Mothers' Boys

by Margaret Forster

  ‘And how is Charlotte?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘Fine. We’re sharing a flat next year.’

  ‘Oh. With others?’

  ‘No, just us. It’s only small, a glorified bed-sit really, but we were lucky to get it. It’s near the college, we’ll save a fortune on fares.’

  ‘So you’re an item, you and Charlotte?’

  ‘We’ve been an item nearly a year, Mum,’ said Louis wearily, slightly sarcastic. ‘You just haven’t noticed.’

  ‘How was I meant to notice when I haven’t met her?’

  ‘I told you.’

  ‘You didn’t.’

  ‘Mum, let’s not start. It doesn’t matter. I don’t blame you.’ He was sighing in that insulting way she resented.

  ‘What do you mean, you don’t blame me? For what?’

  ‘Oh God . . .’

  ‘No, I want to know, for what? What are you not blaming me for, Louis?’

  ‘I only meant I know your mind’s been on other things,’ he said, with an exaggerated patience, which maddened her. ‘You’ve been obsessed with Joe, it’s natural . . .’

  ‘Good heavens, I haven’t been so obsessed I wouldn’t have taken in that Charlotte was serious if you’d told me.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that, I didn’t tell you, there was nothing to tell . . .’

  ‘It sounds as if there was . . . is.’

  ‘Jesus, Mum.’ He was rubbing his face with his hands, exasperated and sighing again. Pointedly he looked out of the window and made some remark about the weather.

  She was upset, made a mess of changing gear going up a hill and he winced. When eventually she had controlled the car and was driving smoothly she tried again. ‘Well, I’m sorry, Louis,’ she said, ‘but if it was my fault I didn’t pick up the signals, it wasn’t because of Joe, it was because I truly didn’t recognise them.’

  ‘I know. I’ve said, it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘It does matter. I don’t like you to think I’m so wrapped up in Joe I’ve no time for anyone else . . .’

  ‘I don’t mind, I understand . . . calm down.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me like that, as if I were mad or a baby, or something, so patronisingly.’

  ‘Right. Let’s start again. Charlotte and I are, and have been, for nearly a year, an item, and I obviously didn’t make that clear, so it’s clear now.’

  She wanted to go on, having it out with him about this supposed lack of interest of hers due to Joe, but she didn’t want to arrive home arguing, it would be bad for Joe. She was silent for a mile or so, struggling to be calm. Louis whistled. He seemed so superior, but she must ignore that. He hadn’t asked about Joe yet, but she must tell him what was happening. She cleared her throat, went straight into it. ‘They’ve arrested the other attacker, the one they think actually did the stabbing.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘They think so. Joe has to go to the police station on Tuesday, to an identity parade.’

  ‘How’s he taking it?’

  ‘Hard. He won’t talk about it.’

  ‘Well, why should he?’

  ‘Maybe he’ll talk to you?’

  ‘I doubt it. He’s gone off me these days.’

  ‘He’s gone off everyone, that’s the trouble. Just as things were improving, only a little, but they were. He’s back at the boat yard from today and signed up for a school skiing trip . . .’

  Louis listened only vaguely. On and on she rambled, half incoherently, this about Joe and that about Joe, all worked up and blinkered. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about Joe because, of course, he did, he’d thought of nothing else himself for months and only Charlotte knew how upset he’d been. But not like his mother. She was driving herself crazy. Every time he came home it was worse – she was always thinner, more tearful, more distracted and tense. He didn’t know how his father stood it. And as for Joe, it must be hell for him. Exactly what he didn’t want or need, all this maternal angst, all this devoted concentration of feeling. Yet it was true, nobody else except her could cope with Joe. He’d tried. He’d had him for the weekend, laid on all kinds of events and treats, rallied all his own friends to be good to him, and it had all been a disaster. Right from the moment he’d met him at Euston. He and Charlotte had set out with such goodwill, such concern. They’d been over and over how they imagined Joe would be feeling and how they could best respond. ‘He won’t want to be treated as delicate,’ Charlotte had said, and he’d agreed. So they’d been deliberately casual, no big deal welcome. But the moment Joe saw Charlotte he’d seemed to stiffen up and resent her. She was so friendly, too, so nice to him, but he replied to her in monosyllables. He’d muttered, ‘Is she going to hang around all the time?’ when they were going back to the college. It had been awkward, but Charlotte had been brilliant, she’d gone off on her own even though they’d planned to stay together the whole weekend. But her absence hadn’t made Joe any happier. Louis had taken him for a drink and he wouldn’t speak to anyone, just stood there all sullen.

