‘We could go and have breakfast now,’ Angela said.
‘Your Mother can’t—not at this time—she has to get up slowly since she was took bad.’
‘I know she has—and she doesn’t have to get up at all—I’ve ordered her breakfast to be sent up.’
‘She can’t be left,’ Father said, ‘that wouldn’t be right—not in a strange place with us all down below.’
‘I wasn’t going to leave her—mine is coming with hers so there’s nothing to worry about.’
‘Oh, you shouldn’t have done that,’ Mother said, ‘you go with the children. I’ll be fine on my own.’
‘No, you won’t,’ Father said. ‘I’ll stay if anyone does.’
‘I’ll stay,’ Angela said.
‘I don’t want anyone to stay,’ Mother said. ‘I’ll get up—I should get up anyway.’
‘I’ve already ordered our breakfasts up here for eight-thirty,’ Angela shouted, ‘and it’s almost that now—I can’t change it—and I want to have my breakfast here.’
Father went off with Ben and the family, fully suited and immaculate, his Daily Express sticking out of his pocket, satisfied that Mother was being well looked after, and ready to enjoy an enormous breakfast—bacon, eggs, sausage and tomato, all fried, and the likely winners ticked between mouthfuls. His breakfast was important to him and never neglected. Even on his own he went through the whole ritual every day, filling the house with greasy fumes and only afterwards opening the kitchen window a fraction to clear air that needed a gale blown through it before the smell had any chance of shifting. Mother, with her sloppy cereal messes, had always annoyed him and Angela with her cups of black coffee was an object of ridicule. It was no good giving him lectures on nutrition—he lived by the frying pan and considered himself an advertisement for healthy eating.
The breakfast that had been brought up looked attractive, though the attraction was more apparent than real—gleaming silver dishes and pretty china somehow concealed the fact that there was very little actually on the tray to eat. Mother had bran and a boiled egg and a piece of toast with marmalade, though she was careful to say that she did not really like marmalade, she was only trying it because it was there. Angela had half a grapefruit and some toast and a whole pot of coffee to herself. She sat in a chair beside the bed with the tray she was sharing with Mother perched on the beside table between them. There was something agreeable about munching away together in silence, both eyeing the contents of the tray as though afterwards they would be tested on their ability to memorize them.
Looking at Mother concentrating so happily on her food, for once relaxed and rested, Angela reflected that she was more content than she would admit, or Father allow, in bed. She often looked as though she would like to stay there forever. Her colour was always better when she was in bed and propped up on pillows her body seemed more substantial and stronger. There was an air of peace about her which disappeared the minute she was dressed and as upright as she could get, with all the strain of being mobile showing. The effort of attempting to co-ordinate the muscles that still worked, of putting into motion the limbs that still functioned, set her face twitching and protesting and destroyed the illusion of harmony that she was looking at now. Mother struggling to move around as she was required to do was a pitiful sight—back protesting, neck refusing, legs frequently giving up. Mother in bed did not tear at the heart.
‘Isn’t this pleasant,’ Angela said, wanting to register that there was no self-sacrifice involved. A feeble shaft of sunlight came struggling through the clouds and the net curtains to light up the pink nylon eiderdown and bathe them both in a rosy glow.
‘Is it?’ Mother asked, her eyes fixed as usual on Angela’s face, brimming with unspoken intimacy—but this morning Angela thought they held something else, something a little sharper, a residue of Mother’s bitterness the night before. She was less afraid of it simply because it was the morning.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I think it is—just the peace and quiet and having breakfast brought to me even if it isn’t much. There’s nobody yelling at me to find shoes or books, no mess to clear up afterwards. Just no noise.’
‘Oh, you’ll be wanting noise before long,’ Mother said, ‘when all the children have gone and there isn’t a sound all day and nobody to speak to you. No one wants you when you’re old, nobody bothers you then.’
‘No,’ Angela said, but she was denying Mother’s first pronouncement though she knew she was intended to take up the second, ‘no, I won’t be wanting noise, ever. I hate noise. I don’t like that part of motherhood—I don’t relish being at the centre of a hubbub and I won’t hanker after it when it’s gone. I’ll love the solitude.’
