One last secret, p.20
One Last Secret, page 20
I now earn three times as much as I did at the pub and the nightclub combined. I am no longer asked to clean the loos at the end of a shift, although admittedly I still have drunken men slobber all over me. I am in the eye of the storm. I know this, but I don’t know what else I can do, except ride the waves, see where I wash up.
34
Radmila
I am pleased Teodora is doing the right thing. She got herself into trouble, silly girl, but she isn’t the first and won’t be the last. So, it is what it is. I’m not trying to make it small. I was shocked. All right, I say it, horrified. But it’s water under the bridge. She is my daughter. What is done is done. What is it the English say? No point crying over spilt milk. I try to talk in English again now. Second time leaving my home, leaving my friends and language. I miss it. Of course I do. London is nothing like Serbia, nothing like the farm in north England either, think of that. London is scruffy, expensive, so much, much money needed to live here. Well, not live even, just exist. Teodora and Dottie should come back to Serbia with me. We explain she had husband and he died. No one would believe but everyone would pretend they believe and that is enough. But Teodora, stubborn, says opportunities are here. Future here.
‘What opportunities?’ I yell. I look deliberately around the poky flat. Smells of last tenant no matter how much I scrub. They had dogs. I smell their dogs and their sweat on the furniture, in the air. Teodora works, but in a pub; no one ever get rich working in a pub. We can’t manage. I say this, many times. She listens, eventually. A good girl really. Gets a promotion, now a manager, this means long hours. Often she at the pub until three or four in the morning. I ask, ‘What do you do all these hours?’
‘We have lock-ins, Mum, you know for the regulars.’
‘I have to do the inventory.’
‘I stay behind and do the cleaning.’
‘You take the salary for the manager and cleaner too?’ I ask. She nods. Not too proud to work hard, my girl. ‘Good girl. Hard work never killed anyone,’ I tell her when the alarm goes off early morning, when she returns home late, and she listens to me. Nods, knows I’m right.
I worry about her walking home alone at night from the Underground station. I don’t suggest a cab, though, I know we can’t afford it. She knows it too. I just tell her to take flat shoes to change into as she leaves the bar. She’s a fast runner, if it came to it. Dear God, I pray it never does.
The extra money she earns is a big help. Very lovely. She spends it all on Dottie. Not herself. Some girls would buy dresses and shoes for themselves, but not Teodora. She buys lots of new clothes for Dottie, though. Really new, not just ones bought from the charity shops. At first it is enough for her to buy Dottie clothes from supermarkets, then she buy from Gap, then she start to buy hundred per cent organic cotton onesies from ‘independent retailers’. She says this phrase to me, the pride in her voice obvious. I think the onesies same in Tesco, but it makes her happy and she works hard, so this is her choice. ‘Dottie deserves the best,’ she say to me, like I said the opposite, which I didn’t. I wouldn’t.
We find somewhere better to rent. A place with two bedrooms, no smells. I tell Teodora that it make more sense that Dottie sleeps in my room, because Teodora keeps such funny hours and there is a risk she wake the baby when she comes home after a very late shift. I had to say this because once I hear her come home late when Dottie still asleep in her room. I watch from the door and I see her ease Dottie out of her cot to cuddle her. It’s sweet but selfish. A baby shouldn’t be woken. So the next morning I suggest the baby sleep with me.
‘But she’s a good sleeper,’ Teodora protests. ‘I didn’t wake her.’
‘Not this time, no.’
‘And even if I had, she would quickly go back over.’
‘It’s not good for a baby to be disturbed. You want the best for your baby, don’t you?’
‘Of course.’
‘Well, it is unfair disrupting a baby’s sleeping pattern. Sooner or later it will cause problems.’
Teodora can’t argue with my logic. The next day, she helps me carry Dottie’s cot into my room. I know she thinks I am interfering and controlling, but she doesn’t say it and that’s for the best. I’m not interfering and controlling, I’m looking out for her, for both of them. Because look how things turned out for her when she had no guidance. She needs me. Dottie needs me.
