Gloria woke a little before daybreak her eyelids tearing open like a fore-shore dawn and, even before matt-grey vision had claimed her senses her head was full of the day's significance.
She closed her eyes tight; tighter as if trying to squeeze out all the juice from the bloated fruit of today's choking realisation; to drain the vessel dry then curl up in the empty-shell womb; shed off responsibility. Become foetal. Protected. Detached; and in that first split-second of what was ostensibly a prolonged blink it almost worked. The simple movement of eyelids over eyes almost wiped away the reality of the awesome burden that she was about to shoulder......... Why was she?
"Why am I doing this?" thought Gloria? "I don't have to. It's not as though it's compulsory or anything. It's not against the law if it isn't done today.... it can wait; 'til tomorrow...."
The relief came flooding over her as the gap in the hedge of her moral maze was spotted leading straight to the freshly laundered fields of 'procrastinate'. It was only after Gloria had been in these imaginary fields for a few seconds that she spotted the coils of barbed-wire that had snagged her before and their idle meanderings spelt out the words, 'yesterday' and 'the day before' and 'the day before that' and Gloria knew their thorny scrawl was true.
"I can't." she thought. "I can't put it off for another day. I can't. It has to be done today; now........"
Decision catapulted her to a sitting position, her legs scything the bedclothes into rippling ecstasy as she swung them over the bedside and her groping fingers snapped on the bedside table lamp as her toes found the familiarity of slippers in residence. The lamp's blinding ferocity penetrated her skull, strobing her eyelids as the light became the chalk on night's blackboard forcing her to freeze in her actions. And as she did so, like ice creeping over a pond thoughts stole their way back into her conscious and she sat, owl-like, blinking at the inner vision of her plan's self-created deformity.
"I can't! How can I? Hm? I mean, how can I? I was the one that reared her. I saw her through all the troubles that came her way. She's only ten years old for goodness sake! It's no age! She's only ten......."
The force, the effort, the sheer bloody hard work that had gone into those ten years that Gloria had dedicated to Sandy, willingly dedicated to Sandy, rose up in her breast and showed themselves as one, single, large tear in the corner of her left eye.
"Oh please." she groaned as her throat closed in readiness, "Not tears. Not crying. Not again. I can't do it all again.........." Gloria fiercely wiped her eye with the back of her hand, pushing the tear back into its hose. She swallowed hard in an effort to close the weir gates.
"I can't do it all again." she repeated out loud as her thoughts motored on. "It has to be today; and anyway, why should I kid myself. It's what she wants, I know it is; hasn't she said so.....? Not cruelly, not unkindly, she hasn't a cruel or vindictive thought in her, not one. But it's been there. Inevitable. The barrel filling. Filling. Me, knowing that it'll overflow soon and all the time delaying the process. Tomorrow. Tomorrow; scooping out handfuls whenever I thought the distraction was sufficient to keep her mind off what I was doing. A game here, a treat there. Leaving late, leaving early...... sometimes not leaving at all......"
Those last ones Gloria regretted. Those were the times she couldn't excuse. It was a day lost for Sandy. An experience missed. But Gloria's courage was not sufficient, her resolve only front-door-famous. Once it was exposed to the sunshine of actuality, it melted like August dew.
"How can I do this wittingly? Hm? Knowingly? Well? How can I? I know what it holds. I know its brutality. Its carelessness its suddenness. I didn't get to thirty four and learn nothing." The thoughts came tumbling out as her eyes locked on to their echo in the wardrobe mirror.
"Thirty four! Gloria, you're thirty four! You can't do this! This is the way children behave when they have to go to the dentist. You can't place your palm against the door jamb, 'Mum, I've got a head-ache, Mum, I feel sick, Mum, it doesn't hurt any more.......' You're a mother... a house owner, tax-payer, all-round good egg....."
Her shoulders dropped as her mental and physical meanderings joined forces and she spoke their conclusion out loud.
"But I do feel sick, my head does ache...."
Gloria paused just a little too long for comfort and the time-space quickly had cheeks, throat and eyes well primed as she eventually said,
"........and Mum, it does hurt......"
Once more the tears enveloped her sinking eyes as Gloria sat slumped, the rivulets coursing down her face as she cried silently, just for herself........
