Read Online Another Mother's Son by Janet Davey - Free Book Online

All’s well,’ he says.
    One thing my mother did that I failed to appreciate while she was alive was to make it possible to communicate with my father. She was both interpreter and maître d’. She was the oil that allowed a frictionless flow. I wish I had a recording to remind me how it was done. Even without Jane Brims on the scene, talk with William can be stilted and a little bit sticky though we are full of goodwill towards one another. I have hopes that as we get used to the new situation we will find it easier. My mother, rather than an absence, will preside over us again or maybe we will just rub along without her.

18
    THE GRILLES ARE down over the entrance to St James’s Park station. We all stream back the way the way we came, past the free-newspaper stand, past doorway sleepers and unoccupied rolls of bedding, past the
Big Issue
seller, in his Santa hat, and the two lumbering, human-sized furry animals who beseech with their paws and hold out buckets for cash. Spangly light from the shops is reflected in puddles.
    â€˜Does this mean Victoria station’s shut too?’ a woman asks.
    The pedestrian signal by The Albert turns from green to red and back to green but the crowd of office workers and shoppers underneath a canopy of bobbing umbrellas has to wait behind the outstretched arms of a policewoman until she gives permission to go. Buses labour, stopping and starting, the passengers masked by a blur of condensation. Wheels splash in slow motion.
    â€˜How much longer?’ someone calls out.
    â€˜It’s always the same,’ the woman says, confidingly. ‘They favour the traffic. If we’re on foot, we don’t exist.’
    My phone rings. I have trouble disentangling it from my coat pocket. Drips land on my face as the umbrella tips sideways. I press the phone to my ear. Through the sound of juddering engines, I hear the word ‘duck’. Doug? Dirk. Got it.
    â€˜Oh, hello, Dirk,’ I say. ‘There’s a lot of background noise. I’m sorry.’
    â€˜You are at the airport check-in?’
    â€˜No. I’ve just left work. Hang on a sec. We’re being allowed across the road.’
    In the crush of pedestrians surging forward, I manage to hang onto the phone. The woman who spoke to me jams her open umbrella against mine. We are trapped in a moving, makeshift tent as the rain beats down on us.
    â€˜I have been meaning to thank you for having Jude to stay,’ Dirk says. ‘It has been frequent.’
    â€˜Not at all. We love to see her.’
    â€˜I hope she’s no trouble.’
    â€˜No, she’s no trouble at all. It’s a pleasure to have her in the house.’ We reach the other side and I walk briskly into the external lobby of the House of Fraser, formerly the Army and Navy Stores. I contrive, one-handed, to put down the umbrella. The woman has vanished, though momentarily I thought she was with me for life.
    â€˜Is the weekend of the twenty-seventh to twenty-eighth of January also possible? Rather distant, I know, but I should like to make these dates secure. Normally they stay where they like without intervention from us parents. This is correct for their age group, isn’t it? They are moving out of our clutches towards independence. On this occasion I am more formal because Frances and I will be away. If you need to kick her out we will not be there.’ Dirk laughs. ‘I’m only joking. Of course, we will keep our phones on.’
    â€˜Yes, that should be fine, Dirk.’ I step to one side to allow a customer to pass. He pushes open the glass door into the store and a waft of warm, cosmetic-scented air escapes. I glimpse beauty gifts the size of timpani.
    â€˜We are going to Manchester. This is where we met. And the twenty-eighth of January is an anniversary, special to us. It will, I hope, be a worthwhile weekend. I think you have heard from Jude some of our difficulties. I won’t bore