My Daughter, My Mother

by Annie Murray

  ‘Nice cake,’ Dave said, through a big mouthful.

  He told her they were having a slow day – that was why he had managed to get home. And that Al, who worked for him at the garage, was planning on getting married.

  ‘What – him and Lesley, all of a sudden?’ Joanne laughed. ‘Why’re they bothering?’

  Al was in his forties, and he and Lesley already had three children.

  Dave shrugged. ‘Dunno – she wants to. Wants a wedding, I s’pose. The girls’re going to be bridesmaids.’

  ‘Oh,’ Joanne said. She stroked Amy’s head. ‘Maybe we should’ve waited. Had Amy as our bridesmaid.’

  Dave laughed, shaking his head. ‘Nah. It’s better to do things proper, like.’

  They cracked some jokes about Al and Lesley, saying they might as well have waited to collect their pensions and paid for the wedding that way. Then Dave stood up, brushing crumbs off his jeans.

  ‘Anyroad . . . Got to get back.’ He put his mug down and stood up, saying lightly, ‘You won’t be going out again?’

  ‘Well, it’s a nice day. I thought I’d take her out to the swings and . . .’ She hesitated. Things had been going so well, but she’d better prepare the ground now.

  ‘What?’ A dangerous edge was back in his voice.

  ‘Tomorrow – you haven’t forgotten? I promised Mom to go over and help get ready for her birthday. She’s not feeling too bright . . .’

  ‘When is she ever? She’s like a bloody zombie, that woman.’

  Joanne bit back an angry retort. It wasn’t as if Mom was easy, either. Instead she said, ‘She just wants a bit of help. I can take Amy over . . .’

  He’d gone all tight again, full of resentment.

  ‘We’re only going to do a bit of cleaning,’ she said. ‘Amy can play – that’s all.’

  Again she saw the struggle going on in his head. What did he imagine? She could see that he wanted to stop her, tell her she couldn’t go, but he managed to reason his way out of it. He shrugged.

  ‘All right then. Here, give us a kiss.’

  She kissed him and then lifted Amy up.

  ‘Kiss Dadda goodbye.’

  The front door slammed behind him. Joanne stood and took several deep breaths. Everything was all right. They had had dinner, talked. Nothing had happened.

  Three

  ‘Excuse me – can yer let me sit down?’

  From her annoyed tone, Joanne realized that it wasn’t the first time the woman had asked.

  ‘Yes, sorry.’ She moved her bag and pulled Amy in even closer on to her lap. The elderly woman dropped down into the seat, breathing chestily as the bus crawled under the Hockley flyover. Joanne faced the window. It was a hazy day outside. The woman beside her made clucking noises at Amy, but Joanne didn’t turn and look. She hadn’t the energy to talk.

  It took two buses to get across town to her mom’s. Joanne had grown up in Kings Heath and each time it was like returning to childhood again: Mom and Dad still in the same smoke-filled terrace near the baths, her younger sister Karen still living bossily at home. The place never changed. She never looked forward to going very much; it sapped her energy. But she felt responsible for Mom – always had.

  As the bus swooped gently down into town she thought: well, at least last night was all right. In the afternoon she’d taken Amy out to Handsworth Park, where they’d fed the ducks. Bits of Mother’s Pride and torn-up chapattis floated on the surface of the water. Amy had loved it. Joanne watched her adoringly, in grateful wonder at her daughter’s settled, happy disposition. Once home, she’d made sure Dave’s tea was ready – pork chops, which he especially liked. He’d phoned at six, apologetic, like his old, sweet self.

  ‘We’ve had this bloke in with a flash BMW – wants it done straight away. He’s made it worth our while. So I’ll be late, can’t say how long.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ she’d said, relief flowing through her. ‘Your dinner’ll keep. I’ll get Amy to bed – you take your time.’

  There was a silence, then in barely more than a whisper he said, ‘You’ll be there, won’t you, babe?’

  ‘Course I will.’ In that moment she was touched by his need of her, as well as confused by his moods. ‘Where else’d I be going?’

  ‘Love yer,’ he’d mumbled gruffly.

  She hesitated; she hoped not long enough for him to notice. ‘Love you too.’

