I wont give up his home
Why have you come?
Standing framed by the doorway, Valerie wouldnt budge. Arms braced on either side, she seemed almost to bar the way not just into the living room, but into a life.
Good evening, Mrs Harding.
I asked, why?
I hesitated. My eyes caught the threshold, the tattered blue rug with white trimone Id picked out at a market stall years ago. It was still there, worn but not thrown away.
May I come in?
The silence hung between us for several seconds. At last, Valerie moved aside with no further word, walking through to the kitchen. I took that as permission. I stepped in and closed the door behind me.
The hall smelled familiar, but not as it used to. There had always been the scent of tobacco from Genes jacketa brown coat on the left-most peg, now replaced by a faded dressing gown and an old knitted hat.
Valerie was already bustling with the kettle, though it was clear she had no plans to offer tea straight awayshe just needed something to do with her hands.
I saw the light in your window, I explained. I was passing.
At ten oclock at night?
The bus was late. I got stuck at the stop.
She set the kettle down and turned. Her expression was the wary patience of someone who stopped trusting a long time ago, but not so long ago that they’ve given up.
Hang your coat up, she said. Seeing as youre already here.
I hung my overcoat on that same left peg, beneath the hat, then thought better of it and shifted it to the right.
We sat at the table across from one another. Valerie poured the tea, wordlessly placing a mug in front of me, not asking if I wanted any. She slid the sugar towards me without looking up. It was all mechanicalgestures performed because that’s what hosts do, whether they want to or not, the body remembering what the head resists.
How have you been? I asked.
All right. Both hands wrapped around her mug. As always.
Her hands were typical for her age, thin, knuckles prominent, with time-spotted skin. But tonight, she gripped the mug far too tightly for all right.
I wanted to talk, I ventured.
About what?
All sorts, really.
About the papers, you mean.
I hesitated.
Not only that.
She took a sip and set her mug down deliberately. The sound could have been nothing, or it could have meant everything.
Speak to the solicitor about papers. Ive already said what I think.
I know.
Then why repeat it?
It wasnt a question, and I didnt treat it as one. I sipped the tea. Too hot. I put it back.
Rain pattered on the windowone of those English autumn drizzles that hangs in the air without quite falling. The lamppost outside swayed and cast a restless shadow across the sill.
I knew this kitchen intimately. Knew the left drawer had string and dead batteriesGene never threw them out, just in case. Knew the pail under the sink came out every time the pipe dripped, which was every autumn. Knew the gap behind the fridge where a coin had once rolled and three of usGene, Alex, and Ihad spent half an hour with a ruler trying to fish it out, all laughing.
Alex. Three months now.
I brought you some jam, I said. Plum. I left it by the door, wasnt sure if you saw.
Valerie looked towards the hallway, then back at the table.
I saw it.
Youve always liked plum jam.
I did. Pause. I do.
Her slip was precise, as if she herself wasnt sure which tense to use anymore.
I thought I understood. I still found myself starting sentences about him in the present tense, stopping mid-phrase, an awkward pause settling over the room.
I heard you were planning to visit Tamara in Lancaster, I said.
I was. I havent gone yet.
Whats holding you back?
Oh, she waved vaguely. Bits and bobs.
I watched her. There were no bits and bobswe both knew. There was a flat she hesitated to leave; a fear of coming home to emptiness; perhaps, too, a dread that Tamara might pity her, and shed never known how to bear being the object of pity.
Mrs Harding, I said softly, more earnestly. I didnt come about the papers. Honestly.
Honestly, she echoed. Difficult to tell if she believed me or just repeated the word.
I know youre angry with me.
Im not angry.
All right.
I just dont understand, she said, her voice finally giving something away. How it can be. Six months, now. You seem to have moved on, while Im still here.
I didnt say she was wrong or misunderstood. I just sat.
I saw you, Valerie continued quietly. The neighbour, Linda, saw you tooshe mentioned it. August, in the café on Elm Street. With someone.
That was a colleague. We were working on a project.
A colleague.
Yes.
Valerie got up and looked out the window at the rain and the lamplight.
Alex loved you, she said, not turning round. More than you realise, maybe.
I knew.
Im not sure you did.
I found myself gripping my mug. Inside, something shifted, like the lamplights shadow. I kept quiet, knowing if I spoke, it would all come out wrong.
Im not saying youre a bad person, she said. Still to the window. Youre young, forty-two. Youve a whole life ahead. And mesixty-eight. One son.
I know.
And now hes gone. And you bring jam.
