FAMILY FRAGMENTS - Part 3 The Dropping Well

Getting It Wrong

Brenda was surprised by the letter from Robert when it arrived on her doormat. She hadn't heard a dickey bird from him in, oh goodness, it must've been decades. And then this. Wanted to come and see her, or at least a phone call, there was something he needed to talk to her about. Joan had been dead for quite a few years and Harold had gone only last year, or was it the year before?. Brenda, was in her nineties, physically frail, but still with all her marbles, though fast becoming the only one left of her generation. She wrote back, picked one of the dates Robert had suggested to visit, and wondered -  why get back in contact now?

As he walked through an unfamiliar town trying to locate Auntie Brenda's flat, that he'd never been to before, Robert felt understandably nervous - what was it exactly he needed to speak to her about?. In the time since his Father died, something had begun to really niggle away at him. Gaps in his understanding over childhood incidents opened up. Then there was his problematic self-esteem, where the hell had that all come from? Into these vacant spaces he was prone to insert plausible explanations, attribute blame, that may or may not be true. He was in danger of creating an entirely false memory simply in order to explain these personal conundrums. Now both his parents were dead there was no one else to ask, only Auntie Brenda.

She might have a clearer perspective, because she was not a blood relation. One of his favourite Aunties and his Mother's closest friend Auntie Brenda was the living antidote to his family - fun and freedom loving, always feisty, opinionated, she spoke honestly and from the hip. He still gravitated toward men or women who were like that, they felt like a breath of fresh air to him. At some point she and his Mother had had a big fall out - hadn't spoken for years. His Mother tended to skip quickly over why, as she did whenever it came to emotionally difficult issues. A veil would be drawn, never to be pulled back, ever ever again. There were passing remarks in the ensuing years like - 'Your Auntie Brenda thought you were self centred and we indulged you too much'  But he'd assumed at the time this was just one of his Mother's tactics of using other people's comments to say what she felt she could not, just to needle him. But he might be wrong there.

When Brenda opened her door, there was this very familiar face. Robert was still recognisably Robert, even though she'd last seen him in his thirties. He was way past middle aged, probably on the cusp of retirement she thought. Shaved head, beard, tall, well dressed, quietly handsome beneath the wrinkles, still with that wry smirk with the playful mischievous glint to it.

Joan used to go on and on about how much like her he was. Brenda could never quite see it, she always saw an awful lot more of Harold there. Whether any of this was true or not, it was Joan's insistence on it that always felt a bit off, not quite right. It had felt cloying and unnecessary.  Robert, as she saw him now, he had a more self possessed air than she remembered him having even thirty years ago. He'd inherited the rock solid square build of his Father and the tall gentlemanly stature of his Grandfather. Only in the eyes could you see faint echoes of his Mother; slightly anxious, awkwardly self-conscious. They looked weary as if the weight of perception itself had grown too much for them.

'Come in ,come in, lovely to see you after all this time. I'm tempted to say you haven't changed much, but that would be untrue, you're a bit fatter than I remember.'

'And you're smaller and your hair colour has gone as steely as your tongue. Lovely to see you too, Auntie Brenda'

They continued to joke and did general social chit chat for a while, but as they settled down with a cup of tea and fruit cake, he needed to somehow turn the conversation in the general direction he wanted it to go.

'How did you originally meet my Mother'

'Oh, that was at secretarial college. We used to say we bonded over the shorthand. Your Mother was a very different person then, extremely quiet, so shy... wouldn't say boo to a goose, had little self confidence to speak of, anything new or unexpected tended to throw her into a spasm of heightened anxiety. That would change really radically later on. Mainly in that you couldn't shut her up or get a word in edge-ways. You know what she could be like'

'When did that change begin to happen do you think?

'After her breakdown, without a doubt.'

'Breakdown! - when was that?'

'She was confined to bed for months, surely you remember'

'I remember the confinement. Dad told us it was 'nervous exhaustion'  But neither of us really understood what that was, we were too young. Susan would've been eight or nine, I was a few years younger'

'Nervous exhaustion' was a convenient euphemism, it saved face. Mental difficulties were kept secret in those days, there was a certain amount of unhelpful shame and prejudice attached to them. Not like today when any minor celebrity wants their psychological problems splashed across the media, like a merit badge to prove their essentially human. Shame has been replaced with shameless, if you ask me. No one appears to know what having a private life is. They ought to try keeping it to themselves more.

