The Things I Know(51)
‘Did he now?’ His mum nodded and twisted her jaw, shifting in her seat as if she were squaring up for battle.
‘Yes! He told me about you and his aunties, Eva and Joan, and said that you like a chat, and I thought that was good because I like a chat too. Can I sit down?’ She pointed at the empty chair.
‘If y’like.’ His mum watched her with hawk eyes.
Thomasina sat down, her heart beating somewhere at the base of her throat, as Grayson hovered by the dining table.
‘Eva and Joan are my sisters. Joan trained as a hairdresser up west – she’s the only person to ever cut Grayson’s hair – but she never finished the course, had a baby and that put paid to that. My dad chucked her out, but he was a lovely dad really!’ The woman gave her first smile of genuine happiness. ‘Different days then, but lovely days. Grandad Arty, Grandma Noella and Betty next door – oh, she was a character. One day Grandma Noella got her leg stuck in the fence between her and Betty’s house!’ She wheezed with laughter. ‘And Betty was screaming, “Get her orf my fence!” And Grandma Noella – she was a fierce old bird, let me tell you – she screamed back, “I can’t, I’ve got me bleeding leg caught!” And then Grandad Arty got mixed up in it all . . . Oh my days!’ She wiped her eyes. ‘All gone now. All of them, all gone.’
The following silence was sharp and seemed to ring like a bell. Thomasina tried to fill the quiet and build a verbal bridge.
‘I like your ornaments.’ She ran her eyes over the dusty clutter packed on to the shelves and mantelpiece and, briefly catching Grayson’s eye, saw him smile at her act of simple kindness. ‘We have a lot of ornaments at home too – most of them were my grandma’s. I like to think that I look at the same things she did every day while I’m cleaning or pottering.’
‘What’s the matter with your mouth?’ His mum lifted her half-empty tumbler in the direction of Thomasina’s face, lest there be any doubt as to which mouth it was she referred to.
‘Oh!’ The direct question was a little shocking, but actually Thomasina found it preferable to the whispers behind cupped hands and the stolen glimpses of those who shied away from such questioning. She took a breath, steeling herself. ‘I was born with a cleft palate and lip problems, and a few other wonky bits and pieces, and the surgeon who fixed me didn’t do the best job, as you can see. It’s very different nowadays. I’ve seen kids born the same as me and you’d never know – they end up with a tiny fine line, hardly noticeable, but I wasn’t so lucky. I got this.’ She touched her fingers to her own mouth.
‘Can you eat and drink all right with that then?’ Mrs Potts knew no shame. The path of her words oiled with the liberal application of alcohol meant the query was presented unadorned with pleasantry or politeness.
‘Are you kidding me – have you seen these hips of mine?’ Thomasina laughed. ‘Eating and drinking is definitely not a problem for me.’
‘Want some wine?’ Grayson’s mum lifted the bottle towards her and Thomasina greeted the gesture with a mixture of dread and relief.
‘That would be lovely. Thank you.’
‘Get her a glass!’ Mrs Potts shouted the instruction in her son’s direction.
Thomasina watched as he went dutifully to the kitchen and lifted another tumbler from the draining board by the sink, coming back and handing it to her with a certain resignation. Her stomach bunched at the barely perceptible wink he gave her. She watched as Mrs Potts poured a big slug of wine into the glass and handed it to her. Thomasina took a sip of the noxious sweet liquor and smiled sweetly.
‘And you’ve come from Bristol, you say?’
‘Yes, on the train.’
‘What you come all this way for, this time of night?’
‘Actually, I came to see Grayson.’
‘Did you now? What for?’
‘Because we need to talk about some stuff.’ She looked up at him and was glad to see that a little colour had returned to his face.
Mrs Potts gripped the arm of her chair with her free hand and sank back into it. ‘Well, good luck getting him to talk to you. I don’t get a bloody word out of him – do I?’ This last she addressed to her son, as she struggled to keep her eyelids open and her head lolled. ‘Goes off to his little job . . . I deserve to hear where he’s been and what he’s been up to! Bristol!’ She drank again. ‘What’s so bloody important in bloody Bristol and took up so much of his precious time that he couldn’t pick up the phone to his old mum or answer a bloody text message!’
‘I did reply to you, Mum.’ He sighed, and his mother ignored him.
‘Just like his bloody father – too busy to chat about his day, leaving me here to sit on me tod, no idea if he’s dead or alive! If I didn’t have your aunties, I wouldn’t’ve seen a soul for days!’
‘I was only in Bristol.’
‘Don’t I know it – Bristol! Bloody Bristol!’ She sat back heavily in her armchair and reached once more for her bottle of wine. ‘Might as well have been the Bahamas or Borneo, no damned contact . . . What, don’t you have phones in Bristol? Is it a different time zone?’ This she addressed directly to Thomasina.
‘We do have phones, but where I live we don’t always have a phone signal.’