My Daughter, My Mother

by Annie Murray

  On Thursday Joanne stayed in nearly all day. Dave was in one of his better moods. When he came in from work she told him cheerily what she had been doing all day: it had been fine for hanging washing on their rack in the garden; Amy had played beside her with her little wooden trolley, picking up leaves and stones and carting them about. They’d watched Sesame Street, she’d ironed the clothes, had a short walk to the park . . .

  ‘I got some sausages,’ she said. ‘Thought we’d have chips.’ He loved her home-made chips, which were already browning nicely in the metal basket, dunked in oil.

  ‘Sounds nice.’ He came up behind her and lifted her hair to kiss the back of her neck. His hands smelt of Swarfega.

  ‘That tickles!’ she squirmed. ‘Careful, or I’ll have the pan on fire.’

  Amy was calling ‘Dada!’

  ‘Fancy a video?’ he said. ‘I’ll go down and get one in.’

  ‘All right, yeah – say hello to Amy first, though, and I’ll pop her into bed.’

  She was full of relief. The evening was looking good. They could sit side by side, lost in a film. Nothing would happen. That’s all she wanted now: for nothing to happen.

  He came back after she’d settled Amy. The food was keeping warm in the oven.

  ‘That smells nice,’ he said. ‘I could do with it – I’m starving.’

  ‘What video did you get?’ she asked, carrying the plates through. Dave was kneeling in front of the telly, feeding the video into the slot.

  ‘Quadrophenia.’ He sat back on the sofa. ‘Here we go.’

  ‘Is that the one where he goes off the cliff at the end?’ She handed him his dinner. ‘The one with Toyah in?’

  ‘Yeah . . .’ He moved his head to see past her.

  ‘She grew up a few streets from me.’ Toyah Willcox, one of the city’s stars.

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ Everyone knew that, but she still wanted to say it.

  They both ate hungrily. They’d got to the bit where the rockers are chasing round the London streets when the phone rang.

  ‘Turn it down a bit,’ she said, answering it, still watching the screen.

  ‘Jo?’ The voice was so tearful and panic-stricken that at first she didn’t recognize her sister.

  ‘Karen? Is that you?’

  ‘You’ve got to come. It’s Mom, she had this sort of fit – they’ve taken her into Selly Oak. It was terrible. Dad was out and I didn’t know what to do. Can you come? We’re both at the hospital – Dad’s here with me now. They’ve not said anything yet, but I think there’s something really wrong with her.’

  Dave was the model husband and son-in-law that night.

  ‘Come on, get in the car – I’m driving yer.’ He only had a clapped-out old Fiesta, but a car was a car.

  ‘No, I’ll go on the bus.’ She was dashing back and forth, trying to find her bag, some change. We can’t leave Amy, can we?’

  In a few minutes Dave had arranged for Mrs Coles from next door to come and sit with Amy. They crossed the city, through the underpass, roaring out along the Bristol Road. Why can’t you always be nice like this? Joanne thought, examining Dave’s profile in the flashes from the street lights, the outline of the handsome boy whom she had fallen in love with. The boy who was going to be a football star.

  She was impatient to get there, but dreading it. Her hands gripped her bag hard. What was the matter with Mom? She had seemed a bit odd when she was there yesterday, distant – but then she often was; maybe unwell in some way? She had certainly seemed to be feeling the heat, sweat pouring off her, though it hadn’t been extremely warm, just a sunny May day. She had sat down to rest several times as they cleaned, and instead of talking to Amy she had just stared ahead of her. But then she’d often been like that, hardly ever fully with them somehow. Maybe that was why Karen had turned out so hyperactive. You had to keep moving, so Mom didn’t drag you down. Squabbling had been one of the ways the girls had kept their energy up.

  ‘I should’ve stopped her,’ she said.

  ‘What, your mom? How d’yer mean?’

  ‘Maybe she overdid it yesterday. I should have told her to sit down, let me do it.’

  ‘She’d never’ve listened to yer.’

  This was true, Joanne realized gratefully.

  Joanne spotted Karen under the light outside the main door of the hospital, still in her work suit, pacing back and forth.

  ‘Oh, thank God – at last,’ she gabbled, seeing them. ‘They’re taking Mom up to the ward, I think . . .’

