Perfect Daughter

by Amanda Prowse

  Turning the key in the front-door lock, she shouted, ‘I’m back, Mum!’ She climbed the stairs, opened the bedroom and was unsurprised to see her mother sitting upright, her fingers fidgeting with the bow of her bed jacket.

  ‘Have you got my letter?’ Ida asked anxiously. ‘I need it.’

  ‘No. Postman hasn’t been yet.’ Jacks walked to the open window and closed it a little. The place smelt fresher, better now that the bed had been stripped and the air had had a chance to circulate. ‘How about I make you some porridge? Or would you prefer toast today?’

  ‘When’s Don coming?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Jacks smiled, still uncertain how best to respond to the request for her father.

  ‘I didn’t want it all written down and now I don’t know where the letter has got to.’

  Jacks sighed and sat on the side of the bed. She pushed her mother’s bed jacket up her arm, watching it gather in little folds under her elbow. She then squeezed out a blob of hand cream and massaged it into her bony fingers, slender wrists and pale palms.

  ‘Smell that, Mum, it’s lavender. Isn’t it lovely?’ She lifted her mum’s hand and placed it under her nose.

  ‘Smells like France.’ And just like that, a moment of comprehension, a memory from another time and place that floated clear and acute to the top of the cloudy soup of her thoughts.

  ‘That’s right! You and Dad had a lovely trip to France, didn’t you? Do you remember going to the lavender fields? You went on a coach and you brought me back a dried bunch. It kept its scent for ages. I had it hanging in the kitchen, it was gorgeous. Everyone commented on it.’ She smiled, remembering her parents’ big adventure for their golden wedding anniversary. Her dad had packed three packets of Rich Tea biscuits and enough fish-paste sandwiches to last the whole four days, just in case they didn’t like the food.

  ‘I need my letter.’ And just like that, they were back to square one.

  Jacks nodded. ‘I’ll go get your breakfast.’

  She tucked the blanket under her mother’s legs and closed the door behind her. After retrieving the bundle of soiled laundry from behind the bathroom door, she doused the shower with a liberal slosh of bleach, then made her way downstairs. Stopping halfway at the sound of the bell that rang for her attention, Jacks sighed. She thought of her dad and how much she had loved him.

  His last day played like a movie inside her head. His eyes wide, grasping the oxygen mask with difficulty, fingers slipping and missing as they struggled with the flimsy elastic that held the plastic cup over his nose and mouth. She hadn’t helped him, didn’t want to acknowledge his weakness, tried to keep up the charade. She had instead smiled, as though he could manage and was still the strong, capable man who cut the grass and drove the car. She had picked at her nails, bitten them, anything but become his carer, aiding where his gnarled knuckles refused to yield. She had tried for nonchalant. ‘Take your time… I’ve got three hours on the car.’ Her flippant practicality hiding a heart that was splitting like a ripe tomato, spilling and overflowing with desperate sorrow. Don’t leave me, Dad, please don’t leave me, I’m not ready… The truth was she would never be ready.

  ‘I need you to promise me something.’ His words coasted on stuttered breaths, his voice a failing whisper. ‘Promise me…’

  ‘Promise you what, Dad?’ She attempted a jolly tone through her steady stream of tears.

  ‘Promise me… that you will look after your mum. Please… Try…’ He held her gaze, hanging on, waiting for reassurance.

  She nodded. ‘I promise.’ And as soon as the words had left her mouth, he let out a long, laboured breath as his fingers unfurled.

  She often replayed those last minutes. Her face, inches from his, breathing in the last breaths that he exhaled, sharing the tiny space in which life lingered till the end. She kissed his fragile head and stroked his papery cheek and he left her. Finally, slowly, he left her alone in that room and she felt a large part of her capacity for joy leave with him. Her dad died. Her dad! She had to keep saying it to herself because even after a month, a year, eighteen months, it still felt like a lie in her mouth. How could he have left her? She needed him. But of course she didn’t say that. Jacks was a grown woman with a family of her own and as everyone said to her, ‘It’s the natural order of things… He had a good life… It’s the end of his suffering…’ That may have been the case, but it still felt like shit. He used to say that one man couldn’t change the world, but he was wrong, he changed her world, made it a better place. And she loved him very much. That was why she had made the promise. He had never asked anything of her before and she wanted to make him happy. The trouble was, she found it very hard to love her mum. In fact, as painful as it was to admit, she didn’t always like her.

