Mothers' Boys

by Margaret Forster

  ‘I don’t know where they are.’

  ‘Then look.’

  To keep him quiet, she made a play of looking. His face was very red as he tried to shout at her to go and tell those nurses to bring his clothes. Sheila went, whispering to the first nurse she could find that her father wanted his clothes. The nurse went for the staff nurse, who accompanied Sheila back.

  ‘Now, Mr Armstrong,’ she said, pretending to be stern, ‘I hear you don’t like us, you want to go home, right?’

  ‘Aye,’ Eric James said, glaring, hating her.

  ‘Come on then,’ the staff nurse said, ‘let’s see you on your pins, up you get and I’ll bring your clothes.’

  Eric James tried. He tried so hard. Sheila could understand why the staff nurse had challenged him, but she couldn’t bear to see him forced to admit his own weakness.

  ‘Dad,’ she said, stepping forward to push him back on his pillows. ‘Dad, don’t, just rest.’

  He gave a groan and fell back.

  ‘There you are, Mr Armstrong,’ the staff nurse said, in the same tone, for which Sheila now hated her too, ‘can’t be done, can it? You just settle yourself and we’ll see about going home later.’ Then she left.

  Sheila sat beside his bed, silent. One hand of his was hanging over the edge of the bed, dangling there, weightless. She wondered if she should take hold of it, squeeze it, that gnarled old hand at the end of the startlingly thin white arm. No. She couldn’t. He’d think he really was dying. ‘Just try and rest,’ she whispered.

  ‘How can I rest?’ he moaned. ‘I have to get home.’

  ‘Your home’s all right,’ Sheila said. ‘I’ll go round myself, check everything’s all right’ That seemed to upset him even more, rather than relieve him. ‘The gas, the electricity, the water, I’ll check them all,’ she said, ‘and I’ll lock up securely.’ She wasn’t quite sure what the word was that escaped him, but it sounded like ‘food’. ‘Food?’ she queried. ‘You don’t need to worry about any food, I’ll see nothing’s wasted, what won’t keep I’ll take myself and use up, don’t you worry.’ He gave a big sigh.

  ‘I don’t know what’s for the best,’ he said.

  ‘Your staying here and resting and getting better is for the best,’ she said. ‘That’s for the best, so don’t you worry.’

  ‘I am worried.’

  ‘No need, you’ve nothing to fret about.’

  ‘I have.’ Then he opened his eyes and looked straight at her. ‘You’re his mother, good as,’ he said, ‘yer wouldn’t shop him?’ It was a statement, made strongly, but she wondered if he was rambling.

  ‘Leo?’ she asked.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Yer wouldn’t shop him? You’re his mother, good as, that comes first.’

  It all came together. How slow she’d been. His delight, his glee. The bacon. Her stomach felt strange, queasy. She didn’t need to ask him but she had to go through the motions to be sure. ‘Dad,’ she said, ‘you mean you’ve been hiding Leo?’

  He didn’t speak. ‘You’re his mother, good as,’ he repeated.

  ‘He’s in your house now?’ she asked.

  He nodded.

  ‘Since when? All the time?’

  He shook his head, wearily. ‘Niver yer mind,’ he said, ‘niver yer mind when. The lad needs to lie up awhile, out of harm’s way, that’s all, then he’ll be on his way soon enough. He didn’t do nowt, any road, ’tweren’t his fault, ’twas the other chap, all a mistake.’ When she had been quiet for a long time, not moving a fraction, sitting rock-still, clutching her bag, he turned to look at her. ‘You’re his mother, good as . . .’ he began again, and she cut him short.

  ‘Stop saying that,’ she hissed. ‘Stop it! I’m his grandmother, it doesn’t make any difference, anyway, I know what you mean. My God. Hiding him, so pleased with yourself, I might have known. What a mess, what a mess.’

  ‘Promise,’ Eric James said, and then, raising his voice, ‘promise!’

  ‘I’m not promising anything,’ Sheila said, ‘you’ve no right to be wanting promises. The idea!’

  ‘If you turn that lad in,’ her father said, ‘I’ll niver forgive yer, niver, mind. Niver. You’re his mother, it’d be unnatural.’

  ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do,’ Sheila said, almost sobbing. ‘I just don’t know.’

  ‘You’re going to remember you’re his mam, good as.’