  Charlotte laid on a meal for them in her room on the last day. He wasn’t going to cancel it, he knew she’d go to such trouble to cook what he’d told her was Joe’s favourite meal, spaghetti alla vongole. It was delicious but Joe didn’t say so, he hardly even thanked her. Then all Charlotte had said, after they’d eaten, was, ‘How are you feeling, Joe?’ and he’d gone mad, absolutely mad, had asked her what the fuck she meant. Even then Charlotte had made allowances. She’d said, very softly, she had only wondered . . . but she hadn’t got any further. Joe had leapt in, red-faced, and suggested she only wondered if he still smelled of shit. It was ridiculous, stupid. Charlotte had been totally bewildered because, of course, she hadn’t meant that at all. After that, Joe just wanted to get home to his precious understanding mummy.

  It was trite to think it, but Joe was spoiled. His mother said they had both been spoiled, if spoiled meant loved and over-indulged. But Joe still was. He was handled with such care, allowed totally to dominate the family from the beginning, all on account first of his frailty and then because of his difficult temperament. Now, of course, there was no hope of its ever ending. Special treatment until the end of his life. Not that he envied him, who could, but it was true that sometimes lately he had begun to resent his mother’s lack of worry about him. Not worry, exactly, he didn’t want to be the object of worry, and he cared more now about what Charlotte thought than his mother . . .

  ‘You’re not listening, Louis,’ his mother said.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Then say something.’

  ‘There’s nothing to say. I can’t do anything.’

  ‘Just be aware, that’s all.’

  ‘Mum, I could hardly be anything else, could I? Not with him looking like he looks and all that. No wonder you’re exhausted.’

  ‘Who said that? I never said I was exhausted . . .’

  ‘I can see you are. You and Dad need a holiday . . .’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t . . .’

  ‘. . . leave Joe?’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t, not yet, it would be heartless.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘He couldn’t be on his own.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have to be. He could go to Ginny’s.’

  ‘He’d hate that.’

  ‘I could stay with him, after I get back from America. There’s three weeks spare, no problem.’

  ‘It’s nice of you, Louis, maybe we could, we’ll see, see how things are later on.’

  So at least they arrived home amicably. Sam was back from golf and his pleasure in greeting Louis showed Harriet how much he welcomed an ally. There was a ganging-up feeling immediately, Sam and Louis straight into sports talk, football teams, cricket fixtures, swopping opinions and news. Louis was glad to be rid of her exclusive company, she knew. He didn’t like being trapped in the car with her, obliged to listen to her droning on. He and his father wouldn’t discuss Joe with each other. They certainly would not, perish the thought. Anythin
g but.

  It was evening before they were all together, with Joe being at the boat yard all day. The meal went well. She knew even thinking like that – ‘the meal went well’ indeed – was a sign of how unnatural the atmosphere still was, but nevertheless there was an awareness that it had done. They didn’t eat outside, she somehow didn’t have the heart to suggest it, though Louis teased her – ‘What, inside, Mum, when outside the sun is shining, what’s up?’ She just smiled and let it go. Joe looked at her curiously and she started talking quickly, afraid he would follow up Louis’ observation. Louis had held court, naturally. He’d talked about the past term and about the job he was going to and about Charlotte. She and Joe had exchanged looks and Joe rolled his eyes without Louis seeing, and she was so happy. Please, she found herself pleading inwardly, please let it stay like this. Please let this happiness stay, let it not escape, let it last and last and never be interrupted, I will give anything to keep our life like this again. Anything.

