A Cupboard Full of Coats Page 9

  She was wearing a dressing gown, slinky satin, in a dark gold colour, one I hadn’t seen before. Underneath, she wore a matching nightie that was so short, when she moved and the gown opened over her legs, it looked as though she was completely naked till you caught a glimpse of the hemline, high up, more like a piece of underwear than something to keep you warm at night. I wondered where it had come from. Had she bought it or had he? What had she done with all her old nighties and pyjamas? When you started living with a man, did you need a whole new wardrobe of bedwear?

  When Berris came in to collect his packed lunch, he was dressed casually in jeans and a black polo neck, hurrying because some other guy who worked with him at the Lesney factory gave him a lift in the mornings and he couldn’t make him late. He still found time though, when she kissed him goodbye, to put his hand on her bum, run it over the irresistible silky smoothness and give it a squeeze that made her jump and then style it out like no one knew she’d swallowed a shriek. She laughed and wriggled away from him, glancing over at me where I sat staring at my plate like it was the telly. A moment later he was gone and I felt my confusion beginning to clear. She owned this house and he owned her. The only thing I needed to get my head around was where exactly I fitted in.

  ‘I thought maybe we could go out later,’ she said. ‘After school. I’ll come by and meet you and we can go down Kingsland Road, do a bit of shopping. Would you like that?’

  She knew me and she knew I would like that very much. To me it was kind of like I knew she was sorry for slapping me and that she was doing her best to make up for it, but while I knew that and felt sorry for her, I just couldn’t bring myself to act like it hadn’t happened or I’d forgotten or things were cool, so I shrugged as if it was no big deal.

  When she tried to put her arm around my shoulders I stood up quickly, lifting my plate and stepping away from the table. I turned my head to the side when she went to kiss me so that she almost kissed the air beside my cheek.

  ‘See you later,’ I said, without looking at her.

  Walking up the road to meet Sam, I wondered why it was that I was the one who’d been left feeling bad.

  ‘Only reason it even seems like anything big is ’cos you don’t get regular beats,’ Sam said. We were in the toilets at first break, in front of the mirror. She had both her mouth and her right eye opened into an O and, when she talked, it was without moving her lips. She held a tube of mascara in one hand and was using the other to apply the make-up to her lashes. ‘If you lived in my yard, you’d know something about beats.’

  ‘Yeah, but ain’t it worse if you never get hit, to then get slapped for no reason?’ I asked. Sometimes she was so annoying. It was like whatever was going on with you was always small fry. She’d already experienced it on a much bigger scale and your titchy problem was nothing compared to what she’d been through.

  ‘Yeah, but what did you think she would say when you started going on about sex?’

  ‘I never said nothing about sex!’

  ‘Oh? Like they’re really going bed that early ’cos they’re just so tired. Every night. I’ve told you, black people are more sexed than white people. What did you think they were doing?’

  Suddenly, it was clear to me that she was right. No wonder she sometimes talked to me like I was some kind of idiot. Had my mum thought when I’d said ‘bed’ that I was talking about sex too?

  ‘Sam, just forget it,’ I said.

  She was blinking fast in front of the mirror now.

  ‘They’re at it big time, boy, night after night, like rabbits…’

  ‘Puh-lease!’

  ‘I know for a fact your mum ain’t wearing no costume at night.’

  ‘Why would she be doing that?’

  ‘S’what you have to do if you don’t want more kids. Especially if you’re with a black guy. My mum’s got three.’

  ‘Your mum’s got three swimming costumes?’

  ‘Yep. She always wears them. Under her nightie. Every night. You telling me your mum ain’t got none?’

  I sifted through her wardrobe of nightwear old and new in my head, and shook it.

  ‘Then don’t be surprised if any day now you hear the patter of little feet.’

  I didn’t want to talk to Sam about my mum having sex. I didn’t even want to think about it.

