Some world, somewhere
by David Gaffney.
StoriesArchiveAboutHome
Jeff didn’t smoke, he’d given up a few years ago, but he missed the camaraderie of smoking outside in the front of the building, so when Jim asked him to come outside with him while he had a fag, Jeff was quick to agree, and he took his cup of tea with him as kind of something to do with his hands more than anything.
It was scorching hot so they huddled up under a scrap of shade cast by the stunted, leafless tree that marked the office entrance.
Jim cupped a flame, put his cigarette to the fire and sucked smoke. ‘That’s good,’ he said.
Jeff sipped his tea, envying the sensual pleasure Jim was getting from his cigarette.
Jim took another long, deep pull. ‘Listen Jeff. You’re a man of the world, right?’
‘Some world, somewhere, I suppose.’
‘I’d like your opinion. See that balcony up there?’
Jeff looked across at the brand new building, a brutal collision of cones, spheres and rectangles that housed a thousand one-bedroomed studio flats for t-shirted twenty-somethings who met your gaze with the I-have-a-right-to-be-hereness of swaggering urban foxes.
‘Yeh?’
‘Well, wait and see what happens. Any tiiiiime…’ Jim looked at his watch, ‘1 2 3 4 ..now.’
On the word now a young woman appeared on the balcony. She was wearing a dressing gown which fell open when she waved down at Jim, flashing a strip of milky skin. Deep, black short hair framed a pretty, impish face.
Jim waved back, and the woman tossed her head back defiantly, mimed pantomime laughter, then leaned on the balcony smoking, looking down at them with a vulpine grin.
‘Do you know who that is?’ Jim said
‘No,’ said Jeff
‘That’s Claire’s mother.’
‘Claire? Your Claire? The one you’ve been seeing for six months?
‘Yes. My Claire.’
‘Christ. I’ll tell you what. She doesn’t look like anybody’s mother.’
‘Claire’s fucking mother. Would you believe it?’
‘Mothers and daughters. That’s a thing, isn’t it?’
Jim’s face was glossy with sweat. ‘That’s what I want your advice on.’
Claire’s mother went inside and reappeared with a dining table which she placed on the balcony. Then she produced a deck chair which she lifted on to the table, positioning it carefully so that it wouldn’t slide off, climbed up onto this elaborate structure and sat down. This way she could see the city over the opaque glass screen which prevented residents falling off. It was, after all, the fifteenth floor.
She waved at the two watching men.
‘She likes to look down on the world,’ Jim said.
‘Clever idea,’ said Jeff. ‘I hope it’s safe.’
‘She always does it. Listen, I was wondering,’ Jim said, though a smile shaped for and aimed at Claire’s mother. ‘Your opinion. In your opinion is it all right to, uh, see a mother and a daughter at the same time?’
‘See?’
‘Yeh, see’.
‘Is this, like, that snooker ball question thing again. That’s disgusting.’
‘No, this is serious. I like them both, see, both in the same way.’
Jeff looked up at Claire’s mother who, judging from the way her head twitched to and fro and her foot, resting on the balcony rail, tapped a rapid beat in the air, was listening to music on headphones.
‘I wouldn’t have thought any mother would do that – betray her daughter.’
‘Thing is, she doesn’t know who I am. Mother and daughter don’t get on. Some row over her mum’s last boyfriend, so there’s hardly any contact.’
‘How do you know that’s her?’
‘I’ve seen the pictures. That’s her all right. And I knew she lived there. That’s why I started smoking on this side of the building. Out of curiosity. To see what she looked like, this ogre, this hated woman. Do you know, Claire won’t even come to the phone if her own mother rings? Letters in her mother’s handwriting go straight into the bin.’
‘And now?’
‘And now I think I’m developing this thing for her.’
‘You’ve spoken to her?’
’We’ve had few drinks.’
‘A few drinks! Claire will fucking kill you’
‘I thought I would find out what she was like, maybe try to get her and her mum back together. It’s not right, families split up like that. But now, I don’t know. She has these faraway eyes.’
Claire’s mother’s long white leg was up on the balcony rail and, slick with sun oil, it glistened in the sun.
Faraway eyes. Was there a scientific basis for faraway eyes?
‘So what do you think? Should I start seeing her?’
‘I’m not sure Jim. See, the answer would be simple if you’d started seeing the mother first. Then there’s no way you could start seeing the daughter, even if you finished with the mother.’
‘No?’
‘No way. ‘Cos once you start with the mother the daughter is like a step-daughter. So it’s sick.’
‘But you’re saying that as I met the daughter first. . .’
‘You realize, James, this endeavor is not going to improve the relationship between that woman up there and her daughter.’
Claire’s mum went back inside and emerged with a magazine and a green drink in a cocktail glass with a paper umbrella sticking out. She sat and sipped audaciously, her pinky finger cocked. She wasn’t at work and they were.
‘Look at her. She’s gorgeous. I don’t know why Claire is so mean to her, so nasty. Maybe my role in this could be more of a father figure, a bit of security for them both,’
‘You’re back with the daughter thing again. You can’t be a father figure to a girl you’ve been shagging.’
‘No, I guess not.’
‘And also, the mother is almost like your mother-in-law and you’re like a son-in-law, so she’s some sort of step-mother. You’d be, like, seeing your own mother.’
‘But step-mothers – they don’t love you like a real mother. They’re always evil, aren’t they? Didn’t you get fairy-stories in that home?’ He chucked his fag onto the concrete and ground it with his heel. He seemed to be churning inside with unhappy lust. ‘This fucking sun,’ he said, and went inside.
Jeff stayed to finish his tea and Claire’s mother sat back more comfortably on the deckchair, crossed her legs, and allowed one slim foot to slip part way out of its sandal. She sipped her drink, tapped her toes, bopped her head.
The trill of her mobile disturbed them both and Jeff watched her reach down, pick it up and cradle it against her ear. She chatted happily for a time until abruptly she jerked up out of her seat and began to prowl the balcony, her head nodding and shaking alarmingly, her arms flinging out this way and that, her fingers jabbing at invisible enemies, her mouth rattling staccato sentence after sentence into the phone. He watched and waited for something to happen.
Which it did. She screamed and tossed the phone off the balcony and it smacked against the concrete in front of him, fragments of metal and plastic spinning off into the air. Then she climbed up onto the table, put her leg over the balcony rail, heaved herself up, and sat astride it, wobbling drunkenly.
Jeff ran towards the building. ‘Careful! Get down!’ he called up. But she didn’t hear. Headphones on, she sat on the rail, swaying and gyrating, glass in one hand, fag in the other.
Should he call the police? Or Jim? The woman could plummet down at any moment and crack into the concrete, smashing into pieces like her phone. He called out again, but still no response. Maybe he was worrying unnecessarily. Maybe she did this sort of thing all the time. But he couldn’t help thinking of her daughter Claire, and how, despite her mother’s antics, she must surely love her really and how happy they both could be if Jim was somehow off the scene. Maybe there was a part for Jeff in all of this.
From Claire’s balcony came a long impossible moan, whose sound had no word, and he set off running towards the entrance to the flats, kicking a piece of broken mobile-phone casing out of the way as he went.
***
©2007 By David Gaffney