News Where You Are

10

Maureen had never been like other mothers. As a general rule, the kinds of things that made other mothers happy tended to have the opposite effect on Maureen. Frank had known this since he was a little boy. He remembered visiting the homes of classmates and being shocked and puzzled to see their finger-daubed paintings stuck on walls and fridges. Whenever he took a picture home from school to his mother, she’d ask: ‘What am I supposed to do with this? Why do they make you bring these things home?’

It never occurred to Frank to be upset by this, in fact he agreed. His paintings were rubbish; he could see that. They were rushed things, done under duress, and never looked remotely as he had intended.

Maureen couldn’t stand boasting. She tried to compensate for her husband’s professional confidence by deprecating herself to a brutal degree. Similarly Frank’s modest achievements, such as they were, were not the source of joy they might be to other mothers, but a cause of real anguish to Maureen. She was mortified to discover that Frank had done better than many of his classmates in his O levels.

‘Don’t tell anyone what grades you got! Oh, how can I face the other mothers?’

Frank could see definite advantages in this. His mother never fussed in the way that other mothers did. She never embarrassed him in public by singing his praises and ruffling his hair. She rarely turned up to watch the dreadful school plays he was forced to participate in. She didn’t stand on the touchline and shout silly things that the other boys could tease him about. She hated any acknowledgement of Mother’s Day, which she considered artificial and American. She had no interest in boxes of chocolate or bath salts or cookery books.

She was not an easy mother to make happy, but Frank used to think he might prefer that to a mother who was indiscriminately delighted by everything. The few things that did please her seemed to count for more. She loved books and if Frank managed to buy her one she liked her happiness and gratitude were sincere. She enjoyed watching old films on television. She passed this love on to Frank, along with a wide knowledge of British B-list actors of the fifties. In latter years Frank would buy her videos and then DVDs of films she’d seen at the cinema as a girl and she would gasp in delight and amazement as she unwrapped them and saw the title, always saying: ‘Now that was a film.’

But as she grew older the short list of things that made her happy diminished. Since her move to Evergreen Frank had been at a loss to find anything to lift her gloom. She said she no longer had the concentration to read books or watch films. As had always been the case, she made no effort to appear happy for the sake of Frank or anyone else. She was quick to pour scorn on any ideas aimed at improving her lot, and either didn’t notice, or pretended not to notice, how upsetting this could be for others. Frank would often leave Evergreen furious with her refusal to acknowledge how hard both Andrea and Mo had tried to make her happy, and her lack of grace in even pretending the occasional success.

Frank frequently found himself now wondering why she couldn’t be more like other mothers. The other women in the home were delighted to see their families and took evident pleasure in their grandchildren. Frank developed an almost bloody-minded insistence on making his mother do things that other mothers and grandmothers would enjoy. Chief among these was his determination that she should take occasional trips out from Evergreen.

Once a month he took her out for a drive, and every time she put up the usual objections: ‘Where is there to go?’ ‘What is there to see?’ ‘I don’t want to go out in that heat/rain/fog etc.’ None of which moved Frank. He and Andrea would come close to physically dragging her from her wingback armchair and Maureen would give every impression of being kidnapped. ‘Where are you taking me?’ Calling out to other residents: ‘I don’t know when I’ll be back.’ The other residents smiling and calling: ‘Have a lovely time, Maureen.’ And Frank wondering why he couldn’t have a parent that said and felt things as straightforward as that.

On their trips out Frank and Mo would sit together in the back, Andrea would drive and Maureen would be wedged into the front seat, tucked in with a blanket that she insisted on and was pure theatrical prop.

They tried quaint market towns, grand stately homes and charming woodland walks, all of which Maureen endured like so many visits to the dentist. She would generally soften at the inevitable stop-off at a tea shop, which gave her the rare opportunity to take tea as weak as she liked it and to make catty comments about the other customers. What anyone else might consider heart-warming, the sight of an elderly couple enjoying each other’s company and a slice of fruit cake, would incite scorn from Maureen.

