Mothers' Boys

by Margaret Forster

  It was the weariness in the voice which decided Harriet – the same aching weariness she had felt herself, weary of thinking, weary of remembering, weary to the point of mental standstill and seeing no help anywhere. ‘No,’ she said, ‘we should meet, I want to. I can be at the station by twelve, will that suit? In the buffet, if there is one, or the waiting room?’

  ‘Grand.’

  Her whole day was now wrecked. She’d planned to keep herself extra busy so as not to think about tomorrow. Joe was not mentioning it. He looked and sounded better after the weekend and with Louis around she didn’t feel she was carrying the whole weight of worry about how he’d react to the identity parade. Louis might even go with him. It hadn’t been discussed but she convinced herself it was a possibility and it made her feel pleased to imagine it. Brothers, solidarity among brothers. Louis had been so willing but Joe so resistant – he wouldn’t accept help, was suspicious of any offered and most of all of Louis’. Louis somehow had let him down, though she couldn’t see how. But perhaps, come the morning, come the arrival of Detective Sergeant Graham, Louis would count again. She wasn’t going to put it to Louis – best if it happened naturally. That showed how far she’d come, she decided. All the way through this last year she’d been trying to organise support for Joe. She was through with it. She would not get Louis in a corner and whisper, ‘It might help Joe if you . . .’

  It was easy getting to the station. As usual, she was early, and she had time to inspect the buffet and waiting-rooms. Dismal. They made her shiver. The ladies’ waiting-room was utterly empty except for a bench, a wooden bench with a hard, black leather seat running along one wall. The floor was covered in dark brown lino which had great cracks in it – a dreadful place, she was unable to do more than poke her head round the door. The buffet was hardly better. It was brighter and lighter but small, only six red-topped plastic tables all crammed together and a strong smell of hamburgers hanging over everything. She didn’t want to sit there either. But just beside the station, in a side-street, she found a long, narrow café, flowered cloths on the round tables and posters on the walls. She didn’t go in, but it would do. They could be private in there and not be overwhelmed by the dreariness of the setting.

  If Sheila Armstrong cared about settings, if she noticed them. I don’t know anything about her, Harriet thought, waiting on the platform outside the buffet. Nothing about her tastes, her likes and dislikes. It takes so long for those to emerge. She tried to visualise Sheila’s house, the kitchen in which they had sat, and could hardly remember a thing. Geraniums in a window-box, that was about all. She should have asked Sheila to her house but she hadn’t wanted to, for all sorts of reasons, not just because of Joe. She hadn’t wanted Sheila to invade her own territory, to then become another memory. She didn’t want to have had his mother in her house, and that was so wrong, she was ashamed. It showed yet again how guilty she felt about meeting Sheila at all. Sam would have known it would end up like this, an imposition, a rash act leading to complications. Ginny too.

  She could hardly pick Sheila out, even though there were only a few people walking down the platform, wasn’t sure it was her until she was almost upon her and then she was embarrassed not to have recognised her. It was that coat, the grey coat she’d worn in court, it made her invisible. At home, the blue dress had changed her into an individual and now she was back to being a blur. It was awkward meeting, much more awkward than it had been the first time. Neither of them was in charge, nobody was taking the lead, showing the way, offering tea. Harriet didn’t know whether to shake hands or just smile. She was glad she’d worn a dress with pockets, so she could keep her hands in them until the last minute. Sheila wasn’t smiling. She looked older, she was nervous, hesitant. Harriet felt sorry for her. It flashed into her head that Sheila looked like a victim’s mother, not she. The noise was great for a few moments while one train departed and another arrived, and she pointed at the exit and took hold of Sheila’s arm to propel her along. When they were outside she explained about the café and they walked there, two abreast, formal and silent.

  It was a relief to be sitting down, as far away from the counter as possible. Nobody else was there, except the girl in charge who couldn’t have shown less interest. Deliberately, Harriet ordered a pot of tea, though there was a wonderful smell of coffee and she longed for it. Until it came, they hardly spoke, but once the liquid was poured into their cups and steamed satisfactorily in front of them, Sheila looked more relaxed. ‘I’ll get to the point,’ she said, ‘you’ll want to be off.’

