There were people in the world who didn’t. Pat had been one. She’d rejected the life laid out for her at a very early age and gone her own way. Against quite great odds, with little encouragement. ‘Look where it got her,’ her grandfather had said, ‘dead at twenty-six, she should’ve stopped at home.’ Then they’d had a ridiculous quarrel about whether Pat would or would not have met the same fate if she had stayed at home, with Sheila heatedly arguing that there were road accidents all the time in Britain too, and her father blaming African roads and African cars – ‘load of rust, stands to reason’ – and anything else African he could think of. That was how they got rid of their grief and resentment. But how did Leo get rid of his? She had no idea. Not by crying, anyway. ‘He’s a brave li’le lad,’ said her father, echoed by Alan. ‘He isn’t a cry-baby, that’s one thing, even if he isn’t a ray of sunshine either. Has he ever smiled, our Sheila, eh?’ Crossly, Sheila said, of course he had and to remember the child had ears. ‘I know that,’ her father said, ‘bonny ears too and a bonny face. He’s like his mam, if it weren’t for the hair and the eyes, and the colour of him. Pity about that, still, there’s nowt can be done, eh Leo? He’s a grand li’le lad for all that, once he settles, once he gets ower it.’
It was pathetic, really. She knew she shouldn’t get angry. Her father was an old man who’d never even seen a black person before, so perhaps he couldn’t help his awful prejudices. She knew this was not true, that he could and should help them, but watching him with Leo she excused him. A child was a child to him and he found it easy to be with children. He got on better with Leo than any of them did, and Leo accepted him as his friend before he accepted anyone else. When Grandad came – it seemed awkward to be correct and say Great-grandad, just as it was to call her Grandma instead of Mam – Leo would rush to greet him, eager to play one of the endless games he could think up. They’d sit on the settee, the old man hauling out of his pockets all manner of string and coins and other unlikely playthings, and she’d remember Pat doing the same thing so many years ago and have to leave the room. There was no pleasure in history repeating itself, only pain. And more pain, wondering where all that love of her father’s for Leo had gone. He had seemed to cast him off, instantly, wanted nothing more to do with him now. No question ever of her father’s love being unconditional and never-ending. Her father gave to receive, that was the simple truth, and he could cut people out of his heart with no trouble at all. Not for one moment would he be haunted by guilt or regret. ‘I wash my hands of him,’ he said, and appeared to mean it (though sometimes she was not so sure) . . .
But Helen was talking, had maybe been talking for some time. ‘Pardon?’ Sheila said. ‘I was saying,’ Helen said, ‘that perhaps you could write to Mrs Kennedy, just to express your sympathy and regret. I can’t see it could do any harm . . . though I suppose it might. It might make her angry. And there wouldn’t be any point in that.’ ‘I wouldn’t care if she was angry with me,’ Sheila said, ‘I deserve it, I’d welcome it, really.’ A wary look crossed Helen’s face and she added, ‘But I’d not do it for that, to feel her anger. Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know at all, it’s too difficult, too complicated, nothing is right, there’s no right or wrong in any of this, I just tie myself in knots thinking about it.’
Yet as soon as Helen had gone she’d sat down and tried to write a note. After two hours she had got no further than ‘Dear Mrs Kennedy . . .’
Chapter Three
THERE WAS SOMETHING about the handwriting on the envelope which alerted Harriet to its contents. Not to what was actually in it, but to the fact that this was a communication from someone she didn’t know, a stranger. It was a small, blue envelope. The writing was neat, very small, but faint, written in biro. She was addressed as Mrs Kennedy, no initial. There was no post code.
In a drawer in her desk Harriet had a collection of letters written to her after the attack. Most of them were from friends and family, but some of these, too, were from strangers, sent care of the newspapers. She’d hated them. All these people had wanted to do was say how shocked and sorry they were, but she’d hated them, she hadn’t wanted to know how far the news had spread. It was monstrous to think of people she didn’t know reading about what had happened to Joe, even if he wasn’t named. If he’d been in an accident, a car accident or something, and had been injured in a straightforward way then perhaps she would have felt differently, perhaps she would have been able to accept sympathy, the sympathy of strangers. But not this, not the reactions of people who had read the details and addressed their letters to ‘The mother of the boy attacked last Friday’. It was too much.
