Joanna, at the age of sixty, chaired the first meeting of her life. Her clones appointed her chairperson. The meeting took place in Julie’s house, where Mavis had led her. On arrival they found a Volvo, a Citroen and a Porsche in the drive. They could hear the sound of children playing, or squabbling, not to mention TV-set, radio and hi-fi all turned up loud.
‘How very peculiar,’ said Mavis, who wore for the occasion a long brown woollen coat of amazing plainness. ‘My report says this one, Julie, lives very quietly, and has no children. Isolated, rather the way you are. An “executive wife” is what they call this particular brand of woman.’
‘Perhaps she’s had no choice,’ said Joanna. ‘Or perhaps she lacked the courage to have friends. Look how brave I have to be to have Angela!’ Joanna wore a nice little black suit and high heels to give herself confidence, or perhaps to annoy Mavis.
‘Perhaps they’ve found each other already,’ said Mavis.
‘Yes, perhaps that’s it. All of a sudden, like you, she has a family. And noise and drunkenness breaks out!’
Mavis rang the bell, because Joanna hung back, and knocked, and tapped upon the window, and finally was heard. The door was flung open.
‘Mother!’ cried the clones, elated and irreverent, ‘it must be Mother!’, as Joanna May stood in the doorway, startled. They crowded round, inspecting, touching, laughing. Even Joanna, accustomed to sobriety, could see they’d been drinking. But she was relieved they had recognized her with so little difficulty: had no doubt at all but that she was theirs.
‘Mother!’ she said. ‘Oh, I see. I’m to be mother, am I!’ She looked them up and down: she hushed them and tutted them. She felt like her own mother, disapproving; she felt a flicker of forgiveness for the poor dead woman. Mother! The girls would have to take the consequences, the general brisk comment and interference for their own good. Joanna May, mother, refused champagne, fearing alcoholism; she accepted tea. (Mavis took what remained of Alec’s whisky from the mahogany-and-glass cabinet.) Wildly, the clones asked Joanna for her opinion of them: they insisted, insisted. They wanted a proper mother’s report – at last, they would have what every daughter wants, a mother to wholly appreciate them.
‘I see,’ said Joanna May. ‘You want my true opinion, do you? My maternal view? Then here it is.’
She, Joanna, didn’t like one bit the way Alice had taken back her hairline; it was vulgar; she felt Julie’s sweatshirt was too informal considering this was her house and she had guests, and what is more she didn’t care for the patterned drink coasters, they were common; she thought Jane should comb her hair properly – and it was much too short – and Gina should lose some weight and stop smoking. She couldn’t help saying these things. They were true: she was right about them: they must listen to her. It was for their own good. She had been around longer than them: she knew.
Joanna felt resentment rising in her daughters; they were oppressed: they wanted her to go away, and yet she’d hardly said a word to them, had she, nothing that wasn’t necessary. Just she didn’t like this and she didn’t like that. Which was true. And for their own good. And look how they drank – alcoholics, every one! They drummed and tapped with their fingers: they were one split into four: they defended each other: to attack one was to attack all. Joanna May stopped as suddenly as she began. She had shocked herself as well as them.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Joanna May, ‘but this is the penalty of daughterhood. I remember it well. The mother must make the daughter as much like her as possible, unthread, unknit, the father in her. In this case, as it happens, my father is your father: you are me, so there’s no point in me doing it, but still I can’t help it.’
‘I do it to Sue,’ said Gina. ‘I can’t help that either. I don’t do it to the boys: I let them be themselves, I could never work out why. I suppose that’s what it is: you try and unravel the father out of the daughter. How else can she be properly female?’
‘Worm and the sperm!’ said Jane.
‘Disgusting,’ said Julie and Alice together.
‘I will not be your mother,’ said Joanna May. ‘I hereby renounce the role. If this is motherhood, save me from it. I always wanted it, but this is all it is! Nag, nag, nag!’
‘She can’t be our sister,’ said Alice scornfully. ‘She’s much too old.’
‘She’ll only get jealous,’ said Jane, ‘of the way we are.’
‘She does age well,’ said Gina. ‘I suppose that’s something to look forward to.’
