Mother Can You Hear Me? by Margaret Forster

Author:Margaret Forster [Margaret Forster]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2004-03-03T16:00:00+00:00

Ten

IT WAS ON a Saturday, midday, with Ben and the boys watching the football preview on television, slumped stupid and passive, gorging crisps and drinking forbidden cokes. Sadie out—parts unknown. And Angela wandering in the garden picking up pears full of September wasps. The holidays had been good. They had gone to St Erick en route for the Scilly Isles and Mother’s teeth were fixed and Father helped with the garden. They had been cunning—four days before their real holiday and three days on the way back, tanned and refreshed after the heat. That way, it had not seemed too bad and their excuses each time—must leave for the Scillies, must leave for work and school—carried conviction. It was perhaps always the way to do it.

Angela stayed in the garden. So much of the summer had passed her by in a daze of worry about one thing or another and now she felt rested and refreshed. She even felt philosophical. There was nothing she could do about Sadie—Sadie was going her own way and grieving about it, pining for the lost intimacy and trust of childhood was no good. There was nothing she could do about Mother either—Mother had drowned herself in her own misery long ago and could not be rescued. Neither of them were really her burdens and she must not convince herself that they were. That secret contract she imagined she had sometime signed was not after all binding. She could be herself. She could even sometimes think of herself first without necessarily undermining the whole edifice of motherhood.

Afterwards, the cruelty of the telephone ringing at that precise time struck her as calculated—someone, somewhere, had been watching and chortling and rubbing their hands with manic glee. The boys did not move. Ben did not move. It would be one of Sadie’s friends and it could be left to ring. She stayed in the garden, dead-heading the second crop of roses, and waited for the ringing to stop. But it went on and on and began to spoil the peace of the garden. Every window was open and since they now had two extensions three telephones were shrilling away. Angrily, she marched in. ‘Can’t any of you answer the telephone?’ she shouted and, still angry, snatching the receiver from its cradle, ‘Hello, who is it?’ ‘Is that you, Angela?’ The football commentary blared in the background. She had already spoken—she could not pretend she was not there, she was too late to disconnect Father and take the bloody, hideous, wicked telephone off the hook.

‘Father, what’s wrong?’

‘They’ve taken your Mother to hospital—ay—I know—it’s a shock—always the way when you think you’re out of the wood, always the same. What a blow—never thought it would come to this. It started on Thursday,’ he said, his voice growing stronger as he properly began the saga, ‘but she wouldn’t let me ring you—Angela’s just got back from her holidays, she said, she doesn’t want to leave home—anyways, Thursday morning damn me what

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