‘Don’t go back, Mum,’ Joseph had said. ‘Stay up here with us – we’ve got plenty of room.’
‘Oh, don’t be silly. Eat your biscuit.’ She had slapped the back of his hand playfully.
‘But why not?’ Joseph said. ‘What have you got to go back for?’
‘It’s where I live. It’s my home, love. Anyway, how would your Dad cope on his own?’ She brushed crumbs off the table, stacked their cups and saucers back on the tray, folded the paper napkin and put it in her pocket. Her role of mother was re-established, after she’d been the guest at her son and daughter-in-law’s large London home for a week. ‘Now, come on, I need to find the ladies before I get on this train. Don’t want to miss it.’
Sighing, Joseph stood up and gave her a resigned look. ‘You won’t miss it, Mum, don’t worry. And they do have loos on the train, you know.’
She stood up, linked her arm through his. ‘I’m not going in one of those – I’ll probably get locked in or something.’
Why do I do that?, she thought to herself now, as the speeding train bounced her gently in her seat. She could feel herself wobble; could feel her jowls vibrate and her flabby stomach quiver under her best coat. Why do I play the part of a helpless little Mum? She looked at her reflection in the dark window. Saw a round-shouldered, tired-looking woman with frizzy silver hair and a heavy, drooping face. I even look the part, she thought. And I don’t know how I let this happen. She remembered when the boys had been small; how she had promised herself she would always make an effort, keep herself looking nice for them. By then, it had no longer mattered to Alec; he’d showed no interest in her appearance, except to grill her about the cost of things and why she didn’t make them last longer. But she’d wanted to be bright, cheerful and nicely dressed for her three lovely sons; had wanted them to be pleased to see her at the school gates, standing there with the other young Mothers in their pretty tops, colourful skirts or well-fitting winter coats. It had been hard, of course, with the tight budget Alec had kept her on, and she’d always put the boys clothes first. And now I drag on these drab old things and behave like a semi-senile old granny. She glanced down at the shapeless, brown coat that had been her ‘best’ for years.
A group of four men sat a few rows down from her, and although two of them had their backs to her, she could see that they were all smartly dressed. She thought they had probably been to a meeting, or some official function. They talked quietly amongst themselves, occasionally laughing at something one of them had said. She was impressed by their easy, relaxed behaviour, the way they seemed so comfortable with each other. Joseph and Daniel were like that; confident and at ease in any situation. They never showed signs of being anxious or daunted by anything. Not like her eldest, Matthew. He’d never trust himself to sit and chat like that; he wouldn’t use public transport at all now. His nerves had always been bad, although he’d hidden it well when he was growing up – all the fights and trouble at school had made him seem like a proper little so and so. But she knew different; knew how deeply unhappy he was. And she knew why – his father had always been hardest on their first-born. She had watched Matthew cause trouble with his friends, his brothers, teachers, employers, and knew it all stemmed from the overwhelming sense of inadequacy implanted by his father. She had hoped he’d leave his feelings of worthlessness behind as he grew older but that hadn’t happened. If anything, Matthew was worse now. And of course he drew attention to himself with the dreadful swearing and strange, twitching movements he made all the time. Matthew was plagued by excesses; he ate, drank and smoked too much. And he swore too much. He seemed intent on burying himself under the numbing effects of overindulgence.
The train slowed and she looked out to try and see where they were. She had no idea how much time she’d spent wrapped up in her thoughts. The window was an oblong of darkness except for a few distant lights and she couldn’t make out any landmarks. Perhaps they were coming into a station, and then she would be able to get her bearings. She could see her reflection again but didn’t want to look closely this time. I could have made a difference, she thought. I could have helped Matthew; I should have got him away from Alec. She felt a tear roll down her face, over her sagging cheek and under her jaw. She brushed it away, conscious of all the people around her. It wouldn’t do to break down in public. Alec would have nudged her hard and given her his coldest, disapproving stare. She would have felt ashamed and embarrassed, and he’d have done his best to make sure the feeling lasted.
