Mother Can You Hear Me?

by Margaret Forster

  And what was that? Neither of them had any excuse for not knowing. For more than ten years Mother’s funeral had been an imminent event. Her eye had held a loving light whenever she had talked of it but nobody could remember any precise instructions except that there were to be no flowers. Of hymns, they knew nothing, and even burial or cremation was a choice they hardly knew how to make. Angela was determined Valerie should decide—it would give her something to do as she wailed her way through each day.

  The boys would not come, of course. Even Father could see that, though there would be a part of him that would expect them to pay the necessary hundreds of pounds to fly over for Mother’s funeral. Telegrams had been sent and replies received but Tom and Harry were lost causes.

  It was to his daughters Father would look—to his daughters and to his grand-daughter, and as she thought of the performance to be gone through Angela shuddered and passed a weary hand over her eyes and wondered if, after all, she was capable of it.

  Fifteen

  VALERIE NEVER SEEMED to have been off the telephone. Her tenth call in twenty-four hours almost made them miss the train.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ she said, as she had already said many times, ‘I just can’t believe that Mother has passed on.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ Angela said, not bothering to keep her irritation out of her voice, ‘don’t be so ridiculous—and don’t use those awful euphemisms—all this passing on stuff. Mother is dead. She was old and ill and she was expected to die—stop acting as though it was completely unexpected.’

  ‘But it was,’ said Valerie, ‘I didn’t expect it—I had no idea—you didn’t even tell me she was ill. It was so sudden—the shock—’

  ‘Oh Christ,’ Angela said, ‘the only one who has any right to talk about being shocked is me. I got the only shock going when I found her dead. That’s what the word shock means.’

  ‘It must have been awful for you but—’

  ‘Yes, it was awful, and I didn’t enjoy the rest of it either.’

  ‘I can see that—I mean, I do realize how terrible it must have been for you but all the same—’

  ‘Good,’ Angela cut in, ‘I’m glad you do.’

  ‘But she was my Mother too, and I would like to have been there at the end,’ Valerie said and started to sob in earnest once more.

  ‘Shut up,’ shouted Angela. ‘I’m sick of all this crying—nobody was there at the end.’

  ‘I know, I know, I just meant I was so far away—’

  ‘Then lucky you.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t be so horrible to me just because I’m upset,’ Valerie said. ‘I can’t help weeping—I’m like Mother,’ and she went off into another fit of hysterical crying.

  ‘What was it you rang about anyway,’ Angela said, sharply, ‘we’re going to miss our train—can’t it wait a few hours till we see you?’

  Valerie said it could and Angela put the telephone receiver down, seething at her feebleness. She resented too this claim to be like Mother. Valerie was not like Mother and never had been. She was not even a pale imitation of Mother but something quite different. All her childhood she had claimed to be like Mother and the claim had never been denied—she was cuddled and kissed and allowed to go on thinking that it was true. Angrily slamming out of the house to get into the taxi with Ben, Angela was glad that at least all pretence was now over. She did not have Mother to protect—she could say what she liked to Valerie, she could shout if she was in a rage with her and laugh at her and not worry that Mother would say ‘Oh, Angela,’ in that sad voice that made her suffer. Driving to the station a great tiredness overcame her at the thought of such a loosening of bonds. There was no need any more to dread telling Mother any truth, no need to torture herself with images of Mother’s misery.

  ‘I wonder if I should have stayed behind,’ Ben said, ‘until Sadie came home. That note you left was a bit brutal. It will be a shock for her finding it.’

  ‘Oh don’t you start talking about shock—Sadie won’t be shocked anyway—she won’t be the least bit interested—it will all be just a bore.’

  ‘Don’t be nasty. I think she was very fond of her grandmother.’

  ‘Very fond? And how do you deduce that? She never went near her—she never did a thing for her.’

  ‘You don’t have to do things for people to be fond of them.’

  ‘I don’t think Sadie was, anyway, except in a sort of obvious hypocritical way.’

