by John Clanchy
‘All’s well …’ I say to Miriam, just to make contact.
Miriam pulls a wry smile. We’re surrounded in the kitchen with the detritus of the barbecue, dozens of plates, glasses, cups, boxes of food, leftover salads and meats and rice and cakes – and this is all after the guests have taken doggy-bags back home for their families.
‘Just tell that to Officer Ted Coster,’ she responds finally, ‘when he turns up with his clipboard and his file on Monday week. He’ll hardly be able to suppress his smile. And think of Pam Richter – oh God. After it took so long to get her to sign the form in the first place.’
‘Is that what’s worrying you?’ I say, bringing plates to the sink where she’s scraping and rinsing before things go in the dishwasher.
‘No,’ she says. ‘But it’s always best to worry about the most concrete thing, don’t you think?’
Normally I’d touch her at this point, or kiss her in reassurance, but there’s an aura, a field of negative energy and worry around her that I can’t enter. It’s not directed, I know, against me, nor against the girls who are being so helpful, still ferrying things, quietly – in fact without speaking at all – in from the yard. They too have sensed Miriam’s mood and are reluctant to break in on it. Laura, in particular, loiters between each trip, secretly observing Miriam, wanting, I know, to say something – though I have no idea what it will be about. Laura has grown so much recently. She seems, at the moment, the most complete of us all. The yard is cleared, the dishwasher on its second load, most of the leftovers in the fridge, Katie off on her own business somewhere before Laura finally gets around to saying what’s on her mind.
‘Mum?’ she says.
‘Hmm?’
‘All this food –’
‘Yes,’ Miriam says. She makes a visible effort to cast off her cloud. She turns and smiles at Laura, as if she’s seeing her for the first time in ages. Her smile is open and warm, and absolutely focused on Laura, and I’m almost embarrassed to be there, witnessing it. And at the same time, envious. I keep still, feeling if I move I’ll breach whatever is between them and from which I’m entirely excluded. ‘Laura, you were wonderful today,’ Miriam says. ‘I’ve never been prouder of you than today,’ she says. And Laura – pouting, argumentative, ironic, and so judgemental – blushes like an innocent, and drops her eyes.
Though not her aim.
‘Mum?’ she says again.
‘What, darling?’
‘With all this food over –’
‘Yes.’
‘I was just wondering …’
‘You want Philip to come over for a meal? Tomorrow would be fine,’ she says. ‘For dinner. We’ll eat about seven.’
And that’s the first time they actually touch.
‘And what about Katie,’ I say, pleased at last to have something to say, as Katie comes into the kitchen. ‘She’s been good too, haven’t you, Kat? What do you want as a reward?’
‘To get in the bathroom.’
‘That doesn’t seem very much,’ I say. ‘You can go to the bathroom any time.’
‘No, I can’t.’
‘Why?’ says Miriam.
‘Because Grandma Vera’s in there, and she won’t let me in.’ ‘But why are you using Grandma Vera’s bathroom anyway?’ Miriam says, and the worry and anxiety that had been banished from her voice in the burst of late sunshine with Laura only minutes ago is lost again. ‘You’ve got our bathroom to use.’
‘I’m not using her bathroom –’ Katie says angrily. ‘Grandma Vera’s got up, and she’s using ours. ’
Miriam looks at me, and her face – though her mouth doesn’t move – says, Will it never end?
‘And, Katie says, ‘she’s locked the door and won’t answer –’
Miriam’s already moving.
‘And,’ Katie says to Miriam’s disappearing back, ‘she’s made the horriblest smell.’
Grandma Vera
Bad girl, out, out. Must. Bad girl. Bad. Home, now.
Bad girl. Home, now. Bad, bad.
Must, must –
Oh, no, oh no, oh no. Christ no.
Bad, bad.
Aaaaaah – !
Miriam
‘Mother,’ I call. ‘Are you in there? Mother? Mother, I know something’s wrong.’
I can’t hear any sound at all from inside, but Katie’s right – the smell is appalling. And I know what has happened.
‘Mother,’ I call again. ‘I know you’re in there. I know you’ve had an accident.’
