Selma
Kent, UK
15 May 1992
My mother looked awful. Her once heart-shaped face was bloated, her complexion blotchy and red. She looked more like eighty than fifty-five. It was a shock to see her like that.
She stumbled towards me and I backed away, blinking. Was I hallucinating?
‘I used to come here with you and your dad,’ she slurred. ‘Is that why you’re here too? Do you remember?’ She frowned. ‘You were young though, just a babe.’
‘You’re drunk.’
‘I’m always drunk.’ She laughed, then started spluttering, covering her mouth with her spotted hand. ‘Where’s my granddaughter then? You had one, didn’t you? I’ve seen you both looking miserable in that café in Queensbay.’
‘You’ve been to Queensbay?’ I asked.
‘Why shouldn’t I have been? I’m a resident too, you know.’
‘Resident? I don’t understand.’
She smiled, revealing yellow gapped teeth. ‘I own the hotel there.’
I froze.
‘You know the one,’ she continued. ‘The Queensbay Hotel? Not that it’s done me much good,’ she grumbled.
That was when it dawned on me.
My mother was Idris’s stepmother.
‘Oh Jesus,’ I said, putting my hand to my mouth. ‘You married the owner, Mr Peterson.’
‘Yes, and that little thief son of his ran off with my money.’
Thief.
So my mother was the one who’d scrawled that graffiti on the cave. She was the one Idris had been scared of all this time. My mother and her imaginary family.
‘He isn’t a thief,’ I spat. ‘You swindled his father out of that money, out of the whole hotel.’
‘I didn’t,’ my mother said, folding her arms and glaring at me. ‘He signed it over to me fair and square.’
‘I know you,’ I said, striding towards her and jabbing my finger at her. ‘You would have manipulated him.’
She shrugged. ‘Needs must. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have done the same?’
I shook my head. ‘I wouldn’t.’
She laughed a bitter laugh that sent seagulls squawking away. ‘I’ve been watching you, Selma. All set up in that cave, deceiving those fools, pretending you believe all the shit they spout. All in the hope you’d get that hotel off the man they call Idris.’ She shook her head. ‘I know that kid from when he was this high,’ she said, her hand to her chest. ‘Snivelling whining, useless little boy. You saw that weakness in him and homed in, just like I did with his father.’
‘Rubbish. I don’t want the hotel. I didn’t even know he’d lived there when I met him.’
‘Then what did you want from him?’ she asked, cocking her head. ‘Why did you leave your family? I might have been a shit mother, let’s face it. But I never left you, no matter what.’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Now that takes a certain kind of coldness, doesn’t it?’
I backed away, shaking my head. ‘No.’
‘Yes,’ my mother said, following me. ‘Admit it, Selma, like I’ve learnt to. Everything we’re responsible for turns to crap. Your daughter knows it, your husband does. That’s why they’re leaving town. Yeah, I overheard someone mentioning it.’ She cracked another smile. ‘We’re two peas in a pod, you and I.’
I stood staring at my mother, speechless.
She was right.