An Unsuitable Mother

by Sheelagh Kelly

  But when all the joshing was over, there was the indisputable fact that the removal of Romy’s cheery presence would leave a big hole in the lives of those who remained behind.

  After all the excitement of Romy getting her place at university, in transporting their granddaughter there – Joe being the only one of them who could drive – Nell was feeling at a loose end on the Saturday following her granddaughter’s departure, and suggested she and Joe visit Nina.

  Joe threw back his head as if to sob. ‘Please, can’t I have one blasted Saturday in peace to watch a bit of sport?’ Every day I have to get up an hour earlier than I’d like to, just to attend me lavatory requirements before that bloody Mary comes pestering. We’ve just got shot of our Romy – much as I love her – you’ve got Nina coming round for dinner tomorrow, can’t you wait till then?’

  ‘I just keep thinking of her sitting there all by herself and lonely …’ But Nell showed sensitivity to her husband’s needs too, saying as she packed a macrame bag, ‘I’ll go on my own.’

  Though pacified, Joe thought he should ask. ‘Do you want a lift?’

  ‘No, the walk’ll do me good.’ Nell packed a macramé shopping bag with all her requirements. ‘I won’t bother ringing, she’s bound to be in. Won’t be long.’

  ‘Take your time – and lock the door! I don’t want Mary bloody McCullough creeping in unannounced …’

  Nell did as he asked, then set off. Having a key to her daughter’s flat in case of emergencies, just as Nina had one for her parents’ house, she tapped politely as she entered. ‘Only me, Neen!’

  There was the scuffling of paper and the sound of rapid movement and a certain amount of clattering. Nina was coming out of her bedroom when her mother entered, slightly breathless and red-faced, but wearing a friendly smile. ‘Now then! I wasn’t expecting you.’

  Nell hesitated before coming further into the room that, over a decade, had changed from the garish orange to a more subtle hue. ‘Sorry, have I disturbed you?’

  ‘No! I was just tidying up – the place is a tip, you’d think Romy was still here.’ She began to clear notepads and library books from the sofa. ‘Sit down, if you can find anywhere – do you want a cup of coffee or tea?’

  Noting that her daughter had very deliberately shut the bedroom door behind her, Nell tried to listen for any sign of movement within. But, doubting very much that she had stumbled on a romantic assignation, she made a joke of it. ‘You haven’t got a man in there, have you?’

  ‘Pur-lease!’ Nina gave a slightly disgusted laugh, and went to the kitchenette.

  Whilst she was gone, an inquisitive Nell snatched a look at the titles on the spines of the library books, but not wearing her glasses had difficulty. Hearing the rustle of clothing as Nina came back, and not wanting to be caught snooping, she was in the act of removing a paper bag from the macramé one.

  ‘So, to what do I owe the honour?’ asked her daughter.

  ‘Oh, no particular purpose! I just thought you might be feeling a bit jittery now Greased Lightning’s gone.’

  ‘I am,’ confessed Nina. ‘That’s why I’m keeping busy.’

  ‘You’ll soon get used to her not being here,’ soothed Nell. ‘You want to get yourself a little hobby.’

  Nina glossed over this somewhat. ‘I’ve enough to do with work, thank you very much – what have you got in there?’

  ‘These!’ Nell finally managed to unwrap some china mementoes that commemorated the wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales. ‘They were reduced, I thought you might like one.’

  Nina smiled in exasperation. ‘Haven’t you got enough Charles and Di souvenirs?’ Her mother’s sideboard was littered with china bells, plates, mugs and thimbles.

  ‘I know, but they’re such good quality I couldn’t resist them – take your pick.’

  Without much thought, Nina pointed to a little round pot, then said the tea should be brewed, and went to fetch it.

  ‘Let it stand for a bit,’ said Nell. ‘Don’t jiggle the teabag for five seconds in a mug like your daughter does and call it tea. I don’t suppose you’ve made it in a pot? That’s so idle.’ Suddenly hit by how like her own mother she had begun to sound, she saw Nina’s slight irritation and said, ‘Sorry, but I get the distinct feeling I’ve interrupted something …’

  ‘No, honestly.’ Trying to be more amenable, Nina served up a couple of slices of Swiss roll. ‘I was just cleaning up.’ And to emphasise how relaxed her attitude, she went to add some biscuits to the plate.

