Mother Can You Hear Me?

by Margaret Forster

They walked the rest of the way in silence. Angela shifted her overnight bag from her right to her left shoulder. Embracing him was out of the question—no physical gestures of any kind came naturally, not even the brush of her hand. ‘Remember,’ she said, ‘I can always come again at any time if you need me. Don’t hesitate.’ ‘I’ll get the bedroom decorated while she’s still in,’ Father said, ‘needs doing.’

  ‘It would be better if you had a rest.’

  ‘I can’t rest, not with her in here, it will keep me busy. What shall I do it in—same again?’

  ‘A change might be nice for her,’ Angela said, ‘she spends a lot of time in there. How about a pretty wallpaper?’

  ‘Can’t wash wallpaper. Emulsion’s best.’

  ‘Pink, then, the very palest pink you can find. I’ll get a Dulux card on the way to the station and ring you tonight.’

  ‘But the eiderdown’s blue,’ Father said, pursing his lips, ‘and the counterpane. You know what she’s like—will pink go?’

  ‘Yes,’ Angela said, ‘the pink I’m thinking of will—it’ll give the room some warmth and dark blue goes very well with it. That bright yellow is awful.’

  Father walked back up the drive quite jauntily. Their hearts were full of worry and gloom about Mother and they found refuge in Dulux paint charts and discussions on shades of pink. She waved before she turned the corner and he waved back, strongly, a salute made with enthusiasm and vigour. She had done none of the things for him that she ought to have done but he was so much easier to deal with than Mother. He found comfort in euphemisms whereas she despised them. He allowed himself to be distracted from his misery whereas she clung to hers. When the time came, she would be able to deal quite easily with Father. He would reap what he had sown.

  Angela knew that in so many ways she had always been too strict. She expected a great deal of Sadie in some respects. She tried to instill into her daughter habits of carefulness that went against the grain. ‘Don’t lose this,’ she would say to Sadie, ‘keep it in your pocket at school and don’t lose it.’ And when Sadie came home and had lost the purse and admitted taking it out of her pocket to show a friend in the playground, then Angela was angry out of all proportion to the crime. ‘How could you be so stupid,’ she stormed, ‘when I told you—when I warned you,’ and she went on and on, far too long. Gradually, Sadie became secretive. She tried to hide the fact that she had lost anything. One day, her teacher rang Angela up and said did Sadie have to dry herself with a handkerchief after swimming every week? Angela was horrified. She could not wait to meet six-year-old Sadie out of school. ‘What on earth have you been doing?’ she said. ‘Where is your towel?’ Sadie burst into tears. She cried all the way home. She cried for an hour after she had got there. Finally, in a voice thick with tears, she said, ‘I knew you’d be angry—you said it was a special towel—I knew you’d be cross and shout.’ The shame made Angela blush. ‘Oh Sadie,’ she said, and held her tight, ‘it was just that it was a specially big, thick, lovely orange towel—I didn’t mean—’ but her voice trailed away. She had meant it, and Sadie knew she meant it, and the misery of inflicting such anxiety upon her child depressed her for weeks. Children heard what they heard and that was all.

  ‘I’m glad your Mother is better,’ her neighbour said. ‘What a relief.’

  ‘Yes,’ Angela lied, ‘a great relief.’

  ‘It is amazing how well she pulls through each time.’

  ‘Amazing,’ Angela said.

  ‘I expect you’ll be going down again when she comes out?’

  ‘No,’ Angela said, ‘I don’t think I will.’

  ‘I don’t want to be rude—but don’t you think you ought?’

  ‘Ought?’ Angela echoed, ‘of course I ought, but I’ve my own family to think of. I seem to have been going backwards and forwards all year. I can’t go on doing it.’

  ‘But it’s never for long, is it?’

