Mother Can You Hear Me?

by Margaret Forster

  ‘Very hurt sometimes,’ Father said, as though abstracted, but plainly tense and determined. ‘Well, it’s over now. She’s out of it. Nobody can let her down now, none of you.’

  ‘I think I’ll have another cup of tea,’ Ben said, getting up, ‘anyone else want one?’ Everyone shook their heads.

  ‘There’s her things,’ Father said, ‘they’ll need sorted.’

  ‘Oh, just send them to the church jumble,’ Angela said.

  ‘What?’ said Valerie. ‘Send Mother’s things to the jumble? Oh, how awful.’

  ‘They’re only clothes,’ Angela said.

  ‘Stacks of them,’ Father said, ‘cartloads—I don’t care what you do with them—just get them out of the way.’

  ‘Well, I do care,’ Valerie said, flushed with indignation. ‘I won’t have Mother’s clothes shoved in a heap and put in that awful church hall for anyone to finger.’

  ‘Do you want them?’ Angela asked.

  ‘No—except one or two cardigans perhaps—I’m not sure.’

  ‘Get yourselves in her room and do the job now,’ Father said.

  ‘It seems wrong,’ said Valerie, ‘with Mother buried only hours ago—interfering with her things so soon.’

  ‘It won’t get any less wrong,’ Father said, ‘just get in.’

  They sat on the bed and faced the wardrobe, its double doors open to reveal Mother’s clothes. Valerie took them all out one by one and in spite of her tender sensibilities tried several on. She was pleased when Angela told her Mother’s good tweed coat suited her admirably and that several dresses only need the hems let down to be the height of chic. They stacked everything in piles—one for Valerie, one for the jumble—and then turned their attention to the chest of drawers. There were multitudes of underclothes all of which they bundled into a bag, in haste not to examine them. Valerie took all the scarves—Mother always had a little scarf in the neck of a coat or dress—and the four pathetic items of jewellery.

  ‘We’ll take all this down to the church hall tomorrow,’ Valerie said, ‘then Father won’t have to bother. It won’t worry him.’

  ‘I don’t think it would anyway,’ Angela said, ‘he’s sensible about things like that.’

  ‘Hard, you mean,’ Valerie said, ‘like you. Mother and I were the soft ones. Oh dear,’ and she slumped on the bed and began to cry again. ‘I shall miss her so much. I can’t bear to think of her dead.’

  ‘I can,’ Angela said. ‘I can bear it very well.’

  ‘Oh, you’re wicked—if Mother could hear you—’

  ‘Well, she can’t. She never could hear me. We never said anything to each other that mattered in all our grown-up lives.’

  ‘Finished?’ said Father looking in at the door.

  ‘Yes,’ Angela said.

  Sixteen

  ANGELA FINALLY WENT to bed an hour later than she had intended, hoping that Father would be mollified. She thought it might be the last time she would ever sleep in this ugly house where she was born. Father would not care if they said, next holiday, that they were going to rent a cottage and come in each day to visit him. He would approve. He would have their company but the house would stay tidy.

  Years of claustrophobia in the narrow, little, distempered bedroom rolled off her as she lay on her back looking at the ceiling. The cheap cotton, flowered curtains had never fitted and let in too much light even on a dark night. Father had secured them with drawing pins down each side but even so the draughts came in down her neck. There was a knock on the door. ‘Come in,’ Angela said, wearily, sure it was Valerie with another lugubrious speech to make. But it was Sadie, bringing her cocoa though she had not asked for any. Unexpectedly, Sadie sat on the bed. Angela sipped the hot sweet liquid, faintly revolted by it, but grateful for the thought. She saw Sadie was watching her, as she used to watch Mother, and resolved to speak. ‘I’m tired,’ she said, ‘and depressed. My Mother’s life depressed me. It ought to be a relief she’s dead but I must say I don’t feel much relieved yet.’

  ‘I don’t know why Grandma depressed you,’ Sadie said.

  ‘She was never really happy and a lot of it was my fault. I was never the daughter she wanted—I couldn’t give her what she really wanted. At least you won’t have that problem Sadie—I don’t want anything from you. I promised myself before you were ever born that I wouldn’t want anything from you.’

  ‘You do,’ Sadie said. ‘You’re always telling me that, but it’s a lie.’

