Stephen Irwin: The Darkening

They drank in silence a while. Above the surf-like rataplan on the roof, Nicholas could hear the house ticking around them as it cooled. He felt his mother’s eyes crawling over his face.

‘You look awful,’ she said.

‘Cheers, Mum.’

In his memories, his mother’s hair was perpetually chestnut, worn tight as a fiercely guarded nest. Now it was grey and loose.

He took a biscuit from a plate, scrutinised it, and put it back. Katharine tutted and whisked it up, then dunked it in her tea. It was a gesture Nicholas remembered from a frugal childhood — nothing wasted. Nothing, except time. Even after his father died, some two or three years after he left them, Nicholas never saw Katharine with another man.

‘Seeing anyone?’ he asked.

She scowled at him over the rim of her cup. ‘I see lots of people. None worth talking to.’

‘Having a thing with the clay man? Dalliances with horny delft pedlars?’

‘No.’

‘You’ll get a reputation.’

‘As what? A cranky old dyke?’

Nicholas shrugged.

‘Grand.’

They ate and drank in silence.

‘You know they offered me five hundred thousand for the house?’

‘Who?’

‘People.’ She waved the word away. ‘Not bad, though, for an old girl.’

‘Not bad,’ he agreed.

Rain gurgled in the downpipe outside, a visceral rush of cold water in dark places. He thought about mentioning the Carmichael Road woods, asking his mother how they could still be there, asking if she thought, too, that they lurked with the menace of a group of shadowed men on an otherwise empty street, men whose silhouettes were drawn taut with latent trouble. But he felt foolish trying to catch the words, and so let them swim away into the ocean-like patter outside.

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t make Cate’s funeral.’ Katharine said it boldly, but the silence that followed bled the words dry.

Nicholas ran his tongue around his teeth, as if hunting for a civil thing to say that might be caught there.

‘No airline would have carried you, you were sick as a dog,’ he said finally. ‘She liked you.’

Katharine smiled. It bloomed and died on her lips. ‘Poor man.’

He looked up. She was watching him carefully, wearing the same owlish look he knew from thirty years ago, when he was five and thinking of raiding the biscuit jar. A look that warned him against doing something he might regret.

‘It was an accident, Cate’s death. You do know that, Nicky.’

Nicholas drained his tea, stood, and kissed the top of his mother’s head. She looked old.

‘I’ll see you in the morning.’

Katharine dried Nicholas’s teacup and put it quietly back on the shelf. Well , she thought, the day has come. He’s here at last . She flicked the kettle on and sat as it started to sigh.

How did she feel? It had been three weeks since Nicholas rang to say he was leaving England and coming home. Every day since, she’d wondered how she’d feel when he arrived. And every day she’d been forced to admit she was dreading his return. Then she saw him as he stepped from the car — a thin, long-legged man with a shock of dirty blond hair — and her heart had leapt like a pebble on water. Donald! Then she chastised herself. Donald had been dead thirty years. But, my God, didn’t he look like his father?

She’d watched him step through the shadows cast by the yellow streetlight, saw how unwell he looked. Like that painting by Sargent of Robert Louis Stevenson. Thin-limbed and long, pale and dark-eyed. Harried into long strides by silent things in dark corners. Bright-eyed with something that could be fever or genius or madness. When the doorbell rang, she’d had to fight the temptation to turn off the lights, burrow into a corner and pretend she wasn’t home. Why? Why did she want to avoid her own son?

Because he’s bad luck.

She’d fairly slapped herself for thinking that, and threw open the door and threw her arms around him before they’d both realised a nod and a kiss would do.

The kettle rumbled discontentedly and switched itself off. Katharine popped a teabag into her cup and drowned it in scalding water.

Bad luck. Just like Donald .

She snorted, angry with herself, and sat.

Nonsense. She was unsettled because her boy was coming home after such a long time, and he’d want to be part of a life that she’d made very comfortable without him. Suzette in Sydney, Nicholas in London, a phone call each week and that was fine. Her life was hers, and her children were loved well from a distance. A visit every six months from Suze and the kids. A flight to London every second year to see Nicky and Cate. .

Ah.

Katharine sipped her tea. Cate was dead, and Nicky was home.

She’d almost wanted to see him burst into tears at the sight of his mother. It would have meant he wasn’t coping. She’d coped, when Donald left, and later when he died. She’d had to. She had two kids to raise. If Nicky had cried tonight, well, that would have proved something, wouldn’t it?

He looked so ill. Had she been drawn that thin when she made Donald leave? No: she’d known it was a war then, a war against time and the world, a war to be fought and won; and in war one ate what and when one could. She’d kept her strength. It was Donald who’d faded. Donald who’d grown thin and haunted. .

She shrugged off the thought. Past. All in the past.

She took one more sip then poured the rest down the sink. Her boy was home, and he needed looking after. It had been a long time, but she’d at least try to be a mother again.

‘I don’t see why he can’t come here.’

Suzette ignored Bryan. She was up to her arse in the spare-room cupboard looking for her second hairdryer, the small one.

‘I mean, honestly, it’s just him, right? Couple of days with your mum, then he can fly down here-’

‘Bryan,’ called Suzette in a sweet voice. ‘Come here a minute, darling.’

There was a moment’s silence — long enough for Suzette to imagine Bryan realising he’d really pissed his wife off. Then she heard reluctant footsteps in the room behind her. Aha! There was the dryer, in the Country Road bag. She wiggled out of the cupboard and turned to face Bryan.

‘What?’ he asked in a quiet tone that said he knew very well what.

‘Are you going to keep harping on about this?’

She realised she was holding the hairdryer like a pistol, and so started rewinding the cord. She wasn’t really angry with Bryan; he was a good bloke. A funny bloke. A fabulous father. And it was always his business that played second fiddle when things needed to be done. He was a hydrology consultant and a reasonably successful one, but it was Suzette’s business that brought in the big bucks that allowed them to live in this beautifully renovated stable-house so close to the centre of Sydney that there were times she felt almost obliged to apologise to their friends for their good fortune. Once again, she would fly out of town, and Bryan would have to put his appointments on hold to look after the kids. Normally, he was so easygoing she wondered if he’d taken up smoking pot. But he had a real bee in his bonnet about this trip.

‘I’m not harping. I just don’t see why your brother can’t spend a couple of days with your mum, then fly down here. I mean, it’s not like he has any ties or anything-’

‘Now his wife’s dead?’ asked Suzette.

‘You know that’s not what I mean,’ said Bryan. ‘Forget it. Forget it. .’

‘No. What do you mean?’ She could hear the curtness in her voice, and it reminded her of her mother. Now that was depressing.

Bryan sighed and put his big hands in his pockets.

‘Why have you got to go straightaway? He’s hardly back in the country. And I really don’t see why he can’t come here. I mean, we flew all the way to bloody England for his wedding-’