  ‘Sam, I beg you, shut up right now or I’ll kill you!’ I snatched the tube of mascara out of her hand, whipped out the brush and brandished it at her, slipping my feet into a fencing position, like d’Artagnan from The Three Musketeers. ‘With this!’

  She looked at the brush, looked at me, and raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Jay, you’re really scaring me, man.’

  She snatched it out of my hand as the bell went. We began to make our way back to class.

  ‘I got asked out again last night,’ she said casually, like she’d only just remembered. She’d gone to the garages after school yesterday on her own again. For years everything we’d done we’d done together. Every interest we had was shared. We’d talked about boys, but they were outside of us and the things we did. But recently, something had changed in her, like us being together wasn’t enough any more, playing with our hair, running jokes, passing notes, swapping Mills & Boons, all those things we’d done a thousand times, that I wanted to do a thousand more, she now called ‘dry’. She wanted excitement, the unknown, more. Increasingly, it felt like she had a double life, the one she shared with me, and another separate world over the garages. At first she used to tell me everything that went on there. Now she specially selected bits to tell me and I found myself endlessly trying to work out how much of what she’d told me was true and what had been left out. For some reason it all felt kind of seedy to me. According to Sam, that was because I was too stuck-up, or to use her word, stush.

  ‘Who by?’

  ‘Donovan, innit.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Blatantly it ain’t happening.’

  ‘Why are you so wicked to him?’

  ‘I ain’t ready for no big-time relationship. I’m young, man. I’ve got my whole life ahead of me and I wanna have some fun. I ain’t tying myself down. I’m gonna be a air hostess or a actress and I don’t want no big ole black ole weight holding me back, bawling every time I’m getting on a plane, breeding me down.’

  ‘Did you tell him that?’

  ‘I said I’d think about it. He’s gonna be over the garages later. You have to help me decide how I’m gonna blow him out. You are coming, aren’t you?’

  ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘My mum’s meeting me from school.’

  ‘Jay, you know what? If you let them, parents will fuck up your life for good,’ she said.

  Of course, there was no sign of that opinion when we walked out of the school gates to find my mum leaned up against the barrier waiting for me. She looked good, slim and attractive and well dressed, young in comparison with the parents of the other kids. Even so I felt kind of sheepish, but Sam was straight in there with Hello, Mrs Jackson. I’m very well, thank you. Yes they’re all fine. I’d love to come with you, but I’ve got my own chores waiting for me. Then with a quick wink at me and a pat of her hair, she was on her way.

  My mum and I went shopping down Ridley. She bought me two pairs of leg warmers and a wicked pair of Levis. Then we went to a café near the bottom of the market and ordered dinner, just us two, like in the old days, before Him.

  Normally, it would’ve been a real treat being there, but I felt awkward sitting opposite her. It had been easier not speaking while we were moving and the market was bustling around us, but now it was just us and the silence that came from my end and drowned out her attempts to make up.

  Then out of the blue she just said it.

  ‘I shouldn’t have slapped you. It was wrong and I’m sorry. I was angry, but that doesn’t make it okay. I won’t do it again.’

  For some weird reason my eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Jinxy, I know this is hard for you. I kno
w that. You’ve had me to yourself nearly your whole life, and now you have to share. I understand that. But you have to try and understand as well. One day, you’re gonna leave…’

  ‘No I won’t.’

  She smiled. ‘You will. You’ll grow up and fall in love with someone wonderful and you’ll want to be with them and you’ll go. Would you have me sitting on my own in that big old house, lonely and crying? No one to talk to, no one to laugh with, no one to hold me?’

  I did understand, although the ‘hold me’ bit was embarrassing. I knew what she meant and I knew she wasn’t being unreasonable, but I still said, ‘It’s not fair.’

  ‘Talk to me,’ she said. ‘Tell me what I can do that would make things okay for you.’

  What came to my mind was: Chuck him out! Tip his stuff into the street! Let him go be tired in some other woman’s house! Make everything as it was before! I shrugged my shoulders and she sighed.

