A GUTTERING CANDLE by Dianne Bown-Wilson (1st Place, June25)

Mrs Mulhern’s telephone rings at her bedside at 11.37 pm. She registers the time as she snaps on the light, glad she wasn’t asleep. These days, it takes her a while to collect her thoughts when she wakes, and whoever’s calling could ring off— although that might be no bad thing.

‘Hello?’ She speaks cautiously.

‘Mum, it’s me. I’m in a bit of a fix.’ Words as shocking as a sluice of chill mud.

‘Alan! Where are you? What’s happened?’

‘I’m outside. I’ve been ringing the bell and knocking— ‘ His tone, as ever, is peevish. Yet he knows she’s quite deaf and sleeps in the back bedroom overlooking the garden these days. He knows, but as ever, it’s her fault.

‘Oh, goodness!’ I’ll be right down…’

She plants her feet on the floor, fumbles for her glasses and shrugs on her dressing gown, hastily tying it around her waist. Her foot gets caught in the edge of the quilt as she rushes, causing her to kick one of her slippers under the bed, which she has to scrabble to retrieve. She’s breathing hard now, more in panic than from exertion, and is on the landing before remembering her hearing aids, circling back to fit them. Eventually, having carefully negotiated the narrow stairs of her two-up, two-down Victorian terrace (Hold the rail, or you’ll lose your footing), she unbolts the door and tugs it open.

In the sleety mist, slumped against the pebble-dashed wall, her son’s an eerie apparition. Bloodstained from a gash on his forehead,  he holds his right arm protectively across his chest, supporting the dangling left. Beyond him, a car in the road has its lights on and engine running, but it immediately pulls away.

‘Taxi,’ he grunts. ‘I asked it to wait. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get in.’

He used to have a key. I gave him one when he was ten so he could let himself in after school while I was at work. But then, that argument some years ago, when he’d been staying here after leaving Jo and the kids, and he brought that woman home and, following months of having him lazing about, not paying his way, wringing every last drop of charity out of me, it was too much. I asked them to leave, and he shouted and threw the key at me before storming out. I’ve never offered it back.

‘Go through to the kitchen,’ she motions. He limps past her, and she stands momentarily drawing breath and attempting to calm her thoughts. For God’s sake, what’s happened now? She finds him sitting at the tiny table in the near dark, the only illumination leaching in from the hall. As she flicks on the light, he looks up. ‘Sorry,’ he mutters. ‘Sorry.’ She’s not sure what he’s apologising for.

He looks appalling: gravel-coloured, pock-marked skin, chapped lips and tyre-mark hair. What appear to be flecks of vomit dot the front of his parka; she doesn’t want to get too close.

‘What’s happened? Where’s your car? Are you badly hurt?’ She won’t sit down until she has answers.

He weakly raises a hand, ‘Jesus, so many questions.’ He sighs deeply and looks past her as if his memories are floating elsewhere. ‘So… I had an accident: I smashed my car into a couple of others, then hit the side of a bridge.’

‘When? Just now? Why aren’t you at the hospital? Have you called the police?’

He shakes his head. ‘I just took off. It happened near the canal, and I managed to get about a mile down the road to a pub, The White Horse – we went once, and I phoned for a taxi from there.’

Her head spins. What’s he on about, talking about the past and pubs? ‘Had you been drinking – is that why you left?’

‘Yeah, dunno, I just panicked. No one seemed to be moving. There were these mangled cars with people in them, but nobody was getting out. And it was absolutely deserted; there was no one else about.’ He starts to cry, shuddering sobs, and when he lifts his hand to wipe his face, he winces.

Mrs Mulhern rests her hand lightly on his shoulder. ‘What can I get you – tea or something stronger?’

‘Got any brandy?’

She fetches the bottle and a glass from the cupboard, stopping herself from saying it hasn’t been touched since the last Christmas he was here, three years ago. She doesn’t want to make a point. She places them in front of him. ‘Do you need me to pour?’

He nods.

His arms and hands must be hurting, but he raises the glass to his lips well enough.

He’s 57 years old, and his kids are adults now, too, so why’s he here and not with them? My life is closing down, once busy days shrinking into hours spent doing— sometimes, I don’t know what. And things slip away, so I have routines to make sure I don’t forget. My days run like a washing machine on an endless cycle: eating, shopping, cleaning, and keeping in touch with the outside world. I make myself spend time with old folk like me, cheering them up and keeping them going while proving to them I’m also okay. And every night, before I sleep, I gather the tiny threads of my thoughts about him throughout the day and plait them into a familiar strand: How is he? Where is he? What is he doing? I have no answers. My love for him, which once shone as steadily as a candle, is guttering, the flame diminished by neglect.

Processing new information takes longer these days, so Mrs Mulhern buys time by making a cup of tea. With her back to him, there’s no danger she’ll inadvertently reveal her thoughts, leading to more accusations.

Eventually, she sits down. ‘What now?’ she asks.

