Once We Were Mothers Read online

  She’s coming home with us.

  GWEN: What about Jim?

  ALI: He’ll get used to the idea. Or not.

  DOCTOR: You do realise what you’re taking on?

  GWEN: Of course she doesn’t.

  ALI: My daughter.

  DOCTOR: It’s going to be very hard, the outlook for her is extremely poor, both physically and mentally.

  ALI: Then whatever I do’ll be a bonus, won’t it? I can’t fail. Liberating thought!

  GWEN: But you’ve heard what the doctors have said, she’s going to die.

  ALI: Not alone in a hospital she isn’t. She can die at home, with her family. That way, at least she’ll know someone cared about her.

  GWEN: You’ll live to regret this.

  ALI: Quite possibly. But I’m taking my daughter home.

  And that was when everyone disappeared. Doctors.

  DOCTOR: Call us if you need us.

  He exits.

  ALI: Health visitors. ‘I won’t bother to weigh her dear’.

  ALI waves goodbye.

  Friends.

  Family.

  GWEN: I can’t stand by and watch you sacrifice everything I’ve dreamed of for you. I’m sorry.

  GWEN exits.

  ALI grins.

  ALI: Thanks kid. Got to give you a name sometime. Mum seemed to think we were going to name you after her… no. I know, how about Florence? Your dad and I always wanted to go there and now…we probably won’t. Or maybe Flora. That’ll be easier for you to say, eventually, you know, if you can, ever does learn to…

  FLORA walks across the stage.

  FLORA: Florence, Florence, Florence.

  ALI: Jim agreed. Flora. Flora Gerpett.

  FLORA: I think I’m more of a Britney, myself. Still, it could have been worse. They could have had romantic yearnings for Washington or Dubrovnik.

  She shrugs, exits.

  Scene Five

  Kitty’s Story (2)

  KITTY and JEANETTE are waiting in the kitchen. The cuckoo clock strikes nine.

  KITTY: Nine o’clock.

  JEANETTE: Shall I make some more tea?

  KITTY: No. Thanks. Jeanette, d’you think maybe…

  JEANETTE: Mum.

  KITTY: Right.

  JEANETTE: Can I watch…?

  KITTY: No!

  JEANETTE: But… Sorry.

  KITTY: Sorry.

  Silence broken by the phone. KITTY jumps to answer it, hopeful.

  Hello?… Oh… No. There’s no news… Yes… I will.

  KITTY replaces the receiver.

  Aunty Evelyn.

  Silence, then KITTY hears footsteps outside.

  Listen! D’you think…?

  JEANETTE: Wait there. I’ll go and see

  JEANETTE hurries out. KITTY waits, her lips moving almost silently.

  KITTY: Please God, please God, please.

  JEANETTE enters.

  JEANETTE: It was Dolly next door. She said if there’s anything…

  KITTY: Right. If only there was…something…we should be out there, looking…

  JEANETTE: Someone’s got to stay home.

  KITTY: I know. I just…

  JEANETTE: Mum.

  KITTY: She must have said something? Try and remember.

  JEANETTE: She didn’t. I told you.

  KITTY: Tell me again.

  JEANETTE: She got off the bus and went into the sweet shop. I went to gymnastics. That’s it.

  KITTY: You have no sense of danger you girls. How many times have I told you…

  JEANETTE: Never take sweets, never take lifts from strangers. She went to buy her own sweets Mum!

  KITTY: It’s not a joke! You have no idea how dangerous…

  The doorbell goes, a long ring. JEANETTE runs to the door. KITTY’s frozen with dread and hope. JEANETTE returns.

  JEANETTE: It’s the police.

  Scene Six

  Milena’s Story (2)

  MILENA and NEVENKA run on.

  NEVENKA: Lend me your penknife.

  MILENA: What for?

  NEVENKA: Art.

  MILENA: (Handing it over.) Vandalism.

  NEVENKA: (Waving it at her.) Murder!

  MILENA: So, how far did he go?

  NEVENKA: (Carving into the tree.) Not far enough. How d’you spell Goran’s surname?

  MILENA: And you, a graduate?

  NEVENKA: Not yet. Anyway I’m a scientist, not a walking dictionary like you. So, do you want his name up here or not?

