Chapter 7

7

Gio wasn't all that comfortable with his mum being on her own at his place but he was slowly getting used to it. He was on a day shift that would finish when she was still at work herself, which at least meant they had some head space from one another. And it gave them something to talk about when they were both home other than focusing on the past – he told her about his day, she talked about hers, although she did tell him that there wasn't all that much to say about cleaning and steered him to talk more about himself. Fair point, he supposed, and he indulged her, told her about life at the fire station, what it was like to go out on a shout, the work they did and the lives they saved. But he'd also glowed inwardly at the thought of her going out every day, to a job. It sounded so trivial, but it wasn't for her, and it was a welcome change. She was holding down employment and after almost a week, things were looking good. He only prayed it stayed this positive.

Gio arrived on shift, changed into his uniform and stood with his crew on parade while the officer in charge detailed their duties. Then it was on to checking all their equipment including breathing apparatus, the fire engine itself and the equipment on board.

Halfway through the morning, they set off to the primary school for a community visit.

‘What?' Mickey asked Gio, who gave him a look when he pulled up in the playground and set the sirens going and blared the horn to announce their arrival. ‘Kids love it.' Sure enough, little kids' faces lined the low-down windows.

‘Are you telling me that was all for them?' Gio laughed.

Mickey shrugged. He didn't deny that part of it was for him too.

The crew had the pupils trying out kit and using the hoses; it was a riot. Gio didn't spend much time with children aside from his brother's two but kids were usually a captive audience when the fire engine rolled into view and once the demonstrations started.

They were almost back at the fire station just in time for lunch when they were radioed to attend a job less than two miles away.

‘Roger that.' Mickey, a skilled driver, had the engine turned the right way in seconds before they bumped along a side street and emerged onto the road to take them directly to the bed and breakfast down by the river.

The shout was one of their most straightforward – a kitchen fire which hadn't got too bad thanks to the owner's quick thinking to call the professionals. Too many times, the crew saw fires that had gone out of control and heard owners' stories of how they'd tried to put out the flames themselves first before calling 999. Unfortunately, some fires were a beast and wouldn't go down without a bigger fight than a simple fire extinguisher could handle.

Back at the station after lunch, the crew was onto a training drill, the physical kind rather than being in the meeting room, which was always Gio's preference. The crew challenged their physical ability, their use of apparatus, ensured their competence by pulling ladders from the top of the engine and putting them up against the training tower to simulate a rescue from the top floor. And before they left for the day, there was a lecture, a debrief, and more cleaning of equipment.

Gio didn't go straight home after shift; he went to the next town and the supermarket there because he knew they sold sparklers. He didn't approve of home firework displays but sparklers he could get on board with and thinking about his mum's face when he showed them to her later was enough to send him into the store.

He came out with four packets of giant sparklers. She'd love them. They'd wait until dark, though, when they'd look their best.

Gio drove home. He rounded the corner near the river to drive along the road parallel to the water, and stopped to allow a woman pushing a pram to get safely from one side to the other.

He pressed the accelerator to go on his way but at the same time saw a figure sitting on the bench overlooking the river.

He was about to pull into the parking space, head over and ask his mum what she was doing here when she should be at work, but he found his hands firmly gripping the wheel and staying on course for home.

Marianne was supposed to have another couple of hours at her job. Had she finished early? Had she been fired?

He'd usually sprawl out on the sofa when he got home and take a break but Gio couldn't rest, not until his mum came home and he knew what was going on.

He went out for a run. It was surprising the energy you could pluck out of thin air when you had something on your mind. It wasn't the first time he'd pounded the pavements to solve a problem, probably wouldn't be the last.

Following his run, he had a shower, burnt his tongue gulping down a mug of coffee, all the while watching the clock. She'd be back any minute.

And when he heard her keys in the lock, he was in the kitchen and braced himself.

He kept his back to her as he pulled out the two pieces of almost-burnt toast from the toaster and dropped them onto a plate. ‘How was work?'

‘It was fine.'

He scraped his knife across the top of the butter, the jagged, yellow pieces breaking rather than coming off in nice, smooth curls. ‘Tired?' He heard her pull out a chair.

‘I am. You must be too. How was work for you?'

‘Busy.'

And when he ripped a hole in the surface of the second piece of toast, the butter way too firm to be doing this, he lost it. The knife clanked against the china. ‘You're lying to me.'

‘What?'

He turned to face her. He watched her. Had she been drinking? He couldn't tell, not from here, and he daren't take a step closer. ‘I said, you're lying to me. I saw you by the river when you should've been at work.'

‘You've been spying on me?'