Gradually the stream dried and she lifted her eyes from slippered toes back to her reflection in the truthful mirror. Their eyes locked once more as Gloria and her reflective self sat on the bed-edge staring through and beyond each other's expression of reflected emptiness.
'She has to go today, Gloria. You know that, don't you?' said her reflection. 'Well? Don't you?' Gloria nodded. "Yes. I know. I know I can't keep her forever....I know." She sighed, lifting the bed sheet to dry her eyes. She refrained from blowing her nose on the sheet, though the temptation was as strong as her present position was as comfortable, and sniffed her way along the landing, past Sandy's bedroom and into the bathroom where she blasted a wad of toilet roll.
"I can't put it off any longer." she repeated. "It's not fair on Sandy." With that she made her toilet and shuffled back to her bedroom.
"Choose something bright, extravagant." she thought. "Something that stands out, easily seen in the crowds. 'Oh yes; there'll be crowds.' " she repeated out loud. She flicked through her meagre wardrobe. "Hardly the Spring Collection." she murmured. Gloria finally fished out a linen frock with full skirt and busy purple-green flower pattern on top of a shot-blue backdrop. "Needs a volume control this one." she thought. "Just right. Now, make a real effort with y'self. Look good, confident, relaxed and bright." She paused, and then her thoughts ran on. "Confident, relaxed and bright? Where do I get a psychology transplant at this time of the morning?"
Gloria dressed carefully, slowly, hoping that her structured movements would alter her heartbeat from a rumba to a slow foxtrot. No such luck. When she had applied the final touch of discreet lipstick she sat back on the bed and took stock in the mirror again.
"You look pretty." said a voice behind her. Gloria turned. It was Sandy, standing in the doorway in her pyjamas. Their eyes mirror-met as she added, "Something special going on today?"
Gloria felt her inner-self burst into tears and rush into her daughter's arms, holding her so tightly that Sandy would have had difficulty breathing, as her outward-self showed this rush of adrenalin by Gloria shrugging her shoulders and giving Sandy a beaming smile.
"'Course not. No. What? Something special? No. I just haven't, you know..... haven't worn these for ages.....shame to let them grow away from me, you know?" She changed the subject with all the tact of a gin-trap. "You're up early. What's up? Can't sleep?"
Sandy yawned and stretched her arms above her head. "Not with you prowling about to and from the bathroom like a starving leopard, no, I can't. You got a tummy pain?"
"Just a bit."
"Women's 'things'." said Sandy in a peculiarly grown-up and conspiratorial way.
"Yeah." replied Gloria, not wishing to pursue this one.
There was a short pause. Sandy took a step into the room. "Or is it Dad again?" she asked.
"Whatever makes you think that?" asked Gloria, her voice showing signs of strain as her forced joi de vivre cracked at the edges.
"'Cos you've been crying." replied Sandy simply.
Gloria looked back at herself in the mirror. "And I thought no one would notice." she said. "Yes, it's a bit Daddy too. You know........"
Sandy nodded as she struggled to gather up her badly wrapped juvenile knowledge and scramble over the hurdle into the open fields of adult thinking. "I know you miss him." She stopped, frowning a little. The pause lengthened and Gloria was unwilling to break the silence. Eventually Sandy spoke. "I never knew him. I know I was only just born when he…… you know? But sometimes I can feel him, Mum. You know? Sort of part of me, in my head...." she slowed and stopped, looking at Gloria. "You know?"
Gloria gently shook her head, a fresh spring just on the verge of destroying her mascara. "Ohhh, Sandy." She smiled at her daughter. "Come here. Let me give you a hug."
Gloria opened her arms and Sandy walked across into their feminine folds as Gloria's arms entwined her and smothered her with the lifelong scent of White Musk and Camay. Sandy knew that for the rest of her life that smell would always conjure up the spirit of her mother; even then she knew it. After a long pause, Sandy lifted her head away from her mother's shoulder. "I can't ever know what you lost, but I know what he took with him." she said slowly.
Gloria held Sandy at arm's length and stared at her. "I don't know where you get these things from. I sometimes think you've never been a child, just a little adult. And what do you think he tookwith him then, Miss smarty-pants?"
"All your confidence." said Sandy.
Gloria placed the back of her crooked forefinger onto her pursed lips like a substitute dummy and closed her eyes for a second, then swallowed hard once more. Finally she raised her eyes to meet Sandy's and sighed deeply. "Am I that bad?" she asked.
