Creating a fairer Britain
If you ever meet yourself, bad things will happen.
That's what Mam used to say. Betty remembers walking through town—she couldn't have been more than five or six—clutching her mother's hand, in the Saturday jostle of adult legs and bags, expecting any minute to see her own face loom out of the crowd. She had nightmares about seeing another Betty.
'One's quite enough', her mam used to say.
Maybe the heat has given her a funny turn. It's not a particularly hot day, but Betty always feels the heat. Always dripping with sweat by the time she's laboured to the Londis for her groceries. It's her weight—she knows that. She'll do something about it soon. Now that Mam's gone, there's no excuse. She used to tell herself the chocolate biscuits were Mam's treat. But she's still buying them, even though she can't really afford it.
Betty reaches the estate and has to catch her breath. She lets the bag drop at her feet and sits heavily on the edge of the concrete planter. An empy beer can crackles behind her. The violets have long since been choked to gristle by a drift of cans, cigarette boxes, takeaway cartons and sweet papers. But it can't be helped: there's nowhere else to sit.
She risks another look at the towerblock. First the rainstreaked lettering over the entrance: BRYN HYFRYD, the 'B' and the 'D' missing their upper halves. Then, gradually, she lifts her eyes to the corner of the top floor. Sunlight crashes off the window, dazzling her view. Maybe that's what it was, then: the sun in her eyes. But she could have sworn she saw a face. She'd glanced up at her flat out of habit. She always checked, as she was waiting for the pedestrian lights to change—just to make sure her mother was there, posted at the window where she'd left her.
'Don't move' she'd say, before locking the flat door behind her. 'Don't move from where I can see you'.
Mam got out once. Betty still doesn't know how she did it. Found her way to the stairwell and went down three floors, searching for fresh air. Luckily the lift was broken again, and Betty met her on the steps, gazing in confusion at a scream of graffiti on the wall. After that, whenever Betty left the room, she secured Mam to the chair with a belt. She didn't like to do it. But it couldn't be helped.
Anyway, there's noone to check for now. Betty must have been looking at the wrong flat. And besides, it's all superstitious nonsense. 'Bad things will happen'. What does that mean? Bryn Hyfryd will collapse? Keel over with a roar and hurl itself across the estate? Well, thinks Betty, that would be no great loss.
Her shopping bag explodes at her feet. A football has bulleted into her groceries, and now putters innocently against the planter. With an effort, Betty stoops to retrieve the biscuits—rattling more loosely, now, in their pack—and the milk. Good job it comes in plastic these days, she thinks.
A yell follows the ball from the recesses of the estate. She hears the word 'fat' and knows it's aimed at her. She freezes, and keeps her eyes down. Running footsteps: too light to belong to the voice. A small boy plunges at the ball and she recognises his red hair: it's the boy from the next floor down.
'Sorry' he mutters, grasping the football. Then, as he races away, he hollers an obscenity at her over his shoulder, to redeem himself.
Betty's heartbeat subsides. They've gone; they're not interested in her. All her life, Betty has known, with the instinct of prey, how to shut down and wait until danger passes. It's the only useful lesson she ever learned in school: the skill of stillness, and silence, and averted eyes. She was always a big girl, always lumbering along at the back. The only subject she liked was music. Sometimes the teacher would play them a record, and they'd all sit and listen, and Betty remembers the warmth of afternoon sun on her desk, and the promise of that music, as if there might be a life out there with secrets to share.
She's been listening to music again since Mam died. Mam didn't like music.
'Turn that racket off' she'd wail. 'It hurts my head'.
Once, when Betty was in the loo and had left Radio 2 on in the kitchenette, Mam got hold of an ashtray and threw it at the radio, with unexpected strength. Betty heard the smash, and then the stuttering of a cup along the floor, and came rushing out still pulling up her tights, thinking Mam had fallen. But Mam was in her chair, cradling her head, and crying:
'I can't stand it, my head's bursting'.
That was the first sign her mind was going, too.
