by Maria Goodin
Protect you? Leave the past behind? What on earth is going on? I rub my forehead, not knowing where to start.
“I know this must be strange for you,” I say, “my phoning you out of the blue like this. It’s just, my mother hasn’t told me very much about my life around that time. And what she has told me, well, let’s just say it’s very unlikely to be the truth. And now I’ve started to find things out from other people, bits of information that simply don’t make sense to me, and I didn’t even know until last week that I had a stepfather, someone called Robert, and now you’re telling me I lived in Brighton which I never knew… and… and someone else said my grandparents had thrown us out… and then it turns out we lived with a rock band and… and to be honest, I’m just really confused.”
There is a long silence, during which time I notice my hands are shaking. I clench my fists, trying to stop them, telling myself to get a grip.
“You mean Val hasn’t told you anything?” says Gwennie, astonished.
I shake my head, which is not much use on the phone, but I am afraid that if I speak my voice will crack with emotion, and the last thing I need is some stranger thinking I’m a complete basket case.
“Can’t you ask her?” says Gwennie.
I feel anger rising in my chest and I have to suppress the urge to shout Now, why didn’t I think of that!
“She’s not exactly forthcoming,” I say, as calmly as possible.
“Gosh,” Gwennie says, and for a moment I can tell that she was married to Bomber, or Timothy, or whatever he calls himself. “Gosh, Meg, look, I’m not sure it’s my place to go interfering. I’m sure Val – I mean, your mother – has her reasons for keeping certain things from you – ”
“I’m twenty-one!” I suddenly cry, and then, ashamed of myself for letting my emotions get out of control, I repeat more quietly, “I’m twenty-one. And I have a big gap in my life that no-one seems able, or willing, to tell me about. Please, if you can help me then please… ”
I can hear Gwennie’s jagged breathing down the phone, and I can tell I am not the only one shaking. I have startled her, phoning her out of the blue like this, putting this pressure on her.
“Your ex-husband said you were the one who found me,” I tell her, calmly. “What did he mean by that?”
I can almost hear Gwennie’s mind entering into a state of panic, wondering what she should and should not say.
“Meg, I don’t think it’s my place… you need to speak to your mother about – ”
“Then just tell me this,” I ask quickly, a lump suddenly rising in my throat, “am I hers?”
The question is out before I know it, and for a moment I have no idea where it came from, but as I hear my voice trembling I realise that this, this question, this is one of the many reasons why I have been unable to make this phone call. She was the one who found you. Ever since Timothy said those words a thought has been playing at the back of my mind that I have not even allowed myself to acknowledge, that I have not even allowed myself to entertain. But it has been there, I see that now. I feel it in the shaking of my hands and the lump in my throat. She was the one who found you. What else could it mean?
Am I even her daughter?
Gwennie gives a short, shocked laugh. “Of course you’re hers! Gosh… of course you are!”
Every muscle in my body relaxes slightly, but for some reason the lump in my throat just lodges itself harder and I feel even more like crying than I did a second ago. Pull yourself together Meg May! I tell myself, pinching my arm. Stop being such a fool!
“My mother’s sick,” I tell Gwennie, “she’s very sick.”
There is a long pause before Gwennie asks, “How sick?”
I can’t say it. I just can’t. I open my mouth but the words won’t come out. I hear my own shaky breathing down the telephone line.
“How long does she have?” asks Gwennie, doing the work for me.
“Not that long,” I tell her, rubbing at the ache that rises beneath my rib cage. Is that the first time I have ever said it? Is that the first time I have let myself speak those words? It might be. Or it might not. How would I know? However many times I said it, it would always hurt the same.
“Oh,” breathes Gwennie, the air going out of her, “oh, I see. Gosh.”
“I’m worried I’m never going to know the truth,” I tell her, “and that nothing will ever be reconciled between us. It shouldn’t be like this, it shouldn’t have to end in a pack of lies. Whatever happened, I need to know, because she’s not just my mother, she’s my best friend, and if it wasn’t for this… this gap, these lies, then the time we’ve had together would be perfect. And that’s how it should end. Perfectly. Not like this. Not without any understanding or any closure. Not all in a mess.”
There is a long silence, during which time I think I can hear Gwennie crying quietly.
“She was my best friend, too,” she says, her voice thick with emotion.
I don’t know what to say. I’ve never known my mother to have any friends. None other than me, that is.
“She’s a wonderful mother,” I tell her, sadly, as if this information sums up everything that Gwennie has missed in the last sixteen years.
“I know she is,” sniffs Gwennie. “I always knew she would be.”