As the train picked up speed again she rummaged in her pocket for a tissue. She found the paper napkin, and held it discreetly under one eye at a time, hoping she wouldn’t be noticed. She folded it neatly and sat with it in her hand, her souvenir from the stay with Joseph. She remembered what he’d said about the last train hardly stopping and wondered why they had slowed down if not getting ready for a station. Perhaps something was wrong. Mustn’t start worrying, she thought. Don’t want to go back to that helpless little old lady act again. Bad enough that I do it with the boys – don’t want to start doing it on my own. She turned the napkin over and over in her hand and sighed. She had got into the habit of giving a performance to her sons, and now to her grandchildren – one of pretended helplessness and ignorance about almost everything. It had started as a way to bolster the boys’ fragile, developing self-esteem whenever Alec had ridiculed, criticised or humiliated them. She would make herself the stupid Mummy who needed their help to understand things, to do even simple things. And in coming to her rescue, they could feel useful and good again after being crushed by their father. After all these years, it had stuck; she couldn’t be herself now, had lost touch with who she really was. So she kept up the foolish pretence even though Daniel, her youngest, was now thirty-five and recently divorced.
She tried to think back to who she had been before. It was so far back – before she’d had the boys, before she’d met Alec. No-one from those days would recognise her now. She had been slender then, and upright, with beautiful green eyes that shone, and glossy dark hair. Her friendly smile and outgoing nature had drawn people to her. She was popular, charismatic, and was always off out somewhere; to the pictures with her friends or to the dance hall on a Saturday night. She wore those full, swinging skirts that had been in fashion then, with lots of net petticoats underneath to make them stand out. She’d had a tiny waist, nipped in with a wide belt, and high-heeled shoes that belonged to her older sister. She was full of life and energy, never sitting still for ten minutes at a time. And she was happy.
She jolted back to her surroundings. The carriage was quieter now; some people had fallen asleep, their heads at awkward angles against the windows. One young woman was resting against her chap’s shoulder, fast asleep. Alec would never have allowed her to do anything like that, not even when they had been courting. He had always been very proper and well-behaved, that was how she’d thought of him at the time. ‘He’s a real gentleman,’ she had told her mother. Later, during the early years of their marriage, she saw that it had nothing to do with good behaviour. Alec was mean and cold and could hardly bear to be touched, even accidentally. He seemed incapable of simple acts of kindness or generosity, and held on tightly to the basics of life, such as words and physical closeness. It was as if he feared losing these, as if he had been issued with a limited supply and had to ration them carefully, using them only when it really mattered. Or when he thought it would impress someone. Even when he ‘reprimanded’ the boys, he used few words. It was his terrifying silence and hard, closed face that they dreaded as much as the punishments he preferred to give with his hand and the buckle-end of his leather belt. She shivered inside her coat and closed her eyes. I can’t undo any of it, she thought, not now. No matter how much I put on this act of being a stupid old woman needing her sons to put her right all the time, I can never take away what happened to them. I’m not stupid now and I wasn’t then either. So why did I let it happen?
The train came to a gradual, squea
ling halt at a brightly-lit station. Doors banged. Her eyes were slightly sore with tiredness, and the dazzling lights outside made them sting as she watched the luggage-laden travellers plod along the platform. A shrill whistle blew, more doors banged and the train pulled away again. They were less than halfway home. She thought of Joseph again, asking her to stay. It had not been the first time he’d asked her during the visit. He’d been asking her to stay for two or three years now.
‘I’ve talked to Dan about it, Mum,’ he’d said after an evening meal.
‘Oh have you indeed?’ she had said in her stupid mummy voice, wanting to pinch herself hard for sounding so patronising. He hadn’t gone along with the act, hadn’t played his side of it like he usually did. Instead, he took her hand and held it. His face was serious. He’d said,
‘Really Mum, me and Dan can afford to buy you a nice little flat near here, or further out if you like.’
