Cat Step, page 14
‘Show me my name, Mummy,’ Emily said, crashing in to me, nearly knocking the plate of chips from the table.
I couldn’t find a word that looked like Emily. No capital E. Nothing.
‘Where am I?’ she said, grabbing the cutting. ‘Where’s my name?’
I pretended the R of Robert was an E. She believed me.
I spent the rest of the evening and the whole of the next morning wondering what Robbie could have done. I took it out on Emily. She wouldn’t stop fiddling with a rubber ball when she was supposed to be eating the sandwich I’d made. But before that, I’d had to lift her to the toilet and wait with her while she peed. She always lied and said she didn’t need the toilet when she did even though she fidgeted on her seat or pressed her heel into her bum. It was obvious. So she’d finally done a wee and was sitting at the table but then she wouldn’t stop playing with the ball so I took it off her. And put it on a shelf. When it rolled from the shelf and bounced high on the lino floor she dived off her chair to grab it and I lunged for it too and she hurt her head on the cupboard door because she’d hurled herself at the ball. She began to cry, rolling on the floor, kicking out and holding her head. I knew she wasn’t hurt badly. I knew she was roaring because she loved the sound of her roars. It made me angry and sad and I’m sure she was angry and sad too but she wouldn’t let me near her and she wouldn’t stop crying. As she kicked out she kicked my thighs and when I went to pick her up she punched my arms with both her fists which made me yank her up by her armpits. I pushed her onto her chair and held her struggling body down. She kept screaming so I put one hand over her mouth and held it there. My hand was so much bigger than her face it could have covered her nose as well. She screamed on but she was pinned down by my hand on her thin thighs and finally her rage was stopped by my hand over her mouth. I held her like that for a few seconds, not many, until her eyes became frightened and I was suddenly aware of my strength. She had noise and rage but I had force and power. I hated her and I hated myself. I could have killed us both.
‘I want my granny,’ she said when I took my hand from her mouth. ‘Why are we here?’
I sent her away from me, kicked the wall and looked around for something to break.
The telephone rang. I hoped it was my mum but it was the family worker.
‘Sorry if this is a bad time. How are you getting on?’ she asked.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Absolutely fine.’
‘We’re looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.’
‘You know what, I can’t come. We’re busy.’
‘Well, that’s a shame.’
‘Yeah.’
I didn’t have to go. It wasn’t the law. Emily and I would find our own way out of our trouble. We’d go swimming and get a McDonald’s. We’d invite Caroline and her kids to the park. Or we’d ask Paul round to eat chips outside. The family worker could leave us be.
She first smiled at eight weeks. That’s two weeks after they say a baby might smile but I don’t blame her for holding back because I will have looked at her with my ragged face and she will have thought: Can this woman really be my mother? Now Emily rarely smiles at me or even looks at me. It’s always I want, I want, I want.
Before she smiled we had Robbie’s funeral. His family came: a muted, round-shouldered collection, who barely moved from the corner of the function room we found. There were two ancient uncles and an aunt, dead now, and his brother, back from Australia and near silent with cold and grief. We squeezed hands and they shook their heads. His gran wasn’t there. She sent a card. Many of our friends were at sea and couldn’t come so the congregation was small. I didn’t have anything black and smart that fitted me so I wore my maternity clothes. My mum sat next to me and we put Emily in her car seat on the floor in front of us. Occasionally one of us leaned forwards to rock her. When she woke and cried my mum took her outside. I no longer heard the words of the vicar just the desperate wails of my baby. My milk came and I was worried it would seep through my breast pads. I kept looking down to check my chest or behind me to see my mum pacing in the lobby and it distracted me from Robbie. Or it kept me from losing myself completely. In the end my mum brought Emily in to me and I stayed sitting to feed her while our small congregation stood to sing The Lord is my Shepherd. The trial of Robert Watt? Robbie? What the fuck?
5.
