Forever yours, p.22
Forever Yours, page 22
We share a look, and we both understand what I haven’t said – that my track record is poor because I am not good at building and maintaining relationships. That I am scarred and damaged. That I, too, have done my best.
I haven’t said it, but she gets it, and I see her lips pinch together in dislike. For a moment, I am seven years old again, seeing the signs of a row brewing and willing to do anything to dissipate it. This is the point at which I would normally surrender, distract, try to draw her attention away from whatever was irking her.
I don’t do that this time. I am too old for such games, and I already know that I cannot win.
‘Any photos?’ she asks, breaking the moment.
I pull out my phone, and sit next to her, realising as our bodies touch that she is even less solid than she looks. Barely even there.
We sit, and I show her pictures, and tell her stories, and she asks questions. We share information about our lives, both of us treading carefully, both of us knowing that there is too much lurking just beneath the surface. Too much between us that could erupt.
I am there for about an hour before Sam returns. She shouts out as she lets herself in, and as she enters the room, I see her worried gaze dart immediately to my mum. Checking for breakages, inside and out. Guarding her, concerned for her.
‘Everything all right, duck?’ she says, looking from my mum to me and back again.
‘Everything’s grand,’ Mum says, reassuringly.
Sam has a package in her hands, waves it in the air, declaring that she has oatcakes and will get the kettle on.
‘What are oatcakes?’ I ask, still confused. ‘And what’s with all the ducks?’
My mother laughs, and I remember that sound so well. It is a beautiful laugh, all the more special for its rarity.
‘Oatcakes are a big deal around here, babe. Kind of a savoury pancake, I suppose, that you make with cheese and bacon and, in some weird cases, jam. And “duck” is just a term of endearment. It’s a strange old place, but I like it.’
I can hear Sam clattering around in the kitchen, the sound of cups being washed, of the fridge door opening. It is so simple, this small domestic scene. It is comfortable and calm, the two of them settled in their world.
I am glad that she has found this. For the whole of my life, I have never known her at peace. I have only seen the small spaces between the pain, and then the price she paid for them. This – with her oatcakes and her ducks and her parakeet and her pottery shire horses – is what happiness looks like for her.
I stand up, knowing that it is time to go. We have danced around some things, faced some others head on. We have tip-toed around the darkness, and I think I now have to leave. This has been big, and now I need to be small.
‘I’ve got to get going, Mum,’ I say, as she gets to her feet. ‘But it was lovely to see you. I’m glad you’re doing well, I really am. The best I’ve ever seen you.’
Sam emerges from the kitchen, a tea towel in her hands, watching us.
Mum initially looks disappointed, her face creased with a small flash of irritation, but she covers it up quickly.
‘It was so nice, Gems. I’m glad you’re doing OK.’
‘I am,’ I reply, not actually sure if I mean it or not. At the moment I feel raw, like my insides have been scrubbed with a wire brush, but that will pass, I know.
When it does, perhaps I will make this drive again. Perhaps I will invite her to come and meet Margie. Perhaps, one day, this will feel less fraught. We will never be a normal family, but perhaps we can at least be a family – if we both carry on doing our best. And if she even wants to – she was never an easy woman to predict.
Sam says goodbye, and Mum walks me to the door. She is wearing fluffy slippers with pink bows on them, I notice, her feet tiny, like a ballerina’s.
As we stand in the hall, she reaches out, takes hold of my arm with a strength that surprises me.
‘Before you go, Gems, I have to say one more thing. I know it won’t change anything but I have to say it. I wish I’d been a better mum for you.’
I place my hand on hers, whether to console her or to prise it off, I’m not quite sure, but she isn’t finished.
‘If I’d been a better mum, I could have kept you,’ she continues, staring at me intently, as though willing me to listen. To hear. ‘And if I’d been a better mum, then you could have kept her …’
We have not mentioned the baby I had when I was a child myself. We have not gone down that road, both of us perhaps too scared of where it might lead. My eyes widen, and I have no words to use to tell her how I feel.
To tell her that she is right. That if she’d been a better mum, perhaps she’d be known as Grandma now. If she’d been a better mum, maybe we would have raised her together. If she’d been a better mum, perhaps I wouldn’t be the way I am. Perhaps my daughter would be here with me now – eighteen years old, by my side.
She is right, but it would be wrong for me to say so. Needlessly cruel and pointlessly harsh. What’s done is done, and I have no desire to launch some kind of witch hunt, to share blame, to cast around for someone else to carry my pain. But neither can I quite find it within myself to dismiss what she has said, to tell her it is not true, to reassure her that she played no part in how things worked out.
I stay silent, refusing to crack beneath the force of her gaze, the strength of her need. When I was little, I’d have crumbled. Now, I am stronger, and I need to always remember that. I nod once, and smile, letting her interpret that however she wants.
We are at an impasse, looking at each other warily, both weighing up our next moves. I should have left earlier. I should stay longer. Maybe I shouldn’t have come at all – none of the options feel right.
Moments pass, and I realise that there is not going to be a neat ending. A warm hug and a promise to stay in touch. A tearful farewell and a lifting of hearts. There is only this – two damaged women circling each other in a dark hallway.
‘Take care of yourself, Mum,’ I say, and turn to leave.
Chapter 25
I find myself trapped in a hellish one-way system as I try to leave, which is perhaps reflective of my state of mind.
I did the right thing, going to see her. I know I did. And she seemed good, really good – yes, she was sad, and nervous, and had familiar moments of potential confrontation, but all within the loose parameters of ‘normal’ under the circumstances. She hadn’t magically transformed into a cartoon mother, but I never expected that. I certainly hadn’t magically transformed into the perfect daughter either.
But it was, I decide, positive. I coped. She coped. It didn’t feel as though she was going to spin off into oblivion just because she’d had to deal with a difficult situation. Or that I was going to either.
Maybe that’s because she is clean and managing her illness, maybe that’s because of Sam, I don’t know. Either way, I am grateful for that, grateful to have a new memory of my mother – a more stable one, a happier one. At the moment it is too early for that memory, that version, to superimpose itself over the one that lives in a vulnerable corner of my mind – the corner where little-girl me lives.
Yes, it was right to reach out, to see her – but just because something is right, though, it doesn’t mean it feels right, and I am hyped up and wired as I drive. Like I’ve had too much coffee and stayed up for three nights solid.
I find, as I fight my way through traffic to the motorway junctions, that I am distracted, on auto-pilot, not paying anywhere near enough attention to where I am going.
Perhaps that is why I take the wrong turning. Perhaps that is why I find myself on the M6 heading South rather than the M6 heading North. Why I find myself driving towards Birmingham, and not towards Liverpool.
Perhaps, though, it is not simply because I am distracted – perhaps I am operating on some kind of instinct, motoring towards Karim and not towards home. I’d told him I wanted to be alone, but now I am not so sure. It is my default setting – but that doesn’t mean I can’t change. Look at my mum – she’s changed, under far more challenging circumstances.
I am upset, and I need comfort, and I am driving towards Karim. It does not sound like a big deal, but I feel a sense of mild surprise at my own actions. This by itself may be cause for celebration – hang out the bunting, Gemma, you’re actually starting to behave like a human being!
Once I’ve come to terms with what I’m doing, I call in at some services near Stafford to get a coffee, and pop his address into the satnav. It is not far – less than an hour away now I am on the motorway and away from the sprawl of one city and near to the sprawl of another.
As I glance at my phone, I see a glut of messages from Karim. I smile as I open them, feeling a simple thrill of happiness that he is checking up on me.
