Unbecoming

by Jenny Downham

  ‘If we talk about Dad, you change the subject. If we say we want to see him, you go all cold. We’re so scared of hurting you, we never tell you anything. Can you see that? We creep about trying to avoid anything real because it’s like you might melt or explode. And you make all these plans and expect us just to fall in with them. How do you think Chris feels having his weight chart slapped on the fridge for everyone to see? How do you think I feel when you tell me which university to apply for or want to write my personal statement for me? All the things I want to say about myself are just swept to one side.’

  Mum stood very still. Katie could hear her own breathing, like she’d been running. She couldn’t hear Mum breathing though. Maybe this was killing her. But she didn’t care if it was. She didn’t care that the fire had gone out of Mum’s eyes either.

  ‘I can’t wait for school to be over,’ Katie said. Her voice was very quiet. She felt almost calm. ‘I can’t wait to get out of here. I’m going to apply to go to university in Edinburgh or New York, so I can do whatever I want without you breathing down my neck.’

  The sun shafted through the window. Dust spun in the air. Mum’s face seemed bleached out.

  ‘Can you go now,’ Mum said. ‘I want to be by myself.’

  ‘Tough.’

  ‘Please, Katie. I just need some space.’

  ‘No, this is my room. Mine and Mary’s.’

  Mum stood staring at her, not saying anything. She looked small and defeated. She shook her head a couple of times, like she wanted to shake away all the things Katie had said. And then, without warning, she walked out the room and shut the door.

  Katie was glad. There was nothing else to say. She’d said it all. She felt wonderfully empty.

  Thirty-three

  It was over an hour later when Katie went downstairs. She’d put all Mary’s things back except for the photos. She figured she and Mary could do that together after supper. It’d be fun to rearrange them. She’d decided to feel good about things.

  She’d also decided that if Mum had another go at her, she’d demand a truce. They’d both done – and said – awful stuff, but Katie wasn’t going to cower. There was no point going backwards.

  But Mum wasn’t there. Mary was drinking tea and watching TV and Chris was huddled by the balcony doors staring out at a darkening sky.

  ‘What’s going on, Chris?’

  ‘She’s gone.’

  ‘Mum has?’

  He nodded. ‘She’s never coming back.’

  ‘Is that what she said?’

  ‘It’s what she meant.’

  ‘What did she actually say?’

  ‘She’s gone to a hotel and if there’s an emergency we have to call nine-nine-nine.’

  Jesus. So now they were alone. Katie had never known her mother walk out. She’d been angry before. She’d slammed doors and shouted, but she’d never just disappeared.

  ‘She won’t go,’ Mary said. ‘She won’t go out in all this rain.’

  ‘She already has,’ Chris said, and he looked mournfully down at the courtyard. ‘She got in the car and drove off.’

  ‘She’ll be back,’ Katie said, but she wasn’t sure.

  Mary banged her cup down, rattling the saucer and making the table shake. ‘She’s always leaving. Good riddance, I say.’

  In the kitchen, Katie sat at the table and put her head onto her arms. She’d been so sure earlier. She’d felt as if she had right on her side but now she didn’t know. Should she call Mum and apologize? Or was Mum being manipulative and it was best to sit it out? How was it possible to be so clear about a situation one minute and so confused the next?

  ‘Shall we phone Dad?’ Chris said, sidling into the kitchen.

  ‘He’s in France. What’s he going to do?’

  He walked over to the sink and looked out of the window. ‘I keep thinking she’s going to come back.’

  ‘She will.’

  ‘It’s raining loads though. What if she has a car crash? What if she goes for a walk somewhere lonely and breaks a leg?’

  ‘She’s got her phone.’

  ‘It’s switched off.’

  So, he’d tried calling her. Katie propped herself on one elbow and looked at the shape of him against the window. He looked like a cut-out with all that cloud and silver rain behind him.

  ‘She’ll be fine, Chris. She’s probably raiding the mini bar and ordering room service right this second.’

  He turned to look at her. ‘What were you arguing about? Was it me?’

  ‘Not everything’s about you.’

  ‘What then?’

