From a drawer in the oak dresser that she had inherited from her grandmother, Martha took out the cards, walked through the dining room into the conservatory, and sat on the edge of the white metal Victorian day-bed she had patiently restored after finding it in a house clearance sale. She laid the cards beside her and stared out of the window. It was still raining.
‘Is it a sign?’ she wondered as she watched the raindrops racing down the window pane.
A whole lifetime had passed since Martha had sat by her bedroom window as a child and played ‘Rain Races’. She had spent hours watching the raindrops racing down the window, willing her chosen rain-runner to win. Recalling those days from her distant memory reminded her of when, in the quiet of her room, she had found comfort in knowing that the window had been crying with her, and had eased her loneliness by hugging her rag doll as she dreamed of one day having a baby of her own. She had made a promise to herself that her children would never feel like she did, useless … and stupid. They would always know that they were loved, no matter what they did. Being locked in their room as a punishment would never happen to them.
A clap of thunder interrupted her thoughts and she lifted the cards out of the folded letter wrapped around them, and laid each one on the hand stitched patchwork quilt folded beside her. She shivered as she recalled the day she had bought them several weeks before. While browsing around an old book shop, tucked away in a narrow cobbled street in Hastings, Martha had literally stumbled across the cards as she had tripped down a small step near the back of the shop. Each picture on the front was a clip from a famous film, its infamous phrase written on the back. After reading them all, Martha had carefully chosen twelve.
Lifting her legs onto the day-bed and curling her body into the soft down-filled pillows around her, she picked up the first card, a picture of Robert de Nero boxing in the film Raging Bull, and read the words on the back:
‘Hey Ray, I never went down man! You never got me down, Ray! You hear me, you never got me down.’ (Nero, Raging Bull, 1981.)
Martha sighed heavily. These last few years had not been part of her dream as a child. She had planned to be a good mother, ‘to do things right’ … and if she had achieved that, the cards would never have been bought.
Closing her eyes, she pictured the twelve days she had spent in hospital after her son had been born over twenty years ago. She had refused to have his crib at the end of her bed as the nurses had instructed, because she couldn’t see him there. Instead, she had moved him beside her, where she could stare in wonderment at the miracle that had spent nine months growing inside her belly, knowing that she would give her life for that baby … her son.
Placing the card to one side, she picked up another and read the back:
‘It’s not as if mother were a maniac, a raving thing. She goes a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven’t you?’ (Hitchcock, Psycho, 1960.)
Martha had never seen the film Psycho; it was the words on the back of the card that had spoken to her, that had confirmed to her that she was responsible for her son’s behaviour, for causing him to be so angry at the world. It was not meant to be like this. She had made a promise to him even before he was born that he would always feel safe, secure and loved. But if she had succeeded in that, he would not have needed to fight his way through life, using his fists to express his feelings and finding refuge in alcoholic oblivion. Martha had never been drunk nor wished to be, she had seen the consequences of drink in her father, but now her son was walking the same path as his grandfather, and yet, they had never met.
The rain had stopped but the sky was still angry, already preparing for the next downfall. The letter that had been wrapped around the cards had fallen onto the plate on the floor where a slice of toast and marmalade, this morning’s breakfast, remained uneaten. Her stomach had dictated to her that it had no requirements for food today. Martha picked up the letter and absentmindedly wiped off the sticky marmalade onto the quilt, then reread the words she had written over three months ago. She wondered whether the judge had agreed to read the letter she had sent to the court, and her hands now trembled as she held the copy in her hand.
She had wanted him to know that Henry was loved, was part of a family who cared about him, supported him and loved him. She had wanted to say that she would give her life for him, that she would not be there in person on the day, but his father Jack, his sister Mary and his grandma would all be there. She wanted him to understand that it was she who had made so many mistakes in her life, and that they had such a damaging effect on her children’s lives as well as her own … that it was her fault, and it should be her standing before him begging for leniency.
Now, Henry could be sent to prison for getting involved in a fight, for not walking away, for not thinking. It was after the solicitor had advised them of the expected twelve month sentence that Martha had bought the cards, to send one each month to keep her son in touch with his family. The pictures … she had chosen them to soften the starkness of his room – she could not bring herself to use the word ‘cell’– to be a calendar towards going home, ‘get out of jail’ cards. Martha had chosen the words because she had been able to relate to them, to identify family traits in them, and she knew that Henry would do the same.
The conservatory became dark and unfriendly as the rain returned. On the window ledge, beside a many times repaired antique Wedgwood fruit bowl, an old mahogany mantle clock chimed twice indicating a half-hour had just passed. Martha glanced towards it, half past two; they would know soon … and someone would call her. Conflict fought within her, the needing to know crashing against the need not to know … both unbearable.
But she would know, life did not stop at the difficult parts, it carried on, and experience had taught her that there was no choice but to move with it, jumping and still falling at each hurdle, then getting up and trudging on towards the next. Uncurling herself from the security of the pillows around her, she gathered the cards together, rewrapped the letter around them, and replaced them in dresser drawer.
Leaning heavily on the banister, she climbed the stairs and on entering Henry’s bedroom, stepped over a pile of magazines with dirty socks sandwiched between them, and a pair of work jeans folded concertina-style as he had hurriedly stepped out of them the night before. As she tidied his bedding she felt his old well-hugged grey bear snuck beneath his pillow. Henry had sheepishly packed it away in the loft soon after his first girlfriend had teased him about still having a teddy bear sitting on his bed. But he’d recently been in the loft helping his dad, and must have sneaked it back down. Martha held the bear close to her face and could still smell her son’s childhood on the threadbare fur. Her thoughts were disturbed by the sound of the phone ringing and still clutching the bear, she rushed downstairs to take the call she had been dreading, her heart following a few steps behind her.
‘Mum, it’s me … it was your letter Mum; he read your letter …’
‘Henry …’ the silence was broken by the tearful whisper of her son asking his father to speak.
‘Hi, it’s me. It’s OK Martha … he’s coming home …’
‘Oh Jack …’
‘Henry’s right here, with Mary and your mum.’ reassured Jack. ‘The judge said that he is a very fortunate young man to have a mother like you and such strong family support. He told Henry to go home and thank his mother, because Martha, it was your letter that influenced the judge that prison was not the place to send Henry … but back home to his family. He has to do some community service and … hey there you, no tears eh, it’s all going to be alright, we are on our way home … together.’
As she replaced the receiver, Martha gently rocked Henry’s bear close to her chest as if she were soothing a new born baby. Walking into the dining room she opened the dresser drawer … then closed it again. One day she would tell Henry about the cards … and about Robert de Nero. One day.