‘No, I haven't! But I think perhaps I should've been!'

‘Don't yell at me.'

‘Have you been drinking?'

Her chair scraped back and she picked up her handbag which, he wouldn't mind betting, had a bottle of something inside and she knew it because rather than walking away as he assumed was her intention, she yanked the sides of the bag and thrust it under his nose so he could see its contents. ‘Take a look for yourself.'

He did.

‘Satisfied?'

‘Satisfied that you've lied to me? No way. You're living in my house; I deserve the truth.'

But rather than argue back, she looked about to burst and stormed out. He heard the front door slam.

He ate his overdone toast, made another coffee. He wasn't going to go looking for her. He thought about calling Marco but Marco would say I told you so . And he'd be right.

Gio was surprised when he heard the front door open less than ten minutes later and rather than sneak off upstairs to avoid him, Marianne came into the kitchen and sat down opposite him at the table.

‘I promised myself that if we argued, I wouldn't walk away.' She looked up at him through eyes that were dry now but the red rims suggested she may have been crying before. ‘Can I explain?'

He shrugged, tired of the same old routine.

‘It turns out I couldn't stomach the smell of stale booze in that pub. I got there on the first day, opened the door and I almost threw up. I left, I called them when I got a couple of streets away, I told them that my accommodation had fallen through, that I had nowhere to stay. I apologised; they said it was regrettable. That was it.'

Was it believable? Yes. Was it true? He had no idea.

‘Gio, I swear that's the truth.'

‘Then why didn't you tell me?'

‘Because… I had a job and then I jacked it in. I knew how disappointed you'd be.'

‘And I am… but not when I know the reason.'

‘I guess it was silly to have even taken the position in the first place but it was near you, I wanted a chance to see at least one of my boys and start trying to make amends.'

He wondered, was that the wording they used at AA? Did that mean she really did go to those meetings?

‘What have you been doing every day, Mum?'

‘I've been wandering around town, keeping a low profile in case, you know…'

‘In case I found out.' He ran a hand across his jaw. ‘Didn't you realise that sooner or later, you'd have had to tell me? Without any money coming in?—'

‘I know, you'd have found out. But I'm looking for alternative work, I promise. And if in a couple of weeks, I don't find any, then I'll move on.'

He let the words settle. She was shivering and he realised she had a coat but it wasn't thick enough to stand up to late autumn temperatures, never mind the winter chill once it arrived.

Without asking, he got the carton of soup from the fridge, tipped it into a saucepan and warmed it up for her. She sat there in silence, letting him digest her revelations.

As he served the soup with a bread roll on the side, he watched her. It was as though she'd removed a mask and now he could see vulnerability, the fear she'd likely kept hidden once upon a time behind laughs and smiles conjured up by the evils of alcohol. And instead of making her talk any more, he let her be, let her eat, let her feel as though she was safe.

He watched as she used the last of the bread roll to mop up the remnants of soup in her bowl. As she'd eaten, he'd thought about telling her to leave, to go back up north and find work there. It would get him off the hook, let him go back to the way things were; it would be easier. But watching her, he was sure she was telling the truth, that she was doing her best to get herself together. In all the times she'd claimed it before, he'd never seen her quite so determined. Or was it his wishful thinking making him view her that way?

Whatever one it was, he knew he wouldn't forgive himself if he didn't see this through. If she messed it up and eventually left then that would be it. He wasn't sure even he had it in him after this to give her yet another chance. There was being kind and then there was self-preservation and sometimes looking after yourself became the only way to survive.

She put her bowl onto her plate and took it over to the sink without looking at him. He heard the plate clatter against the draining board as she misjudged the distance.

‘Gio, I promise I am trying.'

He said nothing.

‘I'm looking for more work; I'm doing my best.' She turned around when she heard him push his chair back from the table. ‘Where are you going?'

‘I need to get us some dinner. I'll grab takeaway, save either of us cooking.' He paused in the doorway. ‘Will you be here when I get back?'

‘Do you want me to be?'

He walked out of the room briefly to retrieve the sparklers and back in the kitchen, he set them down on the table. ‘I do, and we can use these.'

Gio expected her to smile, which she did. But what he didn't expect was for her whole face to light up, for her to put her hands across her mouth to hold in the emotion and for him to be transported back to his childhood in a way that almost knocked him off his feet.

That evening, after they'd eaten their takeaway, they went out into his back garden and lit the sparklers one after the other.

‘Hold them at arm's length, remember,' he instructed.

‘So bossy.' But she did as she was told.

With the lit sparkler, she did her best to write Marianne in the air. ‘There are too many letters, easy for you with only three.'

