Mothers' Boys

by Margaret Forster

  There was a long recital of times and dates which, to Sheila, seemed such a waste of time, though she conceded the need to be exact. The two barristers endlessly split hairs over tiny points and even the judge grew weary of their jousting and ordered one of them to sit down, announcing that he was sure all the salient facts had been most properly established. Then they brought Joe Kennedy in. Sheila saw his eyes go straight to the girl sitting one seat away from her and realised this was his girlfriend. Covertly, she examined her. A pretty, fresh-faced girl with lovely corn-coloured abundant hair, neatly tied back. She glowed with feeling for Joe, sitting up so straight, her expression so eager, positively vibrating with concern. And she saw Joe draw courage from her, saw him smile slightly in her direction – he was so near her, the witness box barely three feet away from the front row of the public seats. Facial signals were exchanged, eyebrows raised, little nods given. It was very sweet. What a changed boy Joe Kennedy looked. Not so much in appearance, though he had grown at least four inches since that first trial, as in demeanour. He didn’t hang his head or hunch his shoulders and that awful strained look had gone. She remembered how he had looked before, standing between his parents, so pale and vulnerable. Now the girl had given him confidence, she could tell. She wondered what Harriet thought of her. Leo had never had a girlfriend, or if he had he’d never brought her home. Once or twice she’d timidly asked him about girls, did he have a girlfriend, and he’d said he wasn’t interested and she’d been relieved. What if a girl of Leo’s had been here now, with her? Worrying as she was worrying. It would have been company.

  She tried to settle on the hard seat and wished she wasn’t there, that she hadn’t come. She need not have come, nobody had asked her to or required her presence. It was Leo they wanted, not her. At the back of her own mind was the absurd idea that Leo might turn up – ridiculous, she knew that. Wherever he was he would be a long way from the scene of his crime, if it had been his crime. That was why she was here, to try to find out how much of the crime against Joe had been Leo’s and how much Gary Robinson’s. Foolish, probably, to hope for enlightenment from that thug in front of them, but hope she still did.

  Gary Robinson was horrible. They had tried to make him look as decent as possible and failed. The clean shirt only pointed up the ugliness of his scabby face, the open collar barely containing the thickness of the neck. No button would fasten over it. He slouched in the dock, leaning back against it and staring ahead, his eyes swivelling alarmingly. He had a big piece of elastoplast down the left-hand side of his chin and kept fingering it. There was the feeling that at any moment he might rip it off. Sheila kept expecting it. He was big but it was more bulk than height. He must weigh twice what Joe Kennedy weighed. Joe had no muscles. The sleeves of Gary Robinson’s shirt were rolled back and the tattoos on his arms stood out. It was wrong, Sheila thought, to be so prejudiced by someone’s appearance, but prejudice was what she felt.

  It was obvious that this was what the court felt too, even though all the motions of a fair trial were gone through. It hadn’t been like that when Leo stood there. People were not sure then. Leo had looked so impressive and of course his refusal to say a word had added mystery. There was no mystery about Gary Robinson. He looked what he was alleged to be, corrupt and evil. Sheila felt sorry for his defence counsel, who laid it on thick about his client’s appalling background, but put no passion into his words – it was a familiar story of neglect, dreary, dismal, arousing no sympathy, although it should have done. When the facts of what Gary Robinson was alleged to have done were recited, all memory of extenuating circumstances disappeared. By the time Joe Kennedy was called there hardly seemed any point in making him give evidence, so strong did the case appear. Joe Kennedy identified Gary Robinson very firmly. Yes, this was the man he had picked out at the identity parade, yes it was the man who had attacked him. True, he had only seen him for a few seconds, but it had not been dark and he had seen him clearly. He had noticed the jagged scar, badly stitched, under the accused’s left ear and had reported this in his statement to the police. This was confirmed.