  MILENA: I don’t care.

  NEVENKA: Much.

  MILENA: So, what went wrong last night?

  NEVENKA: Dusan came home to announce he’s joined the Young Serbs. Simo walked out, they had a scuffle on the doorstep and my mother of course went hysterical. I finally got her to bed and settled down on the sofa with Tajib for some serious body parts exploration, with tongues, but she kept reappearing. Eventually he suggested I consider marketing her as a contraceptive and went home.

  MILENA laughs.

  MILENA: He’s really funny that Tajib.

  NEVENKA: He’s all right. There you go. G loves M. The only question is, does M love G?

  MILENA: Of course I do. I love everyone and everything. I love the navy blue sky, the stars, the breeze…

  NEVENKA: That smelly old man mending his boat?

  MILENA: Yes and the beetle on that leaf, and the boy pedalling his tricyle. All of it. I love my life, my family, my university, my haircut…

  NEVENKA gets out an apple.

  NEVENKA: Your thighs?

  MILENA: (Beat. She grins.) You can’t have it all ways.

  But we could. We did. We were young. We could do anything. For us even the trees talked.

  MILENA snatches the apple from NEVENKA who chases her off, laughing.,

  Scene Seven

  Ali’s Story (3)

  ALI: ‘She’s going to need constant stimulation’ is what the doctor said. And oh boy was I going to make sure she got it. Just so long as it didn’t involve leaving the house. I’d tried that – it was like something out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. I could have had a sheep in a bonnet in my pram and got a more favourable reception as they peeked in under the hood. All those well intentioned people. It was the pity I really couldn’t take. I’d never belonged to that club – you know, the girl who’s never chosen for team games, the one who gets dumped, who has spots, fails her 11-plus, has a randy father, or worse a randy mother – I was A1 remember. Nobody pities A1’s. They did now. Then one day the doorbell went and there was Clare. She had a baby in a buggy and before I could say, no thank you not interested in whatever it is you’re selling, borrowing or sponsoring, she had me in my coat, Flora under my arm and out the front door. Next thing I knew we were in her kitchen, together with two other mothers and on the floor were our four Down’s Syndrome babies. Like it or loathe it, I was now a member of a new club. So there we’d be several afternoons a week, hung about with more bells than a convention of morris dancers, rubbing our babies with pan scourers – Tesco’s are definitely the best – tracking their eye movements, rolling them around like dumplings, and all the time applauding, encouraging and smiling. And guess what, at all of these activities Flora was without question the worst. How the others loved me. Compared to Flora, their babies performed like bloody Einstein and Olga Korbut rolled into one. Still, I suppose I cheered everyone else up.

  Doorbell and GWEN enters.

  GWEN: What on earth have you done to your face?

  ALI: What? Oh I forgot I had it on.

  GWEN: Is it fancy dress?

  ALI: It’s to stimulate Flora. You know, big blue eyes, big red mouth…

  GWEN: You look like a prostitute. What’ll people think?

  ALI: I had to give up worrying about that a while ago. How’ve you been?

  GWEN: Oh you know, so so.

  ALI: Say hello to Flora.

  There is a bundle on the floor on a brightly coloured mat. It is FLORA as a baby. GWEN averts her eyes.
/>   GWEN: I brought her this. Just a little something I thought looked like her.

  ALI, worried, opens a carrier and takes out a frilly pink party dress.

  She’ll grow into it.

  ALI: She’ll have to have a bit of personality change first. Not exactly the sort of dress for lying flat on your back in. Is it Flora?

  GWEN: You and Michael could sit up by this stage.

  ALI: Only sit up? Surely I was front row of the corps de ballet by now?

  GWEN: Don’t be clever Alison. It’s unkind. When you’re my age you’ll look back and be proud of your children’s achievements.

  ALI: You reckon?

  GWEN: There’ll be others.

  ALI: Actually we do have an achievement to celebrate.

  GWEN: Oh good. Did she…?

  ALI: Just listen. You know how I do tracking with her.

  GWEN: Tracking?

  ALI: When I move the pig with bells on its feet across her eyes, jingle jingle jingle, so she follows it? Well today, she did. At the first jingle she just looked, focused. Isn’t that amazing?

