Her Mother's Daughter

by Alice Fitzgerald

  I close the window and look through the small holes of the net. A fly’s vision is something like that – one of the lads told me once. I remember how they would catch a fly and pull its wings off one at a time and leave it on the ground to die. The cigarette leaves me with the jitters and I rub the tips of my nails against each other, looking for jagged edges. I rub my chin and scratch a spot until it stings. A moth flies up in front of me and I try to clap my hands around it, but it gets away.

  I have a horrible taste in my mouth and am awfully thirsty. I imagine washing the nets around the back of the house and the water turning a dark yellow-grey.

  So here I am. I smile. I need only think about myself from now on. Only wash my own dresses, my own underwear and the few garments I own. I take out another cigarette. What the heck – it’s time to live life. I don’t even smoke, I laugh to myself. But what else have I got to do? I breathe in deep, and after a few drags I’m tipsy with the nicotine and I can’t stop smiling. I could scream but I dare not make a sound. Scream with sheer delight, that is.

  I undress, careful on my unsteady legs, and leave my dress over the back of the chair. I put on my nightdress and get into bed. The fluorescent tube overhead has dead flies in it, but the light switch is by the door and tiredness is heavy on me. I close my eyes and drift off to sleep.

  Later, I wake to the dead flies and the buzz of the light. I go and switch it off, treading carefully back to bed in the darkness.

  I lie curled up like a baby and think of home. I think of me and Bernadette in the churchyard with a bottle of rum taken from the cabinet, and I think of Daddy’s whiskey-breath singing sad songs, and I think of Siobhan, who didn’t come to see me off. They run through my head, distant memories, far away now.

  CLARE

  7th JULY 1997

  Daddy’s white Sierra is parked outside. I know it’s his by the number on the yellow plate and the missing mirror that Mummy pulled off one night, when her eyes were shining wet and her face belonged to someone else.

  I unclick my belt, then Thomas’s, and we jump out of the car and run to the front door.

  I ring the doorbell. Ding-dong.

  Daddy opens and I run to him and he picks me up and kisses me. Daddy, Daddy, Daddy! His blond stubble tickles and his blue eyes are smiling. He puts me down and picks up Thomas. He’s been working all week until late, so we’ve only seen him for dinner and until we go to bed, which is hardly anything. His hair is curly now because he’s been working, but when he is showered and smart and handsome, his hair is combed back and neat like Mummy likes it. He smells of the black liquid stuff that goes hard and makes up the roads, because that’s what he does for his job. When he lifts us up and kisses us at times like this, Mummy tells him off. She says the smell of him would knock out a horse and does he want to poison us all?

  Mummy walks up the path to the front door where we are, with the bags in her hands, and I feel bad because she doesn’t like it when we leave her like that and run off to Daddy. She says anyone would think she was our nanny. She turns her lips into a smile.

  Daddy smiles back, touches her cheek and then kisses it. Thomas kisses the other.

  ‘Get your dresses?’ Daddy asks in the voice he reads us bedtime stories in. He rubs her arm.

  She nods and sighs. Then, after a second, she says, ‘You stink,’ but she smiles, so it means he stinks but she doesn’t mind today. That’s because she’s too sad even to get angry.

  Mummy has not been one little bit happy since she got a call from her sister.

  It was me who picked up the phone. Aunty Whatshername asked me what my name was and I said Clare. Then she asked how old was I now? I told her I was ten. And Thomas? she said. How old is the little one? She said it like she knew him, even though we’ve never met and I’d never even spoken to her before. Six and a half, I said. Mummy started waving her hands madly in the air, like she was trying to bat a fly away. While I was trying to work out what she was trying to tell me, Aunty Whatshername asked if Mummy was there? I looked at her, waving her hands around wildly. ‘She can’t come to the phone now,’ I said. ‘She’s painting her nails.’

  Mummy’s face went white, and her eyes opened wide. She marched over to me and took the phone. ‘Go up to your room, children,’ she told us. Then she put a smile on and, into the phone, she said, ‘Hello, who’s that?’ But she said it in a light airy-fairy voice like she wanted to speak to Aunty Whatshername, when I knew she didn’t.

  ‘What’s wrong, love?’ Daddy asks.

