Mother Can You Hear Me?

by Margaret Forster

  Seventy-five was not as special as seventy. On Mother’s seventieth birthday Angela had sent a basket of seventy red roses. Like Hollywood, Mother had said, and the glamour of it had excited her. But that gesture could not be repeated, nor any of the others that had been successful because they were original. Clothes, however absurd in the circumstances, remained Mother’s abiding love. Mother would have been a fashionplate, given the chance. She had the figure, she had the interest, she had the taste—all she lacked, quite cripplingly, was the money. Her sister Frances, a dressmaker, had done wonders for Mother in her youth, concocting dresses out of material left over from customers’ orders for Mother to wear stylishly as she herself, small and fat, could not. But then later on Frances married and moved away and her departure coincided with Mother’s hardest, leanest, years. There were no new clothes at all. Mother had to wear everything until it was threadbare and she hated it. The darkest day of her life was the furtive visit she made to a secondhand shop because she absolutely had to have a dress for a wedding.

  Mother still loved clothes and being smart and liked to look nice whatever her health even if she went nowhere. People complimented her all the time on her appearance but the compliments infuriated her. Oh, that old thing, I’ve had it for years, she would say, as if that were condemnation in itself. If she had something new she would be endlessly critical of how she looked in it until Father’s cry ‘You can’t please your Mother’ took on a new meaning. She longed to be able to go shopping again, to try on lots of clothes and walk up and down in them in front of mirrors and finally select the best. Father, to Angela’s relief, would not allow it any more. He said Mother would have an attack, she wasn’t up to it, all that pulling on and off, all that fastening and unfastening. He said she had more than enough clothes to see her out.

  A new dress for the coming summer would please Mother more than anything but the mere thought of shopping for it depressed Angela extremely. There were so many rules to remember. The dress must have long sleeves because Mother did not think any lady over forty ought to show. their scraggy elbows. It must open down the front or else it would be too difficult to put on. It must be washable. It must not have anything that tied at the neck, because she could not tie things herself any more, but on the other hand it must have some kind of neck, some sort of collar, not just a bare neckline. It must not be too long, which Mother thought dowdy, nor too short, which she thought common. It was better that it should be patterned but not garish and colourful but not gaudy. The size was tricky. Small and thin, Mother had staggeringly large hips—‘very deceiving’ sales assistants used to say with pursed lips, to Mother’s embarrassment. Size 12 was right on the upper half but tight on the lower. Size 14 was baggy on the upper but perfect on the lower. A decent fit could only be had if the styling of the dress lent itself to a tailored top and a loose skirt.

  Angela bought a dress after much deliberation and several fruitless journeys to shops she had never before frequented. Packed in a large cardboard box and then wrapped in gold foil the package looked thrilling enough. There remained only the birthday cards, one from each of them, and these had to have verses. Mother set great store by a meaningful verse but card manufacturers did not. Mother liked the sentiments of the sender to be very exactly expressed, she liked a verse to tell her how much she was cherished and loved, she liked it to be above all else sincere, to be from the heart.

