“It’s nice here really my lovelies isn’t it? Even though you can hear the roar of traffic and the rythmic chugging of the trains pulling out behind us heading up north, we’ve still claimed a bit of
“This patch of land used to be so different when I was a girl. My mother wouldn’t have wanted me sitting here everyday, but over the years one way or another I’ve come to fit in with this little park. Sitting here watching the canal flow past. Before it would be young girls - not nice girls - who would be here sitting on piles of rubbish. And then the bad boys who left their nasty rubbish all around. Dangerous rubbish it was. But now look. Each day as the weather has improved they bring their tidy little packed lunches and sit on the bench across from me nibbling away. They’re not bad girls, and they don’t have bad habits. And then when they have finished I collect their scraps to feed you.”
Maya sat slightly slouched on the bench next to Kate, her long legs spread before her trying to understand what she was feeling. On the rare occasions when Kate would break the silence she could hear her words, she could see the world around her, yet she still had the impression that she was slighlty apart from this world; as if she was floating in her own individual translucent bubble. She could see the reeds at the water’s edge gently waving at her. She could see the odd beer cans floating in the water beyond and smell the fumes seeping in from the gates behind her. She could see the lady across from her, but nothing sharp or hurtful could seep into her bubble. As Maya took a miniscule bite of her feta and rocket wholemeal sandwich her attention was caught by the flurry of activity at the lady’s feet. Maya watched as an arc of crumbs flew through the air and landed in an ellipse in the gravelly dirt that was instantly filled by pigeons.
“Is she feeding those bloody pigeons?” Maya snapped a look of disgust creasing her face.
The two women’s attention glided from the pecking pigeons to the lady who was now arranging her belongings around her. First the lid of the bottle of ice tea was removed, replaced and carefully arranged to her left. Then she moved the bottle to the right where the women noticed three other variously sized bottles. From behind her the lady conjured up a handbag and began rummaging through it, pulling out a hand mirror and comb. Maya’s attention was fixed on the lady as she preened herself and ran the comb through her already perfectly in place jet black bob. Finally the mirror was snapped shut by a slightly wrinkled but well groomed hand and placed back in the handbag along with the comb.
“I still like to look after myself. I learnt that a long time ago. But, I keep my hair shorter now. It’s easier to manage. Oh, when I was her age, that young one over there, I had a mane of hair all the way down my back. I used to comb and comb it until it shone in the dark. And then I would tease it into a ponytail that would cascade and wave as I walked. I cut quite a picture I can tell you.
“Now he, he loved my ponytail. He used to like twisting it around his palm and when he reaced my nape he would bunch his hand into a fist and pull my head back. I still tremble thinking about the way his lips moved over my throat and just when I thought I could take no more he’d let go and we would plunge into each other and cling on as if we’d drown if we let go. He always knew exactly what to do. He always knew how to get me to do more than I wanted to do. He was dangerous, the way he would trap me and then let me go.
“In the end that’s exactly what he did to me. Instead of going to dance school, I left school. He trapped me and then he let me go.”
Maya gasped and sat up. She looked quickly at Kate to see if she had noticed what had happened. The lady was still chatting away, rearranging those bottles but a moment before she had looked directly at Maya, smiled and started talking to her. Even though Maya couldn’t quite hear the words or make sense of the sounds that drifted over, she was sure the lady was talking to her.
"She’s talking to herself.” Kate sighed. “Did you notice?” Kate’s pitying gaze lingered on the lady a moment longer before dropping back to the tin foil parcel in her hands.
“No, I didn’t notice.” Maya replied guiltily her gaze drifting over to the lady. She realised that she had been completely oblivious to everything in the past. Oblivious to everything, except her one driving wish which had sealed her eyes to her husband’s infidelity. Sometimes Maya wished to scream it at the top of her lungs, ‘No, I did not notice.’ And her confession would shatter the bubble surrounding her. Shards of glass would radiate away from her as the world slowed down and each piece would land in the direct centre of every heart that had ever hurt her causing a minor prick of discomfort. But for him she would save the largest, sharpest shard which would traverse straight through his heart leaving a gaping wound that would prevent him from ever feeling love again; so that he would feel as she felt now - empty and disorientated in the world.
“You’d think she was a nanny wouldn’t you?” Kate said starting to turn the foil packet over and over in her hands.
“Why?” Maya asked her eyebrows knitting together into a frown.
“That pushchair she’s got with her.” Kate nodded in the lady’s direction. “But there’s no child.” Kate looked up at Maya and quickly lowered her eyes.