  ‘How is she?’ Joanne asked as they scurried along the brightly lit corridor.

  ‘She hasn’t really come round properly, I don’t think. They’ve been doing some tests. I don’t really know.’

  Karen’s normally immaculate pleat had half come down, a kinked ponytail lying across the back of her neck.

  ‘I got home and I was in the kitchen getting a drink, and I heard this funny sort of scuffling . . . She was on the floor, just thrashing about, making this peculiar noise – it was terrible.’

  ‘You poor thing,’ Joanne said, touched by her younger sister’s sudden vulnerability.

  ‘There’s Dad,’ Karen said, slowing a fraction. ‘That must be the doctor with him.’

  Joanne saw her father’s thin, sagging figure ahead in the corridor. The bright light made the bald top of his head shine between the longish hanks of faded brown hair that hung round his collar. His hands hung at his sides in a defeated sort of way. With him was a young Asian man in a white coat. When they reached the men, Joanne said, ‘Dad?’

  ‘Oh, ’ello, girls,’ Fred Tolley said in a dazed way. ‘All right, Dave? These are my daughters, Doctor . . .’ He trailed off.

  The doctor was also thin, with pimples and a prominent Adam’s apple, which went up and down as he talked.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, nodding politely. Joanne thought he looked scared.

  ‘They’ve done some tests,’ Fred Tolley began to say, before deferring to the doctor. ‘You’d better say it.’

  ‘Would you like to sit down somewhere?’ he asked.

  ‘No, you’re all right,’ Fred said. ‘There’s no one much about. You just say what you’ve got to say.’

  ‘We can’t be certain yet – especially because your . . . Mrs Tolley hasn’t fully regained consciousness. Obviously we’ll need to see her tomorrow and we’ll have a better idea what’s happened.’

  ‘But you think it could be serious?’ Karen said.

  The young doctor looked hesitant. ‘We need to wait and see. But you should be prepared. The indications are that she’s suffering from the early stages of multiple sclerosis.’

  ‘Mom?’ Joanne found the words tumbling out of her mouth. ‘MS? She can’t be . . . She was as right as rain yesterday – or at least, I thought she was. What makes you think . . . ?’

  With all their eyes fixed burningly on him, the doctor looked increasingly helpless. He had his hands clasped together, rubbing one bony thumb along the other.

  ‘There are certain signs,’ he said. ‘We haven’t run all the tests yet, of course – it’s early days. But all I can tell you is, your mother – wife – is quite unwell at the moment. You need to be prepared . . .’

  They all stood in stunned silence.

  ‘Should we . . . What should we do? Wait here?’ Joanne heard her father asking, though her own mind couldn’t seem to fasten on anything.

  ‘She’s sleeping now; they’re taking her to the ward. To be honest, there’s not a lot you can do. You’d be much better going home and getting some rest.’

  When they walked, as if in a trance, out towards Raddlebarn Road, Joanne felt Dave’s arm round her shoulders. She glanced round gratefully at him. They said they’d drop Fred and Karen back home, and drove along the dark streets in silence. When they got to the house in Kings Heath, Joanne got out as well to say goodbye.

  ‘We’ll ring in the morning,’ Joanne said. ‘Will you be all right, Sis?’

  ‘Have to be, I s’pos
e,’ Karen said. ‘It’s all right for you – you’ve got a nice husband to go home with.’

  Joanne almost laughed. This was more like the normal Karen.

  ‘See you tomorrow,’ she said.

  ‘It’ll be her birthday,’ Fred Tolley said. His voice was full of sadness.

  Five

  Joanne sat beside Margaret’s bed in the long Nightingale ward, wondering when her mother was going to decide to open her eyes.

  There had been calls to the hospital in the morning, requests that they come in a bit later on: ‘A few things to discuss, nothing to be alarmed about.’

  Dad and Karen had both taken time off work, and Mrs Coles was looking after Amy again.

  This time they had seen a different doctor, older, with a comb-over of greasy brown hair and a slight air of impatience.

  ‘We were told she might have multiple scelrosis,’ Dad said. He never could pronounce it and he was in a dither.

  ‘Well, there were indications,’ the doctor replied. ‘Some conditions, of course, share the same symptoms. But it’s not that, I’m pleased to say.’