It is silent for a long time. I look down from my bedroom window, holding the phone to my ear, watching my mother picking flowers from the garden border, assuming she is gathering a little bouquet for the kitchen table. But instead, she carries the flowers over to the compost heap. They are no good. It is too late for flowers now. From up here I can see that the array of colours that filled the garden has dwindled and faded without my ever noticing, and the flowers that remain are wilting, clinging to their last breath of life.
“Please help me,” I beg Gwennie.
Gwennie lets out a heavy sigh, clearly burdened by this decision. “Where are you living now?”
She is surprised to hear my mother is back where she started, in the house where she grew up, and even more surprised to realise that all this time the three of us have been so close.
“I’m just outside Cambridge,” she says, “isn’t it funny how people go back to their roots?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I say, flatly, reminding her that without her help I am, and might always be, rootless.
“I would love to see your mother one last time,” muses Gwennie, “we were so close. This isn’t how I wanted things to end either.”
“Then let’s help each other,” I say, eagerly, “maybe seeing you is just what my mother needs. I’m sure that she would love to see you again, whatever happened in the past, and maybe it will help bring some closure to all this.”
“But I don’t know,” says Gwennie, torn, “maybe it’s not the right thing to do. Maybe it’s better to just let things be. Although I really would love to see her one last time, and I think she would like to see me, but maybe I’m wrong, maybe she wouldn’t. Oh, I don’t know.”
I can see what a difficult position I have put her in, and I know that my phone call must be quite a shock, but part of me wishes I could just reach down the telephone line, grab her by the neck and shake her until she understands what this means to me. I don’t have time for indecision. I don’t have time for ifs and buts. Where can I go from here if she won’t help me? There’s no-one else I can turn to. This feels like my last chance.
“I don’t think I can help you, Meg,” says Gwennie after a while, her voice full of sadness and regret, “I’m so sorry but I really don’t. It’s not my place to tell you things your mother might not want you to know. It’s not for me to interfere. I’ve already said far too much. And I don’t think I should come and see her, even though I would love to. If there’s even the slightest chance that seeing me would upset her then I don’t think it would be right. Not now. Not now that… ”
Her voice trails off, fading along with any hope I had of knowing the truth about my past.
“I’m so s
orry,” she says again.
I don’t respond. I don’t know how to. I feel this is my cue to make her feel better by saying something like ‘don’t worry’ or ‘it doesn’t matter’. But it does. It matters more than she can ever imagine.
I hang up the phone, not because I want to be rude or hurt her or express my anger, but because I can’t think of a single word that could make this situation better for either of us.
I spend the rest of the day lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, looking at the little star-shaped stickers that my mother carefully peeled off the ceiling of my bedroom in Tottenham and brought with her when she moved. They didn’t stick once she got them here, so she went to the painstaking effort of blue-tacking each one back into its original constellation. I thought it was sweet, at first. Sweet but strange. Why would she still think I wanted glow in the dark star stickers when I was eighteen-years-old and not even living here? It’s like she can’t let go of the little girl I once was, like she wants to keep that child forever wrapped in a wonderful bubble of fairytale goodness. And she can’t even see the harm she’s doing me. She can’t even see that inside her tight embrace I am struggling to be free, unable to breathe, unable to find myself.
So that’s it, I think. That’s the end. Chlorine can’t help me anymore, Timothy won’t help me anymore, and Gwennie already thinks she’s said too much. Maybe one day they will change their minds, maybe one day, somehow, the truth will come out. But by then it will be too late. My mother will be gone, along with any chance for questions, or discussion, or mutual understanding. I will never know it all. Not now. I will never hear it from her side.
And my mother will die in a state of delusion, her mind muddled and fogged by images of things that never happened, images of Christmas turkeys running wild and her baby daughter floating around the kitchen in an egg white bubble. Nobody wants that. Nobody wants to leave this life without being able to remember, in those final moments, what it was all about. What it was really all about.
I wanted to bring her back down to earth before the end. I wanted her to think clearly, to remember who she is and where she came from and what she has done with her life. I wanted her to have peace and clarity, coherence and understanding. But there’s no chance of that. Not for either of us.
I wonder who my mother is when she’s stripped of all the lies. I wonder who really exists underneath that layer of make believe. It makes me sad that we will never be able to communicate at the same level. Not fully, anyway. I will never know her adult to adult. We will never talk woman to woman.
I look up at the stars and almost laugh.
As if she could ever think of me as anything other than a little girl.
