by Mavis Cheek
Florence continued to sit in her kitchen in Coventry and fume. She fumed over the press cuttings that never mentioned her. She fumed over the place at his side that Peggy Boxer had stolen. There was never, ever, anywhere, mention of her, the fount of everything. She thought of Liberace and his mother - she thought of Noel Coward and his mother, and when she thought of Patrick Parker and his mother - it made her feel ill. The world thought very highly of him, as indeed the world was right to do. But the world knew nothing of her. And that was very wrong.
It was then that Florence, who had given up on a kindly, approachable, chapel Heavenly Father, took to the Higher Church. She tried a few before she settled on St Michael's. Largely because most of the priests, vicars, ministers she approached in the town told her the same thing - that we must let our children go, that they do not belong to us, if we want to be happy we must have no expectations, remember God's gift of free will, etc. etc. - which she found quite opposed to her taste in spiritual counselling. Father Bryan, on the other hand, had taken a kinder view. He, too, thought mothers were good things and to be treasured, never having had one of his own, nor a father (which is why he took to the church since God the Father and Jesus Christ His Only Son gave Father Bryan an instant family and standing in the community). It seemed to Father Bryan that if he'd had half the help Patrick Parker was given by his mother, he would have been a bishop by now. At least. 'You are welcome here,' he told Florence. 'You and your bruised heart.'
That was more like it. She got on very well with this God and wished to encourage Him. Her first act in this direction, since she was mother to one of the leading architects in the world, in the ruddy Universe actually, was to kneel before a bank of candles in that ancient, silent, scented air, and apologise for the appalling monstrosity they had stuck on the outside of the new Cathedral (also St Michael's, which made her all the more proprietorial). Jacob Epstein, so they said, was the nation's greatest sculptor and this statue of St Michael, his very last work before he died, was supposed to be his Triumph. Florence had had enough of Triumphs. The operative words regarding Epstein for her, as she said with head bowed, was 'his very last work before he died'. 'Well, good,' said Florence to God. 'You did the right thing there.'
The church was her salvation. A place to go and communicate all that she felt as the years went by and Patrick succeeded without even so much as a mention of all that she had been to him. There was sour rage in every glitter of her eye as it beheld the Host. There was quivering righteousness during the Creed. And there most certainly was a woman scorned each time she knelt to take Communion. She told the piously sympathetic Father Bryan, as she pressed money into his hand for some good cause or other, that it was enough to kill a woman. Father Bryan absolved her from the sin of taking the name of death in vain and said that she was an angel in the sight of the Lord.
She was still convinced that one day her son would come back to her - and she would forgive him. She would. She told Father Bryan this and he nodded gravely. 'You have the power of earthly forgiveness,' he said. The knowledge of which kept her going for years. Her favourite Bible text was from Luke chapter 15, verses 11-32.
The Prodigal Son. With relish did she say aloud the words '... and took his journey into a far country and there wasted his substance with riotous living.'
Never a truer word, she thought.
15
Moving On: Life and Death
Mary Cassatt's In the Omnibus includes a bridge across a wide river in the background. This picture shows three people - a mother, a baby and the nurse, who is the bridge between them. They are isolated as if no other people exist. They are indifferent to their surroundings, which are passive. And indeed, the mother seems to be in a world of her own. Only the nurse, attentive to the child, shows any sign of activity. Brantacan Bridges, brantacan.co.uk/bridgeupdates.htm
Florence received the news about her son like any member of Joe Public. She turned on the television and there he was with his family (the boy looking like an idiot, the girl sulky) grouped on the steps of their grand London house, confirming the news that he was to meet the Queen. He was to become Sir Patrick. She noticed, in the midst of her rage, that Peggy Boxer looked nervy and that her bust had dropped. That's what came of being nursemaid to a Genius, my girl, and didn't she know ... But she waited that night, just to see. Perhaps it had all happened so suddenly he had not found the time to let her know ... Or perhaps . . . Her heart beat faster at the thought . . . She had waking dreams that Patrick was already driving up to tell her, pressing her hands, saying it was all thanks to her, she must come and be a part of it all... But of course it did not happen. Eventually she telephoned. She tried not to sound upset as she congratulated him. He merely sounded relieved.
'At last a KBE, Mother. And no more sharing the list with footballers, cricketers, people with no hands and B-grade comedians. Now I'll get the Millennium Bridge commission - you'll see. Won't that be something?'
'I'm very proud of you, my son,' said Florence, keeping her breathing as even as she could.
'Birthday Honours - means I should be getting in sometime in October. I'll send you a photograph.' Florence swallowed, said goodbye, and put down the telephone.
As the time for Buckingham Palace drew nearer, she asked Father Bryan what to do. He - born into orphanage and bringing his sanctified view of mothers and sons to bear - suggested that she telephone Patrick and say how much she would like to share the special day with him. Surely his wife (Father Bryan did not have a wife, nor intend to) would not grudge a mother this? Sitting there in that still little room with the waxy candles (never lit) and the plaster Virgin in her sweet sky-blue robes, it all seemed possible. Why should Peggy Boxer As Was accompany her son? When she had given him everything? 'Thank you,' she whispered to the priest, who was gazing through the door and up at the stained-glass window in which Bishop Heatherington had himself immortalised, in full regalia, in 1892. She leaned forward and said that she had a small offering for Father Bryan; Father Bryan - in an enjoyable state of ecstasy - merely nodded and suggested she put it in the box by the door. Florence had had quite enough of people dismissing her one way and another. She stood up, and without another word, she departed, pausing only at the door to do as the heedless priest had said. She shoved the entire bag of oat and honey biscuits through the slit in the top, one by one.