  Since they’d been in to visit Mom she had kept her eyes clamped shut, as if in the deepest of comas. The three of them had taken it in turns to be the two allowed beside the bed.

  ‘I don’t see why we can’t all stay there,’ Karen had said in a loud, annoyed voice, nodding towards a group of Asians of all ages, clustered round a very large woman in another bed. ‘That lot’ve got the whole flaming family there, kitchen sink and all.’

  ‘It’s part of their custom,’ the nurse told them. ‘The family unit is very important to them. We have to allow for different cultures.’

  ‘Huh,’ Karen said. ‘And we don’t have families, I suppose?’

  ‘Shush, wench,’ Dad said. ‘Stop making a fuss.’

  He took his wife’s hand. ‘Margaret? It’s Fred. Can you hear me?’

  ‘Mom?’ Karen’s voice was sharper. ‘We’re all here to see you.’

  Joanne said nothing. The others kept this up for a few minutes, but their mother gave no reaction. After a while Joanne suggested they take it in turns to go and find a cup of tea. ‘I’ll wait here – you go first,’ she offered.

  As her father and sister retreated along the ward, she was certain she saw her mother’s eyes open just a crack, to check who was there with her, before closing again.

  Joanne waited, relieved to be alone, watching. Lying on her back made her mother’s cheeks fall into a less creased, more youthful state. She had prominent, rounded cheekbones, the skin over them flecked with tiny red veins. With her hair away from her face and no glasses on, she seemed naked and vulnerable.

  Who are you? Joanne thought, with a frightened, empty feeling. I don’t know you at all. No one around her seemed to be who she thought they were. Dave had held her in bed last night, so tenderly. Now that she was vulnerable, in need, it made him feel strong. If only she could believe that would last. And now, almost with a sense of panic, she sifted her memory to find what she knew about her mother. She’d always lived in Brum, grown up in a back-to-back in a poor district, got a job, married. Her parents were dead, so the girls had never known their grandparents on either side, or many other relatives either to speak of. Mom was not one for anecdotes or for sharing herself much; she was a matter-of-fact, closed sort of person. And, as it turned out, there had been certain things she had never told anyone. Even Dad had been stunned by what the doctor said.

  He had blinded them with science at first, with talk of benzodiazepines and dosages and symptoms. At last he had used a word that made more sense.

  ‘Valium?’ Fred had said, his lost look increasing. ‘You’re saying my missis has been on that Valium stuff – for twenty years?’

  ‘So it would appear,’ the doctor told them. ‘I spoke with Mrs Tolley this morning and what appears to have happened is that, without taking any medical advice, she decided to stop taking it. Which, after such a long period of dependency, is a very bad idea indeed – as she has unfortunately discovered.’

  ‘So, that fit?’ Karen said. ‘I mean she had a fit, a fullblown—’

  ‘It can happen. It’s variable from person to person, but that can be one of the consequences of trying to come off it too quickly.’

  ‘But . . .’ Joanne was struggling to take any of it in. ‘Why was she on it?’

  ‘I imagine she was prescribed it during a bout of post-natal depression,’ the doctor said. ‘She said she was put on it after the birth of her second child – it seems no one has thought to stop prescribing it.’

  The doctor had to go: ward rounds to do.

  ‘Dad,’ Joanne said, out in the corridor again. ‘You must have known she was on it?’

  Fred Tolley looked as if he had been hit by a fast-moving vehicle. His old black jacket was hanging open and some of his shirt buttons were done up incorrectly. Scratching the side of his head, he said, ‘Well . . . I did and I didn’t.’

  ‘What d’you mean, you did and you didn’t?’ Karen erupted shrilly. Joanne knew she was resentful at having to be away from work. She had her boxy navy suit on and a matching shoulder bag. ‘How can you not know your own wife’s a drug addict?’

  ‘Karen,’ Joanne hissed at her, ‘keep your voice down. And there’s no need to be like that with Dad – it’s not helping.’ Though she couldn’t help wondering the same thing.

  ‘I knew she was taking summat,’ he said. ‘I never thought to read the bottles; it was her business. She said summat about vitamins. I never thought to question it.’

  ‘Vitamins, Valium,’ Karen harrumphed.’ Well. I suppose they both begin with V.’