  ‘Nothing,’ says Mummy. ‘I’m just under pressure to get ready for home, that’s all. Clothes for me, the kids, you. Presents. Everything.’

  But I know better, because of what she tells me at nighttime when she gets me up for hot chocolate and Daddy is out for the count.

  When Daddy is showered and smelling nice and Mummy is getting all dolled up, it’s time to call a cab. Me and Thomas stand at the door so we can hear the beep to tell us it’s there. I hear it first. I open the door and wave to the driver to say we’re coming, and then I shout out loud so my voice travels upstairs: ‘The cab is here!’

  Daddy comes along the hallway and picks up his keys from a little glass dish on the wooden cabinet and we wait while Mummy comes down the stairs. She has dressed up and her hair is in waves around her face, like she’s a film star. She’s wearing one of her new dresses, the flowing pink one. Daddy whistles at her, like he does every Saturday night. Thomas tries to copy, but he can’t whistle, so he blows spit bubbles and it makes us all laugh, even Mummy.

  Tonight we’re going for an Italian. Me and Thomas get Coke because it’s our favourite, but it’s the one from the tap, so it’s watery, like Mummy’s milky coffee. You can go up to the counter and fill it up to the top as many times as you want, so we don’t care that it’s watery.

  ‘Coke, please,’ I say when the waitress looks at me.

  ‘Coke, too, please!’ says Thomas when the waitress looks at him.

  ‘Aren’t they adorable?’ the waitress says to Mummy.

  Mummy smiles. ‘Yes, they are.’

  The waitress brings our Coke and serves Mummy and Daddy wine from the bottle. When she’s gone, Mummy tuts. ‘Coke will rot your teeth,’ she says, looking from me to Thomas.

  ‘It’s everyone’s Saturday-night treat,’ says Daddy. ‘Sit back and relax, love.’ He winks at her, the way he does when she is about to get angry, and she smiles even though she doesn’t want to, and then laughs and takes a big sip of wine.

  He takes a sip of wine, too, and then I take a sip of Coke because I know he has made everything better.

  We get garlic bread with cheese, a deep-pan pizza with pepperoni and the salad bowl that goes in the deal. Mummy is in charge of going to the salad counter because once, when Daddy went, he didn’t fill the bowl high enough and Mummy got annoyed; and Thomas and me would drop it.

  She fills it really carefully, layer by layer by layer. I go with her to watch. She picks up the cucumber slices with the big tweezers and makes a base, then the same with the tomato wheels, then a big spoon of grated carrots, and then she pushes it all down. We go round to the other side of the salad bar, making our way between all the people, and she gets potato salad and coleslaw and black olives that look like beetles, and lots of slices of the thing that makes you lose weight.

  ‘It’s huge!’ says Thomas when we go back to the table.

  ‘Don’t draw attention to yourself, Thomas,’ Mummy says.

  Thomas pouts and kicks me under the table.

  I stick out my tongue at him.

  ‘Here we go.’ Mummy rolls her eyes.

  ‘It’s all right, love,’ Daddy says. ‘Simmer down, you two,’ he coughs. Then he lifts his hand in the air like he’s just remembered something. ‘How many days, now, Clare?’ He points at me, waiting.

  It’s my moment to tell him the number because I count it every morning when I cross off the calendar. ‘Eleven!’

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ he says,
waving his finger in the air. ‘Yesterday was thirteen, so how could today be eleven?’

  ‘Liar, liar, pants on fire!’ I say in the sing-song way we do at school when someone is lying.

  Daddy comes at me with his finger and pushes it under my arm and I wriggle because it’s tickling so much.

  ‘It is eleven days, silly billy,’ says Thomas.

  ‘It is indeed, Thomaseen,’ Daddy says. ‘Thomaseen’ is Thomas, but little Thomas, and Mummy and Daddy use it sometimes when he’s cute or funny, but not when he’s naughty. ‘You two will meet your grandparents, won’t you?’

  Me and Thomas nod at the same time. Mummy calls us parrots when we do that.

  ‘Are ye excited?’ Daddy asks.

  ‘Really, really, really excited!’ says Thomas, and he starts bouncing on his chair.

  ‘Tell us about your day, Michael.’ That’s Mummy, changing the subject.

