The Living

Mum, Jason said. He came in talking loudly. I can’t find my shirt. My strip. I can’t find it.

He wasn’t upset yet. He was just raising the issue.

I said still face down, Have you looked in the laundry basket the airing cupboard under your bed your chest of drawers your kit bag?

I’ve looked everywhere, he said. He went to look in the places I’d said or some of them. The conversation would be continued. He came back in. Are you ill? he said. What are you doing?

Maybe I’m coming down with something, I said.

What does it feel like?

My back was heavy. It feels I wanted to say like thirty-five years came into my body and forgot to leave. There’s too much time in here. I’m done for.

Aching muscles, I said. He snorted and went out. A bit later I heard him shout, It’s not in the laundry bin or the airing cupboard!

I needed to go to the shops and buy food. Buy food, I thought. That was one thing. And get up and move a bit. Move. That was another.

Should I call someone, I asked myself. Arrange to meet for a coffee? Too late notice. Weekend. Are you depressed? I feel uneasy with things. You’re not getting younger. You look relatively all right now. You’re relatively young. Shouldn’t things be happening? Isn’t this when things should happen? Is there something you forgot to do to make them start?

But the quiet part of me said there was no point forcing anything. It wouldn’t work. Then what should I do? Shouldn’t I do something? Is this all you want from me? I nagged. But it didn’t want me to do anything. Why is everything so fucking simple? I asked, then wanted to laugh.

Jason came back in. Kick-off’s in an hour! he said.

Did you look in your bag? I said.

He went away. Got it! I heard.

By the way there’s no food, he said when he came back in, wearing his tracksuit, bag slung over his shoulder. I had cereal. I’m just telling you. I can go to the shop on my way back but it’ll be later. Text me if you want me to. Bye Mum.

Bye, I said, and I went back to trying to understand something about the day, and what it wanted.

7

Waiting

The hardest times passed like fire. I don’t remember much till Jason was two. Till he was at school. I used to think of this documentary they showed when we were in school. It was a woman talking about World War Two. Her hair was set in white curls like Nan’s, her face a map of wrinkles. You saw a photograph of her before, a young woman, round-cheeked, wearing lipstick, and wondered how she’d let herself get old.

The door again, he was back. I heard coughing panting kicking off his trainers and chucking his keys on the counter.

The old lady said something, her eyes sparkling. About the war. Ooh it was a difficult time but a wonderful time. There were love affairs. You never knew what was going to happen so you didn’t think about tomorrow. You just lived. Her face shone.

That was how it was when Jason was a baby or I first started work or looked after him when he was ill. There wasn’t that terrible sadness I used to feel when I was a girl standing on the common knee-deep in grass on a cloudy summer day looking at a line of trees waiting just waiting for something to happen.

In the other room he was breathing lighting up putting on the kettle. His phone beeped. Sometimes I think if I had long enough to sit and think I’d understand what to do, how to get out of the grass and move ahead.

We still hadn’t talked about it properly, college, and next year – what he was going to do.

All right, he said, when I went into the kitchen. He didn’t look up from putting peanut butter on his toast. The knife went down on the counter. I imagined picking it up later, wiping the counter, washing the knife. Getting the kitchen clean, which it wouldn’t stay.

Jason, have you had a chance to think about college? I said. I picked up the knife and laid it across the open jar.

He breathed out harder and put down the plate. I’m just having some food, he said.

I know you are, I said. He leaned back against the counter and stared at the wall.

I don’t want you to miss out, I said.

No chance of that, he said.

I’m not having a go, I said. Sound of him chomping, crumbs everywhere. He finished the toast and put in another slice.

I might not want to go to college, he said. I might get a job.

Oh Jason, I said. If you don’t go to college you’re just stupid.

He yanked up the toaster lever and the bread popped. He walked out. That didn’t come out right. I stood there buzzing with things I wanted to explain, waiting for him to return. Music came out of the closed door of his room, something thumping. After a bit I washed the knife, wiped up the crumbs and the peanut butter, disliked myself for doing it.

