Rules of the Road

‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.’ There was an edge of accusation in Brendan’s voice.

‘I was going to,’ I said. ‘After dinner, when we were relaxing.’ I’m not sure if that was true. I slipped away when the ambulance arrived, got on with the rest of my day. I picked up Brendan’s suit from the dry-cleaners, collected the text book I had ordered for Anna in Eason’s, brought Dad home from day-care, helped my mother wash her windows, did the grocery shopping on my way home, ran a Hoover over the hall, stairs and landing, then cooked dinner. Truth be told, I had mostly forgotten about Mr Gorman after all that.

‘This garlic bread is delicious,’ declared Iris, picking up Brendan’s napkin and wiping her mouth with it.

‘Please. Join us for dinner,’ I said, clenched with worry that there might not be enough.

‘I’d love to, I’m starving,’ said Iris, tucking Brendan’s napkin into the collar of her top. ‘I forgot to have lunch with all the excitement.’

‘I didn’t even know you could do CPR,’ said Brendan, as I managed to scrape a decent enough portion of risotto out of the pot.

‘I did that first-aid course, remember?’ I said. ‘When the girls were little. Just … you know … so I’d know what to do if they … burned themselves or something.’

‘Oh,’ said Brendan.

‘I nearly forgot,’ shouted Iris, pulling a bottle of champagne – I mean, proper champagne, not fizzy wine – out of her handbag. ‘We have to toast you, Terry. You’re a handy woman to have around in a crisis, big or small.’ Iris winked at me, and I thought she might have been referring to the coffee-jar incident. Not that it was a crisis, but … I was still pretty sure that’s what she meant all the same.

*

‘So,’ says Jennifer, when all my purchases have been bagged. ‘That’ll be seventy-four pounds and twenty pence, when you’re ready.’ I hand over two crisp fifty-pound notes, still warm from the ATM machine. I smile at her. ‘Goodbye Jennifer. Thanks for your help. And I hope everything works out. I’m sure your girlfriend will forgive you once you explain.’

‘You really think so?’

‘I do. Bonsai trees are notoriously difficult to maintain. Everyone knows that. And it’s obvious she’s crazy about you.’

‘Thanks T,’ she says. T! ‘Have a great trip. Where are you heading for next?’

‘I’m not exactly sure.’

‘Wow. I thought you’d be like my mum, with a laminated itinerary.’

‘I am, usually,’ I say. ‘My girls often give out about my lack of spontaneity.’

‘I always give out about my mum,’ Jennifer says, ‘but I’d be lost without her.’

Jennifer hugs me before I leave. Although perhaps she is overly-familiar with all her customers.

The door tinkles when I open it, and I step outside into the main street.

The High Street. That’s what you call it in England.

Either way, it’s still a street. An unfamiliar street in an unfamiliar place with no laminated itinerary in my handbag that I can touch with my hand from time to time, just to feel it there.

I think it’s then – that moment – that I come up with The Plan.

I’ll ring Iris’s mother.

Vera.

Called for Vera Lynn.

It’s like Jennifer says. We’d be lost without our mothers. Even mothers like Vera, who, on the face of things, is perhaps not going to be a poster-girl for motherhood anytime soon. But who is still, essentially, a mother. Perhaps she is who Iris needs right now.

In the absence of any other plan of action, this seems like a viable option.

I’ll be breezy. Let her know we’re in town. We’re passing through. Suggest that she might like to meet up. I could dress it up as a surprise for Iris.

Iris hates surprises.

But Vera is not to know that.

I’m pretty sure the last time Iris saw Vera was at her father’s funeral. Iris said Vera only showed up on the off chance there might be something in the will for her.

That can’t be true. Not entirely, at least.

Vera is Iris’s mother, after all. That will always be true no matter what has happened.

They haven’t spoken since then. But it’s never too late for a second chance. Did someone famous say that? Or did I just see it on a T-shirt once?

It doesn’t matter. The idea has taken hold, grown roots. I become convinced that a mother’s love is what is needed here. A mother’s love will be like a bridge over the hurt and neglect and, well … abandonment, yes, there’s no getting around that. It might prove a difficult one to bridge.

But not impossible.

9

EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED.

I don’t have my mobile with me. It’s charging back in the apartment. But then, on the corner, I see a bright-red London telephone box.

Which could be a Sign.

I step inside the box. The phone is stained with rust and the smell of urine makes my eyes water, but there is a dial tone when I pick up the receiver with my sleeve-covered hand, and there is a number for directory enquiries, which I am going to have to call despite the astronomical cost of the service according to the instructions above the phone. I push many pound coins into the grimy slot before an operator says yes, she has a number for a Vera Armstrong on Archway Road – I remember the address from the envelope on Iris’s laptop – and would I like to be put through and I say yes I would and the operator says, One moment please, and now there is a ringing sound on the line, which means that somewhere in London, along Archway Road, a phone is ringing. I imagine an old-fashioned telephone – a black Bakelite perhaps – on a polished hall table with curved feet and a little drawer where she keeps, I don’t know, coupons maybe. Or knitting patterns.

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