  ‘Come on, Josephine,’ Daddy says.

  ‘Don’t.’ Mummy puts her hand flat out in front of her, like she’s pushing Daddy away, even though he’s sitting at the table. ‘Let’s talk about something else.’

  Daddy clears his throat and drinks his wine. When he’s swallowed it down he tells us about his day, and how he made some roads outside London nice and smooth because they had potholes in them. Then he tells us what sinkholes are. They are like potholes but a million times bigger, when the earth swallows itself up and leaves a big hole. While he’s talking, I look from Thomas to Mummy to Daddy, and back again. I watch Thomas listen, and feel the happy kick of his legs under the table against my feet. I watch Mummy watch Daddy, holding her glass of wine in her hand, her red nails shining. She takes a sip, puts down the glass and scratches her nails on each other.

  She sees me looking at her. ‘Clare, stop scratching your head. Put your hands on your lap.’

  I do as I’m told, but then I feel another itch at the back of my head so I scratch it, then another at the front so I scratch it quickly, and then I take my Coke in both hands and drink it.

  Garlic bread with cheese on top is one of my favourite things ever.

  ‘I won’t have any,’ Mummy says. She takes a big gulp of wine while we pick up our pieces. Daddy takes a large one and I take the smallest one because I’m trying to be careful with my hips. Thomas chooses the biggest one left on the plate.

  I start by nibbling the cheese hanging off the edge, but Thomas takes a big bite from the middle.

  ‘Thomas, give us a bite to try, will you?’ says Mummy.

  He lifts his piece of garlic bread with cheese up, and Mummy bends down and bites into it with a big open mouth so she doesn’t smudge her lipstick.

  I’m eating the last bit of cheese that was like a dribble, when Mummy asks me for a bite of mine, to see if it tastes the same. I give her my piece because she can’t reach across the table. She takes it and bites right into it. When she gives it back, it looks like a moon that’s disappearing at night, being eaten by the black clouds. It has a semicircle of red drawn on it, like it’s bleeding.

  ‘Yes,’ she nods. ‘It tastes the same.’

  ‘Have that last piece,’ Daddy says to her.

  ‘Not at all,’ she says, ‘you have it.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Daddy says.

  ‘I’ll just have a bite, and then you have it.’ She bites into it, passes it to Daddy and he pops the rest in his mouth.

  I drink my Coke, but my face is hot because Mummy ate practically my whole piece of garlic bread, and then ended up eating more than anyone.

  The pizza arrives and the Pizza Girl rolls her wheel through it once, twice, three times, four times, and serves out the pizza piece by piece, so the cheese hangs off in strings until she cuts it with the wheel. When she goes away, Mummy serves us some salad on each of our plates, so we all have one slice next to a little pile of salad. I give my black olive-beetles to Daddy because he likes them, and because I don’t want to eat a beetle without even noticing.

  ‘Can I have more of that, please?’ I ask, pointing at the stuff that Mummy says makes you lose weight.

  ‘Good girl,’ says Mummy. ‘That’s celery,’ she says, as she serves me an extra spoonful.

  I smile, and think it’s a good thing she ate some of my garlic bread. Now the celery will cancel out the pizza, too, so I will have eaten hardly anything, and nothing will go to my hips.

  The pizza is cheesy and has loads of wheels of pepperoni, which I love. After one slice I’m still hungry, so I have another one. Mummy has three and a half slices, which she says is very naughty indeed, and I’m jealous because I want another one.

  When we’ve finished our pizza and Mummy and Daddy are drinking their last glass of wine, me and Thomas go up to get more Coke and the ice-cream that squirts out of the machine. You get to be an ice-cream man for a minute when you push the button and the ice-cream squirts out, and you have to move your plate round and round so that it comes out in circles. I try to make mine look like a meringue but it doesn’t really work. When it’s Thomas’s turn he won’t let me help him, so his just looks like a worm on a plate.

  The ice-cream is so good that I forget about my hips and gobble it all up before Mummy can ask for some.

  Then the waitress calls a cab and we all go home.

  Mummy takes out the records from the expensive cabinet we’re not allowed to touch, with the wine glasses that you can see behind the glass. Me and Thomas sit and watch. Daddy comes in and moves the sofa backwards while we squeal and roll around, because we’re still sitting on it.

