For one thing her homecoming had been easier than the months of fearful apprehension that had preceded it. Petula was unflappable, considerate and extremely helpful, her daughter’s predicament neither a surprise nor an occasion for triumphant gloating, simply a practical quandary that called for a discrete solution. That first night had been better than she could have ever banked on – countless mugs of Bovril and questions about the differences between heroin and other drugs, no more than an occasional remark on her thinness, and nothing, to Evita’s relief, on lesbianism or bi-sexuality.
Her mother’s new interests took her by surprise. Petula was due to sit on a ‘council’ dedicated to eradicating the local drug problem, and had grown close to a rock musician, not the kind Evita had much time for, who had a drug habit of some years standing, so for once there seemed to be the promise of common ground. Evita’s presence had to be secret, on that they were agreed, the deception providing a powerful bonding agent. Once again, a discussion as to why her return should remain below radar proved unnecessary. Evita’s local reputation would have automatically alerted the police who still wanted her for questioning relating to her act of vigilante justice against the boy she claimed to have been raped by, an accusation neither she nor her mother had ever had much confidence in, the boy having died in a car crash soon after. That kind of attention would only have shone the spotlight on her predicament: penniless, soiled and addicted; a state of affairs she might have found desirable when puncturing Petula’s social bubble was a moral imperative, but no longer. Evita shook her head at this reminder of more innocent times and put the joint out in a cup of mouldering tea. It would be honours even on sharing the shame now as her mother well knew. The only other point Petula had insisted on was that if Evita was discovered, they would both make a ‘joke’ of it yet, unlikely as it might seem, discovery was far from certain in a house as cavernous as The Heights.
The property was an unusual one for its size, its upstairs levels very much existing on a need-to-know basis. Though or because it was often full of visitors only some parts of the house were properly used, primarily those spaces for Petula’s public. The corners where guests’ eyes did not wander were violently neglected, used occasionally by family or no one at all. It was not unusual for a drunken guest to stumble into a room full of unopened parcels, or venture from one decorated with Whistlers to another full of cobwebs and disorganised memorabilia, the two zones seemingly having no place in the same dwelling. In these circumstances, hiding a young woman in the disused upper tower above Petula’s living area, whilst a touch Jane-Eyre, was a conceit her mother would enjoy getting away with.
Having chosen to go ‘cold turkey’, Evita was ecstatic to meet with her mother’s approval for the first time in her life, the allor-nothing aspect of her daughter’s decision appealing to Petula’s sense of occasion. With some pride Petula reflected that nowhere could be safer than The Heights, or meet the conditions of isolation, and isolation from a potential supply, as perfectly. The only challenge was to match her daughter’s needs as effectively as the Betty Ford Clinic could have, whilst discretion remained premium. Gratefully, Evita talked her mother through what she could expect, thanking and apologising for the inevitable in advance of Petula discovering for herself the hard way.
During those first two weeks of withdrawal, Petula came into her own, the situation playing to all her strengths and asking nothing of her weaknesses. Doing things had always been preferable to forming emotional connections, and Evita was in no state to require more than deeds and actions from her mother, who was delighted to oblige. Petula noticed a rare well-being come over her as she cleared puddles of her daughter’s vomit and removed her shitty sheets for burning. In her hours of extreme dependency, Evita groaning and swearing like a geriatric giving birth to twins, Petula saw that what she enjoyed most about her daughter’s condition was its need, principally its need of her, the person lost inside that function a distinct second.
