focus on where sheâs going and what she might find when she gets there.
Before she has had time to think about her mother very much at all, Bettina is stepping from the train and starting the walk that will take her twenty minutes, although she often does it in ten when sheâs coming the other way, because she cannot help but scurry for the safety of life as she now knows it.
On the walk, though, she does think about the mother who brought her and Sam up: the bright heart of their family, their power and their sunshine, not perfect by any means but always fun to be close to, always ready to be roped into an adventure or, more likely, to rope them into one of hers. Bettina remembers being woken before five to hear the first cuckoo, standing blearily in the garden and hearing the sound that made her mother beam, even if she couldnât easily differentiate it from that of a pigeon.
She remembers her family, as it was then, having dinner at their house in Missingham, on the day she announced what she thought her future was going to be.
âIâm going to apply for a job at the stables,â she had said.
âOf course you are, darling,â Alice had said with a smile, then, âI wanted to be an actress, or a singer. The nuns didnât like it. Secretary or nurse were your options, as far as they were concerned. Until you got married.â
âThose were the days,â Howard had said, bracing for the outrage.
âOh, youâre hilarious,â Alice had said.
âDidnât you have the option to be a nun?â Sam had asked.
âWell, they never asked me about being a nun, darling,â Alice had said. âI donât suppose they thought I had the â¦â she had searched for the word, âthe knack. And to be fair, they were right.â
Now, hand on the nursing-home door, Bettina wants to step back and tell that Tina to remember, to treasure those memories, because her mother wonât always be rushing from work as a school secretary to home for tea to the amateur dramatics rehearsal, via a kiss for them all and a moment to watch the birds at the kitchen door.
Today, Alice wonât know who she is, for a start, and will prattle about the young Bettina as though the daughter before her is a stranger. Or she will talk about things that make no sense. Or she will doze in her chair while Bettina watches her and wonders how the mother who was once so bright that being embraced by her was like being tumbled into a rainbow now sits as frail as one of her beloved fuchsias in February.
But none of these is the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario is the one where Alice May Randolph, mother of Bettina May, is enough of herself to ask where Samuel Randolph is. If that happens, Bettina will make a choice. She will dissemble, lightly, changing the subject or telling what she has heard described as a âtherapeutic fibâ: she will say something like âSam canât come todayâ, and talk about something else. This has the advantage of making for a peaceful afternoon. It has the disadvantage of making Bettina rage at herself for cowardice.
Her other choice, and, in Bettinaâs mind, the Right Thing if not the easy one, is to tell the truth, which has unpredictable results, none of them pleasant. If she does this, the visit can go many ways. One is the inconsolable sobbing which is not, in essence, any different to the way her mother would have first received the news. Her mother will wail and keen and Bettina will watch her, unable even to hold her motherâs hands as they fight free of her own and grasp and pull helplessly against each other. Sometimes, Bettina finds herself wailing too. More often, more painfully, she sits quietly and thinks thoughts that shame her: that this reaction, horrible as it is to watch, shows her that somewhere in there is a mother still. And so the times when Alice responds to the news-that-isnât-news with a
Before she has had time to think about her mother very much at all, Bettina is stepping from the train and starting the walk that will take her twenty minutes, although she often does it in ten when sheâs coming the other way, because she cannot help but scurry for the safety of life as she now knows it.
On the walk, though, she does think about the mother who brought her and Sam up: the bright heart of their family, their power and their sunshine, not perfect by any means but always fun to be close to, always ready to be roped into an adventure or, more likely, to rope them into one of hers. Bettina remembers being woken before five to hear the first cuckoo, standing blearily in the garden and hearing the sound that made her mother beam, even if she couldnât easily differentiate it from that of a pigeon.
She remembers her family, as it was then, having dinner at their house in Missingham, on the day she announced what she thought her future was going to be.
âIâm going to apply for a job at the stables,â she had said.
âOf course you are, darling,â Alice had said with a smile, then, âI wanted to be an actress, or a singer. The nuns didnât like it. Secretary or nurse were your options, as far as they were concerned. Until you got married.â
âThose were the days,â Howard had said, bracing for the outrage.
âOh, youâre hilarious,â Alice had said.
âDidnât you have the option to be a nun?â Sam had asked.
âWell, they never asked me about being a nun, darling,â Alice had said. âI donât suppose they thought I had the â¦â she had searched for the word, âthe knack. And to be fair, they were right.â
Now, hand on the nursing-home door, Bettina wants to step back and tell that Tina to remember, to treasure those memories, because her mother wonât always be rushing from work as a school secretary to home for tea to the amateur dramatics rehearsal, via a kiss for them all and a moment to watch the birds at the kitchen door.
Today, Alice wonât know who she is, for a start, and will prattle about the young Bettina as though the daughter before her is a stranger. Or she will talk about things that make no sense. Or she will doze in her chair while Bettina watches her and wonders how the mother who was once so bright that being embraced by her was like being tumbled into a rainbow now sits as frail as one of her beloved fuchsias in February.
But none of these is the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario is the one where Alice May Randolph, mother of Bettina May, is enough of herself to ask where Samuel Randolph is. If that happens, Bettina will make a choice. She will dissemble, lightly, changing the subject or telling what she has heard described as a âtherapeutic fibâ: she will say something like âSam canât come todayâ, and talk about something else. This has the advantage of making for a peaceful afternoon. It has the disadvantage of making Bettina rage at herself for cowardice.
Her other choice, and, in Bettinaâs mind, the Right Thing if not the easy one, is to tell the truth, which has unpredictable results, none of them pleasant. If she does this, the visit can go many ways. One is the inconsolable sobbing which is not, in essence, any different to the way her mother would have first received the news. Her mother will wail and keen and Bettina will watch her, unable even to hold her motherâs hands as they fight free of her own and grasp and pull helplessly against each other. Sometimes, Bettina finds herself wailing too. More often, more painfully, she sits quietly and thinks thoughts that shame her: that this reaction, horrible as it is to watch, shows her that somewhere in there is a mother still. And so the times when Alice responds to the news-that-isnât-news with a
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