Mother and Son

'You bitch,' shouted the son, 'you evil fucking insane bitch. I fucking hate you so much, you fucking stupid bitch cunt.'
Then he shoved her, a bit hard. His mum fell back against the counter. His friend stood watching, saying nothing. The mum drew herself up with a very straight spine.
'You've gone too far now,' she said. 'Listen. You're going to listen to me now...'
'I hate you,' said her son, interrupting her, 'I fucking hate your guts.'
'Please leave now,' the mum told the friend. 'I need a word with my son.'
'I'm going,' said the friend, 'I'm gone.'
'Me too,' said the son. 'I'm so out of here.'
'You're not going anywhere,' said his mum, 'not until I say so.'
'Try stopping me,' said the son.
He opened the door. And then he was gone.

I

The mum spent the day trying to enjoy herself. She went to the gym and to the cinema. She had a salad at a health-food café then bought lots of chocolate and ate it in one go on the beach. She kept on checking her phone. In the afternoon she walked around the shops. She um-ed and ah-ed over a pair of expensive shoes. In the end she bought them and caught the bus home with them. Then in the evening when her son didn't come home, she went out. She called the dealer friend of an ex-boyfriend, met up with him in a pub and bought a couple of grams of coke off him. She got drunk and did a few lines. She met up with some friends and talked about it. She talked a lot, on and on, as though telling the story would make it not so real. She talked and in return, listened to their advice.

The son spent the day with friends. They drank alcopops at the park then got someone's older brother to buy them vodka. There was nothing to do. They had a game of football. The son fell over and grazed his knee. He had to pick the little bits of gravel out. By the afternoon he was drunk and his head was starting to hurt. The sun was in his eyes. He told his friends about how pathetic his mum was and how much he hated her. 'Forget it, son,' they told him. They passed around the bottle of vodka.

I

The next day the son still hadn't come home. The mum tried to watch TV. Her head ached. She kept on checking her phone.

'You're not coping,' said the mum's dad on the phone. 'You've given him too long a leash. You should've listened to me.'
'How dare you give me advice,' said the mum. 'You of all people. What do you know about any of it?'
'Have you been drinking?' he asked.
The mum said nothing.
'Proves my point,' said the mum's dad. 'Unfit. Let him come to me.'

The son returned home in the end. On the way back he checked his reflection in a car wing mirror. He looked like shit. Good. He had crashed on his friend's floor and got only about two hours sleep. It was like he'd been awake for a hundred years. He looked like a vampire.

I

'All right then,' said the son, 'I'm sorry.'
'Are you though,' asked his mum. 'Are you really?'
'Not really,' he admitted, after a while. 'Look, maybe I was being a bit harsh, but I need a bit of space from you, Mum.'
'I see,' said his mum. 'Who have you been talking to? Did Granddad ring you or something?'
'No,' he said, 'why would he?'
'He wants you to go and live with him,' she told him. 'Reckons I'm not coping with you.'
'But you're not though, are you?' asked the son.
'Well then,' she said, 'maybe you should just go.'
'Well,' he said, 'maybe I will then.'
'And don't bother ringing me,' said the mum, 'not until you're truly sorry.'

I

The mum was no longer a proper mum. She was just a woman now. The son, even the hurt and the hell of him, had punched a giant hole in her life by leaving.

For a while she tried to pamper herself with little treats and presents as though she mattered, as though by seeming to matter to herself she would start to matter in this crappy useless life. As though the crappy presents that she bought for herself could ever compensate for the absence of her son.

She kept on remembering things. Memories of the years where it had been just them; memories that she thought would by now have fused into a single mass of experience spooked her, jumping out at her as individual stories, each shot with clarity and definition.

She remembered all of the storybooks, all the jigsaws and the Thomas the Tank Engine videos. She recalled discrete instances of cuddles, tantrums, reassurances. She recollected blowing up his armbands by the pool and buying him packet after packet of Pokemon cards. She remembered making him go to clarinet lessons and making him practice. She remembered the tickles and the talking to's, the holidays, parent evenings and school plays, and later on, the arguments about mobile phones and computer games. She remembered each of the many, many trips to visit fish at the Sealife Centre.

She studied photographs of her son's younger self with his fuzzy ringlets and mucky cheeks. He had been hers for keeps in those days. But not any more. These days he was dangerous looking, sleek and slim, probably growing sleeker and slimmer each day. How would she know?
She had failed him. She put a rubber band around the photographs and placed them in a shoebox to be stored away in the attic.

I

At first the son was filled with fire and hate. His mum had given him up. Some mum.
He'd done well to get out. And the old man was ok. Never on his case, unlike Mum.

He still drank alcopops and played football with his mates. School was ok, a bit rubbish, but ok. In some ways not much had changed. But then again, everything had changed.

Some nights when he couldn't sleep he thought about her, He had trouble picturing her face. It kept blurring around the edges.

He wasn't sorry yet though, not if sorry meant taking the blame for everything. The need to be true to himself was much stronger than anything else, stronger than his need for her in any case.

I

The phone didn't ring for three whole years. Then one day, it did.
'Hello?' said the mum.
'Hello Mum,' said the son. 'It's me.'
'Oh,' said the mum. 'Oh, it's you! Your voice is different. How are you?'
'I'm ok,' said the son. 'How are you?'
'Oh I'm ok,' said the mum, carefully, 'how about you?'
'Well,' said the son, 'I really just rang to say I'm sorry.'
'Oh,' said the mum. 'Oh, ok. Well thanks.'

When the line went dead, she leant back against the fridge cradling the handset to her chest.
'Me too,' she said, 'me too.'

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