  Harriet said nothing. This is how I must have seemed, she was thinking, so needy, so nakedly wanting comfort. She dreaded appearing patronising, so she kept quiet, played with her teaspoon.

  ‘I went to see my grandson yesterday,’ Sheila said, ‘in . . . you know . . . in there. The policeman asked me to.’ She dropped her voice lower on ‘policeman’, though there was no one to hear. ‘He wanted me to put to Leo a name. The one – you know – tomorrow . . .’

  ‘Yes.’ Harriet didn’t want to say it either.

  ‘I didn’t say I would but I did. And there was no mistake, it is him, it was him. Leo wouldn’t say so but I saw. I should tell the police, really.’ She sounded so depressed at the idea that Harriet found herself saying, ‘I’ll tell them. But it won’t stop them wanting to hear it from you.’ She took a sip of the tea. ‘Well, I suppose Joe will identify him too. And that will be that. After another trial, all that to go through again. I wonder if he has a mother, this brute?’

  Sheila said nothing. Harriet Kennedy seemed a different person to a month ago. Calmer, not so excitable. Maybe it was where they were, in this odd café, maybe she thrived in impersonal places, whereas I shrink, Sheila thought, I am not at home. She is. It was a mistake coming here. She didn’t know why she’d set this ridiculous meeting up. The sooner it was over the better.

  ‘Does the name mean anything to you?’ Harriet was asking.

  ‘No. Nothing.’

  ‘He wasn’t a friend of your grandson’s?’

  ‘Leo didn’t have friends, not close friends. He preferred being on his own, always did. His grandfather, well, his great-grandfather, my father, was his best friend once, and then me. Or I thought so.’

  ‘I wonder how he got mixed up . . .’ Harriet began and was startled to see Sheila struggle to her feet.

  ‘I’d better be going. I only wanted to pass on . . .’

  ‘Please, I’m sorry, what did I say? Finish your tea, please, at least finish that cup.’

  Two women came into the café, laden with shopping, talking loudly. Sheila looked at them as they settled down, strewing their belongings around, ordering soup and bread and a salad, taking over the place. She was glad they had come. Noise, a bit of life, that was what was needed, instead of this agonising atmosphere between her and Harriet Kennedy. She was able to compose herself under cover of the sudden action. She finished her tea and said, ‘I’m sorry, dear. I just can’t bear being asked about how Leo came to do what he did, I can’t stand it, even from you, even nicely put in a roundabout way. It gets me on the raw, I don’t like to think about it.’

  ‘Of course. It was my fault. I wasn’t thinking.’ Harriet paused, not wanting to make the same mistake again. Very, very gently she said, ‘Your Leo, he didn’t necessarily do anything horrific to my son. It upset Joe they didn’t get the other one. They even said in court . . .’

  ‘I know what they said. It doesn’t make any difference. Leo knows it doesn’t. He was there, he watched and he had a knife in his hand . . .’ Sheila shook her head.

  ‘All that to hear again,’ Harriet said, suddenly appalled, and then blurted out, passionately enough to make the two new arrivals pause and turn round, ‘I don’t want to see or hear him.’

  ‘No,’ said Sheila, ‘neither do I. I dread it.’

  ‘I didn’t want to see either of them, and then when your Leo was arrested, I suddenly did. I wanted to see him, just to know, even if
it made it all a hundred times worse. I wanted my nightmares to have their faces, their proper faces, in them.’

  ‘I didn’t want to see your boy. Looking so decent. Hearing all that, and Leo there, part of it. Terrible, terrible. His life’s ruined, he’ll have to live with it all his life.’

  ‘So will Joe.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not making comparisons, I’m not doing that, I know it isn’t the same, but for your boy it was an accident, it could have happened to anyone, he hasn’t got to live with being part of evil. I never believed in evil, never. But now I do. It’s everywhere, everywhere, and no stopping it.’

