Dear Mother Chapter 3

Catherine pulled into the narrow street and felt her stomach lurch. Regeneration appeared to have found other areas of the Black Country. New housing estates had sprung up in place of the foundries and steel- works that had once dominated the area.

The old corner shops that she remembered had been turned into frozen mini markets or boarded up completely. The once thriving market town of Cradley Heath had been annihilated by a shopping centre a mile up the road. Once the hub of weekend retail, it now boasted a Tesco superstore and a string of charity shops. An access road diverted traffic away, leaving room for empty buses that rarely picked up or dropped off.

But this street had barely changed at all. She travelled slowly along a road flanked by long rows of ter- raced houses either side. A couple of the houses were now boarded up.

A group of kids were gathered opposite her old house, their faces caked in a mixture of jam and dirt. Catherine felt no rush of fond memories as a boy aged eight or nine clad in only a vest and pants threw a smaller, weaker child to the ground to whoops of joy from onlookers. It was a street where bruises went unnoticed, as she knew only too well.

She parked the car away from the front of the house, wishing for a few minutes alone with her thoughts before she saw Beth. She had contemplated not coming to the funeral at all but Tim had in- sisted that she must.

What did he know? she wondered angrily. He knew nothing of her past because she had never told him. She had never told anyone. As far as he was concerned it had been a childhood plagued with poverty and name-calling once their father had disappeared.

Christ, if only that was all it had been.

She knew she was avoiding knocking on the door for a variety of reasons. She genuinely wanted to en- ter that house with real emotions churning inside her, but in the days since Beth's phone call she had been unable to summon anything.

Within minutes of replacing the receiver Catherine had been smothered by a cloak of numbness that had extended beyond the feelings about her mother's death. She had functioned on remote control. An automatic pilot had taken over her faculties and guided her through the normal daily routine. She had cooked dinner, made lunch for the girls, cleaned the house and gone to work while all the time trying to work out how she was supposed to feel.

She got out of the car and locked it behind her. It was futile trying to harness genuine feelings in a few minutes when she had been unable to do so in just under a week.

The front door had been painted dark blue since her last visit, but the canary yellow paint that Catherine remembered peered through the chips left by thrown stones.

Before her hand met with the door, it opened. Catherine smiled weakly to cover her shock. For a few seconds she sensed that neither of them knew what to do. The problem was solved as Beth launched her- self across the years and hugged her forcefully. Catherine returned the embrace awkwardly.

her.

'Come in, come in,' Beth said, ushering her into the front room.

Catherine built a wall against the memories. Just being inside the house was bringing it all back to

Beth led her past a table laden with sandwiches stifled by cling film, to the kitchen at the rear of the house.

'I'll make tea and we can have a good chat,' Beth said, reaching for the kettle. Catherine felt the awk- wardness of the situation even if Beth appeared not to. Her sister was acting as though they had met for coffee the previous week and had only a few minor facts about each other's lives to catch up on. How much catching up were they going to do to cover the fifteen-year chasm that existed between them?

Catherine swallowed the guilt that rose up and engulfed her. She half wished she could embrace Beth properly and apologise for her absence and silence over the years. She would like to tell her that she had wanted to come back and see her but she couldn't. She just couldn't.

'Sugar?' Beth asked.

Catherine shook her head, overcome with sadness that such a basic fact, such a small detail, was not known between them. It should have been second nature.

Catherine appraised her sister briefly. Her appearance added ten years to the twenty-six real ones. Her hair had been strawberry blonde as a child but it was now unkempt and dirty looking. It was tied in a se- vere ponytail exposing dry, flyaway strands at the temple and forehead. Her face was devoid of make-up and showed an uneven skin tone. Catherine wondered when her cheeks had last seen daylight. The brown A-line skirt was a disaster on her bony frame and was topped with a roll-neck jumper.

Catherine swallowed and looked away. She knew why Beth wore her tops that way. She would never forget, and truthfully, in the depths of her conscience, she knew that it was the reason she had never returned.

The last words ever spoken to her by her mother had kept her away initially, but she had no excuses for the years she'd been an adult, and perfectly capable of standing up to her mother. But she hadn't.

She felt a rush of anger that would be sated only by a violent act or buried until she could deal with it. How much damage had one woman done to them all?

Catherine wondered if she would be able to smile bravely at the graveside whilst extolling the virtues of her mother. Would any of them?

She faced Beth's gentle expression, full of grief. Yes, Beth would, she realised.

Impetuously, Catherine reached across the table and squeezed Beth's hand.

'I'm sorry."

Beth patted her hand. 'She was your mother too. We just have to help each other through the pain.' Catherine watched as Beth's eyes filled up with tears. She looked at the ceiling and prayed for the strength to maintain this façade for the rest of the day. How could she tell her sister that she couldn't find it within herself to be sorry for their mother's death? She was sorry for the years and distance that had grown between them.

'How are the girls?' Beth asked, wiping a tear from her eye.

'They're fine,' Catherine answered. How could she relay the events of all the years that had passed? Catherine had already seen the photo on the mantelpiece of her children, taken a year earlier. Her bitter- ness at Beth's refusal to attend the christening had long since gone, leaving only a ball of regret that her daughters had never met either of their aunts.

'I'd love you to meet-

'Mother was very ill that day,' Beth offered. 'The doctor had changed her medication after the first stroke and she had a bad reaction to the tablets.'

'It's okay, I understand,' Catherine said, and meant it. At the time, she had known her mother's illness was contrived to prevent Beth coming to the christening. She had known and kept quiet.

Silence rested between them. Catherine could think of nothing to say. There was no way back. "The food looks nice,' she commented, nodding towards the other room.

Beth looked anxious. 'Oh, I hope so. There won't be many people. The doctor and a few neighbours, but I still want to do Mother proud.

Catherine nodded awkwardly. Everything about Beth travelled back to their mother. A place that Catherine did not wish to visit.

Catherine was about to say something banal about the weather when the doorbell sounded.

'T'll get it,' she offered quickly. She hurried to the door but paused as she passed the fireplace in the front room. It smelt of disuse, but Catherine remembered one occasion when the fire had been used. She closed her eyes to block out the memory but the vision of frightened faces and piercing screams rever- berated around her mind. Sickness rose in her stomach and tears pierced her eyes. 'Damn that woman to hell,' she whispered vehemently.

The sound of the door brought her back to her senses.

She opened the door and it took Catherine a few long seconds to appraise the person before her. 'Alex?' Alex nodded and smiled strangely as she entered the room. 'Fantastic that we barely recognise each other.'

Catherine opened her mouth to respond, but there was little to say.

She noticed that Alex looked her twenty-four years. Her skin was flawless and her black hair was as spiky and short as it had been back then.

Catherine followed her youngest sister through to the kitchen. Beth grabbed the new arrival and hugged her fiercely. Catherine detected the same awkwardness of feeling like strangers in the company of your siblings.

Jesus Christ, Catherine thought again, what had that damned woman done to them all?

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