My Mother and The Man

He was always there when I got home from school. I would know by the smell of tobacco smoke and the laughing and coughing that it was him in the kitchen with my mother. He had a twisted, ugly face - my mother told me he'd broken his jaw in a car accident and it hadn't mended properly. I knew he was more than a friend to my mother and because that didn't feel right I hated him.

I must have been about nine or ten and my brother a few years older. I had no idea what my brother thought of him because my brother wasn't very well so I couldn't be sure whether he had thoughts anyway. The man used to buy us presents; sweets, games and books. I loved books but I wouldn't read the ones he gave me. He also gave me a kitten but as soon as it arrived it spat at me and scratched me when I tried to stroke it. Perhaps it knew.

My mother kept telling me not to be so rude but I still carried on ignoring the man as much as I could. One time he took us for an outing in his car. As we didn't have a car of our own this was supposed to be a Big Treat. We went for a walk on Bristol Downs and this time my father came too which seemed very odd to me, particularly as my mother and the man were walking on ahead arm-in-arm, laughing together. I had no idea what my Dad was thinking but because he was my Dad I took his hand and held it tight. I can remember it felt warm and familiar.

Not long after that we moved to Northumberland which was a very long way away and the laughing stopped. My mother hadn't wanted to go and made herself ill over the whole thing but we went anyway. She was always cross and unhappy except for the times when she returned from visits back to Bristol to see my grandmother but of course I knew it wasn't just my grandmother she was seeing.

One evening there was a telephone call to say the man had died from lung cancer. I can see my mother now putting out her cigarette right there and then and don't remember her ever smoking again.

I knew she wanted us to be sorry but I felt nothing.