‘Why don't you just write Mum .'

His suggestion was met with a wide smile.

‘M… u… m.' The letters sparkled against the night sky one by one and Gio sensed the poignancy of the moment wasn't lost on either of them.

When each sparkler was spent, they dropped it into the bucket of water he had nearby. ‘Sparklers hold their heat for a long time,' he reminded her.

‘Ever the firefighter,' she replied. ‘You and Marco both love your jobs; I'm proud of my boys.'

Marco had gone into the profession first and Gio a few years after. Joining the fire service had appealed to Marco after a careers fair when he had no idea what else to do but knew he didn't want to be in an office. Gio was built the same way and so when it came to the time he had to make some decisions about his future, it seemed like a decent career. And he'd never looked back. Neither of them had.

Marianne balled up the empty wrappers from the sparklers and Gio opened the top of the wheelie bin for her to drop them inside. ‘You both grew up to be fine men. And you did that in spite of me.'

She prompted him to close the bin when he stood there, the lid still up and in his hand.

He didn't address the last part of the claim – he wasn't sure what to say – so he went with, ‘There's nothing else I'd rather do,' before they headed inside and into the warm.

‘Are you sure you don't mind me going to the AA meeting tonight?' Marianne asked as Gio set the dishwasher to go a few nights later. ‘It's at your local town hall; I thought maybe it's too close. It saves me the bus fare, see, and the extra time it'll take.' She pulled on her coat, ready to leave.

Gio and Marianne had spent three consecutive evenings together, just the two of them, and rather than Gio feeling suffocated, like he needed to get the hell out of his own house, they settled into a routine. Not working, Marianne had cleaned his house from top to bottom, she'd cooked meals that weren't too complicated, and better than that, she'd looked for jobs. He'd seen evidence of it in her email account, all the applications, the effort she was putting in.

‘I've said it's fine, Mum. You go.' He had a sudden thought. ‘I could maybe walk you there, meet you after.'

He'd expected her to say no, claim that he didn't trust her or tell him that this wasn't something she wanted to share with him. But she didn't. She zipped up the coat they'd found for her in the charity shop – a warm, faux-fur-lined one that would see her through winter – and told him to hurry up as she didn't want to be late.

The winds of the last few days had gone, the temperature was falling but there was something about being out in the crisp evening air that was pretty special.

While Marianne went to her meeting, Gio walked down to the river and sat on the bench he'd seen his mum on that day. If he hadn't seen her, how long would it have taken her to admit the truth: that she hadn't done a single shift on the job that had brought her this way in the first place?

He stared out at the river but he didn't sit on the bench for long – it was too cold – and so he walked alongside the water and back until it was time to meet his mum.

When he arrived at the town hall, she came running down the steps waving a piece of paper.

‘What's that?'

‘It's a cleaning company; they had those little tear strips on the bottom of an ad on the noticeboard.'

He looked at the logo. He'd heard of them. ‘They're a big company.' Maybe too big – she'd likely need experience and references. But he wasn't going to put a dampener on it.

He'd made the right choice not to put any doubt in her mind because as soon as Marianne got home, she applied for the job online and the very next morning, she had an interview.

The interview was at the company's premises. Gio took her there and rather than waiting around to make sure she did what she claimed, he was instead waiting around and keeping everything crossed for good news.

She came out happy enough but it wasn't until the early evening that she got the call she'd been wishing for.

She came running at him when he came downstairs with his holdall, ready for work.

‘I got it, Gio! I got the job!' She didn't know what to do with herself, doubling back into the lounge, hands on her hips, her breathing ragged. ‘I have a job, Gio. A proper one. A real one, one that might last!'

He wrapped her in a hug and held her until she'd calmed down a bit. This was the kind of buzzy mood that reminded him of days when she'd been happy about something – anything – and usually, it had ended up with a celebration, with booze in amounts that would make most people's hair curl.

‘Well done. When do you start?' he asked.

‘Tomorrow lunchtime. Oh, Gio, it's for a reputable agency. I'll have a steady income, I'll have clients – that's what they call them, clients . And they'll train me up, the hours are flexible. I never thought they'd be interested in me, but they are, they really are.'

‘Mum, it's really great.'

She'd already picked up her phone. ‘I have to tell Marco and the kids.'

Gio left for work, hoping Marco answered the call, hoping he'd see what was happening with their mother, that she really was turning her life around.

Everything was changing and in a good way.

And by the time he arrived at the fire station, his brother had messaged him to say he was pleased about Marianne's new job.

Was it too much to hope that, finally, things were looking up in the Mayhan family?