The If Game (6 page)

‘Can't you trust me to know what's best for you?' his dad asked.

Stephen cried out, ‘No! I can't! She was my mum. Everyone else has a mum, why don't I?'

‘You'll understand when you're older,' his dad said.

It was the sort of remark that always made Stephen see red. He stood up. ‘That's how you always are. “You'll understand when you're older.” You've been saying that all my life. I'm sick of being told I'm not old enough to understand. Why don't you try me?' He was standing over his dad now. He wanted to hit him, to take him by the shoulders and shake the answers out of him. He must have looked threatening, because his dad stood up too. He spoke very quietly.

‘There's no point in screaming at me and behaving like a spoiled child. I have told you that you haven't got a mother any more. That's enough, Stephen. Please try to
control yourself.' After which, his dad walked out of the room.

Stephen stayed where he was. He could have cried with frustration. He was furious with his dad and he was furious with himself. It was true. He had behaved like a child. He might have known that this sort of confrontation was never going to get him anywhere with his dad. He'd seen it before, with other people mostly, that the more someone shouted and raved, the quieter Dad became. It was as if he was saying, though not in words, ‘Look at you, losing control like that! You can't make me do anything I don't want to, because I am always master of my feelings. I never give anything away.' Hot angry tears forced themselves out of Stephen's eyes. He wiped them away quickly. His dad must never see him cry. That would only make him even more sure that Stephen was still too young to be trusted with a secret.

It was a long time before Stephen had calmed down enough to begin to think in bed that night. He was still too angry to sleep, and he lay on his back, trying to sort out what he knew and what he didn't about his mother.

He couldn't remember her. He had a vague idea that he could recall once being very small, so small that he knew the underside of the kitchen table better than he knew its top, and being coaxed out from behind the same table by a woman. She had called him Deedie, the baby name which he had rejected before he was five years old. She had been tall—but that proved nothing, he was so much smaller that she could have been any height—and she had worn something red. She could have been his mother. But so could she have been any other woman. He was sure she hadn't been his gran, because she never wore skirts that short. It could have been his Aunt Alice, but he didn't think it was. So that was as far as his own memory went, and it didn't help at all.

He tried to think back to his babyhood, but he couldn't remember anything except for a few pictures which didn't hang together and told him nothing. There was a room full of other children. Babies too, and a woman carrying a huge teddy bear, which had somehow frightened him. It was too big. Someone playing a piano very loud and knowing that he was supposed to be joining in a song. A plate of something horrible that he didn't want to eat. He had been sat in front of that plate for what seemed
like hours, and then his dad had somehow appeared and rescued him.

After this the pictures became clearer and began to make more sense. There was Gran sitting in a chair. She seemed always to be sitting in a chair, while Aunt Alice moved around and did things. What did she do? Laid the table and poured out tea. Gran drank her tea with long sucking sips. He remembered Gran saying to his dad, ‘Who gets your meals?' and his dad saying I do. Why should ‘I want anyone coming in and interfering?' He had been impressed by the way his dad had spoken, as if he was angry.

Something he couldn't forget was the first time he'd refused to kiss Gran and Aunt Alice goodbye. Aunt Alice hadn't said anything, but Gran had burst out with, ‘Tell him it's his duty to show love for his gran. The only one he's got.' And his dad had said, calmly, like he almost always spoke, ‘You can tell him that. I shan't. If he doesn't want to kiss you, he doesn't have to. There wasn't much kissing going on when I was his age.' And they had left without his going through the kissing business, which he'd always hated. Aunt Alice was hairy round the mouth and chin, and Gran smelt. Not exactly horrible, but a stuffy, sweet sort of smell that he didn't like. After that he'd never kissed either of them again. Now, thinking about it, he realized that his dad wasn't any fonder of Gran, even if she was his own mother, than he, Stephen, was.