  The note had said, ‘Grandma died on Saturday—please ring us at St Erick at once. The boys are at the Bensons’ and the Carriers’ and we want you to come down for the funeral.’ She had packed a case full of suitable garments and put it on the kitchen table with the note on top. She had written to Sadie’s headmistress and booked a mini-cab for her—all she had to do was confirm the time she wanted to be picked up. It was all organized. If Sadie was back by seven, as she ought to be, she could catch a train that night. If she was not, she could stay with her friend Sue and join them in time for the funeral in the afternoon. Sadie didn’t need to think at all, simply obey clear instructions.

  Angela looked at herself in the mirror nailed up in the back of the taxi. At last, the black suit was donned for its original purpose. Mother would have been proud of her. She looked both elegant and feminine. With the suit she wore a grey silk blouse with a collar that came out over the neck of the jacket and round her neck she had a heavy gold locket with a picture of Mother on one side and Sadie as a baby on the other. She wore black shoes and very fine, light-grey tights and in her buttonhole she had a white rose. She even had a hat—a simple grey felt hat that shaped itself to her head in a way that both looked and felt entirely natural, and she wore gloves for the first time in decades.

  The coffin was already there. They followed it as it was taken down the platform and stood beside it while it was loaded onto the train. The procedure she had dreaded turned out to be easy and relaxed and perfectly matter-of-fact, without any awkwardness at all because the men who were doing the job had obviously done it so many times before. The blinds were drawn in the compartment containing the coffin—a first-class compartment—and she and Ben sat next door. They left their blinds open but nobody got in beside them. Looking out of the window as she waited for the train to begin, Angela wished she had thought of having a veil to protect her from stares. A veil would have been a little ridiculous but Mother would have liked it. She realized, even as the thought came to her, that she was falling into that habit much beloved by recently bereaved people—the habit of automatically registering what the deceased would or would not have liked and wanting to pay attention to these wishes. It was as though the dead left a clearly defined trail behind them, like a slug leaves a trail of slime, and there was pleasure in following it, however gruesome.

  Ben did not approve of people who gloried in grief. He was watching her anxiously, waiting for the tears and sentiment as they began this most sentimentally tearful journey. To please him, to earn his approval and also to reassure him that she herself wished to act as he would wish her to act, she suggested they had lunch and forget about the sandwiches she had brought. They had a bottle of best British Rail wine before they changed trains—a nerve-wracking experience with the coffin to think of—and were comparatively merry until St Erick, where Father and Valerie were seen waiting on the platform. They were both dressed in deepest mourning from head to toe. Angela saw them before the train had stopped—they flashed past like black dots, merging into each other to form one gritty blob. She looked at Ben, speechless, and he sighed. Together they went into the corridor, ready to open the door the instant the train was stationary. ‘I wish,’ Angela said, clutching at Ben’s sleeve, ‘I wish it was this time tomorrow and it was all over.’ ‘It will pass in a flash,’ Ben said. ‘It’s the last lap—don’t forget.’

  She tried hard to remember. The last lap. Father’s ashen face, so much worse than she had expected, so grey that her smile froze on her lips. The forlornness
of the coffin on its trolley and Father’s hand resting briefly on it and his fury when one of the porters shouted hello to a friend over the coffin itself. He might almost have said, Don’t upset Mother. He avoided her eyes, more concerned with the progress of the coffin to the hearse than greeting her. The last lap. Home to that dreary house and the official installing of the coffin on Mother’s bed. ‘It isn’t nailed down, is it?’ were Father’s first words. ‘Eh? They haven’t gone and nailed her down?’ Silently, Ben showed him where the catches were temporarily fixed. Together they lifted the lid, Valerie crying before she saw a thing, and Father said, ‘She looks very peaceful, very.’ Angela, who had not seen Mother since that terrible morning, looked too. Mother did not look peaceful. She had no expression at all. She was nothing.

  They closed the bedroom door and trooped into the sitting-room. Valerie, hideously red-eyed and hiccuping with so much crying, went to put on the kettle. Father sat down and leaned forward, his hands on his knees. ‘Well, then,’ he said, ‘there’s some explaining to be done.’ He paused, staring at Angela, who could think of nothing to say.

  ‘There’s a lot of things I want to know,’ he said.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ Angela said, not bothering to object. His pound of flesh was precious to him.

