Winterton Blue Read online

  Those steps are very slippery, mum, she says, taking off her coat and throwing it over one of the many armchairs in the room, You had a lucky escape.

  She’s trying not to look at her mother’s face, which is bathed in light from the window. It wouldn’t surprise Anna if her mother had deliberately planned it, sitting where the daylight would make her bruises glow. She has one like a plum spreading over her eye, another curved round the edge of her chin, and a sharp red mark across the bridge of her nose. The moment Anna came through the door, her mother removed the sling from her arm to display yet more bruises, pink turning purple, from wrist to elbow.

  I know, I’m lucky, aren’t I? says her mother, without irony, That’s what I told them at the hospital when they were doing the X-ray. The nurses said I must have bones like rubber. They were amazed that nothing’s broken. Except my glasses. Look, they’re in bits.

  She takes the two halves of her spectacles from her lap to show Anna, holding them up and peering through one piece of the frame and then the other.

  I can see much clearer now, she says, waggling her finger in the space where the lens fell out.

  It’s not funny, says Anna, trying to keep a straight face.

  It is! It’s a hoot. You should’ve seen it. Like a scene from The Birds, all the gulls bombing and diving and me flat out on the pavement. And that chap from two doors down comes running out and says, ‘Get indoors lady, they’re on the attack!’ What a carry on.

  So were you just feeding the birds, then, mum? When you slipped?

  Only a few scraps. And don’t call me mum. I’m Rita to the guests, so while you’re here, do me a favour—don’t go showing me up.

  How many guests are there?

  What on earth have you done? says her mother, staring at Anna’s head with a look of severe disapproval.

  Caught out by this sudden switch, Anna runs a hand over her hair. She didn’t have time to dry it before getting on the train, but she thought she’d got rid of the engine oil.

  Nothing, why?

  Exactly, says her mother, It’s about time you had a bit of a cut and blow dry. A nice tint, maybe. Your father went prematurely grey, you know. He said it was all the worry—but genes will out.

  There’s nothing wrong with my hair, mum. And I like the grey bit, she says, Makes me look . . . distinguished. Not at all like a skunk.

  They both laugh at this. Anna’s grey is concentrated down one side of her head, a long line of silver in the black.

  You’ll end up like me, says her mother, They show you all these cards with loops of hair on them, saying, Now Mrs C., would you like the hint of sable or the touch of gold? And guess what?

  Anna laughs again. She knows this story well.

  It always turns out blue.

  Lilac, says her mother, Lilac, I ask you. Who in their right mind wants purple hair?

  So, says Anna, refusing to be derailed, How many guests?

  Her mother ignores the question, craning her head up at the ceiling and tutting to herself. Anna follows her gaze: there’s a crack running across the plaster, and directly above them, a series of large, blotchy brown stains. They’re sitting in the public room, which has been christened the Nelson Suite. A brass plaque has been put up on the door since Anna’s last visit, and a gilt-framed picture of the man himself hangs over the fireplace, but one look at the details tells her it’s all window-dressing.

  We’ve got a foreign girl in, says her mother, Danish. Not a guest, mind, she’s doing the cleaning. She’s not much good. Can’t understand things. Cabbage likes her, though.

  The woman who let me in? asks Anna, Blonde, about my age? I thought her English sounded perfect.

  Her mother laughs, fingering the broken spectacles.

  Your age? She’ll never see forty again. And I didn’t say she couldn’t speak English, just that she doesn’t understand things.

  So how many rooms does this girl have to clean?

  Her mother throws her a withering look.

  If you must know, there’s only Cabbage staying at the moment. He’s hoping for a Christmas slot at the Pavilion. Fat chance of that. But now the new wind-farm’s up and running, there’ll be plenty wanting accommodation round here. They’ll be banging the door down. Men, Anna, she says, with a wriggle of her eyebrows, Lots of them, engineers and suchlike. So we have to stay open. I can’t be going anywhere.