She’d tried to interrupt but he’d squeezed her hand, carried on. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Seeing the children all the time, having weekends with us, coming out on family trips? Not to mention being a permanent baby-sitter. Liz is thinking of going back to work soon – we’ll need someone to look after The Barrel.’
‘You mustn’t keep calling my new grand-daughter The Barrel,’ she had said, seeing her chance to get off the subject. ‘Her name’s Lily and she’s nicely chubby, just like babies should be.’ She’d made a mock slap at his arm, but Joseph wasn’t in a playful mood.
‘Leave him, Mum,’ he said. ‘You’ve put up with him all these years – now it’s time you had a bit of happiness.’ His face had looked sad.
‘He can’t even boil an egg, or — ’
Joseph interrupted, unusually for him. ‘I know he can’t even boil a bloody egg, Mum – that’s because he’s got you running round after him all the time, waiting on him, tiptoeing about. Of course he can’t boil an egg. Or do anything else for himself; the lazy bastard never needed to learn did he? Anyway, he was too busy, wasn’t he? Beating the shit out of Matt, or bullying me and Dan with his threats and piss-taking.’ He put a hand up to stop her cutting in. ‘And he’s still making your life a misery, isn’t he? Still giving you the silent treatment for days on end; dictating when you can and can’t see the family; keeping a tight hold on the purse strings. When’s the last time you had a new coat, Mum? You’ve been wearing that bloody thing since I was at school.’ He held his palms over his eyes – the familiar way he’d had since childhood of shutting the world out.
She had been shaken by his anger. Joseph didn’t often discuss his father so directly. Instead, he would make veiled but unmistakeable comments about the man he called Smart Alec; the man who he hadn’t seen or spoken to for nearly two years, since a row over his late arrival one Sunday lunchtime. Road-works had held them up and by the time Joseph, Liz and little Samuel had knocked on the door, it was half an hour later than arranged. Alec had been livid. He wouldn’t speak to anyone. Lunch had been eaten in a strained, unsettling atmosphere that was eventually too much for the young Samuel, who buried his face against his mother’s stomach and could not stop crying. Outraged at the ‘lack of discipline’ in his three year old grandson, Alec had banged his knife and fork down, left the room without a word and not returned until the embarrassed guests had gone home. Now, hearing Joseph vent his strong feelings, she didn’t know what to say. Defending Alec; the automatic and dutiful response she usually gave, felt wrong. But she was afraid of the open emotion her son had shown. Her familiar stupid Mum performance was the only way she knew to diffuse things; get them back to talking about the baby or the washing-up; something safe.
‘Right,’ she’d said, ‘you go and sit down and I’ll get the washing-up out of the way.’
Joseph had made a low, groaning noise, then said, ‘Mum, will you forget about the bloody washing-up; what do you think the bloody dishwasher is for?’
She had forced a nervous laugh. ‘Now, now, you can stop all this swearing,’ she said. ‘You know I don’t like it; makes you sound — ’
‘What?’ he said, his face sad. ‘Makes me sound like Matt? Is that what you mean, Mum? That it makes me sound like my wreck of a brother? No, I don’t think so; he can’t help it, don’t forget. That’s the difference between us. I actually felt like swearing – Smart bloody Alec has that effect on me sometimes – while Matt has got a recognised condition, Mum. He doesn’t go round deliberately offending everyone with foul language. It’s Tourette’s, Mum; Matt can’t help it. And you know as well as I do who’s to blame for that and all the other problems he’s got.’
‘I don’t understand all these medical things,’ she’d said. ‘You know I don’t.’
Joseph had looked at her for a long while, his sad eyes shiny with unshed tears. ‘Okay, mum,’ he’d said quietly.