  *

  Train, bus, bus. The same tedious journey she knew by heart. Sheila read on the train, but on the two bus journeys she looked out of the window and listened to other people’s conversations. She sat towards the back, and the two women in front of her on the first bus were oblivious of her presence. It was extraordinary how trivial their talk was – they were so animated about cardigans bought to match skirts and grandchildren with measles and the trouble they had finding a new window-cleaner yet there were so many unemployed . . . She marvelled at the zest with which they exchanged all these stunningly boring bits of inconsequential information. Her sister Carole was like that, hours she could chatter on with nothing at all communicated of value. Sheila never interrupted her. She had always let Carole carry on, like a stream, understanding that the source of all this was unstoppable. She wished she could do it, take up yards of her life with nothing. Instead, she spoke little and liked what she said to be of use. Alan said she brooded. Maybe he was right. She knew she thought about serious things and was unlike Carole, or the women in the bus. ‘A penny for them,’ Alan would sometimes say, and she’d alarm him by replying truthfully, ‘I was thinking about bombs,’ or, ‘Those starving children in Ethiopia, I was thinking about them.’ Never the price of meat, the colour of knitting wool. Never.

  On the second bus, the special bus, the one on which everyone was going to the same place for the same reason, there was almost no talking from anyone. They all sat silent, all of them, except two, women and children. Now Sheila gazed at the fields and hedgerows in peace. Wild roses threaded through the green, honeysuckle cascading over the hawthorn, foxgloves standing sentinel. Pink, white, red, purple. All mixed up and beautiful, all disordered and glorious. One good thing about her father, he loved nature. Eric James knew all the wild flowers. He’d walked the two of them as children, her and Carole, down lanes and little roads like these and pointed them out. They’d had competitions collecting them. He’d done the same with Leo. Taken him and shown him the wild flowers and picked brambles later. When he’d become old and arthritic and he’d had to give up long walks, Alan had dropped the two of them off for their rambles and picked them up later. Leo loved it, almost into his teens. The rambles only really stopped because Eric James wasn’t up to them.

  Once, Leo fell in a river. He was only four, very small and slight still. He was hardly in the water before Eric James was in after him – there was never any danger. He’d taken his tweed jacket off and wrapped the shivering boy in it and carried him home, white with anxiety while all the time vowing there was nothing to worry about. He’d suffered far more than Leo. It was the first indication of how much Leo meant to him and Sheila had noted it and adjusted her opinion of him without ever saying a word. Soft, he’d become. Clucked after that boy like a mother hen. So where had it all gone, that feeling? She looked round the bus surreptitiously. All these women were doubtless plagued by the same thoughts: why had this happened, why had all the love led to this? But maybe not. Sheila turned back to the view from the window. Maybe a good many of them knew the answers, unlike her. Drugs. One drug, anyway. That was her only answer, but it left many more questions to ask. Why had he taken any drug? Why this one, a dangerous one? What was his need, to experiment so suddenly, to get himself into the clutches of this Gary Robinson?

  She was going to try. There was no reason why she should but she was going to do as she had been asked. She would mention the name and see if there was any reaction. Detective Sergeant Graham might think she was doing it to oblige him, to do what he thought was her duty as a good citizen, but that wasn’t the reason. Her own curiosity was the spur – she wanted to see if the old Leo could be stirred into life. She might also tell him about Mrs Kennedy’s visit. Why not? And about her own letter of apology which had prompted their meeting. She might lie and say she’d seen Joe too. Now why would I want to do that, she thought, shocked, surprised at herself. Good gracious, what was happening to her? How silly. It wouldn’t interest Leo anyway. He didn’t care, she was sure. The first few visits he’d spoken little but at least he had said something. And he’d learned to look at her. They’d learned to look at each other, rather. That had been the hardest stage, learning to bear each other’s scrutiny. His eyes had gone everywhere except towards hers, darted all over the place, resisted her own. He was so nervous. Steadily she’d focused on him, willing him to look at her straight and true, and finally, a fleeting glance at first, instantly recoiled from, they had locked their eyes together. The relief made her feel faint, just to know he – her Leo, her boy – was still there. Whatever had happened, whatever he’d done. She was so happy to renew this contact that she was not going to endanger it by at last asking the questions she so wanted to. Later, later there would be time, the right time.