He stares at the tabletop between them, and she tries to see a boy eating coco pops for breakfast and fish fingers and beans for tea, tries to remember him colouring and playing with dinosaurs. She hears, albeit faintly, his joyous laugh, I love you a million gazillion times, Mummy! She still wants to believe he’s that same tender person, but her capacity for self-deception has gone.

 ‘I need to get away. If you drive me to Wales first thing in the morning, I could stay at a hotel in Swansea while I get something longer-term sorted out. No one will find me there.’

His proposal is ridiculous. Delusion has always been a key strength, though this makes her question his sanity.

‘What will you do for money? Once you start using your cards, tracking you down will be easy.’

‘I was hoping you’d let me have some cash. I’ll settle up with you later.’

‘Well, let’s deal with that tomorrow. Shouldn’t you get yourself seen to first? It looks as if you might have broken something.’

‘It’s okay. I’ll sort it out when I get there.’

‘Obviously, I want to help, but I can’t do the impossible. I can’t drive you, so perhaps a train or bus…?’

He shakes his head. ‘No, no way. I don’t want evidence of where I’ve gone.’

She thinks of telling him that in a small country with cameras everywhere, there’s nil likelihood of him remaining hidden. She’s watched enough TV crime dramas to know that these days, with mobile phones and data trails, he doesn’t stand a chance.

If you’d been in touch, even intermittently, you’d know I sold my car six months ago. I’m too old these days to be entirely safe on the road, and besides, there’s nowhere I want to go. Even if not, I couldn’t drive you to Wales. I’m no longer a young woman; it exhausts me to get on the bus! But that aside, you’ve bypassed so many questions:  What would you say at a hospital about what happened to you? How will you find somewhere to live? Do you have money, and do you currently have a job? How much will you need for a deposit and rent? How will you shop and look after yourself if you’re injured? Why are you here, running to Mummy, ACTING LIKE YOU’RE STILL A CHILD? What happened that brought you to this?

How will you live with yourself after what you’ve done?

In the hall, the grandmother clock strikes midnight.

‘Any chance of a refill?’ he grunts, nodding towards the bottle.

She pours him half an inch. ‘So you won’t go to hospital tonight?’

He shakes his head.

‘In that case, it’s probably best if you get some sleep, and we’ll see how things are in the morning.’ A patch on his temple is starting to bruise, turning a yellowy purple. ‘Can you make it upstairs by yourself?’

He hauls himself upright, grimacing with pain, and stands swaying from the effort. ‘Spare room?’

‘It’s ready, as ever. Do you need help getting into bed?’

‘I’m fine.’ His words slur, but he glares at her. ‘So, if anyone gets in touch, you haven’t seen me, right? Anyone comes, don’t let them in.’

‘Of course.’

Silence, just the sound of his breathing.

‘You go up then, and I’ll bring you some hot milk to help you sleep. And I’ll see if I’ve got anything to help with the pain.’

He lurches from the kitchen into the hall, and she hears him groaning his way up the stairs. Familiarity with the floorboards’ creaks and doors opening and closing means she can track his progress from the bathroom to bedroom, to bed, and then eventually silence.

‘It’ll all be alright in the morning.’ she murmurs, having said it a million times before.

I’ve lived in this house for most of my adult life so I know it as well as my own body. ‘Mrs Mulhern’ is the quiet, sensible, upstanding identity I created for myself many decades ago. Before then, until I was twenty-seven, I was Maggie: fun, ambitious, and fancy-free, working in the city. Drinks with colleagues led to drinks with the boss, then assignations in deserted offices. A familiar tale: married man, pregnant lover – yet the outcome was better than most. When I said I wanted to keep the baby, he paid the deposit on this house (fifty miles from him), gave me a good reference for future employment, and money to ‘tide me over’. In exchange, I had to promise never to contact him again – a bargain I’ve resolutely kept.

Mrs Mulhern warms milk in a pan and adds three teaspoons of hot chocolate and another dash of brandy – enough for a familiar taste. Her heart is racing, her mind full of the times her son’s forced her to stand at a crossroads, struggling to decide the way forward. What do you do when there’s a tussle between head and heart? Is it too late for him to become a better person?         

She takes a packet of sleeping pills from her cupboard (I don’t need them; I just work myself up sometimes) and glances at the packet: No more than two tablets in twenty-four hours. She pops four from the plastic, grinds them into a powder with the back of a spoon, and pours them into the mug, giving it a vigorous stir. Careful not to fill it too full, she carries it cautiously up the stairs, hoping he’s still awake. She pushes open his door, and he grunts. ‘Hot chocolate with a dash of brandy – just how you like it,’ she says. ‘But otherwise, I’ve only paracetamol. I’ll leave them here with you.’

He shuffles up the bed, wincing and gasping, and gulps the brew. ‘Good,’ he mutters.

She waits in case he says anything more and isn’t surprised when he doesn’t.

‘Sleep well, then,’ she says softly, firmly closing the door.

She’ll leave it a few minutes for the pills to kick in before she makes the call.