by Anna Maxted
I am choked with dread and I just know. I am reminded of a story I skim-read in the Daily Telegraph about a man who was stabbed to death on a business trip to Switzerland. His girlfriend, in Sussex, had rung his mobile and he hadn’t answered. ‘I knew he was dead,’ she told the reporter. ‘At that moment, I knew it, without a shred of doubt.’ I read this tale when both my parents were alive and well and annoying and my reaction was ‘Huh! She knew indeed! Lucky chance!’ Now, that woman is me. My mother is dead. I need air.
‘I’m sorry,’ I gasp to an amazed Laetitia and rush out of the office and into the street. I look about wildly, having no clue what I’m doing or where I’m going, run across the road, flop on a wooden bench – In fond memory of Anthony Bayer, who loved London – oh God, and try to breathe. I feel hot and cold and sick and faint. Five seconds later, Laetitia appears.
‘Helen,’ she says twitchily. ‘What ever’s the matter? Did you have a tiff with whatzisname, Jason?’ I notice Laetitia stands at a distance so there is no danger of bodily contact.
‘My mother is dead!’ I whisper.
‘You mean your father,’ she says.
‘My mother. I know it.’
Laetitia clears her throat. ‘Helen,’ she says, ‘your mother just rang. She asked me to take a message.’
Shit. Laetitia never takes messages. Ever. How excruciatingly embarrassing. I breathe slowly, deeply, and sit up straight. ‘Thank you, Laetitia, very much,’ I say hurriedly.
Laetitia adds briskly, ‘She said, if you’re free, you could visit her tomorrow evening.’ If I’m free? My mother, thinking of someone other than herself? Amazing. I nod and – panic over – meekly follow Laetitia back inside.
When I arrive home I brace myself for Marcus playing doctors and nurses with Catalina. I am most surprised when Marcus rips open the door as I jiggle the key in the lock, a ferocious expression on his face. Still smarting at the dead dad jibe, I trust. ‘Your! revolting! animal!’ he snarls, ‘has! shat! all! over! my! BED! AGAIN!’ He looks as if he wants to hit me.
‘Oh no,’ I breathe, proud and delighted at Fatboy’s impressively pertinent social comment. Marcus marches me to the evidence. Fatboy evidently has what my mother refers to as a ‘runny tummy’. I tut. ‘Don’t worry,’ I say, smiling broadly, ‘I’ll clear it up.’ I skip to the kitchen to fetch rubber gloves and paper towels and wonder how to reward Fatboy. Tuna juice? The coat game? (The coat game is the most tedious game in the world ever and involves me poking an umbrella or a stick under my coat and Fatboy pouncing on it ad infinitum until I die of boredom.) Retching, I scoop up the diarrhoea, leaving brown streaky smears over the white cotton. I spy my hero licking his paw from the safety of my bedroom. I am transporting the pooh-towels to the bin when the phone rings. Marcus answers it then holds the receiver out to me wordlessly.
I wrench off the gloves. ‘Hello?’ I say. Marcus ponces out of the room.
‘Helen,’ weasels a voice which I recognise with a heavy heart as the oily Alan.
‘How did you get my number?’ I say icily.
‘Michelle,’ he replies happily. I’ll kill her.
‘I assume this isn’t a platonic call,’ I say in a bored voice. At this point, Marcus stamps back into the kitchen holding his stinky bundled up duvet at arm’s length and stuffs it angrily into the washing machine. He can hear every word I say. So, when Alan asks me if I’d like to join him for ‘a spot of supper then on to a disco’ – a disco! – even though I’d rather shave off my eyebrows and eat a rat sandwich – I say with a loud enthusiasm that must convince Alan I’m schizophrenic, ‘I’d adore to go out with you on Saturday night.’
As soon as Marcus is out of earshot I press 1471 and inform Alan I’ve changed my mind and our meeting will consist of a quick coffee. Then I call Michelle to give her the biggest, scariest, buttock-clenching earbashing she’s ever experienced in her privileged north-west London life. I start off snapping, ‘Michelle, I’d prefer it if you don’t give out my number to men I’m not attracted to,’ and end up simpering, ‘No, you’re right, thank you. Yes, a night out with Alan will take my mind off Marcus. And Jasper, yes.’
I tell you. Sometimes, I really hate myself.