It would have stung, but it was so true I felt a flash of gratitude at her clarity, however painful.
I dont know what else to do, I said. Im useless at words. I needed an excuse to come, something to say, something to bring. Otherwise, it felt worse.
Valerie looked back, searching my face.
Have you been crying? Before you came in?
A bit.
On the stairs?
Yes.
Something shifted in her featuresa tiny movement. She returned to the table.
Were both a bit silly, arent we? she said.
It was the first thing all evening without a double meaning.
We fell silent. The rain was heavier now, the kind you couldnt ignore.
Tell me, I said. About the will. What hurt you? Not through the solicitorstraight from you.
She looked surprised, almost as if no one had expected her to speak for herself.
The flat, she said. Its his flat. Colin and I saved and saved to buy it for him. Eight years, nearly. We wanted him to have his own place. He lived there. You lived there. Thats not the point. It was his, and on paper now
It passes to me. I finished.
You werent married.
We lived together six years.
I know. She clasped her hands on the table. But I think hed have wanted me to still be involved. He wouldnt have wanted me cut out.
He wrote the will himself, Mrs Harding.
I know he did. Pause. Maybe he got it right. I cant say now. At first I was so angry. Not now. I just dont understand.
Dont understand what?
Why youre keeping it. Lindas daughter said maybe youd move out, too big for you alone, you said. So why keep it?
I met her eyes.
I said that one day in July, when things were very bad. I havent decided yet.
If you sell it, Valerie began.
Im not going to sell.
If you ever do, would you tell me? Not strangersme.
And that, I realised, was the heart of itnot the bricks and mortar, not the money. The need to not be cut offto have a right to know first. To keep a thread to her son through this woman whod shared his flat, cooked in his kitchen, knew a different side of him, a side the mother didnt, and that difference ached and belonged to them both.
Youll know first, I promised. I swear.
Valerie nodded briefly and poured more tea.
Have you eaten? she asked suddenly.
Not since this morning.
This morning. She got up, opened the fridge. I made noodle soup. Want some?
Id like that.
While she warmed it, I watched her back, thinking about what might have been, how in another world we could have been closeholidays together, Christmas lunches, phone calls just because. Or maybe not. Maybe wed always have been slightly awkward, too different to be confidants, not distant enough to be strangers.
The soup was simple and good. Carrot, onion, noodles, a bit of parsleythe sort you cook for yourself, not for guests.
Lovely, I said.
Dont overdo it.
It is, honestly.
Valerie ate her soup in silence. Then, still not looking up:
He looked for you in hospital, you know?
My spoon paused.
What?
You left in April, for that conference, you said. He went in for tests. I visited, he kept asking when you’d be back. I said I didnt know. He said, She was due today. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the next day.
I put my spoon down.
I came back the day after I found out.
I know. At last she met my gaze. Im not blaming. Just telling you.
Why tell me?
Dont know. So youd know. So someone else would know, not just me.
It was an honest answer. I felt a dryness in my mouth. My tea had gone cold.
He never said he was frightened, I said. I thought he was calm about it, that it helped him if I didnt fuss.
He couldnt bear to be pitied.
Exactly. I thought I was doing right.
Maybe you were. Valerie cleared the bowls. Maybe not. Whos to know now?
That whos to know? hung in the quiet.
I helped carry things up, though she didnt ask. We stood at the sink, Valerie washing, me drying, and it was just so normalso quietly shared in a wordless way, that I think both of us had the same thought, though neither said it out loud.
Back at the table, Valerie fetched some biscuitsnot the nice sort for visitors, but the broken ends left at the bottom of a packet from the bakery shop around the corner.
Linda says I should join some club, Valerie mentioned. Watercolour with the pensioners in the community centre, Thursdays.
Will you go?
Dont know. Feels a bit silly.
Why silly?
At my age.
Your age is about right, I replied. Honestly.
She gave me a wry look.
You sound like a social worker.
And you sound like you think youre a hundred.
Sixty-eight.
Not a hundred.
She bit a biscuit.
I was always busy. Colin, then Alex, then work, then I expected grandchildren but that didnt happen. I dont know how to just do something for its own sake. Painting feels pointless.
Maybe thats the point.
Easy to say.
Hard to say, too, I argued. I get it. Ive friends, work, a full life. Still, I get home and dont know what to do with myself. I sit and wish hed walk in with some silly joke, and suddenly everything would feel right.
Pause.
He had a way with nonsense, Valerie said.
He did.