  The daughter watches the mother as she talks, letting the words—the familiar exclamations, the sudden laughs—wash over her. Looking closely, Anna tries to see what Vernon sees, what a guest, not knowing her, might notice: that white hair, the strong, weathered face, and those dark eyes. An old woman, but tough, for all that. Anna sees the tilt of her mother’s head, the slackening under the jaw. She thinks: I do that, now, that tilting thing; I have that way of smiling when I talk. I fold my hands like that. Perhaps it’s already too late to front her out.

  Anna had got it all planned. The long, snaking train journey up the country had given her plenty of time to reflect. She saw there would be a clear choice: either her mother comes to stay in London, or Anna will have to look after her in Yarmouth. In her head, she’s inhabited the cackling laughter and wild shouting at the television, has pictured her mother trailing around after her, the constant interruptions of What are you doing? every five minutes, the endless, pointless cooking and cleaning. In this imagined future, Anna has already stepped back and watched as her mother has taken aim with her water pistol and blown the squirrels out of the trees. She’s prepared herself for a fight, but Anna’s been too long away: she hasn’t really considered that she might not win. Looking at her now, her plans seem hopeless.

  But you had a good summer, didn’t you? she asks, knowing the answer.

  Her mother looks at her narrowly.

  A bonanza, she says, Absolute bonanza. What of it?

  Well, Anna says, How many guests do you think you’ll have this winter?

  Can’t imagine, says her mother, archly, Hundreds, I suppose.

  Expecting this sort of fabrication, Anna agrees.

  So it could be really busy, mum. How do you think you’ll manage?

  I’ll manage same as always! I’m a bit bruised, dear, not on life-support. Then there’s Cabbage and the Danish girl. And it wouldn’t hurt you to put a hand in if you’re really that concerned about your poor mother. Not as if you’ve got a proper job to go back to, is it?

  It’s no more than Anna expects, this line of attack, and brings with it a sharp stab of anxiety. She’s been freelance for nine months, having had, one January morning, what her mother would later describe as a blow-out: as if she were a car on the motorway, and could simply mend herself by getting towed to a garage. She’d been teaching at a college in the East End; was employed to cover general art and design, textiles, some graphics work. More often than not she’d be enlisted to take day-release classes—Brick 1, Mech Eng 3—or to supervise a class of schoolchildren who’d come in for the day to make a video. Her mother was thrilled when she’d got the job, after so many years of faffing about, as she put it, but her idea of education had been cultivated from repeated viewings of Goodbye, Mr Chips and an addiction, in the ’eighties, to Brideshead Revisited. It didn’t really include teaching family planning to a group of plasterers on a Friday afternoon. And Anna was no wiser than her mother, at the start. It wasn’t the security cameras, the passkeys and ID cards, nor was it the cynical disillusionment of the rest of the staff that ground her down: she thought she’d been employed to teach a subject. When that subject never actually emerged, she realized that she was there to do anything that the Head deemed necessary. Which mainly amounted to babysitting children from local schools and telling grown men how to have responsible sex. She lasted just one term, until the January morning when she woke up and couldn’t move. When she had her blow-out.

  She didn’t want to tell anyone; not her mother, not even Brendan. Sometimes, when the phone rang and Anna couldn’t face the call, she left the ans
wering machine on. She would stand in the kitchen with a glass of wine in her hand and watch the light fade on the garden. Her mother’s voice, distorted by the old tape, would end her message with the same question: And how’s the teaching going, dear?

  It was six months before she let on. By then, there were other things to occupy her mother: the summer season was in full flow; people were holidaying at home again instead of going abroad. It was an exceptionally busy time. Profits were up.

  With this in mind, Anna broaches her proposal, wanting to get it over with: her mother doesn’t need to stay open over the winter, after such a good summer. But the moment she begins to form the words, the door opens; Vernon Savoy puts his head in the gap. The only other time Anna had met him, after a show on the pier at Great Yarmouth, he was sporting a handle-bar moustache. She’d thought it was part of the costume, that and the cravat and the waistcoat stretched over his girth. She sees now it’s all part of him. His hair, the colour of pewter, is combed back in a slick from his forehead, but the moustache is almost yellow. His waistcoat is paisley pink and purple, as if in sympathy with the shade of bruising on her mother’s face.