'What was it brought this on... the breakdown that is. I've never been clear when exactly that happened.'

'Oh........it happened during the year after..... yes, the year after you flooded the bathroom for the second time....whatever year that was - 1963? 64?.

Robert visibly taken aback, had no recollection of it being quite as close as that - so as to follow on - it made sense.

'I don't know whether either of you really realised how much anxiety your Mother held inside her. She found it hard being a Mother, particularly in your early years. Your Father tried his best, - you know him, kind, thoughtful and loveable - but emotionally incapable of really dealing with it, of talking it through with her. The pressure of Motherhood, the cooking, the cleaning, the general housework, it soon got on top of her. She eventually developed her own way of coping, of overcoming difficulties and set backs. Mostly by trying to control everything and everyone. But the breakdown, well, it was as though she was a runner that ran out of road, and she just ground to a halt, she had to stop... stop everything'

'That was when Susan and I started doing the cooking and cle0aning around the house'

'And that didn't stop after she got better did it?'

'No, we just carried on doing it. It was how the family functioned from then on. I believe it did us both good'

'That was certainly true. But it continued primarily because your Mother couldn't manage it.... emotionally that is. She was a perfectionist who got overwhelmed by the sheer unrelenting nature of maintaining an immaculate home and family, and of feeling judged on it by others. That pressure unbalanced her. Though she'd never have admitted it to anyone. I think she wanted more from her life, but was unable to allow herself to even explore that idea. She didn't have the self confidence or wherewithal to do it. Brought up, like we all were then, to be a very conventional person.  She avoided risky behaviour and disapproval'

'Do you mind if I ask you a direct personal question'

'No, go ahead, you know me, not easily shocked or offended, more likely to cause it myself I've found'

'Why did you and Mum fall out?'

Brenda gazed up at the ceiling as if seeking divine inspiration for her recollection. She didn't want to speak ill of Robert's Mother, even if it might be warranted.

'When you gave up your shop and went to live in that commune, or whatever it was. She rang me, giving me all the usual stuff about how I wished you upon her. After thirty plus years of friendship I'd just about had enough of that being thrown back at me every time she got upset or fearful over something you'd decided to do. So, I'm ashamed to say, I let her have it'

'What on earth did you say?

Brenda paused for a moment, should she, should she really tell this?  She sighed-  no more caution and withholding - before any second or third thoughts might recommend maintaining silence - it was out

'I said..... something along the lines of - 'Don't you go blaming me if your son has become self centered, you've over indulged him most of his life because you still feel guilt about the appalling way you treated him in the time after he flooded the bathroom. I'm not going to let you off load responsibility for all that on me any more Joan'.  She slammed the phone down on me. I didn't speak to her again for another ten, fifteen years, no letters, cards, no phone calls, nothing'

'How was she with me in that time ...after I flooded the bathroom?'

'That incident appeared to crush her, to destabilise her spirit. She would not leave you be. Following you around like a bird of prey ready to pounce on anything you might do that might be dangerous to you, to your sister, the house or the entire universe for that matter. She was so on your case, trying to control you every hour, all day and every day. You could hardly breathe without censure or comment. It was painful to observe and impossible to get her to stop doing. In the end it was the breakdown that brought the intensity of it to a halt'

Robert dropped his head, running his hand back and forth across the stubble on his scalp over to his neck. He only vaguely remembered bits of that, but those bits rang clearer now they were in their true setting. Buried somewhere in the messy aftermath of his flooding of the bathroom, his Mother had more than slightly lost the plot. He felt himself mentally grasping for something. At such times he found it better to just open his mouth and start talking. Hoping that once he began giving voice to it, understanding might follow.

'So the constant unbroken talking.....what was that? .....was that a way of.......what? ......jamming the airwaves?'

'Something like that. No one can contradict you if they can't get a word in edge ways, or tell you events weren't really like that, or of things you don't want to hear.....can they?

'Mum used to loath silence - 'it's like a reading room in a library here' - she'd say, as if there was something inherently wrong about that. Then very pointedly launch unto recounting another convoluted story'

'Silence is an uncomfortable space for a lot of people. Things emerge when we fall silent, forgotten things. You can hear the truth of situations. Your Mother kept a tight rein on the telling of the family stories,  afraid they'd literally run out of her control otherwise. I'm certainly of the opinion that she found it hard to see you, in particular, for who you actually were.'

