by J.A. Skinner
Chapter 18
Still Friday 23rd
The behavioural symptoms of Huntington's disease are often most distressing for the family and carers. The patient’s personality can become gradually more self-centred and unmotivated. There is always an element of guilt if the sufferer has passed the gene on to the next generation.
Kathleen just left my house to walk down to see Margaret for a while. She is so excited about the adoption papers being completed that she can’t settle to anything. She phoned in sick to work today saying she has a migraine. She’s never had one in her life and she doesn’t have one now but her nerves are certainly jangled. I tried to calm her down but she’s not ready to listen to her old mum. She knows that there’re not a lot of babies coming up for adoption these days but it seems she’ll never be content until she and Phillip are parents. I don’t know much about adoption but I wish I could have my say. I would tell the decision makers that Kathleen and Phillip will make excellent parents; they are a strong couple, really committed. They have had to go through such a lot so far, the years of disappointment of not having their own children, and the nitpicking assessment to become adopters.
They are nothing like Peter and me, we just kind of drifted into our lives together and luckily had the children with no big problems. We just got on with it. It’s what was expected of us. When I was Kathleen’s age I had already started my family, and had slipped smoothly into the role of housewife and mother. I have some very special memories of those times when they were babies and toddlers. There are also some not so good memories that have been kept locked away so far which is just as well, for everyone’s sake.
The wooden baby crib is in the loft and I’ve made up my mind to get it down today and give it a good clean and see if any repairs need doing. All Margaret’s children slept in it for their first two months before growing big enough to sleep in a cot. It is well worn, but it’s still a work of art. Peter made it when I was carrying Michael as the old Moses basket we had used for Kathleen and Margaret had been handed down a few generations and just fell apart in the end. It would be lovely to see the cradle full again. If I clean it up and get it ready it might be a good omen for Kathleen.
When I get the ladders steady, I climb up slowly and open the loft hatch. I pull myself up and sit on the edge of the hatch and there is just enough soft light from the dusty skylight to see by.
I’m immediately aware of the gentle force of the memories which seem to be trapped up here. There are old toys, a clothes chest, suitcases and various bits of furniture, an old ironing table, and lots more. The shape of the crib is outlined under the drape of an old dust sheet, and suddenly I see Kathleen at about five years old, standing beside it gazing down at her new baby brother.
‘How did you do this Mam? He’s so perfect,’ she had said. She was delighted with him and ready to be a wee mother and a big sister all rolled into one, learning to hold him, and sing to him, and tell him stories. Margaret was so young she hardly noticed his presence except when I had to feed him, then she would try to climb up on my knee as well for attention and I would be ridden with a vague sense of guilt for wanting her to stay my baby for ever.
Peter was always able to comfort wee Margaret and smooth away the wrinkles of jealousy. He was always good with her, but then she was such an easy child to love. Funny how that turned out, she was the only unplanned baby, very much unplanned.
Behind the crib is a blue bike, a two-wheeler that was Michael’s. I can clearly see the row of purple bruises on his shins as he struggled to master the pedals and the balance, biting his bottom lip to stop it trembling. Of course, he got it in the end, they all do. He would laugh with delight and excitement as he pedalled up and down the pavement in front of the house. It’s sad how life complicates things. I don’t think I’ve heard him really laugh for a long time.
I feel a familiar prickle of tears behind my eyes as I think how distant we’ve become. On the surface we’re fine and polite with each other, and I know he would do anything for me, anything of course, except change things he can’t. I’m not stupid, if he prefers men it’s most likely something he didn’t choose, it’s who he is. Maybe it’s my ingrained catholic brainwashing that makes it so difficult for me to accept. It might be too late for me to change, but I would dearly love to be able to get down on my knees in front of him again and put my arms tight around him like I did when he was a wee tiny boy, so innocent and trusting. It’s going the same way with Margaret, the distancing. Why can’t I bend a bit more and admit she is a great mother and doesn’t need my old fashioned ideas of respectability? What a hypocrite I am, if she only knew. Tears are dripping off my chin now and I feel like a silly old woman sitting here in the loft crying. I’ve nobody to blame but myself, but I’ve had to hold so much inside that it is hard to show my true feelings to my children now.