  GWEN: Mmn. She’ll look very well in pink.

  ALI: Excuse me?

  GWEN: The dress. You had one like this when you auditioned for the Royal Ballet School.

  ALI: Yeah I expect it was that that swung it.

  GWEN: It was what I’d always wanted for you. When you got the scholarship it was worth all the lessons, the shoes, the driving to and fro.

  ALI: Mm. It was hard work.

  GWEN: You, hard work? Out late drinking and carrying on.

  ALI: I was a bit older then. And everyone did it. You have to after a show to let off steam. Everyone smoked, everyone drank to relax after all that hard slogging work, day after day.

  GWEN: Maybe if you’d worked a little more and played a little less you wouldn’t have injured yourself.

  ALI: How many times. I was dropped. Anyway injuries happen all the time, it goes with the territory. About which you know absolutely nothing incidentally.

  GWEN: I know you could have been great.

  ALI: I was good. Hundreds of people are good.

  GWEN: We’ll never know now, will we? You always knew best. And look what happens.

  ALI: Oh hello, there’s logic just left the room again. What exactly are you saying Mum? Look what happens when?

  GWEN: Here, now.

  ALI: Oh sorry, I thought we’d hung the blame firmly on Jim’s family tree?

  GWEN: Poor Jim.

  ALI: Sorry?

  GWEN: Scourers, I mean to say!

  ALI: It’s to stimulate her nerve endings. It works.

  GWEN: He’s such a good father.

  ALI: He wouldn’t pick her up for the first ten days she was home, for Christ’s sake!

  GWEN: Don’t use language, Alison.

  ALI: Are you hearing what I’m saying? Until I actually dumped her in his arms and left the room, he wouldn’t hold her, his own daughter!

  GWEN: It’s hard for a man like him.

  ALI: It’s no bloody bed of roses for me either you know.

  GWEN: Well, I did warn you.

  ALI: Oh shit shit shit.

  GWEN: You’re bound to feel guilty, that’s what all this frantic activity’s about.

  ALI: No, it’s about helping Flora be the most she can. Everyone says you need to…

  GWEN: Everyone? A gaggle of guilty women making it up as they go along.

  ALI: And she was right. We were. But what else did we have except each other and the magic faraway mob. That’s what Jim used to call them and they were, off with the fairies, dribbling and dreaming while we parents – yeah the dads did get dragged into this more than most – frantically tracked and tickled and scraped and jangled them into response. Or not. I had never been so tired or depressed in my life. And all along I knew it wasn’t because Flora had Down’s Syndrome or because she was also the slowest Down’s Syndrome girl in the group. It was because of my secret which I kept wrapped up like a first tooth under the pillow of my dreams. I was a mother, and I didn’t, couldn’t, love my baby.

  Scene Eight

  Kitty’s Story (3)

  KITTY’s cleaning.

  KITTY: When you’re carrying you don’t know who it is inside you, the other heartbeat. Then they’re born and they’re who they are and always were. Loud and lively, demanding, needing. Just by listening I could track my girls throughout the house. Toilet flushing, stairs creaking, music jangling, doors slamming. It’s been so quiet these days since she, since Susannah, went…away. Missing. I try to keep occupied, busy, you know. Life must go on. It must.

  KITTY stops suddenly, listening to the sound of a record playing in the house.

  KITTY: Susannah?!

  KITTY runs to where a girl sits hunched over, playing a single on a portable red leatherette record player.

  Susie?

  KITTY sees it’s not Susie but JEANETTE, who looks up innocently.

  You?

  In her disappointment, KITTY rages.

  What on earth do you think you’re doing?

  JEANETTE: I was only listening.

  KITTY: These are her things. What do you mean by touching Susannah’s things? You know she doesn’t like it. You must never never touch them. D’you hear me?

  JEANETTE: But I didn’t mean –

  KITTY: How could you be so selfish?

  JEANETTE: Mum! I was only playing.

  KITTY: Hold your tongue. Don’t you dare answer me back young lady. Coming in here, playing, making noise when your sister’s… God knows…

  JEANETTE: I didn’t mean any harm.

  KITTY: I’ll give you harm. I’ll give you such a hiding if I ever catch you. If you ever ever…you stupid child!

