I couldn’t just dismiss her attempts at conversation.
‘Same as usual. I did the housework and now I’m just vegging out.’
‘Hmm, must be nice to have so much time on your hands.’ My mother was crouching down and spreading cream all over her face. I had no desire to see a grown woman looking like that.
‘If you check the memory you’ll see, but… There was a phone call from Daddy.’ This was a dicey topic.
‘I see.’ My mother’s expression didn’t change. But her face was a mask of white so it was hard to tell. ‘What did he say?’
‘I recorded it… Wasn’t much of a conversation, though. I just can’t get on the same wavelength as someone like him. I know he means well, but…’
‘He sucks all the air out of the room, that man.’
Was I allowed to agree?
‘And every word out of his mouth is an exaggeration.’ My mother nodded to herself. The cream had become translucent. She gestured for the tissues and started wiping it away. ‘That’s what they used to call “personality” back in the last century. I hate these wishy-washy boys nowadays, but that doesn’t mean I want someone so hard-headed.’
‘Doesn’t it kind of seem like he wants you back?’ I couldn’t settle down with the TV off. But I felt like it’d be rude to turn it on.
‘Is that the impression you got?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Still as dumb as ever!’ Her former husband, she meant. ‘He’s like a wind-up metal robot, he’ll keep on going just as he is till Judgement Day.’
‘Mum.’
‘What?’
‘You know a lot of words, huh.’
‘That’s because I don’t spend all day in front of the tube like you. I even read books, if you can believe it.’
By the time she was done wiping off her face, there was a huge mound of used tissues. I threw them away.
‘There was a call from Daddy’s wife, too. Later on.’
‘What did she say?’ My mother stood up with the tissue box in her hand.
‘She just kept squawking on and on, asking, Has my husband been over there – she’s a real dog, huh.’
I was buttering my mother up. She’s the one who provides for me, after all. I feel like I have to do something for her. HE also comes from a single-parent home, but HE approaches it differently. HE’s decided it was HIS father’s fault that HIS mother left, so HE deals with it by bleeding him dry and ignoring him at the same time. Angelic trumpets will herald the day of HIS mother’s return. HE seems to see it as the day of HIS salvation, in every possible sense. That day will never come, of course, so HE can make HIS fantasy as grandiose as HE likes.
‘You think I’m prettier?’ my mother asked, her face gleaming.
‘Of course I do. I mean, she’s short and fat, and swarthy. And she’s got that raspy voice.’ While I was offering this up for my mother’s benefit, it struck me how similar Daddy’s new wife was to that girl HE had been engaged to. It wasn’t a question of whether they actually resembled one another. As long as my image of them was the same, I could lump them into the same category. Spurred on by this realization, my tone grew more forceful. ‘And having four kids? Giving birth to them naturally? What is she, an animal?’
My mother was clearly pleased. She’s the kind of person who always wants to be number one. She was saying something about how a lot of cats were infertile lately. ‘Come in here and let’s have a chat.’ She went into her room.
Is it really that important for parents and children to talk to each other? TV dramas are always talking about it, so maybe it is.
My mother had finished tending to her face and was lying on her belly on the bed, smoking a cigarette. It’s a vice she didn’t want anyone to know about.
I sat down in the chair next to the bed and clasped my hands around my knee.
‘It has to do with work.’
I nodded, to show that I was listening.
‘You’re aware that if you stimulate a certain part of the brain, it produces a sense of euphoria, right?’
I wasn’t, but I nodded anyway.
‘Such experiments were first conducted a long time ago. They would hook a patient up with electrodes and have them flip a switch five thousand times an hour. Now they have a device that links the subject directly to a television. When the monitor is turned on, it begins to stimulate the brain. The subject no longer has to flip the switch each time; instead, a weak electrical current is transmitted automatically at appropriate intervals.’
‘I’ve heard about that. One of my friends was using it.’ She was a real space cadet, though, and it’s not clear if she was always that way or if it was just thanks to the electrode attached to her brain.
‘But it hasn’t caught on, has it.’
‘Do you have to have surgery?’
‘A very simple procedure. Quick and painless. Like getting your ear pierced.’ For some reason my mother was angry. Or so it seemed.
‘And then?’ I felt like I had to say something, so I kept going. ‘You feel good? As long as you’re watching TV?’
‘Probably.’
‘Then, wouldn’t you just watch TV all day long?’ As if that wasn’t what I did already. When I’m alone in my room, I’m mostly watching TV. And I’m alone in my room most of the time.
‘They’re mounting a huge campaign this time, trying to encourage people to get the device installed. Personally, I’m against it.’
Was she speaking as a mother?
‘How come?’
‘I worry about going to such lengths to try and get people to watch more TV.’
‘But they’re committed to it now, right?’
‘They’re in production as we speak. Five-second and fifteen-second versions. The ad copy makes my skin crawl, too. Feel Good, and Happiness is within your reach – that kind of thing. Feels obscene somehow, don’t you think?’
‘Like commercials for gravestones.’ I said the first thing that popped into my head.
‘Now that you mention it, sure. Hell is keeping a low profile these days, and the whole country is under the spell of this image of Heaven. The difference, though, is that with Hell at least you know what you’re getting. But with Heaven, everything’s ambiguous. There are no actively good feelings, just a passive, ambiguous contentment.’
What’s wrong with that? I didn’t get why she thought that sounded so terrible.
‘But it’s good for you work-wise, right?’
‘It certainly is.’
‘I’m sure it’ll be a hit.’
I’m a sucker for trends. I don’t have much in the way of agency. I always want to try whatever’s popular.
‘If you become a TV addict, though, you won’t be able to do anything else.’
I pretended to think hard about this. ‘But, there’s nothing else to do.’
‘Oh? Really? What do you do all day while I’m at work?’
‘It’s not like I get up at the same time every day. But usually sometime before noon. First off, I have something to drink, you know. Then I watch TV. And I slowly start to feel human again. I take a bath. After that I clean the house. You see, I can’t really move my body until I’ve had a nice hot soak. Laundry. The housework only takes about an hour altogether. After all that, it’s TV for the rest of the day.’ I really don’t do anything at all. Even I was taken aback.
‘That’s it?’
What, did my mother think I was studying or something?
‘I’m unemployed, so I’ve got no money. It’s not like I can go out anywhere.’