If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things

Chapter 11

And so today I’m back on the telephone.

I’m listening to my mother talking, and I’m waiting for the right moment to interrupt.

I know that I have to tell her, I know that I will be able to tell her if I use the right words at the right moment.

I know what the right words are, I’ve been sitting here for hours, choosing and unchoosing.

And I know that I need help now, that in spite of everything my mother is the person to ask.

I’m scared, I have always been scared at times like this, waiting to say something, waiting to be told off.

Falling off the garden wall, and she says what the hell were you doing up there anyhow while she cleans the graze and presses a bandage around it.

Dropping my dinner on the floor, and she shouts at me and sends me to bed, and when she brings me a sandwich later I throw it out of the window.

My dad, saying nothing at these times, averting his eyes, folding his hands.

I remember my dad taking me to school, when I was very young, when my mother was ill.

The feel of his huge hand wrapped around mine, rough and hard and warm.

The length of his strides, and having to run to keep up.

The very cold days when he’d wrap his scarf around my face until it almost covered my eyes, and when I breathed in I could smell him in my mouth, damp cigarettes and bootwax and the same smell as his hair when he said goodnight.

I remember that once he had to take me early so that he could get to the shops before work, and I went and hid in the corner of the playground, behind the bins, with the scarf wrapped completely around my head like a mask.

I remember how safe I felt, wrapped up like that, blinded.

He didn’t say anything during those walks to school, but I used to look forward to them, I used to be secretly and ashamedly pleased if my mother didn’t appear for breakfast, impatient to leave the house.

I wonder if he’ll say anything now.

I wonder if he’ll turn away from the television, come to the phone, say something.

I listen to her talking, and I remember those times she was ill, those strange blotches on her otherwise busy life.

I remember the way it would go almost unmentioned, as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

As though there was nothing to be concerned about.

I remember having to creep into her room to say goodnight, her puffed red face turning to me from amongst the pillows and the blankets, the curtains closed and a desklamp pointing up at her from the bedside table like a stagelight.

I remember trying to hold my breath while she asked me how my day had been, if I had been good, if I had done the washing up.

And her voice sounding strange, thick and slow, as though she was talking from behind a closed door, through a thick wall.

I’m not sure if I held my breath because of the smell or because I was scared of catching her germs, but I always came out of that room dizzy, sucking down lungfuls of air.

And it never worried me, because she always seemed to be better the next day, saying oh it must have just been a bug, one of those things, you know, and she’d be back to normal.

Bustling around the house, cleaning, tidying, baking scones, rearranging the furniture.

She’s still talking, and I’m still saying yes and no and I’m sure, and I’m having trouble working out what she’s talking about and I want her to stop.

I hear a mobile going off, an electronic Für Elise, and I assume it’s on the television.

She says oh that’s my phone, do you mind if I, and without me saying anything she’s pressing buttons on her new phone and saying yes, hello, yes fine, hold on a moment.

She says it’s your Auntie Susan, was there anything else? I say yes, yes there is something else, can you call me back, and she says oh, oh okay, and I hear her talking to Auntie Sue before she’s even hung up on me.

I didn’t know my mother had a mobile phone.

I make a cup of tea, and I listen to my answerphone, to a message from Sarah. She says hi again how you doing, I’ve got something to tell you, I met somebody, I need to tell you about it, call me soon bye.

The phone rings, and I’m talking to my mother again.

She says and have you been eating properly.

I say mum I’m a grown-up now you shouldn’t be asking me that sort of thing.

She says well yes of course but.

There’s a moment’s pause, I can hear the television in the background.

I say and how’s dad, oh you know she says.

Same as always she says.

She asks me about friends I haven’t seen for months and I say I don’t know I haven’t seen them.

I live in a different city now I say, it’s difficult to see people so often.

She says he could do with a haircut though.

This needs to be an important conversation, and it’s not.

I say who needs a haircut, your dad she says, it’s sticking out round his ears.

You know the way it does she says.

I loop the telephone wire around my finger, the spirals hugging tight between my knuckles.

I say well have you told him, watching the skin beneath my fingernail turn red as the wire tightens.

Oh no she says, you know he doesn’t like me saying things like that.

I think about him there now, watching television, his feet up on the table, the dark patches on the soles of his white socks.

I uncoil the telephone wire from my finger.

There are red stripes, white stripes.

She’s talking about dad’s sister coming to visit.

Your Auntie Susan she says, and then she’s talking about spare rooms, and bedding, and extra pints of milk.

She says you know she’s got an insatiable appetite for tea, and she does like it with a lot of milk.

I need to stop her talking now.

I need to say mother I have something to say.

Mum, please, I need to tell you something.

It’s important mum, and I’m scared and I need your help.

I need to say these things.

My throat feels tight, squashed.

I open the window to get some air into the room, and a burst of noise rushes in.

Traffic, and shouting, and music.

And birdsong, from somewhere up on the roof, a thin twitter that creeps and tangles in with all the other sounds.

I breathe deeply, trying not to sigh.

I wrap the telephone cord around another finger.

Mum, I say.

I see the girl from the shop downstairs crossing the road.

She glances up and sees me, she waves and smiles.

I lift my hand to wave back, but it’s held down by the telephone cord and she disappears.

Mum, I say, again, can I just, but she doesn’t hear me, or she won’t let me speak.

And how about you she says, when are you next coming down, it’s been a good long while hasn’t it?

I don’t know I say.

She says your Auntie Susan’s slept in that spare room more times than you I should think.

I say mum that used to be my room, I slept in it all my life, she says yes well I mean since I decorated it.

Since it became the spare room she says.

I say mum, there was something I needed to say, can I just, and she says sorry love what was it?

I hesitate, I squeeze a coil of telephone wire into my fist.

I say mum, I’m pregnant.