  Reddening only slightly, but his voice quite distinct, Joe went through what had happened on the night of the assault. He had been coming home, alone, from the cinema. It was not quite ten o’clock in the evening. As he was walking up the hill towards his home he had seen Gary Robinson step out from an alley-way. He turned to go back the way he had come but the accused spun him round and held a knife to his throat. He was dragged into the alley, which was actually a narrow path between the backs of two rows of houses connecting the two main streets. The accused swore at him and asked for money. He gave him the few bits of change he had which seemed to make the accused angry. He was aware of the other assailant being told to blindfold him, which he did. Then he was kicked to the ground. The accused told him to strip. At first he refused. Then he felt a stabbing pain in his shoulder and realised the accused had used his knife. He took his jeans off and his jacket and shirt. He was kicked again and felt another pain in his stomach. The accused pulled his underpants off and stuffed them into his mouth. He felt himself choking. His hands were tied behind him and he was turned over on to his front. Two lots of feet seemed to be kicking him, but he could not be sure. He felt hot water on the back of his neck and then smelled the urine. He was turned back over and the gag removed from his mouth. The blindfold had slipped and he could see the black assailant, with a knife in his hand, standing motionless. The accused swore at the other assailant, who did not move. The accused then crouched down, with his trousers round his ankles, and defecated. He then picked up his own excrement and laughed and smeared it in his victim’s hair. Then he pulled his trousers up and dropped the knife and told his accomplice to run.

  Sheila had listened intently. Joe spoke quite slowly and was hardly interrupted at all either by the barristers or the judge. His voice shook only when he got to the bit about the excrement. Sheila clutched her handbag tightly as she listened to that disgusting detail and looked at the floor, the very clean, polished wooden floor. Then Gary Robinson was called back and cross-examined. Sheila couldn’t look at him at first. It was impossible after what had been said. He had a strangely light voice, almost high-pitched, not at all in keeping with his size. She heard him say, ‘Wha’? Wha’?’ over and over again, to everything – ‘Wha’? Wha’?’ The judge became impatient and it was explained that Gary Robinson had partially impaired hearing after a blow to the head when he was seven. Counsel for the Prosecution was ordered to speak up, which he did, and his loud tone contrasted with the soft, almost inaudible replies of the accused. He seemed to concur so readily with his guilt that Sheila realised some kind of agreement must have been reached before the trial: if Gary Robinson didn’t waste the Court’s time then this would be borne in mind when he was sentenced. Sheila could think of no other reason for Gary Robinson’s compliance. He admitted the attack on Joe Kennedy and claimed to be under the influence of LSD. Questioned about his accomplice, he said he didn’t know his name – he was just ‘a black kid’ he’d met that evening in a club and sold some stuff to. He’d made him come with him and join in the attack on Joe Kennedy. How had he made him? He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember anything in fact, and especially why he had carried out this attack at all. For money, he said at first, then for fun, he supposed. He was out of his head, he didn’t know. He didn’t even recognise the victim, it could have been anyone, and he couldn’t remember anything about that night at all. He didn’t know which club he’d met ‘the black kid’ in and was prepared to accept the evidence of those who had seem him (a doorman and a cloakroom attendant). He said he regretted the offence – in those words, ‘I regret the offence,’ spoken parrot-fashion, dully, without expression.

  The judge, in a curt, snappy little speech, expressed his disgust for ‘hoodlums’ like Gary Robinson, disgrace to the country, etc., etc., and pointed out the suffering caused to the entirely blameless Joe Kennedy and his family. Nothing about
Leo Jackson’s family, Sheila noted. Gary Robinson had in effect exonerated his accomplice from the worst of the blame, but this wasn’t mentioned, nor was it mentioned how Leo, at that other trial, had borne the brunt of it. Nothing about Leo at all, but then that was his own fault. He should have been there. He should have spoken up at the first trial. There were so many ‘shoulds’ and ‘should haves’. Nothing was tidy. Even now, Sheila felt there were so many things that needed to be explained and nobody to explain them. That was life, totally unsatisfactory. The judge ended with a homily on the rise of random, mindless violence, violence not for gain or revenge, but ‘fun’. It must, he said, be stopped. Gary Robinson got two sentences, one for drug-dealing, one for attacking Joe Kennedy, to run concurrently, bringing the total to four years.