That must have been when he was seven or eight. So he had known then that there wasn't another gran. He hadn't realized at that age that it was usual to have two grandmothers. He had just accepted that he had only one, and that there wasn't a grandad because Dad's dad had died years ago, when Dad, his son, had been quite a young man. He had been a highly prized printer in a big firm, in
the days before everything had been automated. He had wanted Stephen's dad to follow in the same line, but when he'd died and left practically no money, the family couldn't afford the apprenticeship. Stephen's dad had had to take whatever job he could get. Aunt Alice had had a job too, but what she earned wasn't enough for the three of them.

Stephen had asked once, ‘What was my grandad like?' and his dad had answered, ‘I wish you'd known him.' So Stephen knew that his dad had really liked his father. Perhaps Aunt Alice had liked him too? Poor old thing, she didn't seem to have enough character to like anyone much. She hardly spoke when she was with the others. When she came into a room, she opened the door as little as possible and sort of sidled in, as if she was pretending not to be there at all. Her mother bullied her. It was, ‘Alice'll do that,' whenever there was a disagreeable job to be done, but Gran took all the credit. When Stephen and his dad were there for a meal, Gran always claimed that she had provided the food, though they all knew that it was Alice who did the shopping and it was Alice who cooked. Not very well, but at least she tried. Gran didn't do anything but sit in her special chair and criticize. Stephen wondered now if he could get Aunt Alice to talk about his mum. He reckoned probably not, but he could at least have a try.

He fell asleep at last without having come to any conclusion, except that next time he and Dad went to visit his gran, he would see if he could get anything out of Aunt Alice.

He had to wait for nearly a month before he could act on this decision. He and Dad went to visit Gran nearly every other Sunday in the winter, but in the summer their visits
depended on all sorts of different things. Dad's job, which sometimes demanded his presence on a Sunday; on the weather, on other engagements. Stephen had long suspected that some of the things Dad thought up for them to do, like driving out to watch a village cricket match, or sitting by a stream with rod and lines (generally not catching anything), or trudging up hills to where Dad thought there'd be a good view, were really excuses not to have to go to visit Gran. He didn't mind; he would rather do almost anything than have to go to spend two hours in that small, stuffy house, where there was nothing to do. No books that he wanted to read, indifferent food, and Gran's conversation, which was all about herself and was loaded with complaints about the neighbours, the Government, the weather, and often about Dad himself. Sometimes he was allowed to watch telly, but on Sunday afternoons there usually wasn't much that interested him.

So it was late June when Stephen and his dad parked in the narrow street outside Gran's house. Looking at it with loathing, Stephen noted the lace curtains drawn closely across the windows, the uncared for front garden, which had no flowers, only laurels with dark spotted leaves hedging the faded front door. He did not want to go inside. And yet he did want to get Aunt Alice to tell him what his dad wouldn't. He dragged his feet as he followed his dad into the narrow hallway and smelt the familiar smell of overcooked vegetables, dust, and old age.

The visit followed the familiar pattern. Exchange of news—only there wasn't any. Enquiries about his progress at school, which he fielded with long-learnt expertise. Enquiries about health, followed by a long recitation of Gran's ailments and accounts of the lack of caring in all the doctors and nurses she had met. Then tea. Occasionally Aunt Alice had not had time to make a cake and had had to buy provisions, and when this happened,
tea was the high spot of the afternoon. But not today. Stephen saw with dismay that the usual paste sandwiches, which he loathed, were accompanied by Alice's standard cake. This was called a Victoria sponge, and was hard and dry, with the merest smear of jam in the middle. Stephen ate it. He couldn't afford to hurt Aunt Alice's feelings by refusing a slice. He wanted her to be in a good temper and to like him better than usual.

After tea, feeling mean, he offered to help her wash up, and felt meaner still when he saw her look of pleasure as she accepted. He and Alice carried two trays into the back kitchen and began to unload the remains of the meal.

‘I'll wash and you can dry. There's a towel hanging by the door,' she said, running hot water into the bowl in the sink.