  ‘I want to know it all,’ Father said, ‘from start to finish. I’m entitled to that.’

  ‘There isn’t really anything to say,’ Angela said.

  ‘There’d better be,’ Father said.

  ‘Mother just seemed tired,’ Ben said hurriedly. ‘Angela looked after her wonderfully—you mustn’t think she didn’t. But after their day at Woburn she was tired and went to bed and when she wasn’t herself the next day we had the doctor. He said she was fine.’

  ‘Stupid bugger,’ Father said.

  ‘Then she seemed to get better and—well—she just died in her sleep when we thought she was better. It was a dreadful shock for Angela to find her.’

  ‘Worse for me,’ Father said. ‘I sent her off with you right as rain and look what happens. I should never have let her out of my sight, never. I knew something like this would happen.’

  ‘It had to happen sometime,’ Angela said, only wanting to console him but realizing immediately she had said the wrong thing.

  ‘What? What’s that? Eh? It wouldn’t have happened if I’d been with her I can tell you that, not by a long chalk.’

  ‘I couldn’t help Mother dying, Father.’

  ‘I don’t know about that. Any road, what did she say?’

  ‘She was asleep when she died.’

  ‘Before that—what were her last words? Come on.’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘Her last words and you can’t remember—that’s the sort of thing I mean—no consideration.’

  ‘She didn’t have any last words—I didn’t know they were going to be last words, did I? I didn’t know she was going to die.’

  ‘Neither did I.’

  Mercifully Valerie came in with cups of tea. They all drank gratefully.

  ‘There are so many people coming to the funeral,’ Valerie said. ‘The Vicar thinks the church will be crowded.’

  ‘As it should be,’ Father said, ‘she’d want plenty. If they can all sing it will be all right.’

  ‘Just the family at the house of course,’ Valerie said, blotchy face momentarily animated. ‘I’ve made that clear. It will be all we can do to feed relatives without coping with friends and neighbours.’

  ‘Your Mother liked a good funeral tea,’ Father said sternly, ‘nothing shabby—no bought cakes or anything.’

  ‘It won’t be shabby,’ Valerie said, ‘I’ve baked non-stop since I arrived.’

  ‘I was only saying,’ Father said.

  They sat in silence for a while, sipping tea, Father slurping his noisily. The light had faded and it was completely dark outside but nobody drew the curtains. They were all watching Father, afraid to start any conversation of which he might not approve. Suddenly he put down his cup. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘what about Sadie? Eh?’

  ‘We can’t get hold of her,’ Ben said, ‘she’s gone Youth Hostelling. But she’ll be back tonight and we’ve left messages. She’ll ring any minute I expect. She’ll come tomorrow.’

  ‘Good,’ Father said, ‘and where’s all them boys?’

  ‘Staying with friends,’ Angela said. ‘We thought they were too young for a funeral.’

  ‘They should be here,’ Father said fiercely, ‘showing some respect. Nobody shows any respect any more, that’s what. Mother doted on them and they aren’t even going to be at her funeral. Scandalous.’ He shook his head. Nobody dared to say a word. One half of Angela’s brain was registering disgust and the other shame. ‘She was too good for this world,’ Father was saying, ‘always was. She suffered, oh she suffered all right.’

  ‘Not too much.’ Angela said, timidly, meaning to console.

  ‘What do you know about it?’ Father asked, suddenly getting to his feet, snapping the glaring overhead light on and pulling the curtains together so roughly that the runners screeched. ‘Thought the world of you, your Mother did, and what did you do—went away, that’s what. No eyes for anyone else, only you—what’s Angela doing, what’s Angela thinking—and what did you care—nothing.’

  ‘I did care,’ Angela managed to say, though it was much too painful to say anything.

  ‘Well you didn’t show it. Funny way of caring. It upset her something chronic. What’s it all mean, she used to say many a time—what do we have children for? No good saying now you cared.’

  ‘No,’ Angela said, ‘no good at all. But I hope she knew.’ Valerie began to cry. ‘Would anyone like anything to eat?’

  ‘Yes,’ Father said, ‘I’ve had nothing but tea and biscuits all day.’

