Dear Mother: A gripping and emotional story that will make you sob your heart out

by Angela Marsons

  Her normal type was rough, energetic and gone by sunrise. On the rare occasions that she found herself in someone else’s flat she made her excuses by five a.m. It was only polite.

  Alex stiffened slightly as the bathroom door opened. For a few moments she had relaxed back into her own company. Her favourite place to be.

  ‘So, can I see you tonight?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘At the weekend?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, just piss off, will you?’ Alex roared. The studio flat was tiny enough. Two people in it made her claustrophobic.

  A pang of regret bit at her as the girl padded to the door carrying her shoes, but it wasn’t strong enough to prompt her to change her mind. She felt bad but not that bad.

  The door closed and with her domain her own again, Alex breathed a sigh of relief, wondering if it was worth it. So often, these days, the chicks wanted breakfast in bed and a lifetime commitment. She’d already been there, done that, bought the T-shirt and burned it.

  ‘Fucking commitment,’ Alex growled as she lit her first cigarette of the day. She drew in and exhaled deeply. Her first fag and coffee was something that she shared with no one, not even Nikki. Even then Alex had risen half an hour before her lover.

  As she swallowed her first mouthful of coffee a gentle knock sounded on the door. ‘For fuck’s sake,’ Alex shouted. Didn’t the stupid cow have enough taxi fare? She threw the door open, her face a mask of anger. It quickly dissolved into a smile when she saw Jay, her best friend, lounging against the door frame.

  ‘There’d better be a muffin to go with that good coffee you’re carrying or you can piss off,’ she said walking away from the open door.

  ‘As if I’d grace your doorstep at this time in the morning without gifts,’ he said, kicking the door shut behind him. He placed the cardboard cups on the kitchen counter and delved into his jacket pocket. ‘Blueberry,’ he offered.

  She nodded approvingly, taking the muffin from him. The aroma of warm dough and fruit made her mouth water.

  Jay retrieved a similar bag from his other pocket. ‘Oh, how civilised,’ he chuckled as he removed the lids from the coffee. Alex sniffed at the fresh aroma and threw her home-made instant down the sink.

  Jay sniffed the air, dramatically. ‘Is that the scent of a cheap tart I smell?’

  ‘Yeah, but she’s gone now.’

  ‘I was talking about you, darling.’

  Alex gave him the finger and bit into the muffin. Small crumbs broke off and tickled her chin. Suddenly, all was right with the world and if it lasted for the duration of the muffin, that was fine with her.

  ‘Nikki came into the club after you left.’

  Alex rolled her eyes. Of course it couldn’t last. ‘So?’

  ‘Just thought I’d let you know, that’s all. You were a gnat’s bollock away from bumping into her.’

  ‘Why should I care?’ she cried at him, her voice rising.

  ‘I just thought I’d mention it in case you were interested,’ he said, flicking his non-existent hair. He’d gone for the shaved look a month earlier.

  ‘You’re so gay,’ she said, laughing at his campness.

  ‘You’re right. I am a truly happy person.’

  Alex chuckled as Jay tried to press a beauty spot formed of muffin crumb above his upper lip.

  Thank God for her friend, she thought as she viewed his crestfallen expression when the fruity beauty spot landed on the plate. He’d been the first friend she’d made when she moved to Birmingham seven years earlier.

  They’d met during her first venture into a gay bar. He was one of three males amongst a throng of females dancing and gyrating in a small airless space. Intrigued, she had asked him why he was there. He’d admitted that when he wanted a quiet drink he frequented bars full of butch lesbians who’d leave him the hell alone.

  Any thoughts of meeting someone that night had been put aside as the two of them spent the whole evening chatting and laughing together. And little had changed since, she thought, as she chewed the last mouthful of dough. They both still worked part-time in different bars. He was still trying to make it as an actor and she was still content not trying to make it as anything.

  ‘So, how did she look?’ Alex asked, offhandedly.