  Mummy looks up and laughs. ‘What shall we put on?’ she asks.

  Daddy tells her the name of a record and takes his and Mummy’s coats off and puts them over the back of the sofa, then he takes mine and Thomas’s off and goes to the front door to hang them all up.

  When Mummy has the record, she goes over to the player and puts it on the wheel with the pin on one side. She slides the pin until there’s a crackle, and then the music starts up and she goes over to Daddy. He pulls her to him and puts his arm around her, and they dance.

  Thomas and me get up and hold hands. We swing them from side to side with the beat of the music. We all put our hands up in the air and wave them in time to the words. Then, when the next bit starts, Mummy sings to us that we’re her angels and she loves our smile and our everything. And we all hold hands and put them up in the air again. We sing at the tops of our voices. Mummy is smiling and her eyes are shining, and in moments like this I am so happy. I run over to her and throw my arms around her. She takes my hands from round her waist and lifts them in the air so we’re holding hands, waving them in the air to her, then to me, then to her. She spins me round and round, and then she lets me go. I sway, and the room goes blurry, until my hands find hers again.

  When it finishes, we’re all out of breath and stand still for a minute while Daddy chooses the next one. He flicks through the records and Mummy goes to the side of the cabinet and pours them a drink. It’s the same drink that she says is apple juice, when she’s sitting at the kitchen table drinking it by herself, but I can tell it’s not really juice, because it’s too dark and smells horrible and strong. ‘Kids, would you like a chocolate biscuit?’

  ‘Yeah!’ we chorus. I jump up and run to the kitchen and Thomas runs after me.

  Daddy turns round. ‘Maybe we should put them to bed.’

  ‘Do you two want to go to bed?’ she asks us, smiling, as we come back with our biscuits.

  ‘Noooo,’ we shout, jumping up and down, holding hands.

  ‘Ah, go on, Michael, let’s have a drink and some fun.’ She hands him a glass and sways to the music that starts up.

  I watch Daddy, from the arm of the sofa, while I eat my biscuit. I feel a teeny bit guilty because it’ll go straight to my hips, but it’s my Saturday Night Treat, so I decide it’s okay. Just this once.

  Daddy rifles through more records, picking them up and reading their labels one at a time, studying the big ring of colour in the middle.
He puts some in a pile on the carpet and the rest back in the cabinet. ‘These are the ones we’re going to listen to,’ he says to me.

  Mummy holds her drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other and, as she turns from one side to the other, her flowy pink dress swishes from side to side.

  ‘Twirl around, Mummy,’ I say. I love watching her twirl in her dresses. Love watching them sail through the air, like she is a picture on the front cover of a magazine. Her lips are still shining bright red. I want my lips to be as red as hers. Mine are thin and pale like penny sweets. They’re dull and don’t shine at all. I watch her, and her dress swirling around her, and I can’t wait to be like her when I grow up. To colour in my eyelids, draw black frames around my eyes, have bright-red lips.

  ‘Let’s dance,’ she says, taking one of my hands, then one of Thomas’s, and leading us in a circle in the open space between the fireplace and the sofa. She takes her shoes off and leaves them to the side. She lets go of our hands every now and again to get her drink, until the glass is empty. Her face is flushed and her eyes are big and shiny, the way they get when she has been drinking. She sings in time to the words and I’m sure the sound of her voice is travelling through the whole house. I join in when I know the words, and so does Thomas. We watch them dance together, Daddy spinning Mummy around under his arm, her dress rising, falling, rising, falling. They laugh and we laugh, and I copy Daddy and spin Thomas around, too. It’s late and we’re lucky to still be up; to be allowed to stay and watch Mummy dance like a film star.

  The song finishes. The small pin hangs in the air. I lift it up and push it to the side like Daddy has shown me, and lift the record off the wheel. I take a new one from the top of the pile on the carpet and place it so that the nib goes through the hole in the middle. Then I lift the needle and bring it all the way to the edge of the record. A crackling noise like when the radio is wrong fills the room, and just when I think I’ve done something wrong, the music booms out. Mummy goes to the cabinet and fills up their glasses and we dance.