2004

SHORT STORY COMPETITION

Highly Commended

Louise's Room

By Paul Cuddihy

SHE was old enough to be his mother but she kissed him like she wasn't. He tensed. Surprised. Shocked. But he didn't pull away. They stood toe-to-toe, two shadows boxing in a corner, tonguesjostling noisily for dominance. Helen's eyes slowly began to adjust to the dark. Outlines of cuddly toys crept into view. His arms were rigid round her waist. Her hands gripped the back of his neck.
The house was quiet. Empty. Mike was at the pub, laughing and joking with friends and strangers, getting drunker with each passing moment of this lingering kiss. It's what he did now. He would sleep on the couch tonight. Again. That was the unspoken agreement when he was drunk, but it was becoming a comfortable arrangement.
A hand crept slowly over her hip and rested on her bum. Gentle. Apprehensive. She was a teenager again, sitting on a bench in an unlit swing park, fumbling limbs probing to see how far they could get. She smiled.
"What is it?" he asked, breaking off the kiss. "Nothing."
"What's so funny?"
"It's nothing," she whispered, pulling his head back towards hers. She could feel his resistance.
"Sean, it's nothing."
She locked her lips onto his to silence any further protest and his hands gripped her bum more forcefully. Her fingers forked through his hair. Thick and unruly, it was beneath him to give it any attention. She had often wished for five minutes with a pair of sharp scissors. Now it dawned on her, its untidiness was cultivated, deliberate.
He had appeared one day in their kitchen, standing nervously near the back door as if he was planning to flee at any moment. His eyes were locked on to his feet so it was hard not to notice his hair.
"Mum, this is Sean," said Louise.
"Hi, Sean. Nice to meet you."
His headjerked up briefly as he muttered "Hi," and she caught a glimpse of his face. It disappeared from view just as quickly. She smiled at Louise who raised her eyebrows hopefully, searching for parental approval.
Louise had served his name up at dinner one night. Mike didn't notice but that was no surprise. He would float in and out of conversations, contributing little, remembering less. Only when Paul was home from university would he talk more than he ate as father and son traded football opinions, mother and daughter mute with disinterest.
But Helen heard the name. Sean. Over and over again. She studied her daughter speaking through mouthfuls of spaghetti bolognese. For the first time Helen could see her beauty. As a young woman. Seventeen years old. Her blonde hair rested on her shoulders. They had gone to the hairdressers the week before. Just the two of them. Lunch. Shopping. A day to treasure.
It was the sparkle in her eyes that Helen noticed. Those big blue eyes
- she got them from her dad - gave her secret away. It was something only a mother would notice and Helen smiled. But it was tinged with sadness. She would always be her baby but she was no longer a child.
Sean's hand slipped under her blouse and his fingers crawled up and down her back. They lingered on her bra strap, then moved away. She felt him press against her leg. He was excited. She began to step back slowly towards the bed. Sean was dragged along like a pin attached to a magnet.
He was in her eye-line. His picture. Stuck on the wall above Louise's desk. She knew it was him, even in the dark. She cleaned the room at least twice a week and everything in it was committed to memory; the books scattered on the desk, clothes abandoned over the chair, the framed picture above the bed. And Sean, smiling on the wall. Louise had taken it on holiday, the first time they had gone away together. Just the two of them. He was sitting on a rock, the Mediterranean glistening in the background, sunglasses pushed on to the top of his head.
Mike hadn't been happy about it. She had always been his wee girl.
"But she's eighteen," Helen said.
"Well, I think that's too young."
"They've been going out for nearly a year now."
" SO."
"So if they're going to do anything, it doesn't matter if they go away on holiday or not."
He sighed and shook his head as Helen took his hand.
"Trust her, Mike. She's a good girl."
He grunted and she knew he wouldn't protest any more. Louise had told her first. In secret. To get her support. Helen tried to remember being eighteen. Her parents would never have agreed even if she'd had the nerve to ask. She could imagine what her father would have said, while her mother silently nodded in the background. First time she went away with a boy was her honeymoon.
She knew Louise's room so well but misjudged the distance to the bed and they toppled onto it. Helen lay with Sean on top of her. She tried to slide further up the bed and there was a squeak underneath her.
"What was that?" Sean asked, pushing himself up by his hands. He still hovered over her. Helen laughed.
"Don't worry. It's only this."
She dragged a Minnie Mouse from under her and pressed its tummy. It squeaked. She laughed again and the trace of a smile broke out across Sean's face. Helen threw the toy onto the floor. Sean stared at her. He was serious again. It had been rare to glimpse any other expression but she couldn't really blame him.
Helen didn't waste any time trying to imagine what he was thinking about. He was twenty-two. How could she know what was going through his mind? She could never figure out her own son when he was that age. Paul would float in and out of their lives like a distant acquaintance. He had been living in Manchester, studying politics and history. He didn't know what he wanted to do when he was finished but he didn't seem to care. Any time they tried to ask him, he'd just shrug and mumble vaguely.
Mike would sometimes lose patience but Helen tried not to join in the criticism. Paul was only home once a month and she didn't want to spoil it. He had planned to stay in Manchester. There was a girl, Frankie, but she ended up following him back to Glasgow. Helen would sometimes meet her for lunch. Helen liked her. She was confident. Determined. Organised. She knew Frankie was good for her son. And she was good for Helen as well. They had started kissing again but Helen wasn't comfortable. Sean's hip was pressing against her and though she tried moving under him, it made no difference.
