FORWARD THINKING

 FORWARD THINKING                                                                  

Richard Banks 

Foresight is a wonderful thing, my mother used to say and while it meant that there were few surprises in her life it also ensured that she was prepared for every emergency that came our family’s way. When Billy fell off his tricycle and cut his arm there was mother on the scene within seconds with a bowl of warm water to wash the wound and, once the blood had stopped flowing, apply an appropriate sized Elastoplast. A fresh handkerchief would then be produced from the pocket of her pinafore to wipe away the tears and once they had been turned into smiles the same pinafore was found to contain a chocolate soldier.

         Five years later when my other brother, George, broke his arm playing football an ambulance arrived on the scene within several minutes as a consequence of mother phoning 999 a quarter of an hour before the accident occurred. By this time, being the oldest of my two brothers and Leila, our sister, I was fully aware of mother’s amazing ability to see into the future and mitigate life’s vicissitudes; a talent that unfortunately did not extend to their prevention. 

         “Why didn’t you stop George from playing?” I asked. “If you had told him not to, or sent him on an errand, it would never have happened.” 

         Mother smiled. She liked it when I asked questions. An inquisitive mind is a clever mind was another of her sayings and she was always ready to listen to our questions and answer them as well as she was able. There was, she said, nothing that anyone could have done to prevent George breaking his leg. Even if she had kept him from the football match it would have happened elsewhere, and in some other way. Just consider how much worse it might have been if she had sent him on an errand; he might have returned home through the forest or across fields. Who there would have been about to help him, not the football players that’s for sure. And how would she have known where to send the ambulance. No, it was better to let things happen in the way they were meant to.

         “Will I have an accident?” I asked. As a Boy Scout, my watchword was always to be prepared and mother’s early warning system seemed likely not only to offer me protection from life’s misfortunes but to advance my progress through the ranks to Troop Leader. After all, if Mother knew when I was about to have an accident surely she would also be able to tell me when one of my fellow Scouts was about to suffer a misfortune. Forearmed with the correct time and coordinates I would be the first to his aid and having worked out in advance exactly what needed to be done would easily win my First Aid badge and possibly, depending on the generosity of the Scout Master, a life savers badge. 

         My day dreaming was interrupted by the sound of Mother’s voice telling me that she had no intention of telling me, or anyone else, that they were about to have an accident. It would do no good at all, she flatly asserted. Why worry someone about a misfortune they had no way of avoiding. Better just to let it happen and deal with the consequences as best one could. Observing me to be unusually pensive she sought to reassure me by asserting that some people went through life without so much as a scratch and that, who knows, I might be one of them. Best to think that, she said, even though it may not be true.

         Better still, I decided to put it to the test and after crossing Epping High Street several times with eyes tight shut decided that what I had unwisely inferred from my mother’s words was true, that I was immune from harm. Forty years on that has indeed been the case. 

         I was into my third year of Secondary School when mother assembled us children to tell us that father was to die from a heart attack at eleven-forty five the following morning. She had decided that this should happen in the Co-op store away from ourselves and other family members who would understandably be distressed by witnessing such an alarming event. She knew that the people in the shop were good folk who would do their unavailing best for him and that he would not die alone which was a misfortune that no one deserved. As for the future she had, the week before, insured his life for a substantial sum of money that would enable us to continue our lives unaffected by the loss of father’s wages. We were to say nothing of all this to him, or anyone else, and that all that was required of us was to be at home when he set-off on his final journey. This we did, lining the garden path, bidding him an earnest, and in some instances an emotional farewell. Needless to say, this was very puzzling to Father who assured us several times that he was only going to the Co-op and, thereafter, Baxter’s shop where his boots were being mended. Half an hour later Mother set-off to collect our shopping, arrange his funeral, and collect Father’s boots which she correctly surmised would soon be a fit for my own feet.

         It was a year later that mother acquired a suitor and although she clearly had no great liking for the man consented to marry him which she did less than a month after his proposal. Us children were all of one mind in thinking this was a dreadful betrayal of our father whose kindness to us in life had almost been matched by the pecuniary blessing of his departure. We needn’t have bothered ourselves, for within a month stepfather was run over by a number nine bus, and the family benefited from another life policy that my mother had taken out shortly before their Registry Office service. Having paid little more than thirty pounds in premiums on both policies and collected over £100,000 from the same insurer there can be little doubt that they smelt the proverbial rat but with no evidence of wrongdoing they had no choice but to make payment. 

         Happily, Mother had no further suitors. Indeed it was observed that the menfolk of the town, especially the widowers and bachelors, did all they could to give her a wide berth. Although mother was aware of the gossip circulating about town she was too busy bringing up her four children to pay it any heed.  Having done nothing wrong, as far as she was concerned, she thought it no more than her right to spend the money that had liberally come her way. She invested heavily in the education of all her children enabling three of us to attend university, while George was brought a small factory where he established a successful business making football boots. Leila, perhaps the cleverest of us, was jettisoned into the social gatherings of fashionable society where she met and married a Baronet, who, happily, is still living. 

         It was with considerable trepidation that I introduced mother to the girl I was wanting to marry knowing that she would surely warn me if accident or ill-health was to be her lot in life. When my mother’s only comment was that Connie was a pleasant girl who would do well enough, I knew that there was no barrier to our union unless my proposal was received with a no. Fortunately for me, and our children, that was not to be the case and we have since enjoyed happy and healthy lives. My siblings have also been fortunate in that respect, including George who was thrice married and therefore claims to have had as much marital bliss as the rest of us put together.        

         In 2017, the year of the late Queen’s Sapphire Jubilee, Mother took to her bed and, in the presence of her housekeeper and Leila, died. That she was fully aware of her imminent demise was only too evident from the letter she left bidding us farewell, and every happiness in the years to come. There was, she wrote, very little for us to do but to attend her funeral and think kindly of her. The Co-op had been instructed as to the arrangements for her funeral and interment, while the family solicitor was to convert all her assets into a cash sum that was to be divided between her three sons. Leila, who had no need for money, would receive nothing, nothing that is but her mother’s extraordinary ability to foresee her family’s misfortunes. This, she asserted, was her most valuable gift, one she had inherited from her mother and the one hundred mothers that had preceded them. She had no guidance to give her daughter beyond the example of her own life. Leila, with her much polished brain, would find her own way and be more than an adequate custodian of powers that were to be used for the benefit of her own children and those of her brothers. That Leila had yet to give birth to a female child was her only concern but intuition told her that one would come, they always did, and that when born should be named Freya which had been told to her in a dream, which she believed was a vision. 

         Six years after mother’s passing Leila has no sense that she is the recipient of mystic powers and has yet to give birth to a daughter. Indeed it is eight years since her last child when it is rumoured her husband removed the possibility of siring another by submitting to a medical procedure he apparently has no intention of reversing. 

         We await developments, as they say. In the meantime, we continue to give thanks for a loving mother whose special powers may be all the more remarkable for being hers and hers alone.

The End.

Copyright Richard Banks