Nor was Petula a mere cleaner and wiper. As far as raising, sustaining and keeping Evita alive during that period was concerned, Petula excelled in her nurse duties; a regular supply of vitamins, bananas and scabies cream all part of the traffic to the old attic, still full of Jazzy’s creatures and weightlifting equipment. The space, once reserved for all kinds of undesirables Petula would not consent to have anywhere else in the house, had over the years transformed into an overgrown jungle of neglected junk, and thus perfect for their purpose. No one thought of asking Petula what she was doing wandering round the lost parts of her own house with first-aid kits, just as no one would have asked Petula what she was doing in a reindeer outfit and red nose if she had been so attired: she was not the sort of woman to answer personal questions. With Noah away as usual and social commitments generally taking her out of the house rather than bringing callers in, Petula felt a rare freedom, a breezy cheek entering her brazen game. One morning she appeared above her daughter’s mattress with a lump of Jazzy’s hashish and a wrap of cocaine a guest had absentmindedly forgotten to snort after dinner, the two lesser evils helping her daughter to knock the prime one on the head. Petula finished the remainder over elevenses, and spent several happy hours listening to side one of Fleetwood Mac’s Tango In The Night again and again, the purposeless repetition as thrilling as gorging on an orchard of forbidden fruit.
By the end of the first month Evita was over the worst, already prepared to think of her addiction as a cry for help and not the source of enlightened pleasure or standard dependency she had previously regarded it as, her gratitude to her mother as intense as her former disdain. And at about this time her thoughts turned, with a heavy helping of guilt, to her brother down the track.
In her time away, Jazzy had faded as a real person, becoming instead a symbolic reminder of warmth and decency. His relationship with her had always been marked by a desire to envelop and protect that she recognised as genuine if only occasionally effective. It was his misfortune to come of age in a family where there was no power vacuum to fill or space for conflicting visions of life. Tenderly she humoured his attempts to stick up for her and understand her suicidal tendencies, recognising that his wish to connect in itself constituted a kindness she would not find elsewhere. Regardless of this, when it came to deciding whom to approach for help of the concrete kind, her dilemma was not long-lived. Evita knew her brother was too like her, fond of gestures and quick of temper, wonderful for a moment and useless over an hour. She did not require a shoulder to cry on, for he had never failed to provide one, rather a powerful hand to pull her out of the excrement she knew he could not provide. Flashes of Tim Tinwood taking her, her screams and Jazzy hammering at the door in tears arose whenever she considered the shortfall between who her brother wanted to be and what he was. She did not blame Jazzy, could not, and loved him more for his frustrated ambition, while at the same time sharing his shame that they could not make it together as a team. Time was casting its judgement. In essence he would remain what he always was: an unsubstantiated intention. Failure, so far, was both their lots in life, the main difference being she had tried to break out and knew it, whereas he had stayed where he was so still feared it. From Petula’s remarks she could only guess at what his life had become since her departure, and it was his mother’s dismissiveness that provoked their first argument, auguring worse words to come.
‘Here’s your cocoa and the pills you asked for. I had quite a job explaining to the Doctor why I needed them. He must think I have a recovering addict in my attic!’
‘Ta very much, Mum.’
‘God I wish you wouldn’t.’
‘Wouldn’t what?’
‘Use that awful faux-prole slang your brother does, you know, “ta”, “cheers”, “yeah”, all that bilge. It’s like having the stuff they have on the television in the room with you. It’s so unnatural.’
‘Jesus Mum, I only said “ta”.’
‘Well don’t. It makes me sick, in fact completely appalled, if you must know
.’
‘You’re joking?’
‘We ask people whether they’re joking because we want them to be joking. I am perfectly serious. It’s bad enough hearing Jazzy chunter on like a cross between Arthur Scargill and Bill Sykes without having to hear you play the same game.’
‘You two have fallen out again, is that it?’
‘Nothing serious, just the usual nonsense that comes with having him about the place. He’s gone and bloody helped himself to a pile of logs cut from one of my trees without asking. The sort of Pikey behaviour he indulges in all the time these days. Trying to get at me without having the courage to come up here and cross cutlasses like a real man. Because he thinks his life has been stolen from him, every little actual theft of his own has a cast-iron moral justification. Trouble is it ruins the atmosphere on the farm and diminishes the quality of life for everyone else; he always tries to involve other people in his little intrigues you see. I’ve tried to tell him that when two elephants fight it’s the ground that suffers.’