A few days later, after Paul had left to put his daughter to bed, Ruth telephoned. She said, ‘June’s not been in to do Harry’s sheets.’
I thought, Good for June. She’s not his maid.
‘She usually leaves a note if she can’t do it.’
‘He can work a washing machine, can’t he?’
I had a sink full of dishes. Emily was walking with both feet in one pyjama leg.
‘Have you heard from her?’ Ruth asked me.
I told her I’d seen her at the end of my last dance class and that she’d asked me to come with her when she met her son.
‘Oh.’ Ruth’s voice scuffed a low note. ‘I didn’t know her son was bothering her.’
Emily took off her pyjama bottoms and climbed onto the sofa. She didn’t like me to speak on the telephone, to people in the street, or to anyone, really. When she thought the conversation had gone on for too long she would tug at me, demand me, shout at me and try to take my attention. I don’t blame her. These people were nothing to Emily and I am her mother. But it was annoying.
As I listened to Ruth, Emily stood on the arm of the sofa with bent legs, wiggling her bum close to my head. I held one of her outstretched arms. Ruth told me that June had been missing for four days. She’d neglected the sheets and she’d also missed a residents’ meeting. This was not the first time she had gone away without warning.
‘My partner’s on the fells looking for her right now.’
That shook me. ‘You’re worried, aren’t you?’
‘My instincts are usually right.’
I saw twilight through the gap in the curtains. The streetlights were lit. There was nothing to be seen of the Campsies, only their dense dark bulk.
‘Call me if you hear anything,’ Ruth said. ‘She can get quite agitated.’
‘And if she doesn’t come home?’
‘I’ll call the police if she’s not here by nine.’
When I hung up, Emily jumped nimbly and fiercely into my arms, her legs bending to form a diamond in the air. Pas de chat. One of the first ballet steps I learned where I felt as if I was properly dancing, not training or strengthening or preparing, but dancing. Cat Step. I caught Emily and cuddled her and we made our way to the bathroom to clean her teeth.
‘What’s the matter, Mummy?’ she asked me.
‘June, the lady we went to court with and we climbed the big hill with, do you remember her? You had a Freddo. We took her home. We’re a bit worried about her.’
‘Why?’
‘She might be lost.’
‘Has somebody died?’
‘I don’t know. I actually don’t know.’
‘I like June.’
‘Does she remind you of Granny?’
‘No.’
I was watching television when I heard a tap on the front door. I expected it to be Paul back to see me, but it wasn’t. It was June.
‘Surprise,’ she said and she made me laugh because the way she spoke was so ordinary, so charmless and deadpan. There’s nothing wrong with you, I thought, but I was wrong about that.
‘I’m not going to stay long because I know you have your hands full.’
‘She’s asleep. Come in. Have you told Ruth you’re okay?’
‘Ruth knows I’m always okay.’ She looked full at me. ‘And here you are in Donald and Audrey Watt’s house. You look quite the part.’
‘Are you coming in, June?’
She came through the doorway and brought the night air in with her.
‘Where have you been?’
I held out my hands for her coat but she kept it on. She took off her gloves and put them in her pockets. I let her go up the stairs before me.
‘These stairs were always steep,’ she said.
‘Do you want a drink?’
‘I’m only here for a wee look.’
‘I can give you a tour.’
She nodded. ‘Aye.’
I’d only been half serious but she was keen. She looked around her at the hall, even though there was little to see.
I flicked on the light, pointed to the room where Emily slept and put a finger to my lips. ‘She’ll be sorry to miss you,’ I said. June nodded and walked slowly down the hall, letting her fingers trail along the painted wall. The fresh paint smell lingered. She stood at the door to the room at the back where Emily and I had the sofa and television.
‘This is the living room, obviously,’ I said. ‘They’re saying the new people could knock through from the kitchen and make a lounge-diner thing. Apparently there used to be a door there anyway.’
‘Yes,’ June said and she walked straight into the room as if it was hers, touched the curtains and looked at a pile of Audrey’s bric-a-brac.