‘I don’t want to look forward,’ said Julie. ‘I want to live now.’
They allowed Joanna May no authority: she had disclaimed mother, she must take the consequences: they would not even accept her status as originator. They looked her up and down, inspected her, now their equal, their equivalent, but somehow dusty with it. So that was what the passage of the years did – it made you dusty. They resolved never to wear black. It did not suit them. They were in a manic state. As for Joanna, she wanted their pity, all of a sudden, their acknowledgement of her wrongs, but they’d allow her none of that. An easy life, a quiet life! Married for thirty years! To Carl May, the famous Carl! They had all been wronged, more than she, each one claimed. Joanna of all of them had her proper place in the world; she’d been born at the right time. They were a generation out. No wonder they’d been lonely: their lives had been in a mess. They could see now that was the trouble – they’d been lonely. They used men to stop them being lonely. No wonder it all went wrong. Now they had each other, nothing need be the same. They were delirious, giddy. It was absurd, wonderful. Joanna thought they were far too young, far too noisy, far too energetic. She wanted to be alone. She said so. They wouldn’t have it.
‘We’ll make her chairman,’ said Julie. ‘That’s what we’ll do. That should keep her happy.’
‘Chairperson,’ said Jane. So that was what Joanna May consented to be: someone who controlled an agenda but couldn’t vote. Mavis watched, and said nothing, but every now and then looked out the window, uneasily.
Ben came into the room and said ‘Mum’, and Julie and Gina both looked up. ‘Those men are back,’ he said. ‘There are five of them this time, and if you don’t do something about it I’m going to take Anthony somewhere safe. And Sue too, I suppose.’
Jane said, ‘You let him watch TV, Gina, you shouldn’t,’ but Joanna said, ‘No, we have to be careful. You don’t know Carl.’
‘I’d rather like to meet this Carl,’ said Julie. ‘Can it be managed?’
‘At last,’ said Alice, ‘a man worth loving.’
‘What everyone wants,’ said Jane.
‘If you did, Joanna,’ said Gina, ‘so could we.’
‘To be able to love!’ said Julie. ‘Truly love.’
‘He’s a demon, a monster,’ protested Joanna. ‘It wasn’t love I felt. Something else! He doesn’t deserve to live. He is wicked, he is mad. It took me a lifetime to see it.’
‘All that happened,’ said Alice, ‘is that you grew old.’
‘Lost energy,’ said Gina.
‘Got the worst out of him, not the best,’ said Julie.
‘Any of us could manage him better,’ said Jane.
‘How would you do that?’ asked Joanna.
‘By not taking him seriously!’ said Jane, and they all crowed with delight, and poured more champagne, and Joanna turned to Mavis in alarm.
All Mavis said was, ‘I didn’t think about the back,’ and tried the telephone but there was no dialling tone when she lifted up the receiver.
Ben said, ‘It’s OK, I’ve already called the police. All the times I wanted to call the police, Mum, and never dared, because it made it worse for you.’
Jane, Julie, Alice and Joanna were shocked. They turned and looked hard at Gina, and Gina said, ‘I know, I know, I can’t cope, I’m an awful mother, I don’t want to be a mother, please help me.’
Mavis and Ben seemed to understand each other, to comprehend that the world was a desperate and dangerous place. Police sirens sounded. Joanna said, ‘Why did they come so quickly?’ and Mavis said, ‘It depends what Ben said,’ and Ben said, ‘Well, I’d better get it over,’ and went out, and Mavis followed.
Alice said to Gina, ‘Why don’t you go after him, he’s your son?’ and Gina said, helplessly, ‘Well, he’s a boy,’ and Alice said, ‘This can’t go on; personally I hate children but after all he is my nephew. Something has to be done about this.’
‘About Gina, you mean,’ said Jane.
‘I’d like to help,’ said Julie.
Mavis came back and said Ben’s wonderful; he told them this tale of child assault, sex assault, five men in the car, and they believed him, and they took the men away; now they’re going to have to talk themselves out of that. Ben’s got to go down to the station. Someone ought to go with him.
Gina didn’t stir. It was Julie who said, ‘I’ll go,’ so that decided that.
Joanna, Jane, Julie, Gina, Alice.