The Confusion of Karen Carpenter

by Jonathan Harvey

  Is it because I’ve let myself go? I’m not exactly tipping the scales at twenty stone, but I’m heavier than when we first got together. That’s natural, though, isn’t it? I’m twenty years older, for goodness’ sake. Which thirty-six-year-old looks like the sixteen-year-old they were? Nobody. Even people who’ve been lifted and Botoxed and peeled and waxed and pulled hither and thither look nothing like their youthful selves. They just look like Joan Rivers.

  Is it because I got boring? Somewhere along the way did I lose my sense of humour? My zest for life? Is it because I once used to get pissed with Michael and dance naked with him in the back garden as the rain fell at midnight, and lately all I talked to him about was grouting? Or what he wanted for tea? Or why he couldn’t make his own fucking tea as he wasn’t the only one who’d been out at work all day? Did I start off unique and become a cliché?

  Did I become sexually unadventurous? Probably. But then so did he. Gone are the days when we would make love with spontaneity. In a graveyard; in that abandoned Tube station. (Yes, that is what we ended up doing.) Am I just dull? Or is it because I was too wrapped up in myself to hear his cries for help as he clung to the sinking wreck of our relationship, waves surrounding us? I’ve certainly been wrapped up in myself since he left. Maybe I was like that before and that’s why he went. Was I just living in my head and not in the real world? Had I made myself invisible to him?

  He wanted a dog at one point. I said we couldn’t because we were both out at work every day. He took me to Battersea Dogs Home and we spent hours looking at the quivering, matted wrecks behind bars. It broke my heart, but I remained resolute. Maybe there wasn’t a heart there in the first place. Maybe I was – and am – just a heartless bitch.

  I knew why he wanted a dog, though. It was because of Evie. My breath catches even now when I say the name to myself. Evie. I told him this at the time and he disagreed. Maybe it wasn’t about her. Maybe he just did, in fact, want a dog. I knew, though, in my heart of hearts.

  I don’t want to think about Evie. Which is terrible. But I can’t. Not now. Surely I must have some marking to do. Surely there is something to distract me. School is such a wonderful distraction from my thoughts and feelings. But on the journey home, and then being home, there is less to take my mind off . . . well . . . me.

  I know. I’ll go downstairs. I’ll go and tell Mum I want Meredith to move in and for her to move out. She’ll be fine. She’s been here ages. She’ll understand.

  I head downstairs. She’s in the living room, watching The One Show. I come in, sit on the couch and look at her. She looks over and smiles.

  ‘Mum, I’ve got something to tell you.’

  ‘What is it, love?’ she asked, head tilted to one side. She knew something was up, as Michael and I didn’t come back to Liverpool that often and had suddenly arrived for the weekend with scant warning.

  We were sat on her couch and she and Dad were sitting on the matching armchairs either side, the telly blaring between us.

  ‘Turn that off, Vern. Is everything OK?’

  As Dad fussed with the remote, at first turning it up to a deafening full pelt, which resulted in Mum throwing a cushion at him and screaming, ‘Vernon!’ he soon muted it and they looked at us again.

  I turned to Michael. ‘Will you tell them, or will I?’

  ‘You,’ said Michael, taking my hand. ‘I wanna tell my ma and da.’

  Mum’s eyes lit up. She knew what was coming now.

  ‘You’re getting married!’

  ‘No!’ I gasped, horrified.

  ‘You are married! Oh God, Vern, they did it on that beach in Cornwall in the summer and never told us. I knew something like this had happened. You’ve been ever so wary with me on the phone lately.’

  ‘I’m pregnant,’ I said, and waited. Waited for the champagne to come out, for party poppers to go off, for Mum to jump up and hug me.

  Instead she looked dumbstruck, and it was not like Val Carpenter, former ventriloquist, to be lost for words.

  ‘Beg pardon?’ she said.

  ‘She’s pregnant, woman. What are you, deaf as well as soft?’ Dad snarled at her.