  ‘Gorgeous, as ever. She’s put on a couple of pounds and she’s got a nice tan. To be honest, if I was a lesbian I’d be all over her.’

  ‘You’re biased and you know it, so be objective for a minute.’

  Jay put his finger beneath his chin and pursed his full, feminine lips in a dramatic thinking pose. ‘Okay, objectively she looks fucking gorgeous.’

  ‘Thanks for the impartiality.’

  Jay shrugged. ‘It’s not my fault if you’re too stupid to realise that she was the best thing that ever happened to you.’

  Alex buried her head in her hands. ‘Jay, leave it alone. You don’t know anything about us or what happened in our relationship.’

  ‘I know enough to understand that you were the happiest you’ve ever been when you were with Nikki. She was something special and you let her get away,’ he said, accusingly.

  ‘Back off,’ she warned.

  ‘You don’t frighten me, missy. I’ll say what I like; free speech and all that. You were stupid to let her go. Is it really so much better getting a quick shag now and again to ease the misery?’

  ‘I get a quick shag ’cos I like sex,’ Alex said, attempting to lighten the mood.

  ‘You get cold sex with faceless strangers because you’re lonely, and don’t even pretend otherwise ’cos we both know it’s true.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ she sighed, lighting a cigarette.

  ‘And before your pride sinks any lower, I’ll put you out of your misery. No, she wasn’t with anyone.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to ask,’ Alex said, stubbornly.

  ‘No, you probably weren’t, but it was the one question rolling around in your mind.’

  ‘Jay, I’m warning you, if you don’t shut the hell up I’ll—’ Alex was saved from finishing the threat by the ringing of the phone.

  She traced the muffled sound to a pile of clothes on the sofa. She threw them on to the floor.

  ‘What?’ she barked into the mouthpiece.

  ‘Is that Alex Morgan?’ the voice asked, tentatively.

  Alex felt a shiver trace the length of her spine. The gentle voice sounded vaguely familiar, in a way that made her immediately uncomfortable.

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘Hi Alex, it’s Beth.’

  Alex closed her eyes as guilt rolled over her. The silence between them grew uncomfortable. Alex had no clue what to say to a sister she hadn’t seen in eight years.

  ‘Are you there?’ the voice asked, softly.

  Alex searched for any trace of hostility or accusation in the few words but found none. Inexplicably a lump formed in her throat. Of course, there wasn’t. This was Beth.

  ‘I’m here,’ she whispered.

  ‘I have some bad news for you,’ Beth continued. Alex heard the catch in her voice.

  Alex held her breath, waiting for the words to come.

  ‘Mother died during the night.’

  Alex exhaled the breath she’d been holding. She briefly listened as Beth quietly gave her the details of the funeral.

  Alex said her goodbyes and gently placed the handset back in the cradle.

  She turned to Jay but spoke more to herself.

  ‘Thank God the bitch is dead.’

  Three

  Catherine

  Catherine pulled into the narrow street and felt her stomach lurch. Regeneration appeared to have found other areas of the Black Country. New housing estates had sprung up in place of the foundries and steelworks that had once dominated the area.

  The old corner shops that she remembered had been turned into frozen mini markets or boarded up completely. The once thriving market town of Cradley Heath had been annihilated by a
shopping centre a mile up the road. Once the hub of weekend retail, it now boasted a Tesco superstore and a string of charity shops. An access road diverted traffic away, leaving room for empty buses that rarely picked up or dropped off.

  But this street had barely changed at all. She travelled slowly along a road flanked by long rows of terraced houses either side. A couple of the houses were now boarded up.

  A group of kids were gathered opposite her old house, their faces caked in a mixture of jam and dirt. Catherine felt no rush of fond memories as a boy aged eight or nine clad in only a vest and pants threw a smaller, weaker child to the ground to whoops of joy from onlookers. It was a street where bruises went unnoticed, as she knew only too well.

  She parked the car away from the front of the house, wishing for a few minutes alone with her thoughts before she saw Beth. She had contemplated not coming to the funeral at all but Tim had insisted that she must.

