‘Mum doing your head in?’
‘Kind of,’ he sighed. The last thing he wanted to do was moan about her to Marco. He didn’t want to put him off visiting even more than he already was. ‘It’s a bit full on, that’s all, and I can’t escape. And she’s got two days off from tomorrow. You could come for the day, bring the kids; she’d love that.’
Marco didn’t say anything.
‘She’s in a good place, Marco.’
‘Yeah, but for how long?’
He couldn’t argue with the logic. So many times, they’d thought she’d turned a corner but she’d always returned to the same street, the one she walked with booze and the loss of another part of herself.
‘Is she in AA again?’ Marco asked.
‘She is.’
‘She still has a job?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you sure she’s going there?’ Gio had told him the truth about the pub job so it wasn’t a surprise when he asked this question.
‘I haven’t followed her to make sure but she’s out every day. She’s been paid – I’ve seen the evidence in her bank account because she used my iPad.’
Switching his thinking had been hard for Gio but he got to see his mother’s progress first hand; Marco didn’t. And until he did, until he came to see for himself, Gio wasn’t sure that Marco would ever believe that their mum was turning things around.
Gio was about to ask again when Marco could visit when the shrill fire station alarm in the background stopped their conversation in its tracks.
‘You need to come some time, Marco,’ he got in before his brother said goodbye and hung up the call so he could do his job. Gio imagined him pulling on his boots and his jacket, jumping onto the fire engine and heading off to a shout.
Gio would give anything to be doing the very same right now.
A little before lunchtime, Marianne called, but rather than it being to tell Gio she’d walked out on her job or that she couldn’t stick it – he’d had those phone calls more times than he cared to remember and had braced himself – she called to tell him she’d seen a room advertised for rent. After she told him the price, she added, ‘That’s including bills so I don’t have to worry about those on top, and it’s furnished.’
Floored at how together she sounded, Gio quickly rallied and picked up his iPad. He wanted to check the place out online for himself.
She told him the approximate area where the house was. ‘I can get the bus like I do now,’ she explained.
It was a short bus trip to work at the moment; she reached the office of the cleaning firm in less than thirty minutes and from there, the cleaners went off as a team to their various jobs in a little van. She’d even talked the other night about one day getting her driver’s licence – she’d never said anything like that before.
Looking at the area on a map, it was further than he’d thought. ‘It’ll be quite a trek to work.’
‘Stop fussing. Be pleased for me, Gio.’ With a huff, she pointed out, ‘This is what you want, isn’t it?’
‘I want you to be safe and happy, Mum, that’s all.’ His voice came out small and she mellowed.
‘It’s really not that far.’
‘No, I suppose not.’ But it didn’t stop him asking her for the exact address so he could find it online while she went back to work.
When the call ended, he let himself be happy that she was taking charge. He loved how elated she’d sounded – but then it reminded him of how she used to get that way after a couple of drinks. After two or three, she’d come alive, be good company, but then the really drunk Marianne showed up and it was another thing entirely.
Gio searched on the address and room to rent, found the advert online, and she was right; the price was reasonable. This would give his mum her independence back because it had to be hard having your son watching your every move. It would restorehis sanity too, at least as much as it could return when he wasn’t operating at full throttle with his wretched knee.
He looked on the map attached to the listing and zoomed in on where the house with the spare room was located and it was indeed near a bus stop so it could work even if the bus ride was longer. But on closer inspection, he spotted a couple of flies in the ointment – namely an off licence on the street corner and a pub at the other end of the road. He didn’t want to be negative, but wasn’t that tempting fate? One bad day could see her slipping into the off licence or into the pub and that would be that. Her sober days’ total would be no more and she’d have to start all over again. And nobody wanted that.
With nothing much else to do, he kept his leg elevated and on his iPad searched for other rooms to rent, but they were all so expensive. At these prices she’d have no money for food and he was pretty sure thatbills includeddidn’t mean you ate for free.
By mid-afternoon, Gio was going stir crazy. He had to get outside again. He’d already done several rounds of the daily exercises his physio had shown him and now, he took the painkillers even though his knee didn’t feel too bad. There wasn’t much daylight left but he didn’t care; he had to do this to keep his head straight. He’d go to the end of the path on those damn crutches, turn left and go round the block. He could walk it in fifteen minutes usually, run it in five, but he suspected it was going to take a heck of a lot longer than that this time.