  4

  Nineteen Years Earlier

  ‘Is this seat taken?’

  Jacks laughed. Sven spoke as though he were old and they were in the middle of a grand restaurant and not on a bench in the school canteen.

  ‘Help yourself.’ She gestured towards the empty space opposite her at the table, hating the way she cast her eye behind him to see if anyone was watching. She liked him but didn’t want her friends laughing at her as she ate her lunch with the foreign weirdo kid.

  ‘What do you eat in Sweden?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’ He smiled.

  ‘What food? I was just wondering.’

  ‘Same as here: meat, potatoes, vegetables. Probably more fish than here – cured fish, like smoked salmon, my favourite. The usual.’ He concentrated on removing the top layer of his sandwich and scraping the mayonnaise from the lettuce.

  She grinned. She’d never had smoked salmon. Her fish came in breadcrumbs and was shaped into a rectangle even though it was called a finger, or it was breadcrumb-free and covered in parsley sauce that you boiled in a bag.

  ‘So what’s the best thing your mum makes?’ She bit delicately into her roll, wanting to look ladylike and feeling suddenly self-conscious about eating in front of him.

  Sven replaced the bread and wiped his fingers on his trousers as he considered this. ‘Pizza – she’s not the best cook! But if you mean traditional food, I guess meatballs, mashed potatoes and pickled gherkin with sweet jam on the side. And your mum?’

  ‘Oh…’ She was taken aback by the question, it wasn’t as if anything her family did was of interest. ‘My mum and dad are older, boring really, well, not my dad so much, but my mum, she’s boring. But food…’ She swallowed, conscious of rambling. ‘Things like roast dinners, pies, boring.’ She sipped her squash.

  ‘Have you always lived in Weston?’ He held his chin as though in deep thought, waiting for her answer.

  ‘Yes, worse luck. But I’m not staying here. I think it’s shit. I want to travel, go to New York, probably work there for a bit.’ She blushed, hoping her admission sounded as sincere as she had meant it.

  ‘I like New York.’ He smiled.

  ‘Have you been?’ She sat forward, the questions piling up inside her head. Did you walk up Fifth Avenue? Did you go to Times Square? Does everyone eat hotdogs?

  ‘Yes. We lived there for a while – my father’s an architect, that’s why we’re here. He’s working on a project in Bristol.’

  ‘Cool.’ She bit her lip, wishing she could rewind and ask her questions; then she blurted out, ‘I don’t know why I said “cool”, that’s a word you use when you can’t be bothered to think of a good reply or don’t know how to say something without making a tit of yourself.’

  Sven looked across at her. ‘Do you like astronomy?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She got confused between astronomy and astrology but wasn’t about to tell him that.

  ‘You don’t know?’ He held his sandwich in mid air. ‘That’s like saying you don’t know if you like poetry or art. You must know if you like it or not!’ He gave his easy laugh.

  Jacks stared at the boy who was different to every other boy in the school; in fact diffe
rent to every other boy she had ever met. He was confident and seemed to care little about what anyone thought of him. He wore hand-knitted jumpers that the other boys mocked, but still he smiled at their straight-faced compliments as though they were his friends.

  ‘So, poetry, is that something you like?’

  ‘Well, here we are.’ Jacks hadn’t seen Pete and his mates arrive, not until they sat on the bench either side of Sven and opposite her. ‘How you doing, Abba-boy?’

  ‘Good, thanks.’ Sven beamed, as though Pete had asked without a trace of sarcasm. ‘And you?’

  ‘Ah, you know.’ Pete flexed his linked knuckles in front of him. ‘Busy training for my trial. I’m going for a try-out with Bristol City.’

  ‘Cool.’ Sven caught Jacks’ eye, twinkled, and nodded at Pete. ‘What is your position?’ he asked.

  A couple of Pete’s friends laughed. ‘Vat is your position?’ they repeated with a Germanic accent.

  Sven held up his palms. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I know my inflection is far from perfect. Would it be easier for you guys if we switched to Swedish or French? I can hold my own in German, but I warn you, it’s worse than my terrible English!’ He laughed.

  Pete’s friends shut up.

