‘Help yourself to some salad,’ she said, brightly, beaming.
‘A lovely meal,’ Frances said, sniffing a little, ‘you shouldn’t have gone to so much bother—I didn’t expect it—I just thought we ought to make it up though I’m not sure what I ever did to have you never come near all these years but never mind.’ She dabbed at her lips with her napkin and coughed. ‘This is a lovely house,’ she said. ‘Very nice. It pleased your Mother to think you had a nice house. More than she ever did, poor soul. She never really had anything much after she married your Father. That was that—scrimp and save from then on and she wasn’t used to it. It was her undoing. She could have had anyone and she chose him.’
‘That’s a lie,’ Angela said, calmly, she hoped inoffensively.
‘I beg your pardon,’ Frances said.
‘Mother couldn’t have had anyone. She married Father because no one else ever asked her and she was thirty. She wanted a home and children and thought she wasn’t going to get them. She told me herself.’
Frances had blushed a deep, purply red. Her chins wobbled as she took deep breaths. ‘The fact remains,’ she said, ‘that marriage was a disaster.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Mary ended up hating your Father. You don’t know anything about it. You never knew she left him once—he drove her near to doing herself in—you never knew that. There, you see.’
It was out, or part of it. Foolishly, she had provoked Frances when she had resolved to placate her.
‘Well, that’s interesting,’ Angela said, determined to remain equable, ‘have some more gateau.’
‘No thank you. It was dreadful. You were only two and Valerie on the way—that was what brought it on—finding herself expecting again, she was disgusted, she hated all that—“Oh Frances,” she told me, “I can’t stand it.” But of course he wouldn’t leave her alone. So she left him. Said she was sorry and it was her fault—as if it was—but she wasn’t coming back unless he promised not to touch her. Of course, he wouldn’t. You came to me for six months while it was all sorted out, then—’
‘I don’t want to hear any more,’ Angela said, ‘and I think it’s despicable of you to have told me this much.’
‘It isn’t right that you don’t know what your Mother went through—the sacrifices she made for you. She was a saint, poor Mary, no doubt about it—what she suffered on your behalf.’
Slowly, a great anger built up in Angela as she sat opposite this vindictive woman, whose silly face was smeared with chocolate, whose eyes gleamed with an almost evangelical fervour as she spread her gospel of hate. But there was no stopping her.
‘It was for your sake she went back,’ Frances said, ‘she sacrificed her freedom and her peace of mind for you. We all begged her not to go back—she could have lived with any of us—but she said she had to, for you children’s sake, and she did. She gave up any chance of being happy for you children, more than any woman I ever know. You were her pride and joy, couldn’t do enough for you, nothing else mattered.’
‘Well, she’s dead,’ Angela said, loudly.
‘Yes, and you don’t seem to care.’
‘Aunt Frances, you couldn’t tell whether I cared or not. You don’t know the first thing about me—you never have done. I’m sure you’ve got lots more things to shock me with but I don’t want to hear them—go and tell Valerie instead.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t upset Valerie—she’s too like your Mother, too tender-hearted. No, it’s you that ought to know—I’ve thought that for a long time—it made me ill to see how you treated your Mother after what she’d done for you and that’s why I had to speak up. You wait until it happens to you and then you’ll know how your Mother felt—wait until that Sadie of yours just cuts herself off and starts treating you like a charity.’
‘Sadie doesn’t need to cut herself off. She’s never been tied to me since she was born. I expect nothing from her.’
‘Oh, that’s what you say now—you wait until you’re old and ill—you’ll want her soon enough then—you’ll look for some repayment and you’ll be disappointed if you find there’s nothing there—no love, no thanks, nothing.’
Frances was growing redder and redder with each minute. They were both on their feet, shouting at each other across the kitchen table where the remnants of their meal lay neglected. It was distressing for both of them and the absurdity of it made Angela laugh.
‘Aunt Frances,’ she said, ‘this is stupid. I don’t know why you’re upsetting yourself. I don’t know what makes you think I didn’t love Mother anyway.’ It was painful to talk with Frances about love at all—the word was hard to use.
‘I didn’t say that, now.’
‘You implied it—more than implied it.’
‘I only said you let her down in the end. It didn’t turn out how she thought it would when you were such a loving little girl.’
‘Of course it didn’t. How could it? I don’t think it’s fair to attack me because it didn’t.’
‘We always got on well, your Mother and I.’
‘Oh yes.’
‘We did. We were the closest in the family. I looked up to her, I’d have done anything for her.’
Angela cleared away the plates and made coffee. The time to be charitable had arrived. But after Frances had left, docile and even apologetic by late afternoon, she found it hard to get Mother’s face out of her head. It was what she had expected to happen when Mother was lying in her coffin, when her body was still in the house, but no haunting images had troubled her then. Frances had bequeathed her this spectre long after the event. She went about her normal tasks explaining and pleading before this ever-present mask, which remained blank. None of Mother’s real expressions passed across it—neither sorrow nor resignation, no shadow of joy or grief, only the same bland look, with the large eyes open, unblinking, staring at and through her. Angela wore herself out pleading for some response but there was none—she found her own lips moving as she began whispering out loud to Mother.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ Sadie said, coming in from school, as usual hardly pausing for an answer. ‘There’s going to be a school trip to Greece in April. Can I go?’ She prowled round the kitchen looking for something to eat and only turned to consider Angela when no answer was forthcoming. ‘I’d pay my own spending money out of babysitting,’ she said.