‘Will you?’
‘I’ll be able to get on with what I want to do.’
‘If you can,’ Mother said, ‘if you’re able and not handicapped. Not that I had anything to get on with except looking after all of you. That was all I was good for even when I was well. I never had any talents or interests, not like you.’
‘Yes you did,’ Angela said, ‘you could sing and play the piano for a start. I can’t do either.’
‘Oh, that,’ Mother said.
‘And you could embroider and make lace—look at all the lovely things you’ve done—that patchwork quilt you made—’
‘They don’t matter,’ Mother said. ‘I was always useless. I’ve had a wasted life.’
‘Look,’ said Angela briskly, clattering the breakfast things together ready to be collected, her voice taking over as the edges of pain blurred in her head, ‘you’ve had a good life—you’ve brought up four children beautifully and you’ve been a pillar of the church and the community—in no sense has your life been wasted so don’t talk nonsense.’
But it was not nonsense. It was not what Mother had meant and the dishonesty of pretending that it was hurt her. Mother was right. She had been wasted. She was clever and gifted and ought not to have spent her life cleaning out grates and lugging vast baskets of washing about. She had wasted her considerable energies scrubbing floors and mending clothes. Nothing in her had ever flowered. And it could not be argued that it did not matter because she had been happy as a domestic drudge—she had not been happy. She had got herself into a trap she ought to have seen and escaped. Her powers of organization were formidable, yet what had she organized? Her ability to work quickly and deftly was plain for all to see, but who had seen outside her family? She had thought that since her lot was marked out from the beginning it was her bounden duty to endure it and make the best of it because nothing else could be done. Angela had always known Mother was a rare bird, if doomed to fly nowhere. There was not a book in the house apart from the Bible but the breadth of Mother’s knowledge was astonishing. Marrying Father, that had been her mistake, and that was a wound already probed and found still deep and bleeding.
‘Look at you,’ Mother said, ‘what you’ve done.’ Angela laughed out loud. ‘No, you needn’t laugh—you’ve made something of yourself, you aren’t just a dogsbody.’
‘Rubbish,’ Angela said.
‘No,’ said Mother, ‘it isn’t rubbish. You’ve been to college and you’ve read books and you’re a teacher and you know what’s what.’
‘I don’t,’ Angela said.
‘Don’t what?’ said Mother, prepared to be indignant.
‘I don’t know what’s what,’ Angela said. ‘I don’t know it any more than you do. It’s a secret to me too.’
‘Don’t talk daft,’ Mother said, but she laughed and so when Father marched in, checking up on them, it was a scene to gladden his heart.
Angela was always there when the children came home from school—always. With a sense of virtue she turned down all jobs that would not allow her to be in the playground by three-thirty or at home slightly later. Deliberately, she took a much less interesting job teaching English part-time in a comprehensive school rather than a more stimulating one as head of drama simply because it allowed her to b
e free every afternoon. She felt she had no choice. She had to be there when they all came in full of woe or joy—an hour later was too late, the tide of troubles shared had been missed. Especially where Sadie was concerned. Sadie arrived at four o’clock, red-checked and hungry after cycling home. Tea? Angela said. Orange juice? Crackers and cheese? And Sadie would make her choice and sit at the table and blurt out a rushed catalogue of the day’s events. Angela paid grave attention to each piece of trivia. She picked Sadie’s coat up from where it had been dropped, she rescued her shoes from under the table, she put her bicycle away in the shed. Her own preoccupations were firmly pushed into the background. Sadie did not want to hear them. If Sadie knew she had done something special that day, she did not inquire how Angela had got on. A Mother, Angela thought, should be there when you come home to soothe and explain and support. It is the most important function there is. But often she was left with a sense of foreboding. What was she nurturing by providing such a service? She was a soft cushion, delicious to sink into—and extremely bad for the back if sat upon too long.