  ‘You coming up the pier tonight, Jacks?’ Pete asked, cutting to the chase.

  She felt her cheeks flame. ‘No.’

  Pete stared at her for a second, unsure of where to go next. ‘I’d better get on. Got to go to the gym, push a few weights.’

  ‘Enjoy!’ She waved before he had left.

  ‘You must know if you like poetry?’ Sven pressed, carrying on as if they hadn’t been interrupted, and she was grateful, unwilling to comment on the rumour that she’d snogged Peter Davies at Mr B’s.

  ‘I like some,’ she whispered.

  ‘Some is good.’ He smiled.

  ‘Jacks!’ Gina shouted from the other side of the canteen. ‘Come on! I’ve been looking all over for you. I need a fag.’ She lifted her fingers and mimed smoking.

  Two teachers on the middle table turned to tut their disapproval in Gina’s direction. She placed her hand over her mouth theatrically, as though she had spoken in error. Everyone loved Gina; she was short, rotund, confident and daring. A blatant rule breaker, but her lack of guile made her incredibly appealing. She was also Jacks’ very best friend.

  ‘I’d better go.’ Jacks piled her plate and empty juice carton on to the brown plastic tray.

  Sven placed his hand over hers. ‘Some say the beginning is the most exciting part.’

  She swallowed and stared at him, her body shaking, her eyes fixed.

  ‘Jacks! Come on, you div, this is my fag time you are wasting!’ Gina’s words hit her like shards of glass and broke the spell.

  5

  Jacks heard the thump of discarded work boots hitting the bedroom floor and then felt the sag of the mattress as Pete, fresh from watching his beloved Bristol City, climbed under the duvet beside her. There they lay, back to back. She glanced at the alarm clock; it was quarter past eleven. He carried with him the faint odour of beer and fried food.

  ‘Did we win?’ she mumbled through the fog of sleep.

  ‘Course we did!’ He chuckled, delighted. ‘Boys were on form tonight, girl.’

  She closed her eyes and drifted back to sleep, ready for another busy day tomorrow.

  ‘Two nil! Two nil! Come on, you mighty Cider Army!’ Pete clapped out a rhythm and sang loudly from the landing.

  Jacks filled the kettle for her first cuppa and pulled her blonde hair into a ponytail. She did this every other day, to avoid having to wash her hair. It gave her an extra twenty minutes that she didn’t have to spend with her head bent over the kitchen sink, rinsing her hair with a plastic jug so as not to eat up precious shower time first thing.

  ‘How did the other ones get on?’ Jonty shouted from the bedroom.

  ‘What other ones?’ Pete laughed.

  ‘The ones the mighty Cider Army were playing.’

  The bathroom door opened and Martha popped her head out. ‘That’s what “nil” means, you doughnut! It means zero. That’s what the other ones scored – nothing, zip!’

  ‘Don’t call your brother a doughnut, Martha,’ Jacks shouted up the stairs. And there it was, the clear ringing of the bell.

  ‘Nan’s ringing!’ the kids shouted.

  ‘On my way!’ Jacks gathered Pete’s jacket and football scarf from the bottom of the stairs. Never a wasted trip – that was her motto.

  ‘It’s a lovely brand-new day!’ She beamed as she drew Ida’s curtains wide.

  ‘I’ve passed water,’ her mother announced with a smile.

  ‘Yep, that’s fine, Mum. We’ll get you cleaned up and I thought, when I get back from school, we might go for a stroll into town, you can go in your chair. We can pick up something nice for tea and have a walk along the seafront. Do you fancy that?’ She cracked the window open.

  ‘I am waiting for a letter.’

  Jacks swallowed and turned to her mother, ready with her reassurance that, when it arrived, she would bring it straight upstairs.

  ‘Did you get my razors, Jacks?’ Pete yelled.

  ‘Yep, in the bathroom cabinet.’

  ‘I can’t find them!’ he wailed.

  ‘On my way.’ She waltzed from the room.

  Martha grabbed her arm on the landing, sending her mum into a twirl, as though the two were engaged in an elaborate dance. ‘Have I got a shirt?’

  ‘Yes, ironed and in your wardrobe.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  Jacks smiled, that was almost a thank you.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Yes, Jonty?’

  ‘How do you know we are not all living in a computer game and that there is someone controlling us with a controller?’