  ‘I’ll have to see him.’

  ‘He doesn’t want to see you. I said I’d keep my trap shut and I did, if it hadn’t been for that bloody pavement . . . that’s all that’s got it out of me, not being able to get home and him there, wondering. I can’t leave him there, wondering . . .’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘no, you can’t.’

  He was very agitated now, his head going from side to side, his hands gripping and ungripping the sheets, no longer smoothly under his chin, but rumpled, in a heap. She straightened them and gave him some water. He gripped her hand with his own good hand. ‘Now promise,’ he said.

  She could break the grip easily, but she let it remain and looked at him steadily. ‘For tonight,’ she said, ‘until I come tomorrow, until I’ve thought about it, I won’t do anything until then. But I’ll have to go and tell him where you are, won’t I? I’ll have to, you said yourself, he’ll wonder otherwise, he might do something silly, he might just leave, go on the run again.’

  ‘Aye,’ her father murmured, ‘he might that.’

  She left the hospital in a dream.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘SHE’S AT YOUR Aunt Mary’s,’ Joe said, ‘you know, that old one in Newcastle.’

  ‘Really?’ Ginny was puzzled. ‘She never told me. Why on earth has she gone to see her, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘She’s ill or something.’

  ‘But, I mean, why does Harriet suddenly go and see her? It isn’t her responsibility. Aunt Mary’s in a Home, has been for years, and she doesn’t recognise anyone.’

  ‘Well, that’s where she’s gone. She’s back tomorrow. Dad’s picking her up from the station.’

  ‘You mean she hasn’t driven?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Aunt Mary’s Home is miles from anywhere, she’d need her car. Why on earth has Harriet gone by train? I don’t understand it.’

  ‘You don’t have to,’ Joe said, quite rudely. ‘Anyway, it’s good. I’m getting lots of practice in on her car. Dad’s taken me out. every evening, doing reversing round corners and stuff.’

  The excitement of driving was brilliant. He felt a rush of adrenalin every time he got into the driver’s seat and all through the routine of adjusting the mirror, looking over his shoulder, making himself comfortable, he was longing for the moment he turned the ignition on and heard the engine. Sheer thrill, that was what it was, unbeatable. He loved changing gear, it was like a dance, the lovely way the stick slipped from first to second, the smooth rhythm of foot down on the clutch, the satisfaction of the car obeying him – he felt powerful, happy. It was the only place he was aware of being positively happy. His instructor said he was a natural, that he had good coordination and a feel for the engine. Sometimes he was too confident, he’d approach junctions and roundabouts too fast, forget to change down from fourth to second, but he always coped. Even the manoeuvres he enjoyed doing, those hill starts and parallel parkings others moaned about. The hour was never long enough, he hated it ending. His only reading now was the Highway Code and Your Driving Test, he carried them everywhere with him, memorising every single sign and symbol and instruction. He couldn’t imagine how people could go through life as pedestrians.

  His father shared none of his enthusiasm. ‘A car is danger on wheels,’ Sam said, pompously. ‘Never forget it.’ And, ‘It doesn’t matter how well you drive, other drivers will be fools, you have to expect disaster all the time.’ What was he trying to do? Smash the one bit o
f confidence his son had managed to regain? Joe was annoyed but tried not to betray this – he needed Sam to take him out. They got on badly. Unlike his instructor, his father didn’t think he was a natural, he didn’t think there was any such thing. Sam sat beside him wincing every time Joe went over thirty miles an hour. Even in the large car park by the end of the lake Sam wasn’t happy. The car park was empty, almost, by eight in the evening, and perfect for practising three-point turns between marked-out limits, but Sam said that he should be slower, more careful, when Joe knew he could do the whole thing with panache. ‘I don’t know what gets into you in a car,’ Sam grumbled. ‘I hope you’re not going to turn into one of these speed merchants.’

  He was waiting, ready to go out in his mother’s car, when his father came home.

  ‘Give me a break,’ Sam complained. ‘I want to get changed first. Has your mother rung?’ Joe said she hadn’t. ‘Well, I’d rather wait until she has. She said about now. And I might have to go straight off to collect her.’

  ‘Couldn’t I come? It would be good practice for me, driving to Carlisle station.’