  By the time Max and Saul had been born, as well as Sadie, life had become hectic and Angela looked back with nostalgia to the days when she had had only one child. More and more Sadie was pushed into the background without anyone ever meaning to do it. She was very good about it. It was her goodness that caused the accident. One day, one winter’s afternoon, they all came in from the park muddy and cold with the newborn Saul yelling his head off. Max, a violent, troublesome, strong little boy, ran straight away into the kitchen and with one swipe cleared the table of three glass preserving jars left there to label. There were splinters of glass everywhere. With Saul frantically sucking at her breast, Angela tried to pick up the largest pieces, shrieking at Max to get out of the way. Sadie had meanwhile quietly disappeared. She went up to her room and there she ate a strange combination of tablets—a whole bottle of orange-flavoured Junior Aspirin, bought to give Max, who was cutting his back molars and woke every night screaming, half a bottle of Fluoride tablets because she liked the salty taste, and four iron pills because they were a pretty speckled colour. Sadie ate them all sitting on the rug in front of Max’s cot, her deft fingers opening the bottles (‘CHILDPROOF TOPS’) with no difficulty whatsoever. Sensibly, she went backwards and forwards to the bathroom getting herself drinks of water between mouthfuls of tablets. Nor did she feel any guilt about what she had done, or even begin to realize the danger. When she had finished, when Max’s hideous roars had subsided, she brought the empty containers down and asked Angela if she could have them for her doll’s house. They went to the local hospital in a taxi—Ben had the car—as though on a treat outing. Sadie, so composed in her bright red crocheted beret, Sadie still and solemn, holding the glass of liquid that would make her sick. And Sadie stubborn, not drinking it, refusing mutely to try. On and on went Angela’s pleading, bribing, explaining. Useless. Into a room, Angela insisting on being present much against medical advice and wishes, where they put Sadie on a table and pushed a tube down her throat and poured gallons of liquid through it. Sadie, tear-stained, vomit-streaked, pitifully trembling as Angela carried her out, refusing absolutely to leave her for the night. Sadie slept. Angela cried. At midnight, Sadie woke and screamed and did not stop until eight o’clock in the morning. Rocking her backwards and forwards all night Angela gratefully accepted the punishment. Every hour of exhaustion deepened her remorse but relieved her misery. When Sadie pummelled her with clenched fists she made no attempt to stop her. When Sadie’s sharp nails scratched a long red line down her cheek she humbly allowed her to do it again. It was Ben who finally comforted the child. All next day Sadie stumbled about white-faced and whimpering until in the evening she made her peace—she climbed onto her mother’s lap and there the sweetness of her embrace moved Angela to tears that threatened never to stop. She had no wish ever to prise the soft, limp body from inside her own languid arms. They had grown together again, they were wrapped into each other’s bodies like the tender new shoots of a vine wrap round each other the better to grow. Their bodies said what their tongues could not and Angela was afraid to move. The bond was there, as indissoluble as ever in spite of that distant, remote look that had come so lately into her small daughter’s eyes, and the knowledge that it was there, that she had not imagined it, that it was not all on her side, both saddened and comforted her.

  Sadie recovered very quickly. She became proud of her adventure. She lectured Max about not taking tablets, ever, and in her shrill, self-righteous tones Angela heard herself and shivered.

  Father ‘phoned very early to say Mother’s present had just arrived.

  ‘It’s grand,’ he bellowed, ‘just the job. I’ve had it on her and it fits perfect. She’s not up yet of course, I haven’t got her up yet, she’s been getting up later since she was took bad—but I pulled it on over her nightie and she had a look in the mirror and she says it’s champion. And she got cards from the boys and letters—bang on time—and she’s over the moon.’

  ‘Good,’ Angela said.

  ‘You’ll be ‘phoning her this evening?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Well, remember to leave it till after “Nationwide”, suits her best.’

  Suited him best.

  Organizing the children to do their bit was dreadful. None of them appreciated the importance of doing things Mother’s way. Sadie groaned and said all right, all right, but what do you want me to say, and Angela at her most scathing suggested it might not be too difficult to answer that one herself. Surely it was not beyond her ability, at the age of sixteen, to think of how to wish her grandmother a happy birthday? Su
rely she had some natural feeling for an old lady who had always loved her and was now ill and housebound? Sadie flounced out, slamming the door, but she came back and was there when the telephone call was made and sang with the rest of them ‘Happy-Birthday-Dear-Granny’ like an old-fashioned harmonizing group. Then Sadie, as the eldest, was the first to speak and did it beautifully, so well that no one could have known from her sweet solicitous tone that her face was contorted as she signalled to Angela that she couldn’t think of what else to say. Max refused to say anything except ‘Happy Birthday’ and then rushed into the street to carry on with a football game. Only Saul and Tim chatted freely and naturally so that Angela blessed them from the bottom of her heart.

  ‘When I am old,’ Angela said at supper, ‘don’t ever force your children to ring me when they don’t want to.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Sadie said, ‘I won’t.’

