All My Mothers

by Joanna Glen

  ‘Could that be you?’ I said, though I could see she wasn’t focusing. ‘You know, you and me.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said, still laughing, ‘but I need to pray for Venezuela.’

  She took the globe and ushered me towards the door, which closed with a thump behind me.

  I was elated: I’d found it, the actual place.

  But horribly disappointed too: she was far too old to be my mother, and far too confused to say who my mother might be, even if she knew.

  But she was funny and nice, and I already liked her.

  That was something.

  I walked through the thick summer heat, and, although I was twenty years old now, I thought of Grey Mother in The Rainbow Rained Us with her rickety shelves and her atlas – and her globe.

  Part 3

  Chapter 88

  I lay on the bed staring at the photo that I’d stared at so many times before, but now of course it was different – my eyes had seen it, and it was real (as Billy and I had philosophised repeatedly at lunchbreak – oh Billy, who would you be now?)

  Carrie burst in – much sooner than I’d expected.

  ‘It’s over with the bullfighter,’ she said.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I went to see him in a bullfight.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He said it was art. It was a bloodbath.’

  ‘Did you say that?’

  ‘No. I walked out.’

  ‘Without telling him?’

  ‘He was still murdering the bull.’

  She joined me on the bed, leaning against the wall, and threading her hair into lots of thin plaits.

  ‘I’m giving up on men!’ said Carrie, allowing herself a glint of a smile. ‘It’s going to be the title of my first book of poems.’

  ‘I like that.’

  ‘And what’s going on with you, Evs?’

  ‘Carrie,’ I said. ‘You’re not going to believe this. I found her. Sister Ana. In Plaza de la Paz.’

  ‘You went without me?’

  ‘I thought I should stop being so pathetic.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The angel was there and the wagon wheel and everything!’

  Carrie hugged me.

  ‘She’s the nun from the courtyard with the laugh,’ I said. ‘So she’s obviously far too old to be my mother.’

  ‘And is she the woman in the photo?’

  ‘Well, I still don’t know. She found it so funny that she didn’t have a head that I couldn’t get her back on track. And then she kicked me out.’

  ‘Kicked you out?’

  ‘Yes, but nicely. She wanted to pray for Venezuela.’

  ‘Venezuela?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. But she’s funny and lovely and I like her.’

  ‘We found the place!’ said Carrie. ‘I can’t believe it! Let’s celebrate! And then let’s plan what happens next.’

  What, in the end, happened next was that I went out for tapas with Barnaby Blue, who’d arrived for the start of his PhD.

  I was struggling to arrange my expectations as I walked towards the restaurant, not knowing if he’d be on his own or with Naomi.

  When I saw that he was on his own, I was overtaken with a strange wave of.

  Something.

  Courage?

  Wickedness?

  Freedom?

  I was free.

  But he wasn’t.

  And I should have respected that.

  Barnaby held out his arms.

  Oh, not those ridiculous forearms.

  As we were sweeping our faces side to side, as you do – kiss, kiss – somehow, our lips must have brushed each other’s, by mistake.

  I didn’t turn away.

  He’d just got engaged.

  And I kissed him.

  A proper full kiss.

  With tongues.

  xx.

  XX.

  I’d love to tell the story differently.

  Make it his fault.

  I’m not saying he didn’t want to.

  But I’m still ashamed.

  I guess I’d been planning this kiss half my life.

  And nothing, even a fiancée, would get in my way.

  We sat down on a stone bench, on cushions, leaning against the wall, and the waiter brought the menus, and we were both red in the face with shock, which we covered with urgent talking.

  Barnaby was working on the middle level of Medina Azahara, he said, they were excavating the mosque and anticipating, in the coming months and years – I nodded energetically as he spoke – signs of the walls of the souk, perhaps fountains to show where the gardens had been and, he hoped, evidence of a menagerie of wild animals and exotic birds.