‘Look at them. Bored out of their minds. Nothing to say and nothing to do, just trying to get through another bloody day.’ Or the inevitable. ‘Why aren’t they screaming?’

Although she rarely enjoyed the destination, Frank noticed that Maureen seemed quite placated by the drive. In particular she appeared to enjoy driving along residential streets and looking at the suburban houses.

Today as they drove through Yardley she said: ‘That’s a nice little house, isn’t it, Andrea? A nice pitched roof and a little garden path.’

The house was an unremarkable semi. Andrea glanced at it. ‘It’s nice enough, but you lived in a spectacular house. You featured in style magazines.’

Maureen nodded. ‘It was beautiful I suppose, but I always felt that Douglas thought we ruined it by living in it. We just seemed to upset the clean lines and sharp edges.’

Mo shuffled forward in her seat. ‘Granny.’

‘Yes, dear.’

‘You know Douglas.’

‘Yes, dear.’

‘Grandad.’

Frank sensed his mother’s patience growing thin. ‘Yes, dear. I know who we’re talking about.’

‘I never met him.’

‘I’m aware of that.’

‘But I’ve seen photos.’

‘Yes, I’m sure you have.’

‘He smoked a pipe, didn’t he?’

‘He did.’

‘Why did he do that?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose he must have liked it.’

‘Was he like Sherlock Holmes?’

‘Not really, no.’

Mo slumped back in her seat, disappointed. Maureen turned her head slightly to see Mo and smiled at her.

‘You know you look very much like your grandfather?’

Mo looked at Frank. ‘Is that true?’

Frank shrugged. ‘You do a bit. You just need the pipe. Would you like that? Sitting at home puffing away whilst eating your spaghetti hoops on toast?’

Mo pulled an exaggerated face of disgust. She spoke in a whisper so Maureen wouldn’t hear. ‘How can I look like him? He was a man, and I’m a girl.’

Frank whispered back. ‘Well, you don’t look like a man, you know. You don’t look exactly like him — you just have similar eyes and mouth. You have some of his expressions.’

Mo pulled some strange faces, as if trying to find the expressions she shared with her grandfather. Frank looked at her and tried to imagine his father as a child, but couldn’t. When he thought of his father, he found it hard to think of anything but his work, impossible to separate the man from the buildings. Douglas had been one of Birmingham’s key post-war architects, one of the ground-zero visionaries along with Madin and Roberts, welcomed with open arms by the city engineer Sir Herbert Manzoni.

Frank had once come across a quote from Manzoni: ‘I have never been very certain as to the value of tangible links with the past. As to Birmingham’s buildings, there is little of real worth in our architecture.’

It seemed to Frank that Manzoni had a particular lack of certainty about the value of the city’s Victorian heritage. Landmark buildings, elegant department stores and elaborately embellished public buildings were torn down and replaced with the kind of stark buildings favoured by Douglas and his contemporaries. Birmingham was where the future would be built.

It hadn’t worked out that way, though. The demolition frenzy of post-war development was now seen as a disaster, the concrete collar of the ring road and other schemes revealed as flawed or obsolete even before they were completed. But the craving to wipe clean and start again wouldn’t die; it was too deeply ingrained in the city’s character. The target had merely shifted. Now it was the turn of the post-war buildings, the clean lines and concrete which had replaced the Victorian ornamentation. The future that Frank’s father had spent his life building was being shown as little sentimentality as the Victorian past he had tried to replace.

Andrea looked at Mo in the rear-view mirror.

‘Maybe you’ll grow up to be an architect like your grandfather.’

Mo shook her head. ‘I don’t want to be an architect.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because after you die they demolish your buildings.’

‘That doesn’t happen to every architect,’ said Frank.

‘No, dear,’ added Maureen, ‘some are still alive when the demolition starts.’