Some Girls' Mothers

by Anne Caldwell

  *

  At the beginning of term Mrs Greenland makes an announcement.

  ‘Now that you’re in the top form you may put your sanitary towels into the bin provided in Sick Bay.’

  The classroom flutters with whispers and giggles. I’m supposed to know what she’s talking about, everyone else seems to. Some things come to light in the playground – pain, mess, an excuse to get out of swimming. The absolute imperative of not letting it leak and leave a stain.

  Questions boil inside me. It doesn’t occur to me to talk to my mother. I’ve never seen any evidence that this happens to her. I glean what I can from my friends, while trying to pretend I know more than I do.

  ‘My mum gave me big pads with loops and safety pins.’

  ‘It makes you stink.’

  ‘I know someone who didn’t get hers. She had to have an operation.’

  ‘Never tell anyone, especially boys.’

  I begin to make sense of the white bags that hang beside toilets, with pictures of ladies in long, ballooning skirts and petticoats. Is that what you have to wear? Won’t people notice if you suddenly change from trousers into dresses? Every time I see a female body older than my own: teachers at school, women on the Number 12 bus with shopping bags, teenagers swooping past me at the ice-rink, the same forbidden questions ricochet through my head. They’re so loud I’m terrified they’ll spill out.

  Has she got IT right now? Is IT going to show?

  Now and then word whizzes round the Upper Third: ‘She’s started.’

  I inspect Her as discreetly as I can. Is She walking strangely?

  Periods. For weeks my only focus. The word itself is obscene, discoloured. I don’t understand how adults can live normally as if nothing is happening, as if they aren’t carrying this knowledge around inside them. The weight of the secrecy builds until one night, when sleep doesn’t come, I sit at the top of the stairs, crying. Mum is two floors down. Plates and glasses clink, conversation wafts upwards along with the smell of onions and mince frying. I’m full of pressure. The Curse is filling my head and chest like a filthy dam about to burst.

  She can’t hear me. There’s only one thing to do. I can’t go downstairs because that would mean Dad finding out.

  I pick up the intercom and press the buzzer for the first floor. She answers.

  I barely get the words out past the sobs.

  ‘What on earth is the matter?’

  ‘I know what happens when…when…a girl becomes a woman.’

  The plastic receiver is jammed against my ear, my wet cheek.

  She leaves the cooking. I hear her footsteps on the stairs. I’m back in bed, shivering. Her voice sounds like she’s smiling.

  ‘There’s no need to get upset. Some women make a song-and-dance about pain but it’s all a fuss over nothing.’

  Months later she hands me a brown paper bag with a packet of Dr Whites inside. I’m about to go on a two-week French exchange. The scrumpled bag travels back and forth in the bottom of my suitcase for several years.

  My periods don’t start until I’m fifteen. I’m on holiday with my dad and brother, and can’t find a way of telling Mum when I next see her. In fact, I never tell her; we have had our first and last discussion about menstruation. There’s a growing chasm into which all matters of the body topple and disappear.

  *

  It’s Sunday afternoon. The blue trunk, with her former initials on it, has been hauled up from the cellar to the ground floor. It smells damp inside. There are whitish stains on the leather. From the top of the house I ferry piles of skirts and shirts, ticking them off the school list. Four pairs of socks, fawn. Three pairs of underpants for games lessons, blue. One boater with house ribbon. At John Lewis I’ve been measured and fitted in fresh, smooth clothes with creases still intact. Everything is far too big. I’ve carefully sewn name-tapes into each item, even glued them to the tennis racket and the shoe-cleaning kit. For my twelfth birthday Mum has given me a red leather writing-case and a nail-set with my initials embossed in gold. She’s said there is a special way that everything must be packed and has bought sheaves of white tissue-paper for this purpose. She’s gone out to lunch with friends. I’m more than ready. The trunk is yawning open. Primed by Enid Blyton and Mallory Towers, I can’t wait for the escape.

  When the front door slams I know immediately that something’s wrong. She totters down the hallway, peers round the door and giggles.

  ‘Oh darling, are you all ready? Haven’t you begun?’

  ‘I was waiting for you.’

  ‘We had heaps of champagne. Richard was there. Don’t frown, you’ll get wrinkles.’

