Chapter 10: Em for Mother

“You poor love, it must be awful.” Jennifer sat in the chair, stroking the top of the bed absently.

“It is,” Tommy said, “I really don’t know how to cope with what is happening. Like with you, for instance, I don’t know you at all, sorry to say, and I don’t know how to act with you. It’s like I’m meeting you for the first time. Meanwhile, you are looking at me as someone you have seen pretty much every day for, what is it twenty years?”

“We’ve been married for nearly twenty, but known each other for about twenty-two years,” Jennifer answered, a slight catch in her throat.

“Sorry,” Tommy said, “This must be an impossible situation for you.”

Jennifer rested a hand on his. “Not impossible, dear, just awkward and difficult. But this is like an illness and we will get through this. What do you remember?”

“The only person I know that I know is my Mum and she is now a frail old lady, not the strong supportive mother who was always there to clean up my mess for me,” Tommy said. “This mess isn’t going to clear up in five minutes.”

“I didn’t even know your mother was still alive until Rachel told me this morning. You told me that both your parents were dead.”

“I can’t remember why I would say that to you. Possibly I wanted to make a complete break with the past, maybe I lost my memory twice, I don’t know. You have all your memories of me and recent ones, so for you to touch me is natural. For me, you are a complete stranger and to be touched by you is, well, strange. But for me to touch you, feels, well ... inappropriate somehow.”

“Sorry for touching you. What I really want to do is kiss you and hug you, Bob. I haven’t seen you for a week, but Rachel explained what state your mind is in and I am not sure what to do about it either.”

“Awkward.” Tommy sucked at his teeth. “Tell you what, come up and sit on the bed next to me and you can see my family, through my old family photos, OK?” He held out his hand. Without a hesitation she took it.

“Great idea,” she laughed, “Maybe I could bring a couple of our albums over tomorrow?”

“Equally good idea, Jennifer,” Tommy replied.

“Please call me ‘Jen’, it was only my mother that called me Jennifer.”

She kicked off her shoes, climbed onto the bed and wriggled next to him, getting herself nice and comfy, “I suppose calling you ‘Bob’ sounds strange to you? What does your Mum call you?”

“Tommy, I’ve always been called Tommy,” he smiled in recollections from for him the recent past. “I had a Great Uncle Tom when I was very much younger and we were clearly defined in the family. He was Tom and I was Tommy. Even when he was ... well gone, my name stuck with me even as I grew up and left home.”

“Tommy is a nice name.”

“I got used to it. To you, Jen, though, I am Bob, so please keep calling me Bob, it might help prise out those dormant memories. According to my trick cyclist, Phoebe, that is.”

“Oh, ‘Phoebe’, is it?” she smiled with one eye brow raised, “Plus this lady Marcia, earlier. You seem much more flirty than the old Bob I know! Do I have anything to worry about, sweetheart?”

“Absolutely not, Jen,” he protested, “I am just naturally friendly. I don’t know anybody well enough for me to mean anything by it. Like us, we need to get to know each other, slowly and hope that in time the lights get switched on again in my head.”

“OK, Bob it is then. How do you feel about your Mum meeting her new daughter-in-law and all the grandchildren?”

“I think she’d be absolutely delighted, Jen,” he smiled, “I think I’d like to meet my kids too, only I’m worried about what affect my not recognising them would have.”

“Honey,” Jennifer rested her hand on his, “They will understand that you are not yourself. I will make them aware of your condition before they see you. The will accept that you are ill and need looking after and helping through this. It will be just like all the times you helped them through it when they were poorly. You can’t remember them at the moment but many’s the broken night we’ve had because they have been sick.”

“You’re pretty smart, Jen,” he chuckled, “For a babe!”

“Oh! First I’m a stranger, now I’m a babe, eh?”

“OK, this time I am flirting with you,” he laughed, “I think I might be permitted that, though, eh?”

“Yes, I suppose so. No, of course you can flirt with me, I want you to!” she laughed, cheerfully bumping shoulders with her husband, “Although you do have a lot of bare bare-faced cheek, much more than you used to have!”

“Have a look at these photos my Mum brought along, I think near the beginning is one of me actually showing the bare cheeks I used to have!”

“So, Aunt Emma, do you know what Mum’s up to tonight?”

“Not sure, JJ,” smiled Aunt Emma. She wasn’t really JJ’s aunt, just Jennifer’s best friend, but she had been the Morris children’s acting aunt ever since the eldest two were toddlers and Jennifer was almost through carrying Tigger to full term. “She called me yesterday at my Mum’s and asked if I could come over while she had to go out for three or four hours.”

“She’s probably going on a date, making the most of it while Dad’s conveniently out of the way!” JJ snarled.

