Mothers' Boys

by Margaret Forster

  She was frowning as she got on the bus, disapproving of her own mental meanderings. She didn’t see her oldest friend, the one she’d known since school, Dora, Dora Sproat, as she now was. But Dora saw her and came to sit beside her, and Sheila, while smiling, cringed. All Dora would want to talk about was Leo. She’d ask questions, expect answers, and it was unbearable. She didn’t even like Dora, only had to count her as a friend because of their long acquaintance. She was trapped in the window seat of this bus until it came to the stop for Eric James’s house, and Dora had her at her mercy and knew it. ‘Going to see your dad, Sheila?’ she asked, and didn’t wait for an answer. ‘He’s a marvel, I saw him the other day up street and I said to him, “Mr Armstrong, you are a marvel.” How old is he now? Ninety?’

  ‘Nearly,’ muttered Sheila.

  ‘Amazing, really it is, the way he gets about and that, fit as a fiddle, sharp as a needle . . .’

  Sheila cleared her throat.

  ‘And your Alan, Sheila, how is he? I haven’t seen him in an age, is he well, eh?’

  Sheila said he was indeed well. She asked after Dora’s husband and her four children and her nine grandchildren, and hoped the encouragement to go round her large and nauseatingly affectionate close family would keep Dora going until it was time to part. But it didn’t. Half-way through a recital of how her grandson had just had an accident on his motorbike due to the reckless driving of someone else, Dora slipped in the enquiry Sheila knew she’d been waiting to make. ‘And how,’ she said, lowering her voice, a lowering Sheila particularly resented, ‘how is your grandson?’

  Walking up the path to Eric James’s door, Sheila wondered why she was so spineless. Why was it so important not to let people like Dora Sproat, people she didn’t care about at all, why was it so important not to tell them the truth? Why was the simple truth impossible to utter? Because it wasn’t simple, that’s why. The truth meant a lengthy speech and she wanted to be brief. So she’d said, ‘Fine, fine.’ Not, ‘Mind your own business,’ or, ‘I can’t talk about Leo,’ or, ‘Please don’t ask me.’ No, such evasions would only galvanise Dora into more questions. And if she’d said, ‘He’s run away from prison and nobody knows where he is,’ that would have opened the floodgates of excited speculation. So ‘Fine’ was the only possible answer, but it had upset her to say that one word. It was like a denial, even a betrayal. Dora Sproat would find out in the end that Leo hadn’t been fine, people like her always did, they always got to know and then they’d work backwards and pounce on the lie . . . ‘“Fine,” she said to me, on the bus, I met her on the bus, and do you know he’d run away and half the police force in the county after him weeks before that, and yet she said he was fine. I mean, can you believe it?’

  She shouted hello as she went in, but he wasn’t there. She took the bacon out of her bag and left it on the table for him to see. Everything looked neat and tidy, she had to give him that. On closer inspection, of course, she knew she would discover it was all a surface impression. He cleaned the kitchen pretty well, army training he called it, but the bathroom wasn’t quite as pristine and she could write her name in the dust on all the furniture in his living-room. Not that it mattered. The important thing was that he didn’t become slummy, that he didn’t start neglecting himself or his house. She wondered if she ought to have a quick snoop in the other rooms, taking advantage of his absence, just to see everything was all right, nothing leaking anywhere which he hadn’t noticed. But she couldn’t be bothered.

  He was turning the corner as she went down the street. Seeing him from that distance she felt suddenly alarmed – he was too old to be out on his own carrying that bag and needing to use his stick. And he was hurrying, it was ridiculous, actually trying to hurry, the stick going at a frightening rate, his walk erratic, the bag bumping away against his unsteady legs. She waited. He didn’t look up until he was almost upon her and then he seemed to get a fright. He started and dropped his bag and then when she’d given it to him he covered up his surprise with bad temper. ‘Made me drop m’bag,’ he complained, ‘standing there like that, what yer doing at my gate?’