  With unsteady thumbs, she smoothes out the skin on my forehead and between my eyes.

  ‘Don’t raise your eyebrows either.’

  I ignore her. Shove books into the bottom of the trunk. She’s delighted with herself, keeling onto an armchair and recalling her days at Roedean: holidays spent with friends because her parents were abroad, tennis trophies, high jinks, war-time evacuation to the Lakes.

  I speed up. She hoists herself onto her knees and shows me how the tissue-paper should be folded to puff out the chests of the shirts, the skirt-waists. I don’t want any help from her. Her breath smells odd. Her hands are clumsy. I promise myself that when we get there I’ll rush off and leave her in the car.

  *

  Mrs Turner asks the new Lower Fourths to come to her study at 8.15 pm. Already there’s so much to remember – the timetable accounts for every moment of the day. Bells clang up and down the corridors from the early hours of the morning; silences and the end of silences. We cling to each other – Nicola, Emma and I, an illicit threesome in this new world where everyone is paired up into best friends.

  We perch on her green velour armchairs in slippery nylon dressing-gowns. The House Mistress has a study, a bedroom and a bathroom to herself. There’s a rumour that she’s really divorced from the husband who, she tells us, is working abroad in Saudi Arabia. A pair of huge orange-tinted glasses makes her look nocturnal, and she walks with a tilt to the right, her upper body leaning forward. In the coming months I will learn to recognise her silhouette as she prowls after lights-out, an ear to the dormitory doors to catch us talking or out of bed. Compelled by hunger as much as rebellion, I will be perfecting the art of slipping down the backstairs to the kitchen, with its vast humming fridges, locked; tiptoeing beside the shiny industrial ovens to ransack cupboards for their offerings: ice-cream wafers, a jar of Marmite.

  ‘Every night you’ll come and say goodnight with the Early Beds at eight, then you’re to be in bed by eight-thirty. This year we’re trying to improve our house points in the Deportment Cup. May I remind you that hair-bands must be black, navy or brown. Skirts at least two inches below the knee. Tie-pins are compulsory. Jeans are worn only on Wednesdays after supper or on Saturday afternoons. Any problems, see me. I am in loco parentis. Now that you’ve started Latin you’ll know what that means.’

  It’s not a question but we nod. A tear plops onto Emma’s quilted lap. We pretend we haven’t seen it. Haven’t heard her on the hallway phone. Don’t know that her mum is coming next weekend even though it’s frowned upon for parents to visit before the first exeat of term. I can’t understand what she’s missing. What does home-sickness feel like? Does it make you want to throw up? Why can’t she get over it? There’s so much to do here: masses of ‘prep’, lessons until six on Tuesdays and Thursdays, lessons on Saturday mornings, games on Saturday afternoons, chapel on Sunday mornings. No time to think. Only on Sunday afternoons do the empty hours stretch out while we gorge ourselves on plasticky lumps of fudge until it’s time for the Top Forty on Radio One.

  Mrs T pats Emma’s arm.

  ‘That’s enough. Now off and get a nice hot drink in the Surgery.’

  *

  The army surplus coat stays on at all times. Blazing sunshine or downpours which leave it dank and even heavier than usual. I’ve no idea how it might get clean, and I
never intend to take it off long enough to find out. It soaks up cheap lager, roll-ups, sweat. Is a steel-grey blanket, top to toe. Is as good as a tent when I’m propped up waiting for the night bus.

  Under it, a black and white striped mohair jumper that I’ve nicked from the back of Mum’s wardrobe. She never wears it. Too fifties. Just right for me, now that black is in, any black – furry, ripped, the older the better. The closest I can get to safety pins is a bunch I’ve threaded onto hoops to wear as earrings. Black skirt, thick black tights, pointy black suede boots. Black eyeliner coating the red rims of my eyelids. Somewhere underneath are my droopy tits. I’m still wearing vests. There’s never been a bra conversation and I’d be mortified to face M&S alone.