  The other two women were laughing uproariously, red in the face with mirth. Harriet cleared her throat. There didn’t seem anything comforting to say and she didn’t even know if she should be trying to offer comfort. But even while Sheila was saying it she was registering her own surprised disagreement. Surely, she should be the one saying that about evil? But she couldn’t. She didn’t believe in pure evil, some evil force existing without cause. She rejected it. All evil must have causes, even this random evil which had selected Joe. There must be a reason why this woman’s grandson had assisted in the attack on Joe and why the other one had perpetrated his crimes. If only these causes could be identified, the evil would be understood if not condoned, certainly not condoned. But she couldn’t come out with any of this in front of Sheila. It wasn’t right, it would sound sanctimonious. Sheila’s burden was different. Her grandson, whom she was convinced was tainted with evil, would be released soon and then she would have to live with him, start battling with how they were to live together. Her own life was already soured, embittered, wrecked by the knowledge she had of him. And her sense of failure was complete. It made Harriet suddenly appreciate how absurd her own sense of having failed Joe was – this was failure, Sheila’s guilt.

  ‘It’s all so unfair,’ Harriet said finally. ‘It’s awful for you. And for me.’

  Sheila gathered up her few things and stood up. ‘I’d best be getting back,’ she said.

  ‘Now?’ said Harriet. ‘But I thought . . .’

  ‘I didn’t want to drag you all the way, I just pretended I was coming here, it was no bother anyway.’ She smiled slightly. ‘Silly, eh? At my time of life. My husband would say I was going potty.’

  They walked together back to the station and shook hands, wanting some contact but not an embrace.

  ‘I’ll keep in touch,’ Harriet said.

  Sheila nodded, clearly disbelieving. She’d have to ring Detective Sergeant Graham herself. She’d always known she would. Pathetically, this had only been an excuse to meet Harriet again. A mistake.

  *

  Detective Sergeant Graham was at the station by eight o’clock, anxious to check the arrangements for the parade himself. This caused offence. It looked as though he didn’t trust his subordinates, which was true, he didn’t, not to get every detail right, every tiny detail, as he always did himself. They were quite capable of having at least two in the line-up several inches shorter and a stone lighter than Gary Robinson. He wanted all eight to be six foot and thirteen stone with shaved heads and an earring. The officer on duty, already furious at this interference, looked appalled when he emphasised this – it was asking too much, they’d be combing the streets for days. ‘Comb them,’ he’d said.

  The resulting bunch were obviously a nasty-looking crowd, though he was told one was a medical student and another a dancer. The sight of all of them lined up, half of them smirking, the others sullen, in a hurry to get their money, their £4 each, and run, was formidable, and that was without Gary Robinson yet. Graham wanted to see him on his own first, make sure he understood what would happen if he went on not co-operating. He knew the type, full of themselves, not in the least intimidated by being handcuffed or banged up. All swagger, even now, with a definite gaol sentence looming. He matched him eye-to-eye, stood in front of him and glared. He’d like to hit him, certainly. Perfectly correct, he’d like to do him violence. And Gary Robinson knew he would like to and knew he wouldn’t do it, and the pleasure of knowing this was all over his face. A horrible face, fat, big mouth, squashed nose. Graham thought of Joe Kennedy, having to look at this powerful, strutting figure and remembering. It was enough to make anyone sick. ‘I want him at number three,’ he said.

  They were all lined up, ready to go. Gary Robinson kept back, separate, until they were walking in. Graham felt the uneasiness in the air. The other men, the innocent men, worried at this point, they were infected by the tension, they started imagining being picked out wrongly and not being believed. It was dramatic, an identity parade, always. The whole station loved it. And in this case everyone wanted Gary Robinson picked out and put away for life if possible. When everything was ready, Graham went to see Joe.

  The boy had his brother with him. He’d just come out with Joe, when Graham drew up outside the Kennedy house, and assumed he could come, but he was polite enough, like his father, and anyone was preferable to the mother. He’d liked the way the brother, Louis, kept talking on the way, not being chatty exactly but throwing out laconic remarks about things he saw out of the window of the car which Joe seemed to find amusing. He wasn’t as worried about the boy, this Louis. He didn’t radiate anxiety like the mother. He even told Joe off when he banged the car door too hard getting out at the station. Now the mother, Mrs Kennedy, she’d have let that go, shot him an apologetic look perhaps but wouldn’t have wanted to upset Joe by referring to it. Once in the station, he saw Louis was interested. He pointed out a notice to Joe and they both laughed. Far, far better than that mother. The boy was as relaxed as it was possible to be at the moment. All that might change, of course, but at least they were going into this ordeal with a victim in a state of composure and not gibbering with apprehension to such an extent that he would not be able to identify his own face if it were shown to him.

