Page 4 of Little Wing
She ladled herself the last of the soup. Sweetato. Brilliant, Danny – brilliant. Libby’s left her bobble hat – drop it in later. She thought, I’ll bring Frank here one day. I’ll just put him at the corner table and he can stay my entire shift. And then she thought how these days, she could never do that with her mum.
* * *
White gloss paint. Awful. In this room, it was everywhere. The door, the skirting boards, the radiator. None of the surfaces had been rubbed down first, giving the impression the paint had been daubed over everything in a rush. It all looked a little pockmarked. And why pale blue for the walls? Just so cold. And that insipid framed print of an unconvincing bowl of fruit.
Today, though, none of that mattered because Nell’s mother was chirpy, patting the space on the bed for Nell to sit.
‘It’sEggheads!’ she cried. ‘I loveEggheads! Oh Florence, Ilovethat man!’ Her mother waved the remote control about. ‘Oh, whatshisname.’
‘It’sNell, Mum,’ said Nell. ‘Dermot Someone.’
‘Oh, what’s hisname, Florence?’
‘Dermot Someone – shall I make you another cup of tea? Nell, Mum,Nell.’
Nell’s mother cradled the cup as if it was her last. It was indeed her last – a 1953 souvenir cup and saucer produced by Clarice Cliff for the Coronation. When Nell had moved her here two years ago, she’d condensed her mother’s life into two suitcases and a box and the cup had come too.
Today, however, it wasn’t her daughter sitting by her side, watching TV, but someone called Florence. Some days she knew, some days she didn’t.
Out of the corner of her eye, Nell kept watch. She observed how frequently her mother’s inner gaze wandered although her eyes remained fixed ahead, how her mouth would twitch in silent conversation, how she’d suddenly scratch viciously at her arm or tug at her hair. Sometimes, Nell’s task was to calm her mother from childlike distress, other times it was to ignore the insults hurled at her. Often it was simply to remind her that she did definitely have a daughter because here she was and her name was Nell. Mostly, though, Nell just needed to let her know she was safe, that life was good, that everyone around her cared and was kind. Sometimes Nell tried to distract her, to guide her backwards to times she might remember and access the comfort that could bring. Nell, Mum – it’s Nell.
‘Hey, Mum – do you remember? Remember when we wentup west– as you used to say – to John Lewis Oxford Street? A long time ago – I think I was about eight. Have a think. Do you remember John Lewis, Mum?’ Nell persevered, with a little nudge. Her mum was still looking at the television. ‘And we’d been shopping for hours on end. The haberdashery department. Spools and reels of ribbons and silky cord in every colour? Do you remember? Every colour of the rainbow?’
And Nell remembers so vividly being eight years old, in John Lewis with her mother spending a fortune in the haberdashery department. Metres of ribbon of different widths: velvet, satin, grosgrain, plain. Every colour imaginable.
This one! her mother laughs out loud. And this and this and this! Nell so loves her mother at these moments of extreme effervescence, feels swept along on waves of joy. Swathes of chiffon being bought too, genuine silk chiffon because Nell’s mum says can you imagine anything softer and lighter than air? It’s true and Nell has never felt anything as exquisite. Buttons – they buy so many buttons too. What’ll we do with all of these things, Nell asks, what’ll we make? And her mum takes her chin between finger and thumb and says, let’s just have them because they are things of beauty.
And then they are trying on all the perfumes and Nell’s mum has little red marks all over the backs of her hands and the insides of her wrists. It could look disturbing but it’s only tiny strikes of all the lipsticks while she hunts for the perfect shade. And then she finds it and she buys five. They run – run! – to the toy department and Nell quite likes the fluffy bunny, which looks so real, looks at her so longingly, but her mother says look at this chap! Look at him! It’s a great big cuddly toy dog, like a German Shepherd, and her mum has a paw on each shoulder and she’s dancing around the shop floor, light as you like on her tiptoes. For a moment, Nell thinks wow – she’s going to do it! She’s going to buy me the hugest and most expensive toy in the whole shop! But then the dog is dumped and her mum’s saying she’s tired, oh my God so tired and then she says, I know! I know where we’ll go next! Come, Nell – come!
The top floor, where the bedroom furniture is.
Over twenty-five years later, it was all so suddenly vivid. The buttons and ribbons and the toy department and the lipstick. It was Revlon and it was called Transparent Burgundy. But she’d forgotten about the bedroom furniture department until now.
‘Do you remember?’
Her mother, though, was still staring at the TV, not watching.
‘It was the top floor,’ Nell said quietly. ‘It was very quiet – not many customers. We had all those bags, all those lovely things that we’d bought. You tested the beds like everyone tests the beds – with a good old push on the mattress. But then you chose one. It had a lilac headboard. And you lay down on it and I was laughing. But then you turned the other way and you curled up onto your side and you told me to go away because you were going to have a sleep.’
Nell paused but there was no way of knowing whether her mother was listening.
‘Then the sales assistant came along and said, madam, may I help you? And you said nothing. I knew you were awake, but you said nothing. I was standing there with all our bags.Madam – I really must ask you—’
Nell paused. She thought back to that day. The rising panic she’d felt. She could taste it again now, the anxiety shooting through her blood. She knew her mum wasn’t asleep on the bed on the top floor in John Lewis, sheknewshe wasn’t asleep. She was just lying there, lying about sleeping, leaving it all to Nell.
Madam – really!
‘My mum is just really tired,’ Nell had told the man. ‘Please could you leave her alone just for maybe like five minutes? Please, mister?’
And he’d gone but not before Nell had seen the look on his face that said he thought her mum was repellent. So Nell had counted to sixty, five times, marking each off on the fingers of her left hand. You really have to get up now, Mum. That man’s going to come back soon.
Nell looked at her mum, touched her hand but, just like that day, there was no response. That day back then, over twenty-five years ago, Nell had stood at the foot of the bed looking at her mother, not quite able to see her face, wondering how deeply she was fake-sleeping, watching as the salesman and another man approached. Oh, how she had silently, desperately, prayed her mum would just stop it.
She remembered that now.
She nudged her mum again, fought away a tear.
Sylvie came in with her mother’s dinner all expertly cut up.
