Mothers' Boys

by Margaret Forster

  But Harriet took him seriously. ‘But how could any woman love him when he’s like this? When even I, his own mother, feel repelled?’

  That night she didn’t sleep at all. Babies, blood, Joe’s smirk, all ran before her endlessly.

  *

  Sheila took her father’s lunch round at twelve. He liked it at twelve-thirty precisely. He was standing scraping new potatoes at the sink.

  ‘I’ll do that,’ she said, putting her bag down.

  ‘Have to put m’time in somehow,’ he said, without turning round. She thought there was something dejected in the set of his shoulders and paused before she said,

  ‘Haven’t you been out this morning, then?’

  ‘No. Didn’t feel like it. Got the meat?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. Fillet steak, not that she told him what it was, just said it was a scrap of frying steak. She took the meat out of her bag and sliced it thinly and then went to the cupboard for the pan. He had to move to let her get into it. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘oh dear, what happened?’

  His face, the whole left side, was black and blue. There were small cuts around his mouth and the lens of his spectacles, the left lens, was cracked. ‘Fell over,’ he mumbled. ‘Damned silly.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Yesterday. Getting m’pension. Just turned round outside the post office and I don’t know what happened, flat on m’face, it felt like.’

  ‘How did you get home?’

  ‘Got m’self home, no bother. But I feel it now, that’s the funny part.’

  ‘Where, apart from your face?’

  ‘Knees, elbows. The ribs, a bit. I’ll manage.’

  They ate in silence. He was eating well enough, anyway. Eight potatoes, the meat and half a cauliflower boiled to extinction, the way he liked it, plain and unadulterated by any muck such as cheese sauce. He wolfed it, in fact. Great greedy, messy mouthfuls. She’d always hated how he ate, without care, strings of fat hanging out of his mouth, gravy dribbling down his chin, taking slurps of tea all the time. His fourth fall, or was it his fifth, this year? He wasn’t safe any more, but it was too sad to try to curtail his independence. Sad and impossible. Peter, Carole’s husband, said he should be in a home. He was too much of a worry in his own house. She and Carole had turned on Peter. But of course he was right. One day soon he’d fall and break something, and then short of Carole or her moving in they’d have to find him a place. He knew all this. She could see he knew it. It was churning around in his head, depressing him.

  They sat outside after their meal, on the stout garden seat they’d given him for his eightieth birthday. She’d made padded cushions for it. It was very comfortable. They sat and he pointed out the bees going in and out of a hole in the concrete path. She asked to see his knees and he pulled up his trouser legs and showed her. Both knees, the skin lard-white, were swollen and puffy but maybe that was his arthritis. The bruises on them were much worse than on his face, and she dreaded to think what they’d be like on his ribs. But he wouldn’t undo his cardigan or unbutton his shirt to show her those. He insisted they were nothing. So she sat and watched the bees and wondered if his ribs might be cracked, whether she should risk his wrath and get the doctor to call. Not yet, give it a day or two. But the spectacles would have to be taken in and . . .

  ‘How’s the lad?’ he asked. He never enquired after Leo, had said he never wanted to hear his name mentioned in his presence again. She didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how he’d react if she told the truth.

  ‘He’s fine,’ she said.

  ‘Doing his time well, is he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s one thing, then. Not getting into more trouble, meking your life hell.’

  ‘He hasn’t made my life hell.’

  ‘Yes, he has. Don’t tell me that. I’ve got eyes. And it isn’t as if you’re his mother.’

  ‘Dad, I don’t want to hear . . .’

  ‘There’s a lot yer don’t want to hear, that’s your trouble, always has been.’

  She was so annoyed she kept quiet and reminded herself that he wasn’t well. She must humour him. If she didn’t react he wouldn’t get worked up, it was simple as that.

  ‘I had an uncle,’ he said, and stopped.

  ‘You had seven uncles,’ she said, relieved. ‘Three on your father’s side, now who were they, William, James and. . .’

  ‘John. John. And four on my mam’s, Matthew, Peter, Joseph and Luke. Luke was the bad ‘un. Big fella, like a blacksmith he was. Won the wrestling at Grasmere twice. Killed a girl when he was young. They said it were an accident, he got off, scot-free, but nobody ever believed him, niver. Got another in the family way after that, wouldn’t marry her. A bad ‘un. Broke his mother’s heart. Used to annoy the others that much how she cared about that Luke. They were glad when he died.’