  But it never came. The first question she asked, after several weeks, was why wouldn’t he see Alan, his grandfather. He wouldn’t answer. ‘He feels it,’ she told him, ‘it makes him feel bad. He’s still your grandad.’ He just shook his head. It was peculiar. Alan was so harmless, why should he ban him? All she could think was that he would feel more ashamed in front of Alan than in front of her and she couldn’t fathom why, if that were true. Surely she was the one he’d feel most guilt about? She was closer, she’d done most for him. For once Alan was right, it didn’t make sense. But it was a mistake to have asked that question. He started just sitting there, only replying, if she asked something, with a short factual answer. Never offering any information. Then he’d stopped altogether, for no reason she could discern. He’d gone stoical. She could only assume he’d put himself in a trance to get through his sentence.

  In her bag she had two books, a magazine and some paper. Nothing to eat. No cigarettes or sweets. This was what the other women had, usually. All kinds of treats, to make the institution diet more palatable. But she knew Leo didn’t want such things. He was quite content to be deprived. So she brought books, which she had great difficulty choosing, and magazines, which were easier. His National Geographic and a music magazine. She stood every month in W.H. Smith’s trying to choose the paperbacks. Nothing violent, nothing pornographic. She went for travel books, journeys people had made, and adventure stories. Leo never said if he liked them but once, when she’d remarked that it was a waste of money buying the books if he didn’t read them, he had actually said, ‘I do.’ So she went on bringing them and she always fancied he took them eagerly, though never passing any comment on what they were.

  Today, she withheld the books, kept them in her bag as she sat down. They were lucky, there was no one right next to them on the left, and on the right was a prisoner who was whispering intently to his visitor. Sometimes it was so noisy that her head ached and it seemed pointless trying to talk at all, especially with so little response from Leo. Or sometimes there were such distressing things being said, quite audibly, that she was silenced. Women telling boys they couldn’t go on coming, it was too much, and the boys crying, or women saying they’d lost their job and couldn’t pa
y the rent and the other children were ill – dreadful litanies of hardship. But today she was lucky. The whole atmosphere was quite subdued, nothing nasty going on and the guard not breathing down their necks. She leaned forward, trying to look Leo in the eye, but he evaded her and deliberately looked over her head. She just suddenly said it, straight out, without so much as the most cursory of greetings – ‘Gary Robinson!’

  His eyes locked with hers immediately as they hadn’t done for months, fright clear in them. She smiled, and sat back. ‘They’ve arrested him,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d be interested. For something else, drug-dealing, but they’re sure he stabbed Joe Kennedy. He’ll be going to prison anyway, but if you identify him as well as Joe Kennedy it would make everything easier.’ He said nothing, but lowered his head. ‘I’m not saying any more, Leo,’ she said softly. ‘No need, is there? I needn’t go on about it. But now they’ve got him it’s up to you. Just think of that boy having to . . .’ He rose suddenly, pushed his chair back so that it clattered on the floor and the guard leapt up. She heard him say, ‘I want to leave,’ and the guard telling him to sit himself down and behave and think of his grandmother. He stood there, his back to her, stubbornly refusing to return to his place. A supervisor was coming over. She took the books and magazine out of her bag and put them on the table, then she got up herself and walked slowly out, to make it easy for him.