Confusions of the mind

I fell asleep in Mother’s drawing room while waiting for Jojo to return home for dinner waking up cold in the middle of the night and wandered up to bed wondering why he and Royce had to work until the crack of dawn all the time. When I woke again in the morning Jojo had already left and I felt really frustrated at his total lack of communication. It was one thing for him to organise a new circuit tour but it was something else to ignore calls from even my accountant and then a thought struck me, some of their funds, I was just adding in the bit that Gervais would have supplied. I wondered if that was why he was avoiding me and this made me determined to get hold of him today, not just as his girlfriend but as business partner too as I had a right to know what was going on for if I was going to invest in his venture or if not then I had a right to know as I was not leaving my accountant hanging for days.

I went downstairs to find all the dinner dishes cleared away while Maritka clucked about me not eating and she refrained from making any comment about Jojo, no doubt she had scowled at him before he left this morning as that was her major form of communication, scowls of various intensities.

I ate breakfast on the terrace spending the better part of an hour trying to get Jojo on the phone, when I did I could hear Royce speaking to someone in the background and I found it hard to keep Jojo’s attention as he kept talking to the person in the background. I told him straight out that we had to talk this evening as his avoiding of my accountant was unprofessional and his running off without seeing me was plain rude. Jojo was distracted, no doubt by Royce and whatever supplier they were negotiating with but I was tired of being the understanding girlfriend for all this got me was being shoved to aside. I told Jojo if he didn’t want to have me invest then he needed to tell me but tonight he was coming home at a decent hour and we were going to discuss his behaviour. He apologised and although he agreed to our discussion he did it so quickly that again I felt shunted aside. Maritka must have listening to one side for she suddenly started dusting the room in a furious manner while scowling ferociously and muttering to herself.

Annoyed that I couldn’t get Jojo’s attention long enough to sort out our relationship I went back upstairs and stared at Mother’s letter to Liselle trying to work out what it was that she had known that required Gervais to be kept in line. I wished she had confided in me more and not been such a keeper of secrets for it seems that Mother had an entire life I never knew about until her death. First Braith and now this, it made me wonder what else she had known about people in this town, her vague fluffy matron bit seemed to be all an act. I decided that it was time to start on getting my life in order so I packed all her clothes in bags to take to a local charity shop as I knew Mother had supported various charities in her quiet manner and she would have wanted her things to be useful in some way, not just sit gathering dust in a closet. I kept the few things I could not bear to part with, told Maritka to take whatever she liked and everything else was packed to be taken away. When I was finished her room was bare of everything but a few trinkets, family pictures of us and Father before he had died, I do not remember his death very much, I was very young and Mother only referred to him as a kind loving man. I told Maritka that if Mr. Jojo arrived home while I was gone she was to keep him there even if it meant sitting on him and this brought on something only Maritka could do, a scowl of pleasure.

I took Mother’s clothes to a local charity shop and sat in the car for half an hour before getting the courage to go inside but I discovered I didn’t want to give her things away for she was still alive for me. I kept expecting her to enter a room, or hear her on the phone gossiping with Chantal over someone’s indiscretions. Instead here I was about to give her away as if she had not existed and the guilt sat inside my throat choking me until I shook myself to be sensible. I went inside to ask if they would be interested but found myself frozen in one spot unable to speak. A volunteer worker, a fluffy old lady noticed me and in her kind voice she asked if she could help me and I told her I wanted to donate some clothes, of course she had probably met people like me every day, numb with the shock of death, uncertain what to do with personal items. I told her I was not sure I could do it and she patted me saying I was to take everything back home for when the time was right I would know and that is when I should donate her things. I told her that Mother was a kind person and would want to donate her things and the old lady smiled saying she was sure Mother would understand my reluctance and I found myself back home where I took everything back up to her room. Looking for comfort I tried calling Jojo again but it was a fruitless exercise as he was never there, even when I needed him so I sat down in Mother’s chair, I wanted the comfort of her around me and wondered just what was going on in my relationship, my life, my world.

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