A Mother's Love

Martin Petersen was an arsehole. That's what most people who ever met him thought. He was a thinly built, gangly sort of a man. He had two bulbous eyes that protruded from his face and sat restrained behind thick rimmed glasses. These in turn sat perched upon a pronounced crook nose, a nose which was always red raw from a long suffered severe pollen allergy. Peterson was used to ridicule about the way he looked but that was the least of his worries. He always went to a lot of trouble over his appearance. Everyday he would arrive at the office in crisply ironed shirts and a tightly fitting plaid waistcoat that clashed only slightly with his dull brown suit and over polished brogues. Everything about him screamed 'tax inspector', although he wasn't. At forty-two years of age his life was a lonely one. He had no money worries, but then he also had no friends and was not in any relationship. In fact he hadn't had a relationship for over seven years, even then the experience had left him feeling inadequate.

Petersen's mother was a slender, aged woman, with a passion for flowers and gardening. Petersen didn't see much of her at home as she always busied herself amongst her flora. He was sure she did it on purpose because she knew it aggravated his allergies. She was that sort of 'spiteful bitch'. Her preoccupation didn't bother him though, the less he saw of her, the less he was reminded of his vile loathing of her. She continued to torment him though, even when she wasn't around. Every morning there would be a fresh arrangement of flowers in a vase upon the kitchen table. Every morning Petersen would cover his face with one hand and with the other, grab the flowers and shove them into the kitchen bin. He would then wash his hands in the large stone sink, and then suck on his inhaler, before picking up his briefcase from the sideboard by the front door, and leaving for work.

Petersen had lived with his mother all his life. His father had left home when he was a boy and from what he could remember of him, he was glad of it. What a pair his parents had been; an evil spiteful mother and a drunken abusive father. The house still bore the wounds of anger that his father had left from his many rages. Petersen had the faint remains of the imprint of his father's sovereign ring upon his chest. A reminder that he was best shot of him. When Petersen though back though, it was only once his father had left that his mother became so cruel. He had once had such a loving connection with her. They even shared some similar scars from when he remembered her trying to protect him, but when his father did eventually leave, she seemed to change. It obviously deeply affected her. Petersen could remember returning one day from school, to find his mother in the garden, sobbing. Back then it was just an old muddy bit of land, but since that day she became obsessed with her flowers and soon turned the garden into a mass of colour and pollen. He guessed it was to somehow compensate for the void he had left in her life, though he couldn't understand why. He presumed she would have been ecstatic to be rid of him. Petersen never saw much more of his mother from then on, she spent so much time in the garden and his allergies prevented him from being with her. She knew of his crippling pollen allergy, but it only seemed to fuel her passion further. Soon fresh flowers began to appear in the house and Petersen found himself with little refuge. He would throw the flowers away, but everyday more flowers would appear. Petersen never felt close to his mother again and she distanced herself from him by being forever in that blasted garden. In the last thirty years they had only really shared brief discussions, and most of those had ended in arguments. Yet she continued to do motherly things for him. She would do his laundry and always had a hot meal waiting for his return from work. She would set the table for two and lovingly smile at him and ask how his day had been, all the while slowly poisoning his senses and attacking his allergies. There upon the kitchen table would be that blasted vase of fresh flowers again. The perfumed scent filling the house and his nostrils; driving his sinuses wild beyond tolerance. He would pick up his plate of food and with a smile of discontent would take it to his room and eat it alone.

Why was his life so shit? These thoughts stayed with him throughout each day. From the moment he awoke in the early hours, getting into his run down Morris Minor, heading off the driveway and through the town to work, all throughout the day, and then those same thoughts followed him home again. The belief that his life couldn't possibly get any worse than how it was proved the only thing that motivated him to carry on. On this particular day he rounded the corner of his street and pulled up onto his driveway. He sat in the car for a few minutes, the only solitude he felt he got. But hot, knackered and stinking of sweat, he clambered out of the car and up to the front door of the house. He struggled with armfuls of paperwork he had brought from his office, and eventually produced his keys. He unlocked the door and pushed it open to be greeted by the rank smell of excrement, urine and the dead body of his mother, prostrate across the kitchen floor.

Petersen's face remained emotionless. He simply placed his files down on the sideboard, picked up the phone receiver in the hall and dialled an ambulance. He then walked into the kitchen, stepping over his mother's corpse, and put the kettle on.