  ‘Brought your shopping, that’s all.’

  ‘At this time? Yer don’t usually bring it at this time. What did yer do that for, eh, giving me a shock?’

  ‘A shock? Seeing your own daughter an hour before you usually see her? Oh well, sorry I’m sure.’

  ‘So yer should be,’ he said.

  She walked off without saying goodbye.

  *

  It was as easy as she had predicted. ‘I’m going to visit Aunt Mary,’ she told Joe. ‘Remember Aunt Mary, your great-aunt actually? Lives in Newcastle?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘She’s very ill, she lives on her own and I haven’t been for ages, years, I feel so guilty.’

  ‘You’re always feeling guilty, it’s stupid.’

  There followed ten minutes of arguing about guilt, the kind of argument Joe loved and she found tedious. At the end of it he’d forgotten all about how it began.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I’ve decided to go and visit Aunt Mary, so I’ll be away two nights.’ He didn’t say anything, didn’t look the faintest bit interested. ‘Dad will be here, I’ll leave plenty of food . . .’

  ‘For God’s sake, Mum.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What do you mean, you’ll leave plenty of food, it’s stupid, as if . . .’ and he stopped.

  ‘As if what?’

  ‘Oh, nothing, nothing.’

  He didn’t ask to be reminded who exactly Aunt Mary was, or where she lived in Newcastle, or why she was going at this particular time, or what sort of illness she was suffering from. He didn’t ask if she was going by train or driving. He asked nothing, and while she was grateful, glad not to have to extend the lies, it made her somehow depressed. She wanted him to care, to be concerned for Aunt Mary if not for her. Not this blankness, this self-obsession. His age, nothing more, she told herself. His age.

  Sam drove her to Carlisle, as he had insisted he would. Quite unnecessarily. She hated leaving the house, pulling the front door behind her, suddenly thinking of hospitals and wards and how horrible the whole experience would be. Frightening, too, full of ‘what if’s. Sam was right, it could all so easily go wrong, her plans collapse, and he would be the one who had to deal with the result. She hadn’t been fair to him, never gave his point of view any weight. Maybe she was protecting herself, not Joe, and doing him more damage in the process. She exaggerated everything, always had done, her imagination worked overtime and led her into supposing feelings in those she loved which they might never have had. And Sam had been odd ever since she’d told him about this business. Distant. It wasn’t like him. He seemed newly secretive, contained, more like she knew herself to be.

  They drove up the M6 in silence. The traffic was heavy, great lorries rumbling along on the inside lane. She tried to concentrate on the scenery, on the vistas of mountains to the left and the smooth humps of hills, much nearer, to the right. She wanted to tell Sam to stop, just stop anywhere, and let her off. She’d walk into the hills and keep walking and never go near the hospital. It was amazing how obedient people were, keeping their hospital appointments, facing it all, voluntarily entering these places, showing such trust. Happiness is coming out of a hospital, she thought. The day Joe came out she’d been so happy. He’d been so brave, so determined to get well quickly and put all that behind him. Her eyes filled with tears at the memory and she bit her lip furiously. Unfortunately Sam chose that moment to give her a quick glance. ‘You’re not crying?’ he said, horrified. ‘Of course I’m not,’ she said, savagely, ‘keep your eyes on the road.’

  She made such a fuss he had to give in and leave her at the door of the hospital. She told him she’d ring him and tell him her ward, promised faithfully to do so. They kissed, an ‘I’m-off-to-the-office’ kiss. She didn’t look back, trusted him to have gone to his car. There was a queue at the reception hatch. She joined it,
shuffled slowly forward with the rest, inch by inch as each person was dealt with. The women dealing with the appointment cards were brisk. Not rude, just brisk. She was given her ward and stood studying the plan of the hospital, working out how to get there. Maybe she should have gone into their local hospital. This was so anonymous, but then it was anonymity she had craved. She followed the ground plan, walking along corridors and up stairs, scorning lifts, thinking this was the last exercise she would get for some time. She hated passing people in wheelchairs, people being wheeled on stretchers; it was too awful seeing how sick others could be. She thought of Ginny, backwards and forwards to hospital clinics with Laura for so long. She’d been lucky. Only that once, for Joe.

