My Daughter, My Mother (25 page)

They wandered up the Soho Road. Joanne was glad to be out of the house. Dave’s threatening moods and her own anger and frustration made the walls seem to close in. The thought frightened her. A year ago – less, such a short time ago – she had been so happy. She had her lovely daughter, a home they could rent, everything had felt promising. How had things shifted so fast? It all felt out of control and she didn’t know what to do.

She went to her favourite Asian shop. The lady behind the counter was friendly to Amy again and slipped her a chocolate frog. Amy’s hands and mouth were soon covered in chocolate, but she was quite happy.

‘Look at the state of you!’ Joanne said, but her mood had lightened. ‘You were s’posed to be having a nice banana, not sweets.’

‘Sweets!’ Amy echoed happily, with a brown grin.

As Joanne walked into the house the phone was ringing and she ran to answer it, leaving Amy out in the patch of garden at the front.

‘Jo?’ Dave sounded very put out.

‘Yes, what’s the matter?’ She had almost recovered her temper from the morning and wondered if something was wrong.

‘Nothing. Just calling. Only I phoned before and you didn’t answer.’

‘Well, no. I was out.’

‘Out – where?’

‘I told you, up the shops. We’ve just got back. I haven’t even got Amy in yet. She’s out the front. Look, I’ve got to go.’ Putting the phone down, she said, ‘For goodness’ sake,’ and rushed to fetch Amy.

He phoned again while they were watching
Sesame Street
, and again sometime after three o’clock. Just to say hello, he told her. Both times he was quite friendly, asking after Amy. The second time she said, ‘Dave, why d’you keep phoning?’

‘Just – you know, keeping in touch. I miss you.’ His voice sounded almost tender this time and it disarmed her. She could picture him in the tiny office next to the workshop, tyres piled outside; phoning when he knew Al and Stuart wouldn’t be able to hear.

‘Well, that’s nice. But we’ll see you in a few hours.’

‘Love you.’ It was a hoarse whisper.

‘That’s nice,’ she said again. ‘Love you too.’

After Amy’s nap, Joanne put a bowl of water out the back with some plastic toys for her to play with. She brought the phone book outside and sat next to her. She had a rough idea where Sooky lived; maybe she could find the phone number. But then she was at a loss. What was Sooky’s surname? She had no idea where to start. How
stupid
that she hadn’t asked! They were always so distracted with the children around that things like that got forgotten.

‘Duck wet!’ Amy giggled. She was wearing only pants and a pink T-shirt and was bending over a fat rubber duck, which was bobbing in the red washing-up bowl. ‘Amy in.’ She pointed.

‘All right, you can paddle,’ Joanne said. ‘Mommy’ll lift you in.’

If Amy had been a bit older, she might have known Priya’s surname. She remembered from school that Sikh men were Singhs and women were Kaurs, but there was always a family name as well.

Amy stood in the bowl, laughing in delight. Her legs were white and frail-looking. They’re quite long, Joanne noticed afresh, like mine.

The telephone clamoured in the house again. Joanne tutted. ‘Not again! You just come with me a minute, Amy.’

She picked her up and rushed to the phone. Amy struggled in her arms, screeching with annoyance. Surely to goodness he wasn’t phoning again, checking up on her? Because she knew that was what he was doing.

‘
Yes?
’

‘God, you sound in a good mood.’ It was Karen.

‘Oh, hi. Sorry, it’s just . . .’ She didn’t try to explain, and Amy’s cross roaring seemed enough reason. Joanne put her down, and Amy wandered back towards the garden.

‘I can hear you can’t talk for long,’ Karen said. ‘Only – are you going to be over this weekend?’

‘Why? Is anything wrong? How’s Mom?’

‘Oh, you know. I think they’ve got the dose down a bit. She’s a bit all over the place really. I just wanted to talk to you about something – getting her some help. I was talking to someone at the Poly . . . I’ll explain when I see you.’ Karen said this in her important way. ‘And it’d be nice to have some support.’

Joanne smiled at the phrases Karen came out with these days.
Have some support
. It was these people she mixed with at work.

‘Yes, we’ll come over on Saturday. But if you need to talk without Mom around . . .’

‘Oh, only for a minute or two. I’m just finding it all a bit stressful.’

Joanne felt contrite. Yes, it would be. Mom and Dad always had been
stressful
somehow. They’d just never known the word for it before.

‘Don’t worry – I’ll be over. I’ll bake a cake.’

