Wronged Sons, The by John Marrs Read Free Book Online Page B

her. I knew she would never hurt me, wound me, disillusion me or disappoint me.
    And for nineteen years, I was right.
     
    4.40pm
    My feet must have grazed every road and cobbled avenue in the East End before I chanced upon where my mother once lived. But the square’s name wasn’t the only thing to have changed over time.
    A looming tower of concrete flats had ousted her row of dilapidated houses, casting a bleak shadow over an already grey landscape. Everything I’d deplored during my fateful last visit had been demolished and replaced by a more contemporary, but equally hideous version of the same thing.
    Disappointed, I gravitated towards a greasy spoon café to contrive a new plan of action. I ordered and an elderly waitress with a raven black beehive and a soup-stained apron carried a cup of tea to my table.
    “Excuse me, are you from around here?” I asked as she shuffled away.
    “All my life, darlin’,” she muttered over her shoulder.
    “I don’t suppose you remember a woman who used to live in a house where those flats are now? Doreen Nicholson?”
    “Hmm,” she thought. “I knew a Doreen, but Nicholson weren’t her last name. What does she look like?”
    My father had never taken a photograph of my mother, well if he had, none had ever hung on a wall inside our house. I could remember how she smelled, sounded, laughed and sang. I could picture the hint of grey hiding in the roots of her hair, how her large gold earrings made her lobes droop and the Bardot-like gap between her two front teeth. But for years I struggled to put the pieces of a mental photofit together and create a whole woman.
    “Ash-blonde hair, around five foot four, olive green eyes, quite a loud laugh. She lived here about twenty years ago.”
    The waitress headed towards a wall of framed photographs behind the counter, and unhooked one from the wall.
    “This her?” she asked, handing it to me. Instantly I recognised one of the four women standing in their uniforms around a table.
    “Yes, that’s her,” I smiled and swallowed hard.
    “Yeah, darlin’, I knew old Dor, she lived around the square on and off for a while. Worked here with me, ooh, a good few years back now. Poor cow.” Goosebumps spread across my arms. “Did something happen to her?”
    “Yeah, she passed away, darlin’. About fifteen years back.”
    “What happened to her?”
    “That bloody fella of hers gave her one pasting too many. Bounced her head off the walls, the Old Bill said. He was a vicious bastard… gave her brain damage. She was in a coma and on machines for weeks before she went.” I closed my eyes and exhaled as I muttered his name. “Kenneth.”
    Yeah, that’s the one. How did you know her then?”
    “She was my mother.”
    The waitress put on the glasses hanging from a copper chain around her neck and squinted. Then she sat herself down opposite me with a thump.
    “Well blow me, of course you are… you’re Simon, ain't you? You have her eyes.” I was surprised she knew of my existence, let alone my name. “Ooh darlin,’ Dor said you was a handsome little bugger,” she cackled as I offered an embarrassed smile.
    “She talked about you a lot, you know. She had a baby photo of you in a little locket round her neck. Well, she did till he made her pawn it. Never forgave herself for letting you go.” For a fleeting moment, I felt warm inside.
    “What happened to Kenneth?”
    “Locked him up again, didn’t they? Told the coppers she went for him and it were self-defence but the jury didn’t believe him. Got banged up in the Scrubs for life this time.”
    The waitress introduced herself as Maisy, and lit up an unfiltered roll-up cigarette as she filled me in on missing pieces of my mother’s life. She recalled how Doreen and Kenneth began courting in their teens. When she fell pregnant with me, her parents and Kenneth insisted she had an abortion. But when Doreen stubbornly refused, he pummelled her in the hope nature would force