Music Man Pt. 08

Chapter Forty Six

"Well? Aren't you going to ask me in?" Ged's mother asked him with a grin. How he loved that grin!

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

"That 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 he 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 advert 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, and it was flesh of 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, standing it on edge in the washing up bowl, 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 disabled right, because he was so 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?" So innocent!

"There is a dishwasher."

"Yes -- you!" A little laugh.

"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, stuffing the handle between his palm and clenched ring and little fingers and holding the article in his index finger and thumb, 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 after a second request from her, 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 (such as it was) 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, ready for his mother.

"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 after 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, going from side to side, 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, Son. 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 next: 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 firmly enough in my right hand. It won't work, the fingers are too weak. I can't write."

"Yes you can dear: you can write with your left."

"I can't write left-handed! It'll just be a scrawl."

"Ged, sweetheart, you'll have to learn; practise. You can do it. It'll take time and effort. Let me tell you about grandma Pierce. She was left handed. You know what they did to her in school? They tied her left hand to her chair behind her so she couldn't use it, and made her use her right."

"But I remember, she wrote with her right, and her writing was beautiful."

"It cost her a lot of pain in school. The teachers would rap her left hand with a ruler if she tried to use it. After that she was always ambidextrous. You can't use your right any more for writing, so learn to use your left. It'll be hard and painstaking, but you can do it.

"When you were doing your piano grades, didn't you have to do extra exercises for your left hand?"

"Yes, it was murder to get the speed, and an even rhythm."

"Why? Because your left hand is not as strong as your right: because you hardly use it. This is the same. Exercise.

"Look, today I set you tasks and you learned to do them with what you have, not with what you haven't. You've got to start thinking how you'll get round your problems rather than bewailing the fact you can't do things as you did. You've got to get that 'can do' mental attitude. See?"

"Like you are trying to live without Dad?"

"Exactly! And let me tell you, it's not easy but I won't let it beat me. I know I'll never get over losing him, but I've got to get on and live with it. Every morning it's an effort to get out of bed, and face another day without him. I have to find reasons to get up. At the moment, you're going to be the reason. You too: you'll always miss your right hand."

Her words and her attitude to life buoyed him up and he began to feel hopeful. It came to him that he hadn't felt so positive since long before the attack. He wondered if it would last.

She left the table and began to clean the kitchen, leaving him to his writing. She was right, it was painful and exasperating, but her resolve had rubbed off on him and he persevered. An hour later there was a scrawled, barely legible list in the left column, and he threw down the pen and sat back.

She came over and looked over the 'good' list. At the top he'd written 'Mum'.

"Aw!" she said and hugged him. The rest of the list was predictable: Cassie, friends, folk group, music, Cassie's piano, poetry, Frobishers, Marie, Cassie's parents, Catherine Styles, Karin, books, garden.

"What about your eyesight, your hearing, your voice, your ability to walk, to think; what about your health, fitness and strength -- apart from your hands?" she asked.

He had not thought of that. "Yes," he said. "I've been concentrating too much on my hands."

"One on the negative side," she said. "You only put 'ZAK' in capitals."

"Everything bad that's happened is down to him," Ged said grimly. "Unless you include that other bastard -- the one who got Cassie pregnant."

"What?" his mother gasped. "When? While you were abroad?"

"No," he said, and told her the story.

She said nothing in response, her face grim, but then, instead of a comment she said "Time to make dinner."

"You have a choice," she said. "You can help me get dinner ready, or you can go to the music room which you haven't visited for a while, I believe," she said shooting him an accusing look, "and play either with the computer or the instruments. See what you can do, rather than what you can't."

She stopped and looked at him. "Well?" she asked. "Which?"

"Music room," he said.

"Thought you might!" he heard her knowing laugh as he went.

He looked at the room from the doorway. It threatened him. Then she was behind him again.

"It's all in your mind," she whispered in his ear. "Go and sample. I'd try the computer first, you can use that with one hand, and your right index finger. Go and look at your finances; get them up to date."

He laughed. He was beginning to enjoy his mother's directions; they relieved him of making choices of his own will, and she seemed to be making it a game, finding things with which to surprise him. She had only been in the house a few hours and he was still trying to keep up with her.

She put her arms round him from behind and squeezed him, laying her head on his back. He felt warm and loved, which indeed he knew he was.

He was still lost in the computer when she called him for dinner. He had long since left the accounts behind, and was reading some of Cassie's poetry. It took him back to Catherine Style's place when he spent the whole night setting some of her work to music.

After dinner they sat and watched the news and then a comedy programme, when his eyelids began to droop. He was exhausted.

"Go to bed, sweetheart," she told him. "You've been busy today."

He kissed her, and she said "Good night, God bless you," as she always had. He felt snug and secure having her near, and when he got to the bedroom he found the bed remade and a fresh pair of boxers on the duvet. He smiled; he'd done a lot of smiling all day. He took his pill and fell asleep immediately.

The next few days were busy, busy, busy. She 'suggested' he make a routine of learning to write for an hour each morning. She watched him at work and advised him to turn the page clockwise 45 degrees and keep his hand below the line he was writing, so that it did not smudge or cover the word he had just written.

"You'd be OK with Hebrew," she laughed. "They write from right to left!"

He was given the job of vacuuming all the rooms in the house, as well as the hallway, stairs and landing, followed by dusting the surfaces, and then he was 'invited' to go shopping with her, as well as washing up again and even trying to dry some things. She banished him to the music room each afternoon, but did not suggest what he should do there.

"You haven't made your bed," she said in passing on the first morning. She did not have to make that comment a second time.

The next challenge came next morning, when she returned from somewhere.

"Ged, that beard does not suit you."

"Mother, it's one thing to learn to write with my left, but if I try to shave with it I'll cut my throat. Messy and fatal!"

"You know that's nonsense unless you use a cut-throat razor, but it's good to hear you cracking jokes," she said. "Here! I've bought you a top of the range electric shaver."

He was about to say that electric shavers didn't shave as close.

"I know they don't," she said, reading his mind, "but they shave closer than not shaving at all." This time she laughed, and pushed him to go up the stairs.

So he lost the beard. And the moustache. And found the shaver managed to shave 'quite' close.

After two more afternoons he began to sample the keyboard, and before long was recording the bass line of one of his songs, then the other accompaniment and finally adding the melody, all using his left hand. It took some mental gymnastics, but after two hours he could run the accompaniment and add the melody live. He called his mother, and showed her.

He was taken aback when he saw her tears.

"What is it?" he asked all concern.

"Nothing," she said, sniffing. "You said you'd never play again. Now look at you!"

He hugged her tightly to him. "It's all you," he said, with a full heart, "all you, Mum!"

On the fifth day she asked, "Does no one ever phone you?"

"Oh, bugger!" he swore.

"Gerald! Language!" but she was smiling.

"I disconnected them, and then you happened," he said, going to make the connections again.

As he switched his mobile on there was a knock at the door. He went to answer it and found Cheryl on the step. She looked scared.

"Cheryl!" he said with a wide smile. "Come in, come in!"

She looked puzzled but entered as requested, only to meet his mother emerging from the kitchen.

"Mrs Smith!" she exclaimed. "How lovely!"

"Cheryl!" retorted his mother, bustling to her and giving her a hug. "Come through."

Cheryl looked confused, but followed Ged's mother into the living room. Ged took up the rear.

"Ged darling," said his mother, "Make some tea for us would you?"

Cheryl looked more confused as Ged cheerfully said, "OK!" and left for the kitchen.