  What fantasy world did he live in, she wondered as she put the phone down, thinking she might conduct some affair in the hour or so that he was out late, with a young child to get bathed and into bed? It was all so ridiculous, the way he tormented himself – and her – with his crazed fears.

  It hadn’t always been like this. It had mainly started since Amy, and this was the strange part of it. Looking back, Dave had had reasons to be downcast and angry with life. He’d had his shocks and disappointments: his dad dying the way he did, for a start. But he’d seemed to ride that and get over it. Basically he’d been a cheerful, lively lad, her Dave, the feller she’d given up everything else for. But then, just when something good happened – Amy arriving – he had started to change. Things began to happen that she would never have dreamed of before.

  The first time he’d actually gone for her was nearly six months ago. It had been fireworks night, and Amy was already asleep, oblivious to the noise. Joanne didn’t know what had set Dave off. He’d been in a bit of a mood, but she didn’t know why.

  He’d gone out the back to their little patch of garden to put bagged-up nappies in the dustbin, and she’d come out to stand on the back step. The air smelt of gunpowder, or whatever that stuff was they put in fireworks. There was a blue tinge to the night and coloured sparks spraying high above the rooftops. Every few seconds there were bangs and voices cheering and ‘ooooh’-ing. What with Guy Fawkes and Diwali, the whining and exploding of fireworks went on for weeks at that time of year, but this was the peak night.

  Dave came and stood beside her. He was wearing jeans as usual and a big, dark-blue sweat shirt. She remembered that he had seemed disembodied: in the dim flashes of light, his face was the only part of him that was visible.

  Except the fist that came swinging round when he hit her. Hard.

  What had they been talking about? This and that, or so she thought. Pink sparks fizzed across the sky in front of them, lending a glow to the houses behind.

  ‘Funny, isn’t it,’ Dave had said suddenly. ‘All them people out there. All in their little boxes – thousands of ’em.’

  ‘All getting into bed every night,’ she’d said with a giggle.

  She remembered he had rocked on his feet a bit when she said that, as if thinking about it. As usual he had his hands in his pockets. He was a big man – bigger now that he had stopped playing football and was drinking more. She had been standing with her arms folded, keeping warm.

  ‘You won’t be out there, seeing many of ’em, now will you? All those . . . milling crowds of people.’ He sounded disgusted. ‘Not now we’ve got Amy.’

  ‘Well, not till I get back to work,’ she said.

  He was standing on her right. When he twisted round and punched her, the blow smashed into her right collar bone. She didn’t know if he’d misjudged in the dark, had meant to get her face or even a breast.

  ‘Wha . . . ?’ She gasped as pain jarred through her, clutching at her neck, and staggered forward into the garden.

  ‘You ain’t going nowhere.’ Even in her agony she could hear the extreme rage in his voice. ‘I don’t want you to. I earn the wages in this house, and you can bloody well stay at home like a proper wife and look after your daughter. That’s how it’s going to be. Got it?’

  He disappeared inside. Seconds later she heard the front door slam.

  Bent over, her teeth chattering, she prodded at her collar bone with her fingertips and tested it, flexing her arm. It seemed a miracle that it wasn’t broken. She groped her way into the house. The lamp on the side table in the front room gave of
f a gentle light. She fell onto the sofa and curled up on her side, trembling with shock. With a fist pressed to her lips, she wept tears of pain and bewilderment. It was a long time before she stopped shaking. Eventually, oblivious to the faint bangs from outside, she fell asleep.

  His coming back into the house jarred her awake. Still curled up, she lay rigid, listening for his breathing in the hall the other side of the wall as if he was an intruder. It was as if he had become the enemy, someone she didn’t know at all. There was a chasm between them. Then he was there, kneeling beside her. She recoiled from him, but he almost fell on her.

  ‘Bab? Oh, my babby – I’m sorry.’ His voice was wretched. He was stroking her hair. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry if I hurt you . . .’

  ‘Why did you hit me?’ she sobbed.

  ‘That wasn’t me. I dunno who did that, but it wasn’t me . . . I’d never hurt you, my little darlin’, my babby.’

