A Mother's Love (45 page)

But there was something she now knew she must ask of Mackenzie. The problem was, would he grant it? She was resolved to badger him until he did.

The telephone on her desk tinkled. Putting down the report she was checking on the hazards confronting women working in munitions factories, Sara unhooked the receiver, stretching her neck to peer around the filing cabinet at her colleagues in the noisy newsroom.

She still sat in the same corner allocated to her when she had first been given a desk, half-hidden by the same two filing cabinets that had never been moved, almost as though partially out of sight she was also out of mind, enough not to cause the minds of her male colleagues to wander off their work. There had been a time when she had fretted over it. Now she merely thought of it as beneath contempt. If any of them needed a word with her about work, or merely a little sly fraternisation, which some did occasionally, they knew where to find her.

‘Miss Craig here,’ she said into the earpiece.

The female telephonist, who had taken over from a male one, sounded a little breathless.

‘Miss Craig. Someone called Mrs Morris. She says she’s your great-aunt. She wants to speak to you. She says it’s urgent, important.’

‘Very well, Miss Harris, put her on.’ Sara’s voice was sharp with sudden concern, her first thought being her mother.

‘Sara!’ came her name hardly had Great-Aunt been handed over. ‘You must come home! It’s James. He’s been reported missing, believed taken prisoner, and your mother’s in a terrible state. I can’t do anything with her. She wants you.’

‘Wants me?’ No longer sharp, her tone was now cold.

‘That’s all she keeps asking for – for you.’

‘All right. I’ll come as soon as I can.’

‘Can’t you come now? She is in a state. I’ve had to leave her to find this phone. There’s only Mrs Thompson there with her.

‘I’ll come now,’ she said, and with her great-aunt thanking her profusely, quite out of character, she replaced the earpiece back on its hook.

Her nerves had begun fluttering. Even so, she felt cynical. After all these years, her mother wanted her. When had she ever been wanted? James was the one her mother had turned to, ironically the one who had never returned the love she’d showered on him, yearning only to get away, while she, until recently, had stayed on, knowing how little she had ever been wanted. Now, with Jamie missing, Mother wanted her!

Even in this crisis, her half-brother provoked no affection in her; concern, perhaps, but no aching fear for his safety. What did frighten her was the possible parallel of his fate with Jonathan’s. What if the same had happened to Jonathan – or worse?

All these months, and not a word. Not even to his colleagues. It was as though he’d washed his hands of them all. And who knew where he might be? He could be safe in England, or could have been sent abroad immediately for all any of them knew. This was what was happening now – with hardly any prior training, men were being sent out to fight, needed only to fill the numbers lost. It was horrific.

Perhaps she could have found out. But the manner of his going had brought the pride up in her. She would not beg in seeking him. She might have contacted his parents – their address was in his file from when he first joined the newspaper as a junior reporter ten years before. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to do so. She didn’t know them and they didn’t know her. And she refused to reveal her private feelings to strangers – in a way it seemed akin to begging, and she did not beg; never had begged. Yet deep in her heart she knew she was wrong.

There was nothing for her to do but hope that a letter might eventually arrive saying all was well. She tried to console herself with that, but it was hard. Then had come the bad dreams, beginning after that first time she’d stood at London Docks: of men being carried down from a great ship, and one of the dead laid at her feet turning out to be Jonathan. The precious tears, so long withheld, would run hot down her cheeks. Yet as she awoke, it was to find that she was not crying, the tears only in the dream. The dreams varied, of course, but always drifted towards the same ending: Jonathan lying dead at her feet, her crying bitterly, only to awake dry-eyed.

‘Please, bring him home safe,’ she prayed in the taxicab taking her towards Approach Road. The prayer was not for James but for Jonathan. She had not once thought to pray for James.

She paid the cabbie and hurried down the diamond-patterned slate-tiled front path with its brick edging, and ran up the short flight of stone steps to the front door as quickly as her narrow skirt allowed. Below her, at the foot of the basement steps, Mrs Thompson, a person who could get more words into one minute than most managed in five, gazed up at her.

‘We’ve ’ad a terrible time with your mum, poor woman. The doctor should be ’ere any minute – to give ’er some medicine to quieten ’er. This terrible news ’as fair sent ’er off ’er ’ead. I’m so sorry about your brother. Terrible. What a performance we’ve ’ad.’

There was no time to reply as the housemaid opened the door hardly had she reached it. She must have been watching out for her.

‘Where is my mother?’ Sara enquired, stepping into the narrow hall as the basement door closed below, Mrs Thompson also going indoors.

The girl’s mouth opened to reply but Sarah Morris was already leaning over the bannisters, having somehow managed to get herself up that one flight of stairs to Harriet. Her small, lined face peered down into the dimness below.

‘Your mother’s up here in her room. Hurry!’

She had expected to find her mother perhaps face down on her bed weeping, or pacing the floor wringing her hands. She was not prepared for what she did see.

A small wild animal, her mother looked like. She was crouching by the window of the front bedroom, a kitchen knife clutched in her hand, the beige wall behind her stained with vermilion streaks, the beige flowered curtains ripped, the stiff, heavily starched lace curtains splashed by blood.

‘My God – what’s she done to herself?’

‘She just went mad. I couldn’t stop her.’

Great-Aunt Sarah’s voice was high from the situation she had been forced to face. ‘She ran down to the kitchen. Before either of us could stop her, she grabbed the kitchen knife off Mrs Thompson and began stabbing at herself. We tried to get it off her. Mrs Thompson got her hand cut. I gashed my arm.’

For the first time, Sara noticed the fresh bandage wrapped about her great-aunt’s arm.

Her mother was still crouching as though at bay, her expression that of a hunted animal.

‘Mum … put it down.’ Sara made a small attempt to move towards her but received a terrified snarl in return. The knife wavered threateningly towards more self-inflicted wounds.

Sara straightened up, helpless. ‘How could she do such a thing? What are we going to do? She’s bleeding.’

‘Not as bad as it looks,’ Sarah Morris said unsteadily. ‘I don’t think she’s done herself too much harm. But she won’t let us near her to clean her up. If I try, like you just tried, she threatens to cut herself again.’

Sara stood transfixed at the sight her mother presented. There were cuts on the face, not deep, more scratches than anything, but still seeping blood that without treatment gave a frightening aspect. More long shallow cuts on her left arm dribbled blood and her blue flowered summer dress was stained and ripped by ineffectual slashing. But it was the look in her eyes that frightened Sara the most – wild and staring, as though her wits had gone completely.

‘She’s been standing there by the window ever since I telephoned you,’ her Great-Aunt supplied shakily. ‘She said she wanted you, so Mrs Thompson stayed here while I found a telephone. I sent Ethel for the doctor. He’s arranging an ambulance now, and some people to come to get her away. I can’t cope, Sara. I’ve had enough. We’re waiting for him now.’

Even as she spoke, the doorbell jangled. Ethel, the housemaid, ran for the door, and they heard the doctor’s enquiring voice as she let him in.

Harriet had heard him too. Her eyes switched in the direction of the door.
She knows enough to know what is happening
, Sara thought, hopefully. Her wits hadn’t gone that completely.

‘Don’t let him in!’ The hiss broke from Harriet’s lips. Her eyes sought Sara’s. ‘Come here,’ she hissed. ‘Next to me. Push him away if he comes near me. He tried to kill my Jamie. But I won’t let him. Come here, I said!’

Sara took a deep breath. It was like pacifying a child as she went towards her. But it wasn’t a child, it was a madwoman wielding a naked knife, finely sharpened, ready for cutting meat. Would that blade rip through her own flesh in a moment or two? She forced herself to continue walking. When she came within arm’s reach, her mother’s free hand darted out, caught her wrist, and with surprising strength dragged her forward.

‘You’ll protect me. Won’t you?’ Still that grating hiss, totally unrecognisable as her mother’s voice.

‘Yes, Mum, of course I will,’ Sara said as evenly as she could. The blood on her mother’s hand felt sticky on her wrist.

‘He wants to kill my Jamie. My poor little Jamie. But he won’t kill you. Not his own daughter. Not his flesh. I won’t let him take me or my Jamie down to Hell. Oh, my poor little Jamie …’

There seemed a moment when the wildness melted, and awareness of time and place returned. ‘Missing … Sara, don’t let him be dead. Don’t let them kill my poor Jamie, my little boy …’

The wail died away. They could hear the doctor’s tread on the stairs, and several others. Beneath the tousle of greying hair that still showed fading strands of auburn, the grey eyes grew suddenly alarmed, then angry. The face turned up to Sara’s contorted.

‘What’re you doing here? Get away from me. I don’t want you here!’

‘You said you wanted me, Mother.’

‘Yes.’ Anger in its turn died. Was there a hint of sanity in those eyes? But no, more the crafty sanity of the insane, the mind thinking, but on another plane, in another time.

‘That’s right – I wanted you. Can’t push him downstairs again on my own. Not strong enough any more. You do it. Mustn’t let him take me away with him. He says he will. He tells me in my dreams. Because, you see, I killed him – your father. He’s been waiting for me ever since. I always thought it was an accident, but it wasn’t, was it? You see, I was glad he was dead. I told no one I was glad, so I must have wanted to kill him. If you stay here, he won’t …’

She broke off as the doctor came into the room, a nurse with him as well as another man to give any assistance needed. Harriet’s grey eyes had opened wide as the doctor came forward with slow confidence, one hand out, his deep voice soothing, requesting the knife.

‘No-o …’ Her voice rose upward on the vowel. ‘Sara – he wants to kill me. You mustn’t let him.’

She seemed to have forgotten she still held a knife. It clattered to the floor as she let go of Sara to place both hands over her face in self-protection.

They were able to overcome her gently enough and bear her to the bed, the doctor already easing a phial between her lips, the nurse gently binding her arms with a roll of bandage so that she could not flail about. But she seemed suddenly weakened even before the potion took hold; again appeared not to know what was happening, staring about as though in a strange place as they gently helped her, wilting, down the stairs to where an ambulance was already drawn up outside.

Sarah Morris followed them down, awkward with her arthritic knees, but Sara couldn’t move. Her smart suit besmeared by blood from her mother’s cuts, she stood rooted to the spot. Tears were welling up, great, heaving sighs of them. Angrily she forced them down.

If she was going to weep, it would not be for her mother, a woman who had made her what she was: cold, withdrawn, a woman who could turn away the man she loved – yes, she knew that now, with absolute certainty –
loved
, yet too frightened, too conditioned by a loveless existence and one love that had been a lie – she knew that now, too – to reveal the emotions churning inside her.

She would not weep for a woman who hadn’t given one thought to her all these years that did not carry a weight of loathing. She’d done nothing to warrant it except to be the daughter of a man her mother had loathed. No, she wouldn’t cry for her mother. She couldn’t hate her, but she wouldn’t cry for her either.

Through the open window, her mother’s cries were wafting, weakened by what she had been administered, but enough to bring faces to windows and street doors to witness the sight of a madwoman being taken away to an asylum, now bound and doped.

‘I mean no offence, Sara dear, but I can look after myself still.’

Sarah Morris smiled with staid serenity into the anxious blue eyes of her great-niece in the parlour of what was now her large and empty home, since Harriet would never enter it again.

They had just returned from a visit to her, though they might as well not have bothered for all the notice Harriet had taken of them. Most of the time she was engaged in talking to Jamie – Jamie aged something between two and eight years old, depending upon how she saw him at that moment. It wrung Sara’s heart to watch her, even though there was some relief in that she seemed content most of the time with her little Jamie, oblivious to much else.

James had been officially listed a prisoner of war, somewhere in Germany; hopefully the letters Great-Aunt Sarah had written to him would reach him, given time. But Harriet seemed not to comprehend any of this, merely sighed and smiled at the little boy she remembered. Nor did she weep so often these days. It was as though her memory had obliterated all the ugly things, the unkind and hurtful things of her life. She no longer spoke to her first husband, but to Matthew, usually to tell him how baby Jamie was doing. It was heartbreaking to watch.

It was like entering another world unconnected to the one outside, where nurses moved untouched by strange noises, not quite human, from unseen parts of the asylum, and shrouded figures moved absently along corridors, through wards, up stairways.

Harriet was usually to be found sitting by the window in the small room the family had clubbed together to provide, appalled by the condition she had been reduced to. She would be conversing with the pane in which she no doubt saw her own reflection as that of her little boy, her Jamie, her hands moving continuously in conversation with him or with Matthew about him.