Behind the bike I see the old chest of drawers, so big and ugly looking in the gloomy light of the loft. It would never fit in any modern bedroom now and still leave room for a bed. Originally it was my Granny’s and I think I inherited it because no-one else knew what to do with it. It used to stand in the hallway and hold all the bed linen, and then it was eventually relegated to the loft. Peter hauled it up in two halves and then put it back together up here. Over the years I’ve filed it with old photographs, mementoes of my parents, baby clothes no longer in fashion now but carefully folded away in paper, and some old letters that I know by heart but still find it heart wrenching to re-read.
I am still sitting on the rim of the hatch, and I feel even more silly when I realise I can’t get the crib down by myself without dropping it and maybe damaging it, how daft I am, I should’ve realised this.
Maybe in a wee, little used, cloudy corner of my mind I did know this, but still needed to come up here for a while to feel the memories round me like old friends. I can’t seem to be bothered climbing down the ladders again, and more memories crowd round me. Something sad is pulling at me and I crawl over to the chest of drawers and can just stand up in front of it with my head bent forward. I reach out and open the top drawer. I feel a small shiver of dread but I know there is nothing in this chest that can surprise me any more.
The first things I see are two envelopes that I know contain photographs. I take these out and put them on top of the chest. Beneath them are some baby clothes, folded and carefully wrapped in thin tissue paper. These were made by my Mother, tiny works of art, silky satin vests, knitted bootees and a christening gown, all worn by my brother and me, and by my three children that my Mother never knew. Sadly they might never be used again. The fashion now is for ‘babygrows’, stretchy ugly things, and all in one outfits, where you can’t tell girls from boys unless there is a pink or blue cover on the pram. I have to switch on the light now as the daylight is fading. I sit down on the floor, open the first envelope, and pull out a small bundle of photographs. I must have looked at these hundreds of times, precious and faded. The first picture is of my Mother and Father as a young couple, very formal, in their courting days. A wedding photo next, Mother looking solemn in a long white satin dress, later to be cut down for the christening gown, and dad in a suit and a top hat. They looked so young, like kids playing at dressing up games. Later photographs now, the family groups which are much less formal. Father standing behind a chair with my mother sitting in front, me a babe in her arms and my brother Gerald about four years old, standing at her knee. Gerald, my friend, my hero, killed at twenty-one in a useless pointless war, and my Mother dying just a year after.
I feel the old prickle behind my eyes and a small sob somewhere in my throat. I can’t believe I still feel the same sad resentment I felt all those years ago. My Mam seemed to lose interest in her life, and died yearning for her lost son instead of holding on to life for me, the only child she had left. Gerald’s death triggered a massive rift in our family, like my mother and I were living on different islands, there was a sea of loss between us that we could not bridge. My tears pour d
own my cheeks, as ever, and soak into my jumper. My biggest sorrow has always been that she never saw my children. When each one was born I cried these same resentful tears, wishing she was outside the hospital room with a smile and a bunch of flowers for me, the brand new Mum.
Lots of years have softened these memories a bit, and I accepted long ago that my Mother didn’t die to hurt me. My feelings then about her were tangled up in the grief for my Brother. I still miss them both very much, and there must be a hard little core of hurt there which is triggered by these photographs. I give myself a shake, and dry my eyes on the edge of the sheet covering the crib.
I open the second envelope and these photos are of my own wedding. No fancy album for us, that was too much expense. Peter in his good suit looked so handsome and sure of himself. I looked a bit dowdy by comparison, in a borrowed dress, but pretty enough I suppose. The best man was Peter’s brother John, God rest his soul, and the bridesmaid was Anne-Marie, my Auntie Vera’s daughter. Peter and I had been courting about six months before Mum died and he proposed a month after her funeral. I accepted readily in a kind of desperation, not thinking enough about it. I was happy to leave the mourning house, and to get away from Dad’s way of dealing with bereavement, which was to drink until he passed out. I was very fond of Peter. He romanced me, and promised to look after me forever. I told myself that would be enough for me, never mind all that lovey-dovey stuff, that was just for the films. Peter may have got short changed in the marriage, not that he ever seemed unhappy even for a moment. For a long time I just went through the motions of being a good wife and mother, till the role fitted me like a glove, and I realised I had grown to love my man or something quite close. One of my best memories of Peter was his story telling. He would mesmerise the children with stories at bed time or anytime in fact. He wrote some down and saved them, hoping to retell them to his grandchildren, poor man, with one thing and another, he didn’t get to live that long. Wee John always tells me that Mickey tells them great bedtime stories, well he didn’t pick that up off the grass.
I pack the photos away with a sigh. I will have to ask Michael to come help me get this crib down another day.