‘How’s everything going?’ he asked as he made himself a coffee.
‘Yes, good.’
‘Annie says Emerge is going well.’ She would, I thought. Under the guise of good communication, Annie would narrate her every action through painstakingly tedious email updates.
‘So I hear,’ I said.
‘You did a good job with her,’ said Carter thoughtfully. I spluttered, emitting a small spray of pretzel dust. ‘She’s jumped in feet first, extremely enthusiastic.’
‘Sometimes a little too enthusiastic,’ I said. I made sure I gave him a small smile, one ready to advance or retreat depending on his response.
‘Can you be too enthusiastic?’ he asked, and it withdrew.
‘No, probably not,’ I said.
‘And this art project seems very promising. You’ve been quiet about the progress.’
‘You know me,’ I said brightly. ‘I like to share the results and not the process.’ Carter took a sip of his coffee. Even the way he lifted the cup to his mouth was elegant.
‘That’s the thing,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure I do – know you, that is. I think we should schedule a meeting. Lunch maybe?’ I couldn’t decide whether to be pleased or terrified. ‘What have you got on today?’
‘I’m meeting Nush – I mean the client – today.’ Nush had sent me a text the previous evening, actually very early that morning, insisting we meet. I had pictured her bright nails clacking on the screen as she tried to process her definitely exaggerated, possibly drug-induced crisis. At the time I was only irritated that her ineffective efforts at adulting were interrupting my sleep. Standing there awkwardly with bits of pretzel wedged in between my back teeth, I was grateful.
‘OK, another time,’ he said.
Nush’s message had said that she would be around Islington. I called her on my way out and the line went straight to voicemail. I assumed she was on the phone; Nush was a woman who required an audience at all times. I headed to Angel, an area I had always loved. The first time I found myself there in my twenties, I thought I’d landed on the set of a Richard Curtis film; everyone was so cheerful and stylish. I promised myself that in a few years, when successful in whatever path I chose, I would live there. That was before I knew that Angel, like one of its supernatural namesakes, was in an inaccessible realm – those people weren’t just cheerful and stylish, they were probably very rich. I had boxed up the dream of Angel, along with so many others; I had accepted adulthood as an accumulation of dying dreams. That morning, sitting on a bench outside the tube station, I felt differently. Had my dream died or had I suffocated it with conventionality? When I tried Nush again, she answered.
‘Yes?’ she asked.
‘Where do you want to meet?’
‘When?’ I gripped the seat of the bench with my free hand.
‘Today,’ I said slowly. I paused, and when she didn’t take the opportunity to attempt an apology, I continued. ‘You sent me a frankly hysterical-sounding text very early this morning, proposing we meet. Is everything OK with the show?’
‘Oh yeah, don’t worry, it’s fine,’ she said.
‘I wasn’t worrying until you messaged me, strongly indicating I should worry.’
‘I’m getting another call, one second.’
‘No!’ I barked. ‘Nush, I already have two children – I don’t have the headspace for another. If you want to be a professional you have to behave, well, professionally. Honestly, this project is really interesting but if your plan is to piss about with your dad’s money, I can’t be a part of it.’ I felt a lump develop in my throat; perhaps my body was doing whatever it could to stop me speaking.
In the silence, I started to draft my resignation letter to Carter, but then Nush said, ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t drink tequila. I’m on my way to Sainte-Marine. Taking a few days to get my head together. I’ll call you when I’m back. Not before!’ She giggled. I told her to have a good time but not too good a time. She promised she wouldn’t, in a sing-song voice. I remembered Frank telling me that he knew I wasn’t a pushover. I thought he knew me better than I knew myself. I sent him a voice note saying thank you, nothing more. I believed we needed so few words. Reluctant to return to the office and the threat of Carter’s attention, I decided to use the precious time I had gained to complete a long-overdue task. I caught the bus and went to visit my dad.
He looked surprised when he saw me at the door, and his expression solidified the feeling that I had been away too long. ‘You’re not busy, are you?’ I asked when he hesitated to invite me in.
