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“Karl left,” she said with a slight slur. “I thought he was the one, baba.”
Like all the others, whereas I wasn’t surprised in the least. I’d only met him once and he didn’t seem to be the commitment type if I was being honest.
“What happened?”
“He had a cob on, went down the offeh and never come back,” she explained.
In translation, he went to the off license in a bad mood, and she never saw him again. Much the same story for most of her fellas in the last eighteen years.
“How long?” There was so much more that I wanted to say to her. I wanted to question why she always picked the wrong man. Or, why she couldn’t see that it was her drinking that drove them away.
“Three days.” She gave a throaty laugh, something else she started late in life, smoking. That was a fella called Mick when I was thirteen. Apparently the taste of tobacco enhanced the taste of whisky. “I wouldn’t mind but he took my last tenner.”
“Do you need money?”
“No. I have plenty, baba.”
There were many things I accused her of, but sponging off me wasn’t one of them. I’d bought her a nice house in a nice area and put enough money in her bank account that she could give up her job as a cleaner, but she never ever asked for more. She was good at budgeting if I was honest and according to myaccountant, she’d even added to it. It didn’t mean I didn’t worry about her, though.
“What was it then, Mum?”
“Can’t I just ring you?”
She could but she never did.
“Of course. So, you’re sure there’s nothing you need?”
“No. Unless you count a visit from my son.”
Every time I spoke to her I tried to listen out for the tiny details. The words or the intonation that indicated that there was something wrong. Despite the misery that addiction brought with it, she never sounded sad. She was totally aware that her problems were of her own making and always kept everything upbeat. She was, if there was such a thing, a good alcoholic.
“I guess I could come over before we go back on tour.” There wasn’t an awful lot of enthusiasm, but I knew I should go and see her. It had been a while.
“Where is it you’re going?” she asked. “Did you say Italy?”
My heart gave an extra beat. I knew then exactly why she’d called, and I tasted the bitterness in my mouth. It was a drum she banged on every now and then, but she always managed to get the beat wrong. I never understood why she felt the need, because he'd been the one to bring her house of cards tumbling down. He’d been the one to break her heart into a thousand tiny pieces, each one stabbing her repeatedly as she made all the wrong choices in life.
“No,” I snapped. “We went on the last leg.”
“Oh. You never said.”
I could hear the confusion in her voice. Wondering why I hadn’t mentioned it. Why she hadn’t know that I’d be close.
“The tour dates were everywhere, Mum.”
“Yes, but you gave me a list, so why would I need to check them?”
Which you clearly didn’t read because you’re not really that interested in your son’s life.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” I answered. “That leg is finished, and this last part is just a short stint around the UK.”
“When do you start?”
Sighing heavily, I suddenly had a major craving for a cigarette of all things. I hadn’t smoked since I got clean and even before then it had only been two or three a week. The legacy of another of mum’s boyfriends, TJ, when I was sixteen and he offered me a smoke. I didn’t even like it but thought it was cool, especially as Ronnie and I had joined Elliot’s band six months earlier. I smiled, recalling the memory of our rehearsals in Mo’s garage. We had a lad called Sam lead singing for us at the time and he was always fucking late. Elliot used to lose it big style with him, which was why he eventually threw him out of the band and asked Beau to take his place.
“Joseppi, I asked you when you start.”
It wasn’t just her voice that roused me but that fucking name, too. “I’ve told you I haven’t had that name since I was sixteen.”