  He was watching Joe very, very closely, as they stood together looking through the mirror. No young face was ever really impassive, he reflected, though he recalled Leo Jackson’s, the exception that proved the rule. Adults, certain adults, could train themselves, but there was something so fluid about an adolescent face that the muscles and nerves responded to the faintest reaction of the person. Joe was trying so hard to be expressionless but already, as the first in line walked into the room behind the mirror, his mouth was twitching and his rate of blinking had increased rapidly. The moment Gary Robinson lumbered in, the effect on Joe was dramatic – his face flushed, his eyes widened, he was so agitated his finger literally shook as he pointed it and said that was the one, number three, definitely. But Graham kept him there. He made Joe watch all the other five, front-on, sideways, both sides. However cruel, he wanted Joe to see Gary Robinson from every angle. He asked him again and again if he was absolutely certain, again and again to look carefully. Only when the whole line had moved out did he let Joe go. Everyone was elated of course. Smiles all round, the news passed on quickly. For a moment it was as though Joe, too, shared in the elation . . . he smiled as he told his brother he’d identified the principal attacker, and when Graham patted him on the back and said, ‘Well done, Joe,’ he seemed pleased. But this euphoria faded before he left the station. Sitting in the car with Louis, waiting to be taken home, Joe leaned back on the seat, closed his eyes and was suddenly tremulous. ‘I don’t want to go home,’ he said to Louis. ‘Not yet. I don’t want Mum to see me. I feel sick.’ The driver looked through his driving mirror at Louis, waiting for his instructions. Louis didn’t seem to have any. He frowned, said, ‘Mum will be at work, won’t she? She said she was going to go.’

  ‘She won’t, though,’ Joe said. ‘She’ll be there. I know she will. I can’t stand it.’

  ‘How about a walk then, and a cup of coffee? Then we could just get a bus.’

  ‘Okay.’

  They walked up the river, self-consciously. Not a normal activity on a Tuesday morning, two brothers walking up the river, neither saying much. Joe h
ad his head down, kicked stones. Louis had his up, looking at the river and wondering why he’d never fancied fishing. He yawned. ‘I’m sorry I’m boring you,’ Joe said furiously, ‘let’s go home.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, I couldn’t help yawning, for Christ’s sake. Don’t be so bloody touchy.’

  ‘I am boring. All I think about is what happened and it’s ages ago. I’m pathetic. All I do is whinge. It isn’t even as though it was all that awful . . .’

  ‘It was awful all right, you needn’t worry about that.’

  ‘. . . hundreds of people go through much worse, they end up scarred for life.’

  ‘You’re scarred.’

  ‘I’m not . . . don’t start that, all that crap, that’s what Mum does, poor little Joe, all this stuff about . . . if my arm was cut off people would realise, but because it’s my mind. . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh nothing, she gets muddled, she means I am scarred, only it’s in my mind.’

  ‘Maybe she’s right?’

  ‘She’s not right. It’s just self-pity, that’s all. I just wallow in it, going over and over it, I’m sick of it, sick of it. I wish I’d never said a word.’

  ‘Wouldn’t have mattered if you hadn’t, you’d have been found, you’d have been taken to hospital, how could you have said nothing?’

  ‘I mean about the rest, what he made me do.’

  ‘Do?’

  ‘Stop echoing me, I hate it.’

  ‘What else can I do when I don’t know what the fuck you’re on about? What rest? What did they make you do? Why is it nobody in this family tells me anything?’

  ‘It isn’t the sort of thing you tell. And I didn’t, just Mum.’

  ‘All this mystery, that’s what I’m sick of. How can I understand if I don’t know, eh?’

  ‘You’ll only laugh.’

  Louis stopped walking abruptly. Joe had already gone another few yards before he caught up with him again. He took hold of his arm and pulled him round quite roughly. ‘Why would I laugh at anything to do with what happened? You’re an arrogant little bastard, Joe, do you know that? You’re the only one with any feelings, of course, sensitive little Joe, and I’m just a rugger-playing hearty, that’s it, isn’t it? No point in telling old Louis anything, or Dad, it’s only Mum and her precious little flower who really feel anything. Right. Fine. Let’s go home. I’m fed up. Anyway, I’ve got things to do, I’m off on Thursday.’