  The coat’s turned-up collar hides most of my face, hair straggles across my forehead, and my neck is swathed in a purple Indian scarf. Om Shanti. Anything to cover the spots. Red, bobbling mountains, they rise on my chin, forehead, nose, back. They can tell when there’s a party coming, when there’s someone to impress; start as tender pink patches then expand to throb and glow at exactly the wrong time on the wrong day. One emerges on my upper lip and thickens it so much that I can’t speak properly. I pretend I’ve been hit in the mouth by a lacrosse ball. As if you’d catch me voluntarily near anything so sporty. My be-all and end-all is TCP. Surgical Spirit. Clearasil. Warm water. Icy water. Leave them. Burst them. Dab surreptitiously at the blood and clear liquid that oozes out after the pus. Girls’ magazines are full of advice on ‘Zapping Your Blackheads’ but what do you do when half your face swells up on a regular basis? Mum comments only once: ‘Look straight ahead, smile and pretend they’re not there. That’s what I used to do when nylons were expensive and I had ladders in my stockings.’

  Talking about spots is out of bounds. It admits they exist. If I stand at the right angle, hunch my shoulders, keep my face propped in my hands, they won’t show. Hours in front of bathroom mirrors, squeezing, poking, picking.

  I’m passing round canapés. It’s an exhibition she’s organised at a Bloomsbury gallery. Something to do with Islamic Art. I keep my head down. Olives. Cashew nuts. The hot, prickly feeling of seeing my parents’ friends arrive and praying they won’t come and talk to me.

  ‘How’s school? Haven’t you grown! This is my son Tarquin.’

  Adam is skulking in a corner. Eating stuff instead of offering it round. Dad is nodding off in a chair.

  A woman in a posh outfit pries a square of smoked salmon from the plate. She introduces herself. Diane. Thank God she doesn’t know who I am. What are the polite things that grown-ups ask each other? I fake it.

  ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I’m the Fashion Editor at Harpers & Queen.’

  I suppose I should be impressed but this is all incredibly boring. Is it the best that anyone can do? Get me out of here. I’m going to jump on a bus down to Oxford Street. Hook up with James and Bid. See a band. Maybe score some blow.

  Mum enters the room with a tray of drinks. She’s yack-yacking away to everyone and laughing. Wearing a hideous green dress. Diane catches sight of her and turns back to me.

  ‘Now that woman has style! She’s the best-dressed person I’ve seen all evening. Do you know who she is?’

  *

  She seems to ride like a Valkyrie, with Wagner pouring out of hidden speakers in the plane trees, while Morris Minors and Mini Metros rear up onto the pavement, drivers clutching the steering wheels, as she swoops through them, her state-of-the-art rainproof panniers full of French bread, Cox’s apples and rolled drawings, head high above the traffic, all five foot eleven inches of her Viking broad-boned frame powering into the pedals, brooking no diversions, no pauses, in her wide-brimmed rain-hat and red velvet knickerbockers, my mother heading home on her bicycle.

  *

  She doesn’t take easily to a hospital bed. Wherever possible she sits up, gets out, walks around the ward, goes outside. I bring in as much of her outside world as I can. Gravadlax from Selfridges. Copies of Building News. Posters from exhibitions at the V & A. Cases of mineral water. The hospital food is an insult. She leaves as soon as she can after the hysterectomy but has to return for chemotherapy, first one kind, then another.

  She remains in charge. Friends beg us to tell them how they can help. She doesn’t want anything. She is going to get better. A chosen few may sit with her and read the paper while she reads, or drop off light, home-cooked meals. The notion of alternative treatments is raised. She humours me by agreeing to visit the Bristol Cancer Centre. I go to the relatives’ group. She doesn’t like the cancer diet. It’s the mid-eighties. There’s a lot of raw carrots and bran involved.

  Peppermint Foot Lotion from The Body Shop. I bring it tentatively, prepared for rejection. Rub it into her long, broad feet, the dry skin around the heel, the knobbly fist of the big toe, bunched and tight where it’s been pushed into her beautiful shoes. The arches and Achilles tendons are sore. I make small circles along the edge of the sole and press each toe from its base out to the nail. The air fills with the lotion’s heavy scent. My hands are greasy, her feet pink and shiny. I cover each one with a warm towel when I’ve finished it. Work along the ankle and the shin.

  ‘Ah. Lovely.’

