My Daughter, My Mother (3 page)

He disappeared inside. Seconds later she heard the front door slam.

Bent over, her teeth chattering, she prodded at her collar bone with her fingertips and tested it, flexing her arm. It seemed a miracle that it wasn’t broken. She groped her way into the house. The lamp on the side table in the front room gave off a gentle light. She fell onto the sofa and curled up on her side, trembling with shock. With a fist pressed to her lips, she wept tears of pain and bewilderment. It was a long time before she stopped shaking. Eventually, oblivious to the faint bangs from outside, she fell asleep.

His coming back into the house jarred her awake. Still curled up, she lay rigid, listening for his breathing in the hall the other side of the wall as if he was an intruder. It was as if he had become the enemy, someone she didn’t know at all. There was a chasm between them. Then he was there, kneeling beside her. She recoiled from him, but he almost fell on her.

‘Bab? Oh, my babby – I’m sorry.’ His voice was wretched. He was stroking her hair. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry if I hurt you . . .’

‘Why did you hit me?’ she sobbed.

‘That wasn’t me. I dunno who did that, but it wasn’t me . . . I’d never hurt you, my little darlin’, my babby.’

Longing to believe him, she had reached out and put her arms round his neck as both of them wept. His loud male sobs of contrition were like nothing she had ever heard and they moved her. She had never heard him cry before. He led her up to bed, unbuttoning her clothes in wonder, as if it was the first time he had ever seen her long, slim body, brushing his lips over her bruised collar bone in a way that made her overflow with tenderness for him. After they had made love she fell asleep with his warmth pressed against her back, and in the morning they acted as if nothing had happened. She told no one, though she couldn’t move without pain for some time.

It happened again a month later: she had brought up the subject of work again. W.H. Smith were expecting her back, and she needed to get things sorted out. That time he had got her up against the wall, hand round her throat. Terrified, she agreed to give up her job. In any case she had dreaded leaving Amy, and Dave was adamant that his wages would cover the rent and everything else they needed. But that was when she told Michelle.

They had all been at the same school in Kings Heath – Dave, Joanne and Michelle – though Dave had been in the year above. Now that she and Dave were in Handsworth and Michelle had moved to Yardley with her mom and dad, they had only been able to meet now and then, for a coffee in town, and even less often now that Dave was so paranoid about her going out.

At first Michelle had been shocked and sympathetic.

‘You want to watch it.’ She spoke between drags on her cigarettes. Michelle was seldom seen without one, and a fog of smoke hung over her side of the little cafe table. ‘Don’t let him get away with any more crap like that.’ She lit a new fag from the dying one, which she stubbed out in the glass ashtray.

‘I’d never’ve thought it of Dave, but once they get like that, they can’t usually stop. They’re like horses going to the bad – and then you’re stuck in the ditch with ’em, mate.’

But after the last few months, when Joanne had made excuses and cancelled meeting her several times, Michelle wasn’t speaking to her.

‘It’s because of him, isn’t it?’ she had said the last time Joanne phoned.

‘What d’you mean?’ Joanne tried to shrug it off. ‘No – it’s just Amy’s got a cold, and . . .’

‘Has he hit you again?’ Michelle’s gravelly voice demanded.

‘No! Well, once or twice – but only . . .’ Only what? Her voice trailed off.
Only hit me
. . . ? In horror she realized that it was something you could get used to, that it might become normal. ‘We’ll sort it out. It’s fine most of the time, really. Only I’d best not aggravate him.’

‘You’re a fool,’ Michelle said, disgusted. ‘You need to get out of there, mate: ring one of them phone lines – Rape Crisis or whatever.’

‘He hasn’t
raped
me,’ Joanne pointed out.

‘Well, whatever it’s called. Look in the bogs somewhere – those stickers on the doors. Do summat about yourself.’

‘You’re a fine one to talk, Meesh.’ Michelle had hit the bottle off and on over men and heartbreak.

‘How d’you think I know the score?’ she demanded.

Joanne kept out of Michelle’s way now. She had grown more and more isolated. In fact, until she started going to the playgroup – she knew deep down that the cut lip Dave had given her last week was to stop her going there – she had barely seen anyone for several weeks.

She got off the number fifty bus carrying Amy and went into the indoor arcade to pick up some cheap chrysanths. It was a warm day, and by the time she had walked along to her mom and dad’s house she was sweating.

