Page 40 of Close to You

For a while, we sit and watch the television together. We’d do this when I was young, but, back then, it was something likeArt AttackorFun House. I was an ITV girl.

The auction show ends and then, amazingly, another begins. I wonder if this is all that exists on daytime TV. Mum gives a running commentary on everything that’s on screen. Everyone is an ‘idiot’, ‘stupid’, ‘ugly’ or wearing something ‘hideous’. She doesn’t seem to have a good word to say about anyone.

I don’t interrupt because it will be met by an indignant silence. Sometimes it is nice to hear her voice, regardless of what she’s saying.

It’s only after we’ve been sitting for twenty minutes that I spot what’s sitting next to the TV. I get up and pick up the small frame and return to the sofa. Mum doesn’t move and it takes me a short while to figure out what it is. It’s a strip of white cardboard that’s scuffed and a little battered, which has been framed by dark cherry wood. As best I can see, it is a ticket for a New York Mets’ baseball game from 1979. It takes me a good minute to understand what the black squiggle across the centre actually represents.

I hold it up, waiting until Mum turns slightly towards me.

‘Where did you get this?’ I ask.

‘Get what?’

I don’t want to pass it over in case she drops it. My fingers are shaking as I hold it up for her to see.

‘This ticket, Mum. Where did you get it?’

‘I’ve had that for ages.’

‘You haven’t. I was here two weeks ago and it wasn’t here.’

She crosses her arms and turns back to the TV. I wouldn’t usually push an issue like this, but it’s too important.

‘Where did it come from?’ I ask again.

The frown lines deepen around the rim of her eyes. ‘Just put it down.’

I move until I’m standing in front of the television, blocking her view. ‘Did David give this to you?’

With a speed I’ve not seen her produce in years, Mum reaches forward and snatches away the frame. ‘It’s mine!’

She holds the frame to her chest, cradling it like she’s clutching a newborn.

It wasn’t that hard to figure out once I realised what the scrawl on the ticket actually was. The ‘J’ at the beginning was as clear as could be.

It was the one thing she told David she always wanted.

The one thing she always said she regretted not getting.

The one thing she craved.

John Lennon’s autograph.

Nineteen

THE WHY

Three years, three months ago

I’m so tired that I almost fall through the front door. I go to hang my coat on the hook, but there is already a row of jackets there, as if David is breeding them. I move a couple of his so that they’re on the same peg, and then hang my own. After that, I head to the kitchen and drop my keys into the Tigger pot, before opening the fridge. I left some chicken in there last night – an Asda rotisserie job – but that is gone. So is what was left of the apple juice I’d bought myself.

David is in the living room, his feet up on the coffee table as he simultaneously taps away on his phone and watches TV. It’s the exact same position I left him in this morning. He barely turns as he mutters ‘All right’ in my direction.

‘Did you eat the chicken?’ I ask.

‘Yeah.’

‘I was going to have it for my tea.’