Our Stop(47)

Maybe she doesn’t care anyway. Maybe she never showed. Maybe she’s there, and already being chatted up by the barman, or one of the guys from the corner table out with his fancy City-boy friends.

Daniel looked around and nodded. ‘It looks great, Mum.’ And it did. His mother had always prided herself on a pristine home. A pristine, very floral and chintzy home.

I shouldn’t have left.

‘No! No, it doesn’t!’ she insisted. ‘Because Henry is gone! I never got around to doing the car. I left Henry out by the bin and I thought I’d do it tomorrow, and then that became the day after and the day after, and the truth is, I couldn’t really be arsed, so he sat out there for maybe a week, and today I needed to vacuum the house, and I went to get him and he’s gone.’

Daniel stood up and went towards the front door. He felt his frustration at having had to leave his date leaking into how he was talking to his mother. He hated that version of himself: even as a teenager he’d talked to both of his parents with respect. That was how he was raised.

‘I’m sure he’s not, Mum. Where would he have gone?’

‘Stolen! I bet he’s been stolen!’

Daniel put his shoes back on and went outside to look by the bins, and when he couldn’t see the hoover there, he looked in the bin.

‘You’re not looking anywhere I haven’t already!’ His mother sank down to sit on the doorstep. ‘Oh, Danny,’ she said, her bottom lip wobbling again. ‘Right before he met you at the pub, on the day he … on that day, we had such a big fight. He said no way was I to buy a new hoover, and I thought he was being a tight bastard, and got mad. And he’ll think … well, I’ll bet he thinks I’ve done it on purpose!’

Daniel wandered back over to his mum. ‘He doesn’t think that, Mum. He doesn’t think anything. He’s …’

‘Oh, I know he’s dead. But he’s here. Watching over us all. And he’ll be all crossed arms and big angry scowl thinking I “lost” –’ his mother made air quotes in front of her face ‘– Henry, and with him gone I thought I’d get away with it.’

‘Mum, your husband has died and your hoover smelled bad. I think you’re allowed a new one.’

‘So you don’t believe me either!’

‘Either?’

‘First your father, and now you!’ She pulled a tissue from the pocket of her dress and blew her nose. She was back to talking hysterically, her words all tumbling over each other. ‘Well, I’m telling you, Henry was out here by the bins, and now he isn’t. He’s been stolen and it wasn’t my fault.’

Daniel dropped down on the outdoor step beside his mother. He didn’t say anything, but knocked his knee against hers as a sign of solidarity. She was officially nuts, but he didn’t mind. He was half in love with a woman he’d never met and wrote to via the newspaper because he thought his dad would like it. He could understand his mother feeling strongly about the vacuum cleaner on his dead dad’s behalf too.

He hoped he hadn’t upset Nadia. He hoped that maybe she hadn’t even turned up at all, and so had no idea he’d stood her up. It would have sucked if he’d stayed there, though, and been the one to have been stood up. But he’d rather that than her, waiting, alone, thinking he didn’t care.

After a while, his mother said, ‘I miss the miserable bugger.’

Daniel smiled. ‘I know, Mum. Me too.’

‘I wake up in the middle of the night and think he’s gone for a wee, and I wait for him to come back to bed. And then I remember.’

‘I know.’

‘And I feel … angry. I’m so mad at him for dying.’

‘I know,’ Daniel said sadly.

‘I want to scream and shout at somebody. But at who? The bloody scrap man who probably nicked the hoover?’

‘Ahhhh,’ said Daniel. ‘The scrap man. Yes. If Henry was out here for a week that would make sense.’

‘Yeah,’ his mum said.

Daniel reached out his arm to give her a squeeze.

‘I know it’s awful. You don’t deserve this. You don’t deserve to be without him.’

He didn’t realize until his voice cracked that he was crying too. Big tears rolled down his face, matching his mother’s. She’d stopped crying until she looked up at her son, and the pair of them sat in the late evening sun, partly laughing at their big display of emotion, and partly continuing to sob, mother and son united in the grief of missing the man of their lives, wondering how they might carry on without him.

Daniel was glad he’d come after all. It was just the two of them now. They were a team. They needed each other.





28


Nadia


‘Anyone sitting here?’

Nadia looked up to see a tall, red-headed man with a crooked smile. He was gesturing at the seat beside her. Nadia’s second wine glass was empty and the bar had filled up around her. The spot beside her was the only empty seat. How long had she been sitting there? Long enough to drink two large glasses of white wine, she realized.

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Nadia, remembering her manners.

‘Yes, somebody is sitting there?’

‘No. Nobody is sitting there. Yes. Yes, you can sit there.’