Chapter 37

"Hi, Mum, Dad," Cassie said, hugging her mother and then her father. It felt good to hug and have the hug returned. She had felt guilty all the way home at leaving Ged, but now knew she had done the right thing.

"Where's Ged?" came the inevitable question.

"In his house," she answered. "I had to get out for a while; I need a break."

They looked at her, and she knew she had to say more. Marie came downstairs and crept into the room.

"He's deeply depressed. We were doing all right until they took the plaster off his right hand. I kept his spirits up until his therapy ended and it was obvious he would never have anything like full use of that hand. The left is good as new really, but the right is never going to be of much use.

"He lived for his music, and now he can't play. It's devastated him. He doesn't talk to me, he won't go out, he does nothing all day but read and sleep. I've tried everything but nothing seems to work.

"I can't go on without a break." She sighed and sagged into the chair.

"Don't tell me you've left him?" asked Marie, looking distressed.

"No," Cassie assured her. "I just need a break to recharge my batteries. Perhaps get some fresh ideas."

"Does he know that?" asked her father.

"Dad, I've no idea how much of what I tell him goes in. He doesn't really react or answer me."

"Shall I ring him?" asked Marie. "He'll talk to me. I know he will."

"If you want to," said Cassie. "Can't hurt. Do it about six. He's normally awake then."

"You do look really tired and drawn, my darling," her mother said, all concern for her daughter's health. "It's lovely to have you here. Perhaps Marie can persuade him to come as well?"

"I think there's little chance of that," Cassie said despondently. "He won't leave the house."

Marie tried to ring Ged, but it rang and then the answer phone told him he was not available. There was no invitation to leave a message. She tried everyday for four days, but the result was the same, so she gave up.

"Well, aren't you going to ask me in?" Ged's mother asked with a grin. He loved that grin!

"Er, yes, Mum, come in," Ged's brain was trying to keep up and failing.

"Hug?"

They hugged. Whenever he hugged his mother he felt at peace, secure, at home.

"Will you bring my case in from the car, please?" she said as she separated and passed him, making for the kitchen and the kettle for tea.

He stood looking after her, his mouth open.

"Close your mouth dear," she said looking over her shoulder as she went, "You'll catch flies."

He smiled in spite of himself: it was one of her sayings. He felt he should stay with her and watched as she navigated her way round the kitchen as if it were her own. Then he noticed, as if for the first time the pile of unwashed pots in the sink, and felt guilty, as if he'd let her down.

She did not avert to it, but made the tea and brought him a mug, gesturing for him to sit at the kitchen table.

"Are you staying?" he asked after they had taken their first sip of the hot brew.

"For a while," she said, "if you get my case. Gwen's husband is ill and Cassie is having a well earned rest. You've really put her through it, you know? I knew there was trouble when you didn't ring me. But Cassie did."

Now he felt really guilty as it came home to him with clarity what he'd been doing to Cassie, and how heroically she'd borne it. Then he realised that Cassie must have been phoning her often, no doubt for moral support. He did not feel upset at that, or annoyed: it was what she needed.

He said nothing but smiled with embarrassment at his mother, who could always read him.

She nodded. "Show me," she said, and he knew what she wanted. He laid both hands on the table, palms down.

Her face became stony, and he knew how deeply the sight hurt her. This was her son, that was her own flesh that was mangled. She took his hands and kissed them both. He knew it was her sign that she would give anything to take his disability on herself. How did she manage to convey so much and so deeply? He felt overcome by her love.

"We'll have a little chat later," she said, and he remembered her 'little chats' from his childhood. They were mainly her monologues interspersed with Ged saying 'yes Mum' at appropriate intervals. "Before that, I think we ought to sort this kitchen out, don't you?"

There was only one answer required, namely, 'yes Mum', and Ged duly gave it.

"Right," she said. "Do you want to wash or dry?"

"Mum, my hands..."

"What about them? Have you tried to wash up?"

"Well, no, but--"

"Come on Son," she said. "Try. See what you can do."

"I don't think I can hold a plate and dry it, so I'd better try washing."

He did and found a way of holding a plate with his right hand fingers and thumb, and cleaning it with his left. He discovered that he had more trouble using his left hand to wash the plates than he had holding the plates with his right, because he was very right-handed.

He found he could support mugs against the bowl while he washed them. He began to feel excited. Then he remembered.

"Mother!" he said with reproof in his voice.

"Yes, dear?"

"There is a dishwasher."

"Yes -- you!"

"No, I mean--"

"I'm perfectly aware there is such an appliance, my darling, but this is about you using those hands."

"You mean you knew about it?"

"Of course," she said patiently. "I have been here before, or don't you remember?"

Of course he remembered, but he was not often in the kitchen, being busy with his music, or being unable to use his hands.

Then he was distracted by trying to find a way to wash the cutlery. Again he managed to hold each knife, fork or spoon, but using the left hand was the difficult thing.

Afterwards, she casually asked him to put the kettle to boil, which he managed without difficulty: he'd been making tea for three days. His mother made the tea, while he went and got her case from her car.

Once again he needed to think through how to do it and grabbed the case with his left hand, while shutting the car door with the flat of his right. He carried it up to the en suite 'best' guest bedroom which Cassie had been using, and was thankful the bed was already made up. Cassie must have done it before she left.

"It'll need airing," she said from behind him. "Pull the bedclothes to the foot of the bed, the radiators will do the rest."

Again he did as she asked and pulled the duvet back to expose the bottom sheet, using his left hand. Then he went down to the living room. She followed after some minutes.