‘Aaaaaah –!’ is the first sound, then a terrible, continuous moaning which, after a moment or two, I begin to separate into words, or one word repeated over and over: ‘Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad…’
‘Mother, please –? Unlock the door. I’m not mad at you.’
‘She won’t,’ Katie says from behind me. ‘I told you she wouldn’t.’
‘Katie, please go away.’
‘But –’
‘Go away.’
‘I want to use the bathroom.’
‘Then go and use Grandma’s.’
‘But you told me never to use hers in case she had to go quickly.’
This isn’t really an argument, or not one she’s serious about. Katie’s just saying words so she can stay, can edge closer. And participate. She may also, I realize, actually be concerned about Grandma Vera – but not too much, I think. It’s more curiosity at seeing someone else in trouble, and wondering how it’s going to turn out for them. She edges one step closer – too close in fact – and a hand goes up to cover her nose.
‘Oo-ah,’ she says, as the smell engulfs her. I’m doing all I can to keep my own stomach from rising.
‘Did Grandma do a poo?’
‘Katie, I won’t tell you again.’
‘In her clothes?’
‘She’s not in her clothes,’ I say. And wonder why I keep letting her draw me on like this.
‘She is,’ Katie says. ‘She got dressed again after she went to bed. I saw her. She kept talking about going home. ‘‘Home, now,’’ she was saying. ‘‘Home, now.’’ And then ‘‘Bad, bad’’.’
‘She’s in her clothes?’
And her hat. But she still had her slippers. She said, ‘‘Time now Time to go home now’’ And then I didn’t see her till I wanted to go to the bathroom.’
‘Well, darling, will you help me now and please, please, leave me to deal with this, and if you still want to use the bathroom …’
‘But –’
‘Go!’
I watch her retreating in a huff, not to Mother’s flat at all, but back to the kitchen where Laura and Philip are, in a deep listening silence. Infected by it, I whisper myself now, ‘Mother, please, will you open this door?’
And the whisper – the complicity of that – does it. The lock goes, I pause a second, steeling myself, then turn the door handle and am engulfed immediately in the acrid stench of ammonia and human excrement. It is all I can do to stop from gagging. By an act of will, nothing else, I keep my hands from flying to my nose and mouth, and look at her. She stands in the middle of the bathroom, an aged and mortal two-year-old, wide-eyed, bad, and knowing she is bad and about to be punished, and accepting it, the justice of it, not crying or pleading to be let off, just waiting. Her skirt is twisted on her body – she’s tried to pull it round to get at the button and zipper but obviously hasn’t been able to manage it – her blouse is half unbuttoned, a slipper on her left foot, the other somewhere out of sight. And on all of her clothes – the blouse, the skirt, the slipper – and on her hands, her forearms, one cheek, and in her hair, are streaks of her own brown and yellow shit. It drips from the hem of her skirt, even as I look. The flannel bloomers that she wears beneath the skirt will, I realize, be filled with this liquid abomination. And all around her, forming a self-enclosing cocoon, is this hideous miasma of shit and waste and decay. And inside it, she continues to stand, waiting, her eyes on my face. I swallow, and swallow back down the contents of my stomach w
hich rise into my throat each time I breathe. There is a towel rail near my hand, and I have an overpowering urge to snatch up one of the towels and bury my face in it and scream.
But resist.
‘Mother,’ I say stupidly, ‘you’ve had an accident.’
‘Bad,’ she says, pleading now – but for what? For me to agree, or for an act of grace?
‘No, you’re not bad, Mother. It’s not your fault.’ How many times, I wonder to myself, will I have to say that. ‘It’s not your fault,’ I say again. ‘It’s nobody’s fault. You’ve had an upsetting day. You’re anxious, that’s all.’
‘Bad,’ she says. And drops her head.
‘The important thing for the moment is to get you cleaned up. And back into bed.’
‘Home, now. Go home now,’ Mother says, and there’s a strange note of resolution in her voice.
‘Yes, you’re home now, Mother,’ I say. ‘We’ve got to get you cleaned up, though.’