  What did he know? she wondered angrily. He knew nothing of her past because she had never told him. She had never told anyone. As far as he was concerned it had been a childhood plagued with poverty and name-calling once their father had disappeared.

  Christ, if only that was all it had been.

  She knew she was avoiding knocking on the door for a variety of reasons. She genuinely wanted to enter that house with real emotions churning inside her, but in the days since Beth’s phone call she had been unable to summon anything.

  Within minutes of replacing the receiver Catherine had been smothered by a cloak of numbness that had extended beyond the feelings about her mother’s death. She had functioned on remote control. An automatic pilot had taken over her faculties and guided her through the normal daily routine. She had cooked dinner, made lunch for the girls, cleaned the house and gone to work while all the time trying to work out how she was supposed to feel.

  She got out of the car and locked it behind her. It was futile trying to harness genuine feelings in a few minutes when she had been unable to do so in just under a week.

  The front door had been painted dark blue since her last visit, but the canary yellow paint that Catherine remembered peered through the chips left by thrown stones.

  Before her hand met with the door, it opened. Catherine smiled weakly to cover her shock. For a few seconds she sensed that neither of them knew what to do. The problem was solved as Beth launched herself across the years and hugged her forcefully. Catherine returned the embrace awkwardly.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ Beth said, ushering her into the front room.

  Catherine built a wall against the memories. Just being inside the house was bringing it all back to her.

  Beth led her past a table laden with sandwiches stifled by cling film, to the kitchen at the rear of the house.

  ‘I’ll make tea and we can have a good chat,’ Beth said, reaching for the kettle. Catherine felt the awkwardness of the situation even if Beth appeared not to. Her sister was acting as though they had met for coffee the previous week and had only a few minor facts about each other’s lives to catch up on. How much catching up were they going to do to cover the fifteen-year chasm that existed between them?

  Catherine swallowed the guilt that rose up and engulfed her. She half wished she could embrace Beth properly and apologise for her absence and silence over the years. She would like to tell her that she had wanted to come back and see her but she couldn’t. She just couldn’t.

  ‘Sugar?’ Beth asked.

  Catherine shook her head, overcome with sadness that such a basic fact, such a small detail, was not known between them. It should have been second nature.

  Catherine appraised her sister briefly. Her appearance added ten years to the twenty-six real ones. Her hair had been strawberry blonde as a child but it was now unkempt and dirty looking. It was tied in a severe ponytail exposing dry, flyaway strands at the temple and forehead. Her face was devoid of make-up and showed an uneven skin tone. Catherine wondered when her cheeks had last seen daylight. The brown A-line skirt was a disaster on her bony frame and was topped with a roll-neck jumper.

  Catherine swallowed and looked away. She knew why Beth wore her tops that way. She would never forget, and truthfully, in the depths of her conscience, she knew that it was the reason she had never returned.

  The last words ever spoken to her by her mother had kept her away initially, but she had no excuses for the years she’d been an adult, and perfectly capable of standing up to her mother. But she hadn’t.

  She felt a rush of anger that would be sated only by a violent act or buried until she could deal with it. How much damage had one woman done to them all?

  Catherine wondered if she would be able to smile bravely at the graveside whilst extolling the virtues of her mother. Would any of them?

  She faced Beth’s gentle expression, full of grief. Yes, Beth would, she realised.

  Impetuously, Catherine reached across the table and squeezed Beth’s hand.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Beth patted her hand. ‘She was your mother too. We just have to help each other through the pain.’

  Catherine watched as Beth’s eyes filled up with tears. She looked at the ceiling and prayed for the strength to maintain this façade for the rest of the day. How could she tell her sister that she couldn’t find it within herself to be sorry for their mother’s death? She was sorry for the years and distance that had grown between them.

  ‘How are the girls?’ Beth asked, wiping a tear from her eye.