  Deanna, he shouts, with an air of benevolence that Anna dislikes, We meet again!

  The room fills with a scent of sweetness and dust, like dead roses. Afraid that Vernon might be about to do something ostentatious, perhaps attempt to kiss her hand, Anna locks her fingers together behind her back, edging round her mother as he takes up the whole of the bay window. Dropping down on one knee, he grasps the arm of the chair.

  How are you, Rita? he says, whispering now.

  Safe from his welcome embrace, Anna sits back down and absorbs this tableau: her mother pulls a handkerchief from inside her sling and puts it to her mouth. Now she is the fragile old lady, badly in shock.

  I’ve asked Marta to bring some tea, says Vernon, You’d like some tea, wouldn’t you, Deanna?

  I certainly would, Mr Savoy, nods Anna, playing her part, And Anna will do just fine, thank you.

  If we’re into abbreviations, you must call me Vern, he says, plumping up a cushion in the window-seat before lowering himself onto it.

  Call him Cabbage, says her mother, back to normal again, We all do. Don’t we, Cabbage?

  Only you, my dear, he says, with a faint smile, Only you.

  Anna squints at Vernon, trying to gauge his expression. Sitting in the window, his face now in shadow, he takes on a hazy silhouette. Anna draws a breath,

  I was just about to suggest to my mother, she says, appealing to Vernon, That a short holiday would do her good.

  Bones like rubber, says her mother, Did I tell you, Cabbage, what the nurses said? I don’t break, me, I bounce.

  They also said—Vernon picks over his words, searching for the right emphasis—That you’ll need some assistance, my dear, what with your hip so badly bruised, and your arm out of action, so to speak.

  He turns back to Anna, and with a jerk of his head, adds, She might enjoy a little holiday. I know I would.

  Encouraged by this, Anna begins her speech. She looks from Vernon to her mother and back again.

  I thought she might like to come and stay with me for the winter. To recuperate. I’ve fixed up the garden especially. It’s got a bird-table. It’s got . . . things. Things—in pots.

  The word you’re searching for is plants, says her mother, And I believe we have such things in Yarmouth also.

  Vernon rises from his cushion and takes in the room with a broad sweep of his arm. He’s in full character now.

  But that’s stupendous, he says, so that both Anna and her mother look askance.

  Cabbage, there is nothing stupendous about a plant, says her mother.

  No, no, my dear. A vacation in London. We could take in the shows.

  He makes a giddy gesture with his hands, fluttering them either side of his face, and bursts into song,

  Give ’em the old razzle dazzle! Razzle dazzle ’em!

  Anna shoots her mother a worried look.

  It’s from Chicago, says her mother, trying to curb her grin, And there won’t be any razzle dazzle for you, Cabbage, if I ship out to the smoke. What would you do?

  Do? He says, round-eyed.

  Well, where would you go?

  Her mother has removed the sling and is bent sideways over the arm of the chair. She rummages about in a desk drawer, pushing papers aside, searching.

  Anna hasn’t got room for both of us in that little flat, she says, finally finding the object she’s been looking for, And I’d have to shut this place up, wouldn’t I?

  At this suggestion, Vernon does an immediate volte-face.

  Of course, it would be very difficult to leave your home, Rita. And Anna must be quite busy, what with her . . . work, he says, not sure of what it is Anna does, Who’d look after you?

  I would! says Anna, I’m not a total imbecile, you know. I can look after my own mother.

  I look after your mother, snaps Vernon, And if I may say so, I do it very well.

  So well that she blacked out and fell down those steps?

  Her mother is fiddling with the sling, pulling at it with her free hand.