  Arm raised, KITTY stops, shocked, as she sees JEANETTE curling up protecting herself from the oncoming blow.

  I’m sorry. Jeanette love. I’m so sorry.

  JEANETTE: It’s all right.

  KITTY: But it wasn’t. After that it was as if Jeanette never again stood unprotected in the middle of a room. I’d lost one daughter and the other preferred furniture between me and her.

  Scene Nine

  Ali’s Story (4)

  ALI: If there’s one thing I hate it’s achieving mothers. You do if your kid’s always bottom of the class. She was still the cutest but while all the others were pulling themselves up on climbing frames learning motor skills there was Flora, propped on a cushion, doing sweet bugger all. She couldn’t even sit up, so I put bells on her bootees. She had such tiny legs that even the bells didn’t ring much. It was a big deal if they rang at all. Around this time I became obsessed, poor child didn’t get a minute’s peace what with the pan scourers and the bricks and all the time the clapping hands. Well done, Flora!

  ALI claps her hands.

  We applauded everything, the slightest response brought on frenzied clapping. Well done Flora! And the responses were slight. Sometimes I’d look at her as she impassively watched me, tracking and jangling, and she seemed to me like a creature in its lair waiting for the right time to appear. Then one day Jim and I were downstairs, probably having a drink, we did a lot of that during this time, when we heard this sound.

  FLORA starts to clap slowly.

  We followed the noise upstairs, along the corridor and into Flora’s room. She was in her cot, pulling on a home-made mobile Jim had rigged up for her, making a house go round, and then clapping herself. She knew what to do. We just stood there and laughed and laughed and then Jim’s laughter changed to crying. He leaned over Flora’s cot and sobbed. Then when he was done we sat on the floor beside the crib I’d made so lovingly all those hundreds of years ago and he told me that in the hospital all he’d thought was ‘I can’t cope. Please God it dies’. And behind us all the time this clapping of fat little infant hands. Well done Flora.

  FLORA comes and hugs ALI, comforting her.

  ALI: D’you remember all those bricks and bells?

  FLORA: Bricks yes. I remember bri
cks.

  ALI: It was all part of what was called Portage. The others were all doing somersaults or brain surgery or something and we were putting bricks and triangles in and out of boxes. Well, you were still reclining on your cushion and I was going demented shrieking ‘Please, please put the brick in the box!’ And I remember thinking, how sad am I? And the look on your face said ‘Very’. When we’d been doing this for a year I said ‘I know, let’s put this brick through the window’ and I did.

  ALI mimes throwing a brick. Sound effect of breaking glass. FLORA smiles.

  Yeah that’s what you did then. You laughed. This fat gurgling chuckle. And fell off your cushion. So I picked you up and did it again. Throw. (Noise.) Smash. Laugh. Topple.

  FLORA laughs along with ALI falling over as she does.

  I’d got through several window panes by the time Jim came home and suggested that before I was made an honorary member of the worshipful company of glaziers we could always create a similar sound effect. Oh but you thought it was so funny. Lying there with your legs in the air, bells jangling, hiccupping and laughing.

  ALI looks at FLORA, and realises.

  And that’s when it happened.

  FLORA: What did?

  ALI: I was hooked.

  FLORA: Not before then?

  ALI: I don’t know. I’m sorry. Maybe it was there, between us, like those almost invisible threads that spiders weave, but until then I didn’t know it. Or how strong it was. Nor that from this moment on I’d be bound hand and foot, heart and soul, to the service of Flora Gerpett.

  Scene Ten

  Milena’s Story (3)

  MILENA: The view from the hill overlooking our town and the mountains beyond was always spectacular. Never more so than when you had some task calling you back down the slopes. Slopes that in winter were covered in snow and in summer with tiny sharp blue flowers so delicate it seemed as if the sky had dropped its shawl to earth as a gift. The task in question today was matrimony. I had been sitting there since daybreak, watching the mist drift off the valley and the smoke rise from the chimneys as it rose every other day. But this day was different, even the trees at my back soughed and whispered that nothing would ever be the same again. I heard their laughter before I saw them coming towards me from a long way off – the advantage of a hill top position – two bright dots that became gradually the two people I loved best in the world, Tajib and Nevenka.