Betty sees a flurry of movement, approaching the towerblock from the other end of the estate. It's that new woman from two flats along, moved in about three months ago. Wears dark drapings, head to toe, so you can't see her face. Betty saw her at the Londis once, paying for her goods without a word. When she'd gone—before she was out of earshot—Terry at the till made some comment about bloody terrorists. Betty was embarrassed; she hoped the woman hadn't understood. And then Terry said,
'How do you drink your tea, with all that clobber on?'
and Betty couldn't help laughing.
Now Betty watches as the woman moves swiftly towards the flats, and she recognises something in the set of her shoulders, in the grim focus of her progress. Hunted. That's what she is. And sure enough, from the shadows behind her comes a hail of shouts, a crackling of ugly consonants. She'll understand that well enough, thinks Betty, whether she speaks the language or not. Betty feels sorry for the woman. But it can't be helped.
Towards the end Mam used terrible language. Every time Betty went near her—to wash her, change her, feed her, fight all the many battles of the day—Mam lashed out with words Betty never realised she knew. But of course, she reminds herself, we all know those words. We hear them all the time—in the street, on the telly. And even in the early days, even when Mam's mind was straight, Betty would use those words herself. Standing in the kitchenette, opening a tin of something for supper, she'd spit them out in low, vicious whispers, and she'd wrench the lid away with the can-opener as if it were some poor creature's head. Then Mam would shout:
'What are you saying?'
And Betty would call,
'Nothing, just reading the instructions'.
And Mam would say,
'It's only a tin, can't you even open a tin?'
Betty got on Mam's nerves. She's so clumsy, that's the trouble, so slow. When she had to fill in the benefits forms, it brought her to tears: Mam so frustrated, unable to wield a pen, shrieking at Betty's mistakes; Betty staring at the printed words until they were just random shapes. In the end they had to get a social worker in to help, and Mam nearly died of shame.
'What did she think of us?' she kept saying, afterwards. 'And the place in such a state!'
It's a tiny flat, but Mam was always houseproud. She was a gam about the place when she was healthy—everything swept and polished and kept in its place, and all done as neatly as a well-rehearsed dance. It drove her mad, when she couldn't do it any more, and had to direct her blundering daughter from the chair:
'Not like that, get into the corners! Do it properly, or it's not worth doing at all!'
Betty held her tongue, blocked it all out, tried to do better. But now and again, when it was the time of the month, or she was more tired than usual, she'd snap:
'Oh, do it yourself!'
And she hated herself for that. Not just for the cruelty. She knew there'd be hours to pay of guilt and misery, while Mam avoided her eye in a triumph of martyrdom.
A cloud blots the sun, and Betty checks the window again. Noone there. No other Betty, no Mam's ghost. Just an empty flat, and reflections on glass. She'd better get going. She'll shut herself in, put the kettle on, have a chocolate biscuit with The Weakest Link. Then ... Well, then she'll probably just sit for a while, looking at the cars on the flyover, wondering where they go. And then there's that new programme, a competition for singers. Betty sings along to it, now there's noone around to complain.
The estate lads are nowhere in sight. Betty heaves herself to her feet, gathers the shopping bag and sets off for Bryn Hyfryd. When she gets there the woman in the veil is standing at the lift door, jabbing the button. Betty sighs.
'It's gone again' she says, more to herself than to the woman, and starts climbing the stairs. There's a fresh stink on the first landing, and a nest of detritus in the corner, with a syringe poking out. Betty turns onto the second flight and a noise behind her makes her pause. The woman appears, clutching her skirt to reveal a pair of grubby trainers. Betty waits for her to pass. Three more floors to go, and Betty's knees are already howling. She leans against the stained wall and closes her eyes. When she opens them again the woman is there, a few steps above her. She asks something Betty doesn't understand.
'I'm all right' says Betty. 'Just need to catch my breath'.
The woman nods and carries on, disappearing round the corner.
How do you drink your tea, with all that clobber on?
The thought crosses Betty's mind that she could ask the woman in, and find out. They wouldn't have to talk, or anything. She could just put Weakest Link on, and they'd sit in front of it and have a cup of tea. Like Betty and Mam used to do.
But the woman's gone, and is probably at her own front door by now. Oh, well, thinks Betty, it can't be helped. She resumes her long, slow climb, fixing her mind on the next step, and then the step after that.