  ‘Certainly not, you’re not nearly ready for that, and anyway I’m going on the motorway. Learners can’t drive on it. Are you sure she hasn’t rung?’

  ‘Sure. Only Ginny.’

  ‘What did she want?’

  ‘Mum.’

  ‘Oh. What did you tell her?’

  ‘What did I tell her?’ Joe looked astonished. His father’s face was all furrowed with sudden anxiety. ‘I said she was at Aunt Mary’s, of course, what else would I say?’

  Sam nodded and went off to change. Joe sat, holding the car keys, on the chair in the hall, determined to be very obviously waiting. He could hear his father taking a shower. He began to think, as he had not done before, about his mother going off to this Aunt Mary person. He hadn’t seen, until now, that it was odd. Ginny had. She’d thought it very odd. And his father had asked him what he’d told Ginny – peculiar thing to ask. When Sam came down, he said, ‘Why don’t you ring Mum at Aunt Mary’s if you want to know what time to pick her up?’

  ‘I can’t. It’s a Home.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well, they don’t have personal phones, there’s only the reception. They wouldn’t know.’

  Joe stared at him. His father had always been a rotten liar. Now he was in a hurry to cover up his lie by being keen to go out in the car. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s get cracking. I’m hungry, I want to get back as soon as possible.’ But the telephone rang as they opened the front door. Joe saw his father run towards it and snatch it up and say, ‘Harriet?’ in a sort of panic-stricken voice. He seemed to listen a long time without saying anything himself. Then he looked worried. ‘I see,’ he finally said, and, ‘Right, okay, but ring as soon as you know, promise?’

  There wasn’t quite the same pleasure in being in the car. His father was abstracted, hardly seemed to notice when he drove at fifty miles an hour in the built-up area, and when they got to the lake car park he said, ‘Fine,’ too quickly every time Joe turned the car between the stones they’d put out. Something was wrong. On the way back, Joe said, ‘What did you mean, Mum had to ring you as soon as she knew? Soon as she knew what?’

  ‘Oh, how Aunt Mary was going to be. She’s very ill.’

  ‘So Mum’s staying another night?’

  ‘Maybe. Mind this corner, it’s up a hill, you can’t see what’s coming.’

  ‘Where does she stay?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Where does Mum sleep?’

  Sam looked completely thrown. ‘Oh, they have a spare room for visitors, I expect,’ he said, hurriedly. ‘Keep both hands on the wheel, you’re far too flash.’

  Joe waited until they were in the house and were sitting eating lasagne in front of the television. His dad wasn’t taking anything in, he could tell. In one way, he didn’t want to find out what was going on. He wanted to stay ignorant, it was safer, easier. He didn’t want to know anything bad. He couldn’t face it. It was worse than that – he actually couldn’t be bothered to know, it was too much trouble. Especially if it was to do with his mother. Whatever it was, she wanted him to think she had gone to visit her Aunt Mary and his father had gone along with it and that was fine by him. If he pushed his father he’d probably get at the truth. Certainly he would, in the end. He could make a real nuisance of himself and his father wouldn’t be able to stand it, he’d tell him, then make him promise not to reveal what he knew to his mother. It was tiring even thinking about it. Just when the driving was making him feel so happy. What he really wanted to do was pass his test, buy his own car, a cheap second-hand one, and roar off. Leave whatever was going on behind. Be by himself. With a car, in a car, he wouldn’t mind being by himself. He’d never have to walk down a street on his own again.

  It made him feel elated and yet miserable to think of it. He couldn’t bear his home any more, this very house. Its familiarity, every corner of it, made him cry. It was a sad, sad place, full of his past self. He’d always loved it but now, ever since, ever since, he knew he couldn’t bear to be in it. But he’d been afraid to leave it because there was nothing else. It upset him to be inside his home but, for such a long time, until now really, it upset him more to go out from it and feel lost and frightened. The sight of his mother made him cry too. Her face, so anxious, so concerned for him, so hurt, watching him all the time, alert to his every movement. He was cruel to her because it relieved the pain for him, it was like the exquisite agony of picking a sore. He longed for her to hit him, lash out at him, he wanted to see her expression change to one of loathing and contempt, though he knew if it did he would be devastated.