I don’t ask many questions. No point. When I do ask Teodora evade me and so I tell myself she is an adult. She has her own life to live. She knows what she is doing. But that is a mistake. I see now I should have asked more questions.
These pictures! Her bottom, her breasts. My own daughter. I never thought I would ever see such a thing. I don’t understand what I am seeing on her laptop! I was looking for her work address. I thought I should take Dottie to her. She didn’t answer her phone. Dottie is sick. I wasn’t snooping, I was searching for her address. But I find this!
The angle, someone must have taken the photo of her, for her. She’s very beautiful, that is a fact. Even like this. Her skin is a lovely tone and it’s tight. I remember being young and having skin like that; we look a bit alike. She is more beautiful, though. At first, I think she must be sending these to a boyfriend. I’ve read about that; girls do that now. Foolish, but the world is. One boyfriend I could have understood. But then I notice she is emailing the photos to a woman. I don’t understand this. Is she a lesbian? No, the woman sent her the photos, but they are of my daughter. It’s confusing me. Dottie is limp next to me. I take her temperature one more time. It’s higher than last time. I strip her to vest and nappy but then worry because her feet are ice. I put on socks. I take them off. She mews, she does not cry. It’s worse than wailing, this silence. Then I notice the spots on her neck, cascading down her back. No time to find Teodora’s work address. No time to understand these pictures. I snap closed the laptop and I take my granddaughter to hospital.
It’s echoey and busy. Disconcerting. I rush through glass sliding doors, talk to women in blue uniforms who look comfortable and serious. They dash me along corridors; they insist on holding Dottie. I feel breathless with panic for my granddaughter and also grubby. The thought of my daughter’s flesh pixelated, exposed.
Dottie is with the doctor now and I am worried sick about her. I tell myself at least now there is someone looking after her, finding out what is wrong. They told me to wait here. Wait, wait. So I am in this room with the buggy and the laptop. I don’t want to be here with these photos. I want to be with Dottie. Innocent, precious, sick Dottie. ‘You can get a cup of tea from the vending machine,’ says the nurse. I glance about the room, uncomprehending. I can’t see a vending machine; there are rainbows painted on the wall, cheerful, colourful, but the image of my daughter’s nipples, her thighs, her buttocks keeps assaulting my mind. I must look like I am in shock. I am. My head buzzes and my limbs feel loose, unreliable. The nurse smiles sympathetically, tries to be reassuring. ‘You’ll be more comfortable waiting here. This room is especially for sick children and their parents.’
‘I’m the grandmother,’ I clarify.
‘It’s OK,’ says the nurse kindly. ‘You can still sit here. You should settle in.’ I stare at the laptop; it is pushed in the basket under the pram, it’s nestled up against the spare nappies and bottles I brought with me. Irrationally, I imagine the nurse can see the pictures as though they are being projected out of the computer onto the wall, superimposed, splattering across the pretty rainbow. My daughter’s shame squashes me, I feel breathless. I think of Dottie. She’s all that matters right now.
‘I mention I’m the grandmother in case this is a problem for legal things. If you need to treat Dottie.’
‘We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it. In the meantime, if you can get hold of one of her parents …’
‘My daughter, her mother.’ Both relationships so fiercely elemental, and in this moment remote. That bottom pushed up, those breasts pushed together, where her fingers were, fingers that pop food into Dottie’s mouth, it’s unimaginable.
The nurse smiles encouragingly. ‘Good, if you can ask your daughter to meet you here if at all possible.’
‘I have tried. I’ve called her mobile and her work this afternoon but no answer.’ The mobile must be switched off, and the pub she said she worked at said she does not work there any more, that she left weeks ago. She is not the manager; the man I spoke to says he is the manager. ‘I’m trying to find other contacts on her laptop,’ I explain. The nurse nods, but she’s already turning away from me; her attention has to focus elsewhere. These people are busy. Honest. Hard-working.
