The If Game (17 page)

‘That's bad. I'm lucky. My mum's a super cook.'

Stephen wondered whether his mum could cook. Perhaps she'd forgotten how to. He didn't know if a prisoner could cook in prison.

Alex said, doubtfully, ‘Steve?'

‘What?'

‘Did you get to see your mum?'

He was half glad that she'd brought the subject up. ‘Yes.'

‘Would you rather not talk about it?'

‘I don't mind. I just saw her. Not to talk to or anything.'

‘Was it with one of your keys?'

‘Yes.'

‘What did it feel like?'

‘Peculiar.'

‘Is she like what you thought?'

‘No. She's . . .' He sought for the right words. ‘She's more ordinary.'

‘Do you mind?'

‘No.'

‘Did you remember her at all?'

‘No.'

‘When are you going to see her properly? To talk to?'

‘She's coming out in the New Year. In another three days. But not here. She's staying somewhere else at first.'

Alex considered this for a little, before she said, ‘I can't imagine what it'd be like to have a mum I'd never seen. I mean, couldn't remember.'

There seemed nothing to say to this.

‘I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that,' Alex said.

‘It's all right. I don't know what it's going to be like either.'

‘I hope you'll like each other.'

What an extraordinary thing to say! Stephen asked, ‘What do you mean, “like”?'

‘You know. Really like. Think you're interesting. Think the same things are funny. Not annoying.
Like
. Like I like you.'

He was embarrassed. He said, ‘Aren't you getting cold?'

She laughed. ‘All right. I know what you're thinking. It's time you took the girl back and stopped her asking questions, and saying stupid things.'

They started back. They hardly exchanged a word. When they reached old Mr Jenkins's garden gate, Alex said, ‘I hope everything's all right for you.'

‘Thanks.'

‘We'll probably be back here some time. Half term perhaps. You'll be here then?'

‘Expect so.'

‘Can I ask you something?'

He said, ‘Suppose so.' Reluctant.

‘It's about your keys.'

‘Go on.'

‘Have you tried them all now?'

‘Yes.'

‘So what are you going to do with them?'

He hadn't thought. ‘They won't be any more use. There won't be any keyholes for them.'

‘How do you know? You can't be sure about that.'

He told her how the keyhole in the garden door, into which the Yale with a face had fitted, had changed.

‘So I reckon the other locks will have gone too.'

‘Shall we have a look some time? To make sure?'

‘If you like. But I'll bet you they won't be there.'

‘Bet me how much?'

‘I'll give you the key that fits if there is one.'

‘I don't think it would work for me,' Alex said.

‘Why not?' But he didn't believe it would either. They were his keys. They had opened the doors for him. They would do nothing for anyone else.

‘Well, anyway, Happy New Year. For next week.'

‘Same to you.'

‘Bye!'

‘Bye.'

Stephen met the woman who had been his mother in a room that struck him as too bright, too cheerful, too clean. A room that didn't belong to anyone. The woman he had seen with her by the leaded gate had let him and his dad into the house and left them here together.

He couldn't look at her. He kept his eyes fixed on the too-flowery carpet. He heard his dad say, ‘I've brought the boy,' and her voice answer. When she said, ‘Hi, Stephen!' he muttered something, but he didn't look up. They all sat down, stiff, on the edge of cretonne-covered chairs. He heard those two making uncomfortable, unreal conversation. He could tell from their voices that they were not really interested in what they were saying. Each of them was thinking quite differently. Then suddenly, the woman laughed. She said, ‘Give up, Will. We don't want to go on like this. You go and talk to Petra. She's in the kitchen making coffee. Stephen and I need to be alone for a bit.'

She went to the door and called out, ‘Petra! I'm sending Will to talk to you for a bit. Don't send him back too soon.'

Stephen had never heard anyone order his dad about like that, and he was surprised that he went so meekly. As the door closed behind him, Stephen's heart sank. Now this woman would get soppy. She would call him Deedie, she would expect him to kiss her. She would ask if he remembered her. Probably she would cry over him and say how she had missed him.

He was relieved when she sat down where she had been before, at some distance. He knew she was looking at him. Presently she said, ‘It isn't easy, is it? Getting to know each other?'

He said, ‘No.'

‘I think you should call me by my name. It seems stupid if you start saying “Mum” after all these years.'

He was surprised into saying, ‘You mean call you Margaret?'

‘Why not?'

‘Seems funny.'

‘Don't any of your friends call their parents by their given names?'

He had to think. ‘Only if they're steps.'

‘I'm not much more than a step, am I? I couldn't be more of a stranger.'

Good. She wasn't expecting him to behave as if she'd been his mother for ever.

