Mothertime

by Gillian White

  Ilse zips up her anorak, she draws the strings of the hood and ties them. Everyone calls ‘Happy Christmas,’ and they wave and smile as, in the distance, her colours turn dark in the snow. When they close the door it feels as if some vital link from the past has been severed and gone stamping off into a pristine, untrodden future.

  What is Mother doing now? Is she awake, down there in the gym? Vanessa listens hard for any signs of disturbance from Mother because the basement steps lead into the drop directly to the left of the front door.

  It is after Ilse’s departure that they carry out their plan and telephone Bart’s wife. Vanessa makes the younger ones leave the room, ‘because I’ve got to be serious and you’ll only muck about and start laughing.’

  ‘But what are you going to say? What are you going to say?’

  ‘I don’t know yet, Dom, I haven’t decided. You could make yourself useful by fetching some wood. We ought to have a fire.’

  Vanessa still has not decided when she picks up the telephone, but when she starts it comes easily. After all, the message is a simple one. Bart’s number is in the front of Mother’s address book. Above his are several other names, angrily scribbled out.

  ‘Don’t let’s put the television on. Let’s have it quiet—would anyone mind?’ The flames leap in the grate… it is just like a Christmas card. So they struggle to reset the tree in its bucket, replace the torn-off tinsel and sit round in a circle to open the parcels from Daddy and the Grannies. Sacha, cross-legged, sits with a drink on the carpet beside her, something that is never normally allowed.

  ‘It’s so strange. You would not guess that Mother was anywhere in the house.’ Camilla brings up the subject shyly. ‘Even when she’s upstairs in her bedroom there’s an atmosphere. You’re always waiting for her to come down, you’re always listening for her, but this morning I can’t feel it.’

  Vanessa has not spoken of her secret hope, not to anyone, but this year she’s dreamed that Daddy might arrange to have them with him on Christmas Day. After all, he and Suzie are ‘settled in’ now—that was one of his old excuses. ‘We haven’t got enough plates,’ he used to say, laughing. ‘For all you lot!’

  So her heart sank when she discovered the parcels he had delivered on the last day of school. He must have called late because otherwise Mrs Guerney would have moved them. They were stacked in the hall, where he must have left them. Mother must have let him in and told him to leave them there. ‘Your father called with his usual expensive love-bribes,’ was all Mother said scathingly when Vanessa asked, her sticky scarlet lipstick adding malice to her words. ‘You’d better take them upstairs and put them somewhere safe until Christmas Day.’

  They were in four bulky Hamley’s carrier bags, and Vanessa didn’t look any further. It wasn’t until she’d placed them round the bottom of the tree last night that she’d noticed the one with the bow, the one for Mother. Now, as they opened Daddy’s presents, she wonders if anyone else has been hoping for the same thing… that Daddy will come like a knight in white armour and whisk them away. He could help them to build a snowman. Vanessa wonders in secret because of course the question is much too painful to ask.

  In a similar way she finds Daddy’s presents almost too painful to open. The suspicion lurks in Vanessa’s mind (she hates herself for it) but has he bought them, or has he sent Suzie? Daddy loathes shopping. And even worse than that, if he has sent Suzie, would Vanessa know? This is a complicated matter because she will shun any present bought by Suzie but she will adore anything chosen by Daddy. She is old enough to know how ridiculous these feelings are, but not mature enough to dismiss them.

  ‘Wow! Brill! Nintendo!’ Dominic falls back, triumphant, with the wrapping paper balanced on his head.

  But how will Dominic cope with his new computer game without Daddy to help set it up? Last year he spent hours battling with his camera instructions himself, and by New Year’s Day he’d been sobbing with frustration. Perhaps Daddy isn’t coming to fetch them, maybe he is planning a visit instead. And from Isobel and Joe—Granny and Grandpa Townsend—he opens a child’s carpentry set from Galts, quite inappropriate. Dominic has used adult’s tools since he has been able to hold them. Vanessa imagines Mother’s response if she’d been with them; ‘How absurd. Quite loopy.’