  ‘How did he die?’

  ‘Blood poisoning. Stuck a fork with manure on it into his foot. Thought nowt of it. Washed it, like, did all that, and thought nowt of it, but it went bad.’

  ‘Septicaemia,’ she said.

  ‘Aye, that’ll be it. A bad ’un.’

  She refused to ask what all this was leading up to. Was he comparing Leo to his bad Great-uncle Luke? Was he wanting her to leave a pitchfork with manure on it lying around for Leo to step on? But still he hadn’t finished, she could tell. The bees went in and out of the tiny hole and they both stared and went on sitting there.

  ‘Yer sometimes get a bad apple,’ he said. ‘Nowt can be done about it. My mam wouldn’t have it, though. Said he wasn’t born bad, he wasn’t brought up bad, she couldn’t account for it except by blaming bad luck. Bad luck. My dad told her you mek yer own luck in this life, but she wouldn’t agree. She were a religious woman, she wouldn’t agree.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ Sheila said.

  ‘Well, you should. Bad luck, that’s all. Plenty of it. I’ve known plenty of it in my time and so have you. But you can’t blame luck for everything, good or bad. Look at you, eh? After your Pat, how you got on with it. Didn’t give in.’

  She was lost. If he wasn’t going to sort out this rambling of his for her, she couldn’t do it herself.

  ‘It’s up to him,’ he was saying. ‘I’ve been turning it over and over and it’s up to him. Not you. It isn’t up to you. That’s what yer’ve got to remember. He’s old enough. You leave him to hisself, that’s my advice. Meking yerself ill. Daft.’

  When she left him, Sheila felt touched, not by his ‘advice’ but at his ‘turning it over and over’. She could picture him, lying in that dreadful sagging bed he wouldn’t part with – ‘it’ll see me out’ – his bruises hurting him, thinking of her and going over and over the Leo problem. He’d have had a whisky to help him sleep and a hot-water bottle to soothe the pain in his ribs, even though it was a warm night. Then he’d lain there and thought about his Uncle Luke and decided Leo was a bad ‘un too, a bad ‘un who should be abandoned. If only he knew. She’d been tempted to tell him there and then that Leo was doing the abandoning, but she didn’t have the energy to cope with his reaction. She couldn’t quite imagine what that would be, but there would be rage of some sort and she couldn’t face it, whoever it was directed against. It was odd, she thought, returning home, that Leo still never mentioned his great-grandfather. He was nearly ninety, after all. You’d have thought Leo could afford to ask how he was.

  She hadn’t told Alan yet about Leo refusing to come back to them, to his own home. What she couldn’t bear was Alan’s relief. It would be so obvious, it would hurt. She wanted him on her side, supporting her, and he wasn’t going to be. Who would be?

  *

  Joe behaved better than she dared to hope, mainly because he was so thrilled with the driving lessons, all planned to start the next day. He smiled, really smiled, not one of those tight little half-smiles, but a big beam and a blush and a cry of, ‘Oh, terrific, thanks!’ His pleasure lasted all day, right through the family lunch party in the garden, right through his
Uncle Michael saying how much better he looked, right through his cousin Natasha saying resentfully – she hadn’t been given driving lessons a year ago when she was seventeen – ‘Joe’s always lucky.’ He even put on a shirt, a proper shirt, and a pair of black cotton trousers she’d always liked him in. Harriet had to stop herself several times from saying to him, ‘Look, how easy it is, being happy.’ Once you started. Once you got your face used to it. Easy. Catching.

  The difficult one was Laura, Ginny’s younger girl. She was sullen, sitting there neither smiling nor speaking and refusing almost everything she was offered. Harriet felt the tension in Ginny, saw her sister endlessly biting her lip, screwing up her mouth in agitation. Laura was fifteen. She’d lost a lot of weight recently and for a diabetic it was dangerous. Ginny said she’d started being silly about the rigorous timetable of meals and snacks she was supposed to keep to, dangerously silly. She was no longer willing for her mother to monitor every little thing she ate and drank, she got irritable, said she didn’t care. She was giving herself the daily insulin injections now and Ginny didn’t trust her to remember. And she wasn’t attractive any more. The Lycra shorts which clung to her pathetically thin legs were the very worst thing for her to wear. Incongruously, in view of these shorts and a shapeless black T-shirt, she had a pink satin ribbon in her hair, tied in a bow on top of her head. Perched above the scowling, unhappy face and black clothes it looked ridiculous; a piece of self-mockery, surely.

