Mothers' Boys

by Margaret Forster

  When the car stopped she paid no attention to it. ‘Mrs Armstrong? Sheila?’ a voice said, and then she looked and saw Harriet leaning out of the car window. She was too old to blush, but she felt hot all over. She didn’t get up, just smiled and nodded, as though she were perfectly used to sitting on this bench in this strange road. ‘Are you waiting for the bus? Can I give you a lift?’ Sheila shook her head. ‘No, thank you, I’m fine.’ She saw Harriet hesitate, and then give a little wave and drive on. She didn’t turn to follow the car, just sat looking straight ahead and praying for the bus to come.

  Harriet parked the car and sat there a minute. Obviously, Sheila had come here deliberately. Had she been to the house? Had she rung the bell? There was no other possible explanation for her sitting on that bench. So why hadn’t she spoken, given a cry of recognition, been relieved to see her? Harriet had only noticed her because she looked so forlorn, in the middle of that uncomfortable bench with no back to it, a bench so hard, the wood splintered, that nobody ever did sit on it. She’d changed her mind, whatever she’d come for. Harriet went into the house and hesitated. She didn’t want to embarrass Sheila. People should be allowed to change their minds, think better of their perhaps foolish impulses. She didn’t want to ask Sheila into her home either. That was all done with, finished. She had absolutely no obligation to Sheila Armstrong. None. The reverse. But it was because of that, the sheer lack of any commitment, that she opened the door again and walked down her own road to the bench where Sheila still sat.

  ‘Come and have a cup of tea,’ she said, ‘there won’t be a bus for half an hour, honestly, the service is terrible.’

  Sheila was clutching her bag as though it contained something precious. ‘Really,’ she said, ‘it’s very kind, but really no, thank you, no, I’d rather not.’

  Harriet didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t force Sheila to come. ‘Were you visiting someone?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ Sheila said, ‘I was just on an outing. For pleasure.’

  ‘Oh. On your own?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you have outings often? How nice. My mother used to go off on her own sometimes, but I don’t think she ever really felt comfortable, she always felt sort of conspicuous. Of course, she couldn’t drive, driving makes it easier, going off on your own.’

  Sheila said nothing.

  ‘Please,’ said Harriet, putting her hand out and touching Sheila’s arm. ‘Please come and have a cup of tea.’

  They sat at the back, on the terrace. ‘Lovely garden,’ Sheila said, ‘lovely view.’ She was over the awkwardness now, she was enjoying this.

  ‘It was built for the view,’ Harriet said, ‘the house isn’t much but the view makes up for it. It’s hard to get everything right, isn’t it? You have to settle for one or the other.’ She remembered Sheila’s drab terraced house, with no garden, no view. It suddenly struck her that it was silly to evade the issue with trite observations about houses. ‘You seem different,’ she ventured, then tailed off. Really, how she’d screamed at people who’d asked if she ‘wanted to talk about it’.

  Carefully, Sheila put her tea-cup down. Pretty cups, delicate, rose-buds on a white background, old-fashioned. ‘It’s Leo,’ she said, ‘he won’t come home when they let him out. He doesn’t want us. He wants to go to some hostel or something.’ She picked her tea-cup up again and drank.

  ‘How awful,’ Harriet said, almost whispered, and then repeated ‘awful’ again. ‘Maybe,’ she went on after a long pause, ‘maybe it’s consideration for you, not wanting . . . you know . . . not wanting to put you through any more, feeling he should keep away . . .’

  ‘Maybe. I expect so. Anyway, that’s it. He doesn’t want to come to us. We might never see him again.’

  There was nothing Harriet could think of to say. Sheila’s pain was so evident in her dejected expression, the tired face, the drooping shoulders. Other women, Harriet thought, might be relieved, they might have dreaded . . .

  ‘Of course, it’s a judgement,’ Sheila was saying. ‘I was dreading him coming home. I wanted him to, but I was dreading it. What I wanted was Leo as he used to be, when he was my boy. Not what he’d turned into. But I would never have closed the door to him, never. He surely knew that. My father would’ve done. He would now. He’ll be pleased when I tell him.’

  ‘You never found out, really, did you, what exactly . . .?’

  ‘No, never. I thought it made no difference but maybe it did. He’s not saying.’ She sighed heavily. ‘Here I am, troubling you again. It isn’t right.’

