Mother Can You Hear Me?

by Margaret Forster

  As she approached the large double doors of the hospital slogans and lines from hymns and poems pounded through her head. Abandon hope all ye who enter here, and she smiled. Forget the little children who cannot come unto you for they will have to manage on their own and will. She told herself to be calm, but calmness was not the problem, she was very calm, seeing what lay before her with great clarity and neither weeping nor screaming. She had been a model of calmness after the first shock. But she was afraid and could not dispel her own fear. Since everything was clear to her, nothing could be evaded—the risks had been explained to her and she understood them. There was no reason at all why this abortion should not be perfectly straightforward—no reason except that sometimes it was not. She had bled profusely after Tim’s birth and that was not a good sign. And the foetus was too large to make the operation routine.

  Her bag was heavy. Her arm ached, but she did not regret walking—anything to avoid a funereal procession in the car with Ben gloomy at her side. She would walk in and she was determined she would walk out—unless she came out feet first in a box. And at that wonderfully Trewick thought she burst out laughing so naturally that people turned to look at her as she crashed her way through the doors and she saw that they were wondering what could send a woman so merrily into hospital on a sunny Monday morning. Still smiling, she made her way across the enormous entrance hall to a telephone and got out her purse.

  ‘Hello, Mother,’ she said, pressing the button hard then waiting for the pips to stop. ‘I’m ringing from a call box just to tell you our telephone is out of order so I won’t be able to ring tonight.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Mother said, instantly brightening, ‘that’s a bother.’

  ‘Yes it is,’ Angela said, ‘and it’s going to take at least three days to mend—something to do with a fault in the street cable. The thing is, the ’phone sounds as if it is ringing normally but we can’t hear it—it’s the worst kind of fault.’ Baffle Mother with science and you were usually all right. ‘Anyway, it can’t be helped—don’t you try to ring me because I’ll ring you as soon as I can. Now how are you?’ A question she tried hard not to ask but fell into out of nervousness. She must remember she was on a timed call and that the money would run out any minute.

  ‘Oh, not so good,’ Mother said. ‘I’ve got a bad back and a cough—you don’t want to hear my moans and groans.’ In the background Father shouted, ‘She’s proper poorly but she won’t tell you.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Angela said, ‘perhaps you’ll feel a little better tomorrow—perhaps this lovely weather will clear your cough up.’

  ‘It isn’t lovely here. It’s cold.’

  ‘Oh. Well, perhaps you’ll get our sun tomorrow. I think I’m going to get cut off in a minute and I haven’t any more change, so don’t forget, I can’t ring you till our ’phone is mended, probably Friday—’ and the pips went. No time for any awkward questions, not that Mother would think of them until hours later when she was made to go over the conversation for the twentieth time by Father, and then they would feel aggrieved that she could not to go out to a friend’s house or a call box to maintain the regularity of the contact with them. It might, after all, have been better to say she was going away on a course, except that then they might ring ‘to see how the children are’ and she did not want them dragged into her own duplicity. She replaced the dead telephone receiver, relieved. If only she could be cut off in reality like that. She gathered up her things and went to find the ward she had been told to report to, her one thought to shut out Mother’s need of her.

  But there was no escape from the pressures she felt crushing her. Thoughts of Mother and of her own family crowded into her head and tormented her. She lay until they brought the pre-med injection, watching the shadows gather in the corners where the white walls met the white ceiling and with every minute her resolution to think only of herself grew feebler. The only alternative seemed to be to think about what was going to be done to her—they would cut and clip and search for the huge-headed slippery pink foetus with its tiny claw hands and they would prise it out of her womb and hold it between bloodstained rubber fingers and throw it into a dish to be taken away and disposed of. She would lie there, still and white-faced, unprotesting, a sacrifice on the altar of chance. Such a brave baby it must have been to struggle through the obstacles put in its way—so strong, so worthy of life. The abstract pity of it brought the first tears to her eyes.

