Mother

I was nine years old when I lost my mother.

It was the 70s, and we lived in a big industrial town. Jobs were hard to come by, and my father had been out of the picture since before I was born. Mum worked odd jobs where she could to make ends meet. Sometimes she had to leave me on my own at the weekends once I was old enough to look after myself. I didn’t mind too much – I became quite self-sufficient early on, out of necessity more than anything – but I loved Mum fiercely, and always looked forward to her coming home again. Our evenings together in front of the telly were – and still are – my happiest memories of her.

One evening, she didn’t come home.

It was just like that, out of the blue. No warning, no reason. She went off to work – I think it was some part time shop work – one Saturday morning, after fixing me up some sandwiches for lunch and making sure I had some cereal for breakfast. She gave me the usual speech about how I was not to answer the door to anyone I didn’t know, how if the phone rang I had to write down the message on the notepad next to it, how I mustn’t touch the stove or the gas fire (it was October, and just starting to get cold), and how she loved me and when she got home we’d look at my pictures together. I was already a budding artist by then, and I spent most of my time alone drawing. I loved it when she looked at my pictures, especially the ones that made her laugh, so her eyes lit up and crinkled at the corners. She was so pretty when she laughed.

I was expecting her to walk through the door around 6pm, but when it got to 7pm, with darkness fast closing in, and she still wasn’t home, I started to worry. Normally if she was running late she’d find a way to call and let me know. Not all the time – sometimes she just couldn’t get to a phone – but most of the time. So I waited patiently. Maybe she’d missed her bus. Maybe something had gone wrong at the shop and she had had to stay behind to help. She’d told me enough stories of customers knocking over displays or children being sick in aisles that I knew the sorts of things that might hold her up. I called the number of the shop where she worked, which she had written on the top of the notepad by the phone, but there was no answer. Everybody must have gone home.

When it came to 8pm and I started to shiver in the cold, I gave in and carefully dialled 999. I told them my mother hadn’t come home from work and I was on my own. I was worried about getting her in trouble for that, but the police lady they sent round was very nice and asked me lots of questions very kindly. I showed them the notepad where Mum had written the number of where she worked and the name of the shop, and the lady called the number, not looking surprised when there was no answer. She spoke to the policeman who had come with her and he went outside to speak into his radio. They sent two more police officers to trace the route to and from the shop from our building. In the meantime the police lady went into our kitchen and made me a cup of cocoa and a sandwich. I told her the cocoa was only for special occasions like birthdays, but she said it was alright. The sandwich was strawberry jam.

When the lady’s radio crackled, she went into the living room to answer it, leaving me sitting at the little table in the kitchen. When she came back she looked worried. She started asking me about my family, if there was anyone else I could stay with. I told her my dad wasn’t around and my mum’s parents lived a long way away. She nodded and said she was going to take me to stay with some other kids for a few days. When I asked her why, she sat down next to me and held onto my hand. I remember how cool her hand was, and her nails were painted pink and shiny.

“We’ve found some of your mum’s things,” she told me, “In the footpath under the river. Her handbag with her purse and her ID. We found a shoe as well that might be hers. But we didn’t find her yet. So we’re going to keep looking, and while we look we need to make sure you’re safe and being looked after.”

I never saw it, but the image in my mind is very strong, of Mum’s big black fake leather handbag, with its worn out corners and one strap mended with tape, lying open in the pee-smelling, graffiti-covered tunnel under the bridge, its contents spilling out, with one of her low-heeled work shoes lying next to it.

The police lady told me that my mum couldn’t have gone far with just one shoe, so they would surely find her tonight, and in the morning I could come home. But they didn’t find her. I found out more details later – how her purse still had its money in it, so she didn’t seem to have been robbed; how they scoured the area for traces of blood or a struggle, and found none. A couple of days later they were dragging the river and beating the bushes along the riverside for her body. Still nothing.

A month passed. Another police lady – this one not so gentle – came and told me that they couldn’t find my mum, so they figured she had fallen in the river and been swept away. It had been raining heavily, and the river was full and running fast. She told me I would have to stay where I was, in the children’s home, and that she was very sorry. She didn’t sound sorry. She sounded tired. I cried myself to sleep for the next few weeks, before I ran out of tears. After that I just felt hollow.