‘Do you want anything?’ I asked. ‘It’s going on Gumtree or to the charity shop.’
‘Oh no.’
She turned to me and folded her arms. I noticed traces of mud on her pale coat sleeves and thought perhaps she’d been back to the Campsies and traipsed through the dark and the dirt.
‘I expected him to go for someone sweeter. No offence, Liz, but you have a way about you.’
‘What?’ I was so surprised I didn’t know that she was talking about me.
She shook her head and although she spoke kindly, what she said was unkind. ‘His gran wouldn’t have liked you.’
‘Are you talking about Robbie?’
‘Aye, I’m talking about Robbie.’
‘She did like me! Do you want to see this flat or not?’ I think I showed uncharacteristic restraint because I remembered Ruth had said she was agitated.
We went into the kitchen and I was pleased I’d managed to do the dishes. Pots lay upturned on tea towels. June leaned in to look at some of Emily’s artwork that I’d stuck to the fridge.
‘I need to talk to you about Robbie,’ I said. ‘You worked at the primary school. You remember him don’t you?’
‘We weren’t cooks,’ she said. ‘I did him a boiled egg once or twice. The hob’s different. They must have got a new cooker.’
I presumed she was still talking about Robbie. I flicked the kettle on and put two tea bags in two mugs.
‘You go on and have a look around,’ I said. ‘I’m making us tea. You don’t have to drink it.’
While she was out of the room I texted Ruth. She’s here with me. Safe. Can’t talk. Will call.
June was in the spare room when I returned to her, the one that Paul had completely re-plastered and painted cream.
‘He called that the good room. We didn’t go in there much. He was going to order a table and chairs.’
If June had looked closely she’d have seen the marks in the carpet from where the table legs had rested for years. It seemed so long that the men from the Salvation Army had taken away most of Audrey’s furniture. We shut the door on the room.
‘Do you want your tea now or shall we have it when we sit down?’
‘Later, hen.’ She’d softened. ‘I can see us here,’ she said and her hands were folded tight against her body. ‘It’s that real to me.’
She looked up at the ceiling in the hall, the freshly-plastered ceiling under which Paul had worked on his stilts. ‘That’s nice,’ she said of the lampshade I’d bought from Home Bargains. ‘It was a bare bulb when we were here.’ She gazed at the walls and the floor. ‘I cleaned this place from top to toe. I made it sparkle. There used to be a fire in that room.’ She gestured back into the good room. ‘I cleaned the grate until it sparkled. It was floorboards and tiles in the kitchen. The lino is new, the carpet is new. But it has the same feel.’
I didn’t understand why she knew the flat so well. I carried the cups of tea and showed her the bathroom that according to the estate agent was in need of updating. I showed her the cupboard in which the two boxes for sea mail to Australia were stacked. June’s eyes were less confident. Her mouth was closed and it was me who spoke, me who pointed out the original cornicing and dado rails in the living room, me who showed her the wallpaper on one wall that had come up nicely when I cleaned it with sugar soap.
‘This room,’ she said as she pushed my bedroom door open.
I worried that Emily might have been in my bed already and would wake up with our noise but I couldn’t stop June. She was going through the rooms so keenly. My bed was empty but unmade. My towel had fallen from the radiator. Our clothes were on the floor. June stepped inside and closed the wardrobe door. She picked up the fallen towel and folded it. I saw her shoulders relax. I pulled the bedcovers back towards the pillows. She put the towel on a chair and looked out of the window just as the estate agent had done.
‘There’s a nice view from the window isn’t there?’ I said.
‘Yes, I suppose there is.’
I laid Emily’s slipper socks on top of her dressing gown and bent to pick up leggings, cardigan and top, discarded the night before and left all day.
‘But I found the silence so good for sleep. Do you? Is it still silent in this room?’
‘Yes.’
‘We stayed in here a few times. I truly thought this would be my home.’
