Читать книгу Like Bees to Honey - Caroline Smailes, Darren Craske - Страница 11

~five

Christopher Robinson, born 20 December 1991.

Christopher Robinson, killed 5 February 2002.

Ten years old.

The plane is taxiing, gradually, searching to meet the metal stairs.

‘You look sad, Mama.’

Christopher breaks my thoughts.

‘I’m just thinking, Cicio,’ I say.

‘About when I passed over?’

‘Yes, about when you died.’ I whisper the words.

‘I can hear you, even when you don’t speak.’

He tells me.

Speaking to my dead son helps me, to remember.

The fifth of February. It was an insignificant day, the date meant nothing. I dwell on this, sometimes. I think about how life can change, can fall, crumble with ease.

I made the wrong decision, a mistake, a split second error in judgement.

The weight of consequence is beyond measure.

I do not work, I never have. I like it that way. I love to be at home, making a home. I cook, I clean, I wait for the end of the school day.

It was the same then.

I would wait for the end of the school day, for my Cicio. It was how I wanted it to be. I was happy, deeply happy, pretending to be happy. We had enough money; Matt was working his way up the company. He was clever, a genius.

He still is.

Christopher was ten; he was keen to be independent, to help. He loved food, the combining of ingredients. He would watch me cook, his questions were intelligent. I would describe food, cuisine, Maltese traditions to him. He would eat up my words, my snippets of language, my customs.

I would tell him about my special place in Malta. I would tell Christopher how I used to go to a café with my mother, after school. I would describe how my mother and I would sit near to the window, how we would talk and look down onto the bay of Melliea. I would tell Christopher about the food that we would eat, always the same food. I would talk to Christopher about that time, I would try to describe ftira bi-ejt.

~Maltese flat bread seasoned with salt, with peppers, with tomatoes, with capers, with olives, with olive oil.

His eyes would light, his taste buds tang. I longed for him to savour. He never did.

I gave him words without flavour, without texture.

Sometimes, in life, we put off, we think that there will be a tomorrow.

We are told that we will blossom and then wither.

I guess that I gave my son the skeleton, the remains of a culture. I spoke an outline of a country that he was drawn to, that he needed to understand. I offered him words without images that he could attach to. I lacked commitment; I feared the joining of him to his roots, my roots. I barely spoke with my mother tongue, not until after Christopher’s death, not really.

We lived close to the primary school. Christopher pestered to walk home with a friend. He would have to cross one main road, but they knew where to look, how to look left and then right and then left again. They were sensible boys, I gave in. They had managed the walk home for six, maybe even seven weeks.

School finished at 3.20 p.m.

On 5 February 2002, Christopher’s friend James was ill. His mother had called in the afternoon, just to let me know that Christopher would be making the walk home, alone.

I began to worry.

I decided that I would wait for him, on the home side of the main road; that I would almost pretend to be shocked to see him.

It was a simple plan.

I got to the main road at 3:20 p.m. I stood down slightly, out of sight, almost, as if I had come up from the village and was making my way home. Christopher had not seen me. He was standing at the opposite side of the main road, waiting to cross.

I called his name, shouted out Cicio.

He looked at me, a huge grin on his face.

And, then, he stepped out onto the main road.

He was killed on impact.

There was nothing that I could do.

But that is not the complete story of our relationship, not really. Christopher knows that my recall lacks context, depth, texture. That is the story that I have formed, developed to convince people to offer sympathy, to empathise. There is a truth, blocked, hidden where only the spirits can see. There was another side to our mother and son relationship.