  The judge had looked steadily at Gary Robinson throughout his sentencing but his look was not returned and it appeared to have no effect. Harriet was glad not to have been naive enough to have imagined her son’s attacker would break down and weep and beg his victim’s pardon. She had expected nothing and got nothing. There was not a flicker of reaction from Gary Robinson. This lack of any response was somehow the most shocking thing of all.

  The judge rose and left the courtroom. The moment he had gone through the door the atmosphere changed. The little cluster of lawyers and clerks in the middle of the room visibly relaxed and became animated. One barrister yawned and stretched, the other removed his wig, scratched, replaced it carelessly so that it did not sit quite straight. There was laughter. It angered Sheila. What was there to laugh about? It was only another day’s work for them, she supposed. She wanted to leave but didn’t know if she was allowed to before that cackling lot did. When the girl next to her got up, she followed. It was like shuffling out after a play and yet it hadn’t been like a play at all because it wasn’t over in the same way. It never would be. She had to accept that. She kept her head down, thinking about this, and not wanting to see Harriet Kennedy who she was sure must be close behind. She felt her sleeve being pulled and without turning round knew who it was.

  ‘How are you?’ Harriet said. They were caught in the middle of the Chinese party, as they came to the narrow door.

  ‘Fine, thank you,’ said Sheila, and tried to smile. She really didn’t want to be obliged to chat, she wanted to be away as quickly as possible.

  ‘I’ve got my car,’ Harriet said. ‘Let me take you home, please.’ The ‘please’ was so forceful, yet so uncertain, that Sheila hadn’t the energy to fight it. She allowed herself to be led to the car and managed only to say, ‘What about your son?’

  ‘He has his own car,’ Harriet said, ‘and his girlfriend.’

  It was a short drive to Sheila’s house. Neither woman spoke. Harriet was well aware that Sheila didn’t want this lift and she didn’t know why she had forced it upon her – it had just seemed imperative not to lose sight of her, not to leave her on her own. She knew there was no solidarity between them, that this awkward, uneasy, fitful alliance was not going to survive, but she was desperate to maintain it at least for today.

  Outside Sheila’s house Harriet stopped the car but didn’t turn the engine off. She knew Sheila didn’t want to invite her inside and she wanted to make it easy for her.

  ‘Thank you,’ Sheila said, ‘that was kind, I appreciated it. The buses aren’t so frequent these days and my legs felt a bit shaky, I don’t know why, I’m sure.’

  ‘Well, it was an ordeal,’ Harriet said. ‘My legs are all right but my stomach isn’t. I feel queasy, just the sight of that brute.’

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea, to settle it?’

  ‘No. No, thank you. I must get home. Maybe some other time. I’d like to stay in touch.’

  Sheila got out of the car and hesitated. ‘Are you sure? It wouldn’t take a minute to boil a kettle.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Goodbye then.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  *

  The house was very quiet. Harriet sat in her kitchen, motionless, doing nothing. Joe was still out with Claire, Sam not coming home until late. She had a premonition of disaster, but then such feelings were familiar. Heavy, tiring, claustrophobic feelings which sometimes did not lift for hours. Once, she had been sure Joe shared them, but now she was not so sure. If he did, he was hiding them well. All was action and excitement. ‘He’s normal, at last,’ Sam had said. ‘He’s got over all that. I always knew he would.’ She hadn’t argued. Maybe Sam was right? She didn’t believe he was, but it was possible. It was she who would never be over it. Never. The further Joe travelled away from her the greater the conviction that she would never readjust, even if he could. Always it was there and she could not seem to let it go. It was like a screen between them which blocked what had once been their effortless communication. She wanted so badly to rip away that screen but Joe did not. It was there, Gary Robinson had put it there, and there it stayed, everything changed in one night.