  ‘I don’t. I’m perfectly self-sufficient and happy and always will be. I don’t look to you for anything.’

  ‘Yes you do.’

  ‘What? For what?’

  ‘I don’t know. I annoy you. I’m not what you want.’

  ‘But annoying me is trivial—it’s a stage—all adolescent girls annoy their mothers—’

  ‘Oh, forget it,’ Sadie said and got up. ‘Grandad’s gone to bed and Dad too. Do you think it would be all right if I watched a film on tele, if I kept it very low?

  ‘I should think so,’ Angela said, ‘but if Grandad comes down and objects, give in straight away.’

  That brief feeling of intimacy had gone—frightened away, as usual, by words. Angela closed her eyes and tried to sleep. Real closeness was silent: Often, she and Ben lay in bed and just held each other after they had made love and that closeness was the most comforting thing in the world. It was ten years since she had had it with Sadie, thirty since she had had it with Mother. Nothing seemed to have taken the place of that physical touch through which there passed to the other person love and trust and confidence. Sadie needed it and stuck between childhood and later passion nobody gave it to her.

  Sadie had always wanted a dog. She would plead and plead to be allowed to have one—any kind, any breed. Patiently, Angela had gone over the reasons why she could not allow her to have a dog. Gently she probed to discover why Sadie thought she wanted one. To look after? She was bad at looking after anything. Plants died in her room from lack of water, fish died in smelly tanks she forgot to clean out, even a tortoise was run over because Sadie left the garden gate open. To take for walks? Sadie hated walks. To love? She had her family. ‘But that’s different,’ Sadie said, ‘a dog would be just mine, it would just want me—oh please—I’d do everything for it—please.’ Angela had almost given in, the need seemed so strong. She had said to Ben that Sadie seemed to need this outlet for her affections. But Ben pointed out that they went abroad too often for a dog to be feasible. Sadie had cried bitterly. Later, several years later, when Saul wanted a dog Sadie had laughed and said, ‘Do you remember when I wanted a dog? Thank god you didn’t let me have one—what a pest they are.’ But Angela always imagined some secret damage had been done by thwarting Sadie’s instinct.

  They caught a late-morning train to Exeter and then another for London the next day. Father did not come to the station—it would not be right to be seen in the town the day after the funeral. He thanked them for coming, which made Angela wince. He said he would be all right on his own. ‘But it will be empty,’ he said, ‘there won’t be much to do with Mother gone.’ There seemed no hint of tears in either eyes or voice. ‘But I’ll keep busy,’ he said, ‘I’ll find something to do, don’t you worry.’ No one was worried. Angela thought how fortunate it was that Mother had not exacted death-bed promises to look after Father. They would, of course, but without anguish. Mother could never have been put in a home. Father, if it became necessary, though Angela was absolutely sure it never would be, could be consigned to some carefully vetted establishment without any broken hearts.

  They said goodbye to Valerie at the barrier. ‘Will you write?’ she asked Angela at the last minute.

  ‘If you like. But not regularly. If I have news—yes.’

  ‘Just to keep in touch,’ Valerie said, ‘now Mother’s gone. She would like to think of us keeping in touch. She wouldn’t like to think of the family falling apart.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll write then,’ Angela said.


  ‘And I’ll come and see you sometimes.’

  ‘Of course, whenever you like.’

  Angela laid her head against the seat of the train. Relief, she was discovering, was such a negative emotion. She felt nothing. She wished Sadie was not sitting opposite so that she and Ben could dredge over the last few days—not that she had anything to say but going over and sharing thoughts and feelings in that leisurely way they had perfected over the years always helped. Sadie’s presence inhibited her.

  ‘You did very well,’ Ben said suddenly as the train drew out of the station. Sadie looked astonished.

  ‘You didn’t cry at the funeral after all.’

  ‘No,’ Angela said.

  ‘Mother doesn’t cry,’ Sadie said, rapidly turning the pages of the magazine she had bought. ‘Why should she? She wanted Grandma to die.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Ben said, ‘you’re twisting her words—you’re making it sound horrible when you know perfectly well what Angela meant when she said that, if she said it.’

  ‘Grandma was frightened of her,’ Sadie said, ‘and I don’t blame her.’

  ‘Stop it, Sadie,’ Ben said, sharply, ‘it isn’t funny.’