  I start on her hands. The nails are tidy and trim with perfect half-moons. She has always had emery boards nearby, scattered on shelves, tucked into pockets. For as long as I can remember, her nightly routine has been the same. Before putting in ear-plugs and covering her eyes with a mask, she smothers her hands with lanolin cream and encases them in white cotton gloves. The palms are broader than mine, the bones thicker. With these hands she has played the piano valiantly while I scraped out a tune on the violin. She has returned my limp forehand with a confident thwack. She has gripped the shank of her designer pencils over the high white sheet of the drawing-board late into the night. She has rubbed my back in small, firm circles as if bringing up a baby’s wind, and checked my burning forehead as I sweated out chickenpox. She has chopped mounds of parsley, coming at it from one angle and then another with a long curving knife, until the green heap is reduced to specks. She has stirred strips of pork and celery with soy sauce in the heavy-bottomed orange frying pan; turned the handle of the rotary mixer over and over while I poured a steady stream of oil into the thickening yellow mayonnaise.

  These hands are puffy and sick, veins full of the chemicals that have been pumped through her body. Her appetite is diminishing. She eats only the puréed apple that I cook for her. I work between the finger-bones, seek out the wasted muscles, following her breath, pushing gently into pressure points as she exhales.

  ‘How about your neck and shoulders?’

  We don’t speak. At first I’m too rough. The skull is tender where her hair has grown back. I slow down, stroke and tap. No pushing and prodding here. Her face is soft and child-like, despite the years of powder and foundation. The rituals of cotton wool and expensive moisturisers have served her well. I tuck the fringe back. Her hair is fine, a rich brown. She’s over sixty but I’ve never seen a grey hair nor evidence of dye. I smooth out her forehead, work my fingertips into the lines, down the sides of her nose, around her eyes. The skin is delicate and silky, but even now she seems larger and bolder than me. She casts a wide shadow. She is so solid, so very much here.

  I stay out one night at a friend’s house. Too stoned to get the Tube home. Arrive back mid-morning, armed with apples, ready to peel, chop and boil them down. She’s halfway up the stairs. She has made her own purée. I stammer my apologies.

  ‘We don’t need you here,’ she spits at me.

  *

  When Mum dies Sally is the first person I think of calling. I’m twenty-four. I haven’t seen her for ten years.

  She comes to the memorial service. She’s wearing a flowery dress and smiling, standing out from the clusters of relatives, my mother’s colleagues, the concert pianist who will play Rachmaninoff on the rickety church piano. My half-siblings ask me who she is; she’s terrib
ly familiar but they can’t quite place her.

  ‘I can imagine how your mother was. I can just imagine it.’

  Dad is delighted to see her. He always finds something to talk about – Kentish news or the hops, his trade for forty years. She goes along with him though he is dropping names that have probably never meant anything to her.

  I hug her. Make arrangements to visit. She’s running a toddlers’ group, her husband and children are busy playing in local teams. One sunny autumn afternoon I drive to her village in my first car. A silver Ford Fiesta with a bent MOT I bought naively through the Sheffield paper. Mum gave me the money before she died. I’ve been up north a year; I’m halfway through a social work course – a relief after the claustrophobia of Oxford.

  Sally and I look at old photos. Her teenage daughter is intrigued that her mum was someone else’s nanny. I try and tell Sally how much she meant to me. She shrugs.

  ‘Your parents were still around. I had my days off, evenings off.’

  Then a question rises to the surface. A question that has lain dormant for a long time.

  ‘Why did you stop working for them?’

  She is matter-of-fact. As cheery as ever.

  ‘I felt I needed a change. I wanted to set up a nursery. We decided it was best not to tell you. You were five; in the first year at Kensington High. I packed my bags in secret. One day, when you were at school, I left.’

  She’s almost triumphant. It was a coup.

  I ransack my memory – there’s nothing there. Almost nothing. The dark blue carpet on the attic stairs. The feel of it on my hands and feet as I climb up to look, to check one more time. She fills the ensuing silence.

  ‘Of course we saw each other later on. You visited. Then John and I got married.’

  The wedding is vivid. Being the big sister, keeping Adam quiet. The pale blue bridesmaid’s dress. The single pearl necklace she gave me. My wan face in the photos, tangled hair in an alice band.