  It was temporary, Joe’s recovery, she knew it must be. He would crash again, he would be bound to need her again. The greater the apparent lift of his spirits, the greater the fall. It was a cheat, this ‘happiness’, the driving, the car, Claire. She was deeply suspicious of his buoyancy and he knew she was. He kept away from her because only she could detect how hard he was trying, how great was the effort to be what Sam called ‘normal at last’. The hardest thing of all was to go along with it, pretend with him. But that was what he wanted, for her to pretend too, hard, and then he was free to escape the obligation she laid on him of always remembering. Claire had nothing to remember, she was a relief. And I, Harriet reminded herself, am a burden, my misery on his behalf is the greatest burden he still has to bear and I must lift it. But she didn’t know how. She had tried, she had tried so hard, but the sadness still seeped through every pore, the bitterness, the resentment that her boy had suffered so. She still felt it was her fault. She always had done. What was the point of having children and loving them so much if you couldn’t protect them? She had this curious, painful desire to be forgiven without being able to establish in whose gift forgiveness lay. Joe’s? She shook off that thought, it was too alarming.

  There was a meal to make, a simple matter. She attended to it. She must encourage Joe to invite Claire to meals, she must be friendly to the girl. She saw, quite clearly, a new phase of motherhood beginning. It made her nervous. She knew how to be the mother of a baby, a small child, even an adolescent, but of a grown-up? It was a mystery still. She carried so much baggage to her new posting and yet all her intimate knowledge, her great store of memories, didn’t qualify her. She had to learn, fast. Her status was not yet defined but whatever it turned out to be, it would be Joe who would do the defining, not she. And in a way that was a relief. She chopped and scraped and washed vegetables. She lit the oven, she set the table, and then she waited, patiently, humbly, for her boy to come home.

  *

  Sheila held the card in her hand. Post-marked London, WC1. Happy Birthday, it said. No signature but then none needed. Eric James would have been triumphant. Her own birthday was a month away. Maybe there would be a card for her too, but for the time being this was enough, all she could expect. A sign not just of life but of commitment. A sign that memories lingered. But what was lacking was the very thing denied to her, a chance for Leo to receive a sign from her. She had no way of telling him that she had stopped clinging on to ideals. Eric James had not clung. In the end, after his rage had subsided, he had accepted Leo as he was. She saw that she never had, never. She had struggled to make him, if not in her own image, then in the image of what she wanted him to be. There had been no place in this vision for any kind of transgression. She hadn’t been able to be one of those mothers who could forgive anything. She hadn’t been able to say it made no difference, what Leo had done, even if in doing it he hadn’t known what he did. He was her boy and her boy wouldn’t, couldn’t, act so. And he’d known that, which was why she had lost him.

  The trouble
was that she still felt as if she herself had attacked Joe Kennedy. She had never been able to separate herself from what Leo had done. She felt dragged down, besmirched by his participation in such violence. It made perfect sense to her that parents were held responsible for their children’s crimes because she felt exactly that, responsible. The hardest thing to do, even now, was tell herself that she had not been responsible, and yet even thinking that felt cowardly and she was no coward.

  Alan would be back soon. He’d gone to remove the rose bushes from Eric James’s garden. It was something Eric James had made him promise years ago – ‘When I’m gone, tek them roses bushes, I don’t want them left for somebody to neglect, tek them mind.’ So Alan was taking them and planting them in Carole’s garden. Then he’d be back and they were going for a drive out into the country. Alan wanted her to, and she’d agreed there was no point in moping at home. Now her father was dead and Leo gone they were free to do what they wanted, they had no ties.

  She knew, of course, that ties were necessary to her. She’d always known, though, that Alan needing her was not the same as Leo needing her. Well, it would have to be faced. For the moment anyway Leo had shown he had no need of her. She longed to reclaim him, on whatever terms, but knew the terms would be his and he hadn’t made them known yet. All she could do was prepare herself for them. It was important that Leo should not return to find he had broken her spirit. She must present a strong and resolute front, show she had borne the weight of the tragedy and not cracked under it. Then he’d be relieved, and even proud of her, and he might stay.

  If he came back, if her boy ever came back and gave her another chance.

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