Chapter 11
AS I SEE it, if you’re a man in your twenties, your friends live to make life hard for you. They tell you you’re ugly. Your job is sad. Your car is shite. Your girlfriend is going to leave you. It’s their way of being supportive. But. I am a woman. And the entire point of being female and having female friends is that however hideous, stupid, or unwise you look, act, or behave, they are biologically programmed to tell you you’re wonderful, your hair looks fab, and that you did the right thing. It’s their job!
So when I tell Tina about my ‘date’ with Alan, I am amazed and aghast when she dares to be unsympathetic. ‘If you didn’t want to go, you should have said no,’ she says flatly. I explain it was a ploy to make Marcus jealous. ‘But Helen,’ she replies, ‘Marcus doesn’t give a toss.’
I’m outraged. Not even the courtesy to humour me? ‘Tina,’ I snap, ‘it’s scientific fact that men always want what they can’t have.’
She replies smoothly, ‘And women, apparently.’
I scowl. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
Tina snorts: ‘You know what it means. Marcus is, at kindergarten level, a laugh. He is, if you’re into the Incredible Hulk, fit. But he’s also a prat, with a dick the size of a weevil. You’re in a state over Marcus because he doesn’t give a toss. And, because of him, you’re about to waste an evening of your life with some creep. It’s mad.’
Mad? It’s incredible. It’s incredible that one of my closest friends – who I rely on to confirm that yes, I did make the right decision to trim my fringe with nail scissors in a fit of boredom/spend two weeks’ salary on a pair of shoes so high I wore them once and suffered severe backache for five days/sleep with Jasper on the first night even though he then asked ‘Do you always sleep with a man on the first night?’/tread heavily on a man’s toe on the tube when he whacked me with his briefcase before realising he was blind – isn’t agreeing with me!
I ignore her and don’t bother consulting Lizzy for a second opinion because I have a sneaking suspicion she’ll be just as male about it as Tina. In a form of silent protest, at 1 p.m., I eat my tuna sandwich and Dime Bar at my desk while browsing through the Daily Mirror. Then I realise Tina’s out on a fashion shoot, Lizzy’s attending a perfume launch, and I’ve done myself out of a lunch hour. I spend the rest of the afternoon trying to keep up with Laetitia’s unstoppable flow of ‘little tasks’, and feeling irritably conscious that my breath smells of tuna. I leave work at six on the dot and go straight to my mother’s.
I ring the doorbell. No reply. I ring again. Most unusual. I ring again. Finally! A figure glides slowly down the stairs and approaches the frosted glass. Clank! clank! and the front door is slowly heaved open. ‘Since when have you bolted the—’ I begin as I step inside. Then I look at her, I see my mother. And I am frozen with shock. She looks like death.
She has always been slight (I take after my father) but in the three weeks I haven’t seen her she has shed at least a stone in weight. Her hair hangs in clumps, filthy and lank, her wan face is devoid of make-up and her skin is dry and papery. This! A woman who scours the beauty pages of Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire and Vogue every month (she doesn’t bother with Girltime) and can differentiate between Berry Kiss and Crimson Shimmer at a glance! Who cleanses, tones, and moisturises religiously, flosses after every meal including lunch (she keeps a toothbrush and other equipment in the staffroom), and showers once in the morning and again before bedtime. And what is she wearing? A knitted brown jumper five sizes too big for her and saggy black leggings. She looks like a student.
‘Oh my God!’ I say, when I recover the power of speech. ‘Oh my God look at you! Mum, you look terrible, terrible! You’re a skeleton! And that horrible jumper! It’s summer! You look like a tramp!’
She
stares back at me dully. Her eyes are blank. Then she says, ‘It belonged to your father,’ and starts to weep. Huge, gulping, hiccoughing, gut-wrenching sobs. I grab her and, in an awkward half-hug, carry her to a chair. Jesus! She’s lighter than Fatboy! Which admittedly isn’t saying much but you get my point. The sight of her, weak and emaciated, is so repellent I find it hard not to cry myself.
‘Oh Mum,’ I whisper, ‘what have you done to yourself? When did you last eat for Christ’s sake! The state of you! Shit! Why didn’t you call me?’
She is sobbing so hard the words are swallowed almost as she says them. But while they are indistinct I hear them and her answer is like a knife slashing at my heart: ‘I did.’
She starts to cry again. I crouch and rock her and stroke her flat greasy hair and the sobs become deeper and more savage until she is yowling like an animal in pain. ‘Owww,’ she howls, ‘I can’t re-mem-berrrr . . .’
