Читать книгу So Many Ways to Begin - Jon McGregor - Страница 21

The first time they persuaded Laurence to visit Julia in the nursing home, she was smoking again, sitting by the window with her back partly turned to the door. They stood behind him in the doorway, and he looked back into the corridor as if he thought they might have the wrong room. They nodded, and he stepped forward. Hello, Mother? he said tentatively. She didn’t seem to hear him. He took a half-step closer. Mother? he said again, and she still didn’t move, the cigarette held out on the arm of her chair, a steady plume of smoke trailing towards the ceiling. Dorothy interrupted impatiently, pushing past Laurence and putting a hand across Julia’s shoulder as she spoke, leaning over to look her in the eye.

Hello there Julia love, she said, it’s Dorothy. We’ve brought Laurence to come and see you at last, and she said the at last so quietly that only Laurence could hear. Julia turned round, looking at David first, curiously, and then at Laurence, some level of understanding that wasn’t quite recognition passing across her face.

Hello darling, she said, smiling abruptly. Hello, how good of you to come and see me. Have you got a kiss for poor Julia? Laurence stood in front of her for a moment, looming over her, gripping the fingers of one hand with the other, running his thumb back and forth across his palm. Julia looked up and turned her cheek towards him. He bent down to her so slowly and hesitantly that he almost lost his balance and had to grab on to the back of her chair, and as his lips touched her face he held them there, closing his eyes and seeming to hold his breath before lifting away and stepping back slightly. David looked at his mother, and past her to the window, and at Laurence. The room felt suddenly very full.

Laurence sat down on the edge of Julia’s bed, his hands in his lap, looking at her. He reached up and smoothed his hair back across his head with the heel of his hand. He said, look, I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to come and see you, I’ve been posted abroad an awful lot, you know. She ignored him, as she’d learnt to do when there was something she didn’t understand, gazing steadily at the room as if he hadn’t spoken at all. He tried again. So, how are they looking after you in here? Is the food good? Have you met many people? His voice was loud and slow and he leant towards her slightly as he spoke. She looked at him, and at Dorothy.

I don’t think you need to shout dear, she said dryly, we can all hear you. She squashed her cigarette into the ashtray.

Laurence had signed up for officer training when he did his National Service and had been in the army ever since. He’d never married, and there were no children that anyone knew about, and from the few letters he wrote to his mother it seemed as though the army had become his entire life, talking about my boys, and the old man, as if they were his family now. David only once heard Julia say she minded these long and repeated absences, or how seldom he ever wrote to say how he was, and even then it was with an insistence that she was just being silly, that he was a grown man and what did she have to complain about? I mean, she said, he’s only following in his father’s footsteps, isn’t he?

He was stationed in Germany when they moved her into the home. He’d had to be sent the admissions papers to sign, and the financial documents, but he’d refused to discuss the situation with them. Dorothy had written, and even spoken to him by telephone on one occasion, but he’d only ever said that he trusted her judgement. I’m out of the picture here, he’d said, you’re the one on the ground. I don’t think she’s looking after herself properly any more, Dorothy had told him, I don’t think she’s able to. Right, absolutely, he said, if you think so. We’re trying our best, she told him, but we can’t be down there every weekend. No, of course, he said, whatever you think’s best Dorothy. You’re the expert, he said, leaving her to talk to Julia about what was going to happen, to arrange a place for her, to make sure that the house was cleaned occasionally. And when they’d met him outside the home that morning, running a few minutes late, he’d seemed reluctant to go inside at all, standing away from the door and tracing lines in the gravel with the toe of his shoe. Ah, hello there, he said, seeming surprised to see them. This is it then, I’ve got the right place? I wasn’t sure what to expect, he said.

They sat quietly for a while, the four of them, drinking the tea Dorothy had sent David to fetch, looking out into the garden. Julia asked for her cigarettes, and Laurence sprang up to find them for her, holding one out of the pack and lighting it when she put it to her lips. He looked pleased with himself, relieved to be able to do something for her at last. She smoked, and they waited for her to say something. She said, I hear they’re building a new school at the end of the road there, where the theatre used to be, that’ll be nice. Laurence looked at Dorothy, questioningly, and she discreetly shook her head. She said, I had a letter from Kathleen. Kathleen wrote and said she was coming to stay. I hope she does. I’m sure she will. She will, wouldn’t you say? she said, turning to Dorothy, lifting her head to blow a stream of smoke towards the ceiling. She said, David, how’s that girlfriend of yours, what’s her name, the Scottish one, how’s she? He looked at her, and at his mother, and his mother smiled and turned her face away.

She’s not my girlfriend Auntie Julia, he said, embarrassed, trying to remember when he’d said anything to his mother. Not really, he said.

Oh, Julia said, smiling, my mistake, sorry, and she winked at Laurence, making him roar with sudden delighted laughter.

They left him alone with her for a couple of hours, walking out around the streets, down through the park to Julia’s old house and back along the canal.

You know she’s not going to get any better, his mother said, and David nodded, and they didn’t say anything more about it.