Mother was far more quickly bored than the children. The rain gave way on the second day to mere dullness with the occasional burst of sunshine, but it was by no means warm enough for Mother to sit about or totter around. It was agony watching her trying to be game. They played beach cricket with Mother bravely swearing she was perfectly happy to sit on a canvas chair, sutrounded by blankets and windbreaks, but it did not need Father to point out the pity of it. Even he bowled and batted and almost ran, but Mother sat staring out to sea, her hair a blob of white perched on top of a mountain of rugs. They went backwards and forwards to her, scrupulously solicitous, involving her in the score and state of play, but her smile grew more desperate and her eyes closed and Father shook his head.
They did the coast run twice—crawling along from beach to beach, the windows down, urging Mother to feel the sea air and watch the waves. They parked with the car pointing at the sea and exclaimed at the huge expanse of sand across which the horses galloped as though racing the breakers. But Mother only saw the horses as a blur and the sea as a smudge. She walked a little way towards the village but the pebbles got in her shoes and even the smallest breeze made her eyes water. ‘Leave me,’ she said, ‘go off and enjoy yourselves—I’m holding you back,’ and they stayed closer than ever, clinging to her, fearful that she would see it was true.
They went to Port Point each afternoon and parked on the green and the boys ran off to the amusement arcade with Father while Mother sat on a chair in front of the church. Almost at once she complained of cold, and worse, of boredom. ‘Might as well sit in the car,’ she said to Angela.
‘You’re getting the air better here.’
‘Oh, I need more than air,’ Mother said, and when Angela did not reply, ‘it’s more than air I need.’
Angela closed her eyes and thrust her hands further into her pockets. If it had been Saul complaining she could have told him sharply not to have been so self-pitying. If it had been Max she could have told him to get outside with his football for goodness sake. If it had been Tim she could have cuddled him. But it was Mother, and her boredom was based on fact. There was nothing for her to do. Her holiday was simply an extension of what she did anyway—she sat, she stared, she suffered.
‘Look,’ Angela said, noticing how very often she talked to Mother as she did to her more exasperating pupils, ‘at least you’re sitting somewhere different and with company—isn’t that better than stuck in that room at home like last week?’
‘And next week,’ Mother said.
After that, they sat in total silence for fully half an hour. The church clock chimed four. Mother sighed and fidgeted. Angela did not move a muscle. Her mind raced ahead to the rest of the week, a kaleidoscope jumble of outings and activities in which Mother and she sat on numerous benches waiting for a miracle. When someone said ‘Good afternoon Mrs Trewick,’ Angela jumped more than Mother, who was suddenly all charm. Yes, she was on a little holiday—just a few days—with Angela and her family—yes, very nice, quite good weather, lovely hotel—oh yes, Grun House, outside Port Point, good food. Out the sweetness flooded as Mother conversed with the lady from her church congregation so elegantly on all manner of everyday topics, and as the lady departed Angela heard her say to her friend, ‘Such a wonderful woman—been so ill—never a murmur of complaint . . .’
It was what Mother needed. They still did not speak, but Mother’s demeanour had subtly changed. She had brightened up, was now quite eager and expectant. A bit of company had put her on her mettle and brought out the best in her. Mother had always said she liked to stay at home best but it was a lie. Mother liked to go out. She blossomed in company and was popular. People in any gathering gravitated towards her, attracted by her intelligent, gentle face that looked so uncertainly in their direction, and she responded to their interest gracefully and with dignity. Afterwards, there would be an animation about her that was otherwise lacking, and all who came within her orbit benefited from it until the lustre faded. Mother on her own at home quickly became gloomy. Turned in on herself she brooded on her own character defects and sighed over her plight. Now, when she was old and ill, her determined conviction that she hated to socialize was her undoing. The church workers offered to take her to Mothers’ Union meetings in a car, but she would not go. She said she was quite happy at home. Friends suggested coming to collect her to take her to this function or that but she declined with thanks.
