Her fingers curl to beckon me and I reluctantly rise to my feet. We move to a clear space and she holds my hands as we start to dance. She takes the lead and before you know it, we are bopping around the room like a couple of idiots, albeit with my limited mobility. For a moment, I’m transported back to the late 1980s when, as we are now, we were jiving and singing along at the top of our voices. And for the first time in I can’t remember how long, we are connecting. And it feels good . . . it feels so bloody good. Then I catch our reflection in the window.
Nina is no longer my little girl and I am no longer her mother.
And as the chorus begins to fade, so does the memory of what we once had. We find ourselves back in our chairs, eating a meal neither of us is enjoying, and me trying to make small talk.
I ask her what she has planned for tomorrow, then I throw a few of her colleagues’ names into the conversation and by the time she has finished updating me on the lives of people I have never met, dinner is over. Already, I can feel the stomach acid beginning to creep slowly up my throat. I swallow it back down. I know it will keep me awake throughout the night and I’ll spend much of it spitting foul-tasting saliva into the beaker next to my bed.
‘Shall I clear the table?’ I offer.
‘Thanks,’ she replies.
I begin stacking our plates and cutlery.
‘I’m going to the bathroom, then I’ll help you back upstairs.’
I look over my shoulder to check that she has gone and, in her absence, I take a swig of her wine from the bottle. It tastes as sweet as nectar, so I take a second gulp. Then I worry that she’s done this on purpose, and it’s a test that I’ve failed. So I replace what I have taken by filling up the bottle with the water from my cup. I fold the tablecloth and, using the last drops from the glass and a serviette, I dab at the stain the potato slice left.
‘Don’t worry about that,’ she says dismissively when she reappears. ‘I’ll throw it in the washing machine on a high temperature.’
‘But it’s lace,’ I reply too quickly. ‘It’ll disintegrate.’
‘Then I’ll throw it away and buy a new one.’
I want to retaliate, but I let it pass.
‘Right, are you ready?’ she asks. I look outside. It must be barely seven o’clock and it’s still light.
Without warning, Nina grabs my wrist and digs her fingernails into it. I let out a yelp and feel them pushing deeper into me, pressing my tendons until the pain becomes too much and my hand unclenches from the balled fist it was in. The corkscrew I had partially hidden under my sleeve falls to the table with a clunk. Nina’s hand remains where it is, her nails still drilling into my skin, and I bite hard on my tongue and try not to show her how much she’s hurting me. Eventually, she lets go.
‘I was about to put it with the dirty plates,’ I say.
‘I’ll save you the trouble,’ she says, but slips it into her back pocket. Her tone softens as if the last thirty seconds never happened. ‘Come on then, let’s get you back upstairs then, shall we?’
CHAPTER 4
NINA
I follow my mother up the staircase as she takes one step at a time. I notice the muscles tighten in her sinewy arms as she uses the bannisters to pull herself up. The last two years have really taken it out of her. And she’s not as confident on her feet as she used to be. It’s as if she is afraid that by going faster, she’ll lose her balance and fall backwards. I’m here to catch her if she does.
Most of us at some point in our adult lives come to terms with the fact that we’ll gradually watch our parents erode before our eyes and there will be nothing we can do to slow it down. I’m no exception. Despite everything that’s happened between Maggie and me, it makes my heart heavy to know there will come a time when I’ll no longer have her here with me. Sometimes I find myself standing at the bottom of her staircase with my eyes closed, listening to her feet pacing the bedroom floorboards and reading aloud from a book. I wonder if she makes her own noise to fill the empty space in her room.
I told her once that she’s like a ghost haunting the house long before she’s dead. She laughed and said she’ll always be watching me, even from beyond the grave. I sensed a hint of malice in her delivery, but strangely, it offered me comfort. Sharing a house with a twisted spirit is better than being alone. Being alone scares me more than anything else in the world.
We reach her floor and she turns left along the short landing and pushes open the bathroom door. She tries to close it behind her, forgetting it will always be slightly ajar. I wait outside, sitting at the top of the stairs as the tap runs. It’s a Tuesday night so she’ll be preparing a bath. Set routines like this and our meals together are useful in that we know what to expect from one another. Except for when she veers from the script and does something stupid like trying to steal a corkscrew. Then it feels like one step forward and two steps back. Yet still I persevere.
I switched the immersion heater on when I got home but only long enough for the water to be mild at best. It costs a lot to run this house and my earnings and her state pension are limited. There was a cold snap in January and February, so her government winter fuel allowance ran out weeks ago. Once Easter is out of the way, we’ll have summer to look forward to and we won’t need to put the heating on as often.
‘I brought you another book home,’ I say from the landing, and hear a rattling from inside as she lowers herself into the water.
‘Thank you,’ she replies.
‘I’ll leave it in your bedroom.’
I head back downstairs to the ground floor and return with a book whose cover image is the chalk outline of a body. I question if her preferred reading material mirrors the darkness beneath her surface.
Placing the book on one of her two bedside tables, I gravitate towards the window. With the exception of a moving car, all is quiet outside. I spy the flickering of television screens in some of the neighbours’ lounges and wonder what they’re watching. At this time of night, it’s probably the soaps. When I was a girl, we’d gather around the telly to watch Coronation Street and EastEnders. Well, Mum and I did. Dad would be catching up on the newspapers or sitting at his desk in his office upstairs designing buildings.
Outside, our neighbour Louise appears from her front door and collects something from the boot of her car. I spot her paunch in the streetlight – Mum’s right, she is definitely pregnant. Without thinking, my hands reach for my own stomach and I find myself cradling it, as if there’s a life growing inside me. I know there isn’t; it’s impossible. My insides are like a broken-down piece of old machinery with missing parts. However, it doesn’t stop the longing.
I look up to the burned orange and purple sky and am happy the light nights have arrived. I saved up the money I receive as my Carer’s Allowance and have treated myself to a new table and four chairs for the garden made of something called rattan. They should be arriving soon. I don’t need all that seating; it’s not as if casual visitors drop by. But one chair on its own would look pitiful.
For a moment, I picture Maggie and me eating dinner together in the garden one warm summer evening. It would be nice to do something that is different for us, but normal for other families. Then I dismiss the idea as quickly as it appeared. If I can’t leave her alone with a corkscrew for a couple of minutes, then how can I be sure she won’t be a danger to either of us if she’s outdoors?