  Shame hit her in a great wave. Going through Mum’s stuff was so obviously wrong all over again. She couldn’t tell him. She didn’t want him to hate her as well. ‘How about a takeaway, Chris? We can put it on my credit card.’

  He shrugged and he looked so young, just a kid whose Mum and Dad had left him.

  Food, when it came, didn’t cheer him up. It didn’t cheer Mary up either. She didn’t want supper, she wasn’t hungry and anyway, she hated pizza. Katie had never heard her dismiss any food out of hand before. She gave Mary’s share to Chris, but as soon as he’d finished it, Mary asked why no one was giving her any pizza, and was she invisible or what? Chris said it wasn’t his fault there was none left and Mary said, ‘Whose fault was it then?’ Chris buried his face in the sofa, so Katie switched the TV to some fast-moving game show and tipped a load of chocolate biscuits on a plate for them to share. She was clearly terrible at looking after people. They’d both be hyper with screens and sugar by bedtime.

  She sat in the kitchen and tried to figure out what to do if Mum didn’t come back tomorrow. She couldn’t decide if she should keep taking care of things herself, or if she should let Dad know. She washed up the plates and dried them and put them away. She tried to watch TV, but couldn’t concentrate. Chris kept flicking channels, and when he wasn’t doing that he was sighing or looking out of windows. Mary seemed restless too. She said everything ached, but when Katie tried to hug her, Mary pushed her away.

  Katie veered between ashamed and furious. She preferred furious. It was like grabbing an oar when you’d fallen from a boat. It felt safe and sure and Katie enjoyed feeling things shift back in her favour. Parents shouldn’t just walk out if you yelled at them. They had to be able to withstand more than that. Wasn’t that the point of them? It was completely irresponsible of Mum to bugger off.

  Fury was hard to hold onto though. It kept slipping away. Maybe it was the rain. It was hitting the windows and bouncing off the balcony furniture and didn’t look as if it’d ever stop. Katie kept thinking of that scene in King Lear when the mad old king goes out in a storm after his daughters betray him. Didn’t he die in the end?

  She decided to follow Mum’s usual routines. It wasn’t like she didn’t know what they were. She made a pot of chamomile tea and encouraged Mary to drink because she needed to ‘keep up her fluids’ and because it’d help her get ‘quality sleep’. She even sounded like Mum. She ran a bath and cajoled Mary upstairs and into the bathroom. She wasn’t sure how far Mum went in forcing Mary to undress and actually get in the water. What had Katie been doing every evening at this time? How come she’d never been part of the bath ritual?

  ‘I don’t need a bath,’ Mary said. ‘I’ll wash when I get home, thank you.’

  ‘How does Mum make you do this, Mary?’

  Mary folded her arms. ‘No one makes me do anything.’

  Mary smelled Elizabethan when she was stripped down to her underwear and standing right in front of you. Why hadn’t Katie ever known this about her? Was it only true today? Katie felt weary. When the anger fell away, she was left with only sadness and a kind of hollow panic.

  She gave up on the bath and let Mary put her nightie on and go downstairs again. Chris was back in the kitchen, perched on the sink and staring gloomily down at Mum’s empty parking space. Katie retrieved his ‘Call of Duty’ game from where Mum had hidden it with the cookery b
ooks and handed it back to him.

  ‘I’m not supposed to have it,’ he said. ‘It’s an eighteen. She might not come back if I do stuff she doesn’t like.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous. She’s never going to know.’

  ‘I’m still not doing it.’

  Fear was contagious and Katie despised it in him, even though it was ratcheting up in her. She wanted him to be brave. She wanted him to cock a snook and not try to pacify Mum in her absence and not give a damn that he was an overnight orphan.

  She texted Jamie, THNKNG OF U. He texted straight back and invited her out for a drink and she replied that she couldn’t and hoped she sounded mysterious rather than trapped. It was comforting to know he was in the world. At least someone liked her.

  Texting him must’ve opened the airwaves because her phone immediately rang. Chris jumped down from his perch by the sink. ‘Is it Mum?’

  Katie shook her head and they both stared at the screen.

  ‘Who’s Simona?’ he said. ‘Aren’t you going to answer it?’