  Daddy has chosen—or is it Suzie?—a puppet theatre for Sacha and a doll’s house for Amber. Both the theatre and the doll’s house are full of packages of props, furniture and little people. You can tell they are delighted because the twins just flush, clasping and unclasping their hands; neither of them says anything at all but Sacha manages to knock her drink over. Nobody takes the slightest notice as the blackcurrant stain moves quick as mercury across the thick Chinese carpet.

  What is Mother doing now? Malicious? Or insane?

  Vanessa puts her own presents down, suffused with sorrow and shame because, what if she doesn’t like them? How hurt Daddy would be. ‘I think I ought to put the turkey in the oven. You can open mine for me while I’m gone.’ She cannot bear to be the focus of everyone’s attention. She feels hemmed in, weighed down with responsibility, not just for the children, now, but for Mother as well. For a while she stands motionless in the middle of the kitchen floor. Deliberately she inhales and exhales with deep breaths until the pain and anger in her chest is eased, then she goes to the sink and holds a wet dishcloth against her face. But she need not worry because while she is heaving the frozen bird into the roasting pan, holding back tears from a source she cannot identify… anger, remorse, sadness… Camilla comes into the kitchen, saying, ‘Close your eyes while I put the box into your hands. Close them, go on, then open them. Like they do on films.’

  Vanessa pretends not to hear her.

  ‘It’s all right, it’s all right. You will like them, I swear. And Suzie would never have chosen these.’

  She has to trust her sister although she is only ten. The jewel box is tiny. There is cotton wool on top of whatever is waiting for her inside. Something exquisite… must be! Vanessa lifts it cautiously, looks, and raises her shining eyes to Camilla’s.

  ‘It is covered with real diamonds. They must be real,’ assures Camilla, ‘or Daddy would not have bought it.’ The glittering crucifix sparkles in the lights. It is attached to a silver chain, and the other present from Daddy which Camilla has also thought to bring down is a white leather Bible. But Vanessa is not ready to give her feelings away. So special! So special! This is something very close that she and Daddy share, faith and devotion… but it’s so grown up! She pretends to Camilla as hard as she can but it is the wrong present! She is not a nun, she’s a little child! Why does he go on, buying her off, trying to give her away to God? What will he give her next year—a couple of candlesticks? Knowing that there is no nobility in her she turns back to the turkey and asks Camilla, ‘What did you get?’

  ‘Come and see! A tutu and a record of Swan Lake! I am going to put it on, see if it fits. Dominic’s waiting to take a picture. If it does I am going to wear it all day.’

  ‘We are going to have to go and see about Mother.’

  ‘Not now.’

  ‘Yes, now.’

  ‘Oh, let’s wait just a little bit longer.’

  And then the twins walk in. Vanessa stares, astonished to see them so quickly changed out of their sleepsuits and dressed in crisp new nurses’ outfits with red crosses on their elasticated caps. The smocks are still undone at the back, they have not bothered to press the studs together. ‘Smile,’ says Dominic, following on, crouching behind his camera. ‘Don’t sulk, Sacha, smile!’

  Their childish nakedness is vulnerable; they look so skinny and pink from behind, like plastic baby dolls. ‘Granny sent them. D’you think that Boots sells doctors’ kits?’ Sacha asks Vanessa. She prods the turkey’s hard humped back. ‘Are we going to be eating that?’

  ‘It looks awful,’ says Dominic, his face taut with distaste. ‘Don’t put it back yet, tip it up towards me, let me take a picture.’

&nb
sp; ‘I think I should have taken it out of the freezer last night, but never mind, we’ll just leave it to cook much longer. There’s no hurry.’ In all sorts of ways the Christmas she’s planned is eluding her. She is failing with the food as abysmally as she has failed to deal with Mother. And then she sits wearily down on Mrs Guerney’s cushioned chair and her voice is serious. She sounds as devout as Mother Augustus giving out notices in assembly when she goes on. ‘Now that we’ve opened the parcels we’re going to have to go down to the basement and see if Mother’s all right.’ She includes Amber in her gentle reminder. ‘Now this is going to be extremely difficult for you, for all of us. You two have got to understand that this is our secret. It is terribly important to remember that whatever happens, whoever asks, we must not tell anyone where Mother is.’