  She stayed awake until the very moment she entered the operating theatre. In the ward, other women came to talk to her but she rudely ignored them—she wanted no interest of any kind. She would choke if she had to say why she was there and the thought of all that wearisome friendliness that could be hers for the asking repelled her. ‘They hardly come near you,’ she heard one patient complaining about the nurses, ‘hardly ever get any of them about. Scandalous.’ She was glad. She relished exactly that smiling brusqueness that others found hurtful, and did not pine for a solicitous doctor who would pat her hand and dispense sympathy. Preferably, she had not wanted to see the doctor who was going to do the operation. Meeting him the week before for an exploratory examination had been painful and she had tried hard not to learn and remember his face.

  All along the corridor and into the lift she gloried in that strange drugged feeling of having let go completely—a feeling of utter irresponsibility that had never been hers before. There was nothing whatsoever that she could do. Bound to the operating trolley, her limbs languid and pliant, she felt caressed by every movement. Round and round the nurses swung her, strange attendants in dark green with a great urgency in their eyes. If they spoke, it was in low, hurried voices, without acknowledging her, and yet they handled her with respect and even awe. They stood in the lift with their backs to the wall staring straight ahead, pulling themselves in so that they did not graze even the side of her stretcher. She began to feel she was not there at all. Pleasantly, disembodied, she hovered above herself and looked down and said ‘How white you are Angela, how frail and pathetic, how dreadful this ordeal is for you, my dear’ and she hurried to answer ‘No, no—I feel nothing—I am happy—don’t be afraid for me.’ She knew it must be the drug making her hallucinate but she didn’t care—the dialogue came and went lazily in her head and she rid herself of a lot of things she wanted to say. The sound of a baby crying as they wheeled her out of the lift and into the anaesthetic room pierced her pleasure sharply and for an instant, before the door swung to and the sound was swallowed into her memory, she felt the most acute distress. Visions of Mother, of Sadie, of all her children and of Ben appeared before her and as she tried to raise herself from the table the attendants restrained her with expressions of the greatest concern. At her side, a new face appeared, a girl who held her wrist and gazed intently through the porthole in the door opposite, concentrating on something Angela could not see. They were all waiting, all tense. ‘Can you manage?’ some unseen person said. Angela wondered if the question was addressed to her and struggled to think of how to say that of course, of course she could, when the girl who held her wrist said miserably, ‘I don’t think so—not this one—not the first.’ And then some signal must have been given. She felt a needle in her hand and the last thing she saw was the doors ahead swing open and the last thing she said was ‘goodbye baby,’ her lips and tongue clumsily slurring the last word.

  Sadie made a great fuss of Daisy Benson, the baby next door. Whenever her mother brought her in, usually to arrange some piece of domestic trivia with Angela, who was a good if cool neighbour, Sadie would swing Daisy onto her knee and bounce her up and down and make silly noises and generally thoroughly disturb the child. She babysat for Daisy and would come back with tales of how sweet she had been and how she loved her. It surprised Angela. ‘I didn’t know you had that side to you,’ she said to Sadie after one particularly demonstrative display, ‘What do you mean?’ Sadie said, on the lookout for all insults. ‘Well, all that kissing and cuddling—it isn’t your style,
is it? You never kissed or cuddled Tim.’ ‘Of course not,’ Sadie said. ‘Why of course?—he was a baby too, every bit as lovely as Daisy, and you ignored him.’ ‘I didn’t—you wouldn’t let me cuddle him—every time I tried you said I was getting him far too excited or something. You kept him to yourself.’ ‘What lies,’ Angela said angrily. But were they lies? She thought back to the first year of Tim’s life. He was so small and weak—he couldn’t be thrown around like the others—she probably had protected him too much and Sadie could be forgiven for thinking it wasn’t protection so much as possessiveness. But she watched Sadie with Daisy and saw her attraction was skin deep—she tired quickly of the child if it was anything but beaming and happy. She played boisterous games but had little patience. When Sadie said, ‘Oh I love Daisy—I love babies,’ Angela turned away in case her own cyncism showed in her face. Sadie was a million miles from being the natural baby lover she proclaimed. If Daisy interfered with anything she valued, or if looking after Daisy interrupted anything that she was doing, then she put herself first, Daisy’s charms or needs forgotten. Sadie never put herself at the bottom of any pile. There was not one shred of martyrdom in her make-up. Angela marvelled at it. She saw Sadie as a mother and knew it would be a different experience. To Sadie, motherhood would be what she chose to make of it, and not what motherhood chose to make of her. And that, Angela told herself firmly, was right. Sadie was right. Daisy lay and screamed in her pram when Sadie was in charge and Angela went and looked over the wall and saw Sadie sunbathing. ‘Sadie,’ she said, ‘Daisy is screaming.’ ‘Oh, she’ll stop,’ Sadie said, ‘I’m not going to fuss.’