  ‘They’re fine,’ Catherine answered. How could she relay the events of all the years that had passed? Catherine had already seen the photo on the mantelpiece of her children, taken a year earlier. Her bitterness at Beth’s refusal to attend the christening had long since gone, leaving only a ball of regret that her daughters had never met either of their aunts.

  ‘I’d love you to meet—’

  ‘Mother was very ill that day,’ Beth offered. ‘The doctor had changed her medication after the first stroke and she had a bad reaction to the tablets.’

  ‘It’s okay, I understand,’ Catherine said, and meant it. At the time, she had known her mother’s illness was contrived to prevent Beth coming to the christening. She had known and kept quiet.

  Silence rested between them. Catherine could think of nothing to say. There was no way back. ‘The food looks nice,’ she commented, nodding towards the other room.

  Beth looked anxious. ‘Oh, I hope so. There won’t be many people. The doctor and a few neighbours, but I still want to do Mother proud.’

  Catherine nodded awkwardly. Everything about Beth travelled back to their mother. A place that Catherine did not wish to visit.

  Catherine was about to say something banal about the weather when the doorbell sounded.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ she offered quickly. She hurried to the door but paused as she passed the fireplace in the front room. It smelt of disuse, but Catherine remembered one occasion when the fire had been used. She closed her eyes to block out the memory but the vision of frightened faces and piercing screams reverberated around her mind. Sickness rose in her stomach and tears pierced her eyes. ‘Damn that woman to hell,’ she whispered vehemently.

  The sound of the door brought her back to her senses.

  She opened the door and it took Catherine a few long seconds to appraise the person before her. ‘Alex?’

  Alex nodded and smiled strangely as she entered the room. ‘Fantastic that we barely recognise each other.’

  Catherine opened her mouth to respond, but there was little to say.

  She noticed that Alex looked her twenty-four years. Her skin was flawless and her black hair was as spiky and short as it had been back then.

  Catherine followed her youngest sister through to the kitchen. Beth grabbed the new arrival and hugged her fiercely. Catherine detected the same awkwardness of feeling like strangers in the company of your siblings.

  Jesus Christ, Catherine thought again, what had that damned woman done to them all?<
br />
  Four

  Alex

  Alex stepped away. It wasn’t the greeting she’d expected from Beth. Recriminations, bitterness, accusations – yes. A genuine heartfelt welcome – no.

  She took two paces back, eager to avoid any further displays of physical affection.

  As Beth moved through the rooms and she followed, Alex was conscious of not looking at anything too closely. She averted her eyes from the fireplace.

  Aspects of the house were different. A fresh coat of paint covered the old patterned wallpaper that had been peeling and damp-stained, but it was still the same house. She could feel it in her bones.

  ‘What time exactly is the funeral?’ Alex asked.

  ‘Two thirty,’ Beth answered.

  Alex made no attempt to hide the sigh of relief that escaped from between her lips. Only ten minutes more in this house and she could be on her way back home.

  ‘Thank you both for coming,’ Beth said, gratefully, reaching for both their hands. Alex saw that Catherine squeezed Beth’s hand tightly in response.

  Alex looked away. ‘I’m going outside for a fag.’ She opened the door and stepped outside, reaching for a pack from her jacket pocket. There was another pack of twenty in the other pocket, just in case.

  She leaned against the window ledge and inhaled deeply, feeling the sting in her throat. It was the same place she’d stood eight years earlier when she’d realised that anywhere had to be better than this hell.

  She remembered clasping Beth’s hand and dragging her to the bedroom. She had begged her sister to run away with her but Beth had been horrified at the thought, despite being eighteen and legally old enough to do what the hell she pleased. By that time Catherine was long gone.

  For once Beth had been resolute in her refusal despite Alex’s urgent whispers that she would die if she stayed here. Beth had merely shaken her head and patted Alex’s hand.

  ‘You go. Go now. I’ll cover for you.’

  And Alex had.

  At the bus station she had hesitated briefly, tempted to return and try again to persuade Beth to go with her, but she had known that it was pointless. Beth’s gentleness was matched only by her stubbornness and once her mind was made up there was no changing it.