There was a silence, but it wasn't as uncomfortable. Suddenly she said, ‘Don't you want to ask me any questions?'

He was wary at once. ‘What about?'

‘Anything you like.'

‘Really anything?'

‘Anything at all. I might say I wouldn't tell you, but I don't mind you asking. I know I'd want to if I was you.'

The most important question came first. ‘Are you going to come and live with us?'

‘I can't answer that because I don't know. Will and I haven't seen much of each other in the last eight years. It's a long time. I don't know how we'd get on now.' And there's me, Stephen thought. As if she'd heard him, she said, ‘And there's you.'

‘What about me?'

‘You're old enough now to have opinions of your own. It might not suit you to have a mother come back from the dead.' She laughed. ‘Well, as good as dead. I suppose we'd have to tell the neighbours I'd been with my sisters in Australia.'

‘You mean, if I didn't want you to come back, you wouldn't?' he said.

‘It would be something we'd certainly take into account.'

She was quite different from what he'd expected. She was treating him as if he was grown up. Sensible. That made him feel better about her.

She was saying, ‘I'd probably try to win you round, if it came to that.'

He wondered how she would do it. The suggestion made him suspicious again. He would test her. She had said he could ask anything he liked. He said, ‘What's it like, being in prison?'

She did not baulk at that. ‘Fairly horrible at first. Then you begin to get used to it.'

‘Used to what?'

‘Having people round you all the time. Being watched always.'

Yes. He could imagine that. He said, ‘Did you mind not being able to get out?'

She said, ‘Of course. That's part of the punishment, isn't it?'

There was no need to answer this. She was looking hard at him now. She said, ‘Go on!'

‘Go on what?'

‘You want to ask me what it's like to have done what I did. Kill someone.'

He had wanted to, but hadn't known how. He said, ‘What is it like, then?'

‘Terrible. You can't believe you've really done it.' She
stopped speaking for a moment, then said, ‘But I'm not sorry. I'd do it again. If I had to.'

‘Did you have to?'

She looked at him strangely. She said, ‘The man I killed had tried to ruin my life. I wasn't having him doing it again. To me and then to someone else as well.'

‘What did he do?'

She said, ‘I'm afraid that's a question I'm not going to answer till I know you better.'

He wondered when that would be. He still wanted to push, to get at her somehow. ‘You said he tried to ruin your life. Why didn't he manage to do it?'

‘He did for a time.'

‘What happened then?'

Her expression changed. She said, ‘I met Will.'

‘Dad?' Stephen asked, astonished.

‘Your dad.'

‘What did he do?'

She said, quietly, ‘He loved me.'

He was so surprised that he said, without meaning to, ‘Did he say so?'

She laughed. ‘You've lived with your dad all these years and you don't know the answer to that?'

Of course he did. But then, how had she known? And now she had mentioned the word love, he wasn't as embarrassed as he'd have expected. At least, she hadn't asked him to love her. She was prepared to be treated as a stranger.

She said, ‘I know it's difficult for you, meeting me. But it isn't easy for me either.'

‘Isn't it?'

She was impatient. ‘For Christ's sake, think! You can't be so young that you really suppose that being grown up means that you always know what to do whatever's going on? What do you think it's like for me, meeting a son I
haven't seen since he was a baby? Or a husband I've only
seen once a month for eight years? I don't know what sort of a person either of you's turned into while I've been inside. I don't even know if I'm going to like you. Or whether you'll like me.'

She was right. He hadn't thought about her feelings. He had only wondered how this meeting was going to turn out for him. He said, I'm sorry.'

That's all right. I just wanted you to know.'

She got up and went to the door. She called out, Tetra! Will! You can bring in that coffee now.'

She came back to her chair and said to Stephen, ‘It's going to take time.'

‘What's going to take time? What for?'

‘Time to find out how we get on with each other. We'll start from scratch, as if we'd never known each other, that'll be the best way. But there's no hurry. Not for me.'

He had time, before Petra and his dad came back into the room with mugs of coffee and a plate of biscuits, to say, ‘I'm not in a hurry either.'

She smiled at him, then. He remembered what Alex had said. ‘I hope you like each other.' She hadn't said ‘love'. Was it possible that liking was as important as loving? That was not what you were supposed to learn from books and films and television programmes. It was a strange idea. It was as strange as hearing this woman say that his dad had loved her. So love came into it somewhere, he wasn't sure where. He had been mad at the idea that he would be expected to love this strange woman who had once been his mother, but now he did begin to feel that possibly he might get to like her. In the future, which lay, uncharted, before them.

This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader
Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London
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Copyright © Catherine Storr 2001
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ISBN: 9781448207688
eISBN: 9781448207374
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