I think I inherited my casual indifference to spiders from Mum. ‘Spiders are fantastic,’ she used to say, letting one she’d rescued from the bath run across her hand. ‘They hunt and kill their own food. And you know what that food is? Flies. Flies eat poo and rubbish and give birth to maggots. The fewer of them on the planet, the better, as far as I’m concerned.’ She never used to hoover up cobwebs from the corners of the rooms at home either. ‘Cobwebs are nature’s own flypaper,’ she would say to anyone who questioned it. Although no one ever did, really. Only Graham. And only once.
Mum was pretty cool with just about everything. She could complain about bad service in shops. She could not tip taxi drivers. She could send food back in restaurants. She could even say she wasn’t happy with a haircut. But she was paralysingly terrified of one thing. Which brings me to the second reason why I don’t like this part of the walk. The footbridge. Mum was petrified of heights. And so am I.
When I was about eight and Naomi was eleven, the three of us went on a weekend away to London. I’m not entirely sure why – it may have been Mum’s birthday or something like that. On the first day, we checked into our hotel, before going out for dinner and a show. We had a family room, which turned out to be a quad. Mum was not happy about that at all, I remember.
‘It’s a quad room,’ she said to the receptionist half an hour after we’d arrived, ‘presumably because that is what this hotel thinks of as a typical family: mum, dad, little John and little Jane. But we are a family, and there are only three of us. Sadly our fourth member decided three years ago to follow his dream, and his colleague’s arse, to Peterborough in search of clichés.’ She smiled sweetly. ‘Do you know what that means?’
The receptionist smiled. ‘Well,’ she started to say, then realised very quickly that she didn’t need to.
‘It means,’ Mum went on calmly, ‘that we only have one income. I am supporting myself and my two children here on only one lot of pay. So probably roughly half as much as the standard family that this hotel would usually put in the quad room.’
‘Madam,’ the receptionist tried, but got nowhere.
‘So although I have half as much money as the people you would normally put in that room, you still want to make me pay exactly the same amount of money as they pay, by charging me a supplement for the empty bed.’ She smiled at this point, and tilted her head on one side a little, as if she was watching a chimpanzee juggle oranges. ‘It’s hardly fair, is it, Kirsty?’
We had a slap up meal that night. They must have refunded the supplement. ‘Don’t let hotel bastards wear you down,’ Mum said to us over dinner. ‘You fight for what is right, girls, and you keep on fighting, no matter what.’ She leaned towards us across the table and whispered behind her hand, ‘I’ve never lost one yet.’
She did lose one eventually. It was her final fight, last November.
Anyway during that London trip, the three of us got stuck on a bridge somewhere. I don’t know what bridge it was, but I remember it was over water, so it didn’t feel dangerous to me. Not at first, anyway. But apparently it did for Mum. Naomi and I hadn’t noticed that she’d slowed her steps quite a lot as we set out on it, and scampered off ahead. By the time we heard her faint voice calling our names and turned round to see what she wanted, she was motionless, white and crouching. I stared at her in horror as she moved one arm about two inches away from her body and pulled her fingers very slowly towards herself twice. I looked up at Naomi, not understanding what was going on.
‘Oh for goodness’ sake,’ Naomi said, taking hold of my arm. ‘Come on, we gotta go back.’
‘What’s happened, Nomes?’
She didn’t answer, just marched me back across the bridge to Mum’s side. When we got there, I could see that Mum’s left hand was wrapped around the lower part of the railing so tightly that not just the knuckles had gone white, her whole hand had. And, oddly enough, her face. I looked at her and was horrified by the terror in her eyes.
‘Mummy?’
‘It’s OK, Daisy Duck,’ she croaked, skinning her thin lips back from her teeth. I recoiled, and I remember wondering if this was really my mum squatting there or some other being inhabiting her body. A frightened, weak other being.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked tremulously.
‘I’m OK,’ she said, trying to smile again. I didn’t like it when she did that. I wished she’d stop.
‘Mum, you’ve got to move,’ Naomi said at this point. She put her hand on Mum’s white fingers and tried to unwind them from the railing, but Mum started shaking her head and moved her other hand on top of the first one.
‘Can’t,’ she whispered, probably hoping I wouldn’t hear her. She was very fond of telling me there was no such word.
Naomi sighed and let go, then sat down on the ground next to Mum. ‘Might as well sit down, Dozy,’ she said. ‘We’re likely to be here for a while.’
‘Why? What’s going on? Why won’t you tell me?’
‘May I be of assistance, ladies?’ a male voice broke in at this point. The three of us all turned and looked up at a man in jeans and gleaming white trainers, standing above us. I remember that his jeans had a crisp crease running down the centre of each leg.
‘We’re fine, thanks,’ Mum half-whispered immediately, trying to give the impression of strength and capability. She was pretty convincing, in spite of a bloodless face and tremors in her voice.
‘You don’t look fine,’ he said, crouching down to mirror her pose. ‘Seriously, won’t you let me help you? You can’t live here – the council won’t allow it.’
‘Thank you,’ Naomi said at this point, standing up. ‘My name is Naomi, that’s my sister Dozy, and this is our mum, Anne.’
‘Nice to meet you all,’ he said, glancing briefly at me, then focusing back intently on Mum. ‘My name is Graham.’ He extended his hand to her. ‘Take hold of my arm; I’ll help you get across.’
Daisy Mack
Getting high. Not good.
Suzanne Allen Certainly sounds good. Although, of course, I would have absolutely no idea whether it’s good or not. It’s all a complete mystery to me. Unknown territory as it were.
Jenny Martin Suzy you’re protesting far too much lol!
I’m at the footbridge now. Actually I’ve already been standing here for a few minutes, trying to get up the courage to go over it. My stomach is churning and my heart is thudding as if I’ve just bumped into Hugh Grant. I don’t know how Mum even began to cross that bridge in London back then, when she had two children with her. I feel nervous enough carrying my iPod across. For some reason it feels like everything I’m holding is in danger of going over the side.
OK, there’s nothing to be done other than put one foot in front of the other until I reach the other side. I’ve discovered that if I sing that old song ‘Help’, it really does help.
‘Why don’t you close your eyes?’ Abby said to me, the first time she walked over it with me.
‘How will that help?’
‘Well, you won’t be able to see how high up you are.’
‘Again, how will that help?’
Right, I’m on the bridge. I am not going to look anywhere except straight ahead. I am not paying any attention to the cars and lorries speeding past below me.
‘Afternoon,’