‘No,’ she says. ‘Home, now.’
‘Whatever you want, Mother,’ I say. And take the first step towards her, into the envelope of putrid air in which the waste of her body still stands. Again I have the urge to throw up, and I may yet. But not now, I tell myself, not here in front of her. Something is still rising in me – though it’s no longer the contents of my stomach, I realize, but the will to see this through. This, I think crazily to myself, may be the most important thing I’ve ever done for her.
‘Now …’ I say, trying to breathe shallowly, until I recognize it’s making me pant, and I either have to do this, not half held back but fully, or not at all. ‘You just stand there, and I’ll get these clothes off you.’
She nods, without speaking. Accepting that she’s in my hands now.
‘That’s good,’ I say.
‘Did she do it?’ Katie cries. From beyond the half-open door. ‘Did Grandma Vera do a poo in her pants?’
‘Katie!’ I scream. ‘Don’t you dare come in here.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Go-away.’
‘But …’
‘Katie!’
‘All right.’
‘No, wait a minute. Send Laura in here.’
‘Why her?’
‘Send-Laura-in-here.’
She doesn’t reply, but I wait until I hear her moving away, even her clothes grumbling on her as she goes.
‘Now, the blouse,’ I say, and even inside this somehow there’s shit on her stomach. ‘Okay, your bra,’ I say. ‘No, no, don’t you turn, I’ll do that. Mother, it’s all right, you don’t have to worry about that. Keep your arms down, nobody’s going to see you. It’s only me, remember …’
‘Mum, did you want me –?’
And it’s only Laura. Who’s at the door, her eyes round, her fingers to her nose.
‘Laura, darling,’ I say. ‘Grandma’s had an accident. Get one of those big plastic bags from the laundry, we’ll put all Grandma’s clothes in that, and two towels, the big thick ones, from the hall cupboard. And Laura –’
‘Yes?’
‘Shut the door after you?’
She goes, and I undo the zipper on Mother’s skirt, my fingers, the backs of my hands, my palms now streaked with her excrement. I look at it, on my hands, for a moment, and go on. The smell is not dissipating. In fact, as her clothes loosen and fall to the tiled floor, it seems to intensify and spread until it fills every inch of the entire room. The bloomers are worst, and as I peel them off, I have to kneel in front of her in order to get them down over her thighs and knees, and I do nearly faint then, not just from the stench but from the sight, the blue, mottled skin smeared thickly with shit, even her few grey pubic wisps of hair gleaming with it. For one second, I do in fact waver, and my head falls forward, and brushes against her thigh. Her hand momentarily is in my hair. I recoil in disgust, brush at my hair and forehead, and get control again.
But the smell is inescapable. It envelopes me now.
‘Okay,’ I say, standing. And she’s naked at last, no Venus but slug white and mottled blue and sagged and creased, and humiliated with her stinking clothes around her feet and, looking at her, I find something does leap finally out of my mouth, something so unexpected and crazy – but out before it can be stopped.
‘Oh, Mum,’ someone says, and I see her eyes widen in shock and amazement. ‘Oh, Mum,’ I say again, and then nothing else. Until Laura is suddenly back, and the door snaps shut, and is locked behind her. I turn to look at her, and I see the shock on her face.
‘What?’ I say. ‘What is it –?’
‘You’ve got it,’ she says. ‘On you.’
I turn to the mirror then, and I hear the scream unleashing inside me. Mother’s shit is streaked across my forehead, it’s in my hair. My hand rises, it dashes and tears at it – and only thickens it. It is on my blouse now, and I tear at the neck of that, ripping buttons, then see myself, frantic, wild-eyed, as if a giant spider had fallen on my back, and I stop and take control of myself again. And in this moment of frenzy, Mother has turned, so that she too faces the mirror, and herself. We stand there, her shit on our faces and bodies, both of us, our mouths slightly open – so alike, I see, for the first time in my life – and something moves inside me again, not a scream this time but something more subdued and accepting. I find myself locked on the mirror, on a particular point about two-thirds of the way up the long wall of glass where, just for this one moment out of time, the three pairs of our eyes – Mother’s, mine, and Laura’s from behind us – meet and hold one another, without flinching, or misunderstanding.