There are a couple along the lines of ‘how did it go?’, and one with kisses and hugs emojis, because he’s mature like that. Next there are lots of photos. They show a large garden in full kids’-party mode – a big table set up with food and drink, a bouncy castle, groups of men and women of all ages, kids in fancy dress. He has sent close-ups of the popcorn machine and the birthday cake, and I realise that I should eat sometime soon. There is a group shot of his sisters sitting with his dad, who looks like an older version of him, silver threads in his hair.
I smile at the photos of his family, and laugh at his comedic captions, and flick through onto a video that he says one of his sisters took.
It is of the bouncy castle, the low-level hum of the pump almost drowned out by the delighted screams of the children. Shoes and boots are flung far and wide, and around a dozen little ones are leaping around on the purple-and-green plastic, falling over, doing rolls, attempting somersaults. In the middle of them all, looking just as happy to be there, is Karim.
He is bouncing as hard as he can, making them all wobble and shake, the shrieks and laughter equal parts fear and pleasure. A little girl – his niece, I assume – clings to his calves, and he lets out a fake film-villain laugh and shakes her loose, before leaning down to tickle her. She clambers back up, scales his body like a climbing frame, and wraps her arms around his head.
It makes me smile to see him like this, at the heart of it all, surrounded by people who love him, and whom he loves in return. But it also makes me realise that today is not the day for me to meet his family. There might be another time when it feels right – there might not. Who knows? But I don’t want to go into that garden, into that party, into that scene of communal happiness. I feel too toxic. Too full of my own needs.
Today is not the day to plunge myself into the silliness and purity of a kids’ party. Not the day for me to wonder if I am passing muster with his family, with his dad, his sisters, all those cousins and nieces and nephews. Not to mention the strangers, the family friends, the mums and dads of school pals, possibly one of those scary clowns that claim to entertain children but actually only give them nightmares …
I feel myself spiralling off into the land of fictional anxieties, and walk back to the car. I have made this little detour for nothing, and I need to head home. Before I start the engine I reply to his messages, telling him I am fine, that I will see him tomorrow, that I am glad the party is a raging success. I add four kisses, going crazy.
I am disappointed that I don’t feel like I can fit into his world, but I remind myself that this has been a difficult day, and that it has taken its toll.
I feel a sense of distance between myself and Karim, between myself and the rest of the world, but I also know myself well enough to understand that it will pass. It is a temporary coping mechanism that my psyche has thrown up to help me get through everything – a barrier to protect me from the barbarian hordes. A wall of safety to buy myself the space and time to process what has happened, the way it has affected me.
The thing about walls, though, is that they don’t only keep the bad stuff out – they keep the good stuff out as well. I know that, and I am alert to the fact that I need to tear them down again if I want to live the kind of life I am starting to see glimmers of.
That, though, will be a task for tomorrow, I think. I am not superhuman, and I am not perfect, and I am not capable of switching change on and off like a lightbulb. It will take time, and, today, I need to give myself permission to retreat.
The journey home takes me the best part of three hours, between toilet breaks and traffic snarls, and it is fully dark by the time I park outside my flat.
I sit in the car for a moment, relieved to be here but also emotionally queasy at the thought of heading inside. My flat will be cold, and empty, and bleak. It is what I need, but it is not what I want, and there is a world of difference between the two. I feel heartsick and lonely and utterly incapable of reaching out to any of the people in my life who might make me feel differently.
I know that I need to call in and say hi to Margie and to let her know I am safely home. I know this because I am very perceptive, and also because of the text she sent me earlier that said, make sure you call in and say hi and let me know you’re home safe.
She’s not fooling me – I’m sure she wants to know all about everything, down to the last oatcake, but I am too tired for that. I have driven hundreds of miles and been in a time machine and have eaten nothing but service-station food all day. I can manage ‘Hello, look, I am alive’, but I think that is about all.
I let myself into the communal hallway, and hear a welcome home woof from Bill. Margie has left the door to her flat open again, and I smile as I see he is waiting to greet me just inside as I push it open. I crouch down, and let him give me a big slobbery hug with a lot of face licking.