Five weeks had past since the funeral of his mother, and Petersen had already made some positive steps to changing his life. Having stayed clear of pollen he had never felt better, and he had rarely needed his inhaler for at least the last week. The absence of his mother had liberated him and he had embraced the fact that his parents were now gone. No abusive father and no uncaring vindictive mother.

Peterson had started to redecorate the house with a vigour and passion he had never had before. He whitewashed the floral printed wallpaper and gutted the rooms of all traces of his past life. Large skips lined his driveway, full to the brims with black bags and various broken up furniture. His biggest accomplishment though was the garden. He had paid labourers to come in and remove everything. Not a single flower or plant remained, instead there currently sat various pieces heavy machinery and bags of cement mix. Today work was going to begin on his new patio and conservatory. Workmen had arrived early that morning and they had rather heavy-handedly trundled a miniature digger into his garden. He didn't mind, there was nothing of any value in the garden anyway, he was just eager for the work to begin. He left them too it, offering the obligatory tea and biscuits as is standard fare for any workmen these days. He then enjoyed a lengthy shower before dressing himself for the day and settling in the kitchen. He made himself a fresh pot of coffee and sat at the table with the local paper that had arrived rather brutishly through his letterbox only moments earlier.

Suddenly the peace of the morning was disturbed by shouting from the garden.

Petersen left the table and headed out toward the back door only to be greeted by one of the labourers. He was a rather old man, covered in mud and grime.

"What happened?" Petersen quizzed the man.

"Have you ever spent much time in the garden?" The old man asked.

"No, none. Why? What's happened?"

"Surely you've been out there?"

"Look I told you I'm fatally allergic to pollen. I've not been in the garden for about thirty years. My mother made sure of that. Now are you going to tell me what's going on?"

"I think you had better come and see for yourself."

The old labourer headed back out to the garden and a rather confused Petersen followed.

All work had stopped and the labourers had gathered around a freshly dug hole in the bottom end of the garden. In the hole were the clearly discernable remains of a body. The digger had gathered a large amount of the remains up into its shovel, leaving scattered debris of odd bone fragments and discoloured earth in the ditch. Petersen walked over to the small crowd, and they all stopped muttering and slowly parted to let him through. He peered into the grave and a terrible sense of foreboding fell upon him. He gazed at the ground, trying to arrange his thoughts into something he could make sense of. One of the men stepped toward Petersen, and then gestured towards the diggers shovel.

'There's more in there.'

Bewildered he peered into the shovel. Amongst the earth protruded a various array of bones, although dirty and still partially buried, the white of bone shone from the mud like diamonds.

'I don't understand?' Peterson muttered to the workman.

'It's a body mate...in your garden.'

'I...I...' Peterson was completely perplexed.

'Look, we've contacted the Police already and they are sending some forensics around to have a look and bag it up.'

'The police?' Petersen's frown intensified, 'Why the hell is there a body in my garden?'

The older workman turned to Petersen and spoke, 'Look mate, you said your mother was a gardening fanatic?'

Petersen struggled to reply, 'Yes...she was always in the garden. Why?'

'Well, I'm just speculating here but, the body was only a few feet down. I'm guessing your mother knew about it."

'Are you suggesting my mother...?'

'Mate, all I'm saying is it would have been hard not to dig up the guy. Just looks pretty suspicious.'

'Are you serious suggesting that my 82 year old mother was involved in a murder?'

'Look, maybe not, the body must have been there a good thirty years or so. I wouldn't like to say she done it, but it certainly looks like she was going to some effort to keep the body hidden.'

Another workman approached the men and sheepishly interrupted them. 'Er, we found this?' The man offered his clenched fist to Petersen, 'I don't suppose you recognise it?'

Petersen looked down to the man's hand as he opened his fingers and dropped a tarnished and grimy Sovereign ring into his hand. Distinct recognition stabbed at Petersen's head as he clenched his hand to the scar on his chest, he instantly found himself struggling for breath, and reaching inside his pocket removed his inhaler and began sucking on it.

"She was trying to protect me."

"I'm sorry mate?"

"She did it to protect me. All this time..."

Petersen stepped back from the grave and looked at the ring in his hand. He turned it around and around with his fingers. For the first time in decades he could feel the scar on his chest burn.