  Natasha was the centre of attention, not Joe. Harriet realised what a coquette this niece had grown into. She flirted with her Uncle Sam and flirted with Joe. She pouted when told Louis had gone – ‘Louis’s gorgeous,’ she said, ‘it’s not fair’ – and they all laughed. She wasn’t exactly pretty, Harriet thought, but had sex-appeal, undeniably. A way with her, as they said around here. She sat next to Joe, placed one beautifully manicured hand, nails varnished dark crimson, on his arm every time she wanted his attention, and she wanted it often. ‘Will you drive me, Joe, when you’ve passed your test? Will you run me to Manchester and back?’ Joe looked embarrassed, squirmed, but still smiled and said he supposed so, if he was allowed the car. Sam said he wouldn’t be having his car, no chance. ‘Your mum will let you have hers, won’t you, Harriet?’ said Natasha. ‘I know you will.’ ‘I might,’ Harriet agreed, ‘when I’ve seen how well he can drive, but I don’t know about Manchester. Carlisle, maybe.’ Natasha and Joe and even Laura all gave a cry of disgust – not Carlisle, what was the point of Carlisle, no clubs in Carlisle, no night life, nothing at all at night in Carlisle . . . who would want to go there for excitement?

  There was a slight atmosphere then, but Joe rode the passing tension. He asked Natasha about Manchester, where she was going to university in the autumn. She said he should come and visit her, car or no car, she could put him up for the night and they could do the clubs. Joe, who had never been in a club in his life, nor ever, so far as Harriet knew, wanted to be, expressed interest. She was amazed to hear him say he wanted to get into Manchester University himself, it was going to be his first choice, then Liverpool, then Newcastle; he didn’t want to go south, like Louis, he didn’t fancy London . . . Sam exchanged looks with her, they both raised their eyebrows at each other. How encouraging, how reassuring to hear Joe make future plans. Good. They prayed for Natasha to continue the good work, and she did. She asked about the holidays. Joe said he was just going to work in the boat yard, he wasn’t going anywhere, Mum and Dad were going to Edinburgh in August, though . . . Natasha said, ‘Ooh, so you’ll be on your own?’ Joe said yes, till Louis was back. ‘We could have a party here,’ Natasha said, smiling dazzlingly at Harriet. ‘Joe doesn’t like parties,’ Harriet said. Joe looked cross for the first time that day, and she added hastily, ‘Not usually, anyway.’ ‘Ah,’ said Natasha, looking at Joe through narrowed eyes, stroking his arm, ‘it depends on the party, doesn’t it, Joe?’

  What had Sam said? The love of a good woman could change Joe. Natasha was not going to be a good woman. She was not going to be a bad one, but virtue was not something that shone out of her. Seduction did. And Joe was so vulnerable. Suppose some Natasha type fixed on him, now, when he was so fragile, and made him hers, and then chucked him . . . Harriet got up abruptly, shocked at herself, and went in to get more pudding. Ginny followed. The two sisters hung about the kitchen for a minute, getting ice-cream out of the freezer, washing a few spoons. There was loud laughter from outside. They smiled at each other, tentatively, a little nervously, each preoccupied with thoughts of the other’s child, the other’s problems. It was cool in the kitchen, a little dark after the brilliant light outside. ‘She’s sleeping with that Richards boy,’ Ginny whispered, ‘quite brazen about it. It’s awful.’ ‘Why?’ said Harriet. ‘She’s eighteen, it’s normal. You sound like our mother did, back in the stone age . . . remember when. . .’ ‘No,’ said Ginny, ‘he’s not the first, it’s different, she’s not in love with them or anything. Some only last three weeks. I can’t stand it.’ ‘Oh, Ginny,’ Harriet said, ‘don’t worry, she’ll sort herself out, it’s only a phase, she’s clever and ambitious, she’s in control, it’s nothing.’ Ginny groaned, then tried to laugh. ‘Oh God,’ she said, ‘if it isn’t Natasha and sex it’s Laura trying to wreck herself. I can’t imagine life without the worry.’

  Life without the worry. Long after Ginny and her family had gone, Harriet found herself turning the phrase over. Ginny worried even more than she did. About so little. But was one daughter with an alleged voracious sexual appetite and another with mild (as yet) diabetes so little worry? She’d become arrogant, she could see. No one’s troubles could be as big as hers. She remembered what she had started to say to Sheila Armstrong about choices. If she were given a choice, if someone had said, Choose: Joe can be attacked and injured (but not seriously) or he can have diabetes, which would she have chosen? Dear God, it was obscene, but she went on debating with herself. Diabetes, any other disease like that, was for life. So she’d choose the attack, of course. But the attack was for life too, its aftermath always there, its effect so deep-rooted, it amounted also to a disease . . . Why stop at diabetes, why not push it further – choose, choose . . . a deformity, Joe born with a deformity, or something horrific, spina bifida . . . choose, choose – oh, the attack, every time . . .

  Joe would be so angry with her, playing these mind games, these dirty little games. It was a version of the glad game, she recognised it, that game played in the children’s book she had loved. Pollyanna. Pollyanna, faced with some tragedy, small or large, was always playing the glad game, glad to find something to be glad about, whatever happened. It was sickening to Joe, that game. He was outraged at the idea of playing it, assured her that never did he think of himself as on a par with those to whom real disasters happened. Today, his birthday, watching him, it was as though he had convinced himself at last, that it was over, he had made the leap from the past, he was going to leave it behind.

  But she wondered why she felt so uneasy.

  *

  Sheila knew she shouldn’t go to the Kennedys’ house. It was wrong. It was also difficult, nearly as difficult as visiting Leo, if not as far to travel. A train, two buses, the familiar story for anyone relying on public transport. She tried to think of it as just an outing for herself. Why shouldn’t she go on an outing? There was no reason why not, absolutely no reason. Good gracious, for a woman who’d been alone to Africa it was nothing, nothing. It only took an hour and a half. She was lucky with the train, lucky with the buses, but maybe she wouldn’t be on the way back. She had a cup of tea in a café when she got off the second bus and bought a street map at a newsagent’s. She’d walk the rest of the way. It looked a pleasant walk, part of it with the lake in view.

  I could commit a crime, she thought, and then laughed out loud at the absurdity of such a thought popping into her head. It was because she felt her very ordinariness so acutely, walking along in her nondescript clothes, an elderly woman, so harmless and respectable, so
unnoticeable. I could have a gun in my bag instead of a purse and a comb and a map, and a handkerchief and my key. Nobody would guess, they’d never think of it. I could go up to someone and ask them the time and pull the gun out and shoot them. How extraordinary to be thinking along these lines on a summer afternoon in such a pleasant place. But then, she supposed her actual mission was ridiculous too. Completely. Aged nearly seventy, and going to hang about outside someone’s house just to gawp. As if it made any difference what the Kennedys’ house was like. She could almost guess what kind of house it would be and in what kind of street. Detached, probably, or at least appearing to be detached, the sort that you couldn’t exactly see at first was halved. A garden all round, lawns, shrubs, that sort of thing. Maybe a double garage. An old, imposing house.

  She was surprised to find it was a new house, and checked the address twice. And much more modest than she had envisaged. He, the father, was an architect, wasn’t he? And weren’t all architects well off? She’d just made the assumption, all the professional classes were well off. The garden must be at the back, there was only a strip of grass at the front. A neat house, blinds at the windows, she saw, not curtains. She wondered if it was a Scandinavian sort of house, maybe wooden floors inside, stark-looking, not the sort she’d ever fancied, except they must be easy to clean, no clutter. She didn’t stop and look, she just walked quietly, fairly slowly, but not too obviously slowly, past it. Then at the end of the road, a very pleasant tree-lined road, she turned and walked back again, on the other side. She did this twice, and then sat on a bench beside a bus stop. She wasn’t, of course, going to go and ring the bell. She’d never thought she would, not really. She wasn’t bold enough, she didn’t have an excuse. Harriet Kennedy’s friendship was a delusion. She knew that, she wasn’t silly, their second meeting had exposed that. A temporary thing, an acquaintance made under special circumstances.