I gulp, ‘What can’t you remember, Mummy?’ I’m terrified. I don’t want to know.
‘I – I can’t remember him, just the hospital. I want to remember him alive but,’ – now screaming – ‘I can’t! I can’t! Why can’t I? I can only remember him dying, oh god oh god it’s so bad, how can anyone bear it?’
I close my eyes. I have goose pimples and a hard painful lump in my throat. ‘Oh Mum,’ I whisper. The tears are pricking at my eyes, but not out of grief – out of guilt. I picture myself necking tequila, lolling in bars, rolling around naked with Ape Boy instead of calling my mother, and the pain is acute – I shudder and shrink from my thoughts as if they are blows.
And yet. I feel a fraud. Separate. Untouched. The feeling is like an out of body experience – as if I’m watching my mother and myself, dispassionately, from another place. The yowling continues until my mother exhausts herself then it subsides to a whimper. I keep stroking her hair and its greasiness is sticky on my hands. I also notice that she smells. Unwashed. Stale. My mother stinks. I clutch her shoulders – ugh, I can actually feel the bone sharp underneath the skin – and give her a little shake. ‘Mummy!’ I say in a stern voice as if she were a small child. ‘Listen to me! I am going to run you a bath and if you like, I will help you wash your hair. I’ll even wash between your legs if you can’t manage it yourself. What do you reckon?’
My mother stiffens in horror – rather as if her own daughter has just offered to give her a naked botty massage. ‘Certainly not!’ she squeaks in a voice so high and loud it would deafen a bat. ‘How could you suggest such a thing! Disgusting! I’m perfectly capable of washing myself!’
Thought that’d snap her out of it. All the same, I escort her to the bathroom, turn on the taps, pour in a litre of bubble bath, and alert her to the whereabouts of the shampoo. ‘I want you to stay in there for half an hour and get your hair squeaky clean,’ I say. ‘I am also going to put some clean clothes for you to change into on your bed.’ My mother hovers uncertainly on the bathmat. Wafty as she is, I give her a gentle hug. ‘You just relax in that nice warm bubble bath,’ I say, uncomfortably aware that I sound like Lizzy at her preachiest health ‘n’ beautyist worst, ‘I’ll get you a clean towel from the airing cupboard. Take your time. I’ll be downstairs if you need me.’
I leave my mother to undress, dig out a towel from the airing cupboard, and march to her wardrobe. I select white knickers and matching bra, a light blue cotton blouse, a beige belt, and a navy pair of what I believe elderly people call slacks. Sunny, tasteful, but not too garish in the face of death. I am laying this outfit on her bed when I catch a whiff of the sheets.
Now I don’t mean to boast but I am not overly pristine. I keep as many cheesy green fluffy mould-filled coffee cups under my bed as the next woman. But when one’s sheets reek of stale sweat and mature Brie, even I recognise that it is high (and I mean high) time for a spin in the Zanussi. I strip the bed of its top sheet, bottom sheet and pillow cases – an old nightshirt flies out so I grab that too – punch the whole lot into the washing machine, pour in a generous slug of Persil, and twist the dial to boil wash. Then I plod downstairs to the kitchen.
My priority is to force my mother to eat. I open the fridge – the fridge that I always make a beeline for whenever I visit my parents in the secure knowledge that it will always contain: A, chocolate mousse, B, smoked salmon, C, exotic fruit, D, expensive cheese, E home-made vegetable lasagne, F, pure pineapple juice. In other words everything my own deprived third world fridge never contains. Today, however, my parents’ corporate fat-cat fridge is bereft of its bounty. Its contents: A, one tub of peach yoghurt (a week past its sell-by date), B, one wrinkly tomato, C, a micro-portion of Edam cheese, D, a small bar of Dairy Milk chocolate, E, a packet of Cornflakes, F, a copy of The Firm by John Grisham. Jesus. (I don’t mean Jesus is in there, I mean . . . goodness me.)
I place the Cornflakes in the larder and The Firm on the bookshelf. I don’t know what else to do. Should I run to the twenty-four-hour Tesco for supplies? Or should I vacuum the lounge? I reason, if my mother has starved herself thus far, she can go hungry for a few more hours. I’ll tidy up the hallway and work my way through the house. I am, to be honest, fearful of what I’ll find. And my fear is justified.
