Going Home

It had been almost a month, as joyous, and as happy as I can ever remember a month ever being. My mother, almost radiant, gran, uncle Donald, old aunt Min all enjoying the return to rude health of my mother, every moment was wonderful. every day carefree and happy. Finally, my mother had decided that after such a long stay it was high time for us to cross the river and return to our home in East Cowes.

Our walk from West Cowes to East Cowes involved my mother being stopped by many of local ladies all of which were desperate for an exclusive update on her wellbeing. I listened to her lies and dithering from one subject to the next whilst the well-meaning ladies of the parish eyes narrowing and unblinking their expressions in pinched consternation, listened in coerced empathy. The whipping estuary wind and the loud grinding of the heavy chains on the short ferry crossing helped drown out yet more well-wishers.

Once over to East Cowes my mother busied her way from the chain ferry to The Spurs café which is on Clarence Road, where I had been promised a cheese roll and a milk shake.

In the Spurs Café we sat down close to the far counter beside the kitchen, whereupon Mrs Maskell fell upon my mother smothering her with kisses and hugs, both women enraptured in their joyful reunion. Soon Mr Maskell and the staff of the café were crowding excitedly around my mother in the small annexe area beside the counter.

The jangle of the entrance door to the café sounded; followed by a loud clattering of seats being pulled across the linoleum floor into position.

‘Hello… … Hello, insisted a voice calling high and loud from within the front of the café.

‘If it’s not too much trouble can I have a menu?

‘Maria Darling, can you see if there is a speciality board anywhere?’

I turned around from my seat in the outer annex to see the front of the small café darkened by the shadow of a huge motor car I knew would be that of a Humber Sceptre, a maroon Humber Sceptre which was parked immediately in front of the small entrance.to the café.

Seated at one of the pastel coloured metal bistro tables was a mother and her very pretty daughter.

An immediate flurry of activity surrounded the pair as sweet Molly Fry attended to their requests for refreshments, demands could be heard clearly in every sharp and flat whilst flaying hands and dramatic gestures reinforced her urgency. The last requirement was to bring a cold glass of Lemon …ard, and to be sure to place within it a scoop of Von… illa ice cream together with two straws, evidently it was Maria’s favourite.

As all this was taking place Mrs Maskell was huddled with my mother in a muffled giggle in the annex counter area of the café, liken to two naughty schoolgirls.

‘Here make yourself useful’, said Mr Maskell nodding in the general direction of the two seated customers in the front of the café. Thrusting a small plastic tray into my hands, upon which perilously balanced, was a tea pot, milk, sugar and plates, winking he said, imitating in La dee Dah as best he could, ‘tell ‘em young Molly will be through in a jiffy with the Von…illa ice cream and Lemon…ard.

I very carefully wobbled the tray to a standstill upon their table, smiling broadly into the pretty face of Maria, who smiled across at me in return and whispered, ‘Thank you.’

For the second time in as many days, my mind was in a whirl.

Half an hour later we were walking up the stony drive to the entrance of our home, a small flat, within the fading grandeur of Kent House, on York Avenue. As my mother turned the key slowly in the door, she suddenly took a sharp intake of breath and then gasping she stood leaning against the door for a moment to stem her almost uncontrollable shaking. She clutched her breast as though she’d been stabbed through the heart, eyes closed tight her face was contorted as though in pain, her mouth opened in a loud silent scream.

It was as though someone had switched on a switch; in an instant she was no longer my pretty, happy mother, she had become instead a desperate and instantly terrified woman who had returned to being at the mercy of those wicked vindictive Voices, the Voices that still dwelt here within our home in Kent House. The Voices had patiently laid in wait like avenging angels expecting her eventual return. Shaking and trembling, she entered the small flat, slamming the door hard behind her. I heard the key turn loudly in the lock, she was gone, leaving me and my small brown suitcase outside upon the doormat. After a moment or two I heard her sobbing and crying out to some entity. I knew from experience it would be a long, long wait, but hours later the front door did eventually open bidding me enter to the odious stench of disinfectant.