‘No, no. Doing some filing.’ I followed him to the living room, where the contents of the recycling bin were strewn across his coffee table. I tried to help him put them back in the plastic crate that usually lived outside his front door but he shooed me away, and I settled on to the sofa and watched him methodically place each item back into the box.
Eddie insisted on making the tea, even though it took him four times longer than it would have taken me. I flitted through the television channels, trying to seem occupied so he wouldn’t feel like he was being judged. The living room was neat and orderly, and the small kitchen attached to it the same. I thought about the time and effort it would have taken to maintain it and marvelled at his commitment. He brought me the tea and I stood up to take it.
‘Biscuit?’ he asked. I said yes without thinking, and watched him take the long journey back across the room. He was wearing plaid trousers, loose because of his weight loss. As I watched them flapping around his wizened form, I almost regretted my decision to visit. Finally, he re-emerged with a packet of rich tea. I accepted them and nibbled on one, even though it was soggy. He smiled as I ate the snack, and I thought that maybe all the effort he made wasn’t commitment but necessity. He kept up with his chores and pressed those trousers, despite what it must cost him, to help maintain the belief that everything was going to be OK.
‘Have you seen Henry?’ I asked. I hadn’t heard from him, which wasn’t unexpected. I had sent him a message to let him know I had gained a new client and thus relieved myself of the role of human cashpoint for the foreseeable future, to which he sent me a thumbs-up emoji.
‘He came by a couple of days ago. Brought a new girl. He met her on a bus, apparently, and she’s the one. How about that for luck?’ I laughed.
‘What’s she like?’
‘Like the others.’
‘It’s a shame he won’t settle down. I think it could chill him out a bit.’
‘I believe that’s what he’s afraid of.’ Eddie chuckled at his own joke, and the laugh turned into a cough. The act appeared to consume his whole body.
‘Can I get you something?’ I asked. Although what, I didn’t know. Some new lungs perhaps? Eddie shook his hand towards me to indicate that no, there was nothing I could do. Once he had composed himself, he took a sloppy sip of tea.
‘He’s tempted by shiny things. Like your mother in that way.’ Even though I was the first to berate Mum’s flightiness, I was offended on her behalf.
‘It’s not always a bad thing to go after what you want,’ I said. I put the rich teas on the coffee table.
‘No, it’s a good thing, if you know what you want,’ Eddie said.
‘Come on. She’s made her fair share of mistakes but she’s got a few things right.’
‘Two,’ said Eddie, reaching out to touch my hand. ‘Well, one and a half. However, I wasn’t talking about your mum. I meant me.’ Eddie stared at the television screen as he spoke. ‘I had everything and I kept chasing more – more work, a bigger house. I refused to see what was in front of me.’
‘That’s not true,’ I said, although I didn’t know that to be the case. I simply wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it.
‘It is. Take it from a dying man.’ I moved towards him, not sure what I would do but instinctively wanting to make him stop. He held up a hand and I froze obediently. ‘Your mother made me so angry. I thought that her carrying on me
ant she didn’t love me. I wanted her to be different when it was her, the way that she is, who I fell in love with. I didn’t see what I had with her, with us. It’s the thing I regret most.’
‘That’s not right, Dad. Trust me, you’re being hard on yourself.’ He looked at me.
‘Maybe, but maybe I was too easy on myself before.’ I remembered trying to steal time with him when I was a kid; I’d offer to accompany him on any errand. People would always comment on how alike we were. We’d be in a shop and the woman behind the till would proclaim I was a ‘chip off the old block’. He would never correct them. I thought at the time he was trying to preserve my dignity, but later I decided he might have believed it to be true. And that morning I took his words as a message. The message being – I know you because part of you is me, and that part won’t want to leave with regrets.