Years later, I learned about the serial killer who was active in the area at the time. No one ever said it, but I figured my mother had been lumped in with his victims. He targeted lone women, prostitutes and the homeless mostly, but a few women walking alone after work had also been killed. Many turned up, beaten and stabbed. Some, like my mum, vanished without a trace.

I spent a little over a year in the home, and then I was given to a foster family. They were alright; they could provide for me better than Mum could ever have hoped. They treated me well, and I tried not to cause them too much trouble. But they weren’t Mum. I fiercely missed our evenings in front of our tiny cheap telly, watching whatever was on and looking at my drawings.

I grew up, got a job drawing for adverts in newspapers and magazines. It didn’t pay very well, so I took on other jobs here and there too, working in shops like my mum. When I walked home alone at night, I was careful. I carried a length of thick metal chain in my handbag, and walked with my fingers on it after dark or anytime I felt nervous. More than once I felt like someone was watching me, following me in the shadows, just beyond my field of vision. I put it down to nerves, but I never discounted it entirely. I’d have been arrested if the police had caught me with that chain, but thankfully I never had cause to take it out of my bag. After a while I managed to get a loan that let me buy a car, and I didn’t have to walk home alone any more.

Now I’m in my fifties and I have a nice flat in a good part of the city, with CCTV and a security guard in the foyer of the building. I graduated to drawing for childrens’ books in my thirties, which paid much better and more steadily, and I still do it today. I have a better car too, with a built in alarm and central locking and a dashboard camera that uploads its videos to my smartphone. Like I said, I’m careful.

Tonight my nice expensive car broke down, a mile from home. I had bags of groceries in the boot, so I was reluctant to leave it, but the night was freezing cold and the recovery number was busy. I eventually decided to walk the mile with what shopping I could carry – the stuff that needed to go in the freezer or the fridge – and call them back in the morning. So I threw my handbag over my shoulder, pulled the shopping I was going to carry out of the boot, and started walking. It was about 7pm, but it was winter and very dark. I tried to keep to the better lit streets, and made sure my panic alarm was in my pocket – an upgrade from the metal chain in my bag.

I’d gotten about three streets down from the car when I got the feeling of being watched. I sped up, my senses on high alert, and kept looking around, but I didn’t see anyone. Not until several streets later, when I heard footsteps behind me. Glancing around, I saw two men in hooded coats walking side by side, about 12 feet behind me. I kept walking, glanced back again. They were getting closer. Maybe six feet now. My heart was thudding in my chest and it was getting hard to catch my breath. I was frightened. Was it actually going to happen, the thing I had been afraid of all my life?

Then I heard a third set of footsteps, a little faster, and a woman’s voice called softly to the men. Their footsteps slowed and died away, and when I glanced back again I saw them standing in conversation with a young woman in a long coat. I was worried for her, but she seemed quite at ease. Maybe she knew them. Maybe I’d panicked over nothing. My heart was thumping in my throat as I allowed myself to slow down a little. My knees felt rubbery. Spotting a low garden wall ahead, I stumbled over to it and sat down, just for a second. I was anxious to get home – to get away from there – but I just needed a moment.

Footsteps sounded softly again – a single set, much gentler and faster. I looked up fearfully to see the woman in the long coat approaching me. She had her hood up, and the lower half of her face was covered with a scarf against the cold.

“I’m glad I found you,” she said, her voice muffled by the scarf. “Are you alright?”

I nodded, confused. She nodded back and said “Those men … they won’t bother you again.”

I hesitated. “They … they didn’t -”

“No, but they were going to.” I caught a flash of light reflected in her eyes as she glanced back in their direction. The hood kept her face in shadow, which bothered me. There was something familiar about her. “Do you have far to go?”

I shook my head. “Just a few more blocks. What did you mean about the men?”

“It’s not important now. Would you like me to help with your bags?”

