Mothers' Boys

by Margaret Forster

  In her letters, that is. Sheila had kept them all. Letters were rare things in her life and to be treasured. Pat was a good correspondent. ‘I’ll write every week, Mam,’ she’d said, and Sheila had wondered what good that would be even if the promise were kept. The very idea of saying goodbye to her only daughter and becoming dependent on letters had made her ill. That was the last time she’d really cried, when Pat went off to Africa, to a country with a strange name she had never heard of and didn’t know how to find on a map. ‘Barmy,’ her own father, Pat’s grandfather, had said, and, ‘She’s a barm-pot.’ Which naturally had angered her and she’d sprung to Pat’s defence, applauding her sense of adventure, admiring her pluck, getting at her father by pointing out that he’d stayed in his own street all his seventy-two years. ‘And proud of it,’ he’d shouted at her. ‘Proud of it, and you mind yerself or else.’

  Then the letters had started to come, not quite every week but near enough, wonderful letters, pages and pages, producing a sense of awe at the very sight of them. Pat described everything – the country, the people, the work she was doing, all in the greatest detail. And she sent photographs so that Sheila could see she didn’t live in a mud hut but in a concrete bungalow with a tin roof, in the grounds of the hospital. She could see, too, the people Pat worked with and put names to faces. Her father, and even Alan, shook his head and handed the snaps back without a word, lips tight shut. ‘It looks a nice place,’ Sheila said defiantly, though she didn’t think so at all – the sand blowing about, the emptiness all around, scared her. ‘I’m saying nowt,’ her father said, and when the shots of lions and elephants arrived he wouldn’t look at them. ‘Cows and sheep are good enough fer me,’ he said, among other stupid things. He irritated her but she knew half her irritation was due to secretly sharing his feelings. Cows and sheep were good enough for her too and so was England. She’d never been abroad in her life. Once, she and Alan had almost taken a package holiday to Spain but then they’d gone off the idea. They were afraid of flying and the bus, which Alan favoured, took too long. These days it was embarrassing to admit she’d never left her own country and so she never did.

  But Pat, Pat had been determined to see the world right from a little thing. When she was five, she’d asked for a globe for Christmas, and when she got it she kept it beside her bed and never stopped twirling it round. She’d plot journeys from one place to another and Sheila marvelled at her imagination – even to think of India, of China, made her nervous, but there was Pat, so eager to leave the security of home and venture forth. God knows where the urge had come from. It didn’t make sense. She and Alan were so rooted in their home town, so content with what they had. And it didn’t seem like rebellion on Pat’s part, it wasn’t as though she seemed to hate home or them. ‘Want to knock them daft ideas out of her head before they tek hold,’ her grandfather warned, when Pat reached ten and announced she was saving to go and see the Victoria Falls. Sheila just smiled, serene in the knowledge that Pat could never fulfil these dreams, or at least not for years and years. But those years passed horribly quickly and in them Pat had somehow, on school trips, already been to France and Austria and Italy, which her parents thought quite exotic enough. ‘Mebbe she’ll settle now,’ her grandfather said, but she didn’t. Europe wasn’t enough. She wanted to go to America and Australia and, of course, Africa. America and Australia, although terrifyingly far away, were at least civilised, somehow safe-seeming. But not Africa. Sheila had always been against Africa and hated Pat to mention it.

  No sense at all. Of all the places in the world to want to go to, Africa made no sense in Sheila’s mind. She couldn’t explain her hostility. It frightened her to think that maybe it was because the people there were black – it wasn’t how a Christian should think and it wasn’t how any decent person should. She told herself over and over again this was not the reason. She had no prejudice against black people, she knew they were just like anyone else. So what was it, then, this dislike of Africa? The weather, maybe it was the weather. She didn’t like the heat. The thought of burning sun made her sick. And the animals, she didn’t like wild animals, only domestic pets, cats and dogs. She’d be worried all the time about lions and snakes if she ever went there, not that she ever would. ‘You’re best off at home,’ her father always said, and though she hated agreeing with him, about anything, that was what she thought.