  Longing to believe him, she had reached out and put her arms round his neck as both of them wept. His loud male sobs of contrition were like nothing she had ever heard and they moved her. She had never heard him cry before. He led her up to bed, unbuttoning her clothes in wonder, as if it was the first time he had ever seen her long, slim body, brushing his lips over her bruised collar bone in a way that made her overflow with tenderness for him. After they had made love she fell asleep with his warmth pressed against her back, and in the morning they acted as if nothing had happened. She told no one, though she couldn’t move without pain for some time.

  It happened again a month later: she had brought up the subject of work again. W.H. Smith were expecting her back, and she needed to get things sorted out. That time he had got her up against the wall, hand round her throat. Terrified, she agreed to give up her job. In any case she had dreaded leaving Amy, and Dave was adamant that his wages would cover the rent and everything else they needed. But that was when she told Michelle.

  They had all been at the same school in Kings Heath – Dave, Joanne and Michelle – though Dave had been in the year above. Now that she and Dave were in Handsworth and Michelle had moved to Yardley with her mom and dad, they had only been able to meet now and then, for a coffee in town, and even less often now that Dave was so paranoid about her going out.

  At first Michelle had been shocked and sympathetic.

  ‘You want to watch it.’ She spoke between drags on her cigarettes. Michelle was seldom seen without one, and a fog of smoke hung over her side of the little cafe table. ‘Don’t let him get away with any more crap like that.’ She lit a new fag from the dying one, which she stubbed out in the glass ashtray.

  ‘I’d never’ve thought it of Dave, but once they get like that, they can’t usually stop. They’re like horses going to the bad – and then you’re stuck in the ditch with ’em, mate.’

  But after the last few months, when Joanne had made excuses and cancelled meeting her several times, Michelle wasn’t speaking to her.

  ‘It’s because of him, isn’t it?’ she had said the last time Joanne phoned.

  ‘What d’you mean?’ Joanne tried to shrug it off. ‘No – it’s just Amy’s got a cold, and . . .’

  ‘Has he hit you again?’ Michelle’s gravelly voice demanded.

  ‘No! Well, once or twice – but only . . .’ Only what? Her voice trailed off. Only hit me . . . ? In horror she realized that it was something you could get used to, that it might become normal. ‘We’ll sort it out. It’s fine most of the time, really. Only I’d best not aggravate him.’

  ‘You’re a fool,’ Michelle said, disgusted. ‘You need to get out of there, mate: ring one of them phone lines – Rape Crisis or whatever.’

  ‘He hasn’t raped me,’ Joanne pointed out.

  ‘Well, whatever it’s called. Look in the bogs somewhere – those stickers on the doors. Do summat about yourself.’

  ‘You’re a fine one to talk, Meesh.’ Michelle had hit the bottle off and on over men and heartbreak.

  ‘How d’you think I know the score?’ she demanded.

  Joanne kept out of Michelle’s way now. She had grown more and more isolated. In fact, until she started going to the playgroup – she knew deep down that the cut lip Dave had given her last week was to stop her going there – she had barely seen anyone for several weeks.

  She got off the number fifty bus carrying Amy and went into the indoor arcade to pick up some cheap chrysanths. It was a warm day, and by the time she had walked along to her mom and dad’s house she was sweating.

  ‘You’re a heavy little dumpling, aren’t you?’ she said, nuzzling Amy’s cheek. ‘Never mind – we’re at Nanna’s house now.’ She rang the bell, pinning a smile on her face.

  There was no response for such a long time that she thought her mother must have gone out. Then at last she heard her rattling the safety chain inside.

  ‘Hello, Mom! Look who’s come to see you!’

  Her mother, Margaret Tolley, was of a very different build from Joanne, who took after her father. Margaret was shorter, brown-eyed and well rounded. Her left eye wandered to the side, which gave her an eccentric look. She peered blankly at them through her specs. As usual she was in the middle of a smoke. Joanne saw little beads of perspiration on her forehead.

  ‘Mom? I’ve come to help, remember? Get cleaned up for your birthday?’

  Her mother passed her tongue over her lips, something she nearly always did before speaking.

  ‘Oh – sorry, love. I’d sort of forgotten. Come in.’