8

People want everything to look perfect

The curtains at work are striped, ticking I think Nan would have called it: light blue with a few other colours, yellow, white, navy, pink. Pretty. The windows on our side face west. The morning light comes in the other side. I was spraying the heels on a stand of wedding shoes, covering my face because the spray catches in your throat, and when I looked up sunlight was coming through a window on to the trolley, and the spray was caught in a cloud, slowly dancing.

It’s always warm on the floor, and in summer it’s sweaty. The compressor stopped working because of a fault. While we waited for them to fix it we became slower, like bumble bees on a hot afternoon. We did what we could by hand. Tom worked on his lasts. He smiled. You know, lass, this is how we used to do it, he said, in the old days. And we’d be fast.

I know, I said. It was piecework.

It was piecework, he said.

That’s what Nan used to talk about, I said. No time to hang about.

I never took any days’ leave, do you know that? he said. Maybe three or four in thirty years of piecework. There was a week when I started. I think it was the chemicals. I got really sick but I didn’t take a day off. I was going in with a fever.

His hands were working while he talked, pulling tight the leather around the last, hammering it in place. What is it, I thought, about this work; the same thing, over and over, it takes your life but in the process it gives you this quietness, it takes away the struggle. Or maybe that’s just Tom. Or what I see of Tom from the outside.

You’re quiet today, Claire, John said. He smiled at me. I smiled back. He’s a bit older than me, John, but probably not much. He’s nice, too – smiles, and follows me with his eyes. We don’t talk a lot, except if we’re outside smoking. He always looks the same: jeans and t-shirts, his hair cut like it probably was twenty years ago, close and smooth.

Just checking what I can do till the compressor starts, I said. I like talking to Tom, and I don’t like it when people come along. It’s not even that I’m telling Tom private things. It’s just a way of being.

John smiled and went back to his work. He was using his hands too, but more slowly than Tom. It would mostly have been machines when he started.

I went to see Derek at the heel attacher. He was hammering in nails by hand to fix the heels on Eveliina, a red high heel, strappy. One I’d almost wear, if I had somewhere to wear it. Maybe I’ll try it in the factory shop. But what for?

Jane had sent down six boxes of handbags to have them checked and freshened up. We don’t make them, but we sell them as part of the line. The girls and I opened the plastic, took out the bags, checked them for marks, and stuffed them with tissue so they didn’t look crushed. In the shop, people want everything to look perfect.

Does that even look better? I asked Ellie. I held out the bag, plumped out. That looks the same, doesn’t it?

But she said that looked better.

Just before lunch the compressor started again and we all stopped doing the things we’d been doing to keep busy and we worked and worked. It was the busyness again the radio the noise of the machines the smell of leather dust and all of us working without mind, like bees in a hive. I didn’t think till just after four when I thought, I’ve had enough, that’s enough of today. The last twenty minutes crept by but when we were walking out it was still bright and hazy and everyone was chattering about what they were going to do tonight. Helen’s husband came to meet her like he always does – he’s retired. But not in the car, because the weather was so fine. He took her hand and she went off pink-cheeked and smiling like a little girl and the pair of them over sixty. How’s that done, I thought, but I liked it.

9

When I’m tired

On the way home I stopped and sat on the wall near the shop, just to be in the sun. There were three kids messing around next to the bottle bank. The littlest reminded me of Katie. He had expressions on his face that must have come from other people: his stepdad, his older brother: a toughness, a blankness, that didn’t belong to him. Then he scowled, and looked for a minute like an older woman, maybe his mum. It’s like you come into the world a person, with something it means to be you. In no time – a few years – you’re carrying all these things you borrowed, like I started chewing my lip because Jim did. Those habits become what people meet in you.

When I’m tired things are clear. It takes the edge off. I feel like a saint in a stained-glass window, everything coming to me in a halo, revelations.

