AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Where were we? Me and Jez in the mist. Someone talking about Don?
‘He’s like in trouble. But he doesn’t want to know me.’ The image of his face: he has my dimple.
‘Oh, Gethin, I’m so sorry, I just assumed…?’
‘Maybe I’ve got a sibling, Mum?’ I remember now, a local girl pregnant.
‘The girl on the motorbike?’
‘No! Not Jez!’ I shout. ‘A baby, but I don’t know where.’
‘Oh, Gethin.’ Mum’s disappointed voice.
I wave her quiet, shut my eyes. Flash to standing with Jez by the waterfall, the overwhelming roar of it.
‘I was angry with Jez. Where is Jez?’
‘I don’t know.’ Mum squeezes my hand again.
I turn to the window. The cloud has thinned to a shining blank white. My thoughts blur into the distance.
I drift into a more regular doze, still conscious of the nurses, the random beeping of machines. Mum shifting position, rustling in her bag, sniffling. After a while I’m like aware of her above everything, and when I look, I see she is crying.
‘Mum?’
Her eyes are ringed red in dark circles. I feel a sudden wave of nauseous fear.
‘Mum?’
She blows her nose and pulls an unconvincing smile. ‘I’m so sorry, Gethin, really.’
‘You haven’t done anything, is it?’ I hear the rise of desperation in my voice.
Mum does a lot of being anxious and going on, but she doesn’t do crying. Then I remember, when I was about ten, finding her in tears on the phone to Gran. I said I didn’t think she ever cried. And she’d laughed, ‘Not with you I don’t.’
‘I’ve let you down, Gethin,’ she says now, wiping the tears she can’t seem to stop. ‘Just when you’ve really needed me, all I could do,’ she pauses to control her voice, ‘was nag at you.’ She snuffles into the already dripping tissue.
‘Ach, more tissue!’ She grabs at the box on the side and has a good wipe.
I shift to bring myself more on a level with her, my brain sloshing a bit less now. But I literally don’t know what this Upset-Mum is about.
‘You were so angry on your birthday, you know?’ Mum looks pleading at me. ‘When I gave you Don’s letter. I handled that, everything, so badly.’
My mind lurches to that storming scene. I can see myself kicking the table, the owner walking towards us, me slamming out of the door. But I can’t locate the feeling and it’s making me uncomfortable to see it upset her.
‘Mum, it’s OK.’
‘No, Gethin, let me just say this.’ She looks at me, steadier. ‘I’ve been going over and over how I’ve lost touch with you.’
‘Maybe I’ve just been growing up, know what I mean?’ I interrupt, thinking that being in touch with Mum wasn’t exactly that important in the last couple of years. Friends did that stuff now. At least some of them did, some of the time.
‘You know, I went to see Gran and Granddad last week and it made me realise that all those middle class values I rebelled against – being measured by success in a worthwhile career, all that nonsense – I’ve ended up pushing on you.’
‘I thought Granddad was a socialist?’
‘He thinks it’s criminal to waste a good education when workers have had to fight for any knowledge that helps them think.’
‘Well, to be fair, people my age, we do like take a whole lot for granted,’ I say. Then I think of Aiden, literally living from day to day, grabbing at rare chances like the burger van.