There then followed a long silent pause. Robert looked at his Auntie Brenda, Brenda looked at Robert - he began to cry. She saw then in that face all the painful thoughts and wracked feelings as they briefly flashed across it. Here was one unforseen consequence.

'Look, Robert..... I understand who you are, I know you're gay, that doesn't bother me in the least. It was I who first voiced the possibility to your Mother, though she was almost half way there herself. Your Father took his time, at first he didn't want to know, but that denial evaporated after a while. They both loved you regardless, don't you ever doubt that. 

If anything was wrong it was within your Mother, not with you. She saw herself in you too strongly, she feared for what else you might have inherited from her. In her mind she'd made you into her mirror and then didn't like it when all she could see was her own emotional and mental struggles being reflected back.' 

His parents, yes, they'd made errors in judgement, made mistakes. He'd made mistakes too, he understood that. One's he'd periodically punished himself for years later. Quite often what he'd chosen to do or not do in his life was not a pure stream of rational choices. He'd often been far too instinctively impulsive. The life he'd led was riddled with inconsistencies, lapses in judgement, moral cowardice, unexplained gaps and unforgivable omissions in behaviour, as well as the fun, adventures and triumphs. So what, if not everything his parents had bequeathed him was helpful, he didn't have to continue feeling responsible for any of that. To forgive ? Far too early to say.

Here he was, now concocting his own versions of the family stories. But these were real human beings, people whose lives were never a work of well crafted fiction where everything got wrapped up neatly and resolved by the end. Similar to his parents, he'd leave behind a lot of love tangled up in the mess of his own contradictions. To depart this world with his life a flawed and incomplete work in progress, like every single person throughout human history.

As he was about to leave Auntie Brenda looked him straight on, taking him in.  

'Maybe, just maybe...you are like your Mother.....just a teeny weeny bit, just there right above your...... left earlobe.'

She gestured vaguely in the air, then touched his arm affectionately.

'You know, when I first met your Mother she made a beeline for me. She felt, as did I, we were kindred spirits, becoming inseparable pals very quickly.  I was three years older, more experienced in the whys and wherefores of the world. Your mother clung to my every word, she was a little in awe, even a bit dependent upon me. It was as though I was this big sister that would always be there to help her out.

That changed once she married your Dad, had you and your sister.  The nature and dynamic of our friendship altered. When my husband died tragically young, it meant I was never going to have any children of my own. I remained quite bitter about it for many years. Quite cynical. Your Mother was there, she listened, was considerate and kind. Allowing me to actively share in some of the experiences, the joys and love of being around you as a sort of surrogate family, for which I feel eternally grateful.'

Leaning over the banister as he departed, she called after him down the stairwell.

'Don't leave it so long.... one of us might be dead.'

FAMILY FRAGMENTS - Part 2 The Dropping Well

The Dominant Storyteller

Robert was in a rush, he needed to catch the 16.55 connection at Peterborough or his carefully worked out connection strategy would have to be done on the hoof. Travelling home to the north, now he lived in the east of England, frequently become tortuous in both time and endurance. He described it as being like fighting to get out of one poorly connected backwater only to re-enter another. So five hours and climbing was feasible, dependent on whether an interchange was met or missed. Hopefully he'd find a seat, and not have to perch precariously on a drop down ledge between carriages for most of the journey.

This length of time had its uses. He read, if he was on an Inter City, or looked out meditatively at the terrain, if it were the sideways rocking of a Regional.  Luck was with him, he'd found a seat unreserved by a window.  Maybe he could relax for a while, but found he was steeling himself for being around his family. The thoughts tumbled around. Similar to bread making when all the ingredients never quite bond or rise much. More the experience of eating a pitta bread than a white bloomer. 

He was in the right space for recollections. They sped through his mind. Aligning themselves with whatever half blurred landscape was passing outside the train window. As though he were flicking through a well thumbed picture book. His attention skipped over lovelier affectionate memories. Lingered on the regrets and grievances of things past, or opportunities missed. Whenever his attention fell upon his destination, of 'home', he sighed. As though trying to expel feelings too deeply embedded within him.

Living away I've found my own groove. These visits don't always cause a warm cosy glow in the heart. All the sensations of constriction return. My sense of myself shifts, reverts to a more inhibited way of being me. One I thought I'd broken out of.  It reminds me why deliberately living as far away as possible, came about in the first place. Distance is a good thing. To not be boxed in, prejudged, examined, frowned, worried and tutted over. 