  ‘But I expect I will want them to,’ Angela said, her hand poised above the soup ladle as she thought about it, ‘I suppose, when you’re old, you want affection at any price, I suppose—’

  ‘Hurry up with the soup,’ Sadie said.

  ‘When I was young—’ Angela began.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ Sadie said.

  ‘When I was young,’ Angela repeated, but ladled out soup at the same time so that everyone began eating and ignored her, ‘I thought I would always want everyone to tell me the truth, but now I’m not so sure. The trouble is—’

  ‘Mum,’ Sadie said, ‘wrap up.’

  ‘Why? Why should I?’

  ‘Because we don’t want to hear you rambling on—do it if you like but we won’t listen.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s boring.’

  ‘How do you know it’s going to be boring? I used to love my mother’s stories about when she was young, I used to plague her to tell me them—’

  ‘—perhaps they were interesting—’

  ‘—I could never get enough and—’

  ‘—Yours aren’t.’

  ‘—I would plead with her to tell me my favourite ones over and over again. But you, you have no interest at all in my memories.’

  ‘You go on so,’ Sadie said, ‘you just wallow in them. I mean, I don’t want to hurt your feelings—’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘—but you’ve told us everything a million times.’

  ‘That isn’t true.’

  ‘It is. And you don’t just tell us stories either—you only tell them to make moral points—you only tell them to get at us because we aren’t as marvellous as you think you were when you were young.’ Sadie was quite calm and unflurried and that made it worse. ‘Like now—you want to tell us about your grandmother really, don’t you? All this stuff about what old people must feel like is just working round to it, isn’t it? You’ll get on in a minute to how you used to go every day after school and read to her and all that and you think we’re so thick that we can’t see that you really mean how rotten we are when we even have to be persuaded to talk to our grandma on her birthday.’

  ‘Well,’ said Angela, ‘if you have everything so well worked out why don’t you appreciate how I feel?’

  ‘It’s sickening, Sadie said, shrugging.

  ‘But why?’

  ‘It just is. Anything else—I’m starving.’

  ‘What I don’t understand—’

  ‘Oh, Mum—bloody hell—’

  ‘But why can’t we ever discuss anything—I want to know what you think—when I was young nobody ever wanted—’

  But Sadie had gone, grabbing an apple and a banana from the bowl on the table, stalking out without a backward glance.

  ‘Never mind, Mum,’ Max said, ‘you can tell us about when you were young. What did you do?’

  ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘But I want to know, really, go on.’

  ‘I don’t feel like talking any more.’

  Father had never permitted argument. If he said something you thought ridiculous or silly you just had to hold your tongue. If he said something you knew to be factually wrong there was no hope of contradiction. Worst of all were the occasions upon which he told you not to do something you knew he did himself. ‘Don’t cross the road without using the crossing,’ he would say. ‘You do,’ Angela would flash back. ‘You don’t do what I do,’ he would say, ‘you do what I say, and that’s that.’ That was that, or you got a slap. ‘Take your shoes off when they’re muddy—take them off at the back kitchen door like I do.’ ‘You said we hadn’t to do what you did,’ Angela said, ‘remember?’ Another slap, harder that time. Nobody laughed. Nobody explained the difference. Explanation—reasoned argument—was something she was never honoured with. But Sadie had been. Everything she challenged was justified, defended or if necessary conceded as after all wrong. Yet somewhere the theory had gone wrong—they gave Sadie explanations by the bushel, they, Ben and herself, were prepared to share every thought, but Sadie gave nothing in return. She hated all talk. She suspected all conversation. They were left to guess the reasons as to why they were ‘sickening’ or boring or any of the other more unpleasant present participles.