24
I HAD BOOKED THE morning off to be a better mother and attend Chloe’s assembly. As the parent with flexible hours, such activities had always been Dylan’s domain, and as much as he claimed to dislike social gatherings, I noticed he was on first-name terms with several of the mothers waiting in the hall. On the odd occasions I took the girls to school, I felt like those women were looking down on me from their four-by-fours and side-eyeing my high-street leggings, but Dylan seemed right at home as we sat amongst them on the tiny school chairs. ‘Hey, Jen! Hey, Kerry!’ he said to a muscular, ash-blonde woman and a curvaceous brunette in the seats in front of us.
‘Hi, Dylan,’ they chorused, twisting round in their seats to face him fully.
‘Did you get in touch with that Facebook group I was telling you about?’ asked the blonde.
‘Yeah, thanks for that,’ he said. ‘Already got a couple of leads. And I’ve done the spreadsheet so I can start doing the referral thing we chatted about.’ I was watching his mouth move but I still couldn’t believe the words coming out were his. ‘Oh. This is my wife, Alison.’ He said this quickly; it was an afterthought. I saw the women exchange a glance before muttering hello. I wondered what assumptions they had already made about me and whether I had proven them right.
‘Nice to meet you,’ I said. They both nodded.
‘Drop me a message if you need any help with the mail-out,’ the blonde said to Dylan.
‘Thanks, I will.’ The women turned away and I nudged him.
‘All right, babe?’ he asked.
I made a face that I hoped would translate as, ‘Why would you ask this random woman for help when you live with someone who works in marketing?’ It wasn’t effective.
Dylan mouthed, ‘What?’
‘Nothing, the show’s starting,’ I whispered. Thirty or so children shuffled on to the stage and treated us to an earnest rendition of Katy Perry’s ‘Firework’. The show, as always, comprised a series of individual skits or talents interspersed with group renditions of pop songs featuring uplifting messages. The children, all on the precipice of acute self-awareness, performed with gusto, and although it wasn’t quite cute, it was charming. Following the opening number there was a dance performed by a group of girls; it involved more booty shaking than I was comfortable with, but they were very tight. Afterwards a lad demonstrated his talent for kick-ups which, to be fair, was really impressive.
Then, it was Chloe’s turn. Dylan raised his phone to shoulder height. It was against school policy to take videos, so he was trying to film without looking at the screen. I could tell it was going to be a terrible shot. I’d been to many school performances over the years, but I still felt a rush of adrenaline when Chloe stepped to the front of the stage. She was wearing one of my summer dresses, hitched up somewhat unsuccessfully with one of Dylan’s belts. She looked somewhere beyond the audience, her brown eyes wide, and for a few agonizing seconds I thought she was going to cry, but it seems she was setting the scene because when she began the piece, her voice was clear and strong.
‘Long ago in a place like this, but different because there were no cars or shops and stuff like that, there was an evil queen who stole the beauty of young women.’ The plot was heavily borrowed from Snow White and the Huntsman, which we had watched at least sixteen times. During our rehearsals I had tried to introduce the concept of plagiarism, which Chloe had dismissed because ‘everybody copies’, and I couldn’t really argue against that. Chloe gave a fabulously camp performance as the ageing queen desperately fighting to retain her youth. She clawed at her face in front of an imaginary mirror, convulsing with theatrical sobs at the appearance of new wrinkles. It was funny because it was true. The final scene was the slaughter of the queen by an unseen army. Chloe staged this by repeatedly breaking the fourth wall to explain what was happening. After several minutes of battle she fell to her knees. She then clutched her throat before dropping to the floor with a thud that implied there might be bruising. Assuming this was the end, the audience cheered. Buoyed by their reaction, Chloe rose again and staggered around the stage – she looked more drunk than fatally wounded, but I couldn’t deny she was committed. When she fell again and lay on the stage open-eyed and quivering, I stood and led the applause before there could be another resurrection. In my peripheral vision I saw one of Dylan’s friends turn, but I kept my head high. As the clapping faded, Chloe rose and gave a deep bow before joining her classmates for a Journey number.
After the show, I made Dylan wait by the car with me. The dark-haired woman sashayed past with her daughter, a 50 per cent copy of her. ‘See you at the fete,’ she said to Dylan. ‘Please bring your lemon slices.’ He leaned back against the passenger-side window.