For several minutes, Stephen received knives and forks and then cups and saucers from her and dried them in silence. He didn't know how to begin. Then Aunt Alice started talking, asking him questions about what he was doing at school, what games he played, when he would be taking exams. Did he have friends? What were their names? How old were they? He didn't believe she was really interested. He wasn't sure she was even listening to the answers. She kept on saying, That's good,' or That's nice,' to everything he said. And they were getting to the end of the dishes. In another two minutes they would have finished their work and would have to go back into the living room. He was getting desperate. At last, he cut into a question she was asking about what he was going to do in the holidays, and said, ‘Aunt Alice, I want to ask you something.'

He could tell she was surprised by the way she turned right round to face him. Not giving himself time to panic, Stephen said, ‘I want to know about my mum.'

She turned back to the sink and she went very quiet. He could see her hand shake as she gave a last rub round the washing-up bowl. She didn't answer, but said, as if she hadn't heard him, with forced cheerfulness, ‘There! That's all done!'

Stephen said, ‘Please! About my mum?'

Again as if he hadn't spoken, she said, ‘Thank you so much for helping. You're very kind to your old auntie.'

‘Please, Aunt Alice! There isn't anyone I can ask except you.'

She walked over to the door and dried her hands on the roller towel hanging there. She said, ‘Let's go back to see Gran and your dad again, shall we?'

Stephen said, ‘I don't want to. I want you to tell me what happened to my mum. I've asked Dad and he won't tell me.'

‘If your dad doesn't want you to know, you can't expect me to say anything,' she said.

‘But he doesn't explain. He hasn't really told me if she's dead or what!'

She looked at him, and he saw terror in her look.

‘Is she dead?' Stephen cried out.

‘Sh . . . sh . . . sh! They'll hear in there,' his aunt said.

‘I don't care.' But he did. His next question came in a lower voice.

‘Did she die? When did she die? What happened?' he asked.

‘I can't tell you anything. It's your dad should tell you. Not me.' She escaped past him into the passage and opened the living room door. ‘Finished washing the dishes. Stephen helped a lot,' he heard her announce in a voice that tried to be normal and bright, but which sounded to him so false that he was surprised that his dad or Gran didn't immediately start up and say, ‘What's
the matter?' But they didn't and the rest of their visit followed the usual pattern of unmeaning talk about nothing, the early evening news on the telly, then leave-takings, with Gran's reminder that they should come again soon, and his dad's comment once they were outside the front door. There! That's it for another few weeks, thank God.'

Stephen wouldn't have been surprised if his dad had asked him if he'd upset his Aunt Alice in any way. But on the way home, Dad seemed no different from usual, and Stephen couldn't summon up the courage to start questioning him again.

But he wanted to. Aunt Alice hadn't told him anything, but what she had said, had suggested that there was something that was being kept from him. Why had she said, ‘Your dad should tell you,' if there was nothing to tell?

In bed that night, he went over in his mind all the possible stories there could be about his mum. Perhaps she really was dead. But if so, why didn't they say so? Plenty of kids lost their parents, and though it was sad, it was no disgrace. Perhaps she had killed herself? That would account for the silences, but it still wasn't something to be concealed like a crime. Possibly she had run away with another man. Stephen considered that this was much the most likely of all the possibilities he could think up. It would account for his dad's refusal to speak of her. It would have been a terrible blow to his pride. He would also probably have felt that her going off and leaving him behind would be so hurtful to Stephen that he should not know of it. ‘But I'm growing up. They can't not ever tell me. Whatever it is I ought to know,' Stephen said to himself, and turned uneasily on his hot bed. If she's alive, I want to know. I want to see her and find out what really happened, he thought and his busy imagination kept him
awake and tormented him until the night cooled down and at last he slept. But even then, he dreamed, and his dreams were uneasy.

It was July and hot. Everything seemed to be winding down like the school term, where the pupils were bored and unruly and the teachers were tired and cross.

‘Are we going away this holidays?' Stephen asked his dad.