  The ward was bright, to her relief. Not one of those huge Florence Nightingale affairs. There were only six beds. All of them were empty, which confused her. Weren’t hospitals bursting at the seams? Waiting lists miles long? ‘Choose your bed,’ a nurse said. It was like arriving at school, finding the dormitory, having first pick . . . She chose the bed furthest from the door, nearest to a window. She was told to take her clothes off, put them in a locker, and get into bed. Someone, it seemed, was meant to have come with her to remove her clothes, they weren’t meant to stay in the locker. She felt reprimanded but for once didn’t care, it was a small act of defiance. Once in bed, she got her book out, determined to become absorbed in it, but almost immediately someone came to take her temperature, and another her blood pressure, and a third to ask a long list of seemingly fatuous questions. One by one the beds filled up. Women started talking to each other. Incredible how quickly reasons for being there were freely given. All of them were gynaecological, a dreary list of scrapes and biopsies and hysterectomies. Someone asked her what she was in for and, though she replied politely, she lifted her book up as a shield. She didn’t want to exchange medical histories. She didn’t want to be chummy. She wanted to freeze, not to be there, until all this was over.

  She rang Sam dutifully and was curt, though he was disposed to chat. It was too tantalising to think of home, she didn’t want to. The night was long. First there was the evening to get through, bad enough with so many visitors crowding the place and her head aching with the hours of reading as well as the noise, and then the night began and she wished she’d taken the sleeping pill offered. She prayed she’d be first on the operating list. What did they do? Keep the little ops to the end, or get rid of them first? They kept her until the end. All morning she watched the other women being wheeled off, even the plainest made glamorous when clothed in a white gown and white cap, lying silently on a stretcher. It was unexpectedly moving watching these strangers being taken away, soft murmurs of ‘Good luck’ following them. And when they were returned the drama was intensified, the sight of the inert bodies being lifted touching, the sight of the occasional drip scaring. In spite of herself Harriet’was swept up in it all, as anxious as the rest to know how each woman had fared.

  She was exhausted by the time her turn came – it was bliss to be given the premedication injection. She closed her eyes and drifted off and was unaware of being taken to the theatre at all. When she woke, her throat was dry and there was a pad between her legs, but otherwise she felt she could not have had the operation at all. Cautiously, she reached for a glass of water and sipped it. She wanted to go to the lavatory. A nurse came past and she attracted her attention. The nurse seemed surprised she was awake. She helped her walk to the lavatory and stood outside the door. Back in bed, Harriet felt proud of herself – she was tough, she was up and about in record time, there had been very little blood on the pad and she was in no discomfort. The nurse told her there was an internal dressing still in place which would be removed later. Suddenly, she thought she would ring Sam.

  The phone was brought to her on a trolley. She dialled, thinking how pleased Sam would be. He was out of the office. She left a message, very vague, said she would ring again. Then, not allowing herself time to think, time to change her mind, she rang home. It was four o’clock. Joe would be there by now. She just wanted to hear his voice. When he answered, she smiled. ‘Hi,’ she said, ‘it’s me, just ringing to say everything’s fine, I’ll be home tomorrow.’ Joe grunted, half a snort of exasperation, she supposed, and half a groan. She didn’t know what else to say, so badly wanted him to say something. ‘How’s Aunt Mary then?’ he finally asked. ‘Fine,’ she said, ‘much better.’ She knew she mustn’t ask how he was. How lucky he couldn’t see her, still in her white operation gown. The money was running out. ‘Okay then,’ she said, ‘I’ve got to go now. Take care, see you tomorrow.’