Once said, Mum, when I was a kid I thought sparrows hatched from spa water. Where did he get these ideas?
He told me the Mongolian for elephant was zaan, and thought it hilarious because it sounded like someone getting above themselves.
Valerie laughedquick, surprised. As though she hadnt expected it.
Goodness knows where he got these things.
Read a lot, didnt he.
From five, always with a book at the table.
He showed me a photo once. He was eight, on your allotment, sitting with a book while all the other kids played.
I remember that allotment. Valeries focus drifted, not to me or the window, but someplace inside, where one goes when remembering. Colin was always digging all day. And Alex would just sit and read. I thought, what kind of child is this? Eventually I got used to it.
What was he reading then?
Sea adventures, about captains. Hed never seen the sea in his lifefirst went at sixteen. Stood there ages, looking. Colin goes, Well? At last, eh? Alex says, Its not what I imagined. Why not? Its smaller. Seemed bigger in books.
I smiled. Alex had told me his own version. Perhaps every telling was true in its way, perhaps all were family legend now.
He talked about Colin a lot, I said. Missed him.
ColinColin Peter Hardingdied six years ago, not long before Alex and I met. They never met.
Yes, Valerie said simply. Missed him.
Do you, still?
Every day. She said it without resentment; just calm acceptance. Ive gotten used to it, but I still miss him. Thats not a contradiction.
No, its not, I agreed.
A pause.
Tell me about him, I asked. Alex as a child. He didnt care to talk about the old days.
Valerie gave me a measured look.
Why?
Id like to know. While I still can.
It sounded harsher than I meant, but I couldnt take it backit was true.
She stood in silence for a minute, then left the kitchen. I heard her rummaging in a cupboard. She returned with a cardboard boxthe type kept up on high shelves, rarely taken down.
Its his, she said. I sorted through it in September. Gave some away, kept some.
She opened it. Inside were jotters, a few small toys, bits of paper with drawings. I picked up one notebook, opened it. The childish scrawl, earnest and untidy, Alex Harding, Year 2.
My goodness, I whispered.
Exactly, Valerie said. Thats what I say every time.
We leafed through together. She told me, I listenedhow hed tried to stand on his head at six and nursed a bump for a week; how he once brought home a cat that Colin disliked, then likedand eventually the cat left as abruptly as it came. Alex shrugged and said, He just wanted to live on his own, its his right. How at fourteen hed announced hed be a programmer, because programmers dont have to run about, you can work in your slippers.
He did work in his slippers, I said.
Kept his word.
He did.
It was nearing midnight when I noticed the time.
I should go. The last bus is due.
Stay, Valerie said quickly, almost startled by her own invitation. There’s a sofa bed in the spare room. Ill make it up.
I dont want to be a bother.
Who to?
She wouldnt look at me, as if the words escaped without her.
All right. Thank you.
While Valerie settled the sofa bed, I washed the mugs. Standing at the sink, I watched my own reflection in the dark window, its yellow kitchen glow and my own silhouette. I thought, three months ago, Id never have imagined this eveningthis soup, these notebooks, this invitation to stay.
Theres so much in family grief that cant be solved by solicitors. Sometimes you just comejam or no jamsit, and wait for things to settle into something bearable.
Maybe it would come right, or maybe not. But something had shifted tonight.
The room was the same one Id slept in on visits with Alex. Same battered sofa, same chequered throwthe brown one, Valerie called it, though it was more russet. I lay under it, looking at the bookshelvesmostly Colins: yellowed spines, Great Expectations, I, Claudius, a few on British history. Among them a slim, odd one out. I leaned overLetters from Nowhere, by some unknown writer. Inside the cover, in Alexs unmistakable hand: Happy Birthday, Mum. Read slowly. Love.
I closed the book, replaced it, and looked at it for a long time through the dusk.
Beyond the wall, it was quietjust the sound of Valerie padding about, the board creaking by the wardrobe, the tap running briefly. Life, going on regardless, quietly, stubbornly.
The next morning, Valerie made porridge. I came into the kitchen; she set a bowl in front of me without a word and offered a glass of orange juice, which surprised me. It was another grey October morningwet pavements, nearly bare branches.
What times work? she asked.
Ten. Ill be fine.
Youll get there, its not far. By the Tube?
Yes.
Third stop from here, isnt it.
You remember? I said, a bit surprised.
Alex told me. Briefly, as if that explained it.
The porridge was savoury with butterexactly the way my mother used to make it, though Id long ago switched to sweet. The salty taste came back as if it had returned some lost part of me.