  No, it was never for long, but Daisy Benson’s young and pretty mother who herself still had a youngish and pretty mother did not yet know how long time spent with an aged, ill relative was. Time measured out in sighs and groans, in guilt and distress, time heavy with unspoken reproaches and unconfessed regrets. Nobody realized. In the local train coming back, before she changed at Exeter, Angela had got into conversation with a woman she vaguely knew—a woman called Olive Wyatt who once lived in their street and had since moved away. She recognized Angela and asked how her mother was. She took Angela’s breath away by expressing surprise that she came back so often to see her mother. ‘There is no alternative,’ Angela said, ‘don’t you find you worry about your mother all the time?’ ‘Good god no,’ Olive Wyatt said. ‘I go to see her once a year for the day and that’s it—out of sight, out of mind.’ ‘But they’re so pathetic,’ Angela said, repelled by such coldness, ‘and it seems so sad to treat someone who has loved you and taken care of you—’ ‘Sentimental rubbish,’ Olive Wyatt said, and buried herself in her book.

  ‘You didn’t stay long,’ Sadie said as soon as Angela got in.

  ‘By the look of this house I stayed long enough,’ Angela said, sending her anger in a direction that would be understood. ‘Has nobody washed a single dish? Have none of you put a single thing away? Do I have to come back exhausted to clear up the mess?’

  ‘Don’t start as soon as you get in,’ Sadie said.

  ‘What do you expect me to do? Say thank you Sadie for looking after everything so well?’

  ‘Okay, okay.’

  ‘But it is not okay—you say okay and carry on in exactly the same selfish way and then you’re annoyed when I criticize you.’

  ‘You never do anything else,’ Sadie muttered.

  ‘That isn’t true,’ Angela shouted, and then she sat down suddenly and put her face in her hands, knowing such dramatic gestures only alienated Sadie more. There was silence in the messy kitchen, strewn with all manner of dishes and half eaten pieces of food. After a minute, she got up and began clearing the table. She tied an apron round her waist and began running hot water and stacking all the dirty things on the draining board. Sadie stood up and walked off.

  ‘Sadie!’ Angela shrieked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’

  ‘To do my homework of course.’

  ‘Your homework can wait. Just come straight back in here and at least dry these dishes. The dishwasher is full.’

  ‘Why should I? Max is—’

  ‘I don’t want any discussion—just do it—here’s a cloth—stand there and dry them quickly and properly before I collapse.’

  The steam rose from the sink of hot soapsuds and inflamed Angela’s cheeks. She plunged her rubber-gloved hands into the water and washed the dishes methodically, finding the routine task something that soothed her, as she always did. Sadie took hold of saucers she had just washed and ignored plates that had been done first and Angela imprisoned the rest of the saucers with one hand and said, ‘It is only common sense to dry things that have already drained a little.’ Sadie took the plates, four at a time. ‘Nobody,’ Angela said, ‘can dry four plates at a time—take them one at a time please.’ Eventually, they were finished. Sadie put the cloth down and began to walk out of the kitchen. ‘Those dishes,’ Angela said, ‘do not stay in a heap there. They need to be put in their places.’ Sulkily, Sadie put them away, crashing them against each other as much as she safely could. ‘Is that all?’ she said.

  ‘Do you think it is?’ Angela said. ‘Looking round this kitchen would you say that was all?’

  ‘You’re so bloody sarcastic.’

  ‘And you’re so bloody inconsiderate.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Sadie said, and went.

  The mystery of how she could moved Angela to despair. She worked away cleaning the kitchen, reflecting all the time that in wishing to free Sadie from the stifling constraints of duty, she had let loose a creature who was so selfish nothing could arouse her pity—nothing, at least, about her mo
ther. With everything that was bad Angela felt she had also thrown out everything that was good. She had not wanted to be her daughter’s responsibility as Mother had been hers—and she was not. Her daughter saw her as strong and independent. She had not wanted to live through her daughter as Mother had lived through her—and she did not. She had wanted her daughter to treat her as an equal, and she did, but for the life of her Angela could not see that this was a victory. She felt defeated, driven into the ground. And it must be her fault.

  Unhappiness made her silent. She welcomed the boys back mournfully and Ben with a listless smile. Throughout the evening meal she had eyes only for Sadie, who seemed oblivious to any tension. She ate and drank and warned herself not to accuse by implication—not to shoot reproachful glances at Sadie as Mother had done at her, not to use pathos as a weapon.

  ‘Can I have a party?’ Sadie said, with no preamble.