  Silly. A pointless phone call. Really silly to have succumbed like that. Sam would be home soon. They’d eat. Joe would do the cooking, more like assembling, with everything left ready for him. She wondered how they were together when she wasn’t there. Did they miss her? Were they aware that she wasn’t there – heavily aware? Or did it seem quite natural to be chaps together? Maybe she overestimated her own importance. They wouldn’t have time to find out in two days, anyway, it would pass like a flash for them, whereas for her each hour, except the hour she was out of the ward, seemed endless. But it was over, mission accomplished. They’d said she could go home tomorrow. She was to ring Sam and tell him the time to pick her up.

  That night she slept very well, in spite of the moans from the two hysterectomy patients.

  *

  She supposed she’d been expecting it, the phone call, the message. Certainly, she acted as though she had. ‘Thank you,’ she said calmly to the person who rang. ‘I’ll be there right away, thank you for telling me.’ She left a note for Alan, a note very prominently, unmissably, displayed, and then she set off for the Infirmary. She walked. It was no good getting one bus and then another to the Infirmary. Cutting through the back streets she could be quicker than two buses. She walked briskly but without rushing. Rushing would only make her breathless and she’d arrive in a state which would do nobody any good. She should have phoned Carole before she left the house, but she thought she might as well see how Eric James was first of all.

  By the time she reached the Infirmary, going up the slight hill to the front door, she was tired. It annoyed her. She’d always been such a walker, and now to be tired after a short walk, it was ridiculous. She gave her name in at the reception – so busy and offhand those women seemed – and was directed to where her father was. Directed, but she failed to follow the directions correctly and had to keep asking and was flustered by the time she found the right ward. She looked around for a nurse before she went in. Shrieks of laughter came from a room with ‘Sister’ on the door, but nobody answered her timid knock. She’d just have to find him herself. Not too difficult, for heaven’s sake. The ward seemed dim in spite of the sun outside. The blinds were drawn and it was hard to make out the shapes in the beds. All old people, she could see that. Old people with their eyes closed, raised up on pillows. She was tip-toeing without realising it. When a voice said, ‘Looking for someone?’ she jumped.

  Eric James was in a side ward, no wonder she hadn’t found him. The nurse said he was not too bad, considering his advanced age. He was badly shocked and his left rib was cracked as well as his right wrist fractured, but he was coherent enough. Sheila advanced towards his bed dreading the sight of him, but he looked quite noble rather than pathetic. The sheets were drawn up to his chin and the whiteness of them and of the two pillows under his head emphasised his weather-beaten, ruddy look. One side of his face was cut, the same side as before, just little cuts all over, and he wasn’t wearing his glasses.

  ‘Took yer time,’ he muttered as she sat down. She ignored that and gave him one of his own greetings, though she said the words gently. ‘You’ve been in the wars.’

  ‘Damned stupid pavement,’ he said. ‘Council wants prosecuting, wants suing ower them pavements.’

  ‘Sue them, then.’

  ‘Aye, I will an’ all.’

  ‘So, what happened?’

  �
�I telt yer, didn’t I? I tripped, ower that rotten pavement, a scandal them pavements.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Outside the paper shop, been paying m’papers, come out, bang, tripped, and now I’m in this place.’

  ‘It’s a good place.’

  ‘My mother died in here, my father died in here, my wife died in here and now I’m in here.’

  ‘Well, you’re not dying, that’s one thing. The nurse says you’re doing champion. You’ll be out in a week.’

  ‘A week? Don’t talk daft, I’m not stopping a week. I’ll tell yer that. Shouldn’t have brought me here in the first place, I telt them to tek me home, but bloody busybodies, phoning for an ambulance . . .’

  ‘They did right, you’ve got a fractured wrist and a broken rib, you needed seeing to.’

  ‘Well, I’ve been seen to and now I’m off home.’

  ‘Dad, don’t be daft, how’d you manage? Think on.’

  ‘I’d manage. I’ve always managed. Get my clothes.’