Only Here, Only Now

Mam was on her seventeenth twenty pence—I was counting. She goes, “But do you see any cash on my horizon, Moira?”

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We were sat out in the phone box together. The rain was bucketing. It had started after me and Fiona got to the Savoy and had basically kept on all night—we were supposed to be having a summer but the sky outside was the color of slush.

I was chasing the droplets down the plastic window with my pinky, tracing them round the old graffiti—scratchy-looking cocks and balls and jaggy hearts and names from my mam’s day like RAB and YODSY. “There are opportunities ahead,” I heard Moira saying. Her words were thin and crackly in the handset and they mixed with the rain sounds outside.

The Amazing Moira was my mam’s favorite psychic. My mam asked her the same old questions—about men, money, the future, her cholesterol. It made me feel sad to think, but sometimes I did wonder what it would be like to just have a normal mam.

There were good bits. Unlike most Muircross mams she was pretty—her skin was pale with no plooks or scars, and she had cheekbones. She had the same ski-slope nose that I had, but maybe age ten I realized a lot of my features probably came from the side we never spoke about.

My mam couldn’t reverse her chair properly into the phone box, so when it rained I would sit on her knee and hold an umbrella to cover her legs. I was too old to be sitting on her knee but it let me help her with something. And it gave me time to think. I was never sure if that was a good or a bad thing.

I’d only said about five words to Samantha but I couldn’t stop replaying them. She’d helped a lot of folk in school—my classes were filled with lassies and boys who couldn’t shut up and toe the line and she didn’t want me getting expelled like them. She’d been a help to me too, but it annoyed me sometimes because she spoke about my life like I could just choose different.

I wanted to say to her, My name’s not Melody or Beth. My mam never kept cereal in plastic tubs. None of my clothes were OshKosh anything. In winter I took the shower gel to bed to warm it up for morning. Round here the options for lassies like me were school or a baby, shelf-stacking or shoplifting, gin on the Shreddies or tongue in the socket. I wanted my own proper future, but I wasn’t choosing it the way other folk could.

Samantha saw I was sometimes struggling. She says to me I should be getting checked for anxiety, and for being hyper. Samantha never had a life like mine but when I read the printouts she gave me it was like she knew me inside out. It was just a couple of photocopied sheets stapled together but reading it I felt like maybe everything wasn’t my fault after all.

I was supposed to ask my mam to make an appointment for after the holidays, but my mam’s life was already full of shite that when I grew up I would never do—ringing helplines and going on waiting lists. Opening envelopes. Crying. I didn’t want to give her more hassle. I didn’t want to be sounding like a wee pee-the-bed.

“Thank you, Moira. So will my aura improve if I buy these supplements you’re talking about?” She did the hand movement so I held up the Santa hat. She grabbed a couple of coins and shoved them quickly in the slot.

“I’m hungry,” I says.

She did the angry shush face at me and put a finger in her open ear. The phone box was one of the things my mam had been obsessed with—it had taken her two years to get the council to lower the phone so she could dial it easier.

“And do you think a different diet might bring more success?” She nodded along with Moira all smiley then said thank you quickly twice and then hung up. Then she did a moody face.

“I’m starving,” I went. “Do we have soup?”

“Look, Miss Fizzy, don’t you speak to me when I’m on with Moira. It’s a waste of money if I can’t hear the advice, pet.”

“I’ve had no breakfast. My knees are soaked. I’m starving.”

“Let’s go inside.”

I ran ahead with the umbrella as she wheeled herself through the swish of the rain, then I bumped her up the steps. Our house had a gray face and sneaky eyes and our front door was black. The only colors were the crap red concrete toadstools that Terry had bought and painted for her, on one of his good weeks.

The house was dim inside. In the kitchen, through the back door glass, the Firth was all wild and the Causey was blank and the rain was two types at once. I stared out and thought about Dennis. I’d spoken to him only for maybe a minute but he was already helping me escape.

“There’s no soup,” my mam said from the doorway. “But put some noodles on. Top cupboard. I’m sticking the telly on.”

My mam was mainly good at frying eggs or doing crisp sandwiches.

Her other meals were honestly rank—Auntie Janine used to say that even wasps wouldn’t land on my mam’s cooking.

“I can’t make noodles, Mam.”

She closed her eyes in that careful way, “Cora, shush! Moira is sending me wavelengths.”

I stood and watched her, wondering if this kind of stuff went on in other houses. I says it again, “I can’t make noodles, Mam.”

She opened her eyes and flung her head back, sighing. “You are some lassie, Cora Mowat. Get the noodles down. Find the smallest pan.”

I did what she asked as she wheeled herself up to the cooker.

