Free Granta 125: After the War by John Freeman

moved on.
    Kurt remembered her gathering the cotton from milkweed pods to make stuffing for cushions. He was ambivalent about this becausewe both loved those soft cushions but it seemed to be a habit of the poor. Dad was the one who made us feel poor but through her special magic Mother made us understand that we had to bow our heads to no one. By being the queen she transformed Kurt and me into princes. It stuck in Kurt’s case. Wowser and Doozy put all this at risk.

    T wo weeks later we were summoned back to the home by Ms Lowler who this time wore an all-concealing cardigan. She’d had enough. It seems Mother had been loudly free-associating about her amorous adventures in such a way that it wasn’t always best that she occupy the common room during visiting hours. She had a nice room of her own with a view of some trees from her window and Bible-themed Kincaid on the opposite wall and where she couldn’t ask other old ladies about whisker burn or whatever. That’s where we sat as before, except this time I located the call button. Kurt and I were in coats and ties, having come from work, Kurt shuffling the teeth of the living, me weaselling goobers across my desk. She smiled faintly at each of us and we helped her into her chair. Kurt started right in. I kind of heard him while I marvelled over the passage of time that separated us from when Mother ruled taste and behaviour with a light but firm hand and left us, Kurt especially, with a legacy of rectitude that we hated to lose. Kurt was summarizing the best of those days, leaning forward in his chair so that his tie hung like a plumb bob, his crew cut so short that it glowed at its centre from the overhead light. Mother’s eyes were wide. Perhaps she was experiencing amazement. As Kurt moved toward what we believed to be Mother’s secret life, her eyes suddenly dropped and I first thought that this was some acknowledgement that such a thing existed. Kurt asked her if she’d had a special friend she’d like to tell us about. She was silent for a long time before she spoke. She said, ‘Are those your new shoes?’
    I followed Kurt into Ms Lowler’s office. ‘I would like to speak to you, Ms Lowler, about our Mother’s quality of life.’
    ‘What’s wrong with it?’
    ‘She’s no longer here at all, Ms Lowler.’
    ‘Really? I think she’s quite happy.’
    ‘Ms Lowler, I’m going to be candid with you: there comes a time.’
    ‘Does there? A time for what?’
    ‘Ms Lowler, have you had the opportunity to familiarize yourself with the principles of the Hemlock Society?’
    ‘I think it’s quite marvellous for pets, don’t you?’
    Later, when Mother started thinking Kurt was Wowser, he really got onto the quality-of-life stuff. I waited before asking him the question that was burning inside of me. ‘Have you ever done it?’
    ‘I’ve never done it but I’ve seen it done.’
    There were times when Mother seemed so rational apart from the fact that what she told us fitted poorly with the Mother we used to know. She said, for example, that Wowser always wore Mister B collars with his zoot suit.
    Kurt told me that he never knew what would happen when he visited Mother. Lately she’s shown an occasionally peevish side. Today she suggested that he ‘get a life’. This was about a week after Mother had started confusing Kurt with Wowser, and a few days after Kurt had started addressing Mother as Doozy in the hopes of finding Wowser before he could add his own stain to our family reputation. ‘You’re in a different world when your own mother doesn’t recognize you, or thinks you’re the stranger who gave her a hickey.’
    This brought up the Hemlock Society all over again. I told Kurt to forget about it. ‘Why?’ said Kurt. ‘That’s the only way we get our real mother back. The human spirit is imperishable and Mother would live on through eternity in her original form and not, frankly, as “Doozy”. They really should weigh the spirit just