The Name You Once Gave Me. Mike Phillips

she didn’t like talking about. Nancy had married into a posh family. Her husband became a diplomat and they travelled a lot. When she died in a car accident his mother had taken him to the funeral. He was only little, but he sensed her dislike of the people there. Later on he realized that he had been the only black person present. He thought also that his mother’s rage had been something to do with the way the posh mourners had behaved towards them. She told him later that when she went to sit in the pew reserved for the family an usher had stopped her. Instead of letting her sit where she wanted he had showed her to a seat at the back. After all that, someone in the churchyard had said something to upset her. She wouldn’t say what it was, and he could only guess.

      ‘They were just a bunch of snobs,’ was all she would say.

      Nancy’s husband married again, not long after. Then he had gone into politics. When his mother saw his picture in the newspaper she would throw it aside, as if seeing him still made her angry.

      ‘Where did you get this photo?’ she asked him again.

      ‘A man I went to see today. I didn’t know before, but he used to live at Number 12 when you lived there.’

      ‘At Number 12? What was his name?’

      ‘John Brownjohn. He was a teacher.’

      ‘Oh. I remember him. John Brownjohn.’ She laughed. ‘He’s still around?’

      ‘He is, yeah.’

      Quickly, he told her about his visit to Brownjohn and what the man had said about his father.

      She held up the photo and glanced at it quickly. ‘And you thought this was your dad?’

      ‘That’s what he said.’

      ‘Silly old prat,’ she burst out. ‘He didn’t really know us. He was all right, but we kept ourselves to ourselves. We didn’t want him going around talking about us.’

      Daniel nodded. That was how he and Louise were with the couple who lived in the flat above him.

      ‘Come here,’ his mum said.

      She got up and hugged him, stroking his hair the way she used to do when he was little.

      ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘That man could never stop talking bollocks.’

      He laughed. Then something else came to mind. There were some other things he wanted to ask her. He cleared his throat and sat down.

      ‘About my dad,’ he said. ‘Can you remember if he had any special problems with his health? Like sickle cell. Things like that.’

      She stared at him, her forehead creasing up in a frown. ‘Why do you ask?’

      For a moment he didn’t answer. He and Louise had decided not to tell anyone before the wedding. Now he didn’t know what to say. His mother saved him the trouble.

      ‘She’s pregnant, isn’t she?’

      ‘Yes.’

      For some reason – he didn’t know why – he had been worried about how his mum would receive the news.

      ‘Don’t worry,’ Louise had said. ‘When your mum gets used to it, she’ll be thrilled. Trust me. Most women love babies.’

      Daniel had believed her, but in the moment that he told his mother he was certain that her reaction was nothing to do with being thrilled. Instead, as he told Louise later, he could have sworn that the look which crossed her face was pure, naked fright. In a second she had caught herself and begun to smile, but for an instant he had seen nothing there except fear.

       CHAPTER FIVE

      He told his mother quickly about Louise finding out she was pregnant. She watched him, smiling, as if she knew what he was going to tell her. He smiled back, telling himself that he had been mistaken about her first response. Of course Louise had been right, he told himself. After all, they liked each other, and a baby would be the family that both he and his mother had missed.

      ‘It happened,’ he told her, ‘and, once we knew, we thought everyone would be pleased if we got married.’

      ‘That was something that always worried me about you,’ she said. ‘You so much love to please.’

      He frowned. She always said this, and it always got on his nerves.

      ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she said. ‘I like Louise, but I wish it hadn’t turned out like this.’

      ‘I thought you liked her,’ Daniel said. Suddenly he was angry.

      His mother’s look was intense, as if she was trying to work out what to tell him. ‘I wasn’t certain,’ she said, ‘if you liked her because she liked you. I can see she loves you, but you’re different.’

      Suddenly what his mum had said when he told her he was moving in with Louise came back to him. ‘What about her family?’ she’d wanted to know.

      He had told her there was no problem, but he had never been sure. Louise’s mum and dad had been friendly enough. Her father had been some kind of manager, and now they lived by the sea. That was all. He had kept their visits short and resisted getting any closer to them, telling himself that he couldn’t be sure how long he would be with Louise. The ties between them were about their life in London. Somehow the life she’d had before seemed like a threat but she had seemed hurt when he tried to explain this to her.

      ‘I don’t want to know them,’ he told her. ‘I don’t want to be part of their nice, quiet life.’

      At the back of his mind had been the fear that this was the life she wanted. Although he had tried to hide his feelings of doubt from his mother, somehow, though, she guessed. In any case, he’d known already that she would dislike Louise’s parents. She hadn’t yet met them, but he knew her well enough to guess. In her mind these were the same boring, narrow-minded people from whom she’d had to protect him. ‘Straights’, she called them.

      ‘You do go for these nice, sensible young ladies,’ she used to say, teasing him.

      The strange thing had been that in his own mind he’d agreed with what she felt. On the other hand, something about the fact that she didn’t approve had pleased him.

      ‘I know what I’m doing,’ he had told her. ‘You’re just a sucker for romance.’

      Now he could see that she was somehow troubled.

      ‘Don’t feel you have to get married,’ she said, ‘just because of the baby. This is your life, and her life. A long time. You should decide what you want to do, then think about the baby.’

      ‘We’re getting married,’ he told her. ‘And that’s the end of it.’

      His mother watched him, frowning a little.

      Knowing that she had already guessed that he had doubts made him more angry. ‘You’ve got these ideas about romance,’ he told her. ‘It’s like you want me to go out and fall madly in love with some crazy girl. Well, I’m not like that. I want a mortgage and a home and I want my kid to grow up feeling safe. I don’t want him to worry his whole life about what’s going to happen next.’