  ‘You’re not troubling me. I brought you in, remember? I wanted you to come home with me.’ Harriet paused. Whatever they said to each other always seemed full of pauses, so haltingly they spoke, long, long, consideration given to the shortest sentences. ‘Things are better here,’ she said, ‘at last, they really do seem better.’

  ‘Is it that other one, being caught?’

  ‘No. No, I don’t think so. That made it worse for a while. It isn’t that, being over, and it isn’t over yet, with the trial coming. Gary Robinson is twenty-two, he’ll be named. It might be a Crown Court case. I don’t know if Joe will have to go through it, but I expect so. No, it isn’t over, it isn’t that. It’s more Joe looking to the future again. He hasn’t, not for all this year. He didn’t seem to believe in it, everything was the past. And for me too, I couldn’t believe in any future for him, and . . .’

  ‘I can’t for Leo. That’s it. He hasn’t got a future, that I can see. He’s finished, finished. You wouldn’t believe what a good boy he was. But if I’d to start all over again I wouldn’t know how to do any different, that’s the point.’

  I’m making noises, Harriet thought, clucking noises, I’m just making noises because there isn’t anything to say. She shouldn’t have allowed this to happen, it did her no good and it did Sheila no good. However hard they tried there was an immense gulf between them which was impossible to bridge. Nothing to do with one being the mother of the victim, one of the attacker; one elderly, one middle-aged; one poor, one prosperous. It was to do with suffering, the different nature of their respective suffering. This woman’s was deepening, her own was lifting, and as it lifted she was already losing the language, distancing herself from such unhappiness, fearing to be dragged down once more. It was hopeless.

  When Joe shouted, ‘Hi! I’m home,’ she was terrified.

  Chapter Twelve

  THERE WAS REALLY no need to have felt embarrassed, Harriet reflected. No need. Yet it was embarrassment which had threatened to overwhelm her and it was Sheila Armstrong who saw it, not Joe, and dealt with it, quickly, adroitly. ‘I really must go,’ she said, as soon as she heard Joe’s voice, and then, when he could also clearly be heard running upstairs, shouting that he was getting his swimming things and going out again, she was out of the house in a flash, leaving Harriet scarlet-faced and dumb with shame. Because, of course, she wanted Sheila out of the house. She didn’t want to have to explain to Joe who this strange woman was. She didn’t want to persuade Sheila to stay.

  She would be walking all that way to the bus station. There was no bus due, now she’d missed yet another. In this heat, in her rather heavy clothes. And she’d know, anyone would, that she’d guessed correctly, Harriet had wanted to get rid of her. What would have happened if she’d stayed, Harriet wondered. Another woman might have done so, out of curiosity, out of insensitivity. Another woman might have stayed and expected to be introduced, as a friend, if nothing else. Few teenage boys would enquire where their mother’s friends came from. They weren’t interested. She could just have said Sheila was collecting for the church bazaar, Joe would never have known, he wouldn’t have cared. But she herself through her agitation would have given herself away. That was the only thing that would have alerted him, made him probe.

  As it was, he did probe, just a little. She kept her face averted when he came into the kitchen before going off again, but she had to reply to his request as to what
time supper would be. Even the simple, ‘About half past seven. Dad’s playing golf first, straight from work,’ came out muffled, slightly indistinct in her anxiety to be natural. ‘Got a cold?’ he said. ‘Mm, think so, starting one maybe,’ she muttered gratefully, sniffing for authenticity. ‘Don’t give it to me,’ he said, and was gone. What would he have said if she’d told the truth, told him who’d been having tea with her when he came in? It began to fascinate her. She had three fantasy conversations with him, trying out his reaction. In them, she said the same each time: ‘Joe, the grandmother of one of the attackers, Leo Jackson’s grandmother, has just been for tea, we’ve become sort of friends . . .’ and he replied differently each time. In the first fantasy he was appalled, asked who, asked why the hell she wanted anything to do with that woman, slammed out in a rage; in the second he was contemptuous, sneered at her, asked if it made her feel virtuous, was she enjoying being so kind and good and understanding; and in the third he was simply indifferent, required neither explanation nor apology. Exhausting. It was just pointlessly exhausting. And she’d been so sure she’d grown out of it.

