E-is for the end (chapter five)

5


Grania, the girl who talked and smoked and loved
compulsively, died early on a Tuesday morning in a nursing home. My
brothers had gone to Japan. The last time I saw my mum we had tea and
smoked B&;amp;H, played patience and talked about nothing much. But
it was like washing a page covered in invisible ink. Mrs Molland, the
woman who lived in the room next door said "Its such a shame, about the
sons. They never come and visit, such lovely looking boys." She was
wearing a white blouse, a metal brooch, and light green cardigan, a
light brown skirt and brown sandals I think. I remember her in the
doorway waving to me as I drove away.
It takes more than one person to make magic. When you see wizards they
are always sitting together with witches around the fire at night or
casting spells in the sun. I think my mum was alone when she
died.
Still, I remember one night when I must have been about eight, and I
hadn't been sleeping long when I heard my name being called. I got up
and ran down stairs to the sitting room. When I got there the paintings
had been turned upside down, wine was spilt all over the floor. "Mum?"
She was in the study next door that was usually locked, because it had
dad's things in it. She stood there, in a dressing gown. She had her
hair in purple rollers. The windows of the study were broken and the
floor was covered in leaves. A spider scuttled from behind the door.
Paints were spilled all over the floor. I looked at her swollen eyes.
"What happened?" "It must have been a thief" she said.


The next afternoon we had cleaned the place, swept it out,
and mum went into the garden and read a book. I picked up playing cards
off the floor. She was still as a rock, reading in the evening. She let
her cigarette burn out. I kept sneezing because of the dust. I picked
up coins off the floor, and then I sat on the gate post in the garden
while she read. As night fell the house stayed silent, and empty except
for Finn, coughing in bed upstairs. Mum sat in the garden ignoring the
midges that hung around her lamp as she read. I didn't know then why
ghosts had visited us. When I went back into the study to lock it,
there was a man waiting. He was wearing a blue t-shirt and grey paint
covered jeans. He looked at me. I called for Mum. She was sitting there
flickering like thunder in a rainstorm.
"Mum, there's someone in the study."
She didn't move. I sat on the stairs, and finally she walked across the
hall.
"I was just waiting for you to invite me in."
Then someone put on a record, and I couldn't hear anything else. But I
know that dad never came back, and I know she never moved when I called
her, and wouldn't even speak about the man who stood in his boots in my
mind.


When it rains I remember the willow hanging over the canal,
and the tiny garden, and the raindrops falling into the water. They
make circles that make me think you can go back to the beginning. I
want to think that the laws of magic are stronger than science, and I
know the most tender words that mum and dad said to each other are laid
in stones under my skin. But I dream of a violinist made of snow who
plays and plays until he melts in the sun.