‘You’re a heavy little dumpling, aren’t you?’ she said, nuzzling Amy’s cheek. ‘Never mind – we’re at Nanna’s house now.’ She rang the bell, pinning a smile on her face.

There was no response for such a long time that she thought her mother must have gone out. Then at last she heard her rattling the safety chain inside.

‘Hello, Mom! Look who’s come to see you!’

Her mother, Margaret Tolley, was of a very different build from Joanne, who took after her father. Margaret was shorter, brown-eyed and well rounded. Her left eye wandered to the side, which gave her an eccentric look. She peered blankly at them through her specs. As usual she was in the middle of a smoke. Joanne saw little beads of perspiration on her forehead.

‘Mom? I’ve come to help, remember? Get cleaned up for your birthday?’

Her mother passed her tongue over her lips, something she nearly always did before speaking.

‘Oh – sorry, love. I’d sort of forgotten. Come in.’

‘I like your hair,’ Joanne said as they went in. The house stank of smoke as usual. ‘Have you just had it done?’

‘Yes, yesterday.’

Her mother’s hair, a fading dark brown, usually hung round her collar in an indeterminate state somewhere between permed and straight. Today, though, it looked darker, and had been set in tight curls. It was good to see her doing something about her appearance.

‘It’s nice – ready for your party, eh?’

Her mother gave her vague smile again. ‘Thought I might as well try and look my best.’

On Friday it was her fiftieth birthday, and on Saturday she was planning to have family and a few friends round for some tea. It was all she wanted, she said, no fuss.

‘For God’s sake, Mom,’ Karen had argued, when she had announced this intention on another visit of Joanne’s. ‘You only live once – why don’t you go out to a nice restaurant or something? It won’t break the bank, you know.’

Karen, now nineteen, with her new admin job at the Poly, wore suits with shoulder pads, had even bought a little car and thought she knew everything. She had already thought she knew everything before, only a bit less so.

‘Karen . . .’ Joanne had said in warning. ‘Don’t push it.’

‘But it’s so boring – a little tea party! Anyone would think she was an old lady!’ They both felt that their mother dressed like one.

Mom had flared up, the way she did, sudden as a Roman candle.

‘Don’t you talk to me like that, you pert little bit!’ Within seconds Margaret could be towering with rage over something that seemed minor to them. They had been in the kitchen, and Joanne was afraid she might pick up the kettle and hurl it at Karen. ‘You’re getting way above yourself these days, that you are. It’s my birthday, not yours, and I won’t be told what to do by you!’

‘It’s all right, Mom,’ Joanne had said. She had always been the one to keep the peace. ‘You do what you want – it’s your birthday.’

‘At least Dad could take her out,’ Karen muttered, leaving the room. ‘The boring old sod . . .’

‘
Karen
.’ Joanne hurried out after her. ‘
Shut – up
– just leave it. You know what she’ll get like.’ The eruptions of temper could end in a long reign of resentful silence.

‘Let her,’ Karen said. ‘I’m sick of it.’

Thank goodness Karen was out at work now. She was always the one who wound things up.

While her mother was making a cuppa, Joanne slid the window open. Amy played on the rug on the front-room floor with the box of little toys that her grandmother had collected for her. Margaret brought the mugs in, got another ciggy out and was about to light up, but thought twice and put the packet back in her pocket. That was another thing Karen was forever on about. Mom and Dad both smoked like chimneys.
I go to work reeking of smoke. And do you want to give your granddaughter cancer?

Sitting with her mother before they started on the house, Joanne felt there was something different about her. At first she thought it was just the hair. Margaret was dressed in a faded navy skirt, a short-sleeved red-and-white checked blouse and her brown lace-up shoes. There was nothing new there. But it wasn’t just that, or the way she kept licking her lips even more than usual, almost as if she had something difficult in mind to say and was working up to it. She seemed tense and strange, her fingers moving restlessly on the mug she held in her lap. Staring fixedly at Amy, she pulled a hanky out of her waistband and wiped her forehead.

‘You all right, Mom?’ Joanne asked.

‘Why?’ Margaret looked across at her, suddenly sharp. ‘Why d’you ask?’

‘Oh, you just seem a bit . . . tired.’ Maybe that’s what it was, just tiredness.