I shut my eyes and turned my face up. Orange. Red thread veins. Little things like bacteria moving. My body sleepy with a private hum like one of the machines.

Hi. Excuse me, someone said.

I opened my eyes. Everything yellow and blue, like a seventies film. A shirt, white, slim fit, tucked in. Brown trousers. Brogues, nice ones. Up again, slowly. He was standing close.

Sorry to disturb you. (A golden voice. It had a softness it knew would please.) Do you have a light?

His wrist, golden hairs, brown canvas watchstrap. The man from the pub.

Yeah, I said.

While I was looking for it he waited. He put out his hand. Thanks, he said. I watched him look down and light his cigarette. He inhaled, didn’t give me the lighter. Didn’t I see you in the Three Bells the other day? he said easily. In the garden?

Oh! Oh, yeah, probably, I said. What day was that?

He smiled. I’m not sure, he said. Few days ago. Wasn’t as nice as today.

It’s lovely, isn’t it?

It is. He smoked. I got out my tin and started rolling.

He sat next to me on the wall to light it. Held on to the lighter, looked at it. I’d smelled his hand, nicotine and skin. It’s nice to smoke when it’s hot. Some days I want to smoke because something at work’s already irritated my throat. It’s like having a tooth that’s loose, or a cut that’s closing.

What about a half in the Bells? he said. If you have time.

I tried not to smile because the first thing I thought was but this never happens to me.

Now? I said.

Why not? he said.

Could do.

At the Bells we, Damian and me, smoked a lot. He bought the first drink. That’s when I found out his name. He handed me my beer and said, I’m Damian by the way. Claire, I said, but he didn’t hear because we were walking out to the garden. It was nearly full.

Sorry, he said.

Claire, I said again.

Beer garden, it’s one of those phrases, like holiday home, it tells you you’re meant to be having a good time. I did a quick scan but didn’t see anyone I knew. Damian seemed comfortable. He rolled up his sleeves and put his arms on the table.

So, Claire, do you live round here?

I live with my son. Up the road. He’s sixteen, I said quickly. I always say it fast, because I don’t want to have to think about it later.

He nodded. What’s his name?

Jason.

Jason and the Argonauts, he said.

You didn’t say Jason Donovan, I said.

Is he named after Jason Donovan?

No.

That’s good, he said. He laughed. I used to have the piss ripped out of me at school for looking like him.

You don’t really, though, I said. He is blond, but his face isn’t the same. Blue eyes but a bit more round. He looks like a kid, especially when he laughs.

I used to hate my name, he said. Everyone made fun of it. People thought I was posh.

Are you?

He looked down, shook his head.

You don’t have an accent, I said.

Moved around a bit, he said. His eyes asked for understanding. Tell me about you, Claire, he said.

I turned my glass around. Not much to say, I said. Born and brought up here. I looked around the beer garden. Sometimes I feel like I’m not from here, I said. That I’ve moved around too. But I’ve never lived anywhere else.

He nodded. Got lots of family here?

I don’t see them much, I said. I noticed I was holding my glass tightly. I took a big sip, had to wipe my chin.

Damian nodded. He was just listening, accepting what I said.

What about your family? I asked.

He smiled, waved his right hand. All over the place, you know, he said. Here and there.

Right.

And what do you do, Claire?

I work at a shoe factory, I said. Up near Ketts Hill.

Oh, really? That’s interesting.

There were twenty or more factories at one time, I said. Loads of people worked in the shoe trade. I felt like a tourist guide.

I think I’d heard that, he said. He took his sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on. I felt relieved. People usually think it’s weird, or they say, I didn’t realise there were any shoe factories left.

What do you do? I asked.

He smiled. For a moment I saw my head in the glasses, distorted, waving.

I sell children’s books, Claire. I’m a rep. I travel round and talk to bookshops about our titles. And schools. Books for little kids, he said. Not Jason’s age.

I didn’t mind hearing him say Jason’s name. Normally I don’t like it when someone I don’t know uses it.