‘If you wash her,’ Laura says, her voice as steady as the arms and hands that hold the thick, clean white towels out before her, ‘then I’ll dry her. In fact,’ she says, ‘it would be much better if you got in the shower with her. Just drop all your clothes with hers, and I’ll collect them while you’re washing.’
I do what I’m told, strip, and then guide Mother before me into the shower.
‘Good,’ Mother says, as the warm water hits her, hits us, and I begin to soap her, then to put shampoo in her hair. ‘Good.’
‘Mother,’ I say. ‘Stand still. What are you doing?’
She’s taken another cake of soap from the shelf and is foaming it slowly between her hands. She reaches up then, and begins to soap my forehead.
‘Mother,’ I begin to say, ‘it’s all right. I can do myself later.’ But she takes no notice, and continues to lather, and I stop resisting, and move in further towards her under the rosehead of the shower. And we begin then, with soft hands, to wash one another, Mother making small, nickering noises in her throat like a young horse, as her hands move over my shoulders, my breasts, my belly, as mine do over hers, and the water is in our hair and eyes, and, blinded then, we wash by feel, finding our way with our hands, our fingers. Once, in reaching down for the soap she’d dropped, her cheek, then lips, touch my belly, her hair my breast.
‘How much longer are you all going to be in there?’ Katie calls, and rattles the handle of the door.
‘Go away, Katie,’ a voice says, and I remember Laura, and look out through the steam which is rising and clearing now she has the fan on full blast. The smell, I notice, is going too. The green plastic garbage bag tied tight at the neck with its yellow string is neat and anonymous against the wall. Laura stands beside it, the towels across her forearms once more, as she watches us through the glass of the shower, her eyes, as large as two dark mirrors, faithfully holding our reflection.
Philip is already in bed, half-asleep, when I get there.
‘What a day,’ he moans. Then sees. ‘My God,’ he says, ‘what’s that for?’
I put the tray, the glasses, the cubes and water, the unopened bottle of whisky down on his bedside cabinet. He’s fully awake now.
‘Are we celebrating,’ he says with mock suspicion, ‘or drowning our sorrows?’
‘Neither,’ I say. ‘It’s just that we have something to discuss.’
‘Now?’ he says.
>
‘I don’t think we can put it off any longer,’ I say, ‘do you? You pour. I’ll be back in two minutes.’
‘Miriam –?’ he says, and I’m halfway down the hall when the rest of his words – half-strangled by laughter – reach me: ‘It’s not twins, is it?’
Mother’s asleep in the lamplight, her face as composed and placid as a child’s. And it is strange, I realize, as I put my hand on her forehead and block off the sight of her hair, just how childlike her face is becoming, even the wrinkles filling out, becoming smooth, as unlined and uncluttered as her mind. I sit high up on the bed beside her, and the smell of fresh linen and washed hair comes to me. Her stomach is quiet – the gurgling and turbid, wrenching anxiety has gone from it for the moment.
Goodnight, Mother, I say, and bend to kiss her forehead, and the repulsion, the negative field that always interposes itself between her skin and mine – is not gone, but so much weaker. And I’m not sure any longer that she’s asleep at all. Beneath my lips, I’m aware of something that is itself aware. Watching, listening.
‘Oh, Mother,’ I say. ‘If only I could help you to talk, to tell your story …’
And then I know she’s not asleep because her lips part in the mockery of a smile. For the second time this evening, I push my fingers gently down on the hard, tense muscle under her top lip. And, as I stroke downwards, the muscle or rigid flap of flesh relaxes, smoothes itself back over her teeth. ‘Keep your lips together,’ I say. ‘Now smile. That’s wonderful, Mother,’ I say. ‘That’s just wonderful.’
I turn off the lamp and stand for a moment in the darkness, trying to isolate, to identify, the tiny, whirring sibilance I can hear, a mosquito of sound in the enveloping dark. I lean down till my head’s almost on the pillow beside hers, then almost on her lips themselves: