“The worst thing is not having anybody to talk to.”
Margaret heaved herself up painfully in her chair with the help of the care assistant’s elbow and pointed across the room towards an elderly gentleman who was busy examining the buttons on his cardigan.. He knew that he had done them up wrongly but he couldn’t quite see how.
“Like him over there. He’s got nothing to say for himself.”
“What’s John done to you then? Let him alone.”
The care assistant offered a crocheted blanket, knowing that Margaret wouldn’t let her tuck it in for her. The ones who still had a sharp mind inside a worn out husk of a body were the hardest to deal with in some ways.
“Here you are.”
“You can’t have a decent conversation with any of them.”
“That’s not true you know. You talk to Betty and June all the time. The three of you never stop.”
Margaret shook her head.
“Oh them two. They’ve about as much sense as a pair of malteezers and they’re nowhere near as sweet.”
The care assistant grinned. She knew better.
“I’ll tell them you said that when they come back from the doctors.”
“You do that. See if I care.”
“Oh dear, and I thought you might be in a good mood today with your daughter coming.”
The assistant bustled off and Margaret slumped back down in her chair. Her long fingers, weakened now with arthritis, and no longer elegant as they used to be, pulled restlessly at the blanket. Good mood with her daughter coming? It was her daughter who had put her in here. She had done this against her will and she wasn’t about to let her out again. All because she had let a pan of mince boil dry on the top of the cooker. Anyone might do that. And the business with the milk was the kind of accident anyone might have. The burn on her leg from when she dropped the pan had eventually healed. It was nothing, just a weak wrist. She could have coped. It wasn’t as if she’d started wandering down the road wearing her nightdress in the middle of the night. Too much fuss. Margaret had looked after both her parents and even though she had spent the last few years telling her daughter Helen that she didn’t want to be a burden to her, she had still expected her to do the same. Not that she would ever say so, she shouldn’t have to. Family meant nothing these days. Nothing at all. She fell into a half sleep of memories and grumbles, her head slipping forward onto the wing of her high seated chair.
Helen was glad when she saw that her mother was asleep. It would mean that there would be no complaints about the fact that she was late and she would have a chance to catch her breath. She settled herself into the empty chair next to her mother and waited. It had been a long morning and she had a bag full of correspondence to deal with when she got home.
Finally her mother opened her eyes and stirred. Helen waited for a smile that didn’t come.
“You’ve landed then.”
The tone of her mother’s voice was quite deliberate and meant to suggest that it was about time. It was best ignored. Even though her mother knew that she could rely on a visit every Wednesday afternoon this was never enough, and it never would be.
“Hello mum. How are you doing? Are you all right?”
“I have to be don’t I?”
Helen smiled thinly. That was the end of another conversation. It was no good asking her mother what she had been up to because she hadn’t been up to anything. She tried again. Telling her about Christopher sometimes helped. If only he would come in and see her. It had been easy to make excuses for him while he was away at university and then doing his post grad research, but not now, not when he was working only twenty miles away. Perhaps if she had another word with him about it, that might help. Several words even.
“Christopher sends his love. He’s enjoying his new job.”
Margaret frowned.
“Something to do with computers isn’t it?”
The only possible answer was yes. It was no good attempting to explain what he really did.
“He’s hoping to come and see you soon. He’s very busy.”
“Oh aye.”
Her mother didn’t believe her. Of course she didn’t.
Helen embarked on a long speech about how busy and successful Christopher was. She even added a bit about how he was always asking after her mother. Half way through it she was interrupted.
“Has he still got that robot thing he used to talk about? He had a whole lot of them.”
Helen wondered whether her mother really understood how old her grandson was.
It’ll be up in the loft somewhere.”
“He used to show me how it turned into a car- tried to get me to do it for him a few times. I never could.”
Helen smiled.
“That was a long time ago. He plays with real robots now.”
“Just like a man.”
They looked at each other and laughed. Just once in a while Helen could still feel the mother who she had once been close to, the mother who was now lost in a fog of bitterness and fear. Sometimes there was a glimmer of sunlight shining out from her face and it was beautiful. She remembered when her mother had once stopped her in mid flow when she was complaining about Richard, not long after Christopher had been born. It had taken just four words. “He’s a man, love.” Her mother had thought that this explained everything and Helen had realised that she was probably right. It was just how it was. No use complaining about it. Her mother’s generation had learned those attitudes the hard way. She could do with some of that wisdom now, wisdom that was still locked away deep inside her mother’s head, out of reach.
Margaret allowed her mind to wander away from the rather annoying middle aged woman sitting next to her and drifted back in time to when her daughter was a child. She was a pretty little thing then. You could still see the remains of that little lass in her face now, a shadow of youthful beauty behind the strain around the eyes and the sucked in cheeks. Helen should eat more. You weren’t meant to be stick thin when you got older. It made you look haggard. She remembered a little blue frock with tiny daisies round the neck that she had loved to put her in when she was a toddler. There used to be a photo of her wearing it somewhere but it had been taken away, like so much else. When they did that they never thought about the fact that the memories went too. They were stealing a life. Taking it away and storing what was left, the bits and pieces that they allowed you to keep, in a single room. Well she could still remember that frock. They hadn’t managed to steal that.
“Do you remember that blue frock? With daisies?”
Helen was half way through telling her mother about her new exercise class. She had thought that her mother was listening.
“What dress?”
“I told you. A blue one. With daisies.”
“No, sorry.”
Margaret looked at the blank face of her daughter with pity. She’d forgotten. She had loved that dress but now she had forgotten. You were never quite as important to your children as they were to you. They had a life to live. No matter how dutiful they were. Duty was an empty sour emotion. She could see it in every pore of her daughter’s skin. Helen didn’t want to be here. Why would anybody want to be here?
A blue dress with daisies. Helen watched her mother close her eyes quietly and drift off into her own world. She wondered where that idea had come from. Something she had seen in a magazine probably. Please don’t let her mother’s mind be getting weak. She didn’t really seem to take things in any more and there was so much that she wanted to tell her, things which she should have told her while she was still listening. It wasn’t good to overtire her. Next week might be better. She placed her hand gently on her mother’s knee as a goodbye and turned away, hating the clack of her heels as she walked across the parquet floor. Next week she would find her mother in exactly the same spot, waiting for nothing in particular. Margaret’s eyes remained closed and her mouth twitched as she watched a little girl in a blue dress run across a June hay meadow clutching a daisy chain for her mother.