She took Father Bryan's advice. When she reached home she telephoned her only son. ‘I am very well,' she said to his enquiry. 'Never felt better. And I have a favour to ask ...'
Peggy Boxer As Was wore a very unpleasant shade of custard yellow and an odd-looking hat that looked like a cake decoration. She still seemed nervy but she obviously had on better foundation garments for this occasion. Peggy Boxer As Was looked a fool. A custard fool, Florence laughed grimly. Nevertheless he had chosen her, not his mother, to accompany him to the Palace. The television news showed them for perhaps a second - outside the railings now - srniling and hugging and slightly tearful while the BBC man said it might be thought a little overdue given Patrick's other honours from all round the world . . . And Patrick looked so young and so handsome and modest, smiling to the camera. It was as if he was goading her with it. Shoving it in her face. She remembered him at his father's funeral.
He had tears in his eyes then, too. For his father! He had never shed a tear for her, never. This is what Florence thought. It was a great comfort to her to think it. She who had given so much and so willingly was never to get her reward here on this earth. And so, Florence Parker, wronged Madonna, took the last possible superior action she could manage and decided to leave it. She slumped forward in her Garwood TV chair - present from her son - delivered by liveried van ... and died. She was there, in rigor mortis and out of it again, for four days before anyone took any notice of her absence. Patrick rang and rang but thought she was probably just put out and ignoring his call. She'd come round. But of course, she wouldn't. She couldn't. She could only be found, eventually. And that w
as only because the flickering of the television very late, night after night, was noticed by a passer-by. 'She seemed to be smiling,' he said to Patrick. 'I'd say she died happy.' And so it might be, for the one thought that crossed Florence's mind as the last breath left her body was that this would put a spanner in the works of the new Sir Patrick Parker. And if she was going where she hoped she was going, she'd be able to observe it, too.
It did. Put a spanner in the works. For Patrick was not totally bound up in his life's ambitions. No - not by any means. He had arranged a surprise for his mother. It might be a surprise that could do no harm to him either, but it was around and for her that he arranged it. He suggested to the Daily Mail that if he brought his mother to London (he would not take them up to Coventry, obviously) to share their family joy, they might like to interview the two of them together. After all, he owed her so much. His mother had been everything to him in his formative years. The Daily Mail journalist, warming to the idea, asked if his father could be interviewed too - Patrick probably gained a lot from his dad? Patrick shook his head. 'It was my mother,' he said. 'My mother alone.' If he felt a little unfair about this he justified it by saying that George was dead and that anyway, small Meccano models were hardly the sort of thing with which he wished to be associated. The Daily Mail were quite happy with just his mother. They imagined a sweet old lady with faded blue eyes and a brooch at her throat and thought it was a great idea. Human Interest.
The Daily Mail, though expressing disappointment when Patrick rang with sorrow in his heart and informed them of Florence
Parker's untimely death, thought it was an even greater idea to suggest that they would like to cover that aspect of things instead - if he was willing? He considered saying that grief was private, but only for a minute at most. It could do him no harm, it could certainly do his mother no harm, and though the whistle would be blown on his Coventry antecedents, the spectacle of Great Britain's Most Honoured Architect (their caption) brought low by his grief - and so soon after the award that would have brought joy to his mother's heart - was too serendipitous to miss.
Besides, he had just learned of the Millennium Commission's decision to put the bestowal of the Bridge Design out to competition. By the end of the beginning of the nineties, the notions of egalitarianism and No More Sleaze were making everything democratic again. Which would, Patrick averred (perhaps with just cause) in due course create a land of bridges and buildings fit for Lilliputians. But for the time being - in his bereavement - a little solid, sober, good-hearted publicity could do his cause no harm at all.
Thus Patrick, fresh from the glories of his Honouring, though still a bit downhearted that only The Times and the Telegraph had reported it with a picture - and still collecting news cuttings and photographs and letters and telegrams of congratulation from around the world -drove back to Coventry.
He wandered around the house. It depressed him. His mother had even refused to exchange the old range for something more modern and the walls in the kitchen were still that aged cream. How could he have ever brought anyone here? He shuddered remembering his brief hope of marrying Galton's sister - it would have been mortifying. No. He had chosen well, or Fate had chosen for him. He stood by the Garwood, where she was found apparently, and he was both sad and amused. At least she had died comfortable.
Out in the neglected garden he remembered childhood and playing with Audrey. He wondered where she was. Couldn't ask Dolly -she'd long gone to her Maker. It probably was a bus conductor she married.
He peered through the shed window, which was caked in dust and grime. He could just make out the shape of his old bike - so they hadn't got rid of it in the end. He tried the door. It was locked. And a distant childhood memory came to him. He felt beneath the lintel.