  ‘Why do you think the place has grabbed you so much?’ I asked, slightly formally, as if I was interviewing him, because we couldn’t find the right tone, we could almost not look at each other, we could still taste each other’s tongues.

  ‘The poignancy,’ he said, also formally. ‘It took twenty-five years to build and was lived in for such a short time before it was destroyed. It’s something about how short life is.’

  ‘Does it make you think about your mum?’ I said.

  ‘Everything makes me think about her,’ he said.

  Blue Mother would be ashamed of us, I thought, and then, she’d love us to be together, and, for a few seconds, those thoughts went back and forward, like a ball in a tennis match.

  ‘I read that the caliph built the city for his favourite wife, Azahara,’ I said, and I felt myself blushing because this was no time to be saying the word wife. ‘But she never lived there.’

  ‘I read that too,’ he said.

  ‘It’s a lovely name, Azahara,’ I said. ‘I wonder if it means orange blossom, like in Spanish.’

  We were both quiet.

  ‘Have you got used to being called Blue?’ I said.

  ‘It was a bit mad,’ he said.

  I am madly in love with you, Barnaby Blue, and we need to get married and be the Blue-Greens, that’s what I thought, because I was eleven years old again, for a moment, I suppose.

  He was meant to be mine, whatever the obstacles, that’s the feeling I had – a feeling that should never be trusted. We can convince ourselves about absolutely anything – this is our intrinsic weakness as human beings.

  ‘The Blue-Greens,’ I said, tentatively. ‘Do you remember? In the car?’

  He laughed.

  ‘Before everything went wrong,’ he said.

  ‘Blue and green were my favourite colours after that,’ I said, ‘or maybe before that. We read this book at school.’

  To my surprise, I found that I was telling him about The Rainbow Rained Us.

  To my greater surprise, he was leaning forward, listening.

  Which probably encouraged me to keep going.

  ‘You remember I told you about the photo?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Well, I found the courtyard with the wagon wheel and the angel.’

  I took the photo out of my pocket and showed him.

  He stared at the photo.

  ‘Does it still look like this?’ he said. ‘With the angel and the wagon wheel?’

  ‘Exactly the same!’

  We looked into each other’s eyes, and I thought, it’s not just me feeling this.

  I breathed in.

  He breathed in too.

  We were both holding our breath.

  What exactly would I say if I said anything, I thought.

  Perhaps he was thinking the same when the waiter appeared.

  ‘Postre?’ said the waiter, running through our options: flan with caramel sauce, natillas de leche or watermelon.

  I said no thank you, I’d have a coffee – and the spell had broken.

  If I hadn’t broken it, he would have done.

  My heart was broken by flan with caramel sauce or natillas de leche or watermelon.

  ‘I’m thinking of staying out here,’ I said to Barnaby, beyond the spell
, putting the photo back in my pocket.

  ‘You are? What about your degree?’

  ‘I’ve asked if they can come to an arrangement with the Facultad de Letras.’

  ‘And if they can’t?’

  ‘If they can’t, bugger it,’ I said.

  He laughed.

  He sat up.

  ‘I’ll get the bill,’ he said.

  ‘I’m treating you,’ I said.

  He refused.

  I insisted.

  ‘I split up with Michael,’ I said.

  ‘Oh,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know what came over us,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  ‘Can we pretend it didn’t happen?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  Because, I suppose, it was too hard to say no.

  He stood up.

  ‘Let me pay,’ he said.

  ‘I’m paying,’ I said.

  And he left.

  Chapter 89

  It was midnight and guess where I went.

  I knocked on the old oak door in Plaza de la Paz.

  Sister Ana answered the door.

  Despite the time.

  Though she often didn’t know the time, come to think of it.

  ‘I’ve done something I shouldn’t have done,’ I said. ‘Completely deliberately.’

  Sister Ana held me against her chest, and I enjoyed the unexpected alchemy between us – because I was always looking for alchemy. I stayed in her arms, and my mixed emotions were soothed by the smell of washing powder on her dress.