He’d finished his drink. My arms were cold. I rubbed them. On the road, I heard traffic. It was beginning to turn into evening. A few more people filtered into the garden. Shall I get another? I asked.

Can’t, he said. Got to go, meeting some people. He got up sudden and I did too. Can I give you a lift? he said. The car’s just round the corner.

Oh no, I said. It’s only a minute.

Well, see you again, Claire, he said, as though we met up every week. And he left. He still had my lighter, I realised when I got in.

10

There was weather

A funny day when inside and outside weren’t as separate as normal. What’ll happen next, I thought. What’s going to happen? Partly about Damian. Nothing, said my mind. That was it. He had an hour to kill in between things probably. I thought of my face without any make-up, and my t-shirt and jeans, and felt no confidence.

Chris who works the drying machine wasn’t in and I’ve done that job before, so I worked it all day. One of the styles we’ve been making for the past few days, the red heel, it was coming through from the rougher. The flat shoe in the rubber cradles looks like a woman’s body. The part after the instep has a shape, like hips. But it just lies there, upside down, a sad fish. It’s only when the heel gets put on that it looks like anything.

I worked on the dryer, then glued on the soles with the attached heels, put them on a trolley to pass to John so he could fix the heels. I like John, how he’s calm, often looks amused. When we smoke he’s friendly, chats, remembers things I’ve said. A pouch of tobacco and a packet of papers sit next to the box of nails on the side of the heel attacher. I sometimes pinch a fag from him at break.

It rained all day. Not heavy but it was colder. I’d forgotten the forecast and come to work in sandals. With the sound of the rain and the chill near the windows, and smelling the glue as the shoes came out of the dryer, and looking at the pictures of mountains that Chris has stuck on the side – he likes climbing, he and his wife go on walking holidays – I forgot to wonder what was going to happen.

At four thirty there was still weather. I had to walk home in it, and listen to my feet squelch, feel them slide. I smoked a sad cigarette in the rain, dirty fumes and chilled fingers. It makes my kidneys cold, this weather, Nan used to say. I got in. The kitchen needed cleaning. The house was cold. I put on the lights it was that dark. The bin needed taking out. Everything smelled damp. Nothing would happen, it was obvious. Everything was just the way it was, the only way it ever would be.

11

The smell of the ink

I knocked on his door. Hip hop coming out but quietly. Knocked again.

I SAID YEAH!

I pushed open the door, went in, smiled. He was lying on the floor drawing, a cigarette next to him in an Indian metal ashtray someone from school gave him. I clocked some King Size Rizlas on the shelf above the bed, the end of the packet torn.

Your clothes, I said.

Thanks, he said. He didn’t look up. I heard the scratch of a Rotring. For a minute I stood looking at the back of his head, his biceps in his blue t-shirt, the looseness of his jeans under the waist, the instep of one foot in a stripy sock.

He cocked his head, wondered silently why I was still there. All right? he offered.

I bent down and kissed the warm whorl at the crown of his head. An absent-minded big hand came out, patted my calf, carried on drawing a line of buildings – some tall, some with spires, pointed roofs.

Do you want me to close the door, I asked like an idiot.

He nodded, didn’t look up. Thanks, Mum.

When I gave birth and saw Jason was a boy, I cried. I knew if I had a girl she’d hate me.

I remember when he was about three there was something I wouldn’t let him do. I forget what. He stood in the middle of the room and screamed,

I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!

You’d think I’d have been upset, but I wasn’t. I felt like swinging him into the air and spanking him and shouting, I hate you more! A thrill went through me. I saw myself doing it.

I should have hugged him, but I left the room and had a fag and thought about what a horrible little world it is. When I came back he’d fallen over, or hit his head. He was crying, and I cuddled him. I felt sorry for him, for both of us.

He stopped crying. He was holding on to my top with one fist and he leaned away and stared at me, all weary, like an old person. As though he was saying, Oh, I get it, this is what it’s like? This is it? We looked at each other.