  It was the most terrible day of her life setting off on that journey. Terrible. Her insides seemed totally melted, her throat so dry it felt closed up. Her hands shook and she sweated profusely. Nobody, not even Alan, had understood quite what a state she was in. He had wanted to come with her – no, not wanted, had merely thought that he would have to. ‘You can’t go on your own all that way,’ he’d said. ‘I’ll have to go.’ His face had creased with anxiety and horror at the thought. But he was saved by his blood pressure, not that she’d wanted him with her, all gloomy and pessimistic. His blood pressure was sky-high and not responding to drugs at the time and the doctor said there was no question of his undertaking a fourteen-hour flight. So there had been no choice. She had to gird her loins and go alone. That was how she thought of it, in stirring biblical terms, girding her loins. For some reason it gave her courage, a courage her father tried to strengthen. ‘Good lass,’ he kept repeating, pointlessly. When she hadn’t done anything yet. ‘Good lass, now.’ He was so excited at the idea of Leo, a boy. ‘We’ll mek summat of him when we get our hands on him,’ he announced with relish. ‘He’s young enough to learn.’ His delight when Pat had a son had been marked, all memory of his disapproval forgotten. ‘She’s done better than you already,’ he said to Sheila. ‘Better than her mam, better than her grandma – a boy, grand.’ The son he had always wanted, fifty years or more too late. It disgusted Sheila to hear him, but his support was more important than she would admit, his encouragement, his approval.

  But the actual setting out was agony. She didn’t sleep a wink the night before. Even the train to Manchester was an ordeal, though she had taken it several times. She couldn’t stop checking and rechecking her tickets, so many of them, and one of them for Leo, for coming back. She didn’t feel she could cope and the fear of what would happen if she failed to made her tremble. By the time she’d got to the airport she was exhausted with all the tension, unable even to be sensible and buy herself a cup of tea. She’d never been in an airport in her life and was unprepared for the size and the apparent confusion. Instead of asking for directions – she couldn’t ask, she had no voice – she had depended on following signs. The only relief was that the signs to the toilets were very clear and the toilets themselves so clean and tidy. She would like to have stayed there for ever – it was so consoling, washing her hands and face with the pleasant-smelling soap, so soothing watching the attendant slowly and methodically mop the floor. But she had to leave this safe haven and go and find the British Airways desk. Her case trundling behind her, the sort with wheels at one corner which she pulled by a strap, she walked miles and miles until she found the right place. All the time she was reassuring herself that she had plenty of time, plenty of time, she’d allowed far, far too much time to cover this eventuality. But in fact, in the end, she was rushing to the departure lounge, the time somehow having evaporated to half an hour.

  She was seated in the middle of the plane, in the middle of a row, exactly where she had not wanted to be, but she hadn’t known what to ask for except a non-smoking seat. A woman of fifty-six and she hadn’t thought ahead and spoken up. She was furious at her own feebleness but afraid of causing offence if she asked to be moved. The men either side showed no interest in her. Both had briefcases, both got papers out even before take-off. She closed her eyes and held on to her seat-belt, gripping the buckle with both hands. As the noise of the engines rose in a crescendo she hoped the plane would explode and she would die. Now that it was happening, this flight, that was what she wanted, a crash and death. But the noise steadied and she tried to compose herself for the lo
ng, long flight. She knew the number of hours it would take but not how endless each of those would seem. She couldn’t sleep, though her companions in the row all snored. The stewardess gave her a blanket and a pillow, but she couldn’t get comfortable. Her head pounded, her eyes smarted. And all the time, hanging over her, was the other terror, the fear of arriving . . .

  It was all in an attempt to make sense of what had happened that she had taken to examining the past so carefully. She was looking not so much for a solution, or even for clues to one, as for a pattern. She believed in patterns, she believed things were somehow arranged if only the arrangement could be spotted. Nothing as silly as the stars controlling destinies, but a deeper, almost religious belief that nothing was without purpose. Pat must have been meant to go to Africa and meet John and have Leo. She must even have been meant to die, though what kind of sense that was Sheila couldn’t begin to see – a young, healthy, happy woman being made to die like that was cruel. Leaving Leo, only three. It didn’t bear thinking about and yet she thought of nothing else but the meaning of it all. She didn’t want to be told that God moved in mysterious ways. She knew that. It was the mystery she wanted to penetrate. She searched harder and harder, restlessly reviewing what had happened, momentarily pleased if she could spot even a possible meaning to it all.