  ‘I heard full well what she said, Vernon. I just can’t quite believe what she’s telling me.’

  They were now looking at each other as if we weren’t even in the room.

  ‘Well, I’m made up for her,’ said Dad, ‘for the pair o’ them.’

  ‘Thanks, Dad,’ I pushed in, trying to take the reins back in the conversation, but it was no good.

  ‘Well, you would be, but personally I’m mortified,’ Mum said, then returned to her knitting.

  ‘And why’s that exactly?’ went Dad.

  Mum looked up from her knitting. ‘Take. A. Wild. Guess.’

  ‘Val, this is good news,’ Michael said.

  God, he sounded nervous.

  ‘Let me tell you one thing about this family, Michael,’ Mum said, not looking up from some very passive-aggressive cast-one-on-ing ‘There has never – till now – been a baby born out of wedlock.’

  ‘Valerie!’ screeched Dad. ‘It’s 2001. We’re in a new millenni-thingy.’

  ‘And your point is?’

  ‘Jeez, you’d test the patience of a saint, you.’

  ‘I see no saints here, kid, only sinners.’

  The pair of them. The pair of them still hadn’t looked at us.

  ‘Val, we do love each other. This baby’s gonna be born into a dead loving family,’ Michael pointed out, and he did indeed have a point. As an extra flourish he added, ‘I love Karen, and Karen loves me.’

  Mum looked at him. ‘Then marry her.’

  Michael gulped, then looked at me, panic in his eyes. I rolled mine.

  ‘Shall we go and tell your mum and dad?’

  He nodded. We stood. I looked down at Mum, furiously clacking her needles together like she was getting some coded message through to the French Resistance in the war.

  ‘I just want you to be happy for me, Mum.’

  She harrumphed. It was very annoying when my mother harrumphed.

  ‘I want, Karen, doesn’t get.’

  I sighed.

  ‘I’m made up, love,’ said Dad, looking the epitome of apologetic.

  ‘Thanks, Dad. We’ll see you later.’

  As we headed out of the house, we could hear raised voices, and Dad calling Mum an ‘old-fashioned bitch’. We then heard what sounded like a load of knitting been thrown at a middle-aged man, but I could’ve been wrong.

  ‘So, let me get this straight . . .’

  ‘Aha?’

  ‘You want me to move out so you can move your little lesbian friend in?’

  ‘That’s right. Lesbian, not lebian.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Nothing. ’Cos . . . well. . . ’cos I need the rent. That’s all.’

  ‘It’s at times like this,’ says Mum, eyes ablaze, ‘that I wish I didn’t have crippling arthritis.’

  I nod, knowing what’s coming.

  ‘’Cos at times like this I don’t half wish I could knit.’

  Which I take to mean her saying, ‘Over my dead body.’

  TWELVE

  I am feeling confused. No change there, then. Putting my disappointment/heartache/heartbreak/balls-aching irritation – whatever you want to call it – with Michael to one side, there are far too many other things buzzing round in my brain and I’m not doing anything proactive to sort them out. With my teacherly head on, I decide to write it all down, so I create a sort of checklist in a new document on my laptop and call it ‘The List’.

  The List

  • Mum won’t move out and I want Meredith to move in. Plan of action: talk to Dad; get him to make her see sense. She is now threatening my time in this house. V. important.

  • Mungo has told me he is in an OR but has since acted all embarrassed in front of me. Plan of action: tell him what happens in the pub, stays in the pub.

  • Wendy. Must call back. She often says I never call, so
must remedy. Plan of action: call her tonight.

  • I want to have sex. Plan of action: join one of those websites. Eurgh.

  • Kevin is coming in a week on Friday. I’m not sure why this is bothering me. Well, I do know, but I don’t want to think about it. Plan of action: get over it. He’s just Connor’s dad, and the meeting is important for Connor.

  • Call Rita. Plan of action: do I have to? Yes. Soon. She might not have heard from Michael either and could be going out of her mind, though she might tell me he’s moved in with Asmaa and I don’t want to know.