  ‘Not even Daddy, if he asks?’

  ‘Not even Daddy. We would all get into the most awful trouble.’

  ‘Perhaps we should leave the twins out of it. They might be too young.’ Camilla turns away from the group at the table, and fiddles diffidently with the oven’s switches. Vanessa sees that her sister is more frightened than she is herself.

  ‘You can’t leave us out,’ Sacha proclaims in her most argumentative voice. Her tiny spectacles flash with reproof. ‘Granny has sent us something suitable for once. We’ve dressed up specially. We are the nurses. Now that we’re dressed like this we can look after Mother properly.’

  ‘But Mother’s not sick,’ says Vanessa too quickly, hating to think of her needy and ill. But Mother is unhealthy. With her rasping cough and her tense, nervous movements, she hasn’t been well for a long, long time, and Camilla’s troubled backward glance confirms her sister’s lie.

  Eight

  THEY MAKE A STRANGE procession—Vanessa in her formal green carrying the menu, Camilla, a fully-kitted ballerina, Dominic, who hasn’t dressed yet but whose precious camera hangs round his neck, and Sacha and Amber, two miniature nurses clinging to the hand-rails, fingers thin and taut as the iron itself as they climb down the steep black steps of the spiral staircase as if they are cautiously lowering themselves into some deep, unknown water. But this river is full of rapids and the bottom is covered with jagged rocks.

  Nobody speaks. Vanessa’s eyes fix on the porthole window. Shocked to see it clear, she blinks nervously. And there is no sound. No raving. No cursing. If it wasn’t for the dim glimmer of light from the sauna you would not know there was anyone in there. This is nothing like Vanessa had expected.

  They plan to push the menu through the pipe-hole because this will avoid the problem of trying to talk to Mother if she decides to be difficult. She can have cornflakes, toast, scrambled eggs or boiled eggs. She can choose tea or coffee.

  ‘Do you think we need to give her a choice?’

  ‘She’s always liked a choice. You know she prefers a choice, Dom. We’re not trying to punish her.’ Vanessa endeavoured to explain something that threw her into confusion herself. ‘Just to contain her.’ So they drew up the menu on Mrs Guerney’s fat shopping pad. Have a nice day! is printed across the top. Sacha is carrying Daddy’s present, being the keenest of them all to discover what is inside it.

  They wait until the last one is safely down before they cross the floor. Vanessa never moves her eyes from the porthole window. Adrenalin is pumping, she is prepared for a terrible shock, she feels this way when she has hiccups and is expecting one of the others to shout suddenly, or spring out of hiding to cure her. That always works but she’s never liked it; she’d far rather drink water upside down. She wipes her warm, wet hands on her dress.

  The nearer they move towards the sauna the more uneasy the children become and the more Vanessa experiences a feeling of strange, faraway unreality. They gather outside the pinewood door, staring expectantly at Vanessa when they realise she is the only one tall enough to peer through, and even then she will have to stand on tiptoe. She sighs and shakes her head in confusion. She murmurs, ‘Oh, this is awful.’

  ‘Go on,’ urges Dominic, his smooth eyebrows arched. ‘She can’t hurt you. She can’t get out.’ The brightly lit room throws an echo back with every word that is spoken.

  ‘No, wait, hang on a minute,’ because there is this unnerving feeling that Mother, so dominant, so powerful, could have escaped already, could even be hiding somewhere in the gym, behind the horse, or over there in the corner behind the stack of shiny weights.

  ‘Go on.’ Camilla shivers and her voice is only a whisper. ‘It’s cold down here.’

  ‘You’ve hardly got any clothes on,’ Sacha points out.

  As she takes her position before the door Vanessa fingers her crucifix. Cool and hard in her sticky hand, it is full of commonsense and courage—admirable traits which Daddy clearly believes are naturally hers. ‘Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword.’ Dominic is right, she is quite safe. Mother, however hard she tries, really cannot reach her.

  ‘I am never allowed a moment of privacy.’ Mother used to weep, when someone inadvertently stumbled across her changing, or talking, or listening to her music. Now Vanessa thinks of a bad-tempered budgie, and someone’s coming to stick a finger right into its cage.