After a weekend Robert often left feeling everything he chose to do in life just disappointed. Reinforcing impressions built from childhood onward, that whatever he did was predestined to go wrong. Most of the struggles he'd had with himself, were rooted here. Today he was bodily holding himself in readiness. He really did have to talk to them. He'd not found a way to seize the moment and speak yet. Fearful of adding further fuel to that feeling of who he was not being acceptable. 

Maybe this time would be the right time. On his arrival, there'd be a very small opening to seize, where the imperative was to say all that he needed to say.  Before the tea plates had been washed, dried and cleared away.  After that he'd not be able to speak of himself for pretty much the rest of the weekend. Being 'talked at', not with. His train seat was uncomfortable, the head rest apparently made for someone a few inches taller than him. Nonetheless he fell into snoozing in his seat for a while. Till the carriage heaved and lurched suddenly, the train brakes loudly squealing like a pig.  

For a brief half awake moment, I heard the phone ringing in the communal lobby of my first London bedsit. Phone calls home were weekly then. I needed familiar voices. That regularity fell away. I never shook off the guilt, of the bad son failing in his duty. Though there was always a lopsided sense of duty going on there. My parents never phone me - unless someone has actually died - I've always had to phone them. No reciprocal responsibility to keep in touch. It was as though, because I was the one who'd moved away from home, the onus was entirely on me to ring them.   

The train hurtled into the pitch darkness of a tunnel on the Retford approaches, his ears popped. Firing off a startled 'fuck' under his breath. Inwardly a rebellion against chasing approval or other peoples expectations of him raged. He reminded himself he was no angel, not perfect at all. No family has ever been perfect. Saying all this to himself rather unconvincingly. Recently he'd met the families of friends. It had been a bit of an eye opener regarding parenting. Forced the odd comparison or two.

My parents are kind hearted people. I have my 'beef ' with them. Put up against real abusive parental neglect, it is petty. It's not what they have done, more what they didn't. I'm ashamed of my resentfulness. It isn't fair. The omissions, they weren't conscious. There's hurt there nonetheless. Despite the rationalisations, it does not go away.  I needed something from them. I still do.

He saw exactly what that was during a recent visit to a friend's rather 'alternative' bohemian parents. So resolutely upbeat, positive, care free, full of joie-de-vivre. Responding openly and encouragingly, taking an active interest in whatever their sons and daughters were making of their lives. It felt fun and uplifting just to be around them. Absent from his family's gritty northern zeitgeist, was any encouragement of self- belief, the expression of positive appreciation or unconditional affirmation of the overt kind.

His parents ideas about what would make him happy, were founded on the conventions of their own lives. These were not his. So far, he was forging his own, albeit haphazard and improvised path. Probing comments, suggestive of criticism held a cautionary restraint warning following in their wake. Worried he was being foolhardy or unrealistic over the risks he was taking.  Reminding him of the need to think practically. His parents loved and had pride in him. It was just expressed in a code, one you'd have to learn how to decipher in order to access. Laid out in the semaphore of photos spread around the house.

Mother's judgements tend to cut deep, even if they come camouflaged in a light hearted tone or fond mickey taking.  I heard them as put downs. Not permitted to be big headed, proud or boastful of following my dreams. I became determined to live my own life. Doing exactly what I wanted. Independent and self-sufficient.  If I could've brought myself to live an extravagant, full on drug fueled, hedonistic life, I would have. Simply to put one finger up. But I was brought up too well. too good a dutiful son for the full debauchery.'

Whenever things didn't turned out successfully, a fatalistic sense of failing as a man overwhelmed him. He'd then have a compelling feeling, he needed to move on quickly, as far away as possible from whatever caused the despair to arise in the first place. He tried not to let his parents hear, see or get a whiff of any of this. If they were to find out the real nature and cause of his moodiness he didn't think he could bear their response.

The self-sufficiency was a cover. It was hard to ask for help, to express what he wanted, because - 'he who wants does not get' as the maternal mantra went. Requests in his family had to be delivered toned down, inferred via an indirectly asserted preference - 'that would be nice, were it to to happen'  Behind this, an apprehension that requests for help, for wants and needs to be met, was high risk.  He expected to be admonished or ridiculed. To avoid all of this he strongly asserted he was perfectly capable of managing his life completely on his own, thank you.