"Let me up," she said.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
He rolled off her and stood at the edge of the bed. She guided him back and he sat down as she stood in front of him. She began unbuttoning her blouse as he watched, hands clasped together in his lap as if in prayer. Helen's fingers were trembling. Her blouse hung open and they stared at each other, neither wanting to blink or look away. She let the blouse fall silently to the floor, then unclipped her bra and slipped it off.
Helen shivered. She didn't know what to do with her arms. Should she fold them? Let them hang listlessly at her side? Put her hands on her hips? Defiant. She had been in control. Right up to this moment. Now she felt nervous.
He was staring at her. At her breasts. She wanted to know what he was thinking. Of her. Of them. Would he compare them to Louise's? But that wasn't fair. Helen was older. Forty-nine. With two kids. What did her expect? If he had seen her twenty-five years ago, before Paul, before Louise, he would have seen her as she was meant to be.
Sean stretched out his hand and touched hers, tugging her towards him. Their knees collided and his lips kissed her nipple. Gently. She closed her eyes and ran her fingers through his hair. It was so familiar to her touch. The minutes drifted by as he continued kissing her breasts. It felt strange. Helen couldn't remember the last time anyone other than Mike had touched her. She felt relaxed, almost sleepy. Sean's tongue teased and traced as his hands tugged at the zip of her skirt. There was only silence in the room. She could barely hear him breathe.
He would have sat here before. In this room. With Louise standing where Helen was now. Maybe she was in his mind now. Louise. His fiance.
They had sat like giggling teenagers - they were twenty-one - as Louise broke the news. Helen hugged her daughter while the two men shook hands, a nod from the elder to the younger. Then Mike kissed his daughter while Helen and Sean swapped awkward pecks on the cheek. A bottle of wine appeared and laughter filled the house. They were talking about their future but no date had been set.
"We're still young," Louise said. "We'll probably wait four or five years."
Helen wanted to ask why. Why now? What was the point? Making plans but planning nothing. Her own engagement had only been six months. But she knew what the answer would be, and she couldn't argue with 'love' even if she wanted to.
Yet wedding brochures did appear, and the house echoed with talk of dresses and cakes and photographers and reception venues and cars and bridesmaids. Mother and daughter would whisper conspiratorially while Mike contributed occasional references to the cost of it all. Louise just laughed and told him she and Sean were saving up. He wasn't convinced.
Sean was on top of her. His head buried into her neck as he thrust silently back and forth. Helen gripped his back, like a cat with a claw-cushion. Her eyes were shut. Tight. She tried to forget where she was, who she was. She wanted to be someone else, but it was impossible. Not now. Not here.
Louise's bed. Where she had slept since she outgrew her cot. Well, maybe not the same one. They had changed it once or twice. And Louise kept appearing behind her eyes, sometimes a child, sometimes a woman. Always her daughter. Helen wasn't religious but she wondered if Louise was watching her.
What would she be thinking? What could Helen say? There were no words. She dug her nails deeper into Sean's skin. He flinched. Her legs were wrapped around his and she could feel his hot skin against her own. Still, she shivered.
It wasn't the first time she had imagined Louise watching her. Sometimes she would talk to her. When she was on her own. Usually in this room. She would tell her what was going on.
"Your dad's still at West Park. They wanted him to go for the assistant head job but he didn't fancy it. Said he'd miss the classroom too much. You know what he's like. And your brother's doing well. You know he moved back up to Glasgow. Wanted to be closer to home. He's got a job on a newspaper. Frankie moved up too. I think you met her once. She's nice. You'd like her. And me? I'm doing okay, darling. Don't you worry about me. I'll be fine."
They had lain together in silence, his head resting on her chest. She could feel his breath on her breast, his heartbeat on her stomach, the hairs on his legs brushing against her smooth limbs. Would they have done this? Sean and her daughter. Louise. Her beautiful baby.
He sprung up almost as soon as his first tear caressed her skin. Helen had only seen him cry once. At the funeral. Out the corner of her watery eye. He wept into his hands while his mum threw a helpless arm around his shoulders.
Helen rolled herself in the duvet and faced the wall as Sean dressed quickly. The door creaked as he made his escape. Taking the stairs two at a time. She was glad to be on her own. Relieved that there had been no awkward words. What could they have talked about with so many years between them? The one thing that linked them was the only thing they could not mention.
Now she could hear voices. Deep. Loud. Mike was home. Pouring another drink. Trying to persuade Sean to join him.
She buried her head into the pillow, took a deep breath. She wanted it to remind her of Louise. Like freshly peeled apples that used to follow her from room to room even after Louise had moved out. But she could only smell him. Sean. And that felt right as well. In this room. She had washed him out of these covers so many times before.
Mike was talking loudly. Probably standing in front of the TV, glass in hand. Taking gulps between every sentence while Sean nursed his own drink. Being reminded every few minutes to "Get it down you." There would be two men falling asleep on the couch tonight.