One of the first things Sam had said had been, ‘Can’t it be kept quiet?’ He was thinking of Joe of course. Or he claimed he was. But it was a silly query and the young policeman had looked at him as if he were mad. ‘It’s a very serious offence, sir,’ he’d said, and, ‘We’ll need the public’s help to find the attackers.’ Sam had nodded, but still blundered on, ‘I meant just some of it . . .’ he’d said, and stopped, and they all knew what he meant. ‘No,’ she’d broken in, ‘of course it can’t be kept quiet. How would Joe feel? It would make him think it was something he should be ashamed of, if you’re thinking of what I think you’re thinking.’ But she had noted her own reluctance to speak openly, and so had Sam. There was never any hope of hushing up the full degradation of the violence in any case. It was what had made the case so awful, that and its entirely random nature, the way Joe had been doing nothing, had simply been selected on the spur of the moment, not even as if he were out late at night, as if . . .
So she was used to strangers writing to her. This was only another. A late letter, months after the court case. From someone who had just heard, who had perhaps just been told by someone else. It was bound to go on happening. What surprised her was that, as she held the letter in her hand, knowing what it was, she felt the same distress and anger as she had felt originally. It made her despair. How could she imagine Joe’s could have begun to heal when her own wound was still so open? She sighed and was glad she was on her own. Joe was in bed. On Saturdays and Sundays, when there was no school, he clung on to his drugged sleep. He wasn’t drugged any more, but that was how his sleep seemed, so very deep, the emergence from it painful and slow. If he’d stayed in bed all day she supposed she would eventually have had to wake him up and would have had to recognise this as a serious symptom which should be attended to. But he always came down about midday, washed and dressed as usual. Always. He never simply turned his face to the wall and gave in, even if he wouldn’t or couldn’t do the opposite and bound up as once he had done at the weekend. Saturdays he used to be up and off early, to his job, helping with the boats and earning money to save to buy his own car one day. His favourite day, Saturday. Sam’s too. Joe at the boat yard, Sam on the golf course and herself walking the dog or shopping. Ordinary, predictable, a small-town – life against which she had sometimes kicked. A safe life, good for children, so good Louis had opted for London the moment he had any choice and hardly came home, even in the vacations, he loved the big city so much.
Slowly, she opened the envelope, already planning to send a quick reply then shove it in with the others, her guilty haul, guilty because she didn’t know why she kept all those letters she hated. They were nasty things to her, hidden away out of some primitive instinct that they were important however much she grudged them their status. But she’d replied to each one, a curt acknowledgement of thanks, adding she was unable to write more. Once, Joe had caught her dealing with a couple of these letters and he had been furious, disgusted. He’d asked her why she didn’t just tear them up and she’d been so embarrassed, stumbling over her reply that when people were so kind. . . . ‘Kind?’ he’d yelled. She didn’t understand his reaction even though she hated the letters too. He’d looked at her so scornfully and she’d made the mistake of adding, ‘This is such a caring one . . .’ and he’d said, ‘Caring, is it? How touching. Nine out of ten fo
r that one? Or maybe eight and a half? What’s the handwriting like? And the grammar?’ Why did he detest people’s concern? But then, why did she detest it herself, saying one thing to Joe, about kindness, and feeling revulsion all the same?
So she’d reply to this one quickly and then really would tear it up. A single sheet, not many words upon it, but the impact startling. She couldn’t see to make out those words after the first reading – her vision was clouded, the blood beat in her temples and she had to hold her head in her hands to steady herself. She was sitting down, still at the breakfast table, but felt she might faint, and groped for the cup of coffee steaming in front of her. She gulped some down, clasped the hot cup tightly, licked her lips nervously. When she took up the letter again her fingers were so sweaty they left marks upon it. She read it for a second, then a third time. She closed her eyes and repeated the words aloud. They were not so extraordinary. They were simple, convincing.
