Underneath by Anne Goodwin

Author:Anne Goodwin [Goodwin, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction
ISBN: 9781908600578
Publisher: Inspired Quill
Published: 2017-05-24T23:00:00+00:00

Two glass-panelled doors hung between me and the old man. He leant his forehead against the glass, indifferent to my presence. I opened the first door and stepped into the porch. The man raised his head and pounded the glass with his palms. I scuffed my trainers on the horsehair doormat and pressed the bell.

The captive rattled the handle on the other side. He wore a brown tweed suit, like a country squire in a TV sitcom, his head capped in silvery down. He didn’t acknowledge my smile. An attendant tapped the man’s shoulder and eased him round. She led him a few paces up the corridor before scooting back to open the door. “May I help you?” She wore thick blue eyeshadow and her frizzed blonde hair was held in a loose ponytail. Her badge said Alexa, her accent sounded East European.

I explained whom I was visiting as she dragged me inside. She could barely hold back from kissing my hand. “Marjorie? She is such a dear. Makes us all smile with her saucy songs. We’re not supposed to have favourites, but we’d all jump at the chance to take your mother home.”

I tried not to look too surprised as I slipped off my denim jacket and followed Alexa to the day room. The fuggy air reeked of gravy and disinfectant.

About twenty high-sprung chairs bordered the walls, most bearing geriatrics in various states of mindlessness. Green-coated attendants fussed around them, dispensing pills in doll-sized plastic cups. I exchanged a perfunctory nod with the Malaysian-looking guy I recognised from my last visit. A radio burbled in the background: a teen station playing gangsta rap. Alexa said: “We can take her to her room if you want to be private.”

Mum was slumped in a mud-coloured wipe-clean chair neighbouring the fish tank. She’d had her hair cut and curled since New Year, and pink patches of scalp peeped through the white froth like a baby in a bubble bath. Her bony frame was draped in a polyester shirt-waister: fountains of rosebuds on a grey background. I shuffled my feet, conscious of my first time without female support. I fanned my face and undid a button on my polo shirt.

Alexa crouched beside her and stroked her wizened arm. Mum blinked into consciousness, squeezing a handkerchief clutched in her hand like a parody of an executive toy. “Marjorie,” said Alexa. “Your son is here to see you!”

Mum seemed to grow another inch as she hitched herself up in the chair. She didn’t look straight past me like she had when I’d come with the twins. She didn’t avert her gaze towards someone more alluring, as she had when I introduced her to Liesel. She focused on me, and nothing but me, from my trainers to my cropped black hair. Then she let out a scream that made even the rapper on the radio pause. “Get out! This is a ladies’ waiting room.”

Alexa’s cheeks were flushed as she patted Mum’s hand. “Marjorie! That is no way to speak to your son when he has travelled all this way to see you.

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