‘I can’t seem to think about it,’ Angela said, ‘not now.’
‘When, then? We have to know tomorrow—first come first served.’
‘I’ll think about it tonight.’
‘But will you? I’d be away all the Easter holidays—off your hands for three weeks—well, two.’
‘That’s an attraction, is it?’
‘Of course it is—you like us going away—’
‘Only to enjoy yourselves.’
‘I know only to enjoy ourselves—but you get some peace and quiet too if you get rid of us.’
‘I don’t want to get rid of you—’
‘Oh, you know what I mean—why be so touchy about it—of course you want us off your hands, anyone would.’
‘I want you to feel free but—’
‘Well, we do.’
‘—but I don’t want you to think you’re not wanted.’
‘I don’t think that, even when it’s true.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Oh forget it—just a joke—anyway, I’d like to go to Greece if you’d let me.’
There was no point trying to detain her—distracted by Aunt Frances’ visit she lacked the energy to pursue Sadie. The turmoil she had thought settled forever boiled up again inside her head as she dwelt upon the picture her aunt had painted. She thought she had cleared her conscience of anything to do with Mother the day after the funeral but now the agony seemed worse than ever—the foundations of her new-found serenity were shallower than she could have guessed. She did not know how to cast out Mother from her mind, accusing her, suffering for her, pathetic and good an
d unbearably sorrowful.
Angela hesitated on the threshold of Sadie’s room after she had put Tim to bed. She peeped round the door and saw Sadie, books spread out, writing industriously. Quietly, she withdrew. Later, when she heard records being put on and knew Sadie had finished her homework, she thought about interrupting. She thought about going into Sadie’s room and sitting on the bed and confessing her distress and asking for help, but it was not something she ever did and the idea was embarrassing. She was grasping at a hope so insubstantial it slid out of her grasp at once. Instead, she wandered from room to room, wishing Ben was not going to be as late as he had said he would be, and though she did not wring her hands she took care to avoid mirrors which would reveal too clearly her anguish. She knew she was doing what Mother had done, feeling as Mother had often felt, looking for what Mother had looked for—support, companionship, shared responsibility. If only Sadie would appear and put an arm about her shoulders . . .
‘No,’ she said out loud, and walked with determination towards the television which she put on, not caring about the programme she might get. She drew up her chair and concentrated on ‘The Body in Question’, seeking to divert the hysterical meanderings of her tired brain into a more sensible direction. But the fear remained. Once, Mother had been such a comfort. When she was a child, lying awake miserable or ill, Mother had come to her and laid a gentle hand on her forehead and soothed her with endearments. ‘It will be all right,’ Mother had said, without knowing what was wrong, ‘now don’t wdrry,’ and even when she was older and her reason told her it would not be all right and there was everything to worry about—even then, the magic had worked. She had faith because Mother was a mother. Later, she had done for her children what Mother had done for her. The same reassurance had sent them into a blissful coma of trust. She had seen small fists unclench at her words and brows miraculously smoothed and she had marvelled at her own power. But now she dreaded the thought of Mother.
She found herself on the top floor where the boys slept without being able to remember climbing the stairs. Tim was sleeping soundly, his arms flung over his head, legs spread out above the covers. To him, she was still everything. She turned away, unable to bear the sight of her youngest child who reminded her so forcibly of her own importance. ‘They soon grow up,’ Mother used to say wistfully but Angela could not share her regret. To be so needed was heartbreaking. She looked at Max and Saul and immediately felt better—they were through that imaginary barrier of total independence. She was beyond being everything to them and it made her glad. Yet Mother had spoken so bitterly of her sons. ‘You get nothing from boys,’ she had said, ‘they grow apart and it’s never the same.’
She was now exhausted and weeping in that way she despised—that spineless, mawkish way that the real Angela rejected. Downstairs again she made tea she did not want and sat clutching the hot liquid. Her misery had become so physical that her whole body ached. Any movement pained her. She crouched in her chair thinking that the next day she must go to her doctor and allow him to prescribe those shaming tranquillizers she had always been proud of not needing. She would fill herself up with them until time passed.
She slept where she was, in her chair, until Ben came home and covered her with a blanket, mystified, and put a pillow behind her head and a stool under her feet and left her.
She woke up as soon as the first light came through the yellow living room curtains. Her first thought was relief that she had slept at all. She went quietly upstairs and slipped into bed with Ben, who stirred in his sleep but did not waken. Her head ached and she was stiff all over but that demented racing of her brain had stopped. She saw clearly how she had worked herself into a state, how she had allowed the mischievous gossiping of Aunt Frances to upset her. It was something that could quite easily happen again—the past, cunningly reported, would always have that power over her.