One of the worst things I did was when he was old enough to have a key and come home from school on his own. I was back to doing full days. He must have been ten or eleven. We’d had an argument all weekend, about these football boots he wanted, which Ronaldo wore. They were gold and cost a fortune. I told him he already had perfectly functional boots and he became furious and said he needed them.

I got back and he was sitting in the middle of the lounge tearing something. It looked like there was grey water all over the floor. The ripped-up sports sections. He must have been at it for an hour.

He looked up at me, distracted, like he’d gone into another place, though he must have been angry when he started.

I said, Jason, what have you done?

I imagined screaming, What have you done? What the fuck have you done? You stupid boy! I’m going to kill you!

I stood on the edge of the sea of newsprint. Then I said very quietly, One of these days I’m going to leave. I’ll just go. You’ll get back and I won’t be here. And I won’t ever come back.

He looked at me with his mouth open. As though he’d suspected I was mad but couldn’t believe it.

I sat down, closed my eyes and said I was sorry, and I’d never do that. He said, It’s all right, Mum, but I think he meant, Don’t cry, you’re only crying for yourself. I remember that with my mother, her hitting me and then crying.

I sat down in the paper.

What are you doing? he said.

I’m tired, I said. And I was, I realised. I lay down.

Mum!

Close the door, I said.

I lay there while it got dark, maybe for an hour. I thought about my grandpa and how he’d say I was having a reaction. I remembered sleeping between them, him and Nan, in their bed. In the night if I tried to get close to Grandpa he’d turn away. But I’d cuddle up to Nan’s back and a big arm would come over me and pat my bum. I’d be warm. I’d hear next door’s dog or a dog in the street howl and I’d think that’s the sound of loneliness. I’ll always remember that sound I’d think. After a while of lying there and crying I thought about how old I was now – thirty years old. I’m thirty years old, I thought, with my cheek in newsprint. It smelled cheap, the ink. I wondered if I’d have black smears on my face, or half a word. From an ad. SALE, but backwards. I was cold, and hungry, and it was dark. I needed a wee. I got up, turned on the light, picked up the paper, made us fish fingers and chips, and went to the corner shop for ice cream. I gave Jason a hug before and told him I did love him. He let me hug him and said he knew.

While I was on my way to the shop I had a smoke. I felt done in, like I’d been crying for days. I thought to myself something I often thought at that time when anything went wrong, whatever it was, and then when it stopped, at least for a bit: Well, that passed the time. And then I’d laugh, really laugh, because no one else would have understood.

12

Sunny delight

An arm out of the window, sleeve rolled up, sun shining on the golden hair. Dark glasses, a face: Claire, he said. Give you a lift?

Oh, hiya, I said.

Hop in.

I hopped in. We were off.

He gave me a big smile. Hello, sunny delight, he said.

I laughed. What did you just call me?

He smiled and pushed his sunglasses up his nose. In a hurry? he asked.

No, I said. I felt wonderful, like everything had opened up.

Let’s go for a little drive, he said.

I saw familiar things: the shop, the pub, the hill, and houses I see every day – one at the corner with an apple tree and a hedge, and a white one with a conservatory and a sharp-leaved plant near the door. But they passed by fast, and then they were gone.

In the end he parked not too far from the house, and we went for a walk in Lion Wood. Lots of couples here and there on seats. We walked through the clearing, where the sun hung in slow soft bars, and up into one of the bits with more trees, then we were alone.

Well, Claire, he said. He looked at me and smiled, waiting.

I had questions I wanted to ask, things I wanted to say, like, I didn’t think I’d see you again, how did you know when I’d be walking past, where have you been for the last month – but instead he kissed me. It was too fast. I was still thinking. His tongue was in my mouth, his hands were on my arse, then touching my breasts, in my hair, pulling it. I opened my eyes. His face looked different, blind. He put my hand on his trousers and I felt his hard-on. He sighed. Voices, and three kids came up the path. They giggled as they passed.

Casey! one said, and shoved a skinny boy.