  What would she say if she did? ‘Sorry’ over and over? There were no other words for what had happened at the library, no possible explanation for ignoring texts for days. Clearly, Simona was getting angry now. She’d moved from texts to calls. She wasn’t letting this go.

  She didn’t leave a message though. That was a relief.

  Guilt and fear were terrible things. Come back, fury, Katie thought. I prefer you.

  The evening went from bad to worse. Mary tore up a packet of tissues and confettied the carpet. She claimed she knew nothing about it when Katie confronted her. She seemed both embarrassed and puzzled. Later, she said a woman in the toilet asked her to leave and Chris freaked out until Katie turned the mirror to the wall and Mary decided the woman had gone.

  At ten o’clock, Katie suggested it might be bedtime, but Chris put his coat on and said he was going to find Mum. Mary said she’d join him because she fancied a walk. Katie locked the door and hid the key in her pocket and Mary banged on the door with her slipper and urged Chris to call the fire brigade.

  ‘No one’s calling anyone,’ Katie said. She could hear the anger in her voice. She sounded more like Mum with every breath. ‘You’re both going to bed.’

  ‘I’m not sleeping until Mum gets back,’ Chris said.

  Mary folded her arms. ‘Neither am I.’

  Katie slammed the kitchen door on them both and stood against it. She wanted to run away. She wanted to be outside with the wind-whipped trees and the lashing rain. She wanted space – to run into it and always have it in front of her – endless space. If she ran fast enough and for long enough, maybe she could disappear from the world.

  Instead, she made three cups of hot chocolate. She put the Nature channel on and encouraged them both to sit back down and watch a programme about orphaned sloths. She hoped it wouldn’t upset Chris, but he didn’t seem to get the connection.

  Mary sipped her drink really slowly, like she wouldn’t have to go to bed until it was finished. Katie kept peeking at her, trying to understand why the balance of their relationship had changed. Was it simply because Mum had gone and Katie had become parent and jailer? Or was it to do with Mary being sicker? Whatever it was, their old warmth had disappeared.

  A new programme began and Chris said he wanted to watch it and Katie said no and turned it off and hid the remote and Chris said she wasn’t in charge and she asked who was then and he said, ‘Mum.’ And Katie said, ‘She’s not here though, is she?’ And Chris said, ‘Because of you!’ and glowered furiously at her before stomping upstairs. So maybe he’d heard the whole thing after all. Maybe he knew about the diary and maybe he hated her.

  Mary still refused to go to bed. She said the stairs weren’t real, they wouldn’t work, were not to be trusted. Katie ran up them to prove they were fine. She jumped up and down on the treads until Mary was persuaded.

  They went up arm in arm. That was nice.

  ‘Where is your mother?’ Mary asked politely as Katie helped her into bed.

  ‘A hotel.’

  ‘All right for some.’

  ‘Not really. I did a terrible thing and now she hates me.’

  ‘Mothers never hate their children.’ Mary sounded extremely sure about this. It was very consoling. ‘They love them with all their hearts.’

  Katie leaned down and kissed her cheek. ‘I miss you. Where have you been all night?’

  ‘Right here,’ Mary said as she snuggled down. ‘And don’t you ever forget it.’

  Katie sat on the edge of the bed. She wanted this Mary to stay, but she was already fading, her eyes losing focus, heavy with sleep. Katie felt the loss so completely. One day soon, there’d be no moments of clarity or connection at all. It was inevitable, and just around the corner. She leaned down to give Mary another kiss. ‘Who will I be when you forget me?’ she whispered.

  Mary drowsily tapped her hand. ‘You will be you.’

  Within seconds she was asleep. Katie got into the Z-bed next to her and lay there watching shadows on the ceiling. There was a strange light shining in through the curtains. She thought it might be the moon, but couldn’t be bothered to check. If she moved her head slightly, it shone right across her face.

  She thought of the forest in Mary’s head, how it was probably moonless. She wondered if more trees were crashing down right this minute. She imagined an elephant banging about in there, a mad lumbering elephant with a chain round its belly yanking all the trees down. It was brutish and it had heavy animal breath, and in the morning Mary would wake to more devastation. She would be emptier and the spaces inside her head would be deeper. She would be less.

