mouthed at sis, ‘Two hours.’ Sis sniggered. Mother replied dutifully, taking the rinsed plate from Gran, ‘When you were visiting Florrie. Quarry Hill flats.’
‘I wor stuck in that lift for a good two hour. How it stank. People had peed in it. I never thought I’d get out.’
Mother said, ‘Like being entombed in a metal box.’ I watched her lifting bikkies from a Tupperware container and arranging them on t’ rinsed plate.
‘I really should go and see Florrie,’ Gran wor saying, ‘but what wi’ t’ lift breaking down and them stairs being such a climb …’ Her voice trailed off.
Mother’s face turned concrete. Mandy and I stared at each other. The story had veered from its usual course and pitched into a ditch. Mother pressed down t’ Tupperware box lid firmly wi’ t’ flat of her hand. Florrie had been dead these three year.
A few weeks later Gran failed to show for dinner. Her phone wor just ringing out. Mother wor having an anxiety attack, her face and neck turning all blotchy. She wor all set to call t’ cops, fire brigade, even the friggin’ army. Barely had she had set the receiver on its cradle and Mitch wor putting on his jacket to drive over there, when t’ phone rang. Gran had got on t’ wrong bus.
‘So where are you?’ we heard Mother say.
Pause.
‘Pontefract?’
Gran hadn’t clocked where she wor ’til t’ bus pulled into Pontefract bus station and the driver announced it. Mitch had to drive over there and collect her. He found her sitting in t’ station office, chatting wi’ t’ off-duty drivers. When he said he’d come to take her home, she asked him if he wor a taxi driver.
Over t’ next few months our worries about Gran grew. She kept buying milk, even though she had it delivered. She started to forget what she wor saying before she got to t’ end of her sentences. She forgot which flat wor hers, and surprised a neighbour in whose door she wor twisting her key and swearing under her breath.
One evening Mitch came into t’ lounge and turned off the telly midway through Columbo.
‘Oi! We wor watching that!’
Mand and I wor parked side by side on t’ sofa. Mother came in and perched hersen on t’ armchair, winding a manky tissue round her thumb. Mitch rocked on his heels before t’ gas fire, puffed out his chest a little, then said, ‘Your gran ain’t getting any younger. And maybe you’ve clocked that she’s been behaving a little queer of late.’
I winced when he said ‘queer’.
‘Could say that again,’ Mandy blathered. ‘Why, only …’
Mitch held up a silencing forefinger. ‘Think,’ he said, taking one of t’ fake plastic coals from t’ gas fire and placing it on his open palm like it wor a frog or summat, ‘of yer gran’s brain as a fire that once burned bright, but is now just dying embers. Or,’ he added, setting the plastic coal lump back on t’ fire, ‘like a set of Christmas-tree lights that have short-circuited and you don’t know which one’s blown without trying the lot.’
I imagined a set of short-circuiting Christmas lights in t’ shape of a brain.
‘Well, that’s what happening to your gran, and so that’s why … that’s why … she’s coming to live here.’
‘Here? Wi’ us?’ Mandy squeaked. Mother shuffled her legs, her stockings making a static rustle.
‘It’s just ’til they find a place for her in a home.’
‘What kind of a home?’
Jeez, sis wor a sack full of gormless questions.
‘A cats’ home,’ I said.
Mitch eyeballed me to shut it.
Mother said, ‘A nursing home, where she’ll be cared for proper. She’ll like it there. She’ll make new friends, and we’ll be able to go and visit whenever we want.’
Mand glared at us all, then ran from t’ room. Then we heard her bedroom door slam.
What wor she so upset about? Gran wor getting my room. Not that I had any say in it. I’d be on a friggin’ blow-up lilo in t’ lounge.
At Blandford Gardens there wor a shaft of light in t’ hallway. I stabbed the bell and waited on t’ porch. Overhead, a sash creaked. Stepping back in t’ road and looking up, I saw someone who worn’t Jim leaning out of t’ bedroom window, someone I’d never clapped eyes on before.
‘Can I help you?’ the man said, pushing strands of wispy hair behind one ear. He wor wearing Jim’s Chinese dressing gown.
‘Jim home?’
‘Who wants to know?’
‘Tell him it’s Rick.’
‘Rick? Ah, yes. I have a message for you. Fuck off, sweetie. Show your face around here again and you’ll get it mashed into next week.’
The man slammed t’ window down and yanked the curtains across. I stood looking up at the window, stung wi’ disbelief, waiting for Jim to appear, telling me in his sweet Scottish brogue that it wor all a mistake. But the window stayed stubbornly shut. I slumped down onto t’ low front wall, welled up inside wi’ anger, and bashed mesen repeatedly on t’ upper leg like a self-hating Mr Punch.
I headed for t’ Fenton. Maybe Jim wor there, and maybe I could explain. Instead, I found Dora, parked on her usual stool like she wor glued to it.
‘Hello,’ she cooed. ‘You’re not going to run off again, are you?’
‘Jim about?’
‘Scots Jim? Haven’t seen him, luv.’
I ordered a lager and lime and hiked mesen onto t’ stool next to hers. The pub reeked of old beer and cold smoke. Dora wor harping on about some other old crone who’d been bitching about her and how this other old crone wor jealous cos she – Dora – could still get the attention of men. Like I gave a rat’s behind. Dora paused only to suck on her ciggie. She left a lipstick print on t’ butt end. I drank, letting Dora buzz in my ear like a faulty fridge while t’ evening seeped away and the place became crowded and boisterous.
Then, not long before ten, this young’un came waltzing in like he owned the friggin’ joint, passing right by us and making straight for t’ lounge bar. A lanky, wire-haired lad wi’ his chin set a smidgen too high. Dora beckoned me close. I tipped my stool toward her and caught a full blast of her market-stall scent.
‘That one, who just sailed past us without so much as a how’s-yer-father, he’s one of Jim’s. I’ve seen them in here together. Jake, his name is.’
She pursed her powdered lids across t’ open bar toward t’ lounge-side bar stool where Jake had parked himsen. I kept my gaze fixed on him, waiting on him to look across our way. When he did, his eyes widened and flickered wi’ wary curiosity, like a startled deer. Then he turned away.
Dora wor saying, ‘I thought you knew?’
