Every Day Is Mother’s Day. Hilary Mantel
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what we can do.
Cheers,
CATH DAWSON
III/73/0059
Home Visit, 23.9.73.
Explained to Mrs Axon that Miss Dawson had been transferred. Client appears well. Mrs Axon stated that she was dissatisfied with client’s progress, but that she had not expected her to make any progress. Explained to Mrs Axon the various activities in which client participates at Community Care Sessions. Enquired why she had not told Miss Dawson that client able to read and write. Mrs Axon stated ‘Because it would have been a lie.’ Explained to her that client’s achievement was on a basic level. Nevertheless this was a very praiseworthy attainment and client should be given every encouragement to use her skills. Asked client if she would show her mother how she could write. Client agreed that she would do this but when supplied with paper she scribbled on it. Mrs Axon stated ‘It is plain that you are all fools and fools in charge of fools.’
Introduced the subject of client’s longterm care. Mrs Axon expressed the idea that client would be left alone in the house (presumably meaning after she herself was dead). Mrs Axon did not appear to be able to verbalise the idea of her own death. Explained to her that Muriel had been placed on the waiting list for five-day care at the Centre and that in the event of her decease a place would be found for her in a residential institution or hostel. Mrs Axon stated ‘Do you mean Holloway?’ and when this queried stated ‘She has murderous inclinations.’ Did not clarify this statement. Asked Mrs Axon about her own physical health and whether she felt able to care for Muriel as of the present time. Mrs Axon stated that her own health was excellent. Suggested that client might be able to do more for herself if encouraged. Surprisingly in view of her previous statement Mrs Axon said that client had always been a good and obedient girl and that she had never been any trouble from her birth. Suggested to Mrs Axon that Muriel was no longer in this position now i.e. no longer a girl. Mrs Axon stated that if Muriel was ‘any trouble’ she would hold caseworker responsible. Mrs Axon’s attitude on this visit was most unfriendly.
J. S. S.
Dear Sister Janet,
When you come on duty will you try if you can stop Muriel putting her hand in the tea-money again. M. S. Byrne MA says she had a need to do this as in the present state of her she needs to take things not be given as part of her identity, or autonomy, one of those. It isn’t her first time thieving so if I were you I’d bring the box at half past three and lock it in the medicine cupboard till you see the back end of her, then she can have her autonomy on Mpoe’s shift next week.
Love,
NORAH
Muriel is walking along Lauderdale Road. Muriel is observing Muriel walking along Lauderdale Road. Off the bus; like puppets of wood the people on the bus nod their heads and jerk their arms at her. She understands it to be their ceremony of farewell. Rigidly, as if saluting some dictator, she raises her right arm in imitation. Always she finds the outward forms the best, the safest. The people on the bus seem perfectly satisfied. She smiles to hèrself.
Off the bus at the junction of Buckingham Avenue and Lauderdale Road. This is the blind side of the house. Along Lauderdale Road to the end; cross the road; turn. Back along the opposite side. Along the road, in at the gate. No purpose in the detour, except that Evelyn will never know. But wait:
There basking in the weak sunshine is the dog known as pedigree wire-haired fox terrier. Between its paws, a big bone licked clean. Muriel stoops. As her fingers creep towards the bone, the dog wakes and leaps to its feet, a growl in its throat. Muriel extends one of her stiff legs and lace-up shoes and kicks the dog in the ribs with all the force she can muster. The dog known as pedigree wire-haired fox terrier flees, yelping. Around the corner. In at the gate.
Evelyn opens the door without speaking. She shuffles towards the back of the house. The living room is safe then, Muriel thinks sardonically. Muriel stares at the dull floor, at the table. I could be that floor, she thinks, that very floor to walk on; things placed upon it. I could be the thing that is placed. The familiar panic begins to rise up inside her. As her fingers close over the bone in her pocket, her heart slows.
That morning Evelyn had shouted questions at her. Evelyn had taken by the arm and shaken the girl known as Muriel Alexandra Axon. Whenever this happens, Muriel creeps out, a midnight flitter; she watches from the other side of the room. Evelyn thinks she knows who she is talking to; she does not know that she is shaking a table or a floor, a dead planet, a pebble on a beach. It is most satisfactory. It shows how little Evelyn knows of the true state of affairs.
Once, some years ago now, Muriel realised that her mother could not read her mind, or not all of it. She tested this. She thought certain thoughts, like: I will kill you. Then many times a day Muriel would think thoughts, rejoicing in the deception. I will trip you down the stairs and break your neck. Mother mother mother. Muriel eat your soup spilling it like that. Clumsy girl. From thoughts, short steps to action. Evelyn did not know that she had walked along Lauderdale Road, that she had a bone in her pocket, or five coins from the tea-money. Unless…still, Muriel was not sure how much she knew. This was why, when Evelyn spoke to her, she became like an empty cavern. Muriel Alexandra’s body stands irreproachable like a guardsman on parade, while her thoughts slip off to gambol and strut, enjoying their own existence.
GO NOT TO THE KITCHIN TODAY.
Evelyn explains. They go into the front parlour, and drink the cordial with the lukewarm water. Tomorrow, Evelyn thinks, if there is no message, I must remember to fill the jug. Or I could take it upstairs, and fill it in the bathroom.
Muriel remarks that the orange juice is very nice. Evelyn says kindly. ‘You are a good girl, you appreciate what is provided for you.’
And again Muriel smiles. The orange juice is revolting; she thinks so. She marvels constantly at how easy it is to deceive. She wants one of the tins of meat; all evening she cherishes her longings and her hunger, the feelings she has that Evelyn does not know about. At eight o’clock Evelyn says, ‘We could have a tin of meat.’
Inside, Muriel squirms in pain. Her thought has been read again. Dragged, filleted, out of her living head. But she struggles to keep the smile on her face; and Evelyn thinks she is pleased at the suggestion. Muriel is beginning to feel the victor; she can keep changing the rules, Evelyn cannot win. Unless…still, it might be possible that she is Evelyn. That Evelyn is growing inside her. Go, go, she thought savagely: I did not invite you here.
Nine o’clock; Evelyn nods in her chair. She is growing deaf, Muriel thinks, old and deaf. Stealthily she moves out to the hallway. It is not until Friday morning that Evelyn goes through her pockets. First she takes the money, spreading it out on her palm; five, five pieces of money. Then the letter in its brown wrapper. Where? She looks around. Her mouth twists. She puts her hand to it in alarm. That was Evelyn’s mouth twisting, Evelyn growing inside her.
In panic she spreads out the money and counts it again; five. And there is the dead plant, all its leaves gone now, nothing but the brown withered stalk, standing in a basket made by a person they have taken to be Muriel Alexandra Axon. Carefully she lifts out the plantpot; folding the letter in half, she places it in the bottom of the basket. (And you be sure you give it to your mother, won’t you now, Muriel?) Back goes the plant. She takes the bone. It is still slimy from the jaws of the dog called pedigree wire-haired fox terrier. Outside the door of the front parlour she listens. Only Evelyn’s breathing; she snickers in her nose, her lower jaw droops on to her chest. Muriel enters the kitchen. There is the teapot from this morning, the breakfast toast, all the remains from before Evelyn received her message from the spirits. Muriel picks up the box of matches, selecting carefully the one that will do the job. From the drawer she takes three tea-towels; white and blue check, white and yellow check, sights of Southport. She puts them in the sink to burn them. The first match goes out, and the second. But she has seen a man, when he lights his cigarettes, shielding the flame with his hand. She takes pleasure in the fact that no one will ever know where she learned this trick. In time she can throw the charred debris on the floor, surrounding the bone. And the pedigree wire-haired fox terrier will never complain, she knows that; when she walks along the Avenue