  ‘I love him,’ she said, when I had most wanted her to say she loved me. ‘I love him and he is a part of my life now…part of our lives. But it doesn’t change anything between us, me and you. I will always be here for you. Do you believe me?’

  My throat was so choked I thought my voice would break. ‘Yes.’

  She reached over the table and held my hand, squeezing it firmly enough to make me look at her, but not enough to hurt. ‘That is my promise to you for all time. I will always be here for you.’

  ‘I believe you,’ I said. She let go of my hand as our plates arrived. I wiped my eyes as though I was just flicking off a speck that had randomly landed on my lashes. ‘This looks good,’ I said and smiled at her. She returned the smile and we ate.

  *

  It was after seven by the time we returned back home. I was happy we’d gone out together, that we’d managed to sort things out. I was determined to try harder to be understanding of Berris even though I didn’t want him there, because she did want him there and she was my mum and he made her happy, and somehow I had to find a way to make the best of it.

  But he was vexed.

  He hardly looked at her when we came in. He was in the living room, just sitting on the settee, not playing music or watching TV. I wondered if he’d been standing at the window watching out for us coming down the street. He acted like we’d done something wrong, but I didn’t know what that was. My mother didn’t know either, I could tell. She made light of it, pretending she hadn’t noticed his mood, kissing his cheek and making jokes like he was happy and joking back with her. When he looked at me, I saw something in his eyes that I understood, and it surprised me. It had been the first time since he’d moved in that she’d spent any time with me on my own, two or three hours on one occasion in nearly two months, that was all.

  And he was jealous.

  To me he was acting like a child who was angry with his friend for liking someone else as well. His lips were pursed, he wouldn’t meet her eyes or speak. He met mine though, and the message in them was clear: he was upset and it was my fault. I couldn’t do the chirpy acting my mum was styling out like she was aiming for an Oscar, and in the end, after all the complaining I’d done about the two of them going to bed early, I ended up leaving them in the living room, for the first time the first to go to bed. I said that I was tired and went upstairs to my room.

  I lay in bed, on my back, a Mills & Boon propped open against my knees, and I would have been reading it if it had been possible to concentrate. But I couldn’t. I could hear them. Arguing. I couldn’t hear the details, but I could hear the pitch of their voices. His was angry. Accusing. Hers was placatory. Pleading. At some point I was sure she was crying.

  I got off the bed and went over to the door, opening it slightly, still standing inside my room, able to hear a bit better, alarmed but unable to decide if I should go downstairs or stay in my room and carry on pretending I couldn’t hear a thing. Suddenly I heard my mum cry out, loudly, as if she’d been hurt. It went quiet then for what felt like a very long time and my indecision felt like a pressure building up inside me. I heard someone come up the stairs and go into the bathroom and close the door. The footsteps were hasty and clumsy.

  Berris.

  I waited a few minutes longer, scared he would come straight back out and catch me, but he didn’t. Finally, I forced myself to move my feet and they carried me down the stairs.

  I walked into the kitchen and, to my surprise, he was sitting there, at the table on his own, eating leftover Johnnycakes and saltfish; waxing it off.

  He looked up at me in that strange way I was still getting used to, not actually meeting my eyes, just kind of focusing on me in bits; firstly my hair and then my breasts, then nodded in the direction of my feet before his eyes went back to his plate. I didn’t know whether he’d been greeting me, or if I’d just been dismissed.

  There was something about him at that particular moment which disturbed me, but it was hard to put my finger on it exactly. It was as if he had a glow around him, not the visible one around the kids in the Ready Brek advert, more of an aura I couldn’t see but felt instead, something physical and static and scary. I didn’t like him, I knew that. But it wasn’t just dislike I felt, it was fear, the kind of fear you experienced passing a digi group of bullies when you were on your own. His eyes had that same look about them that I’d seen in the eyes of bullies, not just threatening, but smug too, like he knew something that gave him power over anyone who was weaker. It made me feel afraid.

