Black Boxes. Caroline Smailes
~Is that dramatic enough?~
It was more like a leap with both feet flying into my stomach.
[sound: distant rumbling of low flying aeroplane]
[sound: banging]
It was almost four weeks after you told me to have an abortion.
[voiced: abortion]
[volume: low]
The story goes that your mother was visiting Newcastle.
Because you weren't from Newcastle.
You were born in a house in a village.
In a village called Mortney.
A village lost in between Liverpool and Chester.
A village where people spoke in money.
[voiced: sings money money money]
[volume: high]
And your community clung to a village hall that was thatched in gold.
And a church, where the preacher was at least one hundred and seven.
Your neighbours fasted for twenty-four hours before communion.
And the preacher spoke in repeated riddles.
Chastising those who orgasm outside of marriage.
I know because he baptised Pip.
~Do you remember?~
He talked of whores and entrapment whilst splashing water on Pip's head.
I still quiver.
[sound: splashing water]
Backwards forwards sideways memory.
~Where are my tablets?~
~Where are my tablets?~
[sound: high-pitched scream]
[silence]
The story goes that your mother was in Newcastle.
Your mother had been giving one of her seminars and she had expected you to meet her for dinner.
It had been a definite date that had been made on the first Sunday of that month.
Of April.
After the pregnancy test.
And you had stood her up.
And that was so very out of character.
Away from your assumed role in her performance.
[sound: a guttural laugh]
You did not jilt your mother.
No one did that.
Your mother did not abide such behaviour.
Abide.
One of your words.
Not mine.
The story continues.
She had driven to your flat.
I don't know how long she had waited for you.
I don't know where you were supposed to meet her.
~Isn't it odd how some details never lock into a memory?~
I wouldn't have overheard the conversation.
And even if I had overheard the backward tongue.
I did not speak your language.
You knew that.
That's why you permitted my being in the same room.
Permitted.
One of your words.
Not mine.
And when your mother telephoned, I would sit in silence.
If you could have stopped me breathing every first Sunday of the month.
Between the hours of one and three.
Then you would have.
[sound: unrecognisable, perhaps muffled sob]
I was always silent when your mother called.
She was never to know that I was there.
[silence]
I am aware that soon you will have stopped me breathing.
~Is it the first Sunday of the month?~
[silence]
Your mother had arrived at your flat and she had found that your curtains were closed.
And that you were not answering your telephone.
And so.
I returned from university and your mother telephoned me.
~How did she get my telephone number?~
I've never asked that before.
I don't think that I have.
~Have I asked that before?~
[voiced: my memory is falling]
[volume: low]
I remember hearing her voice for the first time.
It was gravelly.
A smoker's voice.
~Did she smoke then?~
In my memory, I picture her with a long thin cigarette holder.
Elegant and white.
With her hands always gloved.
My memory is not as it once was.
[voiced: my memory is falling]
[volume: low]
I fill in the holes.
~Does that lessen the value of the memory?~
The lines have blurred.
Your mother told me that you hadn't met her.
She shouted at me that you hadn't met her.
Your mother told me that she was sitting outside my flat in her car.
She told me that she was desperate to use the little girl's room.
I call it a toilet.
She must have been outside my flat when I came in.
She must have watched me come in.
~Had you described me to her?~
~What words had you used?~
~Were they backwards mother tongue words?
She asked if she could come into my flat.
And use my little girl's room.
I had never met her before.
You had never wanted me to meet her.
She had never wanted to meet me.
~What could I say?~
I couldn't let your mother pee in her pants.
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