Throughout his five days away, her anguish had always been in the forefront of his mind, something to be savoured. Guessing how long it would be until she finally wet herself. He could imagine her growing anxiety. How long before she fouled herself. The thought of her lying there helpless in her excreta was particularly satisfying. She’d be hungry, very hungry, and very thirsty by the time he returned. Lying there unable to telephone for help. Unable even to reach the television remote.
She couldn’t say that she didn’t deserve it though. What sort of mother was a cripple? How fair was that on him? And it was entirely her own fault. Just as it was her fault that his father was dead. She shouldn’t have let him drive in that condition. He would have done his block at any suggestion that he was unfit to drive, he’d have belted into her for sure, his father was a real man, but that was no excuse. She was in the wrong and must know it although she would never acknowledge as much.
Afterwards, she had had everything done for her. The whole house had been altered to provide easy accessability for and from a wheelchair. There was a ramp outside the back door, an electric hoist over her bed and another on a rail that extended over the bath and toilet. They had given her a battery-driven wheelchair and a car modified for hand control. The car had a roof-mounted electric hoist to help her to enter and stow the wheelchair. He hated riding in it. Everybody stared. It was embarrassing. Kids in their street had made a lot of smart remarks until he’d taught them better. The average mother was bad enough but nobody would want an abnormal mother. And all this gear had been provided for her absolutely free but no-one had done a single thing for him. It wasn’t fair. It seemed that he didn’t count at all.
And everyone said how brave she was, a real inspiration in the way that she struggled to make a normal life for herself and her son. He called it pathetic. The authorities would have paid for someone to come in each day to give assistance and this without any cost to her but she insisted on doing as much as possible herself. As a result, she had a woman in on Fridays only and then only to do the heavier chores that were clearly beyond her. Everyone said that she showed a wonderful spirit but he knew that it was an underlying guilt. She knew that she had no-one else to blame. And it was so stupid! If anything was free, you had to be a complete idiot not to grab it.
She had tried to be both mother and father to him and had failed miserably. His father knew how to handle things. His father had been a man who knew that a fist in the chops was worth a thousand words. His father had been someone that you could look up to. But not his mother. She was the complete squishy opposite. She blindly followed those child-development experts who warned against repressing a child’s emotional growth with too much discipline, or in fact any discipline: who claimed that youthful agression was both natural and healthy, something to be got out of the way early so that the final result would be a self-controlled and well-rounded-out adult. She was always ready to make excuses for him even though he was forever deliberately doing things to upset her and others. He had thrown Mrs. Winthrop’s kitten under the tar-spray when the street was being resurfaced. It was quite the funniest thing he had ever seen. His mother had been very upset and apologetic to Mrs. Winthrop and had paid the vet’s fees when the kitten was put down. Even got her a new kitten. But her idea of a suitable punishment had been laughable. To a large extent, she blamed herself for his behaviour and the received doctrine was adamant that ‘children are naturally cruel’. Still, he was not entirely looking forward to the homecoming although he knew that even in this case she would find some way to make excuses for him. She was such a complete dingbat.
It had been a moment of pure inspiration as he was leaving. It just served her right. The trip was a class trip to Auckland. Going to the top of some boring dead volcanoes, to a boring museum, to Motat with trams and stuff, and, of course, to the stupid old zoo. Nothing the least bit interesting. A complete waste of time really. Fund raising had been going on for months and, as one would expect, his mother had insisted in doing all that she could to help. It seemed there was absolutely nothing in this world that she wouldn’t do to bring him shame.
His mother had been ill when he left possibly as a result of the previous night’s storm or maybe it was because of the argument they had had over spending money for the trip. It was a constant source of friction between them, money. She couldn’t seem to realise how stink it was to always have a lot less than his friends. He had still been angry and not inclined to give her sympathy.
She was too ill to get up. One side of her face slumped and she seemed dazed. She refused to answer him. One would almost think that she didn’t know him. This was something new, the silent treatment. See if he cared! She had done his packing the night before and he was quite capable of getting his own breakfast.
The lightning of the night before had put the telephone out of action but, again, that was unimportant at the moment. She could always go to the neighbours later in the morning and ring faults. But supposing that she could not get out to the neighbours: that she couldn’t even get out of bed? When the hoists had first been installed, a faulty circuit-breaker on the switchboard had given a number of nuisance trips. On one occasion, his mother had been suspended in mid-air for several hours. He had smiled his secret smile, pushed the little red button on his way out, and carefully locked the back door. It would not do to have anyone blundering in.
The class trip had proved to be a real drag, as he had known it would, and the teachers had been on his back the whole time. The only good bit had been when he had ‘accidently’ dropped Janice Locksley’s back-pack into the bear pit at the zoo. He had teased her by dangling it over the wall and her screams and pleading had been as sweet music. After that, he just had to drop it in to show that he was male and therefore boss. The studied pose of injured innocence that he had carefully cultivated over the years had been used a little too often. It didn’t work on this occasion. The teachers’ angry bollocking was a cheap price to pay for his enjoyment. He could tune it out. If they’d have laid so much as a finger on him, he’d have reported them.
He had not even thought of another price he might have to pay until the bus was on the way home. It was Friday at last and Mrs. Mason who did the heavy cleaning would have found his mother that morning. She would have let herself in with her own key. His mother would be sure to protest his innocence, as was her duty, but the matter would still become public if Mrs. Mason had her way. She would consider that to be her duty. Outrage was her forte.
As the bus pulled into the school grounds, he scanned the waiting cars. He could hardly hope that his mother would be there but, although he was now dreading their first meeting, it would be better her than anybody else. His heart stopped for a moment. There was a police car there, Constable Bragg. He braced himself to brazen it out. He knew his rights. He was under fourteen and therefore untouchable. They couldn’t put him in a home or anything like that. They couldn’t do anything really except counsel him and, as on previous occasions, they couldn’t make him listen.
This time, however, it was different. Constable Bragg was quite solicitous and took him aside to tell him that his mother was ill, very ill, she had suffered a severe stroke, perhaps several. The constable would take him straight to the hospital to see her. And then they would have to find him somewhere to stay. Although it was not actually stated, it became clear that his mother was unlikely to ever leave hospital again. Nothing was said about the tripped circuit-breaker.
He could not feel for the woman in the bed. This dribbling, fallen-faced woman who obviously did not recognise him was not the mother he had known. He cried but it was for himself. This was the way she had been when he had left although now more so. But nobody could blame him. He did not blame himself. How could he be expected to know what a stroke was?
The constable led him away gently. Was there somewhere that he could stay in the meantime? Did he have any relatives who would look after him? There were only his mother’s two sisters and he knew without anyone asking that both would flatly refuse to have him under any circumstances. And he himself wanted no part of either of these witches so, since the authorities would never let him live at home alone, that only left a foster home. With a sudden burst of anger he realised that this would take from him all the measure of control that he had until then enjoyed. Admittedly, he had done a few rather unkind things in his time, he was prepared to admit that, but they were as nothing when compared with this cruel trick of his mother’s.