  Mother is sitting, slumped, on the bench. She is draped in her fur coat. She cannot have heard the children arrive, she can’t have noticed the gym lights go on. Vanessa’s knees start trembling. But surely she must have…

  ‘I hope you realise what you’ve done.’ Mother continues to sit there pretending to file her nails, not even bothering to lift her head, not addressing Vanessa directly but knowing full well she can hear her. Every one of her gathered children can hear her. Her voice is hoarse and gravelly after her evening of heavy drinking, and she drones along on one bleary note in the way that she does when she’s pissed. ‘And I hope you fully understand what the consequences of this are likely to be.’

  Through the porthole Vanessa watches the menu, with the pencil wrapped inside it, being pushed through the hole in the wall like a special gift being posted. From between Mother’s fingers smoke spirals from a smouldering cigarette.

  ‘There are only a few special units for disturbed children in this country. I believe the places are scarce but they will certainly manage to find one for you.’

  What? What is this? The floor is hard and ungiving on the balls of Vanessa’s feet. Her heart pumps so violently she thinks she is going to unbalance with all the banging going on inside her. Her mouth is dry and she swallows hard to dislodge the lump in her throat.

  But Mother can’t stop. She rolls on, as out of control as a dirty snowball enlarging itself as it crashes along. ‘There is no time limit. It isn’t like going to prison. The courts don’t fix a sentence like one year, or two, or three. In cases like yours those decisions are left in the hands of the doctors. The experts.’ Although she looks limp and dejected, although she is quite helpless, Mother spits out her words with venom. ‘They will probably be quite kind to you,’ she adds, ‘in their way.’

  ‘Mother, you were drunk. You were ill. You might have hurt… I could not think of…’

  ‘If we are talking about sickness, Vanessa, then I think it is essential that you sit down by yourself, somewhere quiet, and consider carefully what you have done. You and your father together, your sinister beliefs tell you that you will be purified by pain, even if it is pain you have brought down on yourself. Certainly you influenced the younger ones, as usual. They are innocent of this. They would not have dreamed of doing such a wicked thing without your encouragement. What on earth did you think you were going to achieve? Or did you think? Did you give any thought at all to the consequences of your actions?’

  Mother, calm and oiled by the booze like this is far more sinister than Mother enraged. Vanessa speaks through tightened lips. ‘We came down to see if you wanted something to eat.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Vanessa.’

  ‘And we brought you Daddy’s present.’

  ‘You are utter
ly ridiculous!’ Mother drags on her cigarette.

  ‘Don’t you want it, Mother?’

  There is no answer, and when is Mother, still strangely in command, going to demand that they set her free? She does not need to ask, she just expects it. She looks quite settled in the little cabin, sat back, spreading her legs out smugly as if she owns it and has always lived there. It is a shock when Sacha speaks up. ‘Mother, if you don’t want it can I open it?’

  Once again there is no reply and on her bench Mother makes no movement.

  ‘She can’t be hungry,’ says Dominic. ‘We’ll have to come back later. Perhaps she’d rather skip breakfast and try some turkey. What does she look like?’

  Trembling, Vanessa lets herself down to rest on her heels. Her face is white when she turns to reply. ‘She just looks the same, exactly the same as always, although she isn’t wearing a wig. Or make-up. She looks quite pale.’

  ‘And angry?’

  How can she answer that? Mother looks far worse than angry. Coldly furious would be closer to the truth. She thinks of that tattered, unkempt head, obscene without its scarf. ‘Mad,’ states Vanessa, still shaking.

  Amber is disappointed that the menu has not been filled in and returned. She’s been crouched at the pipe-hole, waiting. ‘I want to do the next one,’ she demands, quite unmoved by the tense atmosphere. She is merely slightly excited.

  None of them know, thinks Vanessa, none of them fully realise what is happening except for Camilla, and Dominic perhaps. Her brother is old for his eight years. They are all wise for their ages. Vanessa has to ask them: she is the oldest, she is to blame, but if they are to keep Mother prisoner for longer than one night it is only fair that they be given the choice.

  ‘Well,’ she says. ‘Mother seems to be all right. What shall we do now?’