September 2013
Stephen had decided that today was the day; he wasn't going to make excuses this time. He turned the key and pushed the front door open with his shoulder. It had always been like this. For the first time he wondered why his mother had never sorted it out, and why, come to that, hadn't he done something about the door? You just accepted that's how things were; perhaps passivity was a family trait. Although, come to think about it, his mother would not have let anyone, let alone a handyman, into the house.
The funeral had been two weeks ago, but he couldn't face going through her things until today. Now he just wanted to get it done. Ever since he could remember, it was just him and his mother. She told him that his father died in a car accident before he was born. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked loudly, it took him back to his childhood. Her knitting needles clacked away, while Stephen 'listened with mother'. A radio programme that others found comforting. Even at that age, he found it emphasised his feeling of claustrophobia.
He had only realised how odd his mother was when he went away to university and had lived with normal people. He was bright enough to keep quiet and watch for the first year. They were happy, chattering about the wide world around them. This was alien to him. His mother hardly talked and was bound by strict routines and obsessions. He gradually learnt the norms of social interaction by copying others. By the end of his second year, he had friends, for the first time in his life. He never lived at home again and rarely saw his mother.
Stephen started upturning drawers of her clothes into bags. He didn't want to touch them; he felt revulsion, and this, in turn, made him feel guilty. As he tipped out the third drawer, a piece of paper fluttered down. He fished it out and studied it. It was a letter from someone called Thomas Monk. He read it through and some phrases stood out,
'I thought I loved you, but now I know you are incapable of giving or receiving affection.'
Stephen knew that this man was right about his mother.
'I'm leaving before things get more complicated or, God forbid, we should bring a child into this misery.'
Stephen sat on his mother's bed and stared through the window at the fields beyond the garden. Then he read the address at the top of the letter and smiled. That was as good a place as any to start the search for his father.