‘Well, keep trying,’ she urges.
Basically, she gives me permission. I don’t have any choice. You think I want to look at that filth, to know more about that world? Of course not. It kills me. But I must go back to the computer and comb carefully through everything. I’m not snooping, I’m trying to reach my daughter, but I can’t because by the end of my search, when Dottie is finally returned to my arms, I conclude I don’t know who my daughter is.
35
Dora
It is hardly the dream, working as an escort and then returning home to my mother and fatherless daughter every night, but it is OK. It is workable. It is what I have.
I don’t know how it’s possible to live with two people in such close quarters and still feel lonely, but I do. Telling lies to the ones you love cuts you off from them. They seem separate, apart. It’s not just the fact that when I catch up on sleep during the day, my mother takes Dottie to the park to feed the ducks, play on the swings; it’s more than the lack of shared experiences. I’ve started to notice that I smell different from them. Dottie smells of baby lotion and fabric conditioner and milk; sometimes she smells of raspberries or ice cream, her favourite treats. My mother smells of a designer perfume I bought her a month after she arrived at our door: roses, verbena and cherry blossom. A treat to say thank you for everything she is doing, and also to mask the odour of the old apartment, which she used to say smelt of other people’s dogs. Sometimes she smells of baking, sometimes of Radox bubble bath. These are all good scents, but try as I might, I can’t catch them. I always stink of the night before. A cloud of staleness smothers me: sour cigarettes, coffee, aftershave, sex. It gets in my hair. The stench lingers in my head after it has in reality been scrubbed from my body. Initially, my mother waited up until I came home from work. Two or three in the morning, I’d find her propped up in the armchair, TV on for company, although muted so not to wake Dottie. The moment I walked through the door, she would try to pull me into a hug. I had to jerk away from her, because of the smells. When she stopped waiting up for me, I was relieved.
When I come home from work – exhausted, dirty – I like to rush into the bathroom and shower. That first. But I’ve discovered that the sort of dirty I feel can’t be rinsed off by even the hottest shower. Only one thing can make me feel really clean again, whole, justified. A Dottie cuddle. So in the dead of night, often still damp, too impatient to dry myself properly, I silently edge into my room and scoop her up out of her cot. She snuffles up against me, her breath and mine mingling. I love the feel of her body next to mine, her chubby legs dangling down my hips, her smooth, bare feet tapping the sides of my body. I delight in her, cushiony and soft with sleep. When I hold her like that, in the darkness, it is possible to believe that my life is different. I’m not sure exactly how it would be different. Maybe it is just the two of us, or maybe there is a father; I daren’t think of her actual father, but a father in a more abstract sense. Maybe I am not a hooker. Maybe.
But my mother recently said it was bad for Dottie, me waking her in the night. I don’t know how she knew that I was. I thought she was already asleep when I did so, especially as she’s no longer waiting up for me, but I guess she has been lying awake, listening to my movements through the paper-thin walls. Sometimes it’s possible to believe the thing she used to tell me when I was a kid, that she has eyes in the back of her head. She insisted we move Dottie’s cot into her room. I didn’t know how to disagree. I mean, if it’s best for Dottie. Yet I miss the ritual, our pitch-black cuddles. I have to go to bed without touching the moonstone that makes me feel renewed, and so now, every morning when I wake up, I’m still dirty.
Tonight, when I arrive home, the apartment is empty. I sense as much before I know it for a fact. I can’t feel their breath, their warmth. The rooms seem vapid and intangible without my family. Their bedroom door is open, but a peek confirms what I feared: there is no sign of them. The curtains are open, which is unusual; normally my mother draws them and puts on side lamps the moment it gets dark; she likes things to be cosy. There is no sign that she has cooked supper; ordinarily there are pots neatly stacked on the drainer. I scan around for a note on the kitchen unit or coffee table that will explain their whereabouts. Nothing. The absence is galling. I check my phone, expecting a message saying where they are. There are five missed calls from her. A surge of impatience charges through my body when I realise that despite the numerous missed calls, there isn’t a message. She never leaves messages; she doesn’t like talking to machines. Why not even a text? My heart beats in my throat. I call my mother’s mobile, but she doesn’t pick up and I am sent straight through to voicemail. I leave a hurried, terse message. ‘Where are you both? Call me back.’