No, no child, Maya agreed as she looked at the shabby pushchair, its only load a large plastic checked carry all stuffed to bursting point. Maya scanned the scene again. “No, no child, just fucking pigeons.” She said vehemently.
“Sorry?” Kate’s brow furrowed as she turned to Maya.
As Maya turned her gaze to Kate she imagined an apology beginning to form on Kate’s lips and that she couldn’t bear. “Nothing!” Maya replied. “They are just dirty animals aren’t they.”
Kate looked questioningly at Maya.
“Pigeons.” Maya forced a smile.
“I really thought he loved me. I was so naïve though. It turned out that he already had a wife and family. The last thing he needed was me and my little bundle of joy.
“The break-up was hard though. Sometimes I felt like a ghost passing through the world I was so separate from everyone else. I do wonder now if it would have been different if there had been no child. Whether it would have been easier to bear. But no, because when Jason came he was a real pleasure. He was so beautiful. He had the biggest blue eyes. And the curls on his head. Oh, when he fell asleep on my lap and I would just sit there pulling gently on them. I was so happy then. Even if he always was a dirty little thing. Oh wherever there was dirt he would find it. But he was happy and I was such a happy mother.”
Maya watched as the lady straightened out and patted down her grey pencil skirt with a smile on her face. She wondered what was so amusing.
“Why do you think she’s here?” Kate mused turning the packet in her hands slower and slower.
“Well, I don’t think she’s on her lunch break.” Maya retorted a smile crossing her face for the first time in what felt like months.
“Mmm...” Kate agreed absent-mindedly.
Maya looked at Kate’s hands. “What’s the matter? Don’t you like your sandwich?”
“Oh it’s Craig’s sandwich,” Kate said finally putting the sandwich down beside her. “I must have picked it up by mistake this morning.”
“Or maybe he picked up yours.” Maya suggested. That’s what Phil used to do, he would pick up the largest sandwich regardless of filling.
“I doubt it. He wasn’t even out of bed when I left this morning.” A short laugh escaped from Kate’s lips to be replaced by her usual frown. “It’s just that he’s vegetarian and I worry that he isn’t eating enough.”
Maya raised an eyebrow.
“But they change as they get older.. I bet that one there staring at her sandwich, the older one, I bet she has a teenage boy. Yes, I understand that look. Where is he? What’s he doing? But you worry because you love them, that’s right isn’t it? You know, even though Jason’s face grew thinner and his curls got greasier and his beautiful skin became spotty, I still loved him so. Even when the trouble started.
“Oh to begin with it was just boy’s pranks. Shoplifting in Woolworths. The manager phoned me up to tell me he had been caught and the look he gave me when I went to pick him up. But all boys get into a spot of bother don’t they? And then the policeman who lived round the corner. Well, one night he brought Jason home rip roaring drunk. But again all boys start drinking eventually and they get it wrong don’t they? It wasn’t the end of the world was it? I can’t say that I really liked the girlfriend who suddenly appeared one day with her airs and graces, but that’s what all mothers say isn’t it? I told my friends that at least he wasn’t going with every girl in the neighbourhood. But they seemed to think that it would be better if he was. They would come round supposedly for a cup of tea or to borrow something, but really it was to say, funny smell round here. Is that another new burn in your furniture? Always casting judgement. They wouldn’t have understood how hurt Jason was when she left. They didn’t find him lying in the bath those billowing pools of bright red spilling out of his wrists. Of course, he went a bit off the rails after that.”
“How is Craig?” Maya asked,it seemed the right thing to do. Sometimes she needed to go through a little checklist in her head just to make sure she didn’t completely disappear. Talk to people, check. Enquire after people, check. It didn’t really matter if you listened, you just had to play by the rules so that people didn’t think you were completely crazy like the lady sitting opposite them.
Kate unwrapped her sandwich and took a bite as if she needed time to think of a suitable reply. Finally she answered with a shrug of her shoulders and; “He’s OK.” Then returned her gaze to her sandwich and Maya watched as her shoulders sagged. “He’s just having a bit of a rough time at school at the moment.”
“Oh that’s difficult,” Maya sympathised. Again it seemed the right response, but she could feel a panic begin to grip her stomach. What if Kate wanted to say more? What if she was expected to say more?
“He just doesn’t know what he wants to do.” Kate sighed. “They have to make choices so young nowadays don’t they?”
“Mmm.” Maya agreed her eyes wide. “And kids get up to such mischief nowadays.” She shook her head silently wishing for this conversation to end. “Getting into trouble with the police and all sorts.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth she realised that she had strayed from the unwritten script.