  Nell wasn’t fooled, though, and was quite excited when she arrived home. ‘I think Neen’s doing an Open University course!’ she told Joe, who was trying to watch the racing. ‘She had all these obscure text books strewn about, and as soon as I came in she looked flustered and started clearing them up. I tried to see what subjects they were but I’d left my glasses behind –’

  ‘What have I told you? Keep a special pair in your bag! You’ll be going to the supermarket and serving me rat poison by mistake.’

  ‘What makes you think it’ll be a mistake?’ Then Nell hunched her plump shoulders with anticipation. ‘No, I think she’s going for a degree, Joe!’

  ‘How can you get a degree without GCEs, or whatever they call them these days?’

  ‘I don’t know – but she’s definitely doing some course or other, I think one of the books was about psychology or psychiatry –’

  ‘It could have been psittacosis. You didn’t have your specs on.’

  ‘Oh, there’s no use telling you anything!’

  He stopped hectoring then, seeing Nell had been pushed to her limits, and took his eyes off the TV to say genuinely, ‘No, I’ll be pleased for the lass if she gets it. Romy going off to university must have made her think – maybe she’s jealous.’

  ‘Why would you be jealous of your own child?’ Nell despaired that he could have so little insight. ‘Envious maybe …’

  ‘Well that’s what I meant. We’ll just have to wait and see. I don’t know why she was acting so guilty about it, though. Maybe she’s scared of failing.’

  Nell’s mood darkened. ‘Why would she fail? She’s got the ability. It’s more likely that she dreads being reminded of her decision not to stay on at school, made to look a fool for changing her mind.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that!’ Failing eyesight or no, Joe saw the way she was looking at him.

  ‘Well, make sure you don’t. And when she finally does get around to telling us she’s passed, act surprised!’

  Unsure how long an Open University degree course would take, but using Romy’s progress as their yardstick, neither Nell nor Joe was to make any mention of their suspicions to Nina, content to bide their time until she voiced it herself.

  Long before this, though, came a more personal milestone for Nell, who was about to draw her old-age pension.

  ‘I can’t believe I’m sleeping with a blasted pensioner,’ teased Joe. ‘There was me thinking I’d got meself some young dollybird.’

  Nell smiled to herself. ‘They didn’t have dollybirds thirty years ago. Even if they had, I shouldn’t have numbered amongst them.’ And the years of cooking for her family, nibbling on anything they might leave, had stacked on more pounds – though gladly she still resembled an hourglass rather than a dumpling.

  ‘Is that how long we’ve been wed, thirty years?’

  ‘Well, twenty-eight, but what’s two years between friends?’

  But there were more sombre events going on that year, one of them being the dreadful clash in the Falklands. Having followed the triumphant battle every night from the safety of their armchairs. Nell thought she caught a glimpse of tears in her husband’s eyes, and had to assume it had brought back memories of wartime, just as it had for her. He was never to openly shed them, though, for like most of his kind he kept all his experiences shut tightly away. Nell wondered what a man of his generation must really feel at the way the world was going, when God knew it was hard enough for her to cope with
all the terrible savagery that occurred not just on the battlefield, but that was committed by the IRA on the streets of England. Not to mention all the casual violence one read about in the daily newspaper. It frightened him, she knew, that he might not be able to protect her, for he had fitted locks on all the windows, and never went out after dark now. No amount of locks, however, kept some people out.

  ‘Here she is, Mary McCullough with an arse like a bullock.’ Joe didn’t look up from his newspaper as their neighbour came to plonk herself down amongst them.

  ‘Have you seen it?’ asked an animated Mary.

  Nell deduced ‘it’ to be the latest outrage by the IRA, for Mary was never happier than when speaking of an atrocity. Nell herself had no desire to wallow. ‘It’s appalling, but no amount of discussion from us is going to help, so we just have to focus on the good things like little Prince William.’ What a coincidence that the royal heir had been named after her son.

  But Mary had short shrift for the monarchy, nor for dwelling on happy events. ‘It’s all right for you, Nell, looking on the bright side. You haven’t had the kind of life I’ve had.’