"Gerald!" she said, and he knew he was in trouble. "When was the last time you changed your bedding?"

She had been in his room.

He was tempted to say he couldn't remember, since either Gwen or Cassie did that job for him, but thought better of it.

"I don't know, Mum," he said. "Cassie or Gwen does it usually."

"We'll have a cup of tea and then we'll change your bed," and she went off to pour it.

She asked about his friends by name, and he was forced to give non-committal answers, because he didn't know.

She nodded, and he knew she was really learning about his state of mind. Somehow, again he didn't mind, and wondered why that was.

She asked about his song writing and he was forced to tell her he was not writing any more. She did not ask why, and he knew she knew why.

After the tea, she took him upstairs and extracted a bedding set from the chest of drawers in his room.

"You strip the bed while I visit the loo," she told him. "Won't be long."

He found he could unbutton the duvet but couldn't work out how to remove the cover easily. He went to the bottom fitted sheet and easily stripped that. Then he turned to the pillows, taking the pillow cases in his teeth and pulling the pillow clear. He felt a surge of success and, encouraged, went back to the duvet. He pinched the corner of the cover with his right index finger and thumb, while pulling on the duvet with his left. It took a long time, but eventually he cleared the cover.

His mother returned and smiled. "Oh, you've done it all!" she exclaimed and gathered the washing together. "We'll let everything air and get these things in the wash." then she left the room and went downstairs.

Ged sat on the stripped bed, all his own work! It felt good. He stood and went downstairs.

His mother was now making coffee! He could hear the washing machine in the utility room.

"Sit down, Ged," she said. "It'll be ready in a minute."

He sat, she served him his mug and some biscuits she'd brought with her. He noticed a sheet of A4 paper and a pen on the table and wondered what she was going to write.

She pushed the biscuits towards him.

"Go on," she said with what in other circumstances would be a seductive smile, "half covered chocolate digestives, your favourite."

He took a couple and bit into one, and sighed with pleasure. He was still trying to keep up with the pace of life since his mother had arrived, but found he was enjoying the wild ride.

She let him finish the biscuit and take a drink of the coffee (why did her coffee taste so much better than his)? Then she began to speak, reaching for his hands and taking them in hers.

"My dear darling son, it's time for a little chat. You've been very depressed, Cassie's at the end of her tether worried about you, and worn out running round after you, that's why she's gone – to save her own mental health, and that's why I've arrived.

"Now, you've suffered a loss. It's very serious, I know that." She stopped, stroking his right hand and waiting for him to reply.

"I've lost everything, Mum." He raised his right hand. "I mean, look at it. There's nothing--"

"You're not the only one who's lost everything, you know," she cut in; she was gentle in her reproof.

He was about to interrupt that it didn't help that other people were suffering as well, when he saw the suffering on her face. It was as if a mask had fallen from it, and it upset him deeply. He knew then what she meant.

"You mean you miss Dad, don't you?"

"Charlie died too young," she said, monotone. "Fifty-five is no age. He was my life Gerald, my whole life. Thirty years of total bliss, and then it was all gone in a few weeks, and I've got another possible thirty or more years to live through without him.

"I never realised how much he did for me. Things I took for granted – oh, I knew he did them, and I thought I appreciated them, but now it's really hit me how much of the strain of life he took off me; how much he loved me practically."

She stopped, her eyes brimming with tears, and he did not know what to say. She looked him in the eye.

"But you..." he blurted out and then stopped, uncertain as to what to say.

"But I?" she asked with a twinkle in her brimming eye and a smile. "But it doesn't seem to have affected me? I cry alone, Ged. I cry often, but I have to handle it. So do you. You're an unfair weight on that poor girl, so let's start.

"You're grieving. There's nothing wrong with that, but you don't seem to be aware of the suffering you're causing. You still need to consider others even when you hurt, and especially Cassie. What have you been doing to help her, to show her your love? She's shown you enough; she's certainly done enough."

He had nothing to say. He felt wretched. He would not have taken that rebuke from anyone else but her. Then he let it out.

"My music is my life, Mum, and it's all gone. I can't play keyboard, or guitar. I'm stuck with this useless hand. I can't do anything. I'm useless."

"Not true, my darling," she said with a grin, the one he loved, the one that said she'd pulled a fast one. She pushed on before he could protest. "You have carried my bag to my room, done the washing up and stripped your bed. Or did the fairies come in and do it for you?"

Another of her lovely sayings. 'I suppose you're waiting for the fairies to do it for you.'

"And I'll bet you felt good about it," she added, looking triumphant. "I moved too fast for you to think, and you did it all before you could tell yourself you couldn't do it."

He loved her smugness and smiled in spite of himself. "But it was hard, Mum."

"I didn't say it was easy, son. It took all my will-power not to come and help you with that bed."

"You mean you were watching me all the time?"

"Of course I was. Now, I think it's time to try and get your head on straight."

There she went again. 'Get your head on straight.' She'd say it when he'd done something stupid or was confused about something. 'Come on darling, let's get your head on straight.'

He began to feel comfortable and secure in his mother's love, and did not dread what she was going to make him do: she would never ask the impossible. Then she asked it, and he thought it was impossible.

"I want you to divide this paper into two columns. In the left column write all the good things in your life. You've been so wrapped up in the bad that's happened it'll take some time. In the other column you can write the bad things."

He became exasperated: she'd forgotten his right hand was useless. "Mother, I can't hold a pen in my right hand. The fingers aren't strong enough. It won't work. I can't write."