My impatience blisters into concern. My mind starts to race; horrible scenarios punch their way into my consciousness. My brain won’t be soothed into reflecting on anything reasonable. They can only be in one place. A hospital. I know it. That’s why her phone is off. Of course a hospital, because Dottie is ill or has had an accident. Worse. Oh God, there is worse than ill. The room swims around me, morphing and inconsistent. I wish I didn’t always feel a sense of overwhelming dread and despair, but I do. I just do. Since the moment I knew I was pregnant, I have been haunted by a terrible certainty that Dottie will not be mine forever. She will be taken from me. Maybe other mothers fear this, maybe I’m not insane, but I feel the helplessness of insanity, the powerlessness and unreasonableness.
I nip the flesh on the back of my arm to shock myself back into the now. I need to be logical and hold it together. I need to find my daughter and my mother. However, it’s impossible to fight the belief that something is wrong, because we don’t have people they could be visiting; where would they be at two in the morning? The blood slows in my body. I feel dense and solid, as though I’m setting like concrete. I want to rush out onto the street and scream their names, and although that makes no sense, I am reaching for my coat when I hear my mother’s key in the lock. I fling open the door and demand, ‘Where have you been?’
She puts her finger to her lips. ‘Be quiet. She has only just fallen asleep.’
I understand instantly. Relief floods through my body and soul and I’m nearly washed off my feet. My mother has been walking the streets to soothe Dottie to sleep. I am relieved for about a nanosecond, then I return to my more usual emotion, one of concern. We don’t live in a particularly safe area; where is a particularly safe area? I’m not sure such a place exists. I know bad things happen everywhere.
‘You shouldn’t walk the streets to get her to sleep. It’s dangerous.’
My mother doesn’t reply; she pushes past me, takes Dottie into her room and lowers her gently into her cot. I notice Dottie is still wearing day clothes, not pyjamas. If my mother had been trying to get her to sleep, she would have been wearing pyjamas.
‘What’s going on?’ I ask.
‘You tell me.’ Her eyes drop the length of my body. Scouring me. I am wearing a black cocktail dress. It is short and strapless. I can see her disapproval in her brow. Normally, my mother doesn’t see me in my ‘uniform’. When she used to wait up for me, I was always careful to change into trainers and jeans before I got home. Since I no longer expect to see her at night, I’ve become sloppy about that habit.
I pretend not to be aware of her questioning gaze. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’
‘She had a fever.’
‘Dottie did?’
‘Yes. High, very high.’
‘When did that start? Did you give her Calpol? Why didn’t you call me?’
‘I did give her Calpol. I waited. Her temperature went higher. She was crying. In pain. Then by teatime, she was not crying, but floppy. I did call you.’
I feel sick. I am usually home most of the day; even if I take a nap, I’m here if they need me. However, today’s job was in Oxford. I left just before lunch; I went by coach, because it is cheaper than the train, although slower. I remind myself that Dottie is safe and asleep in her bedroom. Whatever the problem was, it has passed. It is all OK.
‘Then there was a rash. I think of meningitis.’
‘Jesus, Mum.’ I imagine her fear, her panic.
‘Yes. So, I need to take her to hospital. But how? I didn’t know where it is, which bus to take.’
‘You should have taken a cab.’
‘I did in the end. I took the money from the saving jar in the bottom of your wardrobe.’ The jar where I keep my cash tips. It doesn’t surprise me that my mother has found the secret stash, and it doesn’t matter that she has. I’m not hiding the money from her, but from burglars. Still, she might wonder where that amount came from. It’s more than is likely tipped in a pub. ‘I called you again, to check this OK. To tell you to meet me at hospital. You didn’t answer.’