‘It’s natural for every relationship to have its ups and downs Mum.’
‘Oh spare me the fortune-cookie mouthwash. You were never that crass. His moods make living in this place intolerable, you should try being his neighbour then you’d know. It accumulates, believe me, watching the same grumpy visage stomp past my window every day, telling me that he’s had enough and is leaving here. That’s his bloody default position, he’ll spend the rest of his life “leaving”. I’ll be gone before he does. Which doubtless is what he is counting on.’
‘At least he loves you, that must count for something, even for you.’
‘Even for me… what the hell is that supposed to mean, “even for me”?’
‘He loves you and I don’t think he knows whether you love him. I don’t think he’s ever known. I think he feels like you abandoned him, and me.’
‘Why, because I refused to be one of those huggy-kissy beanbag mothers that never let go of their children? I wish you could see the way love conceals and smothers the things that produce it. Look at the way mothers are with their baby boys, praising and spoiling their every burp and fart, no wonder men grow up to be such self-satisfied bastards. I always tried not to do that, to give Jasper a chance to grow into himself and for you both to be unique and self-contained. What a joke. Look where that’s got me.’
‘Mum, you’re not listening, I said he loves you.’
‘Anyway, you’ll fall out with everyone in your life, you just have to be careful not to do it with them all at the same time. Look at all the friends I have, their variety and differing skills and talents, people of distinction, then consider the hole Jasper has landed himself in, the grim wretches he socialises with, really, it’s a point of honour to fall out with a fool like that. And I’ve held back from saying anything but you always were a lot like each other in the essentials.’
‘You haven’t changed a bit, you really didn’t like us much, did you?’
‘Evita, place yourself in my position, you never knew your father, never had to suffer the ape as I did. A horrible, ugly, talentless little man. Once he had finished knocking the stuffing out of me I didn’t have much love to give.’
‘Hit you?
‘Of course.’
‘You never told me. And if it had happened, you would have. I know you.’
‘There’s a lot I never told you. I lived in hell. But that’s not the point. To love a child and identify with its fortunes requires you to love the person you have that child with. It’s as simple and as unfair as that. And I did not love your father, however much I tried. He was insane actually, there you are. I wish you hadn’t asked. Anyway, he was not a person I was likely to produce evolutionary improvements with. He’s actually taken my stock back.’
‘It just gets worse and worse. Excuses, they’re your way of changing the subject, manipulating me into sharing your rage and pain. You’ve always had a reason to justify nastiness, like you knew you needed one to get off the hook for behaving in a way that comes naturally to you. It’s useless talking, you’re too well prepared, and the more wrong you are the more dangerous you become, the more you drag others into your craziness. I spent years thinking about it all Mum. I never stopped thinking about it.’
‘Believe what you like, talk to whom you like. I could never feel the closeness I desired to either you or Jasper because of that bit of your father in there, taunting me. It was his way of scarring me for life, even after I got away from him physically there was always you two, reminding me of an association no good could ever come from. And it never has. So save your tears, I can see them coming, I don’t blame you, it was his fault. You’re nearly as much his victim as I am myself.’
‘You’ve no shame! Who could ever beat you in the battle of victimhood?’
‘I’m sorry that you should view it that way.’
‘As if there’s any other way I could! You’re meant to be our Mum, you can’t dissect us like lab rats!’
‘You’re missing the point. Fortunately, life improved with the arrival of Regan. In fact, while I can’t remember a time when I haven’t been forced into tiresome exchanges like this with you and Jasper I can’t think of a single one Regan has sprung on me. Not her style. Different stock, different outlook. It runs in the blood.’
‘You’re unreal. You’re trying to tell me the reason you love Regan and not us is because you loved her father, Noah? So she’s your real child, your favourite. Unreal. Jesus, I mean, what a thing to say to me, even if you think it’s true how could you actually come out and say it, knowing how I feel about being no better than shit to you? Fucking hell. I mean, you haven’t changed at all. All this time I’ve been up here thinking you have, I feel such an idiot!’
