CHAPTER 10
I woke up disoriented. Somebody was snoring gently, and the back of my neck felt damp. There was an arm draped across me, and I needed to pee.

I disentangled myself and padded across to the bathroom to take care of it, to the sound of a muffled grunt from the bed. My neck felt awful, a night spent without any pillow other than my arm, and I was glad it was nothing complex today, just phonetic definitions, which I could do in my sleep. The way I felt, that might well come true.

Bladder drained, I busied myself with the kettle, Pete stirring as the cups clattered from where he had piled them in the sink, unwashed. I handed him his crutches so he could follow my earlier example, and sat to await his return, trying to put some sense into the events of the night before. Something was really nagging at my mind, but what was making me squirm with frustration was that I knew, knew without clear information or for any structured reason, that there was something deep linking him and my mother. I can’t normally function, as Sharon reminded me on a regular basis, without a road map and a co-driver, but there was something so overt between them that even my oddness was pulled up short.

Pete’s return had thrown a huge pebble into the still waters of my life. Jane’s adultery, her departure, all the ensuing events, they all fitted nicely into how I saw the world. I was surprised at first, but once I saw how they fitted into the plot of my life, they made sense.

None of these events made sense, and I was starting to get more than a little nervous; it didn’t fit, any of it. Just to add to the unpredictably, Pete was in a buoyant mood as he chugged his tea.

“I got wheels, John! I’ll run you in!”

That actually made sense. If he found the van too much, I could take over, even with my lack of recent experience. Once dressed, we were on our way, bike and chair loaded. A little jerkily, we sailed out of the gates and off to the road through Bitterne to the Itchen. He didn’t do too badly, and I kept off the subject of that night until he had parked up and stuck up his “disabled” badge.

“Pete, how well do you remember last night?”

He looked rather pink. “Very well, actually”

“Well, we need to talk. There s a lot going on here, and I am getting lost in all these changes. I do not do change, certainly not at this pace. Would you mind dropping me at home tonight and staying for a while?”

He was clearly unhappy about that one. I offered him dinner….and then remembered that if I was going to do that I should speak to someone else first. I made the call, and she sounded as if I had just offered her the secret of eternal youth.

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Dave was, of course, more than ready to poke fun at me. Firstly, I had arrived in a car, which was a major source of mirth to him, considering my views on them. Secondly, he assumed that my deep tiredness must be the result of alcohol abuse, which was another thing I was not renowned for. I had another surprising moment of insight; would I swap the old life of calm and predictability for my improved and improving social skills, or would it be easier to drop back into certainty, predictability, the deep comfort of what Mary called ritual? Before I could decide, I needed more information. I could not sit still, my thoughts bouncing round the walls of my limited imagination and getting nowhere but frustrated.

Finally, the college day was over, and we set off back along the waterfront for my mother’s place, Pete seeming particularly tense as he drove. I had to call out a couple of times when we came up to one of the many red lights on our way, and now and again he was starting to get far too close to cars in front. Was I pushing him too hard? It was beginning to look like it, but in a sudden burst of selfishness I decided that it was time I got some of what I wanted for once.

When we pulled into the drive, I thought Pete was going to die of shock.

“When did she do that?”

“The morning after you left. She assumed you would be a regular visitor, it seems.”

“Bugger me!”

“Not the way you fart after beer.”

Did I just make a joke? The ground was shifting too much. My mother had opened the door as we arrived, and getting Pete in was so much easier with the ramp. She gave him a rather long hug, and led the way as he insisted on crutching in by himself. I caught a glimpse of the bed settee in the conservatory, already made up. She was running a powerful and consistent set of assumptions.

“I am doing nothing special tonight, just a stroganoff and rice. Peter, get settled in the living room and I will bring you some tea. And you, off upstairs and change”

“No, Mum, that is not going to happen”

She seemed to stiffen, and her voice went low, measured and very, very cold.

“You will do as you are told, and you will do it now”

Then, immediately, she shook herself, and her head turned slightly to one side.

“Please indulge me, dear. I have things we really need to discuss, the three of us. Please, for me, it will make it easier for me to do this. And no silk please; the sauce is not good for it”

I returned a little later, feeling rather self-conscious. I had chosen a simple floral dress to mid calf, with button front, tan tights and some flats in deference to my mother’s rules about heels in the house. I kept my make up as simple as ever, but one thing I did left me in fugue for a little while, something I only realised from looking at the bedside clock. I decided to wear my breasts, as they did make the dress look better.

Why did that seem important? Sodding hell, what was my mother up to? This wasn’t something I did reluctantly, after all, but it was something I didn’t normally do at all in front of others. I gathered my courage and walked down the stairs to the dining room, where my mother was ready to serve the meal. She smiled in thanks.

“You look lovely Laura, I liked that dress when I hung it up for you.”

Pete looked gobsmacked.

“You have definitely grown up, Laura. You are not the little princess I used to wake up…”

His voice trailed off as he turned pink again. I left the table in a hurry and locked myself in the downstairs toilet. What the hell was going on here? What HAD gone on? He was showing no shock at me dressed up, just surprise, it seemed, that I had “grown up”

I sat for a few minutes to calm myself, and realised I had no choice but to continue. My mother had an agenda, and I needed to find out what this pattern was, before my own unravelled. It was becoming clear to me that if I lost any more control of my life, I might just lose all control, and then…

And then I would be lost. I needed my anchors, I needed at least some givens in my life. Perhaps if I started that game, noting the utterances, looking for the patterns later, in bed, on my own, not with some cripple dribbling on my neck in his sleep.

Do it that way, on familiar ground, back in my own world. In front of my mother and my oldest, only friend, in a dress and plastic tits.

Ten minutes later I re-emerged and took my place at the table again, eyes repaired. I cast my eyes down, and quietly ate, as my mother prattled on about vans, and the Legion, and the price of builders. I drifted off into a world of words and patterns, lexis and register, letting her words flow past me, conscious more of the weight of my “breasts” on my bra straps than of the conversation.

Something caught my attention, firstly the words “Aunty Hannah”, and then I realised she was telling me again about my poor miscarried brother, and I realised was not the only one running in little repetitious loops. Came back to what passed for reality in this odd world where my mother put me in a dress for dinner and she and a school friend called me by a girl’s name and both acted as if there was nothing whatsoever unusual about the farce I was trying to get through without going absolutely raving mad.

I looked up at my mother, who had a soft, sad look on her face, and spoke as gently as could.

“Do you remember, Mum, you told me all that the other evening? It seems to be preying on your mind more than you realise”

She looked down, and I realised that Pete, with no drama, no noise, no fuss, was in tears. My mother gave a long sigh.

“Oh Laura, love, that is why I wanted Peter here to talk to. That child would have been his brother too.”