  ‘Can you hear, m’dear? It’s all over. Can you hear? It’s safely over.’ Over, over, over—echo, echo, echo. But trapped—no movement to right or left, choking, struggling, wanting to faint when she was already prone, to vomit, to escape, groaning, panic-stricken, remembering the voice, that voice that told her it was all over but failed to bring her any comfort, that dark figure at the end of her bed that spoke soothing words yet seemed to threaten her, and those other faces round about, doing things, hurrying with something, wiping her brow, turning her over, all with fuzzy edges so that she was not sure of their reality. And then the third awakening, light-hearted, silhouettes clear and firm, the earth steady, and only a lotus-eating sleepiness to trouble her. Nurses came in and out taking readings, their profiles lovely in repose as they stood quietly holding their watches pinned to the starched white fronts of their aprons. If they just left her forever cocooned in her swaddling clothes she would be quite happy. She floated along with nothing expected of her, with no decisions to make, and instead of fretting over her children and Mother she hardly thought of them. Something had cut off inside her. She was unbelievably content.

  All through the weeks that followed as she recovered from an abortion that had depleted her strength much more than it ought to have done, she thought about Operation Day lovingly. She found herself going over and over the details, following herself along the corridors of the hospital, watching over herself through the night that followed. It loomed very large in her life and in her dreams. She wanted to talk about it but nobody wanted to listen. As soon as she was home—after a mere four days—they all wanted to forget that she had been ill. She came home and went to bed and within minutes she resumed office. However much Ben roared at them all to keep out, Mummy was resting, in they all came, one by one, full of woes and triumphs that had to be shared. And she could not bear the look in their faces of wariness and hesitation, and that large-eyed look of innocence and pathos that turned her heart over. ‘Don’t worry,’ she found herself saying, ‘I’m fine—I’m better.’ So they took her at her word. They wanted her up and busy and bossy so she got up and fulfilled their expectations. She got up much too soon, bleeding heavily and horribly weak, and staggered about the house doing everything she normally did. Alone, with no commitments, how rapidly she could have recovered. If she were childless, if she were a spinster, if she were motherless, an orphan, somewhere all by herself . . .

  In the afternoons when all the children were at school and Ben had dashed into his office for a few hours she went back to bed and rested. She wished someone would come to look after her. ‘Let’s get an au pair,’ Ben had said, ‘or a mother’s help—just for a while.’ But she had vetoed the idea. Au pairs and mother’s helps brought more problems than they solved. ‘Sadie ought to be made to help more,’ Ben said, ‘I’m going to make her.’ But she vetoed that too. She didn’t want Sadie to be made to do anything—she wanted her to want to do it, out of common humanity, but there was little sign of that. Sadie responded to any abnormal situation by absenting herself. She sometimes put her head round the bedroom door and said ‘Hi—feeling okay?’ and Angela knew she always said, ‘Yes, fine,’ so what could she expect? And when Mother said ‘Everybody all right?’ she always said ‘Fine—splendid’ so what could she expect there?

