A Cupboard Full of Coats by Yvvette Edwards

then, seems all I can see is her mouth and her teeth, pretty man, well pretty. She talked about yellow flowers, and school and the licks we used to get, and going to river, and mangoes. Man we eat some mangoes growing up. Eat mango till we have to go lie down. This is the kind of talk Mavis talk, recalling every tiny detail, while I feed her ice chips and press the flannel with little cool water on top her head, and all the while inside, that question was gnawing and gnawing away: Tell me, Mavis, did someone else kiss those yellow-flower red lips before me? Did you pass off another man’s child all these years? Is John truly my son? ’
    He lit another cigarette and inhaled deeply, settling back on the settee beside me. I was getting used to his way of just stopping in the middle of the tale as if he were finished. I resisted as long as I could, then, ‘So?’ I said. ‘Did you? Ask?’
    He shook his head. ‘Couldn’t. Wanted to so bad, but I couldn’t do it. Them last weeks, she hardly spoke at all. Just thank you . And I love you . Then, two days before she died, she said it. Two words. Opened her eyes – was the only part I could still say for sure was her, the eyes, the only part the cancer couldn’t manage and left behind. Seemed like she was calling me, and I put my ear to her lips and she said, “He’s yours.” That’s all. He’s yours . Didn’t need to say who she meant ’cos we both knew. I never said a word to her but still she heard me, heard me asking. With her dying breath, she told me what I wanted to hear but was never man enough to voice…’
    ‘Oh my God,’ I said. Maybe the alcohol had made me hyper sensitive, because this had to be the saddest tale I had ever heard.
    ‘I couldn’t even speak, was so choked. Just cried. And held her hand while she close her eyes and slept again.’
    My head was woozy. I was listening to him, listening to the inflection in his tone, and though I wasn’t sure my judgement was sound, it seemed he was not yet finished. He had wanted to know the truth, after thirty-three years no less, and she had told him. So why didn’t it sound like the story was drawing to a close? Why did it not sound like the end?
    ‘But?’ I asked.
    ‘The thing is this: I know Mavis love me. Can’t say why but she did. Have to accept that, ’cos she never give me reason to doubt it. Was times when I rave all night Saturday, pass the day in other women’s yard and come home late Sunday night after I know she gone a bed. And my dinner was always there, dished and cover up on the side waiting; no questions, no blame, not a word. She k new me. Like a mother know her child. And no matter what blame was mine, she still go out of her way to make things all right for me, to please me. That was the problem.’
    ‘I don’t get you,’ I said.
    ‘I know Mavis woulda never said anything to me to upset me because she never did. Never. So even though she said it, I know she coulda say so not because it was true, but because she know it’s what I needed to hear, and she give me with her dying breath what she give me with her living life, a plaster, a kiss to make things better and stop me bawling. In hospital, them call it a plessi-bow…’
    I shook my head. ‘I don’t want to hear any more…’
    ‘I knew Mavis would give me that lie ’cos she knew I needed it.’
    ‘Why couldn’t you just believe her?’
    ‘And I took it. And wept. The last time she open her eyes, I gave her back a lie from the depths of my heart, I searched and found it and gave it back. The last words to ever pass from my mouth to her ears, the killer lie to beat all lies, one last big one to grease her passage to Calvary. She open her eyes and saw me where I sat ’side the bed waiting with her. I pick up her hand, looked her straight in the face, give her one last kiss and I said, “I believe you”.’
    He looked at me. He wanted something from me. Wanted it bad. But I was too overcome by sadness to work out