  I did not black out, Anna. Will someone help me with this thing?

  It was I that took her to the hospital, says Vernon, veering between wheedling and indignation, And I’m sure I’m more useful than someone two hundred miles away.

  Vernon. Vern. I’m not two hundred miles away, says Anna, I’m right here.

  Then stay here, darling, says her mother, Stay and look after your old mum.

  Of course I will, says Anna, and in saying it, feels a darkness above her, like a trap-door closing, Let’s get that sling sorted.

  Her mother pulls it from her neck and throws it on the window-seat.

  Here you are, she says, opening her hand, Look. I’ve even found you a key!

  THREE

  In the toilets at Victoria coach station, Lewis bends over the sink, scoops up the sudden burst of water from the tap, and splashes it over his face and his head. Under the bored eye of the attendant, he dries himself at the hot-air blower, repeatedly hitting the button with the flat of his hand. He dozed off for the last part of the journey into London, only waking when the coach began its stop-start passage through the capital. He looks into the square of reflective metal that passes for a mirror, marvelling at how he could sleep. It’s what the headaches do to him: first, there’s the black pain clouding his vision like ink in water; afterwards, a dreamless sleep. On waking, the pain is gone, and time is gone, and whatever has triggered the headache in the first place has also gone, receding so far back into his consciousness, it too becomes dreamlike. Lewis always emerges from these episodes in a state of near-euphoria, as if he’s been given a second chance at life. That’s how he bears it. But seeing himself now, he doesn’t look reborn: his face is haggard under the blue fluorescent strip, completely drained of colour. His teeth when he bares them are luminous, as is the scar running in a straight line below his lip. He traces a finger along it, considering his next move: before he can find work, he’ll need to find a place to stay.

  Lewis goes straight across the road and into the first café he sees. He orders tea, and because everyone else is eating, a bacon sandwich. He sits at the window, gazing out at the traffic and the choked diesel air inside the entrance to the station. His kitbag is on the floor between his feet. To calm himself, he does a mental inventory of all his possessions. In his bag, neatly folded, are one zip-up fleece, one pair of jeans, three white shirts, two pairs of socks, two pairs of underpants. On top of these, there’s a washbag with a toothbrush, razor, the half-full dispenser of hand-wash he took from Manny’s kitchen—he liked the smell good enough—and a deodorant stick. He’s out of toothpaste; he didn’t think much of Manny’s brand, or the way the tube had been squeezed and bent out of shape. In one side pocket of the bag is his Swiss army knife and a book of poems that he’s had from way back—since he was at school. Lewis doesn’t often l
ook at it, but knowing it’s there is enough. In the other side pocket are a rolled-over packet of dried beans and a black felt pouch with a silver chain inside it: not just any old chain; it belonged to his brother, and now it belongs to him. His tobacco and lighter and wallet are in his jacket pockets. He goes through the inventory one more time, listing under his breath and very quickly: fleece jeans shirts socks pants washbag book of poems knife beans pouch—and chain. That’s it, perfect. He feels the wash of relief sparkling through his blood. He’s sufficiently calm, now, to eat the sandwich. Lewis resists the urge to lift the top slice and inspect the meat. Closing his eyes, he finishes it in two bites.

  Anna’s room for the night is at the top of the house; a space tiny enough for only the barest of furnishings: a single bed, a wardrobe, a tray with tea things on it, a bedside table. On the wall are two pictures, generic guest-house scenes: a pair of fluffy kittens in a basket, and a painting of a country lane and a river. The ceiling slopes down to the window, hidden by thick beige curtains. Anna pulls them back to reveal the view, and feels the wind butting at the glass. On the beach below, it chases the sand into a blur, pushes the clouds across the sky like bolts of smoke. She likes this space, this vantage point, even though the room is cold enough for her to see her breath. She relishes most of all the way it feels detached from the rest of the house—from Vernon’s jocular presence, in particular—but her mother has promised her the room directly underneath, one floor down, when she comes back.