  The courtyard, my courtyard, was lit by tealights, which flickered gorgeously in the dark.

  Did she light them every evening?

  For herself?

  There was something poignant about this for me.

  Cats rubbed their cheeks against pots, stalked up steps, lay sleeping in coils.

  Sister Ana and I sat on wicker chairs close together in the candlelight – and it felt so good.

  ‘Hold my hand,’ she said. ‘Hold God’s hand. Make a circle.’

  I held her hand with my left hand.

  ‘Hold God’s hand,’ she said again.

  ‘I’m not sure where God’s hand is,’ I said awkwardly.

  ‘Oh, anywhere,’ she said.

  So I held God’s hand (the air) with my right hand, and she held God’s hand (the air) with her left.

  ‘We make our own circles,’ she said, out of nowhere, or perhaps it was somewhere, just somewhere I hadn’t been.

  I loved the warm comfort of her lived-in hand in mine: its crepey pads, its deep furrows.

  ‘Did you remember the baby?’ I said to Sister Ana, with a strange pain in my chest.

  I took out my photo and handed it to her.

  She handed it back.

  ‘Había un bebé?’ she asked. Was there a baby?

  ‘I think the baby was me.’

  She started to laugh.

  ‘Lo digo en serio,’ I said, I’m being serious.

  She wagged her finger at me, winking, as she got up from her grey folding chair.

  ‘We dance, Lorenzo and I,’ she said, and she started to dance with nobody around the candlelit courtyard in her big old sandals.

  She sat down on her chair.

  ‘We aren’t married, of course,’ she said. ‘I married Jesus.’

  ‘Sister Ana,’ I said, ‘I just kissed a man who’s marrying another woman.’

  ‘Men don’t think anything of kissing anyone,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, it was my fault—’

  ‘It was a terrible time to be a girl. Do you remember?’

  ‘I’m much younger than you are. I’m only twenty.’

  ‘Are you now, darling?’ she said. ‘It won’t make any difference in the end.’

  Which I suppose is true.

  ‘You don’t remember a baby, do you, here in the courtyard?’ I tried again.

  ‘My mother wanted us all to have babies,’ she said, and she paused.

  I nodded.

  ‘Seen the stallions, have you?’ she asked with a horrified face. ‘Mounting those poor old mares at the stud-farm. Who would want to do that?’

  Her expression made me laugh, thinking how much everyone else in the whole world wanted to do that, and nothing else, endlessly, repeatedly, in different arrangements and combinations, forever and ever amen.

  ‘When I came here for the first time, I was wondering whether you were my mother,’ I said tentatively.

  She stared at me, her face stilled in horror, but whether she was making a connection with the mares, I doubt – she was more for disconnections.

  ‘Now I’ve met you, I obviously see that you’re too old,’ I said, ‘but you could have looked after me, I suppose, back then. Or you could have known my mother?’

  She picked up the cream cat.

  I took out the photo again.

  ‘You don’t think that could be you?’ I said slowly and loudly, trying to keep her attention by pointing at the grey dress. ‘Or perhaps one of your friends?’

  ‘That blessed head of hers!’ she said, hee-hawing with laughter.

  It always took her off course.

  ‘Do come again,’ she said. ‘I like you. We always have such fun together.’

  ‘Yes, I will,’ I said, getting up.

  ‘Oh, yes you will,’ she said. ‘I can tell. I can always tell the ones who’ll come back.’

  Chapter 90

  When Carrie hadn’t quite woken up the next morning, I told her about the kiss.

  ‘Bastard!’ she said blearily, assuming instantly that I was in the right.

  (This is a possible disadvantage of love, its blind willingness to take the loved one’s side.)

  ‘No, Carrie,’ I said. ‘The bastard was me.’

  ‘You can’t kiss on your own,’ she said, which is a fair point.

  She took a sip of water and lay back down.