“Right, boil the kettle,” she went. I filled it and clicked the button and we looked at each other while it started rumbling. I hated doing tasks while other folk watched—it was a different-feeling pressure to anything else, like when magnets won’t touch.

“Where’s Gunner?” I asked.

“Out earning. He’s got business. In Edinburgh.”

“What sort of business?”

“All you need to know is that he’s looking after us. He’s getting me some things in the next few weeks. Things that the council turned us down for.”

“Like an electric tin opener?”

“Be a smart aleck if you like. I’ve needed one for years.”

The kettle was growling now, drowning out the pecking of the rain on the window. “What does he do?”

“He’s an independent trader. Now put the ring on. Number six.”

I thought about the bags and boxes in my mam’s room as she held up the packet of instant noodles. “Now, these are not the best. These are the Panda ones. The best ones have the Dragon holding a wok on them. But these are braw all the same.”

“Chicken?”

“Flavoring, Cora. They’ll not start clucking. First, take the brick of noodles and the powder sachet out, then chuck the packet away.”

I flipped the bin lid up and chucked it in. “Do you think Gunner could fix our shower curtain?”

“Not a clue. Now pay attention, the ring is hot. Put the empty pan on the ring for a minute, it will heat up and the water will boil quicker when you put it in.” She put the pan on the ring, raising herself up to see what was happening from down in her chair. She started grinning. “Aw, Cora, I’m hunky-dory with these. I love them. I’ll tell you what, they’re beezers for a rainy day like this.”

“You’re easily pleased.”

“Listen, enough of your cheek. Now, look at the state of this place. When I’m at the social on Friday night I want you tidying this kitchen.”

“I’m busy on Friday night!”

“Busy?! Throwing shite off the Causey? Cora, what did I say to you? The three of us are to be a team. Everyone’s to turn over a new leaf. You’re cleaning this kitchen on Friday, madam.”

I did my moodiest mouth. “Right.”

“Look, pour the water in.” She wheeled herself back while I poured it in. The water started gargling as it hit the hot pan. “Brilliant. Now empty the powder in the water and grab a fork and stir, then lay the noodles flat in there.”

I did what she said, then took a step back and started fiddling with the alphabet magnets on the fridge.

“Now, they should sit for two minutes, then you turn them. Soften each side, you see? I hope you’re remembering all this. When you get your own place you’ll be able to make these for yourself!”

“I am, Mam.” We both stared into the noodle steam like it was hypnotizing us. I spelled out FLAPS on the fridge. I says, “So when’s Gunner back?”

“I’m not sure.”

“He seems nice,” I went, to keep her speaking.

“He is nice.” She said it quiet, and didn’t look up from the pan.

“He’s going to start taking you on walks. Regular.”

“To the chippy again?” I did BALLS with the letters.

“No, proper walks. Just you and him. You’ll have to ask him where.” Behind my mam, along the top edge of the flaky window frame some wee droplets were shimmying, ready to drip. She goes, “The pair of you seem to get along.”

“The Asics are cool. He seems all right.”

She reached over and shook the noodle pan. “I sense a but coming.”

“I want him to get to know me. Like, I’m fourteen now, I’ve got my own ideas. I was younger before with Terry and stuff. I don’t want you telling Gunner all my beamer stories.”

She laughed. “My own ideas. And what do you mean beamer stories?”

“Don’t ruin it telling him stuff about me when I was wee. Making fun of me. And don’t tell him I have a diary.”

“What stuff?”

“How I used to be afraid of Miss Piggy. The time I found the bottle of lemonade in the hedge. When I tried breakdancing. The fizziness. All the usual stories.”

“You were a good wee breakdancer.”

“Mam.”

“Cora, are you worrying again? I’m not going to bring a man in here who isn’t nice. I know you were upset in the past, with what happened with Dunc and Terry. But Gunner is a way better man than that pair. I guarantee that, pet.”

“I see that,” I says. I wasn’t lying. I looked at the pan. “Can I turn the noodle brick?”

“Aye.”

I flipped it. “Does it look all right?”

“Softening up nicely,” she went. “Anyway, don’t you worry about Gunner. He’s my problem. And listen, this time you need to make more effort too. You’re older now. Open up a bit.” Then there was a silence where I was supposed to respond but the rain spoke instead. Then she went, “You don’t see Jo as much these days. You pair not going on the buses anymore? She’s always good for a gossip.”

“Gossip gets boring.”

“Maybe you should find some different pals then? Listen, at your age I was out all day and all night. By the time I was sixteen I’d been to gigs in Paisley and all sorts! I’ll never forget, right”—she moved round to face me—“1980, Altered Images, in Edinburgh. Oh, Cora, I was braw. I had this dusty-blue

Crimplene blouse, and my hair cut short and styled up like wee Clare.”