  • Rats in loft?! Plan of action: call Rentokil. Or go into loft. Or ignore. Mum has overactive imagination.

  ‘Hiya, Dad!’ I’m full of the joys on the phone, as we’ve not actually spoken for ages. I’m a bit worried he’s not going to be keen on Mum returning to Liverpool, as I imagine he’s having a much calmer time of it with her down here moaning at me instead of him. I’m in the bedroom while Mum is out at Zumba.

  ‘Karen, love, how are you? Mum said you’re still very, very low.’

  ‘Oh, I’m OK.’

  ‘Karen, you don’t have to put on a brave face with me.’

  ‘No, I am, I’m fine.’

  ‘Karen!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mum told me.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About your . . . dark thoughts.’

  ‘I’ve been having dark thoughts?’

  ‘You know, and don’t think I haven’t been there too. Jeez, I’ve been married to your mother for nearly forty years, but, you know, suicide’s shite.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Topping yourself. Wanting to end it. We all fancy it at some point, but . . . well, you just need to give yourself a talking-to.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re on about.’

  ‘You need to sit down, in a quietened room, and think of all the positive things you’ve got going for you. We could do it now if you want. Have you got a pen?’

  ‘Dad, do you think I’m suicidal?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘Well, why?’

  ‘Well, ’cos your mum told me.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘As I say, love, don’t be embarrassed. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Mental illness affects something like one in five people. I Googled it. I mean, look at Michael . . .’

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa a minute. Mental health issues? Me?!

  ‘What exactly has Mum been saying?’

  ‘Look, she wasn’t gonna tell me. I know you swore her to secrecy, but I’m your dad, babe. I love the bones of you.’

  Secrecy?

  ‘I made her tell me. I was pissed off that she hadn’t come back yet. I told her you’ve got to learn to stand on your own two feet. And I miss her. It’s not good for our relationship, her being away. I was saying all this . . . Oh, don’t feel guilty. I’m not arsed really.’ He was backtracking now. ‘Which is when she explained why it was a bit impossible for her to come back just yet, ’cos of . . . your predicament.’

  ‘I’m not suicidal, Dad.’

  ‘Well, I’m made up for you, love. I’m buzzing you’ve turned a corner.’

  ‘I never was suicidal, Dad.’

  ‘That’s the spirit, Karen. Fighting fit. Say it often enough and it comes true.’

  ‘No, I swear on my mother’s life. I’ve not once wanted to kill myself.’

  There was a silence on the other end of the phone.

  ‘Your mum said you were like this – in denial about it. I can’t say I totally understand it, but I just want you to know it’s OK.’

  ‘No, Dad. I’m being serious. Mum’s been lying to you.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘I’m fed up, depressed probably, but only ’cos Michael’s buggered off, and that’s it really. I don’t think my life is over. Well, I do, but only ’cos I’m single and starting again at thirty-six. Not ’cos I wanna slash my wrists or anything. I can’t believe she’s said this to you.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And anyway, if you thought I was mentally ill and thinking of topping myself every five minutes, why didn’t you come and visit me? Pick up the phone?’

  ‘Mum said I wasn’t to. She said she was dealing with it and to leave you be. Said you’d be mortified if you realized what a fuss it was all creating.’

  ‘I don’t know about killing myself, Dad,’ I say, ‘but at the moment I could willingly kill her.’

  ‘Put her on. I wanna speak to her.’ He’s sounding furious now.

  ‘She’s not here.’

  ‘Shit. Is she coming home?’

  ‘No, she’s at Zumba.’

  ‘Y’what?’

  ‘It’s like a fusion of keep-fit and dance, I think. Well, that’s her description.’

  ‘But I thought she was on round-the-clock suicide watch with you. Oh, for frig’s sake, this is taking the piss, this is. And you’re not lying to me?’

  ‘I’m not, no,’ I say, with the emphasis on the ‘I’, meaning someone is and it’s not me.