  ‘Where’s Mum?’ I asked, looking around the kitchen, though it was obvious she wasn’t there.

  ‘Upstairs in her room,’ he said and he flicked his head towards the ceiling, like he was saying Up there and at the same time telling me he couldn’t care less. I waited for a second, but he didn’t look back up.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, relieved to be leaving the room and more worried than I had been before I had entered.

  She was still inside the bathroom and though the door was closed it was unlocked, so I tapped first and when she didn’t answer, opened it and saw her, bent over the sink with the cold tap running. She was splashing water on to her face.

  ‘Mum?’

  She turned her head to look at me.

  ‘Oh my God,’ I said and she turned away quickly and started squeezing out the flannel in the sink, carefully folding it and gently dabbing at her face. I took a step closer, watching her movements through the mirror above the bowl. The left side of her face was bruised, from the eye – puffed up so bad it could hardly open – to the cheekbone. Against her pale skin, the bruising was a riot of colours, a deep maroon giving way to dark red giving way to crimson round the edges. And in the centre, a gash about an inch long bled.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said in a chatty kind of tone, talking well fast, ‘it looks worse than it feels. Don’t start fretting, Jinx. I’m really fine.’

  Downstairs the front door slammed. I assumed it was Berris, leaving. As if that was her cue, she sagged to her knees, covered her face with her hands and I stood dumbstruck beside my mother as she started to cry.

  He’d done it. I knew in my stomach it was him, but when I tried to ask her about it she fobbed me off, and when I pushed it she started getting angry, so I ended up backing off and though it was the most traumatic thing that had ever happened in our house, we didn’t discuss it.

  But even though I wasn’t putting my thoughts into words, I couldn’t get the questions out of my head. Like, what could make a big man like Berris punch my mother in the face? How could he have looked at my beautiful mum and done that, then calmly sat downstairs and eaten? From what I saw, she did everything he wanted, tried her hardest to be perfect for him. I could think of nothing she could’ve done or said that made sense of how he’d manhandled her.

  Maybe she was right when she said I was too young to understand. Maybe that was true. But the way she cried, the level of her upset, I was sure she was no clearer on the answers to those questions than I was.

  We stayed up together till lat
e that night, like old times, me sat beside her on the settee watching TV, her arms around my shoulders, kissing my head from time to time, silently wiping away the tears that just refused to stop coming, while I acted like I never saw them. She wasn’t watching the telly really and neither was I. We each pretended for the other’s sake that everything was perfectly normal, ho hum, when it was clear the whole world had violently tipped and life as we knew it was upside down; each of us pretending neither had our ears cocked for the sound of his return, that neither of us was dreading it.

  It was after twelve when we finally went to bed, yet late as it was I couldn’t go to sleep. I felt too confused, as if I’d been battered myself. Confused by all the feelings inside me that had nowhere to go, but still boiled and bubbled furiously like mutton inside a pressure cooker.

  I wanted to kill him. I’d been angry before in the past, but nothing on this scale ever. I wanted him dead. My heart bled for her, but for him I prayed for a double-decker bus to mow him down that very same night, to splatter his carcass across the high street in a dead, flat mass. I hated him.

  Yet beneath that, to my shame, and I would have rather died than admit it to anyone, beneath that, I was glad. It was clear to me he’d messed up big time. The single bright light that shone for me that night was that he’d gone too far. He’d hurt my mum in a way that was beyond understanding. What he had done, she’d never forgive. I’d wanted him out of our lives and, with his bad-tempered self, he’d handed it to me on a plate. After what he’d done, the relationship was over; I knew beyond any doubt that now and for all time she’d never take him back.

  It would probably take a while for her to get over it, but once she did, things could return to normal and I would, as I’d wanted all along, have my mum back to myself. We would be happy, the two of us, the way we were before he came. And it was that comforting thought alone that made it possible for me to relax enough to finally get some sleep.