She looked along the carriage, much emptier since the last station. She thought of all those people going back to their various homes, their various lives. Were they all happy and content with what they had? She doubted it; that wasn’t the way of things. You couldn’t expect things to be perfect all the time, couldn’t walk out just because things got difficult. She had been so upset about Daniel, divorced at his young age, and after only seven years of marriage. In her day, couples didn’t break up like that – especially when they’d got a family. No, you just made the best of things, and waited – nothing lasted forever; not the bad things or the good. She wanted to tell her boys that – wanted to remind them of the good times when they’d been small – the fishing trips, games of cricket, and the days out they’d had together. But part of her brain held another version, alongside those isolated happy memories, and she feared that it would spill out as she spoke. Feared she’d be like Matthew with his swearing – his explosive thoughts, uncontrolled, uninhibited and rude, bursting through as he tried to talk about ordinary things. Poor Matthew had said everything the other two had been thinking, however hard he’d tried to stop himself.
‘Clever bastard,’ he’d blurted out when Alec had lectured them all on homework. ‘Piece of shit,’ he’d said when told to go to bed. ‘Four-eyed prick,’ on a car journey. The list was long, painful and depressing as she’d watch him get worse. She also knew that it was sometimes hilarious – that’s why she had found it so hard to accept it wasn’t deliberate. But when Alec had beaten him for it, over and over throughout his young life, Matthew had hiccupped, belched and spat the words out more erratically. And as he grew up, the words were more offensive, more obscene, and Alec had hit him harder. I should have got him away, she thought. I should have got all my boys away.
She looked along at the group of smart men. One of them had gone now, and of the remaining two, only one was awake. He was reading a book. She wondered what their childhood years had been like. She’d used to do this at the school gates, when the boys were little. She had been desperate to know whether their life was how it should be. She had nothing to measure it by, had no indication of what was normal. The other children had seemed just like her own boys – loud, scruffy, full of energy, and happy. Now she knew that you can’t tell from someone’s public face; you can’t ever really know what might be behind it. Other people, after all, seemed to have no idea about Alec. They seemed to believe his performance and accept it; they didn’t see the sadistic, cruel, inferior little man behind that amusing, chatty, and charming show he puts on. Thankfully, she only has to witness that sickening act on rare occasions. They seldom go out these days. Never a naturally sociable man, the cost of that forced confident, gregarious behaviour was high and he would sink into a morose, vindictive mood for days afterwards. She knew he carried a gnawing fear of being judged and rejected; knew he had a hollow dread that he was somehow not good enough, and that he was terrified of being exposed. Because she had seen these hidden vulnerabilities in him – only once or twice, but had nevertheless seen how they gripped him – she had always found a way to explain his bullying and cruelty to herself. There must be reasons for t
he way he is, she told herself. He never talked about his family or early life, so she would never know, but she couldn’t believe Alec had become the way he was without cause. And the cause was too painful for her to dwell on.
The swishing sound of the carriage door opening brought her back to herself; it had been still for a while now. A short, stocky young man staggered through. He was holding a can of beer or larger, and he swayed dramatically – grabbing at the backs of seats to steady himself. His hair was ruffled; one side of his shirt had come un-tucked. As he passed her, he lurched to one side and almost fell into the empty seat in front of her.
‘Whooa,’ he said, as he dragged himself up. ‘Fucking train’s all over the fucking place.’ Then he laughed and stared round at other passengers, as if waiting for them to join in. No-one did. He took a swig from his can, and then said, ‘Miserable fuckers.’
‘You mind your language,’ she said without thinking, and immediately wished she hadn’t. It wasn’t her stupid mum voice, she was actually being herself.
He leaned against a seat and looked at her. His flickering, unfocused gaze moved over her face, past it and then back again, as if he couldn’t quite decide where she was. ‘You what?’ he said. She could smell his breath. ‘You fucking well what did you fucking say for fuck’s sake?’
She could feel her heart pounding but she was suddenly angry rather than scared of this little drunk. She stood up, her baggy brown coat taking a few seconds to adapt to her upright shape.
Grave Misgivings Page 22