News Where You Are

3

On Saturday he drove out to Evergreen. His mother sat in her room, a book on her lap, the same one she’d been reading for a year. She looked at Frank with a pained expression. ‘Is it still sweltering out there?’

‘No, Mom, it’s October; it’s cold.’

‘I can’t bear it. It suffocates me. I can’t breathe. How do people live in those places like Spain? Why do people go to those places? Sweating on the beaches, roasting like chickens in an oven. I’d die. I’d die.’

‘Do you want me to open the window?’

‘We need some rain. God, anything to freshen the air. What I’d give for a downpour now.’

‘Mom, it is raining. Look out of the window.’

Maureen moved her head slowly and looked out. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Thank God.’ Then after a pause: ‘It makes my joints ache so.’

‘What does?’

‘The rain.’

Frank pulled up a chair beside her. ‘So what have you been up to this week?’

‘Sitting here, dying slowly. Too slowly.’ Frank exhaled and his mother looked at him. ‘Oh, I know it must be very boring for you to have to come and visit me, endlessly clinging on. I’ve told you before, forget about me, leave me here, live your life. I’m dead already.’

Frank ignored this and looked over towards the window. ‘They could do with someone clearing up the leaves out in the grounds. It all looks a bit grotty out there at the moment. Do the gardener and his mate not come out so much now?’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe they leave them there deliberately. Maybe they think that dead leaves are exactly what we should be contemplating as we sit in here waiting to fall off the branch.’

‘Mom …’

‘You see how you fare. You’ll be old one day. You see how you cope when all your friends are dead, and your senses are gone.’

‘Your senses aren’t gone, Mom. You’re in excellent health …’

‘Ha. That’s a joke.’

‘… You’re in much better shape — physically and mentally — than most of the other people here, but you lock yourself away in your room. You’re seventy-two, Mom — that’s nothing. They sit and talk in the lounge, they listen to music, they walk in the garden.’

‘ “Why aren’t they screaming?” Frank, “Why aren’t they screaming?” Do you know who wrote that?’

‘Larkin. You quote it every time.’

‘Well, I’m an old fool too,’ she snapped, ‘and I forget.’

They fell silent for a while.

‘Have you read this one?’ said Maureen, indicating the book on her lap.

‘No, no, I haven’t.’

‘Oh, it’s terribly involved and clever. I can’t wait to get to the end. It’s about a man who discovers that he had an older brother that his parents never told him about and he tries to find this brother and it turns out that he’s a … a … oh, blast … What do you call it?’

‘A palaeontologist.’

‘Exactly! I thought you said you hadn’t read it.’

Frank smiled at her. ‘I haven’t. It was just a lucky guess.’

‘Remarkable, of all the things he could have been.’

They fell silent again.

‘Andrea sends her love. She’s had to go on a course today.’

‘Oh, Andrea, she was always one for the books, wasn’t she. Is she still a great reader? I remember some marvellous conversations we’ve had about books. She’d love this one.’

‘Well, you can tell her about it on Wednesday when she comes,’ said Frank, knowing that Andrea had not only read the book, but had given her copy to his mother and listened to the same description of the first chapter each time she visited. The flowered bookmark she had given along with the book remained stranded at the same page in the book week on week.

Maureen looked towards the window. ‘The rain should cool things down. It’s good for the gardens.’

‘It’s October, Mom.’

‘I know. I’m not a fool,’ Maureen snapped. ‘It’s still needed, isn’t it? We can’t go all through the winter without rain, can we? We’d shrivel and die. Become withered husks.’

Frank didn’t respond. His mother looked at him. ‘I saw you on the television the other day. Something very sad. A terribly sad story about a child waiting for an operation.’

He thought for a moment: ‘Oh, Leanne Newman. Yes.’

‘Will she get the operation in time?’

‘I don’t know, Mom.’

‘I can’t watch your programme — it’s too sad. Always sick children, or horrible people hurting each other and dogs eating babies and young people losing their homes. It’s a very upsetting programme. And that woman!’

‘Which woman?’

‘That wretched woman who sits next to you.’

‘Julia?’

‘I don’t know how you bear to work with her. She smirks. She listens to those awful stories and then she smirks. She enjoys it. Pure evil.’

‘Mom, she doesn’t smirk. That’s just her face. She’s very professional.’

‘Oh, she’s a devil. I liked that other one.’

‘Which one?’

‘Oh, you know. The coloured lady. She was nice and cheerful. The programme never used to be sad when she was there. But that’s just West Indians, isn’t it? They’re just lovely cheerful people. Beautiful singers as well.’

Frank drew in a deep breath and steadily exhaled.

‘Your father had a lovely voice too.’

‘I don’t think I ever heard him sing.’

‘He used to sing to me before we married. A lovely baritone. He’d sing “On the Street Where You Live”. Poor Douglas. A beautiful voice. He used to sing for you too when you were very tiny. On long car journeys. Don’t you remember? You’d cry out, “Monkey, Daddy, monkey,” and he’d sing “Little Red Monkey”. You loved it. You’d laugh and clap your hands like the monkey in the song. You made us so happy. We were all so happy then.’

She was crying now. Frank held her hand. They looked out of the window together at the rain rolling down the glass.