  Jacks paused and looked at her skinny son, naked from the waist up and still in his Spiderman pyjama bottoms. ‘That’s a good question, and I don’t know the answer, but all I can say is that if they are, Jont, I wish there’d be a power cut so I could have a sodding rest.’

  ‘Mum said “sodding”!’ Jonty giggled.

  The lights were red; Jacks pulled up the handbrake and waited. Jonty was ensconced in a comic that he held two inches from his face. Martha pushed a button on the radio and the car filled with a booming sound with no discernible beat. She nodded her head.

  ‘I don’t know how you can listen to this.’

  Martha laughed. ‘You always say that! You hate nearly all my music.’

  ‘Apart from 1D.’ Jacks winked at her daughter.

  ‘Fancying them and liking their music are two completely different things.’

  Jacks laughed loudly. ‘I don’t fancy them, for goodness’ sake. I’m old enough to be their mum! I just think they’re cute. They seem like nice boys. I wouldn’t mind you going out with one of them.’

  Martha looked at her mum. ‘Well, thank you for your blessing. And it is very likely that I will go out with one of them. I mean, I often see them queuing ahead of me and my mates in the chippy or hanging around the precinct!’

  ‘I like their music because I can sing along, I can pick out the words, not like this.’ Jacks pointed at the stereo. ‘This boom boom boom just gives me a headache!’

  ‘It’s because you are old. And uncool.’

  Jacks snorted her laughter. ‘Christ! I am not uncool! I’m a very cool mum. You have no idea. Your nan would never have offered me her clothes to wear or let me nick her make-up – not that I’d have wanted to, she always wore granny clothes, unlike my trendy self. I always thought she was a bit of an old fogey.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right, Mum, my friends think you are practically Alexa Chung, you’re such a trendsetter!’

  ‘Who?’

  Martha gave a derisory laugh in reply. Jacks opened her mouth to respond but couldn’t think of what to say. She didn’t want to give her daughter another chance to raise her eyebrows and remind her once again that she had just landed from Planet Stupid.
She recalled having a similar conversation with her dad when she was young, but in her case it was true. Her parents had had her when they were forty-five. Not considered quite so exceptional for a first baby nowadays, but in 1979 it was practically unheard of. From what Jacks could gather, they had assumed they were unable to have children. Her mum’s pregnancy came as a massive shock to her mum and brought with it a huge sense of embarrassment, but for her dad it was nothing but a cause for celebration. And that was how he’d made her feel his whole life, like she was a gift to be treasured.

  ‘I’m not that old, Martha. I’m thirty-six, that means I’m not even halfway through my life!’

  ‘You hope!’ her daughter quipped.

  ‘Yes, good point.’ Jacks laughed.

  ‘What’s the worst thing about being old, Mum?’ Martha twisted the end of her bleached braid between her fingers.

  Jacks chuckled, remembering how when she was seventeen, anyone over the age of twenty-five had indeed been considered ancient. Jonty had more of an older mum, granted. Nearly ten years was a big gap between the two. It was ironic that as soon as she and Pete had given up trying to conceive, having put it out of their minds after years of trying, including one failed IVF attempt, she had fallen pregnant almost immediately with their darling boy, their little bonus gift.

  ‘Well, as I said, I’m actually rather young and you will realise that one day. But I suppose the worst thing about getting old-er, is having to listen to this horrible boom-boom music!’ She grimaced. ‘That and not being able to eat like I used to. When I was young, I could shovel in chips and chocolate and not put on an ounce. Now, if I so much as look at a bit of cheese, my hips swell.’ She winked at her daughter.

  ‘Sounds horrible!’ Martha squirmed.

  Jacks laughed. This was best. Keep it light. What was the alternative? Tell her the truth? Hardly.

  Martha sang along loudly to the remorseless racket.

  Jacks pushed Ida’s wheelchair along the Marine Parade, stopping and bending forward every so often to check her mum was warm enough or to turn the chair to face the sea. At this time of year, though, the sea was nothing more than a distant grey foaming flutter over the vast expanse of mud that tourists optimistically called the beach. Seagulls swooped and swirled, hovering on the breeze, cackling overhead as they hunted for abandoned chips and specks of burger bun that lay in tantalising trails, as if a modern-day Hansel and Gretel needed to find their way back to McDonald’s.