Beth opened the door and hugged her tightly. Alex accepted the embrace but made no move to return it. If Beth noticed she didn’t comment.
‘Oh, I’m so pleased you’re here. Catherine has brought the girls.’
Alex nodded, unsure if she was expected to whip pom-poms from behind her back and perform some sort of dance. It meant nothing. Her nieces were as alien to her as their mother.
Alex followed Beth through to the lounge, beyond the front room. As she travelled deeper into the house her senses were assaulted by the aroma of cooking. It was a mixture of smells that she remembered. A cheap cut of fatty pork belly, mixed with the sickly smell of cabbage and waterlogged sprouts. The stench made her want to heave, so synonymous was it with her childhood. For a brief second she felt like she was a child again. Fear filled her stomach and her knees weakened.
Two girls were sitting in front of the fire, with colouring books and anxious expressions.
Alex’s knees began to buckle. She was back. She was a child again and she was trapped in this house unable to get away. Any minute her mother…
‘Alex, are you okay?’ Beth asked from the other side of the room.
Alex tore her gaze from the girls on the floor. She focused on Beth who was looking at her anxiously. Her vision cleared and her eyes rested on Catherine, the adult Catherine, who was staring fixedly out of the window. Safety rested around her as she lowered herself into the single chair.
‘I’ll make some tea,’ Beth said, leaving the room.
Alex felt an awkwardness sweep into the room. It was the same as she’d felt at parties when the mutual friend suddenly went to the toilet.
‘So, lunch is provided in this madhouse?’
Catherine shrugged. ‘Just be polite, Alex. It won’t kill you. She’s trying to make an effort.’
‘An effort for what? I don’t want any of the old bitch’s things, do you?’
‘Alex,’ Catherine said warningly, indicating the children with her eyes.
Alex rolled her eyes. She was sure the girls had heard worse in the school playground.
‘Bitch is a naughty word,’ the fair-haired one whispered without looking up.
‘Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch,’ the other one cried, looking directly at Alex with a devilish glint in her eye. Alex hid a smile. She could quite get to like that one.
‘Thanks Alex,’ Catherine said, shooting daggers in her direction. ‘That’s Jess by the way. The other one is Lucy.’
‘I’m so pleased that you’re both here,’ Beth said, placing the tea set on the coffee table, which was the only new addition to the room. ‘Mother would be so pleased.’
‘Of course she would,’ Catherine said, quickly, sending a glance over Beth’s head in Alex’s direction.
Alex gritted her teeth, unable to believe that the charade was continuing. On what level did Catherine think it was healthy to aid Beth in her complete denial of their mother’s saintliness? It was obscene. All of this was obscene. The three of them drinking tea in the house that had been a loveless, soulless prison for their entire childhood.
There was Catherine sitting with her back straight and her legs crossed, her children sitting on the floor. How could she bring her own girls into the house that still breathed with hatred? Her very stance said that she was poised to escape at the earliest opportunity.
And Alex herself had not bothered to remove her jacket.
Beth handed out tea and then juice to the girls. Silence reverberated around the room. Alex noticed that the child called Lucy was keeping her head down focusing on her picture, whereas Jess was studying them all one by one.
‘I sorted through Mother’s jewellery. There’s not much. A couple of nice pieces. She’d have loved you to have them.’
‘Beth, you should keep it,’ Catherine said, gently. ‘You took care of her for all these years. She’d want you to have them.’
Beth shook her head. ‘She didn’t talk much towards the end but she would have liked to see both of you.’
There was no accusation in the words, just a deep sadness as though Beth regretted the time they had both missed with their mother.
Catherine stared into the fire. ‘Honestly, Beth, you should keep—’
‘Let me go and get them and you can choose whichever piece you’d like.’
Beth tore from the room.
‘This is not healthy. She’s living in cloud cuckoo land and you’re helping her furnish the house.’
