Another Mother's Son by Janet Davey

it much attention.
    â€˜You don’t have any photos on display, do you? Not even in your bedroom. Mum and Pappa have this long line along the radiator shelf.’ She stretches her arms out. ‘I like their graduation pictures, though they
are
silly. I’m looking forward to mine. The gown and the hat. It’s a shame Ewan never got that far.’
    I stiffen but carry on shuffling through the box, passing her pictures I think she might like. She sits with one leg tucked under her, comfortable.
    â€˜Oliver and Ewan were a bit alike, weren’t they?’ Jude holds up a holiday snap of the two boys. She turns it this way and that and gazes into it as though into a make-up mirror. Her lean face turns rapidly to profile. All nose when her hair hangs loose and all cheekbone when she pushes it back.
    â€˜Those two are more Doig than Parry, though Oliver’s fair like me and Ewan is dark.’
    She carries on examining the photos. ‘It’s weird the way you talk to Ewan.’
    â€˜Weird in what way?’ I say quickly.
    â€˜Sort of monotonous? As if you don’t expect a reply?’
    I take a deep breath. ‘A soliloquy?’ I say. ‘I hadn’t thought of it in those terms but maybe you’re right. From Latin –
solus
, alone, and
loqui
, to speak.’
    â€˜I didn’t know that. That’s cool.’
    â€˜A series of reflections not meant to be overheard. The audience participates in the illusion.’
    â€˜The first time I heard you, you said something about a sick cat.’
    I glance at the television screen. Elderly people in wheelchairs are being entertained by a woman in Edwardian-style drag. I note the jauntily angled top hat and the striped waistcoat. Heads are thrown back in sleep or nodding on chests. One lady taps her fingers on the armrest in time to the music, though her eyes remain closed. I turn down the volume and we watch in silence for a few minutes. The camera focuses on another old veined hand as it wafts to and fro.
    â€˜Poor old things,’ I say.
    â€˜Actually, Lorna, I thought he might be dead.’
    Jude’s phone beeps.
    â€˜It’s Ross. He says to go back up. People do that, don’t they? They carry on talking to someone who’s died. And they keep the person’s room as a kind of shrine,’ she says.
    â€˜Usually tidier than Ewan’s room. But that’s terrible. Terrible that the thought crossed your mind. God, I can’t believe it, Jude.’
    â€˜He must be so bored.’ She seems lost in thought.
    Upstairs, a door opens. ‘Jude?’ Ross calls out.
    She deletes the message and pushes her phone towards me.
    I peer at the screen. ‘A box? What am I looking at?’
    â€˜It’s an old-style reel-to-reel tape recorder. It’s on the floor in that cupboard place I told you about. Remember, I said I’d find out what’s in there.’
    â€˜They were built like tanks, those old recording machines. Impossible to lift. Everything that’s now lightweight used to be heavy,’ I say.
    â€˜I’m really surprised they leave the cupboard unlocked. They lock all the other rooms. I’ve seen Mr Child go in there a few times now.’ Jude shows me close-up shots of a treasury tag and a black metal bulldog clip with its jaws clamped shut and the handles apart.
    â€˜Artistic,’ I say. ‘You could have an exhibition.
Still Lifes and an English Teacher
. So it was a stationery cupboard. Like you, Mr Child is too young to remember the valid use for a treasury tag.’
    I think of Jude following him along the school corridor. And of Jude entering the unoccupied house at the end of the lane. The sign to the riding school and the horses warm and breathing in the darkness of their stalls.
    On the television, a nurse is wheeling the drugs trolley. She pauses by one of the old women and hands her a little canister of pills and a beaker of water. The camera