  ‘What do you think’s going to happen now?’ she said, picking off her mascara.

  ‘Probably nothing,’ I said.

  ‘This might make him see the engagement’s a mistake,’ said Carrie.

  ‘What might?’

  ‘Kissing you.’

  ‘How good a kiss do you think it was?’ I said.

  ‘Do you feel shit?’ said Carrie.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  We lay quietly, staring at the ceiling.

  ‘I went to see Sister Ana afterwards.’

  ‘Not again! Without me! Now I’m jealous!’ said Carrie. ‘And how was she this time?’

  ‘She made me hold her hand and God’s hand to make a circle.’

  ‘Where was God’s hand?’

  ‘Anywhere, she said.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ said Carrie.

  ‘It was a bit awkward,’ I said.

  ‘God makes me awkward,’ said Carrie.

  ‘Or is it your mother that makes you awkward?’ I said. ‘And you’ve started imagining God’s like her.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Carrie. ‘Poor God!’

  I laughed.

  ‘Can we go and see Sister Ana together today?’ she said.

  We didn’t know that today would turn out to be a significant day – the day my father came.

  My father leant forward to kiss me.

  He was sweating, the way everyone sweats in Córdoba in August: it beads on your upper lip and runs in rivulets from your armpits.

  I stepped back to not be kissed.

  Carrie led us both into the ferny courtyard, where we sat down, around a glass table.

  ‘Where shall we start?’ said my father, authoritative, confident.

  ‘Shall we start here?’ I said, getting out the photo.

  My father grabbed it.

  ‘Where did you find that?’

  I grabbed it back.

  ‘It fell out of a book in your study,’ I said.

  ‘I put it somewhere that nobody could find it,’ he
said, pretending to look amused, ‘but then I couldn’t find it either!’

  Carrie laughed appreciatively.

  ‘Like squirrels,’ she said.

  I glared at her.

  ‘With their nuts.’

  ‘Anyway,’ I said to my father, holding the photo tightly. ‘I’ve found the courtyard with the angel. It’s in Plaza de la Paz.’

  ‘How did you …?’

  ‘Blame her!’ I said, pointing at Carrie.

  ‘So I’ve been meeting with Sister Ana,’ I said.

  ‘We think she might be the person in the picture,’ said Carrie.

  ‘No,’ said my father firmly. ‘She isn’t.’

  He smiled, though this was (obviously) no time for smiling.

  ‘I wouldn’t listen to her,’ he said. ‘She’s lost the plot.’

  He was putting on a show of amused calm, or perhaps he felt amused and calm.

  I did not.

  ‘Who was holding me in the photo then?’ I asked. ‘I assume it’s me.’

  ‘She was called Sister María Soledad,’ he said, clearing his throat and crossing his arms. ‘She was quite a woman.’

  ‘Did she take me in?’ I said urgently.

  ‘Did she?’ said Carrie.

  He nodded, arms still crossed.

  ‘She died last summer,’ said Carrie. ‘That’s what I was told.’

  ‘She would have been in her nineties,’ said my father.

  The beheaded woman was dead.

  ‘So she obviously wasn’t my mother?’ I said.

  ‘Oh no no no,’ said my father, wagging his finger.

  ‘Why did you cut her head off?’ I said.

  ‘Cherie did it.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘She wanted you to bond with her. She didn’t want you to know there’d been anyone else.’

  ‘But you said the woman in the photo wasn’t my mother? So what was the problem with me seeing her face?’

  My father hesitated, and for the first time he looked flustered.

  ‘I came here to be honest,’ he said.

  ‘That makes a change,’ I said.

  ‘Evs,’ said Carrie, glaring at me.

  ‘So Cherie isn’t my mother either, is she?’ I said, looking into my father’s eyes.

  ‘Let me explain,’ he began.

  ‘Can you tell me the whole story?’ I said, and my teeth had started chattering, even in the heat.

  ‘Your mother—’ my father began, now colouring slightly.