SCENE V

MOTHER KNOWS BEST

Call me a mommy's boy, but every Christmas break I take Drew down to see my mum, because I love her and miss her way too much to not go down. She's down at the bakery at Christmas time, baking her arse off because Sinclair's is ridiculously busy this time of the year. My mother has been slaving away at this bakery since Sylvester passed away, it was her way of dealing with his death, after the whole debacle with her slight alcohol addiction. It wasn't all sunshine and roses after Sylvester died, it wasn't just me who fell apart, my mother got hit the hardest. When Sylvester died, he had just found out that my mother had been seeing another man, some absolute scum of the Earth that if I weren't such a pacifist would actually murder. I don't care if I go to jail for the rest of my life, that arsehole deserves to die. My mother hadn't meant to hurt him, but she couldn't stand Sylvester anymore. The year before my father's suicide, he changed, I was used to him being this jovial man, who ruffled my hair and sat patiently with me by the piano as a struggled through a measure. He changed, started becoming more paranoid, spending more time playing ridiculously sad songs on the piano. If there's one thing I can never play on piano, because of him, it would be Beethoven's Piano Sonata No 3, the Appassionata, the third movement. I'd hear it at midnight, his hammering on the keys, his crying seeping through the walls. Beethoven's 3rd, along with Chopin's Etude in E major, Op. 10 No. 3, I can never play, I heard Sylvester play it too often, and every time I try, I just end up crying for no reason. Nevertheless, he changed, his playing held this ever-present sorrow, and his compositions became more crazed, Sylvester's last couple of Etudes are known as the insane etudes, his last moments, plunged into five or so pages of sheet music. They're nearly impossible to play, or decipher, I'd know, because I tried one summer to decipher his scribblings, and could not make sense of anything. His schizophrenia drove him to the edge, and my mother's infidelity drove him off. Eventually he just couldn't stand it anymore, and he shot himself in the middle of the night. I'm a generally unlucky person, I mean, I got stuck with a nightmare on the night he died, and then ended up witnessing him literally blowing his brains out. Little six-year-old-I-can-only-play-twinkle-twinkle-little-star Harry Sinclair saw his father shoot himself. Nevertheless, there's a very in-depth account online somewhere, where you can read about me literally crying my eyes out about Sylvester's death, and my mother promptly apologizing for accidentally falling into alcoholism. Happily, all remnants of the Sinclair family's dread has been long forgotten, but Sylvester's death still hangs over us like a dark cloud. Plus it doesn't help that I look exactly like he did when he was my age, and it doesn't help that I play like he did either. I'm basically a carbon copy of Sylvester Vincenzo Sinclair, schizophrenia and all, the only real difference is the fact that I'm still alive, and that I haven't succumbed to my insanity yet. (Mostly because of Drew.)

I worship my mother for the sadness she's endured, she's been eye-deep in hell, and came out unscathed. When I found her that Christmas, eye-deep in pastries, smiling at me with that golden smile of hers, I thought of the last time I saw that smile. After Sylvester's death, the Sinclair's were plunged into a cycle of sadness and embarrassment, and my grandparents worked hard to clear their name. My mother barely smiled during that time, she was so absorbed in her sadness that she couldn't even see me. I don't hold any resentment toward her for that, honestly, I don't, in fact it makes me see her in a more revered light if I think about it. She's seen it all, and here she is, still standing, still hugging me, still going on. That was something Sylvester could never do, he could never move on. (And I suppose I got that aspect of his personality too.)

Drew immediately ran to her, exclaiming "grandmummy" at the top of his lungs, while all the patrons in the bakery looked at him with their wide eyes. My mum picked him up, and swung him around like Sylvester used to do with me, and then came bounding over to me.

"Harold Charlie Sinclair if you don't come visit more often, I will personally see to your death." She said as she hugged me too. I smiled a sheepish grin, laughing carelessly.

"Sorry, mum." I said half-heartedly, "I'm here now, though. It's the thought that counts." I said, and she shook her head, holding the smile. Later when it was just us in the little cottage I'd grown up in, she made me a cup of tea, and we sat down. It was then when my mother started showing a ridiculous interest in Rosemarié Darlings. Obviously I had told her that I ran into her again after the party was over, only because she demanded to know absolutely everything about my love life.

"And?" She asked, practically hanging on my every word.

I purposefully took a particularly large sip of my tea, and waited a while before answering, "and then I went home."

"Harry. C'mon, love. There has to be more than that." She said, looking at me with a sense of playful disappointment in her eyes.

"That's all there is, mum. I didn't really think I'd be seeing her there anyway, because she was in France, and I doubt I'll see her again afterwards."

"Aren't you going to Finn and Louis' wedding?" She asked, with an all-knowing grin on her face.

"Of course." I answered.

"Then you'll see her again." How right she was.