“That’s an unkind thing to say,” Emma replied soothingly, putting down the plate she had been drying up at the sink and turning to face JJ, “Your Dad’s off on a training course, isn’t he?”

JJ snorted, “Huh! Who goes on a training course for more than a week, including two whole weekends, without coming home halfway through and with no clear idea when he’s coming back? I don’t swallow that bull from Mum for a minute.”

“Oh, JJ, do you think there’s been some trouble brewing between your Mum and Dad?”

“Like, yes! Like Dad’s disappeared without taking his mobile phone with him. Like he’s not at work but he’s definitely not on a course. I rang his boss, who knows absolutely nothing about any course. He thinks Dad’s off sick.”

“Really?” Emma looked surprised, “Jen didn’t say anything, I assumed this course was just a Monday to Friday thing. I’ve not been around much at weekends since my Mum’s been poorly. I wonder what’s going on, now.”

“Mum’s a dirty skank!” JJ cursed, “That’s what’s going on.”

“JJ!” Emma spluttered, “You can’t call your Mum that! Anyway, your Dad would never leave your Mum, just as your Mum wouldn’t ever give up on your Dad. He’s one in a million, he’s lovely your Dad is.”

“Yeah, he is, I agree, but her? ... I don’t know what she is any more. Aunt Em, do you think Dad is getting a bit too old for Mum?”

“No, pet, of course not. Your Dad may be older in years, but he is fit, fitter than, well a lot fitter than your Uncle Richard, for instance, and Rich is fifteen years younger than your Dad.”

“Yeah, but Dad’s so quiet, docile, even. Mum’s got him completely wrapped around her little finger. She screwed that bloody ‘Wetshirt’ Western, the sports master, the Christmas before last, I thought that would finished Mum and Dad off at the time.”

“Well, I don’t know where you heard-” Emma started.

“It was all around the school, Aunt Em, I couldn’t show my face anywhere. In fact, I still can’t.”

“That was just a nasty rumour, spread by the girls who went on that school trip to Yorkshire that summer. I heard that they all fancied your Dad. He was the fittest parent on that trip. He was even fitter than that sports teacher who was with them, I heard, so why would your Mum fancy the teacher when she already has a hunk at home?” Then Emma giggled, “I remember Tom said that all the girls in his class who had been ignoring him for years suddenly started to talk to him, hopingnthey could work their way into sitting on your Dad’s mess table.”

“They are just silly girls,” JJ snorted, “My Mum, on the other hand, is worse than silly, she’s just plain stupid and risking throwing her marriage away.”

“Look JJ, I did hear a bit about the so-called affair. Your Mum told me at the time that the rumours were all blown out of proportion, it was an innocent Christmas dinner kiss with her PTA colleagues, when all the rest of the Committee had the same hug and peck on the cheek greeting.”

“No, Aunt Em, I saw the bloody pictures, lots of them ... and graphic they were, with no clothes on, bloody pornographic they were.”

“Must’ve been photoshopped or something,” Emma suggested, with a little desperation, “You know, putting faces over other people’s bodies, I’ve seen some of your computer art, it’s really good.”

“This wasn’t faked, Aunt Emma, it looked much too real for me, I felt sick. Even Tigger saw the images at school, I only found out yesterday. My bloody ex-mates at school won’t let me forget about it in a hurry either.”

“Oh. Your friends know about this too?”

“Yeah, all the girls went very snooty, spreading it about like I’m as big a slut as my Mum. As for the boys? Well, the best of them won’t have nothing to do with me. The worst of them were for a few days like, all over me, as if I was into boys as badly as my mother. As if! I had to dish out a few slaps.”

“Well, boys are like that, you know, they want to ... I don’t believe I’m talking to you about this!”

Emma was embarrassed. She had known JJ since before she was two. The only girl in the family, JJ was slight, elfin, compared to her tall well-built brothers, but she had rough and tumbled with them as equals throughout her childhood. Now here she stood in her Mum’s kitchen with her chin pushed out, her dark, curly hair almost covering her face, clearly missing the Dad that she adored. Emma thought JJ was close to tears, and her heart went out to the girl. She spread her arms out and JJ naturally fell into them.

“There, there,” Emma said, rubbing her back and shoulders, comfortingly, “I’m sure that whatever argument is going on between your Mum and Dad, they will resolve and get back together again. That must be where your Mum has gone tonight, to go see your Dad. You know they both rely on each other, they have too much invested in themselves and in you three kids for any lasting rift between them. They have too much at stake to throw it all away now.”

JJ started to sob, her torso soft and yielding in Emma’s comforting embrace. Emma looked towards the door, listening for signs of Tigger. The low sounds of gunfire and explosions from the TV evidence that the youngster would be concentrating on the screen and be oblivious of the operations or occurrences in the kitchen; “not his department” she could imagine him saying, to which she smiled.