“If I drive to Liverpool, would you please be willing to meet up with me? There are some things about Ant I’d like to understand.”
I feel like I’m playing a game of mystery solving, like I’m in a feature film. Not like I’m digging into my best friend’s past.
“I’d be happy to meet,” Callie-Ann says. “Do you think you’ll be able to get him to talk to me? That’s all I want. Just one chance.”
I have no promises I can make, so I don’t try to make any.
“I can be with you late this afternoon and anytime onwards, just give me a time and a place.”
“Whenever works, you can come to the flat. I’m always here anyway.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
I take her address. Flat 17, Eastview Road, Liverpool.
I grab a sandwich from a service station, sipping a coffee as I speed up north. My fingers are twitching on the steering wheel with nerves, based on nothing but a nasty instinct I can’t shake off.
I heard quite a lot about Ant’s mother while he was drunk on vodka. I heard of her vast number of boyfriends and how she’d shut him in his bedroom like he didn’t exist, and how she chose a life in Liverpool without so much as giving him an option of going with her. He’s painted her like a callous piece of trash who never gave a shit about him, and I’ve always accepted it as the truth. So, I guess it’s time to find out.
I pull up in a parking space outside her apartment block and people on the side of the street are looking at me like I’m some kind of debt collector, shifting away as I cross their paths. I reach her doorbell and click to call.
“It’s Gerwyn,” I say when she answers, and she buzzes me in.
Her place is a few floors up, at the end of the hallway. I don’t get the chance to knock on the door before she opens it, and I’m not ready for the woman who greets me. Her white hair is swept up in a bun, and she’s wearing a dark green sweater with jeans. None of the almost regal finesse Ant tends to carry himself with.
She lets me inside and three cats greet me, snaking around my ankles, mewling as they seek my attention. The woman laughs as she declares herself cat lady and offers me a drink, but there is an edge of nerves to her that makes my heart race.
“A coffee, please,” I say, and follow her to the kitchen.
There’s a picture of a young boy framed proudly next to the mug cupboard, and that young boy is most definitely Ant. His eyes are exactly the same, and so is his jaw.
“Yeah, that’s him,” she says.
“I’m hoping to ask you some questions,” I tell her, and she scoff laughs with the same kind of laugh Ant does.
“Same goes for you.”
She makes the coffees, hands me a mug and I follow her through to the living room. It’s nice in here. Quaint. There’s another picture of Ant displayed boldly above the sofa. This one is him in his school uniform at about seven years old.
Ant’s mother takes a seat on the sofa, indicates me to take the armchair opposite.
“Thanks,” I sit down, take a sip of the bloody awful coffee.
“Let’s cut the crap,” she says, in another manner that reminds me of her son. “I’m guessing he’s told you I was a bitch who never gave two shits about him, or his future, or his life. I’m sure he must have told you I upped sticks from London and ran away up here without him, and that’s probably because I hated him because I didn’t know who his dad was, and was too bothered about my boyfriends to care about him. Is that it? In a nutshell?”
I stay silent, because yes, that’s exactly what he told me.
“Thought so,” she says.
I fix her in my gaze, trying to read her. “Is it true? Is that really what happened?”
She shakes her head, but shrugs at the same time. “Ant is very good at putting a spin on things. That’s one way you could look at what happened between us.”
“And what other ways could you look at it?”
Her eyes well up at that, and she struggles for words. I try to spot similarities in their appearance, but there is nothing notable.
“If I tell you, you’ll help get him to speak to me?”
“There are no conditions on it, Callie-Ann. Tell me if you’re comfortable. I’ll do what I can regardless. I’d just like to know all I can about Ant’s past. He’s been very, very important to me.”
“Ok,” she says.
And then she starts the story.
“I was a teenage mum who’d made crappy choices, trying to make the best for us after I ran away from Malvern. You could say I got pulled into some horrible stuff with people I shouldn’t have, and tried to keep him away from it, even if it meant shutting him in his room while shitty, nasty stuff was going down.”