  Katie thought of Mum in the hotel and wondered if she was asleep. Then she wondered if she’d secretly crept back in the flat when they were watching TV and was hiding in her bedroom. Katie was suddenly so certain of this that she had go and check, but there was no one there.

  She went downstairs to get a glass of water. She unplugged the TV and checked the door was locked. When she came back, Mary was out of bed and staring at the wall like some kind of ghost.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Mary frowned. ‘It’s my room, isn’t it?’

  Actually not, Katie thought, and it shocked her to realize how immediately irritated she was. ‘You slept for precisely twenty minutes, Mary, that’s ridiculous.’

  ‘I’ll have you know I’ve been asleep for hours.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘Some of my things are missing.’

  ‘Your photos? They’re on the cabinet. You want to put them back up?’

  Mary didn’t answer, so Katie decided to just get on with it, hoping Mary would either join in or get bored and go back to sleep. She peeled a few pictures from the bundle and pulled globs of Blu-Tack from the corners and stuck them on again neatly. As she pressed them to the wall she whispered the names. Here were the film stars – Lauren, Grace, Ingrid, Audrey. Here was Mary, more stunning than any of them with her nineteen-fifties curves and come-hither eyes. Mary came and stood next to her, holding out more photos, and Katie felt ridiculously pleased. Here, at last, was something they shared.

  ‘This one next,’ Mary said. ‘This little girl and me.’

  Katie took it from her. She assumed it would be Mary and Mum, but it wasn’t. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She sank onto the bed holding the photo and stared and stared at it. She felt like she’d been pulled down a rabbit hole to a topsy-turvy world where nothing made sense. ‘This is you and me, Mary.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘But I’m a little kid. How can it be us if we never met?’

  ‘Of course we met.’ Mary shook her head, as if Katie was being ridiculous. ‘We’re here right now, aren’t we?’

  ‘When I was young, I mean. I look about four in this picture.’ She was wearing a green T-shirt she had no memory of. She had a fringe, which she didn’t remember ever having either. And she was on Mary’s back, her arms wrapped round Mary’s neck and the
y were both laughing. This was Mary as Katie had never seen her before – a woman with short, razor-cut hair who wore lipstick and eye shadow and had diamond studs in her ears. But it was definitely her and it was definitely Katie, and that was definitely the back garden of the old house – the edge of the shed, the paddling pool out on the grass. ‘Mum said you never got in touch, never visited us once. She said you weren’t interested.’

  ‘I was very interested. I’ll have you know I was sent for.’

  ‘Mum asked you to come?’

  ‘No,’ Mary said. ‘It was a man. He wrote me a letter.’

  It was Dad who’d written! Of course. That’s what Mary said at the care home. ‘Steve wrote you a letter?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Mary said proudly. ‘It said, come quick, we need you.’

  Dad needed her? What the hell for? At the care home Mary had said she was helping. But helping with what? Katie peered at the photo looking for clues. She and Mary looked happy enough, so it wasn’t that some shocking tragedy had occurred. In fact, they looked very happy. Mary looked like the kind of grandmother you’d see in movies – someone who’d take you to a fancy restaurant or a night at the theatre, who had energy for things and was always up for a laugh. She wasn’t the young beauty from the photos, or the old woman in front of her now. She was someone entirely new. And Katie – well, she was grinning like the baby in the wedding photo, like Mary sometimes did – head tipped back, eyes shut, total joy. Tears pricked Katie’s eyes. She never laughed like that any more.

  ‘To tell you the truth,’ Mary said, sitting next to Katie on the bed, ‘I have a very bad feeling about this.’ She tapped the photo with a finger. ‘I keep meaning to ask what happened in the end, because I have to say, it feels as if someone made a terrible mistake.’

  It was upsetting her and there was nothing Katie could do about it. She passed Mary a tissue, then wiped her own eyes too. They sat there looking at the photograph together and neither one of them had a clue.

  Is this what dementia felt like? It was horrible. It felt like going mad – being presented with evidence that something had happened when you had no memory of it at all.