  But they were all too winded, too worried to say much more. The girls had watched their parents grow more and more distant over the years: Mom either blank, a bit like a robot doing housework, or now and then terrifyingly angry, tired, not sleeping well. They’d keep out of her way, as did her husband, a kind but shadowy presence, worn down to a silent kind of acceptance. And now Mom had suddenly erupted out of that predictable pattern, as someone with secrets, someone they knew and understood even less than they already thought they did.

  ‘What the hell are we going to say to her?’ Karen said. And for a moment, even with her immaculate pleat and office clothes, she looked like a little girl.

  One of the nurses passed again as Joanne was sitting there.

  ‘Has she still not come round?’ she asked softly. She leaned closer. ‘Mrs Tolley? Margaret? Maggie?’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t call her that,’ Joanne said. ‘She doesn’t like it.’ Mom went mad if anyone called her Maggie. It was always Margaret.

  The nurse gave her a sympathetic look and began to move away. ‘I expect she’ll wake up soon and talk to you.’

  Joanne sat rubbing her moist palms on her jeans, sneaking glances at her mother. She had to get Mom to speak before the others came back. She was the oldest – she had her own daughter. Imagine her lying there, with Amy sitting beside her as a grown woman. What would she want Amy to do?

  She took her mother’s hand. It felt small in hers.

  ‘Mom. It’s Joanne. You know I’m here, don’t you? The others have gone to get a drink.’

  Silence, but the hand twitched slightly.

  ‘I know you’re awake. I saw you open your eyes. Talk to me – please?’

  Tears started to seep out from under Margaret’s eyelids and roll down the sides of her face. She didn’t sob, just released more and more silent rivulets of grief. The sight tore at Joanne. Her mother had never been the crying sort, either. Blarting, she’d call it, scornfully.

  ‘It’s all right, Mom. There’s no need to get upset. The doctor told us what happened – it was a mistake, that’s all. He said they’ll help you . . .’

  In fact he’d said no such thing, but they had to make sure she was helped and did things gradually.

  At last Margaret’s eyes opened. She pulled herself up on one elbow, looking round blearily. Her lazy eye show
ed more, without her glasses on. She was searching the little cabinet beside the bed.

  ‘There are some Handy Andies somewhere. Pass me my specs.’

  Joanne found them for her, and Margaret blew her nose, then raised her eyes warily.

  ‘I’m so ashamed.’

  ‘Ashamed? Why?’

  Her mother looked desperately round the ward as if trying to find the words.

  ‘All these years – keeping on taking those things. I mean the doctor gave them to me, but he never said when to stop, or how. It was after Karen was born – I couldn’t seem to cope, didn’t feel myself . . .’

  Joanne calculated. Karen had been born in 1965. In fact it had been nineteen years that she’d been taking them.

  Margaret shifted slowly into a sitting position, pulling the covers up.

  ‘You take them, you see, and then the effect wears off, so you need a bit bigger dose. It never seemed to be quite right . . . And you get all sorts of things – you know, not sleeping well and all sorts. Feeling funny. But when you’ve been on them a while, the thought of coming off is . . . Well, it just seems impossible. I never thought I could cope without them.’

  ‘Oh, Mom,’ Joanne said.

  Margaret dabbed her cheeks. ‘I never wanted anyone to know I was on them. Not even your dad. And you know what he’s like: he never really questioned after a certain time.’

  She stopped for a moment. Joanne sat quietly, praying that her dad and Karen wouldn’t come back – not just yet.

  ‘I feel I haven’t had a life. As if I’ve been living in a trance. I can’t explain really. It’s like living behind a sort of screen, where everyone else is getting on with life around you, but you’re not really there, even though you are. And it got to this week and I decided: I’m going to be fifty, and I’m not going to live the rest of my life like this. I just thought, if I stop – this was last weekend – I’ll be clear of them by my birthday. I never asked anyone, I just threw the bottle in the rubbish and that was that.’ She swallowed. ‘It was like jumping off a cliff or something.’

  ‘It was brave,’ Joanne ventured.

  ‘It was bloody stupid, as it turns out.’ The anger was returning. ‘They talk about drugs all the time on the news: heroin and all that. And here I am, a drug addict like all of them – a dirty drug addict.’ The tears started to flow again.