Thirty

‘The thing is,’ Karen announced as they stood in Mom and Dad’s back kitchen while everyone else was outside, ‘I’ve been talking to Jill at work – she’s one of the tutors. We ended up having a coffee together, a couple of weeks back when I was upset about Mom.’ Karen’s eyes filled.

‘Oh dear,’ Joanne said.

Karen waved her sympathy away, but Joanne could see that her sister, still living at home, was carrying far more of this than she was. But it was bringing out the best in Karen, showing her softer, less business-like side. She was even dressed more casually today, in a pair of loose, cerise cotton trousers and a black T-shirt. Joanne, as usual, was in jeans, a vest top and flip-flops, though she had rolled the jeans up.

‘She’s such a nice lady – she just asked one or two questions and it all came pouring out . . . Anyway, she said, “Look, Karen, it sounds to me as if your mother really needs help. Have you thought of asking her if she’d like some counselling?” ’

‘Counselling? What: talking to someone? A stranger?’

Karen nodded, putting teabags in the pot. Everything Karen did was with neat, economical movements. Joanne’s wonky Victoria sponge was on a plate nearby, jam oozing over one edge. Thank goodness Dave had wanted to come too, and she hadn’t had to manage Amy and a cake tin on two different buses.

‘She keeps having odd moods – crying. I’ve gone up a couple of times when I’ve got in from work, and she’s been in bed in floods of tears. But she’ll never say what’s wrong. I just don’t know what to do, and of course Dad’s hopeless. I’ve asked him whether it’s something about her past, but he doesn’t seem to have a clue. I said to him, “Didn’t you notice anything, Dad?” And he just said he thought that was just the way she was. How can you live with someone all this time and not know
anything
about them? It just seems incredible.’

She banged the kettle down angrily after pouring in the water.

‘I mean, I know you don’t necessarily go on talking about everything after – what? – they married in nineteen-sixty, right? So that’s twenty-four years of marriage. Twenty-four! But you’d think they’d have talked about something
sometime
, wouldn’t you? He barely seems to know who she is.’

Joanne felt she had more than an inkling of how your wife or husband could become a total stranger. How they could start to behave in odd and frightening ways. The phone calls had continued all week. But she didn’t say anything and pushed the thought away. She did know a lot about Dave’s past, though. She had shared most of it.

‘We’d better go out,’ Joanne said. ‘I’ll bring the tray.’

‘What about it: the counselling?’

‘I can’t for the life of me see her doing that – can you, seriously?’

Karen sighed, looking deflated. ‘No. Not really. I just thought it might do her good.’

‘It probably would,’ Joanne said, picking up the tea tray. ‘I s’pose we could ask her. But I don’t think she’s very keen on things that would do her good.’

Outside they found Margaret sitting on a folding chair, beside her pots of geraniums, which looked as if they were gasping for water. The patio was still bathed in sunlight and Margaret was wearing a pale-green shirt-waister dress that she’d had for years, which was a bit tight on her and made her look washed out. Joanne recognized it with a pang. Why didn’t Mom go and buy herself something new and nice?

Dave was with Fred, halfway down the garden, bent over the lawnmower. Amy had toddled over to watch.

‘Ah, look at Amy!’ Karen said. ‘She always has to know what’s going on, doesn’t she? What’re they doing?’

‘There’s summat wrong with it,’ Margaret said. ‘Fred’s been complaining all week that he couldn’t get it started. I said to him: you want to get Dave over to look at it.’ Margaret turned her wonky-eyed stare to the table. ‘Cake looks nice, Jo.’

Joanne felt surprisingly flattered by this rare compliment. There were shortbread fingers as well. Mom liked those: she thought they were posh. She pulled open the other folding chairs and set them down with a metallic clatter.

‘You’d think Dad’d know about things like that,’ Karen said, pouring tea.

‘He only drives the buses,’ Margaret said. ‘He doesn’t stick his head in the engine.’

‘Dad, Dave – tea!’ Karen called. ‘Amy, love, d’you want a piece of cake?’

‘Nice cake, bab,’ Fred said as they sat round.