  He didn’t mind at all that she had gone away. It was a relief. He felt guilty thinking like that, but it was indeed a relief. So if she had gone for some other reason apart from visiting an aged aunt it didn’t matter. His mind began to run over possible reasons why she might have gone and he stopped it, quickly. He didn’t want to speculate. It was selfish, but he couldn’t bear to be concerned about his mother. He had enough trouble thinking of himself, worrying about himself. He wanted to think about driving and cars and nothing else.

  *

  Sheila went straight to her father’s house. She should have taken a taxi but there were none waiting outside the Infirmary and her impatience was greater than her exhaustion. But her legs felt distressingly weak and there was nowhere, along the way, to sit down. She should go to her own home and tell Alan and he would drive her over but she couldn’t wait, she had to go and find Leo now. As she entered her father’s street she realised she was afraid. Not nervous, afraid. Afraid of Leo, afraid of what might happen, how he might react, and most of all afraid of the decision she would have to make. Her father thought of it as so simple: of course she would keep quiet, help Leo to stay hidden, protect him. But it wasn’t simple.

  She had keys to both the front and back doors but she never used the front and neither did Eric James, except on state occasions. Often, he left the back door unlocked, which she and Carole were always pleading with him not to do, but he announced that it would be a foolish burglar who dared to try and burgle him and nothing would puncture his image of himself as frighteningly invincible. She tried the door cautiously. He had, after all, locked it. It was hard to open quietly – the lock was old and needed oiling, the key heavy, made of iron, a big old-fashioned thing. Once inside, she locked the door again and put the key in her pocket. Then she crept to the front door and turned the other key in that lock. Only then did she relax a little. She stood quite still, listening. Not a sound. If Leo was crouching, breathless, upstairs, what would he be listening for? The kettle. Eric James always put the kettle on when he came in. He didn’t always go on to make tea, but out of habit, his dead wife’s habit, he put the kettle on.

  Sheila put the kettle on. When it had boiled she thought she might as well make some tea. It would steady her, though she was beginning to think nothing would. Her heart
fluttered, rapid little beats, then missed a beat, her stomach churned and she couldn’t stop licking her lips, round and round her tongue went trying to moisten them. She couldn’t stand here for ever, it was ridiculous. She had things to do. Carole still hadn’t been told about her father and neither had Alan. She went to the foot of the stairs and paused. Should she shout up? Force Leo to come down? Eric James would have shouted by now, Leo would be suspicious. Slowly, she walked up the stairs, her hand so sweaty it slid along the banister as though it was oiled. There were only two bedrooms, one of them divided by a thin plywood wall, put up to separate her and Carole. The door to this room was closed, the door to Eric James’s own room open. Just in case, she looked in her father’s room first. Nobody could possibly hide in it. A double bed, a dressing table, a chest of drawers, all crammed together. The only place was in the wardrobe. She opened it, silly though it was to suspect Leo might be there. She and Carole used to hide there when they were little, crouching among the shoes, their mother’s dresses concealing their faces, but Leo was far too big, he’d never get into it even if he crouched. And he wasn’t, which she had known he wouldn’t be. Of course he wasn’t. If he was anywhere he was in her old cubicle of a room.

  Now that she knew that, she felt calmer, more ready for him. She mustn’t sound timid. That would be fatal. Matter-of-fact, that’s how she should sound. Give nothing away. She mustn’t sound angry or hostile or give any indication of what she thought of him escaping and hiding there. She would find that easy because she didn’t know herself. She went into Carole’s old bedroom and towards the door into the one which had been hers. ‘Leo,’ she said, keeping any questioning note out of her voice. ‘Leo, it’s me. Your grandad has had a fall. He’s in hospital. He had to let on you were here, he was worried what you’d think when he didn’t come home.’ She paused, quite pleased with how reasonable, how unexcitable she had sounded. She thought, but couldn’t be sure, that she heard a faint sound from the other side of the door. She wasn’t going to open it, she wanted him to do that. She sat down on the stool beside the window and looked out. Washing lines, there were a lot of washing lines. The woman next door, a newcomer, was taking her sheets in, such a nice sight, watching her unpeg them, tame their billowing life, fold them. Leo must be watching too, there was nothing else for him to do. He’d be used to keeping away from the window, though. Eric James would have impressed that upon him. Probably he went downstairs in the evening and watched television. No one would dare to call on Eric James unannounced and if they did it would be entirely in character for him to tell them to go away.