‘What do you suppose I do?’ Catherine hissed at her. She looked at her daughters. ‘Lucy, take Jess and play outside for a while.’
Lucy stood but Jess remained sitting. ‘It’s cold outside.’
‘Just go, Jess. Your coat is in the kitchen.’
‘Don’t wanna go,’ she said stubbornly.
‘Jess, I’m warning you… ’
‘Come on, Jess,’ Lucy said, offering her hand and guiding her sister out of the room.
An inexplicable feeling of sadness washed over Alex and she had no idea why.
‘Do you wonder at the reasons why Beth can’t remember?’ Catherine hissed.
‘She’s blocked it out but it’s not healthy. She thinks our mother was a warm, loving woman who wanted us to have her jewellery and I’m not sure how much longer I can keep my mouth shut.’
‘You’ll keep your mouth shut until you’re out of this house. The memories will come back when she’s strong enough to handle them. It’ll be hard enough for her then. She can do without the knowledge being forced on her. So just zip it.’
A memory surfaced of Catherine speaking to her in a similar manner when they were children. With the memory came a flash of anger that Alex couldn’t control.
‘Don’t tell me what to do. You gave up that right when you ran away and left us.’
Catherine paled before her eyes. ‘Is that what you think?’
‘Don’t give me that,’ Alex growled, finding solace in her rage. It was a tangible emotion that strengthened her. ‘The first chance you got you legged it with no thought of leaving us behind. You didn’t give two shits about what happened to us just as long as you were okay.’
‘It was the hardest time of my—’
‘Bollocks, Catherine. Tell that to your fancy colleagues with their nice posh cars and their fancy houses. Oh yes, Catherine, it sure looks like you’ve suffered.’
‘I was forced to—’
‘Just remember,’ Alex spat, unwilling to listen to anything Catherine had to say. ‘Just remember that you’re partly responsible for the state that Beth’s in today. If you hadn’t left us when—’
‘I had no choice, Alex. I never had the chance—’
‘Don’t you remember how Mother’s punishment worked?’ Alex spat. ‘You fucked off and guess what, it didn’t turn into fucking Disneyland.’
‘Of course I remember. I remember when it changed.’
Alex closed her eyes and shook her head, battling to keep the memory away. But it was no use. Suddenly she saw herself gasping for breath as she ran home from school.
She’d known what would be waiting for her when she got home. Her mother had said no more netball but Miss Totney had asked her to play. Miss Totney had wanted her to play goal attack.
Her legs had faltered as she approached the house but she forced them to carry her forward. Maybe if she wasn’t too late her mother would be content with a tongue-lashing. Especially if she could see the effort that Alex had put into getting home quickly.
She entered the semi-darkness of the covered entry between the two houses. Her breath caught in her throat as a dark figure loomed before her.
‘So, you little bitch, you’re finally here,’ her mother said as Alex felt her arm being yanked and her feet leaving the ground.
‘I’m sorry… I just played—’
Alex felt the stinging slap around her face. The thick wedding band pierced her skin, close to the eye. The area began to swell immediately.
She tried to steady herse
lf on the ground but she was being pulled through the entrance to the house. The fatigue in her legs won out and she toppled to her knees. They scraped painfully against the brick floor, grazing her flesh.
Her mother dragged her into the lounge where Catherine and Beth were sitting on the sofa, with pained expressions. Any hope of a reduced punishment dissolved. Alex knew that her sisters had been assembled to witness the beating to teach them all a lesson.
She was deposited in front of the fire and her mother stood before her.
‘So, you ignore everything I fucking say?’
Alex shook her head, miserably. Her face was stinging from the blow and her knees were raw and painful.
‘You ignored me when I told you there was no more netball practice.’
‘But I—’
‘I don’t give a shit what you’ve got to say. I said you couldn’t and you chose to disobey me.’
Alex said nothing. She was resigned to the fact that she was not going to get off lightly. She attempted to brace her body for the impact. The last thing she saw before she closed her eyes was the fear on the faces of her sisters.