‘Ta, Dad.’ Not much baking went on in that house. Joanne looked at her dad’s skinny frame, his saggy, melancholy face, and wondered about him. I don’t know much about him, either, she thought. She did know that his background had been very poor. Lots of people had grown up in the back-to-backs. Slums, they were called by others. The cheapjack, cramped houses one room deep, backing onto another the same behind, had been built to cram in as many workers as possible close to the factories. Most of them had gone now, cleared after the war. The inhabitants had been scattered to tower blocks or far-flung estates. It wasn’t unusual. But Dad’s father had been killed in the war, and his Mom had never got over it and died not long after. The little she had heard about it had given Joanne the impression of a cold, underfed upbringing, flavoured with grief.

‘He was a poor thing really,’ Mom had said once. They didn’t talk about anything from the past much, either of them. They just got on with it, as they would say. But Joanne felt tender towards her father. He was clueless in so many ways, but he’d always been kindly and gentle with them. Mom did her best too, but she was the one who had a temper.

‘Business going all right, Dave?’ Fred asked, as he always did. He was tucking into the cake.

‘Yeah, not bad, thanks,’ Dave said, as he always did. He was more relaxed here. He knew his parents-in-law liked him and always had. They’d been a bit in awe of him when he was young, with his good looks and his football. But he’d never been slow to help them.

‘Nice cake, eh, Amy?’ Margaret said. Amy was leaning against Joanne’s knee completely absorbed in sponge and jam. There was a dust of icing sugar over her lips. They all laughed and Amy looked round, then giggled at all this attention.

‘More tea anyone?’ Karen said.

But the men were keen to get back to the lawn-mower. Amy toddled after them.

‘She’s growing up fast,’ Margaret said. She gave Joanne a direct look. ‘’Bout time you gave her a brother or sister, isn’t it?’

Joanne prickled inwardly with annoyance. She knew Mom was right, in a way, but something in her resisted. It was the way things felt so inevitable. You have one baby and so, as night follows day, you have another.

‘I might,’ she said.

‘You don’t want her growing up an only child, do you?’ Margaret said. ‘That wouldn’t be much fun for her.’

‘I don’t s’pose it’d be the end of the world,’ Joanne retorted. ‘She’s got lots of little friends . . .’

‘Anyway,’ Karen slipped in, ‘you did, didn’t you, Mom?’ There had been talk of her half-sister Elsie, but otherwise Mom’s childhood had come across as solitary. ‘Didn’t do you any harm, did it?’

‘I wasn’t an only child, was I?’ Margaret said as if it was obvious. ‘I mean, I had Tommy – well, at least, until . . .’ She stopped, looking down.

Joanne and Karen looked at each other. Mom was looking tense and angry now, as if she hadn’t meant to speak.

‘Who’s Tommy, Mom?’ Karen asked, carefully.

‘My brother.’ She blurted it, angrily. ‘My older brother, if you must know. Two years older.’

The girls exchanged looks again, at a loss. They’d never even heard of Tommy before, let alone met him. Mom’s mood was becoming suddenly dangerous.

‘You’ve never told us about Tommy,’ Joanne said. She could feel such strong emotions coming off her mother that it made her nervous. But it all seemed so silly not to be able to ask. ‘Where is he – I mean, is he still alive?’

‘How the hell would I know?’ Margaret said. ‘He never wanted to come back, so he didn’t. The last I saw of him . . .’ She stopped as if a memory had assaulted her. The girls saw her thinking, collecting herself. ‘He was evacuated with me. He went to a farm, and he liked it there, so he never came back when the war was over. He wanted to be a farmhand. So he stayed.’

This was hard to take in.

‘So you mean . . .’ Karen stumbled into speech. ‘We have an Uncle Tommy – somewhere? Well, where?’

‘Worcester way. Back then, anyway. He could be in Timbuktu by now, I don’t know. He certainly never bothered to tell me where he was going.’

There was something in the way she was talking that made Joanne realize her mother was struggling on the verge of tears. She thought they’d better stop talking about Tommy, at least for the moment.

‘Where did you go to, Mom, when they evacuated you?’ she asked gently.

Her mother took a while to answer, but after a moment she looked up and Joanne could see a change in her, the usual flatness coming back over her as she took control.

‘I was near Worcester as well – I told you. We were sent away together. It’s a nice part, over there. I was sent to one lady, and then on to another place with two sisters.’ She spoke impersonally, as if talking about someone else now.

‘Well, when?’ Karen asked.

‘Oh, well, they evacuated a lot of children right at the start. We went at the beginning of September 1939, Tommy and me. And I came back in 1944 – March.’

‘But you must have been ever so little!’ Karen exclaimed.

Margaret nodded. There was an odd feeling coming off her, as if she was both glad to speak and resentful about being asked anything.