  ‘You know nothing about it, Sadie,’ Angela said in a flat, emotionless voice, ‘don’t try to make me feel guilty. Mother was never frightened of me, she was frightened of dying and frightened that I knew she was frightened. She wanted me to make everything all right and I couldn’t.’

  ‘She told me last week,’ Sadie said, ‘she said, “she’s a terror, your Mother, she scares the life out of me.”’

  ‘Oh grow up,’ Ben said, disgustedly, ‘surely you can see—’

  ‘She can’t see anything,’ Angela said, ‘but anyway I don’t want to discuss it. Let’s just be quiet. It will be hectic enough when we get home and I’m exhausted.’

  ‘I’ll move with pleasure,’ Sadie said, and in spite of their protests she went into the next carriage.

  ‘Oh let her go,’ Angela said when Ben tried to restrain her, ‘she’ll feel she’s won then. Who cares.’

  ‘So strange,’ Ben said, ‘after being so good at the funeral.’

  ‘Very good. Quite startlingly good. I used to be good in that sort of way,’ Angela said, watching the familiar landscape slip by. ‘I’d decide for no particular reason to behave like Mother really wanted me to behave, just to show I could, and then I’d revert to type straight afterwards and they would all forget how nice I’d been just for them. They only like me when I do what they want, I used to think.’

  ‘Pass that paper,’ Ben said, ‘I haven’t read one for days.’

  Sadie’s pride was not tough enough for her to resist joining them for lunch. They talked in fits and starts, the three of them, throughout the meal. As long as they confined themselves to impersonal topics Angela saw how well they could be said to get on together. Gradually, her tiredness began to lift. She thought of things to look forward to and said, ‘It will be nice to be home again.’

  ‘At least you won’t have to rush down to St Erick any more,’ Sadie said, ‘unless Grandad gets ill.’

  ‘He won’t get ill,’ Ben said, firmly, ‘not for a long time anyway.’

  ‘It was so awful,’ Sadie said, ‘you rushing off like that.’ Angela looked at her carefully. She distrusted Sadie in this reassuring mood.

  ‘Awful for whomi’ she asked.

  ‘For us of course,’ Sadie said. ‘It was awful without you—looking after ourselves—Dad’s rotten meals—Tim crying half the time and Max ahd Saul fighting.’

  ‘You all managed perfectly well,’ Angela said, ‘don’t pretend just to flatter me.’

  ‘I’m not pretending. It was horrible. And when you were in hospital it was even worse.’

  ‘Then I don’t want to hear about it,’ Angela said. She saw Mother’s face when they had said the same sort of things to her and she contrasted her own dismay with Mother’s pleasure.

  ‘You should be pleased,’ said Sadie, ‘thinking how we all depend on you. You re always saying nobody helps or appreciates you.’

  ‘I never say that.’

  ‘Well, you imply it.’

  ‘I do not. I don’t want to be depended on. I don’t want to be missed. I haven’t brought you up to cling. You should all be independent—there shouldn’t be any apron strings for you to cut yourself off from—’

  ‘Oh god,’ Sadie said, ‘it was just a remark. You always take everything so bloody seriously.’

  Every night, Angela read Sadie a bedtime story. She loved the ritual. First, the bath and then the glass of milk in pyjamas and dressing-gown and then the story with Sadie and Max in their beds and Saul already asleep in his cot. She set the scene carefully, loving the creation of an idyll Sadie would remember all her life. Ben found it all unnatural and a bit boring. The ritual took longer and longer every evening, he said, and it could not be deviated from. This could be a nuisance. Sometimes he had to wait an hour for Angela until she was ready to come down and welcome him home. If they were going out it ruined their departure as no babysitter could effectively take over Angela’s role. Sometimes Angela secretly regretted it herself—she wished she just had to say ‘off to bed’ and Sadie and Max would go—but it was worth it, for Sadie’s memories. She knew she was creating something precious. When Tim was born she fought to keep the ritual going. One night she had to give in. ‘You’ll have to put yourselves to bed,’ she said to the other three, ‘I’m too tired to read bedtime stories these days.’ ‘Oh good,’ Sadie said, ‘I never did like it anyway.’