  *

  Sheila was late home, very late. She hadn’t calculated on that hour with Harriet and she hadn’t found her way back to the bus station with the same ease she’d found her way from it to the Kennedys’ house. When she did get there, she’d missed one bus by two minutes and there was a long wait for the next one. The same pattern was repeated when she changed buses and again at the railway station, always missing a connection by five minutes. She started to feel guilty as she waited for the train. She’d left no note, thinking she’d be home hours before Alan, who was down at the cricket ground helping the groundsman, an old mate of his, with heaven knows what. But he’d be back by now. It was long past his tea-time, and no sign of any tea. He’d be worried. He’d go round to Eric James and ask if he’d seen her, then they’d both be worried. For themselves, she thought grimly, their own welfare. At least it was summer, it wasn’t dark. But she’d just decided that she ought to phone all the same when the train came and it was too late, and once she’d got off the train at the other end there was no point.

  She anticipated Alan’s face as she walked home. Contorted, it would be. She always kept her face as blank as possible, whatever her inner emotion, tutored in the school of Eric James, but Alan had no control over his, it was all over the place at the least thing, like a weather vane it was. He’d be standing at the door, literally standing there, peering out, as though waiting to pay the milkman. Ridiculous. Then, after relief – that exaggerated relief, brow unwrinkling, mouth opening – there would be the inquisition, the where, why, what for . . . And she’d be cool, as she always was in these situations, offhand. It was a sort of game. Leo played it too, though he was even better than she at it and she had never liked it when she was on the receiving end. No. It had cost her a lot to be the one asking where, why and what for. She hated lowering herself. She’d only done it when forced to, in the early hours of the morning, forced to it by Leo’s alarmingly late return. Not often, though. He’d only come back so late twice. Alan had actually defended him. Only normal, Alan had said, only normal for a growing lad on a Saturday night. But she felt she had to know all the same, know at least the where of it. She’d been reduced to asking him point-blank and he’d shrugged and said nowhere in particular. She’d echoed him – ‘Nowhere in particular at one o’clock on a Sunday morning?’ – but when he’d just nodded she’d let it go. She shouldn’t have done. That was the start. She should have got it out of him, about Gary Robinson, or whatever was going on . . .

  When she turned into her street she was quite surprised to find Alan was not in sight. Good. He would be sulking in the kitchen, pathetically trying to rustle up his own food. She’d told him often enough it wasn’t on these days for a man to be so hopeless in the house, but he took no notice. The only time she’d ever been in hospital, for her hysterectomy, when they took those fibroids out, he’d gone to Carole’s and to his sister Elsie’s turn and turnabout, taking Leo with him. All that trouble just to avoid learning how to make a meal. But he was probably so hungry by now that he’d started scratching around in the bread-bin at least. It was sausage and egg tonight, but he wouldn’t see the Cumberland sausage sitting in the fridge, or if he did he wouldn’t know what to do with it. She’d take her time. She’d suggest it was too late and too hot after all for sausage. She’d say she wasn’t hungry herself, though she hadn’t eaten all day, and that she was only going to have a cup of tea and a cream cracker.

  The house was empty. The key in the keyhole was enough to have brought Alan running, the merest scratch of a sound, but he didn’t come, or shout. It was too early for him to have retaliated by going to bed, but she went upstairs to investigate, prepared to be furious if she found him there. No, no Alan. There was a pad near the telephone downstairs where they kept messages. There was nothing on the pad. Now she was going to have to ring her father, the last thing she wanted to do. It was half past nine. Three hours after Alan would normally be home, but then maybe he had been home and gone out again. Impatiently, she rang Eric James, who took ages answering and was bad-tempered, bellowing at her about the lateness of the hour and not even registering who it was for ages. She tried to be circumspect, asked only if Alan had dropped in at all.

  ‘Alan? Alan? Why?’ Eric James shouted. ‘What would I want him for? Eh? It’s Thursday.’

  ‘I know it’s Thursday, but I just wondered . . .’

  ‘Why? Eh? What’s up?’

  ‘Nothing’s up.’

  ‘What yer ringing for then, disturbing me, on a Thursday, at this time? Eh?’

  ‘I’m sorry I’ve disturbed you . . .’

  ‘So yer should be.’