  ‘We’ve all had our trials, Mary.’

  ‘Why, you’ve nowt to complain about,’ scoffed Mary. ‘You’ve got your family all round you.’

  Well, that was partly true, admitted Nell, Mary’s child might have been dead for the number of occasions she had contacted her mother. In contrast, over the time that Romy had been away at university, she had sent her grandmother half a dozen informative letters, whilst Mary had received nary the one, apart from a cursory scribble in a Christmas card.

  ‘Anyway, as it happens I do have some good news.’ Mary arranged her full skirts before making her important announcement. ‘Rosemary and her husband are going to buy my house for me!’

  ‘Good for them.’ Joe sounded unimpressed as he studied racing form in his newspaper.

  ‘I might have known Snakehips would crib,’ she told Nell. ‘Bet he’d jump at the opportunity to buy his.’

  ‘With the neighbours I’ve got? You must be joking.’

  Mary advised that the government was offering hundred per cent mortgages if he couldn’t afford it. ‘My Rosemary says anybody who doesn’t buy must be mad. She says it’ll be an investment.’

  Joe eyed her cynically. ‘Aye, for her. That’s if she bothers to keep it in good repair. She’s not likely to dash over from America just to slap some putty on the windows. Nell and me’ll have to sit and watch it crumbling – it’d bring the value of ours right down, and you wonder why I’m not bothering to waste my money?’

  Mary started going on about America then, and how much better than England it was, further getting Joe’s back up. Tired of listening to their sparring, Nell allowed her mind to drift to the faraway land that was home to her son, wondering too how Romy was progressing at university, and Nina with her Open University course …

  Convinced that the latter was what occupied Nina these days, Nell allowed her to get on with it, and during the intervening years busied herself with daily chores, plus local bits of excitement. Struck by lightning, part of the Minster had been destroyed by fire. Mary had been stricken too, immobilised by two frozen shoulders and unable to even get herself to the lavatory – wasn’t it a boon to have a nurse right next door? Nell, had previously suffered a very painful frozen shoulder of her own, and had gained no sympathy from Mary. Yet she harkened to her neighbour’s beck and call for as long as she was needed, because that was the role life had carved for her.

  If reward was not to come from Mary, then it eventually arrived in a different form. Cheered by the news that their granddaughter had won her degree, it was even better for Nell and Joe when she came round in person, along with her proud mother, that Saturday after tea. First comment, though, was for her hair, which had been fashioned into spikes and dyed bright cerise. ‘Good God!’ cackled Joe. ‘What planet are you from?’

  ‘That’s my favourite colour,’ put in Nell, replacing shock with diplomacy.

  But Joe had no such tact. ‘What do you want to go hacking at your lovely mane for?’ he asked his granddaughter, but his manner was affectionate, and Romy gave an indulgent laugh as they exchanged hugs, especially as he so applauded her too. ‘Never mind, you’re a genius – by, we’re that proud of you!’

  ‘Oh yes, love, we are – congratulations!’ An equally delighted Nell hugged her too, before Joe handed their granddaughter fifty pounds. Then she asked, ‘What job do you have in mind, Rome?’

  ‘She can be anything she wants with that under her belt,’ grinned Joe, hoisting his trousers in that triumphant way old men had of emphasising a statement.

  Romy gave a self-effacing laugh and said that everybody had a degree nowadays. All of a sudden she seemed to have lost the self-assured air of a woman, and to take the spotlight off herself, she put in, ‘Did Mum tell you her fantastic news?’

  ‘Er, thank you!’ Nina held up her palm, as if to prevent more indiscretion; but too late, for her mother was keenly awaiting an answer. ‘It’s nothing much, I was going to tell you, if milady hadn’t stuck her oar in.’

  Nell looked at Joe, the glint in her eyes saying this was the degree she had prophesied. Ready to bellow congratulations, her jaw dropped as their daughter added: ‘I’m having a book published, that’s all.’

  Nell and Joe looked at each other again, their expressions pleased but confused. ‘What kind of a book?’

  ‘Oh, just a novel.’

  Romy bent over and chortled in glee at her grand parents’ shock. ‘Isn’t it intergalactic – my mother, the author!’