  ‘A fine time to ask,’ Ben said, ‘when your mother has just got back from an exhausting trip.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ Angela said quickly: ‘Of course you can have a party. I’ve always loved your parties.’ And she had—for years she had given Sadie wonderful parties, imaginative and well organized, the envy of the neighbourhood. Sadie winced. ‘The only thing is,’ she said, ‘I’d like to do it myself this time—I mean, I wouldn’t want you there.’

  ‘That sounds like a good idea,’ Angela said carefully.

  ‘I don’t want the boys either. I’d like the house empty. I couldn’t have the sort of party I want with the boys here—it spoils it.’

  ‘How does it spoil it?’

  ‘I don’t want to go on about it—I just want the house empty. Can’t you take them away somewhere?’

  ‘For your convenience?’

  ‘Okay, okay. Forget it. I won’t have a party. It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Don’t be petty—of course you can have one—it’s just I don’t see how I can get rid of three boys without a great deal of bother. Couldn’t I just guarantee that they all stay on the top floor?’

  ‘For god’s sake don’t try and persuade her,’ Ben said.

  ‘I suppose so,’ Sadie said, grudgingly. ‘But there’ll be a lot of noise—they might not sleep—it wouldn’t be any good them complaining. And you’re not going to say no drinking or smoking are you?’

  ‘Certainly I am,’ Ben said.

  ‘What kind of party is this?’ Angela said.

  ‘Just the kind everyone has. I’d clear up the mess and everything. You wouldn’t have to do anything. But I need the house.’

  ‘How many people are you thinking of inviting?’ Angela said.

  ‘I want to see the invitations,’ Ben said.

  ‘There won’t be invitations—it isn’t that sort of party—you just tell people and they come.’

  ‘I could cook pizzas,’ Angela offered.

  ‘No,’ Sadie said, ‘it would be a waste of time. They’d only get stood on. I don’t want any proper food.’

  ‘And I don’t want any proper drink,’ Ben said.

  ‘Beer’s harmless,’ Sadie said, ‘and cider and a fruit punch—I can have that can’t I?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Angela said.

  ‘I’ll clear the ground floor,’ Sadie said, ‘and we won’t let anyone go upstairs. Where can I put the lampshades and pictures and big things like rugs?’

  ‘But why do you have to move lampshades?’

  ‘They might get broken—it’s best to have as little stuff about as possible. It’s for your sake, you know—it’s your things I’m protecting.’

  ‘What are you bothering with a party for?’ Mother said on the telephone, ‘you spoil that girl.’ Mother, newly out of hospital, was peevish. For the last two weeks Angela had filled out the minutes with details of Sadie’s approaching party, hoping it would entertain Mother but it did not—it annoyed her.

  ‘I won’t be doing anything so it’s no bother,’ Angela said.

  ‘You never had parties,’ Mother said, accusingly, ‘not at that age.’

  ‘No,’ said Angela, ‘but Sadie isn’t me. She likes parties.’

  ‘With boys?’

  ‘Oh yes—that’s the point.’

  ‘I think it’s scandalous,’ Mother said emphatically, ‘carrying on like that—at her age—with boys and that—you never bothered. I just hope nothing happens, that’s all. Your Father says something is sure to happen.’

  ‘What does he mean?’ Angela said, knowing perfectly well, knowing Mother would never let the words past her lips.

  ‘Oh, something, likely,’ Mother said, ‘bound to be something with boys around.’

  They meant Sadie might become pregnant. Something Will Happen had always meant that. Now that she had been respectably married for so long they had forgotten it was the prophecy they had made to her. They were sure, now, that she had never been interested in ‘that kind of thing’ but they had not been so sure when she was eighteen. Mother lived in mortal terror of anything, never mind something, happening. Every time Angela came home from the most innocent of outings Mother’s worried face spoiled the day. By the time she had a real boyfriend and they had something to worry about she was conducting her experiments so far from home and with such secrecy that they had little hope of ever keeping track of her. All they knew was that she came in late on Friday and Saturday nights and would not say where she had been. When she told them about Sadie she knew she was only telling them decades too late about herself.

  ‘It’s only fun,’ she said. ‘She’s at the age for big noisy parties. There’s no harm in it.’

  ‘But the house,’ Mother said.

  ‘Oh, she’ll clear it up. I don’t mind a few marks and spillages—they can’t be helped.’