Waiting for the first blow was always the worst part. Once the pain started she could almost lose herself in it, aware that she was just waiting for it to end. The waiting became unbearable, the fear rising in her stomach, making it hard for her to breathe.
Alex suspected that this was just another of her mother’s cruel games. Prolonging the terror for as long as she could, but when Alex opened one eye tentatively her mother was regarding her with a puzzled look.
‘You expected this, didn’t you, you devious little bitch?’
Alex shook her head.
Her mother nodded knowingly. ‘Oh yes you did. You knew what would happen to you if you disobeyed me but you did it anyway.’
‘No… I didn’t—’
‘Shut the fuck up. The fact that you knew I’d beat you didn’t stop you from doing whatever the hell you liked. You were happy to take the shit for it.’
Alex dared not move a muscle as she saw a veil come down over her mother’s face. And she was right, Alex realised. She had known that she was going to get a beating for her actions and she’d taken the risk.
Inevitably, the blows began to land. There was a split lip, a black eye, the crunch of a rib cracking. There were slaps and a broken little finger.
Alex felt every punch, kick and slap as it rained down. The pain of what she’d done haunted her as the final blow landed on Catherine’s head and she crumpled to the ground.
‘What about your blame, Alex? Where was your concern for your sister when you ran away?’ Catherine said, jolting her back to the present.
Alex turned away, sickness rolling around her stomach. ‘Look, we both failed her so let’s leave it at that. Just don’t tell me what to do, Catherine. You no longer have that right.’
‘Here we are,’ Beth said, bringing a cheap shell jewellery box into the room. She opened the lid and pulled out a simple string of pearls, yellow in their cheapness. ‘I thought these would bring out the slenderness of your neck, Catherine. You always did have a wonderful, regal posture.’ Catherine touched the beads and said nothing.
‘And these earrings would bring out the beauty of your eyes, Alex.’
Alex wasn’t even looking at the earrings. Her gaze was fixed on the pearls. A single tear fell from Catherine’s eyes on to the beads and Alex knew they were sharing the same memory.
‘I dressed you up in all this stuff,’ Catherine whispered. ‘I put all Mother’s jewellery on you and painted your face,’ she said, without taking her eyes from the item in her hand.
‘The lipstick was cherry red,’ Alex said, recalling the day she’d sat on Catherine’s bed, being painted and dressed up. ‘You got a chiffon scarf and wrapped it around my waist. You said I looked like a movie star.’ The words caught in her throat as she remembered the two of them laughing and prancing around the room while Beth sat on the other bed, telling them to stop before Mother came home.
‘We were so close, the three of us,’ Catherine murmured.
‘No, just you two,’ Beth offered gently.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Catherine said, wiping her eyes and then reaching for Beth’s hand.
‘It’s okay,’ Beth said, patting Catherine’s hand. ‘I didn’t mind. I was just happy to see you two having fun. It made me laugh.’
Alex heard a wistfulness in Beth’s voice and realised that she was right. Beth had always kept herself slightly on the outside.
‘Dinner should be ready,’ Beth said, going to the kitchen.
Catherine said something about needing some air and avoided Alex’s eyes as she left the room. Alex fought back the tears that threatened her. She didn’t want them or what they represented. Other memories came back to haunt her and every single one involved Catherine. Catherine reading her stories, Catherine tickling her on the bed. Catherine making her laugh. Catherine holding her while she ran from the monsters in her nightmares.
She wiped her eyes, unsure what to do with the memories that were assaulting her mind. She wanted to slope away to a dark room and reclaim her anger. She wanted to disappear beneath the safety of her rage. The accusation of the day when Catherine had left them.
The tears began to subside and the rage returned to niggle away at her belly. She would never forgive Catherine for that.