  ‘But … well, I never did!’ an astonished Nell finally managed to blurt, Joe similarly inarticulate. ‘We were expecting you to say you’d been studying for a degree too!’

  It was Nina’s turn to be nonplussed. ‘What would I want with a bloody degree – no offence to you, love,’ she was swift to tell Romy, so as not to bedim the occasion.

  ‘But what about all those books I’ve been seeing in your flat?’ asked a flabbergasted Nell. ‘I thought you were studying for an Open University course …’

  All became clear now. ‘Ah, bloody nosey parker!’ Nina threw back her head and laughed at her parents’ total surprise. ‘You’ve been biting your tongue for all these years, dying to know, but not daring to ask – well, now you do!’ Throwing a loaded smile at the graduate, she explained to the others, ‘I was keeping this as Romy’s day, but never mind, it’s her fault for letting the cat out of the bag.’

  ‘Well, goodness me, congratulations!’ enthused Nell, launching forth to plant a smacking kiss on her daughter’s cheek, just as she had done for Romy. It seemed to her that Nina was eleven years old again, instead of in her thirties, bashful under this approval from her mother, yet awaiting that more important word from her father’s chair.

  ‘Aye, well done!’ Joe rose again, and, with stiff movements and an awkward smile, came to pat her shoulder. ‘So, what kind of book is it?’

  ‘As I said, a novel.’

  ‘But what’s it about?’ pestered Nell, and in the same breath, ‘Have you read it, Romy?’

  ‘No, she’s kept it well hidden!’ The daughter’s laughing eyes accused her mother, whilst Nell remained flummoxed.

  ‘But why did you keep it a secret, even when you knew it was going to be published?’

  ‘I just wanted to see your expressions when I presented you with a copy.’ Nina chuckled at the ones her parents wore now.

  ‘Blow me …’ said Joe, shaking his head. ‘When did you manage to write it then?’

  ‘On an evening, and weekends.’

  ‘So that’s what you were up to when you said you had work to do!’ Nell was beside herself with excitement, and hugged the fledgling author to her bosom, shaking her about. ‘Oh, well done you – am I allowed to tell Aunty Beat?’ Permitted to reveal the closely guarded secret, she asked excitedly, ‘When do we get to read it?’

  ‘When it’s printed.’ Nina
retained her nonchalant carapace, though it was obvious she was elated, for her eyes shone. ‘It’s not out till next year. You’ll all just have to wait.’

  ‘Oh, just give a little hint of what it’s about!’ Nell was greedy for details, until Joe gave her a playful shove and warned:

  ‘She’s told you to wait and see!’

  ‘Well, I’m just so excited and proud!’

  ‘You can see the lass doesn’t want us mithering her,’ scolded Joe. ‘Let her enjoy it in her own quiet way.’ And he turned his attention once more on Romy, asking all manner of questions about her degree, and her life at university, finally saying how good it was to have her back.

  ‘Sorry, I’m only here for the weekend, Grandad.’ Romy looked deeply apologetic.

  ‘I thought you’d be moving back in with your mam …’ Joe looked in turn deflated then concerned. ‘You’re not staying in Scotland?’

  ‘No, I’m getting a flat with a friend in Leeds – so I won’t be too far away.’

  Nell was disappointed too, but had seen the way Romy had hesitated over the word friend, and guessed she must be moving in with Steve, so did not ask why Leeds.

  ‘A Leeds Loiner, is she, your friend?’ said Joe, only the women noticing Romy’s little smirk, as she gave a nod. ‘Well, make sure you find a decent area. I don’t want to be getting roughed up when I come to visit.’

  ‘We will – and once I get a job I can afford a car, so I’ll be able to get over and see you.’

  ‘It’ll never be often enough for me, though. Eh, we had some lovely times when you used to live with us …’ Rather flattened, he sought to make himself feel better by focusing on the good news. ‘Well, never mind, let’s have a drink to celebrate your achievement,’ he told his granddaughter, and rose to get a bottle of sherry from the sideboard.

  ‘And Nina’s,’ his wife had to remind him as she set out the glasses.

  ‘Ooh, aye, Neen too!’ said Joe, hoisting his glass at their daughter. ‘Here’s wishing you success.’