unchristian of me and selfish. I pointed out that no one else was being asked to go, not Peggy, not Grandfather. ‘We can go into town afterwards,’ she pleaded, ‘perhaps treat you to something you want to see.’ For it was and still is so important to Mother that an appearance of family solidarity be kept up.
We took two long London bus-rides through depressing streets, the new estates that were already slums. There was a terraced house, four flights of uncarpeted stairs, a dingy yellow door where a rag did for a doormat and a note said: ‘Bell don’t work. Knock.’
I blame my mother really for never finding out more about Mavis and what was wrong with her. I mean, it’s one thing being good and generous to all and sundry, but my own feeling is that we have certain strategic responsibilities to the members of our family that are far more important. Mavis was obviously not quite right in the head. One knew that if only from the way people instinctively treated her with condescension, not unkindly, but with indulgence rather, the way you treat animals, half-wits, tiny babies. Yet my mother never enquired into what might lie behind this. I have no memory of any doctor ever being invited to pronounce on her odd facial features or retarded mental development. She was just accepted from the start for what she was, dumb, childish, ugly. And while it’s all very well saying we’re all God’s creatures whatever’s the matter with us, I do believe that Mother failed in her duty here.
Bob was out to see the social security people. Mavis was in bed, eating sweets, smoking. Fishing for a piece of toffee stuck to her teeth, she talked about her miscarriages quite openly in my presence, despite initial frowns and signs ofdiscouragement from my mother. Mother asked had the doctors said anything about why, and Mavis laughed and said, nothing that made any sense. She blew out smoke through one nostril and then the other. She and Bob were determined she said. They had mostly got married for the kids. He was mad about them.
I wanted to go because of the smell, the unpleasantness, and then the embarrassing inanity of my aunt’s twitter. She was showing some baby clothes she had bought now. She was sure it was going to be a boy. She giggled. When it finally decided to turn up. I remember her big pear-shaped body heaving from one side of the bed to another to pick things up off the floor; she let out grunts, her cigarette flecking the blankets with ash. I was desperate to go, I get quite frantic sometimes when I find myself in unpleasant situations, I simply can’t bear it, I feel I will die of unpleasantness; but Mother of course felt duty bound to wash the dishes, hoover the carpet, save the unsaveable. I offered to help, to speed things up, but was told to keep Mavis company, drink my tea.
I stood by the bed with my hands in my pockets. I didn’t want any tea and I had spent my whole childhood in the same house as Mavis without ever talking to her. Was it likely we would find anything to say to each other now? I told her we were going into town afterwards to see the Queen’s stamp collection. I told her Peggy had got herself a dog but then never bothered to look after it, she was so busy playing the drums in a rock group all the time. Grandfather loathed the thing. I told her I was going to university in a year or two so as to be able to leave home. Mavis licked a thumb. I asked her if she liked being married, and she said it was all right and stopping work was the best thing that could ever have happened to her, not having to get up so early and have your hands ruined by those hot machines. ‘Which reminds me,’ she said. ‘Where’s me lipstick?’
Bob came back. He stood frail and knotty-haired in the doorway watching my mother down on her knees having a go at crud on the carpet. The room was quite big, maybefifteen by fifteen, but it had everything, kitchenette, bed, table, chairs, sofa, so it was cluttered, with