There was the key. It was an odd sensation - no one to stop him from coming into this forbidden place any more. It opened without much effort and there, wrapped in newspapers, were some of his father's models. He unwrapped the Eiffel Tower, put it on the bench and studied it. How small it was. He wondered why his father had made it so small. He hunted through the other wrapped shapes for the forbidden signal box, curious to see it again after all these years, but it was missing. He felt a small flutter of something like sadness as he dropped the model of the Eiffel Tower back into the crate and closed it. Have to get all this lot cleared before the house could be sold.
Outside he returned the key to its hiding place and stood in the overgrown garden for a while, thinking. The old-fashioned Meccano of that model gave him an idea. His bridge over the Thames could reflect that simplicity of form and function. There would be shadows of memory of the Festival of Britain, of the last vestiges of Empire and the New Elizabethan Age - a time when the metal building kit was at its most popular. How simple, how clever. He sat at the old kitchen table and began sketching some ideas. The house was very peaceful.
The following morning he went to see Father Bryan (of whom Florence wrote often as sainted and nearly a second son) to discuss how he wanted his mother's funeral service arranged - the music, the readings, the shape of the event. More than just the Daily Mail were interested. Human interest was in all their hearts for it sold newspapers. 'Such a poignant time,' said the journalist from The Times.
'So Pitiful - so Tragic,' said the Telegraph.
Only the Guardian forbore to get involved. Largely because Patrick was fifty.
When he arrived and sat with Father Bryan, in that same pale room with the unlit candles and the plaster cast of Mother Mary (pushed to the forefront of the desk on this occasion) he was shocked to be told, very firmly, that Florence had made her wishes known to the church, that she had written them in her own hand, and that things would, therefore, be arranged accordingly. (If nothing else, Florence had learned from George how such behaviour could pull the rug from under the feet of those left behind.) If Patrick could be firm about things, so could Father Bryan. He called Patrick 'my son', which got Patrick's goat. And when he tried to remonstrate, the priest actually patted his head. 'A sad loss, my son,' he said. 'A sad loss.' He fixed his eyes on Patrick and there was fire behind them. "She was sorely sorrowing by your neglect’ said the priest.
All that Patrick had come away with of his original plan for the funeral was his address to the congregation on the subject of his mother's great beneficence. This Father Bryan had slotted in between the finale of Paradise Regained... From the opening lines...
But thou, Infernal Serpent! shalt not long
Rule in the clouds. Like an autumnal star,
Or lightning, thou shalt fall from Heaven, trod down
Under his feet...
To the closing ...
Thus they the Son of God, our Saviour meet,
Sung victor, and, from heavenly feast refreshed,
Brought on his way with joy. He, unobserved,
Home to his mother's house private returned.
Which Patrick found a very unpleasant and disturbing reading, really. He wondered quite how it was that his mother, not a scholar as far as he knew, had any knowledge of Milton. But if he was disturbed by that - having expected something along the lines of 'All Things Bright and Beautiful' or 'Golden Lads and Lasses Must...' It was as nothing to the discomfort he felt when he found his own words were to be followed by a stout rendition of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, to be read by none other than Father Bryan. Who was not without voice.
'Are you sure?' asked Patrick, who was not without peevishness. 'Of that’ said Father Bryan very fixedly, 'your mother was most adamantine.'
Had Patrick been a keener scholar he might have deduced from the use of the word 'adamantine' that his mother's preference for seventeenth-century devout verse was somewhat echoed by Father Bryan's own interest and knowledge of Milton (as in Satan's adamantine chains). But he was not. He was far more interested in how to work in some Dylan Thomas. He knew Florence had hated him, but - well - Patrick had been practising 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.. .' in the c
ar on the way up (which could bring tears to his own eyes, never mind anyone else's, he was so good) but Father Bryan refused. "This is her order of service,' he said, 'and the order of service it remains. Besides it would hardly fit with the Pope that follows.'
'Pope?' said Patrick, horrified.
Happy the man, whose wish and care ...
A few paternal acres bound
Content to breathe his native air
In his own ground ...
'But why?' asked a puzzled Patrick. 'What's that got to do with my mother?' He could not see it at all. Father Bryan smiled knowingly.
The funeral can't be for some time,' said Patrick. 'They'll have to do a post mortem.'
'Ah yes,' said the priest. 'Because she died all alone.' And he gestured that Patrick might leave. The good man was feeling just a little ragged that afternoon as it appeared that some time ago an ill-disposed and very nasty piece of work had obviously thought it amusing to stuff biscuits into the Poor Box. This, being opened every two months or so (seldom was it worthwhile sooner), had not been discovered until a family - a considerable family - of mice were discovered having taken up residence. Mrs Moggs's scream would echo in his mind for many a year and if Father Bryan ever got his hands on the perpetrator...
Patrick left.
The date of the funeral was fixed at last. The invitations had been sent. At least no one argued with that. In London Patrick felt quite mortified. He had wanted to pay a particularly warm and meaningful public tribute to her. Full of meaning and drama and catching the hearts of his public. He felt cheated.