  Maybe it was to give her something to do. That was not the way she wanted to express the feeling she had, but it was how she described it to herself. Crudely, in the most basic terms. She had been a useless person ever since Pat had grown up. She had never had a career, only a humdrum job as a shop assistant which she gave up as soon as she married. Her whole life had been looking after her husband and her child. And she had been quite happy, quite fulfilled, until Pat went away. She had never thought of herself as bored or useless. Now, she saw how empty her days had been and was horrified at how she had accepted the ease of her life. She’d done nothing. Her talent was for that very thing Pat despised: acceptance. She had accepted whatever was given to her. But now all that had gone. She had been made to be brave and, for her, daring. She had been forced out of dullness and complacency. So wasn’t that a pattern? Wasn’t that meant? But for her only beloved daughter to have to die to achieve such a worthless thing as giving her mother a purpose in life was horrible. She could barely tolerate the thought. Nor could she bear to trace any further pattern in the arrival of Leo and the last thirteen years all leading up to the point where she now found herself more lost than ever . . .

  ‘Are you answering me, or what?’ Alan asked. She banged the saucepan she’d been viciously scrubbing for the last ten minutes against the sink. Her heart raced, she felt weak and dizzy. But she wouldn’t let him see, didn’t want him to know how far away she’d been. It happened more and more often – she simply wasn’t there, and when brought back to the present she experienced such a sense of shock. She didn’t even know what the question she was supposed to answer had been, but with luck Alan would repeat it, as he duly did. ‘I said, it doesn’t make sense,’ he almost shouted. ‘Why won’t he see me? What right has he got, eh? I’m going to see about it, that’s what.’ ‘You do,’ she said, grimly, knowing he wouldn’t. All bluster, that was Alan. Constantly aggrieved that he’d been done wrong and yet never trying to set things right. She hated his whole attitude. He suffered, of course he did, but half the pain of this suffering was for himself. His constant refrain was, ‘After all we’ve done for him.’ It was the lack of gratitude he seemed to care about most. He’d whispered, as soon as he had been told, ‘Nobody will have anything to do with us.’ Quite right. She’d thought to herself it was quite right, and almost gloried in the realisation which caused Alan such distress. She wanted to be cut off, to hide, not to have to face anyone. The most dreadful thing she could think of was the thought of having to face his mother in court.

  ‘How was he, any road?’ asked Alan. He said it in a bad-tempered manner, turning away from her as she finished the dishes. He was still in his overalls, his hands filthy from tinkering with the car. She knew he didn’t really want to know about Leo’s welfare. He wanted Leo where he was, behind bars, and he wanted him kept there. For ever. It was Alan’s opinion that Leo deserved rather more than he had got. He was very keen on punishment. At one time he had even muttered, ‘They should flog him, they should.’ Her own father, unsurprisingly, had agreed, but he’d been more concerned about the imagined honour of the family name. ‘Thank Christ he didn’t have our name, that’s one thing.’ As if the name mattered. But it had disturbed her at the time, discovering Leo didn’t have Pat’s surname. She couldn’t understand it. If Pat wasn’t married, why did she give her son his father’s surname? She’d written to ask, worrying that she had no right to, and Pat had written back to say she wanted Leo to have his father’s name to show that although his parents were not married both of them cared equally for him. That made no sense to Sheila, but she never mentioned it again. It was only her father, Leo’s great-grandfather, who harped on about the name. She wanted to hit him every time he thanked Christ Leo was Leo Jackson and not Armstrong.

  How it came to be Jackson Sheila couldn’t imagine. She’d thought John would have an African name since he was African. Before Pat sent a photograph she had assumed, because of his English-sounding surname, that he must be English. And white. Someone out there, like Pat, working with the medical aid programme. It had never occurred to her that this man Pat was in love with was black. She had hardly dared to show his photograph to Alan and had actually concealed it from her own father until she’d heard Pat was expecting. Pat had never mentioned John’s blackness. When he was first introduced in her letters it was to say he was a brilliant doctor, he was so gentle, he was so kind, everyone at the hospital loved him . . . And how thrilled she’d been, hearing wedding bells, proud already that Pat was going to be married, she assumed, to a doctor, that this was a hospital romance. That was what she told people, that Pat was engaged to a doctor. She couldn’t bring herself to lie outright and say Pat was married, but engaged seemed both safe and fair. Giving the name of Pat’s doctor made it sound all right – Dr John Jackson, yes, she met him out there.