"No." replied Sandy, too quickly then she carried on reflectively. "Well, yes. only sometimes you know. Not really.....just....."
"OK. OK." said Gloria. "I get the picture, you hid it well but for the pauses; I'm an untrusting, possessive mother....."
"Only sometimes." said Sandy.
"Thanks." replied Gloria. "That helps a lot. Don't forget you've a birthday in three weeks time and I'm present-buyer-in-chief. Just remember that and be nice to your ageing parent." She smiled at Sandy. "Well, like I said, it's also 'Mummy’s things' as well. Dressed and breakfast?" This second abrupt change was even less subtle that the last, but Gloria knew she didn't have the emotional make-up to be any more conversationally creative.
"But it's only ten past six." said an aggrieved Sandy as she looked across at the alarm clock that was showering under the light from the bedside lamp. "We've got ages before school." she continued. "I'll need two breakfasts before we go if I get up now."
"Well that's OK." said a slightly relieved Gloria. "You go back and snuggle down. You don't have to sleep if you don't want to. Have a doze or read a little. I'll give you a shout about half seven. OK?"
"Well, what are you going to do?" asked Sandy.
"Oh, I'll tidy up a bit, you know. Get a bit ahead. I'm really not tired. Now, you go back to bed. Go on. Off y' pop.” Gloria ushered Sandy back to her bedroom, glad of the opportunity of further time alone. "I'll give you a shout at half seven. Promise."................
"Sandy?....... Sandy! It's half seven. Walkies time."
Gloria was standing half way up the stairs, her voice directed towards Sandy's bedroom at the head of the landing. Sandy appeared from the bathroom on the right-hand side of the stairway, a towel in one hand her toothbrush in the other.
"No need to shout." she replied. "I'm in the bathroom."
"How long have you been up then?"
"Oh, 'bout ten minutes. I read a bit, then I heard you start up the washing machine..........."
"Yeah." Joined in Gloria. "I wanted to get those sheets washed and out. The forecast's good for the day........"
".......then you started washing up and I thought there'll be no hot water if I don't get up now, the rate you're going."
"Sorry." said Gloria. "Was I very noisy?"
"Enough." replied Sandy. "Anyway, I'm just going to get dressed and I'll be down."
"You want breakfast?" asked Gloria.
"Yeah. Toast 'n' Marmite."
"OK." said Gloria. "I'll start it now?"
Sandy moved back to the bathroom and called over her shoulder. "Yeah. I'm only going to be a few more minutes." She was gone.
Gloria turned back down the stairs and entered the kitchen. The knot in her stomach was as big as a pullet.
"Oh God." she thought. "I can't go through with this. If I'm like this now, what am I going to be like in....." she looked at her watch "......an hour's time?" She stood by the sink and held on to the edge of the draining board, her white-knuckle ride for the day starting just about now. "You're going to be a gibbering wreck, that's what. Now get a grip!" she said sternly to herself.
Gloria lifted the lid on the bread-bin and took out two slices from the packet. She opened the grill section on the oven and put the bread in, turning the grill on and all the while scolding herself inwardly for her attitude.
"Gloria, you have to follow it through. She has to be given a chance; Sandy has to learn to swim where there are sharks. You've not even let her dip her toe in the water up to now, have you? No. Well, you can't keep up the pretence any longer. You'll be just on the shore....."
Sandy entered the kitchen; her school uniform lacking a tie but otherwise complete, and moved towards the table.
"...........close at hand......."
Gloria's eyes fixed on her daughter.
"..........ready to dive in if a problem arises. Everybody else is doing it, did it ages ago. Now it's your turn. You have to....."
So involved was Gloria with this inner discussion that, as she was looking at Sandy crossing the kitchen, the words just tumbled out,
"......she's ten now....."
Gloria realised she was speaking out loud and stopped abruptly.
Sandy stood still and looked at her mother for a moment, then said uncertainly,
"Err.....? Yeah. That's right, Mum; I'm ten....I take it it's my turn to answer......unless there's someone else in the kitchen? No? Well, is this a quiz 'cos if it is can I ask you how long it takes for toast to burn under our grill.....?"
"Oh Lord!" cried Gloria as she caught site of the pillar of grey-black smoke emanating from under the grill.