‘Sure thing,’ he said.
‘What’s she talking about?’ I demanded, as she wiggled out of sight.
‘At Easter there was this bake thing. I took in my lemon slices.’ Dylan kept his eyes trained on the school doors. I prodded him in the arm.
‘You don’t have any lemon slices.’
‘Technically they were Morrisons lemon slices that I knocked about a bit. Chloe forgot to tell us about it.’ I stepped in front of him.
‘You lied.’ Dylan pulled me towards him. I put my hands on his chest to keep some distance.
‘Yes, and I’d do it again. They think they’re so perfect.’ He lied and he sorted something out. It was new information.
‘Here’s my superstar,’ said Dylan. I spun around to see Chloe flying towards us. She was still in my dress and held bunches of it in her hands as she ran.
‘Brava, gorgeous girl,’ I said as she threw herself at me. ‘Although that wasn’t exactly what we rehearsed.’
‘I know,’ Chloe said joyously. She had my colouring but her father’s quality of completely missing subtext.
‘Hello,’ said a warm, quiet voice from behind me. I peeled Chloe away and looked up. It took me a second to recognize Ms Khavari with her hair down and her glasses absent. She looked less stern than at our previous parents’-evening encounters. It occurred to me that her presentation as a harsh but fair educator was a performance, that everything is a bit of a performance.
‘I wanted to say well done,’ she said to Chloe. Chloe appeared to grow an inch. ‘She said you helped her a lot,’ she continued, addressing me, ‘so that goes for you too.’ Silly as it seems, the compliment landed. ‘Woodrow Class are very proud of all your effort, Chloe,’ she said. I could tell she was being genuine and I felt a rush of gratitude. She wanted to foster my little girl’s passion – dark and chaotic as it was. It didn’t matter that the performance was dreadful; it had heart. Ms Khavari said goodbye and I watched her walk to her car – a black Mini convertible.
‘You want to get ice cream?’ I asked Chloe.
‘Really?’
‘I think it’s what all the great actors do after a performance.’ She cheered.
In the car, Dylan reached across and put his hand on my thigh. It felt strange, foreign. I squeezed it before moving away.
‘I want Ruby to come,’ said Chloe from the back. Her resilience astonished me. Ruby continuously rejected
her and yet she kept seeking her out. The trait would either be her greatest strength or her undoing.
‘I don’t know,’ I said carefully. ‘She has work. I’ll call her.’
‘Don’t call her, she’ll say no. Let’s go and get her.’ She was right. Underneath the innocence and boundless excitement there was a canniness that made me proud.
Dylan pulled up outside the house and stopped the engine.
‘I’ll go!’ shouted Chloe.
‘No, you stay,’ I said, unsnapping my belt. I didn’t want Ruby to stick a pin in Chloe’s full-to-bursting bubble. I could hear Ruby’s music from the front door, softer than her usual choice but still with that tinny, synthetic bassline. I played classical music to my belly when she was inside me. I don’t even like classical music – fat lot of good it did. I knocked at her door and she didn’t respond. I knocked again harder, pausing between blows to make each bang distinct. The music stopped.
‘Yeah,’ she said. She sounded tired or reluctant or maybe resentful, full of malice that I had forced her to waste a whole syllable on me.
‘Can I come in?’ I asked. Silence. I decided I could go in because I owned the door. Ruby was face down on her bed. I squeezed in beside her and patted her back tentatively, like she was an animal I didn’t know and couldn’t trust not to bite.
‘You tired?’ I asked. She had been staying up too late. Sometimes in the night when I was going for my between-sleep-cycles pee, I’d hear shouty, high-pitched American accents emanating from her room. One morning, when she refused to be roused, I threatened to turn the wifi off overnight. She told me the Kardashians helped her sleep. I retorted that they would give me nightmares, and I could tell she nearly laughed. Ruby shifted awkwardly and sat on her pillow, her legs drawn in front of her like a shield. Her left eye twitched, a vestige from childhood that signalled she was about to cry.
More Than a Mum Page 17