She stood in the brightly lit, messy room, as if she didn’t know where to put herself, turning to look about her, hands clenched in fists at her sides.
‘I was a foolish girl, Liz. I don’t blame him. I don’t even begrudge Audrey anything. But I wish it had never happened. I wish it had never happened.’
She smiled briefly and with the smile came tears which she wiped with her fists. We sat on the end of my bed and looked at the windowpane with the night behind it and our reflections silver and gold upon it.
‘I’m sorry for what I said about you and Robbie. I see why you got on well. I see why he needed a strong head.’
‘Thank you.’
‘A long time ago I did a foolish thing,’ she said. She wiped her eyes again. ‘It’s not like me to greet.’
‘Drink your tea for a bit.’
‘I’ll have to use your toilet before I go.’
We drank our tea in silence. June drank hers in gulps as if it was water and I took her cup and put it on the floor beside my feet and held my mug with two hands, waiting. June blew her nose. Then she gave me one of her direct stares and said, ‘You. You coming to Lennoxtown has set it all off.’
She straightened her back, like a ballerina, and sat with her hands in her lap. ‘I knocked on the door of this house with my bucket and mop fifty-nine years ago. Donald was alone. His fiancée, Robbie’s gran, had taken ill and was in Stobhill, up the road. It was a freezing time, just after Christmas. He’d got a flat from the council and they hadn’t moved into it yet. She didn’t even know about it. It was supposed to be a surprise for after they married. It was a big deal in those days to buy a house.’
‘It still is.’
‘It still is. So that’s why they got theirs from the council. They must have bought it in the eighties when everyone bought their houses.’ She nodded and said, ‘Aye, but the pipes burst because they’d not been used during the big freeze and the flat flooded. It was a damp flat anyway but that flood ruined it. And because he was on his own and had his fiancée to contend with up in the hospital, and his job to carry on with, my mother sent me and my cousin to help with the clear-up once the council had fixed the pipes. We were girls without children and only ourselves to look after. I was killing time before nursing college. It was a close-knit village and older women like my mother were inclined to put younger women to work.
‘I can’t mind what she was in the hospital for originally. It was serious but not life threatening. It might have been a cyst. I think she needed monitoring. And then it got worse. She got some infection or other and needed round the clock care.
‘Straight away we hit it off. We talked about the government, the football, the pictures. He was interested in my nursing. He said he had childhood dreams of being a doctor but the bank swallowed him up. We had a lot in common and I have never, before or since, liked anyone so much. I liked him through and through. It was love. On both sides. Without a doubt.’
She looked at me then and nodded her head. I nodded too.
‘We finished the clean-up in two or three days and he moved into the flat. He asked to keep me on as a cleaner which I agreed to. It was supposed to be once a week but I came every day when he was back from his work or the hospital. I know this flat intimately.
‘I expected when Audrey was better that he would let her down in a kind way. I expected that I would move into the flat, so I looked after it tenderly. I was angry with myself, with us, for not meeting sooner. We lived in the same village. We had done all our lives. He was nine years older than me and when he told me of the night he and Audrey had spoken at a dance, I cursed myself for not going, for being somewhere else. Because I could have met him there. Properly. Things would have fallen into place in a more simple way. I can’t recall what I was doing instead. I was probably with Jim.
‘My mother twigged that I was up to something and when she asked I came straight out with it. If you’ve had a tough life you know what feels right and you don’t mess about. I knew we’d cause some pain for that lassie up there in the hospital. She’d have the shock of being jilted but she’d get over it and then we’d all move on with our lives. I had the full support of my mother.
‘Audrey got better and she came home to her parents and as the days went on I expected he’d tell her. He said he wanted her to get fully better so she had the strength to cope with her loss. His one reservation, he confessed, was that they hadn’t waited until they were married. After they became engaged they slept together once or twice, that’s what he said to me anyway, and now he was dropping her. It didn’t sit well with him. It didn’t sit well with me. I was sick jealous.