  She wanted so badly to slam the receiver down that she had to physically restrain her right arm by holding it steady with her left. Disturbing him, from what? He’d have been snoozing in front of the telly, that was all. He could be such a pig, she didn’t know why she bothered with him. And now he wouldn’t let her go, he’d start getting suspicious . . .

  ‘What’s up?’ he was saying again.

  She wasn’t going to tell him Alan wasn’t there, or that she’d been out for the day. ‘Nothing,’ she said, ‘just Alan said he’d pop in on you on his way to the cricket ground and I wondered if he’d remembered.’

  ‘No, he didn’t, and I don’t want people spying on me.’

  ‘He wasn’t going to be spying . . .’

  But at least they were off the topic of where Alan was, of why he wasn’t at home. Eric James was in full flood now on the iniquities of those intent on spying on him just because he’d had a fall, and there was nothing wrong with him, he was champion again . . .

  Sheila was glad when he hung up on her. The moment he did so, the telephone rang.

  *

  There wasn’t much mail. Plenty of business stuff for Sam, even though the bulk of it went to his office, but few real letters. Picking up the scattered mail from the hall mat, Harriet saw the postcard from Louis and went into the kitchen, where Sam was still reading the paper over his toast and coffee, flourishing it happily. Louis was having a wonderful time, the work was tiring but easy, and the weather brilliant. On the side of the message he’d scribbled, ‘Joe would love it, will put in a good word for him for next year perhaps.’ They commented on this, extracted every ounce of pleasure from the puny card, and then she handed Sam the two buff envelopes. He handed one back, saying it was for her. One of those long official-looking, boring envelopes. She noticed, vaguely, that it had a Health Authority stamp on it beside the postage stamp.

  When she’d opened it, opened out the one sheet it contained, she stared at it feeling puzzled. On the sheet was a list of printed alternatives: ‘The sample was not sufficient to test adequately’ was one, and, ‘There is no cause for alarm but we advise a repeat smear in three months’ was another. But beside these two was a dash. The tick was next to, ‘We would like you to te
lephone your GP at your earliest convenience, though there is no cause for alarm’. She registered the tick not with disbelief but with a sense of irritation. Sam was still buried in his paper, though it was now five minutes past the normal time he left. She said nothing at all. If he doesn’t ask what my letter was, what was in that dull envelope, then I am not telling him, she thought. A moment later his wristwatch had pinged the half-hour and he was on his feet, swearing, the paper flung on top of the things on the table. Carefully, as he rushed out, she lifted the paper up, wiped a smear of marmalade off it, and folded it neatly. Then, as Sam’s car started up in the distance, she cleared the table. She would go to her workshop as usual. Everything would be as usual. She would ring Dr Fenwick from there. With luck she’d be put on to Jennifer. She would ring from work, not from home, because Joe might hear. She didn’t want him to. That was the only thing she was clear about: Joe must not be worried.

  She didn’t know, by the end of that morning, exactly how worried she was herself. Jennifer had been, as ever, reassuring. It was just that her smear test had revealed some change in the cells and a further investigation would be a good idea. It was better, Jennifer said in honeyed tones, that any doubts should be cleared up. Until she said ‘doubts’ Harriet hadn’t had any, or hadn’t admitted she had. That immediate feeling of bewilderment, yes, but ‘doubts’? Jennifer said that if she came by the surgery on her way home she’d have a letter ready for her, a letter from Dr Fenwick to the hospital, and if she took the letter there and then they’d give her an appointment for a colposcopic examination. A colposcopy was just an instrument used to look at the cervix more closely and if necessary take a sample. It was painless, just a little uncomfortable. Harriet hung up, thinking what a lot of ‘justs’ Jennifer had used.

  Joe need know none of this. Nor need Sam. She could cope on her own, she would prefer to do so. Some women milked situations like this. She’d seen them do it, build it up to a big drama, gain all the sympathy they could. It was a way of testing their own value and she had no need of it. She knew her value, especially to Joe. She knew how important it was that she was well and strong, able to withstand anything. He needed to feel she was his bulwark, that anything could crash against it and it – she – would not give way. Especially now, when the trial was coming up and his newly acquired contentment, all based on learning to drive, all based on such a flimsy development, would be tested. There was no room in Joe’s life for her to be ill. She would not allow it, never.