Painted Love Letters by Catherine Bateson Read Free Book Online Page B

to find Nan hosing me.
    â€˜No,’ Nan agreed, ‘how stupid of me, Rhetta. I wanted you to be perfect, to show the world what a good mother I was. I am sorry. I felt if I could keep you clean and neat, you’d be safe. I didn’t know what else to do, how else to protect you.’
    â€˜And you would never have hosed me down outside. You’d have smacked me hard, then you would have dragged me into the laundry and you’d have scrubbed until every inch of me was rubbed red. You were a terrible, terrible mother. You hated small children. You hated the mess I made. Why are you so goddamn wonderful now? Why do you have to be such a perfect mother to her, when you were never, never good to me?’
    The hose dropped and Nan went over to my mother and held her. I stood there dripping but they didn’t care. Mum was still shouting but the words were all muffled because she was shouting into Nan’s shoulder, and I couldn’t hear and I didn’t want to hear.
    â€˜Were you a terrible mother?’ I asked Nan that night, ‘Did you really hate small children?’
    â€˜I loved my house,’ Nan said, ‘It didn’t matter that it wasn’t the one we were going to build, Keith and I. I loved it because it was ours and it was perfect. And that’s how people judged you then — you were a good wife and mother if your children were clean and neat and your house was pretty and spotless. And you had to be able to make a good sponge.’
    â€˜I wasn’t a natural housekeeper,’ Nan said, leaning back into her pillows. ‘I didn’t like having to do the same thing over and over and have nothing to show for it but an absence; an absence of dirt, an absence of mess. I had to force myself to do the floors every day and to dust every day and to tidy every day, and so, yes, I don’t think I was any fun as a mother.’
    â€˜Mum was fun,’ I said, ‘in Nurralloo. We used to cook together, you know? She didn’t seem to mind how much flour went on the floor. Dad sketched us at the table.’
    â€˜I’m sure Rhetta is a much, much, better mother than I was,’
    â€˜She’s changed, and you’ve changed, and its gone topsy-turvy,’ I said, squirming round to look at Nan, ‘Mum’s gone so hard, she snaps like a really fresh gingernut biscuit and you’ve gone soft.’
    â€˜Apart from my thigh and calf muscles,’ Nan said laughing. ‘Don’t worry, Chrissie, your mother will stop snapping. She’s got a lot on her plate, more than anyone should have.’
    â€˜She needn’t,’ I said, ‘Dad said she doesn’t have to work that hard.’
    â€˜Maybe she does have to, just for a while, for herself. You don’t always work for the money. I wish I’d been able to work after Keith died. You know, when your mother went to school, I used to just go back to bed. I used to go back to bed and try to sleep for as long as I could, just so I wouldn’t have to feel so alone.’
    â€˜Why didn’t you get a job?’
    Nan shrugged, ‘I didn’t know what to do.’
    â€˜So did you sleep all the time?’
    â€˜That’s what it felt like. A whole year, maybe two, of sleep. Like Snow White.’
    â€˜And Badger’s woken you up?’ I snorted, thinking of Badger leaning over Nan, kissing her awake.
    â€˜I think I’ve been slowly waking up, inch by inch, over the years. And this, not just Badger, but this whole thing — Dave, yoga, your mother and you, Chrissie, have been the final wake-up nudges.’
    â€˜Will Mum sleep when, I mean if …’
    â€˜No, she won’t sleep. She has to stay awake for you, Chrissie, and that’s why she’s working so hard now.’
    I didn’t understand everything. It didn’t seem likely that Nan really slept for that long but I also knew just how tired you could get being sad. Sadness