  He was not handsome. The photograph showed a burly man, the top half of his body more powerful than the legs. He had close-cropped hair, large eyes, a strong face. An African face, obviously. Beside him Pat looked smaller and more fragile than ever. It made Sheila swallow hard just to look at them – they don’t match, she found herself thinking. They don’t. They’re opposites in every way. But opposites who, according to Pat, loved each other dearly. And John wrote to her, a lovely letter of his own, beautiful handwriting, saying how he loved Pat and cherished her and was a very lucky man. They wanted her and Alan to go over and meet John, but the journey was too daunting. Instead, Sheila wrote, we’d like you to come home and bring John to meet us. But it never happened, it was too expensive. They were saving for the trip, when the accident occurred. Another year and all three of them would have come over. How that visit would have gone she didn’t dare speculate. Maybe John would have won them all over, as he had done Pat. ‘Hasn’t even done the decent thing by her,’ her father grumbled. ‘Puts her in the family way and can’t even marry her. It’s disgusting, he should be ashamed, that’s what, in my day, he’d have had to.’ No good repeating that it was Pat, for reasons best known to herself, who didn’t want marriage whereas John did.

  She’d imagined Leo would look like John. There had been only a few photographs, when he was a baby, and after that Pat’s camera was stolen. When Sheila saw him for the first time she was startled at how like his mother, not his father, he looked. His hair and his eyes were his father’s, beautiful curly black hair and huge dark brown eyes, but his features and frame were Pat’s. He was slim, his face quite delicate, his mouth and nose European, not African. And his skin was brown, not black, literally coffee-coloured. He stood, that first time, and studied her, not smiling, looking at her very carefully, too carefully for such a young child. She didn�
�t know what to say or do. She hated to think how she looked, an over-weight, grey-haired, white woman, dressed in a flowery dress and an unnecessary pink cardigan, her feet uncomfortable in sandals she’d never worn before and her hair sticking to her head with the awful heat. What had she finally said? She couldn’t remember. Something inadequate. But she’d taken his hand, timidly, and squeezed it, and to her great surprise he had taken hold of her other one and done the same. Such a cool hand, to her own hot one. Lovely for her to feel his hand, surely hers felt nasty to him, but he went on clinging to her and it made everything easier.

  The people at the hospital were kind. They admired her for coming. She read this admiration as well as pity in their eyes and was upset by it because she knew she was unworthy. She’d come out of duty not love, not love of Leo, her unknown grandson. It was her bounden duty to come and take Leo home, her duty to Pat, to her whole idea of what family meant. But there was resentment there, too, in her, and she was always afraid people would sense this, that someone would divine how appalled she was at the responsibility thrust upon her. She wasn’t the adoring grandmother they thought they saw. She was only a middle-aged woman afraid she would not be able to live up to expectations, Leo’s expectations. That was what bothered her most – what were this small boy’s expectations? What did he think was going to happen? Did he expect his mother and father to return? Did he even know who she was? Well, of course he must know, Pat would have talked of her home back in England and her family, there must be all kinds of information stored in that little head ready to help him make sense of her.

  But he didn’t speak. Not a word. She stayed in a room in the hospital for a week and he stayed in the children’s ward and he didn’t speak a word to anyone. Every day she would go to collect him, and he came willingly enough but never spoke, not even hello or goodbye. She wondered if he could speak, if perhaps he was backward, but also knew this was nonsense – Pat had written of all the complicated sentences he could construct and he was only three. Her pride in his linguistic ability had been great. And he spoke English as well as his father’s language, she knew that. It made everything so difficult, his silence. Uneasy, creepy. She would hear herself prattling on to him and she sounded so foolish. She took to asking him simple questions in the hope that he wouldn’t be able to resist replying but he did resist. The only comfort, the only promising sign, was that he did sometimes smile. And when he did, Pat’s dimples appeared in his cheeks making tears come to her own eyes. These fascinated him. He put his finger up and traced an escaped tear or two, and licked it, surprise in his face. But he still didn’t speak.