Sorrow and Bliss(74)

My mother waited until last and held me for as long as my father had but afterwards, instead of releasing me completely she held me at arm’s distance, her hands just below my shoulders, and said she had forgotten how beautiful I was. She was not drunk.

And I shook her off. And when Rowland came back I said I wasn’t hungry. And when my father quoted me a line from the novel he was reading at the time, claiming to find it both hilarious and apposite, I just shrugged and when Winsome came over to me with a present that she’d had under the tree – hope against hope et cetera – I opened it and said I already had a vase and could not, anyway, foresee a time when I would receive flowers. And then I said I was leaving, and declined to take it, then and for a second time at the front door.

*

The line from my father’s book was hilarious and apposite. ‘The cremation was no worse than a family Christmas.’

*

I called my mother early the next morning while I was getting dressed. As soon as she answered, I started talking about yesterday, how horrible it was without the others. Not Patrick obviously. I was glad he wasn’t there. Repetitiously I said, ‘It’s best for him as well. He wanted –’

She said, ‘No. Stop.’ Her patience was expended. Her voice wavered. ‘You don’t get to decide what is best for other people, Martha. Not even for your own husband – especially not your own husband. Because, incidentally, you have no idea what Patrick wants.’ I wanted to say something to stop her but my mouth had gone dry, and she continued. ‘From what I can tell, you’ve never made an effort to find out. Sometimes I wonder if you thought it was going to be easier just to blow everything up. Tip, tip, tip, kerosene everywhere, match over the shoulder as you walk away. Incinerate the lot.’

She stopped and waited. I said, ‘Why are you saying this? You are supposed to be on my side. You have to be nice to me.’

‘I am on your side. But I was ashamed of you yesterday. You embarrassed yourself, and everyone else. You acted like a child. Not even taking the vase –’

I shouted at her. I told her she was not allowed to tell me off.

‘No actually, I will. Somebody needs to. You think all this has happened to you and only you. That’s what I saw yesterday. It’s your terrible personal tragedy, so you’re the only one who’s allowed to be in pain. ‘But –’ she said, my girl ‘– this has happened to all of us. Do you not see that? Not even yesterday? This is everyone’s tragedy. And if he’d been there, you would have seen it’s most of all Patrick’s. This has been his life every bit as much as it’s been yours.’

I told her she was wrong. ‘He’s never felt the way I have. He has no idea what it’s like.’

‘Maybe so but he’s had to watch you. He’s had to hear his wife say she wants to die, see her in agony and not know how to help her. Imagine that, Martha. And you thinking he liked it that way! He stayed with you through it all, no matter the cost to himself, and in the end he is hated for it and told to go.’

‘I don’t hate him.’

‘Pardon?’

‘I never said I hated him.’

‘Even if that were true, for everything else you’ve said, let me tell you, anyone except Patrick would have left you a long time ago, without needing to be asked. You lied first, Martha. He didn’t make you. Nobody did.’

I felt sick. My mother exhaled heavily, then kept going. ‘I am not saying you haven’t suffered, Martha. But I am saying, grow up. You’re not the only one.’

She stopped and waited until I said, ‘How do I do that?’

‘What? I can’t hear you when you’re whispering.’

I said, slowly, ‘How do I do that? Mum, I don’t know what to do.’

‘I would ask your husband for forgiveness and,’ she said, ‘consider yourself very lucky if he gives it to you.’





35

I DIDN’T CALL her again. At the end of the week I got a letter.

It said, Martha. You know as I do that the conversation we’ve had over these weeks is finished. What happens next is your choice but I hope you’ll consider the following in making whatever decision you do.

All my life I’ve believed that things happened to me. The awful things – childhood, my mad/dead mother, disappearing father. That because she had to raise me, I lost Winsome as a sister. Your father not succeeding, this house, living somewhere I can’t stand, my drinking, my becoming a drunk. On and on it goes, all of it happening to me.

And then – you. My beautiful daughter, breaking when she was still a child. Even though you were the one in pain, even though I chose not to help you, in my own mind it was the worst thing that ever happened to me.

I was the victim, and victims of course are allowed to behave however they like. Nobody can be held to account as long as they’re suffering and I made you my unassailable excuse for not growing up.

But then I did grow up – age 68 – because you made me.

I know it hasn’t been that long but this is what I have been able to see since then: things do happen. Terrible things. The only thing any of us get to do is decide whether they happen to us or if, at least in part, they happen for us.

I always thought your illness happened to me. Now I choose to believe that it happened for me because it was why finally I stopped drinking. I did not start drinking because of you and your illness, as I’m sure I let you believe, but you are the reason I stopped.