Another Mother's Son Read Free Page B

I wait for him to return, I smile at a couple who are lifting a television from the back of their people-carrier while their son yells instructions. More items are removed from the boot. A small fridge, a microwave oven, a rail of clothes. Shadows appear on the tarmac, generous splashes of black, as the sun breaks through cloud.
    A girl poses with wide-apart arms and an open-mouthed Hollywood smile by the entrance to the block. Her father aims his phone at her. Another family stands by, luggage piled up beside them, waiting their turn for the celebrity shoot. Out come the phones and cameras. There is something sick-making about photography.

5
    A SINGLE BED, desk and cupboard, all of the same blonde imitation wood, are arranged along the length of two walls and stand on a mottled brown carpet. Like a hotel bedroom, Room 8 offers a blank page on which unconnected strangers can write. I feel overwhelmed by everything that might happen to Oliver here and also by the dullness of dull student days. I put down the bags I am carrying and go over to the square, metal-framed window that overlooks the car park.
    A middle-aged man trundles two vast suitcases along the paving, his paunch thrust into prominence by the backward drag. The suitcase wheels make a noise like horses clopping in rhythm until they collide. He stops to unlock them, then sets off again. A girl follows. She struggles with an armful of garments, some loose, some enclosed in plastic covers that balloon in the breeze.
    â€˜Are there enough days in the term to wear all those clothes?’ I say.
    I turn round and see a tall youth wearing my son’s grey marl fleece and blue jeans. He is hunched over his phone. Sun-bleached hair flops forwards. He is oblivious to his surroundings. Neither man nor boy, he is in some significant way nothing to do with me, though Oliver’s possessions are everywhere – his backpack and bags on the floor, his parka flung on the bed.
    The front door bangs again and on the other side of the wall something clatters to the ground. ‘Da-ad. Help me.’
    â€˜She’s dropped the lot,’ Oliver says and the slip-sliding youth vanishes.
    â€˜I hope it won’t be too noisy living so close to the entrance,’ I say. ‘Drunken revellers. People knocking on the window if they’ve lost their key. I remember—’
    Oliver interrupts. ‘It doesn’t make any difference. They’re just rooms.’
    This is the case. I am struck by his attitude – and proud of it – though aware that the realism is caused more by his attachment to his phone than by the taking up of a considered philosophical position. One day, the external world and the inner world will vanish, replaced by a series of beeps.
    â€˜What do you want to do?’ I try out the lighting; open and shut cupboards and drawers. Raw dust of cut chipboard has settled in crevices. I pick out a long dark hair from a drawer and drop it in the wastepaper basket.
    â€˜I dunno. Unpack. See who’s around.’
    â€˜What about eating? Shall we go into town and find some lunch?’
    â€˜No, it’s all right. You go home if you like.’
    â€˜Really? You must be hungry, aren’t you? We could get fish and chips and brave the beach.’
    He shakes his head.
    â€˜Let’s go and find the kitchen,’ I say. ‘Case the joint.’
    â€˜What? Oh, it’ll be obvious.’
    I think of my own mother placing a potted scented geranium on the windowsill of my first room at university, the one that looked out onto a brick wall. Later, she folded up the drab bedcover and hid it in a cupboard.
    â€˜OK, then. I may as well go,’ I say.
    It is only after I have slung my bag over my shoulder and stand dangling the car keys that Oliver comes to and registers what is happening. ‘You leaving, Mum?’ He appears perplexed. He puts his phone in the back pocket of his jeans.
    â€˜We