No more members of the church congregation appeared though Angela scanned the green hopefully. There were few people about mid-April, mid-week, at Port Point. Those who had ventured forth wandered about in an aimless way, looking at the time frequently. It was the very worst place to have brought Mother. The novelty of the hotel had quickly palled and there was nothing else to look forward to. The need for some sort of action that would convince Mother she shared in it was urgent. ‘We’re all quite happy here,’ Ben said. ‘Mother isn’t.’ ‘But she isn’t happy anywhere.’ ‘We have to try harder.’
Angela spent a lot of time on beaches when Sadie was small. Often, Ben would take them with him to some country where he was working and they would stay in an hotel and while he went off each morning she would go to the beach with Sadie, and Max in a carrycot. She hated beaches. Lying in the sun was anathema to her. Pale-skinned and red-headed, she never grew sunburnt attractively. But Sadie did. She was a beautiful brown within days. Sadie loved the beach—loved building sand castles (Angela hated the feel of sand), loved collecting shells (they bored Angela, who knew nothing about them and could answer none of Sadie’s questions) and loved searching in rock pools for crabs (Angela was afraid of crabs). She did all the things Sadie wanted her to do and it gave her pleasure to see Sadie so happy and healthy, but secretly she wished she did not have to do any of it. She wished she was at home, but never mentioned it to Ben. He would have been sad and shocked. She could see the look of utter happiness on his face as he dropped her off each day with towels and spades and buckets and picnic—it was how he wanted his family to spend their day, an idyllic image fixed forever in his mind. And Angela told herself to try harder—to take what her child was offering with both hands and make the most of it. She must not be selfish. She must not be a kill-joy. She must not be resentful.
On the third day they went off to Bodmin Moor for the whole day. Angela announced the plan at breakfast and Mother instantly perked up. It was a long time, she said, slightly accusingly, since she had been to the moor. It would be nice to see the hills. They went off with the sky blue—‘too blue’ Father said, suspicious—and spirits high and a picnic in the back of the car, though Mother and Father were both appalled at the thought of eating outside, at that time of the year, with the ground sodden and every surface still coated with rain—there was no sense in it. They were honour bound to go to the moor, much beloved by Father, whose memories of jaunts to it were more numerous and sharper than any others. He followed the route w
ith pleasure, sitting bolt upright in the car the better to see both right and left.
‘This is where we came off the motorbike, eh Mam?’ he said, twisting round to beam at her shortly after they were through St Breward. ‘This corner here—what a smack—hit a sheet of water in that dip yonder and it was head over handlebars before I could put a brake on. What a to-do, eh Mam?’
Mother said nothing. She deliberately turned away and made a face at Sadie who sat on the other side of her. Sadie made no attempt to control her giggles, but Max took up the question.
‘What happened, Grandad?’
‘Oh, you’ll have to ask your Grandmother that—she’s the one with the memory.’
‘What happened, Grandma?’
‘Nothing. We came off the bike, that’s all.’
‘Was it a real motorbike, Grandad?’
‘Course it was a real un—a Sunbeam 500 cc, grand bike, took it to the Isle of Man to the T.T. races one time, came twentieth out of a hundred and thirty—was it twentieth, Mam?’
‘I don’t know I’m sure,’ Mother said crossly, but Father would not be put off.
‘Ay, twentieth,’ he said, ‘but then after that to-do at that corner I sold it. It was a bad accident—your Grandma damaged her knee—miles from anywhere and nobody in sight.’
‘What did you do, Grandad?’
‘Oh, I don’t know—what did we do, Mam?’
‘Nothing, as usual,’ Mother said.
They all laughed, though not quite sure of the joke. Father, not caring whether the laughter was for or against him, simply glad of a response, smirked as though he had scored a point in a complicated game. ‘Nothing, eh?’ he said. ‘Funny we aren’t still lying on that road then.’
‘We would have been if it had been left to you,’ Mother burst out. ‘Useless, you were—heaven knows what would have happened to me if that nice solicitor hadn’t come along and taken me to the doctor.’
‘Oh, it was a solicitor, was it?’ said Father, winking at Angela, who tried not to see.
Mother Can You Hear Me? Page 11