Beth’s voice reached her from the kitchen. Alex blindly reacted to the instruction that dinner was ready. Every instinct inside begged her to run away and reach the safety of the train that would return her to the anonymity of her life in Birmingham. Yet, she couldn’t hurt Beth. She’d done enough of that over the years and Beth didn’t deserve her bad manners.
Poor sweet Beth who had always been the cautious one, the timid one, permanently terrified that they’d get into trouble. Poor sweet Beth who had suffered far worse than either of them. Who even now after so much of her life had been taken away only wanted to give to her sisters. For that Alex could manage one lunch.
The small table in the kitchen was cramped with the five of them. Alex smiled at Beth and thanked her for going to so much effort. She paused as she looked at the plate before her. It could have landed from a time machine. The pork was fatty and a sickly shade of grey. Large boiled potatoes were struggling to stay cohesive after an hour in the pan and a green mushy mass represented two different vegetables that were impossible to detect, name or separate.
Alex sprinkled salt on to the food in an effort to disguise the taste.
The meal started in silence and as Alex took her first bite she realised that there was very little warmth between Catherine and her daughters.
‘Jess, stop that,’ Catherine warned, as Jess kicked her beneath the table from the opposite end.
Alex watched Jess’s pleasure in getting a reaction from her mother. Lucy nudged her sister and Alex wondered if the irony of the relationship between her daughters was lost on her. Jess kicked again and laughed out loud.
‘Jess, I won’t tell you again,’ Catherine said, without looking up.
Alex watched the exchange with interest. She noted that Catherine had not exchanged one warm word with either of her children since she had walked into the house.
Alex saw the defiance rising in Jess’s eyes and wondered if Catherine had any idea of how desperate this child was for attention.
Jess started rocking on the chair, which caused the table to shudder.
‘You’ll know about it if that juice goes over, young lady,’ Catherine warned.
With one almighty effort, the child kicked the table and sent both beakers of juice crashing down. Purple liquid spread and soaked into the tablecloth. With lightning speed, Catherine was on her feet and around the other side of the table.
She yanked Jess from behind the table and stood the child before her. ‘You’ve tested me and pushed me all day. You’ve been expecting this, haven’t you?’ Catherine screamed as she raised her hand.
Beth
whimpered and Alex looked on in shock as Catherine hesitated, her hand in the air. The sound of the slap rendered them all dumb. Beth clasped her hand to her mouth in horror.
Alex jumped to her feet and grabbed the offending hand.
‘Catherine,’ she said, turning her sister to face her. ‘Do you even realise that you just slapped the wrong child?’
Eleven
Catherine
Catherine sat in the cover of darkness. The scene at Beth’s still circling in her mind. The rage inside, so strong that it had consumed her, had frightened her also. And not just her. She felt sick as she remembered the looks on the faces of her sisters and children.
Tim’s key turned in the door. Catherine pulled her coat tightly around her. He called out gently and she asked him to leave the light off. He dropped his gym bag and sat beside her on the sofa.
‘Sweetheart, what’s wrong?’
Catherine had sat in the dark for two hours trying to find the words and still they eluded her.
‘Where are the girls?’
‘They’re in bed,’ she answered. ‘They’re fine.’
She could see his profile, illuminated from an outside light in someone’s garden. She reached for his hand and the tears that she’d held in check began to flow over her cheeks.
‘What is it, Catherine, what’s wrong?’ he asked, panic filling his voice.
She squeezed his hand. ‘I’m so sorry.’
He turned her to face him but she couldn’t meet his gaze. ‘I’ve done something terrible and I can’t take it back.’
‘Whatever it is, we’ll sort it out. You don’t need to worry about anything. I love you and there’s nothing that we can’t face together. You know that.’
Catherine lowered her head, shame coursing through her.
‘Please, sweetheart, tell me what’s wrong. Whatever it is we’ll talk about it and find some way to resolve it. You can share anything with me. There’s nothing you can say that will make me love you any less than—’
Dear Mother: A gripping and emotional story that will make you sob your heart out Page 10