Acquaintances who'd met his family remarked on how amiable they were. This was true. One had a very convivial conversation with his Mother lasting quarter of an hour at the most. Afterwards, when recounting his impressions he said he was in receipt of a none stop stream of stories concerning Robert, not all of them flattering. Subtly belittling, how he was, what he'd done, one tale after another. Rolling out amused recollections of what a silly stupid boy he had been when younger. A collective shaking of the head at the strangeness of her prodigal son. It was intended to be affectionate, not remotely humiliating or hurtful. Simply publicly staking her claim, as his Mother, to tell you exactly what her son was really like. In case your impressions of him differed. The friend said :-

'If my Mother had talked publicly like that about me, I'd be so furious.. How can you remain so patient?'

But what he saw as being patient, was really a well rehearsed passivity.  A way of coping with it, of not letting it get to you. 

As a youngster I was quiet, withdrawn, lacked confidence. Instead of encouraging me to talk up in public situations, my Mother would step in and talk for me. Telling anyone present what I had done, felt or had plans to do. I'd sit silently to one side, as if I'd been born without a mouth or mind of my own. She continued to do this when I was a teenager, even when I'd grown up. I'd publicly to shame her by saying - 'I am in the room and I can talk for myself' - to stop it continuing.  Sometimes I'm just not up for a tug-o-war over who tells the stories about my own life. It's easier to stay shtum and let it all float on by like a boat on a river.

Its a tactic his Father had adopted for the entire length of his marriage.  Harold was spoken for too. Everyone  knew he had underdeveloped conversational skills.  Little small talk at all. It was partly down to personal laziness. So much easier to hand over command of the social reins to Joan. Like many wives whose husbands were poor communicators and hence totally useless in mixed company, she was forced into filling in the social gaps. His Mother overcompensated and further exacerbated the problem by entirely drowning out any male voice or active presence.

It is no wonder my Father is a bit of a mystery to me. Hardly any prolonged, meaningful conversations I can remember.  Though I now recognise habits and individual quirks in myself,  I've obviously picked up from him. Once I asked my Father a direct question, just to get him to talk about something he'd recently been doing. He'd hardly completed his, admittedly stumbling, first sentence when my Mother butted in and took over relaying what had happened. At this point I pulled her up -

'I was asking Dad to tell me, and you've just taken over'. 

For a moment or two there was a gob struck silence, embarrassment all round, before Mother responded -

'Well..........he'll never tell the story right'. 

If there was passivity in my family, it was only partially strategic. It was also an imposition, demanded by her habit of needing to be in charge of the family narrative, to be the dominant storyteller.

As the fourth train of his long journey pootled along the track that led to his final stop, his hands visibly clenched. The routine of the next few hours he knew by heart. After the welcoming warm hug, the kiss, the passing inquiry about the quality of his journey, would be followed by that brief window of opportunity over tea. After this they'd relocate to the lounge. The TV would be switched off, his Mother's way of signalling to making ready for the mega download. Everything she could remember had happened to her, his Father, sister, nieces, cousins, the broader family, or in the village, since he'd last visited. Retold in one seamless unbreakable associative flow, literally hours of it. Occasionally she'd ask a polite inquiring question of him, but his active engagement with the storytelling would last barely a minute before it would be  whisked away and taken off in another direction.

She complains I don't tell her much about my life down south. That I'm being willfully secretive. Its exasperating. There are many things I've certainly been unable to give voice to. Though the truth is I have tried to say more about my life, repeatedly, and am still up for trying. But so far, not much sustained interest in what I do or have to say, has ever been allowed to go anywhere self revealing. What else could I do? They appear not to want to get to know what makes me tick anymore. I'm more relatable to them as a six year old who twice flooded the bloody bathroom, than who I am now.

As the train pulled into the single empty platform, he looked to see if in the twilight he could spot his Father's car. Yep, there he was standing by it, good old dependable Dad. Dressed in a cheap cardigan and baggy tracksuit bottoms, topped off with a dirty flat tweed cap, one size too small. Clothes he'd probably worn all week and his Mother would have urged him to change out of before 'our Robert arrives'. That he'd turned up in public at the rail station still in them, would both annoy and mortify her. There was a quite deliberate intent behind this. It was one of his Father's small rebellions.

'Maybe this time, you'll be lucky' Robert sang playfully to himself as he got up from his seat. Picking up his travel holdall, he slung it over his shoulder and urging himself forward with a - 'Well, here we go then'