‘You’ve put the words in my mouth and I shan’t disagree with them.’
‘Fuck you! It’s too much, you come on like, like some kind of pantomime dame high on hate. I despise you! Do you know that? The reason you love Regan is because you love yourself, all the rest of this is just… it’s just bullshit! More of your lying bullshit!’
‘I’m not listening to any more of these choice accusations. If it’s a shrink you need you had better find another sap to empty your chamber pot – if you haven’t the courage to take the truth squarely on the chin I haven’t the energy to coat it in sugar for you. You’ve clearly learnt very little from your time away Evita.’
Which summed up the next phase of Evita’s homecoming with frightening alacrity. With her health on the mend Evita was looking for a different kind of medicine from the sort she required on death’s door. She was desperate for a new beginning with her mother; psychic attention and mutual disclosure were the balms that would bring them together, she hoped. All she had to do was break the old cycle of mutual recrimination they had already fallen into. As she said, she had thought about it a lot. Determined to blame herself for as much as she could, and thus encourage similar contrition in Petula, Evita avoided the standard argumentative traps. Instead she embarked on a course of passionate self-criticism which she felt her mother would at least have the courtesy to contradict. Yet even with generous concessions Petula was a hard nut to crack. The very idea of conversational therapy set her teeth on edge and the scale of what needed discussing made a convenient starting point near impossible to locate. Far from interrupting her daughter as she reeled off lists of her past misdemeanours, Petula listened approvingly, nodding to herself and shaking her head with exaggerated gravity, no complimentary admissions of her own forthcoming as it came to ‘her turn’ to confess. Evita’s attempts to induce at least a touch of reciprocity resulted in cross, and increasingly irritable, exchanges that mimicked those she wished to escape the retroactive clutches of. Petula would not play ball and everything was as before.
‘You’ve grown up, I’m glad, it was about time. That is at least what I take your wanting to make a clean breast of things to mean.’
‘It’s not really that Mum, well, not only that, it’s mor
e that I want both of us to open up a bit more and talk properly for once. All my life I can’t remember a proper open conversation with you.’
‘Personally, it’s not the way I’d have gone about apologising, though I credit you for having done so. People can be very protective about their own experience, it’s what makes them see the world as they do and they get narky if anyone else has something to say about it. I wouldn’t have dared raise the subjects you have. I’d have been scared you’d have ripped my head off. It took you to do it and it’s noted. You’ve grown up.’
‘Thanks Mum.’
‘No, I mean it, you should learn how to take a compliment. Life isn’t all about slings and arrows you know.’
‘Great, so is that it then?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Is that all I get for running myself down, you taking advantage of my honesty to run me down too?
‘What are you talking about now? I thought it was all clear between us now?’
‘You, Mum, are you so perfect that you don’t have any disclosures of your own, any regrets, anything you might actually be sorry for too? Oh, my mistake again, I forgot. You are perfect, aren’t you?’
‘Good Heavens, drop that tone! Don’t be so bloody ridiculous. Or worse, pathetic. I was trying to raise you up a notch. Of course I’m not perfect. And as far as I’m aware I have no recollection of ever pretending that I was. It wouldn’t be like me at all.’
‘Of course not! Not like you at all! So you’re not perfect, can we make a small start and agree on that?’
‘Oh don’t be so silly, I’ve just said I’m not!’
‘Then own up to something, fess up for once! And I mean a particular, not some general imperfection anyone could own up to, like being bad at making tea or finishing someone else’s sentences, an actual one please. A real dirty deed that makes you gag when you’re reminded of what you are. Come on, I’m waiting. I’ve been waiting forever and I need to hear words coming out of your mouth that can make me hope you’re human Mum, a real human being and not Petula Montague.’
Nature and Necessity Page 15