Dear Mrs Kennedy,
Excuse this letter disturbing you only I am the grandmother of Leo Jackson. I brought him up from the age of three, after his mother, my daughter Pat, was killed. You won’t want to hear from me and after all this time as well, but I just want you to know how ashamed I am and how I feel for you and your son and all your family. I would not have had this happen for the world. Your suffering is terrible to think of. I am so sorry.
Yours sincerely,
(Mrs) Sheila Armstrong
That was all. Short and sincere. Ten out of ten, and a gold star, Joe would suggest sarcastically. She got up abruptly, thrusting the letter into her pocket, and shouted for Bruno. She couldn’t stay in, with that letter for company, she had to be out, to walk, to get away to think. But even in the middle of her hurrying she scrawled a note to Joe – she never wanted him to feel deserted, to come down and find the house empty and feel he had been abandoned. From the very beginning – the beginning of afterwards – she’d been convinced Joe needed company at all times.
She walked fast, Bruno streaking ahead once they had turned off the road and on to the path down to the lake. It was early May, the trees newly green, the buds of the rhododendrons just beginning to show purple and the bluebells already swamping the grass like a spreading ink stain. Her cheeks cooled down, her head stopped throbbing. She took deep breaths, and only when she felt perfectly calm did she start to think. She’d seen Mrs Armstrong of course, and her husband, in the courtroom. Pathetic people but dignified. She’d watched them out of the corner of her eye all the time, wanting them to be monsters, to be obviously the scum of the earth, that satisfying cliché, the scum of the earth. But she’d known they wouldn’t be, even before she’d listened to how the defence counsel spoke of them. So respectable. He had been a commercial clerk, whatever that was, retired now. She’d always been a housewife since her marriage. They were soberly, conventionally, unfashionably dressed. They would never stand out in a crowd, not even a crowd of four. They were both elderly, very pale, neither wept. She looked down all the time, he stared straight ahead, a little tic working in his left cheek. Both white of course. She knew the mother had been white. Neither of them was called to give evidence, but their presence was commented on by the judge. She noticed Leo Jackson never once looked at his grandparents.
And now the grandmother had written and must be replied to. Swiftly, to be rid of the obligation. She went on walking, climbing the hill, Bruno nowhere to be seen but clearly to be heard, leaping about in the undergrowth chasing a rabbit, and suddenly she felt invigorated, confident, as though she’d just had some good news. It came to her as she reached the crest of the hill and looked down at the lake, a dull, quiet grey reflecting the leaden sky, that she knew exactly what she would do: she would not write. How absurd. She would go and see this Mrs Sheila Armstrong. She felt exultant, excited, almost laughed – she would go and see this other woman, this mother she had wondered so much about. She shouted for Bruno and began descending, hurrying down the stream path as though she had some urgent business to attend to and must get home quickly. Which she had, it was urgent, she must go to Mrs Armstrong now, before her nerve failed her, before she had time to weigh up the pros and cons, or consult Sam. Sam would be against it, no doubt about that. She must not tell him, she must go before he came back from golf, simply present him with a fait accompli later. If the visit proved disastrous, he need never know, it could remain her secret, and these days she felt she wanted to have secrets from Sam. Maybe she already did. They had travelled so far along quite different roads since it had all happened that she felt removed from him in a way she would never have thought possible in all their twenty years of marriage.
But Joe was up. He was sitting at the table reading her note as though it were written in Arabic. She came to a sudden halt, in every way. ‘Oh Joe,’ she said, ‘you’re up. Good.’
‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why is it good?’
‘Well, it’s a nice day . . .’
‘It isn’t. It’s cloudy, it’s cold. It’s a horrible day and there’s nothing to do. I wish I could sleep all day. But I can’t, and if I don’t get up I won’t sleep at night, so I have to or I wouldn’t.’ All the time avoiding her eyes, bending a spoon he was holding, not using it to eat the cereal he’d just drowned in milk. ‘Anyway, it isn’t a nice day.’
‘It was nice out, nice walking. Bruno enjoyed it.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t, not that I’m going out.’ He took a spoonful and pushed the bowl away. ‘It tastes funny,’ he said, ‘I can’t eat it.’