  They were once in the cinema in Leicester Square, when Tim was six months old and still a delicate, difficult baby. They had not been to the theatre or the pictures for about a year and the children had forgotten that they ever used to go out. Getting a babysitter was difficult. Angela had lost touch with the group of sixth formers she used before and when she tried to contact them they had all gone on to universities. She could not bring herself to use the thirteen and fourteen year olds who had taken their place—they all looked too young to be able to cope with the million crises that loomed ahead in her imagination. In the end she asked a neighbour who had once offered, a Miss Jenkins who was a retired nurse and still did some occasional private nursing. Sadie sulked when told Miss Jenkins was coming. ‘She doesn’t know us,’ Sadie said, ‘she won’t be able to deal with the baby if he wakens.’ ‘She’s a nurse,’ Angela said, but Sadie would not be reassured. ‘You don’t care,’ she said, ‘you just want to go out.’ ‘Then I won’t go,’ Angela said. But Ben insisted. And then, in the middle of the film, the cinema manager walked up the aisle shouting ‘Will Mr and Mrs Bradbury please come to the foyer.’ Angela went with thunderously beating heart. ‘Your babysitter has telephoned,’ the manager said, ‘she says there seems to be something wrong with the baby. There was certainly a lot of yelling down the line.’ They drove home full of calamitous thoughts. There was very little wrong with Tim. Angela merely picked him up and he stopped screaming instantly. Ben walked an embarrassed Miss Jenkins home. ‘I told you,’ Sadie said, her face miserable and worried. ‘I’m sorry, Sadie,’ Angela said. ‘She wouldn’t let me touch him,’ Sadie said, ‘I could have got him quiet. She held him so awkwardly. He knew she didn’t care—he could tell.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ Angela said again, ‘it won’t ever happen again I promise.’ But she promised not because of what the incident had done to Tim but what it had done to Sadie.

  Nobody stayed in bed the morning of the funeral—indeed, there was a competitive air about the whole process of getting up. They all moved about extremely quietly, conscious of Mother’s body in the house. They turned taps on and off with exaggerated care, not letting the water gush out but controlling the flow to a slow,
seemly trickle. They walked up and down stairs without talking or coughing, trying not to step on certain well-known creaking ones. Frequently they bumped into each other—so successfully had ordinary noises been subdued that none of them could hear each other approaching. They would apologize in a whisper when this happened and assure each other it did not matter and for a little while afterwards behave more normally. They each breakfasted alone. Father for once did not have bacon and egg, which upset them all, knowing as they did how significant such a self-sacrifice was. He had a boiled egg instead and Valerie seemed to find this even more upsetting. ‘A boiled egg?’ she said, ‘but you never have boiled eggs.’ ‘Well I am today,’ Father said furiously.

  By eleven o’clock they were all ready, the dishes washed, the beds made, the floors swept. Father would not allow Valerie to put the hoover on. When she pointed out the crumbs under the table he got down on his hands and knees and swept them up with a dustpan and brush. Valerie beseeched him not to. ‘I don’t think it’s right,’ she said, ‘today of all days—on your hands and knees—crawling about like that—’ but she tailed off. Father was out of sympathy with her insinuations. ‘Out of the way,’ he said, ‘let me get this into the dustbin and then we’re all shipshape.’ He did a score of similar jobs and yet was ready in his good clothes when the first mourner arrived at the house. He stood in his black suit by the fireplace, stern and unsmiling, his eyes missing nothing about either the dress or demeanour of each arrival. Those who were wearing a light-coloured suit, or a bright dress—those who had followed modern custom and had not bothered about mourning clothes—earned an up-and-down look so dismissive that they visibly flinched and pawed at their attire with frantic gestures as though trying to rub out the blue or red or green that had offended. Those who tried to be bright and breezy in their greetings, whether out of nervousness or a genuine desire to cheer, were instantly rebuked. ‘Cold again today, eh?’ said one uncle, smiling and rubbing his hands together vigorously. ‘Doesn’t matter to Mother whether it’s cold or not,’ Father said, and the hands came slowly to a halt. Hearing this and similar comments speech dried up in everyone’s throats. They all stood awkwardly in the small room waiting for the funeral cars to release them from this misery.