“Who’s wee Clare?”

“Clare Grogan! Altered Images. Tanya always says I looked like her. What a magic night that was, I had the time of my life—me, Tanya and Saskia. Of course, two weeks later I met your da. And that was my life over.”

“It was easy for you. You were pretty and popular. You never loved bread the way I do.”

“Easy? In a wheelchair? In the eighties? It’s not about how popular you are, not when you can’t get on a train. Not when you’re getting called a cabbage and a spaz in the street. You’re a right idiot sometimes, Cora Mowat. Pass me that tea towel.”

I handed it to her. I says, “Jo goes to foam parties,” just to change the subject. “At college. It sounds amazing!”

“Foam parties?”

“A normal disco but they pump foam in, like Matey or whatever. Jo met Fozzy at a foam party. Jo meets all the boys there. Do you think you get wet at a foam party?”

“I’ll need to speak to Gunner. See if me and him can go to one.”

“You’re thirty!”

“Your mam’s still got moves.” She started rocking herself back and forward, shimmying left and right with the tea towel in her lap. “Now come here!” She pulled me round and I wheeled her back and forth a bit over the lumpy lino while she waved her arms and wiggled in the chair.

My mam always tried to drag me into dancing and it was a right beamer, but it was nice too because those were the times she smiled. I squeezed round next to her, watching how she closed her eyes as she sang whatever tune she was singing to herself.

Then she blinked them open. “Ah, but keep stirring! Fuck sake, you’ll burn the arse out of them, you stupid lassie!”

I grabbed the fork and poked the noodles. The straggly top layer was fine but underneath they had gone burnt and brown and wouldn’t come off the bottom of the pan.

“Fuck sake,” she whispered, all scowly. She grabbed the pan and took a bowl out and used the fork to scrape the noodles into it. “My last packet of the Panda brand. Why can’t you do anything without getting fizzy? Pay attention, lassie! These aren’t cheap!”

The first thing I thought was, Yes they are. Watching her tutting and huffing I started to wonder what was happening inside her head. I hated her, sometimes.

Was it wrong to imagine rolling my mam into the sea? I looked through the wet window at the Firth. I’d pictured it so many times it never even felt like a fantasy—she’d drop off the edge of the Causey and I’d wait for the plop, then I’d walk back and use all her twenty pences to order an eighteen-inch margherita from Fusco’s, extra cheese. I’d make a den up on the settee and get Phase FM on and I wouldn’t wash my hair for a fortnight. And then I’d change the locks and there’d be no more men.

She shoved the bowl at me—a wee slop of noodles the color of highlighter pen with burnt bits squiggling through. “Finish those,” she went, sighing off into the living room.

“Thanks!” I went, all cheery.

“You being sarcastic, you cheeky wee shite? On Friday you can practice making them again by yourself, after you’ve cleaned the kitchen. What kind of fourteen-year-old girl can’t make food for herself? You really need to start pulling your weight.”

When it got like this between us I knew her music always helped her calm down. I walked through after her. “Can we put a record on, Mam?”

“I’m putting the snooker on.” ‘Tracks of My Tears’?” I went. “Or ‘Raglan Road’?” I tasted a forkful of the salty noodles.

“You can put Lena on,” she went, pulling herself onto the settee.

I forked up all the remaining noodles and chewed them down. My mam only had about fifteen records, and Lena Zavaroni was always near the front. She was obsessed with her.

“Nice and loud,” she goes.

I pulled the record out. Lena looked up at me from the dusty carpet with her naughty-boy bowl cut. The album crackled and the house was dim. I saw the silhouette of the artificial ferns in the window, the telly, the doilies, the ornaments. Everything in exactly the place it had been for years.

I got up and put my bowl in the kitchen sink. In the living room my mam was singing along, then shouting through over the top of wee Lena, she goes, “Cora, there’s a new Spot the Ball slip in the bread bin, bring it through and we can have a go while we’re listening.”

Out the window the rain had gone soft and a wimpy wee rainbow was stretching over the Causey. It looked like it had been scribbled across the gray with dried-out felt tips—all the colors were in it, like the puddles at the petrol station.

“Cora Mowat, you’re a funny one, but I do love you, pet. Gunner tells me that business is on the up—so don’t be worrying, eh? It’s all falling into place—”

I stuck my leg out behind me and kicked the kitchen door shut because I’d heard it all before. “This is our year,” I whispered. “This is our year!” she shouted, muffled by the door and by Lena and by the last gray swishes of rain.

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Excerpted from Only Here, Only Now. Reprinted with the permission of the publisher, HarperVia, an imprint of HarperCollins. Copyright © 2024 by Tom Newlands.