She sounded young – in her late twenties, maybe – and I was suddenly aware of the decades separating us. Your fifties isn’t that old, I would normally say, but tonight I felt old. Old and weak. So I accepted her offer of help and let her walk with me to the doors of my apartment building. From there I could signal the security guard to help with the bags, I told the woman.

She nodded and put the bag she was carrying at my feet, and looked up at the building. “Nice,” she commented. “Looks secure.” She was standing just outside the circle of light cast by the illuminated entrance to the building.

“It is,” I replied, thinking about how silent she had been on the walk, deflecting my questions with one-word answers or shrugs. I’d tried to figure out where I knew her from – if I knew her – but she’d given me nothing. Not a clue. “Thank you for your help, er … sorry, I didn’t get your name?” I tried weakly.

“You don’t need my name,” she replied. “You won’t see me again. You take care of yourself, Amelia.”

I started at that; I hadn’t told her my name either. How did she know? Before I could ask, she was gone, sweeping off into the shadows of the night, her long coat swirling around her in the wind.

I typed my entry code into the keypad by the door and let myself in. The security guard – it was Gary that night – saw me struggling and came to help me with my bags. Gary was nice, always taking the time to say hello and remember details from conversations that made you feel like he cared. He asked me how my cat was, and I said she was recovering fine from her operation. Then he said something that made my blood run cold.

“That lady you walked up with – she a friend of yours? Only I think I’ve spotted her hanging around a few times on the security cameras.”

I stopped as we crossed over to the elevators and stared at him. “What?”

He shrugged. “Well, I was about to report it because I’ve seen her a fair few times now, for the last couple of months. But she doesn’t do anything, she just stands and looks up at the building. If she’s a friend of yours I won’t report her, of course, but it’s a bit odd, don’t you think?” He saw the look on my face and winced. “I’ve frightened you. I’m sorry. I’m probably wrong – it must have been someone else. It’s just that her build, and the long coat, they looked the same.”

The elevator arrived with a soft chime. I stepped inside and took my bag of shopping from Gary, forcing a smile. “I don’t know her,” I replied. “She was just helping me with my bags.”

“Ah, that’s nice,” Gary said, smiling back. “Well don’t you worry about it. We’ve got our eyes open down here.”

I thanked him and pressed the button, eager to get back to my apartment. Once inside, I locked the door behind me and pulled the chain across. Trixie meowed hungrily and came to wind round my feet. Ignoring her, I put the shopping in the kitchen and hurried to the big picture window in the living room, and looked out.

I couldn’t see the woman, but it was so dark … and all the shadows thrown by the streetlamps … I couldn’t be sure.

My phone buzzed silently in my coat pocket, and I pulled it out automatically to check the notification. It was an update from my car’s dashboard camera. Opening it, I saw the two viewpoints it gave me, one through the front windscreen and one through the back. I was myself at the back of the car, closing the boot and walking away with my shopping. Then I reappeared in the front camera, walking away down the street. Then, while I could still see myself walking away, a figure appeared in the rear camera. A figure of a woman, dressed in a long dark hooded coat, a scarf hanging loosely around her neck. The camera had night-time enhancement, and though it was a little washed out and grainy, I could clearly see her face.

I recognised her instantly. I would know that face anywhere, anytime. I had been seeing that face in my dreams and my memories since I was nine years old. It hadn’t changed – not one bit.

It was Mum.

I’m still looking at the video now. I can’t stop watching it. I keep replaying it, watching my mother as she approaches the car, looks it over like she’s inspecting it, then walks off-camera. She reappears in the front camera and walks after me.

It’s her eyes, you see. I remember those eyes very well. I remember them looking over my drawings, smiling at me, glaring at me when I did something wrong. I remember how they twinkled when she laughed, and how they darkened when she was tired or angry. I remember them red from crying and bright with happiness and hope. And here they are again, after all these years, just the same as they were then.

And that’s the problem. She hasn’t changed at all. She hasn’t aged a day – unlike me. They told me she was dead – but she’s back now, and she hasn’t aged and she should have, and she’s been watching over me for who knows how long and probably still is, and I don’t know what to do.

She’s my Mum. What am I supposed to do?