I peer into a plastic bag minding its own business by the umbrella stand and discover that it is stuffed full of envelopes. Brown, white, envelopes – all unopened. With a sinking heart, I snatch one out. It is addressed to Mrs C. Bradshaw. On the back, in small green print, it reads ‘If undelivered, please return to:- John Lewis plc . . .’. I rip it open. It is a statement of my mother’s account, as of a fortnight ago. She owes £43.00 for a Philips kettle.
Frantically, I tip the plastic bag upside down and shake its contents on to the floor. Gas bills, telephone bills, credit card bills, electricity bills. There is also a letter from our solicitor Alex Simpkinson – dated fifteen days ago – stating that my father’s assets, debts and liabilities need to be ascertained in order to complete the probate papers, that my mother should forward any demands she doesn’t wish to deal with on to him, that he’ll be in touch as soon as he is in possession of all the relevant details, but in the meantime, should she require any advice she shouldn’t hesitate to get in contact. I am trembling with – I don’t know what – stress? shock? sadness? But I grimly, methodically open every envelope and place each communication in one of three piles according to status. I don’t have the strength to tackle my mother on this subject right now. And right now, I don’t think she has the strength to be tackled.
The rest of the downstairs is, thankfully, reasonably tidy. It is in the lounge that I make my next shock-discovery: a crisp pink pristine stack of the Financial Times. Twenty-four copies to be precise, including today’s, neatly stowed behind my father’s easy chair. His reading glasses and a heavy wood humidor of Cohiba cigars are on the side table, his red velvety slippers underneath it. I feel like Hercule Poirot. And my mother has mutated into Miss Havisham. This gloomy suspicion is confirmed by an earsplitting shriek from upstairs.
I gallop up to the master bedroom, two stairs at a time. What now? My mother, wrapped in a towel, hair dripping, screeches, ‘You stupid girl, what have you done?’
I bite back my instinctive response which is ‘You ungrateful mad old witch’ and say – gallantly attempting to keep my voice even – ‘What have I done?’
What I have done is to commit the most heinous, mindless, criminal act of vandalism in the history of the world. I have washed my mother’s bedclothes and my father’s nightshirt in a Zanussi washing machine with lashings of Persil at the extremely high temperature of ninety-five degrees, thus exterminating the immeasurably treasured lingering scent of Maurice Bradshaw for ever.
I spend the rest of the evening apologising, tidying, cajoling, consoling, and force-feeding. I make an emergency dash to Tesco and buy spinach soup, strawberries, avocados, cottage cheese, bananas, wholemeal bread, butter, fresh pasta, ready-prepared fresh tomato sauce, salad in a pack, fresh salmon, and a packet of brazil nuts. Most o
f this is on Lizzy’s advice – I call her on my mobile while overtaking a truck on the A1. Apparently, my mother needs oodles of vitamin B6 which, says Lizzy, will ‘cheer her up’ – which I doubt – and is found in ‘meat, fish, nuts, bananas, avocados, and whole grains’.
I am too embarrassed to admit I don’t totally know what a whole grain is, so I buy everything else. I also use my initiative and purchase Sugar Puffs and toilet paper. I am less than thrilled when my mother manages half a carton of spinach soup, one slice of buttered toast then announces she’s ‘full up’.
I growl, ‘At least you ate something’ and vow to work on her tomorrow. I make her eat a vitamin pill, send her to her freshly laundered bed, and tell her I’ll return to check on her first thing in the morning.
When I finally stagger into the flat, it’s nearly midnight. I smother a cross, wriggly Fatboy with unwanted affection, then march to the phone and ring the oily Alan. ‘Hello?’ His voice is groggy as if I’ve woken him up.
‘Michelle’s friend Helen here,’ I say in a sharp, assertive tone.
‘What time do you ca—’ he bleats.
I interrupt: ‘I’m calling to say I won’t be meeting you tomorrow night, or any other night. We have nothing in common so there’s no point.’
I am about to replace the receiver when he butts in, sounding wide awake and spittle-flecked with fury, ‘You ring me up, at this ungodly hour! To announce that you in your infinite wisdom are writing me off! And I suppose you’re also going to inform me that it isn’t me, it’s you—’
I override his reedy petulance with loud disdain: ‘This is a courtesy call to say please don’t contact me again. I asked you not to at the U-Bar but, in your infinite arrogance, you did. And no, Alan. It isn’t me, it’s you.’ Then I take the phone off the hook and fall into bed. I am buzzy, dazed and dizzy with unease about my mother. But even so, after calling Alan, I feel a teeny, tiny, weeny bit better.