“He’s not like that at all.” Kate’s voice had risen in pitch. “He’s a good boy really. I’m lucky really. He’s just a bit confused about what he wants to do with his future that’s all.”
“Yes,” Maya nodded manically wondering how on earth she was going to extricate herself from this situation. Once she had listned to Kate’s problems. She had been the one who could help Kate, talk to Kate, calm Kate. But now who was she? How could she possibly advise a woman who had succeeded in everything she had failed in? What could she possibly say that would make Kate feel better? She understood confusion, she shared that with Craig, but there was nothing in Maya’s experience which could say whether the confusion would lead to better or worse. In the ending of one relationship, Maya now felt unable to function in all her relationships and this scared her more than she could ever reveal.
“Oh I know that tone of voice. Oh dear, I used to pretend too. Even when it became blindingly obvious that things were wrong, but I just had to pretend that everything was alright. Otherwise it got too hard.
“But then things started disappearing from the house. At first I tried to ignore it. It was the radio from the bathroom first, just a little old thing. And then the radio from the kitchen. The money from my special drawer that I was saving for a rainy day, that started to disappear little by little. The TV was a little harder to ignore, as was the furniture.
“I know what those curtain twitchers would have said, but I was his mother, he was my son. What could I do?”
“There’s going to be a meeting at school with his teacher and we’re going to try and sort things out.” Kate blurted out quickly.
“I am sure everything will work out Kate.” Maya sighed gratefully staring at her feet. She concentrated on relaxing her breathing and when she felt calm again she looked across at the lady on the bench “Oh my God!” Maya guffawed.
“What?” Kate almost jumped out of her skin.
“Where the hell did she get that from?” Maya nodded in the direction of the lady. Sitting on the bench as if it had been magicked from thin air was a stuffed velour rottweiler. It was about the size of a large puppy and as the lady continued her chundering she arranged and stroked his velvety head lovingly.
“Of course there were times when things got better. He said that he had been confused and he tried ever so hard to work things out. He even got a job and he bought me this dog. I’d always liked dogs, but we couldn’t have one, not in that tiny poky flat. But it’s very realistic don’t you think?
Maya and Kate looked at the old lady again. Now she was carefully arranging a rain coat over her knees.
“And then things went bad again. I still loved him even though I had to look after him again. Maybe I loved him more then, because he needed me again. And It seemed like such a long time since he had needed me.
“I was there when he was sick, mopping his brow and holding his hair out the way. I washed those curls of his again and cleaned under his finger nails and behind his ears. I ignored the lines of pin pricks along his arms and legs and hoped that they would one day fade. I ignored the blood that came from his mouth and hoped that too would one day stop. I ignored the blood that came from elsewhere. I ignored what was killing him, what made him sicker, what took his breath away, what took his life away.
“It seems I ignored it all. How did that sickness come into my house? How did that sickness take him away from me?”
The two women watched the lady pack her stuffed toy away into the checked hold all and forced the zip up. They watched as she rearranged the bag in the pushchair. Maya’s attention was diverted by what sounded like rolling thunder getting louder and louder. She looked down the tree lined path to see two gangly teenage hoodies weave their way towards them on skateboards. One of the hoodies continued weaving in wide slow arcs down the path while the other stopped directly opposite her. She watched as he slammed his foot on the back of the board so that it jumped into his hand in a fluid movement. She felt herself draw in a sharp breath and heard Kate inhale deeply. Maya watched breathlessly as the youth seemed to incline his cloaked head in Kate’s direction like Death viewing his prey. His shadowy features appeared to be glaring at the sandwich in Kate’s hand. Maya felt herself instinctively bunch her handbag strap tightly in her hands.
The youth stepped away and shrugged reaching into the bulging pocket that spread across his middle. As he pulled the object out Maya saw sunlight glint off shining metal and a tiny shrill squeak escaped from between her parted lips. The youth turned his back on the women soundlessly and leant over to lay his gleaming package next to the lady before dropping his skateboard back onto the path, pushing off with one foot and rolling off as quickly as he had appeared.
“She’s just going to feed it to the pigeons.” Maya commented. When Kate didn’t answer she looked at her and found her exchanging a knowing smile with the lady.
“She’s going to feed the sandwich to the pigeons.” Maya repeated feeling a hysteria rise in her.
Kate put a hand over Maya’s and smiled. “And that’s OK.” She squeezed Maya’s hand. “It’s going to be OK.”
Labels: short story