‘I didn’t sleep very well. I was down here making tea at three in the morning.’ She drained the mug and reached to put it back on the tray.

‘Oh dear,’ Joanne said. This was a common complaint. Her mother’s sleep patterns had never been very good, and Joanne always thought this was the reason for her uneven moods. But it was hard to know what to say. ‘At least I’m here to help.’

Margaret nodded. ‘Dave all right?’

‘He’s fine, ta.’

‘Good lad, that one.’

Dave could do no wrong in their eyes. She imagined it for a moment, her saying:
He hits me, Mom. Something’s gone wrong. Sometimes I’m so scared of him.
They’d never believe her.

‘Shall we get started then?’ Joanne suggested.

Four

On Thursday Joanne stayed in nearly all day. Dave was in one of his better moods. When he came in from work she told him cheerily what she had been doing all day: it had been fine for hanging washing on their rack in the garden; Amy had played beside her with her little wooden trolley, picking up leaves and stones and carting them about. They’d watched
Sesame Street
, she’d ironed the clothes, had a short walk to the park . . .

‘I got some sausages,’ she said. ‘Thought we’d have chips.’ He loved her home-made chips, which were already browning nicely in the metal basket, dunked in oil.

‘Sounds nice.’ He came up behind her and lifted her hair to kiss the back of her neck. His hands smelt of Swarfega.

‘That tickles!’ she squirmed. ‘Careful, or I’ll have the pan on fire.’

Amy was calling ‘Dada!’

‘Fancy a video?’ he said. ‘I’ll go down and get one in.’

‘All right, yeah – say hello to Amy first, though, and I’ll pop her into bed.’

She was full of relief. The evening was looking good. They could sit side by side, lost in a film. Nothing would happen. That’s all she wanted now: for nothing to happen.

He came back after she’d settled Amy. The food was keeping warm in the oven.

‘That smells nice,’ he said. ‘I could do with it – I’m starving.’

‘What video did you get?’ she asked, carrying the plates through. Dave was kneeling in front of the telly, feeding the video into the slot.

‘
Quadrophenia
.’ He sat back on the sofa. ‘Here we go.’

‘Is that the one where he goes off the cliff at the end?’ She handed him his dinner. ‘The one with Toyah in?’

‘Yeah . . .’ He moved his head to see past her.

‘She grew up a few streets from me.’ Toyah Willcox, one of the city’s stars.

‘Yeah, I know.’ Everyone knew that, but she still wanted to say it.

They both ate hungrily. They’d got to the bit where the rockers are chasing round the London streets when the phone rang.

‘Turn it down a bit,’ she said, answering it, still watching the screen.

‘Jo?’ The voice was so tearful and panic-stricken that at first she didn’t recognize her sister.

‘Karen? Is that you?’

‘You’ve got to come. It’s Mom, she had this sort of fit – they’ve taken her into Selly Oak. It was terrible. Dad was out and I didn’t know what to do. Can you come? We’re both at the hospital – Dad’s here with me now. They’ve not said anything yet, but I think there’s something really wrong with her.’

Dave was the model husband and son-in-law that night.

‘Come on, get in the car – I’m driving yer.’ He only had a clapped-out old Fiesta, but a car was a car.

‘No, I’ll go on the bus.’ She was dashing back and forth, trying to find her bag, some change. We can’t leave Amy, can we?’

In a few minutes Dave had arranged for Mrs Coles from next door to come and sit with Amy. They crossed the city, through the underpass, roaring out along the Bristol Road. Why can’t you always be nice like this? Joanne thought, examining Dave’s profile in the flashes from the street lights, the outline of the handsome boy whom she had fallen in love with. The boy who was going to be a football star.

She was impatient to get there, but dreading it. Her hands gripped her bag hard. What was the matter with Mom? She had seemed a bit odd when she was there yesterday, distant – but then she often was; maybe unwell in some way? She had certainly seemed to be feeling the heat, sweat pouring off her, though it hadn’t been extremely warm, just a sunny May day. She had sat down to rest several times as they cleaned, and instead of talking to Amy she had just stared ahead of her. But then she’d often been like that, hardly ever fully with them somehow. Maybe that was why Karen had turned out so hyperactive. You had to keep moving, so Mom didn’t drag you down. Squabbling had been one of the ways the girls had kept their energy up.

‘I should’ve stopped her,’ she said.