughts. Just apologize to her and take what comes."

Several people passed the front window, yet still no sign of her. His
struggle with optimism began flailing as he found there wasn't enough
room to pace about.
Then all of a sudden the front door swung open. An elderly man walked
in, pinned the door open with his foot and pushed his bicycle through
to the kitchen.

"Evening" he said, while opening the back door and placing his bike in
the yard.
The front door opened again and there she was.
"Oh I see you two've met."

"Well not really. Who is he?"

"He's your father."

"Oh"

"Yes, well I've been and fetched him. I thought it best."

"Oh" he gasped.

Paul had never seen his father before. Borrowing some time, the old boy
spent some time out in the yard, talking to the woman next door, before
knocking his boots on the grate and coming back inside.

"I'll put the kettle on" he called through.
Paul and his mother spent some fraught moments shuffling from foot to
foot and avoiding eye contact, waiting for the kettle to boil with its
promise of a tranquilizing tea ceremony.

"Mum what does all this mean?"

"I might ask you the same Paul."

"But I've come back to explain everything."

Then at last the old boy who was apparently his father staggered
through with a laden tray, which he placed on a glass topped low
table.

"There we are." He handed Paul a cup, who for a fleeting moment lost
his concentration and wondered where the teabags actually were.

"Well mum I'm amazed" Paul managed, trying to balance his tea without
spilling it as he once more succumbed to the clutches of that
uncomfortably low sofa. His voice broke a little betraying the
confusion he felt. He fought to control his emotion and took a biscuit
from his father, who was passing them round on a chipped plate.

"I don't know why you should be," said his mother, offering him sugar
from a grimy glass bowl.

"But I didn't even know he was alive," he burst out passionately.

"Well we never thought we'd see you again," responded his mother
sharply, reminding him of the old days.

"Go on Paul, have another biscuit," his father insisted.

Paul stared at him. He was obviously a man of few words, because he
said nothing else. Paul noticed that his father's features were buried
under wrinkles and that his workman's hands told a tale of hard labour.
Perhaps such scrutiny made him feel uncomfortable, for he soon left the
front room and went to cut the back lawn with a mechanical mower.

"Mother! For God's sake what's going on?" Paul demanded.

"Look Paul it's quite simple. Your father and me, we are very happy.
It's been thirteen years now."

With that she took the tray back into the kitchen and began washing up.
She was humming. The mower whooshed.

This wasn't at all what he had expected. He now realized how naive he
had been with his dreams of reconciliation and forgiveness of the past.
Quite simply he had expected to feel better, not worse.

"Sonia's working at the hospital now, mum," he ventured, not daring to
join her in the kitchen.

"Oh that's nice."

"She'd like to set up her own practice soon."

He blew his nose vigorously on his monogrammed hanky.

A colleague had encouraged this visit, saying:
"Paul, you keep circling around this one so often. You need to move on.
Why not swallow pride and just go and see her and tell her what really
happened. I'm sure that's what you need and perhaps she does too. Do it
before its too late. We all have to try to reconcile with our past
lives."

"Do you want another cup of tea, Paul?" he mother ventured, plunging
herself back into her household routine.

"No thanks" he responded, getting no answers to his own questions. He
wandered through to the kitchen.

"Excuse me getting on with the dinner, won't you? We go out on
Thursdays and I always have a rush."

She placed two pork chops under the grill and turned to him for a
second.

"Paul you're not a happy man. Why did you come back?"

Without waiting for his reply, she continued to scuttle around her tiny
kitchen, and produce a meal for two with the aid of her grimy
implements. The pork chops sizzled. This house was like a dolls house.
He looked at his feet. His handmade brogues embarrassed him, mocking
his simple quest for reconciliation with his mother and reminding him
of the richness of his own life.

"Well I had to see you."

"That's nice."

His mother never ceased her scuttling. Her preparations for what was
obviously to be a simple meal were over elaborate in the extreme. Now
she was mixing gravy. She began humming. On the Formica tabletop were
two places set for a meal. On the window ledge was a blue and white
striped jar labeled "Teabags". He sighed. He was too big for this
kitchen, and so he wandered back into the front room.