Down the hall and into the lounge, I am greeted by not only Margie, but Erin and Katie too. They are all sitting around the TV screen, the lights are off, and whatever they are watching is casting an eyeball-searing neon glow around the room.
I stare at the TV, hearing a mish-mash of accents and seeing cupcake-coloured characters involved in some kind of dispute – horses, I realise. They’re talking horses. It’s all very surreal.
‘The wanderer returns!’ announces Margie when she sees me, pausing the pink horses mid-sentence.
‘Sit down, love!’ she says. ‘We’ve been watching TV shows we loved as kids. Katie’s been finding them on her phone, and then throwing them onto the telly …’
‘Casting them, Margie!’ Katie interrupts, giving me an eye-roll as though to say ‘old people, huh?’, when in reality I have no idea what is even happening.
‘I chose Play School,’ declares Margie excitedly. ‘Early Brian Cant era. Honestly, it was so nice – felt like being little again! Erin went for Grange Hill and Zammo’s drugs shame. Now here we are … My Little Pony!’
‘This is mine, in case you hadn’t guessed,’ Katie adds. ‘It’s the one where Apple Jack tries to do the whole harvest on her own, refusing all help until she realises that she needs her friends …’
‘I still don’t understand,’ says Erin, who is sitting next to her on the sofa, ‘why they have farms and harvests. I mean, they’re ponies!’
‘Yes, but they’re anthropomorphic ponies,’ replies Katie, in the slightly exasperated tone of someone who has had to explain this before, ‘so they live human-style lives.’
Erin winks at me behind her back, and I see it is a running debate between them.
‘Well, I’m just glad they didn’t take it too far,’ she adds. ‘I mean, can you imagine? My Little Pony: The Slaughterhouse Edition?’
Katie groans and punches her in the leg, and Margie gestures towards the chair that is going spare.
‘Come on, love, we saved you a space … and there’s an open bottle of Baileys around somewhere – unless Katie’s necked it all.’
‘Yes, that’s me,’ says Katie jauntily, ‘just turned eighteen and a complete alcoholic! Gemma, sit down, will you, so I can see how Apple Jack’s story ends?’
I have not said a word throughout this exchange, this explosion of banter and convivial chat. I have smiled, and nodded at the right places, and absent-mindedly scratched Bill behind the ears as he sits next to me.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that all three of them are here. That all three of them have obviously been filling in time, waiting for me to come home. They know this might have been a difficult day, and they are, in their own slightly bonkers way, offering me a kind of support group. A soft cushion to land on after any traumas I might have endured.
It is sweet, and I appreciate it, but I still feel the urge to run. To hide away in my own space and lick my wounds.
‘Ladies, this all looks wonderful,’ I say, ‘and on any other night I’d have an episode of The Worst Witch on quicker than you could say abracadabra, but I’m absolutely wiped out. It all went fine, and I’ll fill you in tomorrow, but for now I need to crash out. I’m not being an Apple Jack, my lovely friends, but I hope you’ll forgive me if I say goodnight?’
Katie gets to her feet, clambers over the tangle of dog and human legs, and presents me with a half-empty bottle of Baileys. A-ha – she did have it after all.
‘There you go,’ she announces, wrapping my hands around it, ‘a half-full bottle of Baileys for you.’
Half-full, I tell myself as I prepare to leave. Half-full, not half-empty. An important distinction.
Katie throws her arms around me, and gives me a squeeze. Before I know it, all three of them are surrounding me. I get hugs from them all, Margie tucks my hair behind my ears, and Erin kisses me on the cheek.
I feel overwhelmed, in both good ways and scary ways. These three women have waited up for me. They care about me. They are showing me that so clearly that it almost makes me cry. I know they all want to hear about my day, but I don’t have it in me to talk.
Instead, I decide that I can at least stay. I can just sit, and have a drink of Baileys, and let myself be comforted by the sounds of their chatter and their silly TV shows and their simple presence. I am quiet, and none of them try and force anything more from me – they just let me be.