  ‘No need for it,’ Mother grumbled. ‘You’re just aiding and abetting her. None of these young folk have any respect for property these days.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I’ve seen the things they do on television—and your Father reads terrible things out of the newspapers.’

  ‘I don’t call that evidence.’

  ‘Don’t you? Eh?’ Mother soon grew nervous if her opinion was challenged. ‘Anyway, I hope you don’t have cause to regret letting her have this party.’

  ‘I’m sure I won’t,’ Angela said.

  ‘What,’ said Sadie, ‘was all that about?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘All that spiel on the phone to Grandma about me—what business is it of hers whether I have a party or not?’

  ‘I have to talk about something—I try to involve her in whatever is going on—she likes to know.’

  ‘She likes to moan.’

  ‘No, she doesn’t—it’s just it’s hard for her to understand the attraction of the sort of thing you want.’

  ‘So of course you explain it all to her beautifully.’

  ‘I try.’

  ‘So modest.’

  ‘What are you getting at—that edge to your voice—?’

  ‘Oh, forget it.’

  ‘I’d like to, but I can’t—you’re always sneering and you won’t ever explain why.’

  ‘Well, you make up for it.’

  ‘You’re so unfair, Sadie—you do nothing but knock me all the time and then the next minute it’s “can I have a party?” and I’m supposed to fall over myself arranging it and I do and—’

  ‘Oh God, I was waiting for that—you always want thanks all the time—you pretend to be all casual and it’s yes of course and then you whine if you don’t get thanked and told how kind you are.’

  ‘Well, if that’s true—’

  ‘It is true.’

  ‘—then it’s very sad and I’m ashamed but—’

  ‘Not that attitude, please.’

  ‘—I don’t actually think it is true. You force those kind of remarks—’

  ‘Nothing needs to be forced out of you—it just pours out all the bloody time, endless speeches all the time.’

  ‘—out of me, you d
rive me to them, you don’t know what it’s like to have somebody telling you you haven’t been grateful enough.’

  Like Father. ‘You’ll realize,’ he used to shout, ‘you’ll realize what’s been done for you when your Mother and I are ten feet underground—then you’ll be sorry you didn’t appreciate us, you’ll see.’ She had mimicked his silly posturing and laughed as loud as she dared and openly despised his crude, ludicrous attempts at moral blackmail. What, anyway, had he ever done for her? He talked as though he had showered her with worldly goods. But Sadie had been showered with worldly goods and, more important, with tolerance and reason. It had made no difference.

  ‘Oh, I give up,’ Angela said, ‘think what you like.’ She almost said, ‘I try my best,’ but remembered just in time that that was Father’s feeble parting shot.

  Everyone had always commented on how amenable Sadie was. Right from nursery school she was beloved by teachers because, they said, she was ‘so biddable’. Other children had tantrums, wouldn’t do what they were told, but Sadie always did. ‘It’s just a question of explaining everything to her,’ Angela boasted. Some of Angela’s neighbours found it suspect. They said such sweet reasonableness was unnatural. Sometimes Sadie came home in tears because she had been mocked. ‘Josie says I’m a goody-goody,’ she wailed, ‘and her mother did too.’ All because Sadie obediently did not go into puddles with her plimsolls on. Angela had told her not to go into puddles unless she had her Wellingtons on. She had explained that if you went into them with plimsolls on you (a) got your feet very wet which was (b) uncomfortable when you were a long way from home and (c) it ruined the plimsolls because plimsolls were only made of canvas. Sadie had understood. Sadie had seen the sense in the argument, and she had not gone into the puddles. ‘Tell Josie,’ Angela said, ‘that she’s silly and that there is nothing wrong with being sensible.’ Dutifully, comforted, Sadie had gone off with the message, only to return in greater despair with the cry, ‘Josie says I do whatever you tell me.’ ‘Well,’ said Angela, ‘that’s exactly what you should do.’ But was it?

  Angela left the house soon after eight o’clock on the Sunday morning after Sadie’s party. There was broken glass inside the gate, lots of it. She paused to kick it to one side. Opening the gate she found her hands covered with something sticky and examining them saw it was egg. There were eggshells and blotches of running yolk on the pavement in front of the house.