"First sign of madness is talking to yourself." said Sandy as her mother grappled with the grill, the heat, the smoke and the embarrassment. "Second one's green hairs on the palm of your hand......"
"Third one's looking for them, I'm not going to fall for that one, Miss." joined on Gloria. "I'm too old to get taken in by that one."
"But not old enough to have learnt how to do toast." said Sandy, smiling at the burnt offerings that Gloria tossed onto the work surface. "Very reassuring." She sat at the table.
"Where do you get these things from." said Gloria. "Don't grow up so fast."
"I'll never get the chance, the way you cosset me....apart from the meals that is...."
"Sandy." said Gloria deliberately. "I don't cosset. I protect, that's all."
"I know, Mom, I know. I wasn't having a go. It's just....well... It's just....."
"I know. OK. I understand. Do you still want toast, or has my attempt to make diamonds from bread put you off?"
"No. I'll still have the toast." Sandy slipped down from the stool. "But I'll do it. I don't know how but we got up at just gone six and we're still in danger of being late."
She popped the two fresh slices under the hot grill as Gloria moved to the cupboard to retrieve Marmite and the fridge for butter.
"I don't know how we do it. We always seem to leave early or late. " continued Sandy. "There's never a nice, comfortable timing to each day. I either arrive completely out of breath 'cos you've frog-marched me to the gates with only seconds to spare, or I get there to an empty playground and a startled caretaker 'cos there's still thirty minutes to go to start time and you came all the way, but you still have time to wait at the gate for ten minutes until the other's start to arrive even though you're going on shopping or something. You’re the only mother I know, that any of my friends knows for that matter who goes shopping three or four times a week. They all think we're loaded. It's always.......always like that."
Gloria felt the tide of bile wash against the back of her throat as her stomach pumped and the adrenalin gobbled up heart space. She trembled, almost trembled, as she heard herself saying.
"Well, today, Sandy, we'll leave at whatever time you say......you name it.......I'm not going shopping........"
Sandy caught the inflection in her voice and understood the meaning but not what was meant. She needed to test the ground on this.
"Can we leave at half past?"
The request thumped home like grapeshot. There was a long pause, almost too long for comfort. Sandy caught on and tried to cover the tracks.
"It's really OK. If you want to leave at another time." She said simply.
Gloria looked at her daughter and held out her hand towards her. "Oh' Sandy. You really are the sweetest......."
Sandy leaned forward and wiped the heavily buttered blade of the knife onto her mother's open palm. "I know I am." she smiled sweetly.
Gloria looked down at her freshly buttered hand, and then started to laugh. "Sandy! You little toa....."
Sandy joined on. "What happened to 'sweet and lovely' then?"
"Nothing" replied Gloria. "Nothing." She wiped her hand with the dishcloth. "Give me the knife, handle first, please, and I'll finish it off..........."
The rest of breakfast was completed in silence, Gloria every now and then catching Sandy's eye and smiling broadly. An action that, in the present and toatlly new circumstances she hadn't quite mastered inside yet. Gloria span out the simple tasks that followed as much as she dare, but despite her best work, the small remnants of crockery were soon swilled and, before she could delay it, Sandy had grabbed her school bag and was heading towards the front door.
"C'mon, Mom. It's half past." she said.
Before Gloria could do or say anything Sandy was at the front door, its latch clicking open like the sound of the trap-door bolt in a hang-man's rehearsal.
"Wait a second, Sandy, I haven't got my handbag." called Gloria, "or my coat....."
Sandy swung the door open letting in a gasp of air through the doorway. "You don't need a coat, it's a lovely day, and you said you weren't going shopping today so what do you need a handbag for? C'mon......"
Sandy caught the look of indecision in her Mum's eyes as, her hand pressed against the doorjamb, she stood ice-carved in the doorway. Sandy trapped her tongue and moved back to Gloria.
"You Ok, Mum?" She paused a little, waiting for a response. None came. "Do you want to sit down a bit? C'mon. Let's go back into the kitchen and you can catch your breath. You've gone a bit pale. Do you feel sick.....?”
Sandy tried to move Gloria back in the direction of the kitchen, but her Mum's locked arm held her fast and prevented movement either way.
"Mum? Mum? C'mon....."
"No." was all Gloria said.