  What she wanted was a mother. What the whole world wanted when it was sick or ill or tired or miserable or lonely was a mother—a fit, healthy mother with no problems of her own who would come and take over. Angela lay on her bed and closed her eyes and fantasized. Some kind, capable woman of mature years who would be firm with her and stand no nonsense yet not fuss. Some lady of great calmness and serenity who could organize the household and create an atmosphere of peace and goodwill. Some female helper who would fade into the background at all the right moments but always be there to lean upon. I want the moon, Angela thought, and two tears of distilled self-pity trickled down her cheeks.

  When the telephone rang her fingers moved rapidly to switch off the extension beside her bed, but on the other two telephones in the house the ringing went on and on, shattering the mid-afternoon stillness. She thought it might be Ben. Sniffing, wiping away her tears, she rolled onto her side and languidly lifted the receiver.

  ‘Hello? Angela?’ Valerie said, sounding frightened.

  ‘Hello,’ Angela said, barely able to get the word out so great was her fury at having answered at all. Who wanted Valerie, at this moment, in this frame of mind?

  ‘How are you? I thought I’d snatch time off and ring you in the afternoon so we could talk in peace.’

  ‘How kind. I’m fine. How are you?’

  Stunned, Valerie searched for a reply. ‘I’m fine, of course, but how are you really? Was it awful? I’ve been thinking of you ever since I spoke to Ben—did he tell you?—it sounded so frightful, you must be so upset.’

  ‘I’m not in the least upset.’

  ‘Oh, you must be—losing a little baby—though of course it was the right decision—’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why what, Angela?’

  ‘Why was it so definitely the right decision?’

  ‘Well, you’ve got four already—’

  ‘People have twenty.’

  ‘But you’ve never really liked being a mother, have you—I mean, really liked?’

  Valerie’s voice trailed away as Angela’s continuing silence alerted her to the fact that she had blundered badly. When still, after a minute’s pause, Angela had said nothing and the telephone hummed with tension she tried to make amends. ‘What I meant was,’ she said, ‘you’re a marvellous mother—everyone says so—anyone can see it—but you don’t really relish it do you—I mean you’ve often said being a mother crucifies you—and there are other things you’d rather be—so I thought it was fair enough to assume you’d be glad not to have to be a mother all over again. Angela? Angela? Have I offended you? I’m sorry if I have—I only meant—’

  ‘No, you haven’t offended me,’ Angela said, ‘you’ve just appalled me, that’s all.’

  ‘What have I said?’

  ‘Oh, never mind—for god’s sake, what does it matter—I was resting, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s just I wanted to know how you were, and I can’t ask Mother because you haven’t told her, have you?’

  ‘No.’

  �
�Don’t you think you ought to?’

  ‘No, I don’t. Ought doesn’t come into it.’

  ‘How will you manage, then, if anything happens?’

  ‘What the hell do you mean—“anything happens”?’

  ‘If Mother had an attack again—Father says she isn’t at all well—you wouldn’t be able to travel in your condition and—’

  ‘Of course I’d be able to travel—don’t talk rubbish—and all this morbid predicting of attacks and stuff—I don’t want to hear it.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry, all I meant was Mother thinks you’re hale and hearty and you’re not and I just wondered if—if—perhaps—are you managing all right? Would you like me to come down and help? I could get compassionate leave—’

  ‘I do not,’ said Angela, ‘need compassionate leave.’

  She got up after that. There was no rest possible while she remembered how viciously she had slapped down Valerie, who was only offering sympathy. She never seemed capable of giving Valerie what she wanted—those intimate sisterly chats in which confidences were given and taken. Valerie would have relished details of the abortion, would have loved that description of Operation Day she had given herself so many times. Valerie, with that hangdog look, cheeks quivering, voice wavering with the weight of heartfelt thoughts, wallowing in that same sentiment, that same mawkishness that afflicted Mother. She wanted to reject the whole package as soon as it was presented. If it had been Valerie who had had an abortion how they would all have suffered as she wept and wailed her way round the family claiming her due as an invalid. Mother would have been distraught.