  There was just a slight feeling of fear in Angela when she saw Sadie again—a matter of feeling weak and suddenly old and unable to cope. Sadie’s strength impressed her—not her physical strength, though the fact that she was now two inches taller than her mother was intimidating in itself—but an overall atmosphere of confidence that Sadie carried everywhere with her. It must be an illusion, of course. Angela realized that but it did not help. Sadie’s power reduced her little by little every day—she was not the same sure person she had once been. To gain Sadie’s respect was important and she was aware of an unhealthy desire to please growing in her. Sadie did not give an inch. She dictated the terms of their relationship mercilessly. There were rarely any rows—few shouting matches—no scenes—on the surface little friction. The tales Angela’s friends and neighbours told her of their teenage daughters were not her experience, but the lack of real communication they complained of was. Whose fault? Nobody’s. A fact of growing up that must be accepted. It must not be mourned over, or made too much of—that way, the way Mother had gone, lay disaster, and she was determined to avoid it. The fear would pass.

  ‘Grandma’s on the telephone,’ Sadie shouted. Angela, startled, looked at the clock. Eight thirty, everyone milling around getting ready for school, herself included. Only ten yards to the telephone on the desk but long enough to visualize Father stretched flat on the floor and Mother hysterical at his side. And it was hysteria—sobs and choking sounds that went on and on while she said ‘Mother, Mother whatever is wrong—Mother, can you hear me?’ But then, blessedly, in the background, Father shouted, ‘You’ll have a turn if you go on like that.’ Father had not collapsed. With indecent cheerfulness, Angela said again, ‘Mother, what is the matter?’

  ‘It’s Sally,’ Mother croaked.

  Sally was Mother’s youngest sister, youngest of the six in the family, all girls. Angela had always disliked and despised her.

  ‘She’s gone,’ Mother said, before another spasm of grief engulfed her. Angela made soothing noises while she waited for the tears to subside. ‘Sidney found her on the floor this morning, in the kitchen.’ More tears, more roars of disapproval from Father.

  ‘How awful,’ Angela murmured.

  ‘And—and,’ Mother wailed, ‘and—me like this—Father won’t let me—can’t—’

  ‘I’ll go to the funeral,’ Angela said.

  ‘Oh!’ The long-drawn-out sigh of content took even Angela, used to Mother’s values, by surprise.

  ‘I can go in a day—no problem.’ Angela said. ‘I’ll ring Uncle Sidney now and find out the details—and I’ll arrange flowers from you.’

  ‘You’re very good,’ Mother said, calmer. ‘Oh, I feel so relieved—the shock—and it seemed so awful that I couldn’t even go to my own sister’s funeral—I can’t believe it—Sally’s never been ill, never, never
had anything wrong with her—I can’t believe she’s gone first.’

  ‘Was it a heart attack?’

  ‘Yes—like our Mother—same age, too.’ There was a new tone in Mother’s voice. She was resentful—Sally was going to their own beloved Mother first and hadn’t even suffered, not like Frances with her kidneys and Maud with her varicose veins and Agnes with lumbago and Amy with diabetes and of course Mother herself with her arthritis and strokes. Sally had never ailed a thing, had never had any troubles, had always enjoyed herself and now she had gone first.

  ‘I know it’s sad,’ Angela said, ‘but it’s exactly the way Sally would have wanted to die, don’t you think?’ Mother did not reply. She clearly found even the suggestion that Sally might have welcomed a sudden death too insulting to consider.

  ‘What on earth was all that about?’ Sadie said, giving a final brush to her hair in the hall mirror.

  ‘Grandma’s sister’s just died.’

  ‘Oh. Does she mind?’

  ‘Yes, of course she minds. People do mind when their relations die.’

  Brush pushed in bag, dinner money grabbed from shelf, front door slammed.

  At last the black suit was worn and there was some grim satisfaction in having funeral apparel ready. If it had not been ready, there would have been no time, in the familiar panic of arrangements, which any day away entailed, to provide it. All Mother’s sisters would flock to Norwich for the funeral and Mother would grieve more at missing the reunion than mourn at missing the funeral ceremony. To Angela, the thought of having to see the assembled clan was depressing. The only one of Mother’s sisters she had ever liked was Frances, the dressmaker, who was thought to have done rather well for herself in marrying a bookie. They had a stout, ugly detached house in Solihull which Angela in her youth had enjoyed visiting, thinking it the height of luxury. Frances would admire her suit and describe it to Mother, who would be pleased, not knowing the suit was meant for her own funeral.