  ‘I like your hair,’ Joanne said as they went in. The house stank of smoke as usual. ‘Have you just had it done?’

  ‘Yes, yesterday.’

  Her mother’s hair, a fading dark brown, usually hung round her collar in an indeterminate state somewhere between permed and straight. Today, though, it looked darker, and had been set in tight curls. It was good to see her doing something about her appearance.

  ‘It’s nice – ready for your party, eh?’

  Her mother gave her vague smile again. ‘Thought I might as well try and look my best.’

  On Friday it was her fiftieth birthday, and on Saturday she was planning to have family and a few friends round for some tea. It was all she wanted, she said, no fuss.

  ‘For God’s sake, Mom,’ Karen had argued, when she had announced this intention on another visit of Joanne’s. ‘You only live once – why don’t you go out to a nice restaurant or something? It won’t break the bank, you know.’

  Karen, now nineteen, with her new admin job at the Poly, wore suits with shoulder pads, had even bought a little car and thought she knew everything. She had already thought she knew everything before, only a bit less so.

  ‘Karen . . .’ Joanne had said in warning. ‘Don’t push it.’

  ‘But it’s so boring – a little tea party! Anyone would think she was an old lady!’ They both felt that their mother dressed like one.

  Mom had flared up, the way she did, sudden as a Roman candle.

  ‘Don’t you talk to me like that, you pert little bit!’ Within seconds Margaret could be towering with rage over something that seemed minor to them. They had been in the kitchen, and Joanne was afraid she might pick up the kettle and hurl it at Karen. ‘You’re getting way above yourself these days, that you are. It’s my birthday, not yours, and I won’t be told what to do by you!’

  ‘It’s all right, Mom,’ Joanne had said. She had always been the one to keep the peace. ‘You do what you want – it’s your birthday.’

  ‘At least Dad could take her out,’ Karen muttered, leaving the room. ‘The boring old sod . . .’

  ‘Karen.’ Joanne hurried out after her. ‘Shut – up – just leave it. You know what she’ll get like.’ The eruptions of temper could end in a long reign of resentful silence.

  ‘Let her,’ Karen said. ‘I’m sick of it.’

  Thank goodness Karen was out at work now. She was always the one who wound things up.

  While her mother was making a cuppa, Joanne slid the
window open. Amy played on the rug on the front-room floor with the box of little toys that her grandmother had collected for her. Margaret brought the mugs in, got another ciggy out and was about to light up, but thought twice and put the packet back in her pocket. That was another thing Karen was forever on about. Mom and Dad both smoked like chimneys. I go to work reeking of smoke. And do you want to give your granddaughter cancer?

  Sitting with her mother before they started on the house, Joanne felt there was something different about her. At first she thought it was just the hair. Margaret was dressed in a faded navy skirt, a short-sleeved red-and-white checked blouse and her brown lace-up shoes. There was nothing new there. But it wasn’t just that, or the way she kept licking her lips even more than usual, almost as if she had something difficult in mind to say and was working up to it. She seemed tense and strange, her fingers moving restlessly on the mug she held in her lap. Staring fixedly at Amy, she pulled a hanky out of her waistband and wiped her forehead.

  ‘You all right, Mom?’ Joanne asked.

  ‘Why?’ Margaret looked across at her, suddenly sharp. ‘Why d’you ask?’

  ‘Oh, you just seem a bit . . . tired.’ Maybe that’s what it was, just tiredness.

  ‘I didn’t sleep very well. I was down here making tea at three in the morning.’ She drained the mug and reached to put it back on the tray.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Joanne said. This was a common complaint. Her mother’s sleep patterns had never been very good, and Joanne always thought this was the reason for her uneven moods. But it was hard to know what to say. ‘At least I’m here to help.’

  Margaret nodded. ‘Dave all right?’

  ‘He’s fine, ta.’

  ‘Good lad, that one.’

  Dave could do no wrong in their eyes. She imagined it for a moment, her saying: He hits me, Mom. Something’s gone wrong. Sometimes I’m so scared of him. They’d never believe her.

  ‘Shall we get started then?’ Joanne suggested.

  Four