‘Interfering bitch,’ Father said on the telephone that night, ‘never liked her—wouldn’t give her house room—what did she want anyways?’
‘Just calling,’ Angela said, ‘just wanting to keep in touch for Mother’s sake.’
‘A likely story,’ Father said, ‘you watch out—she’s a meddler. Your Mother went off her years ago.’
‘Why?’
‘Never you mind. What’s done is done—wouldn’t look after her own mother even though she had that big house and money to go with it. It was us took her in—were going to, anyways, if she hadn’t dropped dead unexpected—and we hadn’t room to swing a cat.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘There’s a lot you don’t know.’
‘That’s what Aunt Frances said.’
‘I wouldn’t trust her to tell you the time of day. She turned Catholic, you know.’
‘Father, really—’
‘What?’
‘Well, what a thing to say—as if becoming a Catholic was something to hold against Aunt Frances, as if it had anything to do with trusting her.’
‘Course it has—once the church gets a hold on them, that’s that. Them priests can do anything with them—do what they like, say what they like, and into confession and bob’s your uncle.’
Defeated, Angela was silent. In the right mood Father’s manic logic was funny but in the wrong one it was deeply depressing and made her see all over again what Mother had been up against.
‘Valerie isn’t well,’ Father said.
‘Oh, what’s wrong?’
‘Women’s troubles. Same as your Mother at that age.’ Again, Angela was silent. She could think of nothing to say that wouldn’t embarrass them both.
‘You should ring her,’ Father said, ‘nobody else to do it now.’
‘I will.’
‘In place of your Mother.’
‘Yes.’
But she put it off. She did not want to be Mother to anyone else, especially not to Valerie, and in any case it was ludicrous to imagine she could take on Mother’s role. First Father set them against each other, then he expected them to feel for each other that same overwhelming affection Mother had felt.
Sadie had all the fun, and Max, aged three, bitterly resented it. She was allowed at last to cross the road by herself. She was allowed to go and post a letter, straining on tip-toes to put it safely through the slit in the box. Best of all, she was allowed to go to the corner shop on errands, list and money tucked inside her pocket, shopping basket on the crook of her arm like Little Red Riding Hood. Max would stand at the gate and scream while Angela came out with the standard comforts. ‘When you are old enough you can go too,’ she told him, knowing it was no good. In his own eyes he would never be as old as Sadie, never enjoy her status. ‘Please, Sadie,’ Angela said, ‘take Max with you to the shop. Hold his hand when you cross the road.’ But Sadie did not want to take him. She found every excuse. ‘He will only hold my hand until we are out of sight,’ she said, and then he will snatch it away and run across the road and get knocked over and it will be my fault.’ Angela swore Max would be obedient. She pleaded and cajoled Sadie, who at last reluctantly agreed. She ran upstairs to the landing window the minute they had gone and watched them all the way down the street and across the road until they safely turned the corner. How sweet they looked—brother and sister, hand in hand, the one looking after the other. On the way back, Max tried to wrestle the basket from Sadie’s grasp. Sadie hit him. Max dropped the basket and ran home screaming. When Sadie arrived crying with mortification it was to her Angela gave her attention and comfort. She had foisted upon Sadie her own illusion and it was no good.
‘Father says you’re ill,’ Angela said when finally she got round to ringing Valerie.
‘I need an operation,’ Valerie said, ‘the doctor’s been on at me for months so I’ll have to have it.’ She paused, and Angela knew she was meant to ask what the operation was going to be for.
‘Is it serious?’ she asked instead.
‘A hysterectomy. Like Mother.’
‘I never knew Mot
her had a hysterectomy.’
‘You never wanted to know—Mother said she couldn’t talk to you about anything, you just changed the subject.’
‘How long will you be in?’
‘Two weeks and then of course I have to convalesce, like poor Mother—don’t you remember how washed out she was, couldn’t lift anything?’
‘No,’ Angela said. Valerie might as well have maximum satisfaction.
‘You’re lucky,’ Valerie said, ‘you haven’t inherited any of Mother’s problems. I mean, you don’t have heavy periods, do you, or any pain? Perhaps they’ve bypassed you and gone to Sadie.’
‘For christ’s sake, Valerie.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t want to discuss my periods or yours or anyone’s—anything more boring—I can’t stand women who make such a thing of it—it’s a purely private matter.’
‘What a Victorian attitude.’
‘Then I’m delighted to be Victorian.’
‘You shouldn’t be ashamed of your natural functions. I have girls in care with mothers like you and it leads to a lot of trouble. Mother always said you were a bit funny about menstruation and—’
‘Valerie, I rang you up to say how sorry I was that you had to go into hospital and to ask if there is anything I can do to help. I don’t want a lecture on how I handle my personal life and I don’t want to know what Mother or anyone else thought of my attitudes. So can I help? Would you like to come here to convalesce? You’re very welcome.’
‘No—I’m all fixed up—I’m going off for three weeks to a friend’s house in the Cotswolds—Joan Simpson’s—remember, I was at college with her and we’ve always kept in touch. She asked me ages ago, and it will be nice and quiet.’
Mother Can You Hear Me? Page 31