"No you don't feel sick or no you don't want to go back into the kitchen?" asked Sandy.
Gloria's voice came out flat, like that of a well-programmed automaton. "No I don't want to go back into the kitchen. We have to go to school. You and me. We have to go to school."
With that, Gloria's outstretched arm relaxed and she stepped over the threshold of the door in perfect, plank-walker style.
"Pull the door to, Sandy." she said with great deliberation. "I've got my key."
Sandy did so and then joined her Mum on the short garden pathway that led to the pavement. When she reached Gloria's side, Sandy looped her arm through her Mum's and sort of snuggled it like she would a large teddy-bear.
"Isn't it lovely and warm now?" she asked brightly.
"Yes." Replied Gloria. Her eyes held panic as her well-fooled footstep caught up with her brain and braked hard. "Oh! I've forgotten to pick up your sandwiches for lunch....." Gloria made to turn back towards home.
"No, it's OK. I put them in my bag just before we left." said Sandy.
Gloria's shoulders drooped a little as a further door was slammed on any possible escape route. Her head reverberated to the sound of her inner voices. 'Gloria! Stop it! You've got this far, now see it through and stop acting like a child!' Gloria pulled her arm and thereby Sandy's linked hand close to her side. "Don't mind me." she said. "I'm just a little.....you know?"
"I think so." replied Sandy. "What with Dad and 'women's things'. Will I get this when I'm older?"
"Yes." Replied Gloria. "Some day all this will be yours my child; well most of it anyway but just the good bits, I hope."
They left the short front drive, turned left, and walked up Reynolds Road. With each step the lump of lead inside Gloria’s shoes got bigger and heavier until she was having trouble lifting her foot for each step. By the time they turned the corner into Braydon Road where Sandy's school was it was lucky they still were arm in arm or Gloria would have fallen over with the effort. Now the noise of the traffic got louder, an aural reminder to Gloria of the real world she was entering. Odd pockets of children were around now, the youngest, or the 'snugglies' as Gloria and Sandy called them with parents in tow, others walking in small parties chattering eagerly about last night's T.V. programmes, the state of pop music or whether you could run faster than your mates to that tree and back. As they progressed along Braydon Road, so the number of children and parents grew until the pavement was awash with the heave and swell of schoolbags and caps.
"There's Kim!" said Sandy excitedly.
"Where?" replied Gloria feeling her nemesis approaching. "I can't see her."
"Just up ahead. Look. There!" Sandy pointed ahead of them, over the ocean of bobbing heads. "Can we catch her up?"
Gloria couldn't believe she was saying it, but she was saying it.
"You go on ahead, you'll catch her up a lot quicker without your ageing mother in tow."
Sandy stopped in her tracks, first-year torpedoes bumping into her so suddenly did she stand still. "What, on my own? You mean..... I can walk to school on my own....?"
Gloria bit her bottom lip and forced a smile. "Mmm. You go on........I'll just wait here a little...school's just down the road, I'll just wait here...... a little....you...go on; then I'll head off back home. That OK?"
Sandy stood there for a few seconds looking at her Mum, not recognising the child inside or out.
"Go on." repeated Gloria, "Or Kim'll be too far off and I'll have to come with you and you'll spoil the moment. Go on. This is about as far from the school gates as my confidence will allow me to stay.........."
Sandy gave Gloria a dazzling smile. "Thanks, Mum." was all she could muster. She turned to make her way down the road.
"I'll meet you outside school though." said Gloria. "I have a feeling this confidence is only on loan......OK?"
"OK." shouted the fast disappearing Sandy over her shoulder. "See you at half past....!" she was swallowed up in a gingham sea.
Gloria stared after her. Sandy's height made her visible for some while but eventually, at about the point where the school gates butted onto the road Gloria figured, Sandy disappeared from view. Gloria stepped to the side of the pavement, placing her back against the low garden wall that marked the boundary of number thirty-one's Eden. Children and odd parents were moving past her like the trackside hedgerows seen from a fast moving train. All of it became a blur as she realised what she had done, and where it would inevitably lead.
"Was it this hard for you, Mum? Letting me go?" she heard herself say, "No-one said it was going to be this hard....."
"Ohhh, Richard," she sighed, "Did you see what I did........ did you? You'd’ve been so proud and now you’ve missed it........you bastard. Serve you fucking right………"
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