I found something, Valerie said, and brought out an envelope. Military training letters, from uni. He wrote from camp. I dont want to part with it, but I want you to see he could write like this.
She unfolded the letter, handed it to me. Three handwritten pages, neat and small. I read slowly, as hed written in the book on the shelf.
Alex wrote about morning mist and an old poplar outside the barracks and how everything shifted but the tree stayed, and how he craved the silence of his bedroom, and his mothers pasties.
He was another Alex thensofter, not quite set into the man Id known.
Can I copy it, or maybe just take a photo? Just for myself?
Valerie studied me.
Keep it, she said after a pause. Its yours. I dont need it any longer.
Its yours, really.
Rebecca. First time that evening she used my first name. Take it.
I folded the letter, slipped it in the envelope, put it in my bag. There were things I could have said; I didnt say them.
We did up the dishes together, Valerie washing, me drying, just as the night beforebut by now it felt more coordinated, less automatic.
You should still go to Tamaras I said. The flat wont run away. Tamaras waiting, Id wager.
She called last week. Said shes annoyed with me.
So go see her.
Well see.
Mrs Harding
I said well see.
I hung the tea towel up.
May I come by, sometimes? Not oftenbut Id like to.
Valerie switched off the tap, took a towel, and studied her hands.
Do, she said. Ill make more soup.
Noodle?
Unless you fancy barley?
Noodle will do.
Thats settled.
I dressed. Valerie came with me to the hall. I put on my coat, picked up my bag, paused.
Thank you for letting me stay.
Go, or youll be late, she said, staring at nothing in particular.
I was reaching for the door, then stopped.
That book Alex gave you, on the shelf. Did you read it?
Ive started. Pause. Slowly.
He told you to read it slowly.
I saw. She thought a moment. He knew me, did my boy.
I nodded. Opened the door.
Goodbye.
Goodbye, she said.
I stood on the landing, listening as the lock clicked shutafter a small pause, as if she waited to hear Id really gone.
The stairwell smelled of damp and a little paint. The bulb on the second floor flickered but kept burning. I went down, holding the rail.
Outside was the same English October. People headed for work, a siren drifted somewhere distant, and pigeons poked about with great industry. The world, unchanged, indifferent, yet also, somehow, connected to the night just gone.
I walked toward the Tube, thinking that reconciliation isnt a moment or a choice. Maybe its this: soup, scribbled notebooks, a night on a spare sofa, towel in your hands, a letter at the bottom of your bag.
I didnt know what would happen next; didnt know what wed becomeValerie and Iin this in-between state: not quite family anymore but tied by joint memory and love for one person, each in our way. Not a bond for closeness, but not one for estrangement, either.
The envelope with Alexs letter stayed in my bag. Id wait for evening, at home, to look at it again.
I entered the Tube. The doors opened, closed. The train moved off.
Several stops from mine, I pulled out my phone and messaged Valerie: Arrived safe. Thanks for the porridge.
The reply pinged in twenty minutes, when I was at work, in the changing room, thinking about the days meetings.
Glad to hear it. Jams in the cupboard.
I read it, put my phone away, and took off my coat.
Someone was laughing in the corridora careless, joyous sound. Through the office window, the sky was a flat, nearly white English grey. Maybe by evening, the weather would clear. Maybe not. Octobers fickle, after all.
I went to my meeting.
On Friday evening, three days later, my phone rang as I was heating up dinner. I answered on the third ring.
Im going to Tamaras, Valerie said, skipping any greeting. Saturday, in the morning.
All right, I replied.
Ten days.
All right.
A short pause.
You mind me calling?
No. Im glad.
Right. Another beat. Rebecca.
Yes?
That book. On the shelf, in the spare room. Take it with you next time. It was Alexs, after all. Let him stay with you.
I stood by the stove with a spoon, the soup starting to bubble.
I will. Thank you.
Good. Id better start packing.
Safe travels.
Thanks.
We pausedlike people do, when silence is enough.
Goodbye, said Valerie.
Goodbye.
I turned down the heat, set the spoon down, looking out at the dark, lamp-lit street.
Somewhere Tamara would be preparing for Valeries visit. Somewhere that book waited for me on a shelf: Read slowly. Love. Somewhere, a jar of plum jam sat, quietly, in a strangers cupboard.
That, maybe, was all that truly remainednot what the solicitors wrote down, not square footage or paperwork. Just this: jam in another persons kitchen, a letter in an envelope, a remark caught at the wrong moment but true.
I picked up the spoon and stirred the soup.