Now he could hear her out in the back yard talking to the man who was
his father. Perhaps she was trying to persuade him to come in and talk.
He looked around the room. Their life did not include him. All the
photographs on the mantle-piece were of his brother's family. There was
nothing of him in the house. He might have stayed away and saved
himself this emotional humiliation.

Sonia had been right.
"Paul. You have to close some doors and leave them shut. She probably
has her own life. What good will it do?"

He looked at his brother's photos and felt nothing. The images felt
one-dimensional. That man in the photos bore no resemblance to the boy
that Paul had in his mind. It was a poorly exposed archetypal seaside
snap of an expressionless clone sporting a cap, seated on a deckchair
with his hands clasped between his knees. Paul's brother had apparently
bought into the virus of suburbia lock stock and barrel. Paul peered
into the image but could find no resonance. He knew it was his brother,
but he could not tell why.
Now he felt that this visit had been a big mistake. The quality of his
life was so rich in comparison. There remained a familiar nagging sense
of longing for a snatch of a tender family moment. But it really seemed
that he had only succeeded in confirming that quite to the contrary,
his mother's world was indeed lost to him and that he was her lost
child.

For years he had written to her, hoping in vain for a response. But the
letters had been returned un-opened and in the end he had given up that
quest.

Now he could hear them talking in the garden, perhaps he should go
through. Perhaps this was the moment he had longed for. However, he
also wondered if he did want to get to know his father. He had never
expected to.
There they, his parents silhouettes were framed in the back doorway as
she wept into the old boy's shoulder. Paul, taken aback, froze in his
steps, suddenly feeling sick.

"I'll be off then" he heard himself say.

The old man who was his father looked up at him, as Paul turned to the
door.

Then, shutting the front door behind him with infinite care to not make
a noise, Paul turned up his collar and set himself a brisk pace. That
street was barren and so he began to run.

This felt good.

Twenty years had passed since the debacle in that hospital and Paul was
still haunted by the memory. At the centre was a bitter dying old man,
immensely frail under starched white linen, staring into vapour. His
complexion was as grey as the clouds that grim Tuesday. He had already
begun the descent back to dust, to the chime of bedpans clang and drip,
drip of medication.

This was his mother's husband, John Stanley, the man that Paul always
belived to be his father until a recent outpouring from his mother. Mr.
Stanley did not share the facts of his illness with his family as so
they had found it very hard to cope with him. He had always been terse
and judgemental, but he gradually became more and more irascible and
difficult to understand. Over time, his behaviour got worse and worse,
eventually developing into vicious outbursts and even assaults on his
wife. Paul and his brother tried to intervene, but when he compounded
the problems by taking to the bottle, he became gross.

As Paul now ran through the dull streets of his mother's town, he could
hear the old man's words of anger and hatred. Paul and his mother and
brother had retreated into an alliance and it was then that his mother
had confided the truth about her affair, forbidding them to tell
him.

In the heat of his youthful anger, Paul had burned to let the vengeful
cat out of the bag and scratch the man in the starched white sheets
with the truth.

That man who had beaten his mother.

"I must tell him mother."

"You must not do that. Paul."

"I have to be free of him mother. You should have done this years ago.
You should have dine this for me."

" Alright Paul I will have to tell him."

" I hate him. He is not my father. Let me tell him, Let me do the
hurt."

" Paul this will do you no good."

But that's the way it was.
Paul released the cat from the bag the old man in the starched white
sheets was clutching and tearing at his chest in fury. His face became
blue like deep bruising. As if the insult of the disease were not
enough this burden of knowledge would seal his fate, so now he declined
into a vegetative state with his open eyes cold and unmoving.

Paul came to the gloomy station. Sitting in the wood paneled waiting
room were three schoolgirls, swapping giggling fits. He sat there,
hands clasped between his knees, his back curled over and his chin
dropped down. He turned to the window to look out for the train.
The train was to be delayed. An old lady had started up a conversation
with a little girl, neither of whom he had seen come in. They were
playing at houses and discussing how to make the waiting room a nicer
place. The schoolgirls had disappeared.

" We'll polish and polish."

" We'll put up wall paper and curtains."

Opposite were the child's parents exchanging loving glances and trying
to draw him into it. A high-speed train shot through the station,
rattling even the concrete floor.

Paul stood up and walked out to stand on the platform.