‘Doesn’t matter.’
‘It does, actually. It means I’ve wasted milk. Dad would say I’d wasted milk.’
‘There’s plenty of milk . . .’
‘Oh Mum, stop it, for Christ’s sake, stop it.’ He pushed his chair back, belligerent, turning to look at her, his face quite contorted. ‘And what’s this stupid note? Why do you write them?’
‘It was just you weren’t up and you might have wondered . . .’
‘Wondered what? What?’
‘Where everyone was.’
‘Why would I wonder that? Why do you think I need to know where you are? It’s a Saturday, I know where Dad is, he’s always at the same boring place every bloody Saturday, and I don’t care where you are, it doesn’t matter to me, I’m not a fucking baby, okay?’
‘Okay,’ she said quietly. She tidied the table and for the sake of something to do took some carrots from the fridge and began scraping them. Her hand shook. She couldn’t go and see Mrs Armstrong now. She heard Joe go into the sitting-room and put the television on. Good. Better than going back up to his room. He would stay till lunchtime probably and then Sam would be home, not that his presence would help. The reverse. Sam would be bright and jolly. He’d tell them about how he’d played. He’d suggest things to Joe, how about coming with him to the garden centre, how about this, how about that – Sam would try so hard. And Joe would not respond, not even to say no. It was agony to witness. She’d tried to tell Sam not to bother, to just be himself, but that was being himself. Once, Joe had been so close to him, closer than Louis had ever been. Now, Sam coming home for lunch would be a non-event. But it might force Joe out. It might. He might go into the town. It was Saturday and the place was crowded, it didn’t need much courage. If he did, then she would go and see Mrs Armstrong after all.
But would it be fair? Now she’d been prevented from acting on the spur of the moment she began to hesitate. Just turning up like that, was it fair? Should she telephone first? And might it not be better to meet on neutral ground? This was exactly what she had not wanted to do, deliberate, allow herself to complicate what had seemed simple. She did it all the time, her head forever full of annoying ‘what ifs’. What if Mr Armstrong were at home? What if he stayed and she and Mrs Armstrong couldn’t talk? Worst of all, what if Mrs Armstrong hadn’t told Mr Armstrong? That would be dreadful, a betrayal. So perhaps Joe’s bad temper had done her a favour – she ought to ring first. But was
there a telephone number on the letter? She took it out of her pocket and looked: no. She’d have to ring directory enquiries if it wasn’t in the book. It would be under Mr Armstrong’s initial and she didn’t know it – but she could match the address, if it was listed. The town the Armstrongs lived in was a lot bigger than this one but not enormous. An hour’s drive away, maybe an hour and a half. Where could she say she was going, if she went? It would have to be somewhere for the day, to visit one of her suppliers. But Sam knew none of them lived far enough away to warrant a day trip. Shopping, it would have to be, to buy something special. For what? What special occasion could she invent? Oh God, this was what she did not want to do. . .
She could not telephone until she had the number and until there was no one here in her own house to hear her. She went out that afternoon to the main post office, Mrs Armstrong’s letter in her bag. The number was ex-directory. She ought to have guessed, they would have had to go ex-directory after all the publicity. They would have received hate calls probably, local people always knew who was being referred to. She had never wanted to feel pity for anyone except Joe, but now she began to feel it for the Armstrongs. Agony for them, and none of it their fault. She had never blamed them, never even thought of doing so, they had never, been in her mind, there had been no room for them. Or actually, until she saw him, for Leo Jackson. All she had room for was Joe, his injuries, his pain, his misery. It hadn’t mattered, at first, who had inflicted the damage. In hospital, she hadn’t once thought of revenge and neither had Sam. When the policeman Graham had said, ‘I expect you’d like to get your hands on whoever did this,’ they both stared at him, amazed. No, they had no wish to get their hands on anyone. All their attention and anxiety was focused on Joe. And even later, in court, months later, when finally they saw Leo Jackson, there was some sort of mental barrier still there.
Mothers' Boys Page 5
