Blood Relatives

‘I told you, I’m not getting married. Ever.’

Mother’s brow knitted painfully.

‘All right, ladies?’ Don’s eyes combed across Janice’s breasts. Janice averted her gaze.

‘We wor,’ piped up Denise, ‘until we saw you waltzing over our way.’

‘Gerald!’ said Gran, as if she’d just hit on t’ answer in a friggin’ crossword puzzle. ‘His name wor Gerald. Had his own carpet business and a big house up Alwoodley way wi’ a garden, a big car and …’

Mother flashed me a pleading look. I said, ‘Gran, we know. Give it a rest.’

Gran cocked her head at me. ‘A gin and tonic, please, young man.’

‘You’ve got one, Gran. Look – right in front of you.’

It wor odd for Gran to call me young man. She usually only called anyone young man whose name she didn’t know or couldn’t recollect. She picked up the glass, downed it in one. ‘Gerald,’ she murmured, looking pleased wi’ hersen. ‘His name wor Gerald.’

The next morn, Mother wor leant against t’ fridge, watching me wolf down beans on toast before heading off to work. Our fridge wor covered in friggin’ fridge magnets. Sunflowers, London buses, Smurfs, Disney characters, cacti, flags, all plastered over t’ ruddy thing like fridge-magnet acne.

I wor wanting to ask her about Gerald and his car wi’ t’ walnut dashboard and that, but I could see she worn’t going to spill. Her face wor taut, her hair still unbrushed and she hadn’t put her lippy on. Mother said little above t’ necessary to make brekkie function.

‘I might be late again,’ I said.

Mother repositioned one of t’ fridge magnets.

‘Again? I’ll keep some cold ham and beetroot for your dinner.’

She spoke slowly, like she wor really saying summat else. I scraped back my chair.

‘It’s all right, I’ll get chips.’

Mother winced.

I rattled Mrs Husk’s letterbox. ‘Corona pop!’

‘It’s open, luv.’

Mrs Husk wor swilling out a teacup under t’ kitchen tap. She shuffled into her front room wi’ t’ teacup dangling from one finger. After a momentary difficulty freeing her finger from t’ cup handle she said, ‘Did yer get my whisky?’

‘Yer whisky?’

She eyed me beadily. I laughed and took the small bottle of Bell’s from my coat pocket and set it on t’ table, together wi’ her usual ginger beer. The things we’re friggin’ well asked to do.

Mrs Husk patted her hairnet. ‘Have you had a win on t’ pools or summat, lad?’

‘Being happy’s not a crime is it, Mrs Husk?’

‘It’s a rum world, lad, when folk are happy for no reason. Sit a moment.’

I sat. Today I had time. Eric wor knobbing some housewife at number 78, but I worn’t going to tell Mrs Husk that. She sloughed into t’ kitchen to fetch her empty. From my spot in t’ lounge I said in a loud voice, ‘My gran’s just moved house.’

I didn’t usually blather about t’ folks, but if I kept Mrs Husk conversationalising then I knew where she wor. Gran had upped sticks, sold sticks and moved about a mile across town into a small, modern, first-floor flat. Fitted carpets, new boiler, double glazing, window locks.

She’d taken as good as nowt wi’ her, but had instructed Mr Cowley – Second Hand Furniture – House Clearances, screamed the black letters on t’ day-glo orange sign – to cart away all t’ stuff that Mother had grown up about, sat at, played under, slept on. ‘Sold without sentiment,’ Mother had said bitterly. ‘Sold for a pittance.’

Mother then blathered on about feeling ‘complicit in a dirty crime’, denying a man barely cold in t’ ground all trace of his time on this earth. Wiping him clean of our lives, she called it, as if, she said, it wor her own childhood that had been parcelled up and disposed of in such an underhand manner. I wor thinking, ‘It’s only stuff.’

I thought Gran had done t’ right thing. It meant we didn’t have to have any of it. Mind you, we did end up wi’ some friggin’ boat-shaped lamp wi’ a parchment sail shade.

While I wor waiting on Mrs Husk to come back from t’ kitchen wi’ her empty ginger-beer bottle I picked up a framed photo from t’ side table. An old photo of a man and woman at t’ coast somewhere. They wor posing stiffly and smirking at t’ camera. The wind had blown the woman’s hair across her face and the camera had caught her pushing it aside wi’ her hand.

‘Is this you and Mr Husk?’

‘Is what me?’

‘This photo. Is it you?’

She sidled over, handed me t’ empty ginger beer bottle and peered at t’ photo.

‘That? Aye, it is. That wor took at Whitby. A long while back.’

She took the photo from me and set it back on t’ side table. ‘Now I want you to rub some ointment into t’ back of my calf. I can’t do it mesen, I go all funny.’

I sighed. Mrs Husk parked hersen in her chair and rolled down her knee-length stocking to expose her bare leg. Taking the ointment from her, I squeezed a little onto my palm. Her skin moved in loose ripples under my kneading fingers, as if she wor in a coat too big for her tiny frame. I distracted mesen by thinking of Eric’s bare arse rising and falling over at number 78. I wor getting a stiffy, so I decided it might be better to make some more idle chat.

‘So, when he died, I guess he didn’t leave you much, then?’

‘When who died?’

‘Mr Husk. When he passed on. I wor saying that he didn’t leave you no money?’

‘Hah! Die? Who said owt ’bout him being dead? For all I know he might be still swanning about somewhere. No lad, he walked out on me a long while back, went off wi’ another woman. There, I’ve said it, never thought I’d say these things to a complete stranger.’

‘I’m not a stranger, Mrs Husk, I’m your Corona van boy.’

‘Well, no, I suppose not, lad. It wor my fault, you see. I put him on a pedestal, which never does, does it, putting a man on a pedestal? Put a man on a pedestal and it goes to his head. He came back one time. We wor living over Beeston way then. There wor a knock on t’ door, and there he stood, bold as brass in his brand-new overcoat, suitcase by his side, looking reet dapper. He didn’t say nowt, just stood there, waiting for … waiting for me to let him in, I suppose. Trouble wor, I had a friend round for tea, didn’t I? So I said to him, I said, “It’s not convenient, come back later.”’

‘And did he?’

‘Did he what?’

‘Come back?’

‘No lad. Never saw hair nor hide.’

‘Sorry to hear that, Mrs Husk.’

‘Aye, well it’s a rum world, it is that.’