  Until Aunt Frances came to visit her Angela was surprised at how quickly life became balanced once more. She returned to her part-time teaching and felt a deep satisfaction in the momentum of each day now she could depend on its rhythm. She drove off with everything tidily organized behind her, carrying shopping lists all neatly made out to which she would turn her attention on the return journey. Her thoughts were together. That great lifting of weight which she had waited for since Mother had died had at last happened. She was a free agent—free from guilt and anxiety and that dreadful crippling sense of responsibility. She felt better and looked years younger. Valerie on the telephone said, ‘Isn’t it awful the way there’s no pleasure in anything now Mother has gone?’ and gasped when Angela said, ‘On the contrary—there seems pleasure in so many things I dreaded before.’

  It was perhaps this cheerfulness, this new vitality so evident in Angela that annoyed Aunt Frances and made her seek to deflate it. She rang up, some two months after Mother’s death, to say that she was going to be in London the following week and would like to come and see Angela. ‘We don’t want to lose touch,’ she said in that same unctuous way Valerie had, ‘your Mother would have liked us to see more of each other again now that she’s gone.’ Smiling because they had never been in any kind of touch since she had grown up, Angela said she would be delighted. She invited Aunt Frances to lunch and was glad to—gestures like that were easy to make now that her energies were renewed. She went to some trouble to make sure the lunch was delicious and cleaned the house thoroughly the day before the better to impress her aunt.

  ‘Mary always said it was a big house,’ Frances said, and then rummaged in her bag for a tissue. She had not been there five minutes before she had made plain that her grief was continuous and now, as they sat down to the meal, the tears were again squeezed out. ‘Oh dear, I still can’t say her name without wanting to weep.’ Angela, busy at the cooker, said nothing. She gave what she hoped Frances would interpret as a sympathetic smile. ‘You’re looking well,’ Frances said. ‘I don’t know why your Mother ever worried about you doing too much, I must say.’

  ‘I feel very well,’ Angela said.

  ‘You would have thought your Mother’s death would pull you down,’ Frances said. ‘You’re lucky. Things like that have always affected me dreadfully. I’ve felt awful ever since Mary’s death—aches and pains everywhere—and then I feel so depressed, I can’t seem to
get out of it.’

  ‘What a shame,’ Angela said, knowing she must stop all this smiling that Aunt Frances would think inappropriate.

  ‘Don’t you feel depressed?’ Frances asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not with your own poor Mother passing over?’

  ‘No. Mother was ill for years and years. She didn’t enjoy life much—no, I don’t feel depressed.’

  ‘Well, I wish I could take it like that,’ Frances said. ‘She was always my favourite sister, your Mother. Poor Mary, she had a hard time of it.’

  Angela, who had learned her lesson many times over but could not nevertheless leave well alone said, ‘Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think Mother did have such a hard time of it, not when you compare her life to some other people’s.’

  ‘But you don’t know the half of it,’ Frances said eagerly, and from the way she suddenly perked up and put her tissues to one side and leaned across the table Angela could tell this was really why she had come. ‘There are so many things you don’t know—Mary was wonderful at keeping things from all you children—you’ve no idea. “I don’t want them to worry,” she used to say, “they’re only young once, they’ll have troubles enough in their own lives soon, I don’t want to load them with mine.” So she wouldn’t tell you anything—just struggled on, protecting you, doting on you. It was ridiculous.’

  ‘It sounds sensible to me,’ Angela said, passing Frances a blue and white patterned plate upon which there rested a neatly filleted trout.

  ‘Oh, but what a time of it the poor dear had and you knowing nothing of it and going your own sweet way.’

  Angela could see Frances’ lips trembling with the effort of choosing her words with care. Her fat, pink tongue, slivers of white fish clinging to it, darted in and out licking them as she tried to control her excitement. She kept pulling in her chins and burying them in the collar of her jumper, shaking her head slightly and even closing her eyes with suppressed ecstasy. Angela knew what she wanted. Mother would have sworn Frances to secrecy but now Mother was dead and Frances longed to be questioned, to be encouraged to let fly with the hundred and one vicious little tales she had to tell. She could be ignored. Unless pressed, she had just enough conscience not to voluntarily impart her confidences. She could be left to finish her trout and eat her salad and wolf two helpings of the chocolate gateau to which she was most partial. She could be sent away with her poisonous information still not given. There was a decision to be made and Angela congratulated herself as she made it.