Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

       Mae heard Josie’s high scream from the back of the terrace.   She was pegging out washing and felt the cold sheets and a towel drag against her cheek, as cold as if she’d fallen into the river. It was a noise that stood out urgently from the drowsy monotones of dog barks, footsteps, doors shutting, vehicles pulling away. Mae dropped the basket.  Outside in the narrow street Josie was crouched over her child, then she picked him up and heard Mae’s brisk footfalls behind her.  He was dead, not a mark on him.  But lost, dead, forever.  ‘It was a car’, said Josie, ‘it was a car, they just drove away, they just drove away, a red car’.  The two women, mother and daughter, were crying over the child who just seemed fast asleep.

       That was one year ago, and how do you talk about death? Silences.  Those conversations that might have happened, and with a child, watching him grow up, coming to be a new person entire.  But life ran on, of course, until, that was, the anniversary of the accident. Josie lived three doors from Mae.  She would come round for tea sometimes, on certain days.  Today, she burst into the hall.  ‘I seen him, Mam’.

        Mae took her in her arms. ‘What d’you mean love?’

        Josie repeated it.  ‘Up the road by the lamp, standing looking at me.  I seen him’.

        Mae sat with her all that evening and made her stay there the night.  ‘I want you to go to the doctor, you’re talking rubbish love, you’re just upsetting yourself’.  But in the morning Josie didn’t seem ready for any doctor, in fact she was composed, certain of her story. Mae asked her to tea again, and stay the night if she wanted.  She went round to call for her. And they were coming back, making the little trip along the terrace when Josie gave a gasp.  Mae saw the boy too, peering out at them from behind the lamp post. She remembered that was his favourite hiding place. ‘Gareth, come on love’. Mae always called him back like that, and now it just came out again.  The little figure ran off away from them into the dusk around the corner. When they got there of course the street was empty except for a few cars.

       Mae took Josie to see the minister, but felt that he didn’t really understand their feelings.  He was polite, but Mae thought that he only pretended to believe them and that wasn’t good enough. But it was hard to know what to say or do. A few days passed and Mae suggested that they go out one evening, down the club for a drink and a relax.  That was nice and it seemed to work best, being with lots of people and noise.

        Mae was in the garden again, in the mild January air, pegging out the clothes, bringing in the clothes, dodging the rain showers, trying to get some of it dry enough before it got dark. These bloody sheets.  She paused, eyeing the cramped gloomy little back garden brightened only by the row of sheets and shirts which hung almost to the ground.  She heard her voice almost saying, don’t you dirty my sheets young man.  And there he was, playing ghosts, pressing his face and hands into the fabric behind one of her pieces of best linen. She felt more sadness than fear, but she was afraid, it was the not knowing. ‘What is it love, what do you want?’ Mae was in tears again.  The outline of little hands and his particular pointed nose, got from his father before he left they said, hung back cold, flat.  Mae left her washing out through all the rain.  It took her some time before she could speak to Josie about it.

       Josie confessed that he came every day to that place by the lamp, like he was trying to get her to follow him, but when she did, he lost her.  Half-past five, there he was in that empty street and when she called to him, he ran off round the corner, always the same.  Josie was looking pale and ill with it.  But she always went there.  All this week, same thing.  It was getting them both down.  Mae wanted to speak to the doctor, but something told her no, wait, wait. Always the same feeling, that there had to be the answer coming soon, just let it come. She didn’t hang out the washing any more.  It was down the laundrette now with Josie, and it was down the club too, more times than usual, sitting with her friends, letting the noise and the light drive off the rain.

       Anita had been away, staying with her brother in Kent, she said she’d been looking for work but she didn’t like the people, so she had come back home and wanted to start again here.  ‘We haven’t seen you for ages’, Mae smiled.  They had a good long evening out and Anita said to come back with her for a drink later on. The car park was crisp with frost, it was dark and very cold, and Mae was glad to get into her car. Josie sat up at the front rubbing her hands hard. Anita scoured  the ice from the windscreen with a piece of hard plastic sheet and got in.  She let the engine run for a time to warm up the car. They sat back, a bit drunk really, watching the clear patch creep over the windscreen.  Josie sat forward staring.  Anita started to yell, ‘Get away! Get away! Leave me alone!’   She drove off around the car park in circles at high speed.  The other women were screaming at her to stop. The car was slithering all over the place, but finally Anita stopped the engine. She hurled herself out of the car and ran off towards the fence.  Josie saw her throw up clinging to a post.

       ‘What was it love?’  Mae set the tea down in front of Josie.

       ‘He was there again, Mam.  On the car bonnet, looking at me, not her.  I dunno what got into her’.

        Mae stroked her arm.  ‘What are we going to do love?’

       They talked again about the minister, or the spiritualist church in town.  Somebody must know what was the answer to this thing.

        Next evening the doorbell went and Clive called in.  ‘You coming down the club then?’  Mae said of course, Josie was a bit tired but yes, fine. Clive talked too much but he was all right in small doses.

       ‘If you want a lift down there you just ask me. I go down of a Friday night usually’. Yes, thought Mae, just the busiest night of the week,  you would.  ‘I seen bloody what’s her name, Anita.  She’s back I see. With a kiddie in the back of the car.  Some poor bastard will be suffering’.  Mae despised him for his language and his manners.  It was always the same with men round here.

       ‘Don’t swear, Clive. We’ve seen her down the club. She’s a strange girl, come home again from Kent.  I don’t know about any children’.

       They called for Anita that night, footsteps echoing along the terrace.  Clive took them all to the club in his car.  Anita was quieter than the other night but soon got drunk and had them all playing cards with the girls.  They were sitting in a large circle balancing drinks and cigarettes across two tables.  In a break in the game, Mae was coming back from the bar holding a tray of drinks and there he was again, standing by the table edge, just like she’d seen him do before when they’d brought him down here, his head only just tall enough to peer over the top.  She halted as Josie looked up at her.   He was picking up cards.  Anita must have seen him too because she bounced up from the table and screamed.

       Josie caught up with her in the toilets.  She was sobbing,  mascara was making a black waste of her face.  ‘Did you run him down?  Did you kill him and drive off?’

       Anita said  no, no, kill who? Run who down?   Josie watched her breaking up.  Hands shaking.  Something hit Anita on the face, a piece of child’s building brick.  Anita was hysterical again and running outside to her car.   She drove off in circles, just like the other night, round and round that car park.  Josie could see the boy in the back of the car banging his toy rifle on the front seat like he used to do when he got excited.  Anita must have lost control.  The car went through the concrete walling and it all shattered into slabs and dropped around the doors.

       Josie and Mae went with her to the hospital.   She told them that it was her fault.   She was sorry.   She’d gone to Kent but  he came too, he followed her.  Every time she used the car he was there with her, she tried ignoring him but it was no use, she was ready to sell the car but it was old and she wouldn’t have got much for it.  She came back the day when he started walking into her brother’s house, that was too much.  She was only trying to get away from him and that’s why she came back to this place.  She was very sorry, but it was an accident.

       Josie was feeling cold, cold-hearted, clear-headed.   She didn’t see the broken woman in the bed.  She was thinking well, I’m glad it wasn’t a fatal crash.  As long as this other is here, so is he, and I shall keep by, stick close and watch for him.  The broken whining voice was a delicate link between mother and child.

       Mae cried a bit, not for the woman lying there, or for Josie who was desperately solemn. There were some flowers by the bed, put there by one of the nurses.  Mae sat and watched the creamy petals coming off, one by one.  She remembered a little boy who used to do just that, one by one, until they were all off, quiet as a mouse, sitting on her living room carpet.