  ‘Dad, she’s living the life of Riley down here – out at her classes every evening and then sitting up half the night watching Borgen or The Killing or The Bridge. Give her a subtitle and some Scandinavian knitwear and she’s in her fucking element.’

  I have never sworn to my dad before and I hope it shows him I’m not inventing any of this. I am incandescent. I cannot believe that my mother – my mother – has lied and said I’ve tried to commit suicide just because she doesn’t want to go home and see my dad. Well, that’s it – my mind’s made up. She is leaving this house as soon as she gets back.

  I tell Dad about Meredith wanting to move in, and me wanting her to move in because in the long term I am fearful about keeping up with my mortgage repayments. Dad says it makes complete sense to him and wonders why Mum is so reluctant to return home.

  I fantasize about colouring my wrists and neck with ketchup and lying in a pool of my own urine in the kitchen, just to shock her when she gets in later, but I really can’t be that mercenary. And I really can’t be that arsed.

  By the time I come off the phone we have a plan. My poor Dad should not have to be lied to like that. He was clearly very worried about me, but felt he couldn’t pick up the phone to see how I was because of Mum’s barmy manipulations. And poor me for being tarred with the brush of mental illness – untruthfully – just because Mum’s got it cushty in East Ham.

  No wonder I made out to everyone that she was dead all those years ago. It was clearly wishful thinking. I spent a childhood mortified by her showing me up, and now I’m to spend my adulthood mortified by her telling everyone I’m going mad? This won’t do. This reeeeally won’t do.

  I toy again with the ‘pretending to have killed myself’ routine for when she gets back in and decide against it. I’ve never forgotten that time she and Dad left me with a babysitter while they went out for dinner. I must have been about eight and my babysitter, Bernie from down the road (who can only have been about fourteen), decided it would be really funny to tie me to the rocking chair in the lounge just before they got back from dinner. I too found it unfeasibly hilarious, so when my poor mum and dad walked in, they were greeted by the sight of me rocking backwards and forwards in the rocking chair, tied up, my mouth gagged with a tea towel, sobbing hysterically and screaming, ‘Help! Help!’

  I have to say I have never seen two more shocked people in my entire life. At the time I thought they were real killjoys for not finding it funny, and sending me to bed early, and phoning Bernie’s mum and getting her grounded. Now that I’m older, I completely get that they were acting in shock, and with Mum’s advancing years, maybe it’s best not to recreate the suicide version of that tonight.

  I do, however, go for the softer option. I am determined to ruffle her double-crossing feathers.

  By the time she comes back, I am sitting at the kitchen table, a bottle of paracetamol in my hand. I’m staring at it like I haven’t know
n she’s come in. I hear her coat coming off in the hall. I hear two Uggs being kicked off – the second harder to remove than the first. I hear the jingle of bangles increasing in volume. Val Carpenter (sans Cheeky the Liverpool Bear) is in the building. Actually, she’s in the kitchen, staring at me.

  ‘What you doing, Karen?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I reply slowly and vacantly. I’m trying to sound like a zombie in a movie. I’m trying to be otherworldly.

  ‘What are they?’ She has frozen in the doorway.

  I quickly put the pills in the pocket of my cardigan. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What d’you fancy for your tea?’

  Mum walks past me and opens the freezer. It’s now that I notice her blouse is on inside out. Bless her, was she rushing back to see me?

  ‘I got a lasagne the other day. Thought we could have that with some steamed spinach.’

  Oh. This isn’t working. She doesn’t seem that fussed that just moments ago her only child was sat staring longingly at a tub of pills. Thanks, Mum. So as she fusses around in the fridge, I blurt out, ‘Death . . . is the final frontier!’

  Mum turns and looks, confused. ‘Isn’t that space?’

  ‘Who cares . . . when you’re clinically depressed?’

  ‘Have you had a drink, Karen?’

  ‘I’ve never felt more clear-headed in my life.’

  Now Mum isn’t looking worried, particularly, more quizzical. ‘What’s going on, Karen?’

  I give up. ‘I was trying to make out I fancied killing myself.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To shock you.’