By half past five the light from the bedroom window is starting to fade, and I remember the days, not so long ago, when it was still light at nine in the evening, and my mother and I would sit on the patio in just shorts and tshirts, eating ice-cream and doing the crossword. Where did it go, I wonder, that Summer that was meant to last forever? How did I ever let it slip away?
I hear my mother’s bedroom door close as she goes to take a rest. Later she will deny ever lying down on the bed, her limbs aching, her breathing a struggle, and she will tell me that she was spring cleaning, or trying on some old clothes.
Shortly after, I hear the squeak of the back gate as Ewan enters the garden, his tools clattering on the ground. After a while he turns his radio on, and I can hear the faint sound of music playing. Some time after that Digger starts barking.
And barking.
And growling.
And then there is a squeal like an animal being stabbed with a pitchfork.
I jump up and look out of the window. There is Digger down by the open gate, tumbling over and over with a little white ball of fur – a rabbit? a cat? – while Ewan sprints across the garden shouting at him.
I rush downstairs, tugging my shoes on as I go, and fly out the back door, skidding on the muddy grass as I run down the garden. I’m not sure what worries me more; the idea that my mother might be woken from her nap, or the idea that our gardener’s dog is trying to kill our neighbour’s cat. As I get closer I can see that Digger is in fact caught in a tussle with a small white terrier, the pair of them rolling over and over in a ball, emitting blood-curdling yelps and squeals, whilst Ewan tries to prise them apart and a woman in a green anorak flaps her arms and screams, “Byron! My little Byron! Oh God, he’s going to die!”
By the time I reach them, Ewan has Digger by the collar and the little white dog (which is now muddy brown) is cowering in the arms of the irate woman.
“You should keep him under control!” the woman is screaming.
“You should keep your dog out of other people’s gardens!” Ewan snaps back.
Digger is straining to get away from him, barking angrily at the little dog who he clearly sees as an intruder. The little dog, in turn, is baring his teeth and snarling. Both of them are muddy and bedraggled.
“He could have killed my poor Byron!” shouts the woman, clutching the dog protectively to her bosom.
“Maybe poor Byron should stay on a lead,” Ewan suggests, clearly trying to contain his anger.
“Well, if you’re going to leave your back gate open – ”
“That’s no excuse for just letting him wander in here.”
“I was trying to get your attention, but your radio was on – ”
“Digger, quiet!” snaps Ewan, yanking the barking dog’s collar.
“Oh, Byron, stop struggling!” complains the woman, clutching the wriggling terrier tighter.
“Sorry, who are you?” I ask, sounding ridiculously polite amongst all the chaos.
The woman looks up, aware of me for the first time, but instead of meeting my eye she gazes over my right shoulder, the anger suddenly draining from her face.
Ewan and I both turn to see my mother standing behind us, her arms wrapped tightly around her frail body, shivering. She looks pale and startled, staring at the woman as if she were a ghost.
“Val,” the woman whispers, their eyes locked in mutual disbelief, “gosh.”
And suddenly I realise who this woman is.
“Hello, Val,” Gwennie says, smiling cautiously.
My mother just stares at her, frozen.
“Mother, it’s Gwennie,” I say, gently touching her arm, “your friend. Do you remember?”
My mother shakes her head almost imperceptibly.
“No,” she whispers quietly, “no, I don’t remember.”
“Val,” Gwennie smiles, taking a step forward, “it’s me, Gwennie. You must remember – ”
“No,” says my mother, taking a step back, “I don’t remember.
I don’t remember anything. I – ”
Before I even notice she is about to fall, Ewan rushes to my mother side and catches her as she collapses.
“Mother!” I gasp, running to her side and supporting her lolling head. Her eyes roll and she groans quietly.
I lean in close, trying to hear what she is saying, but all I hear her murmur are the words, “I don’t remember.”
Chapter 15
“What do you want to know?” Gwennie asks.
Like a child in a sweet shop I want to gorge myself, to grab hold of every fact, every piece of information that’s on offer. I am starving for truth.
“Everything,” I say, greedily, “tell me everything you know.”
There is no hesitation now, no putting it off until another day, no wondering whether this is the right thing to do. I know what it feels like to have the truth offered up like a delicious treat, only to have it snatched away at the last moment. And I don’t intend to go through that again.
We sit at the kitchen table facing one another, steaming mugs of tea in front of us, the rain pitter-pattering against the windowpane. Outside the sky is gloomy and grey, but inside the kitchen it is bright and warm, with Gwennie’s wet raincoat hanging by the backdoor and our shoes drying on the mat. I sense that Gwennie
could flee at any moment. She is hesitant, still undecided on some level, fiddling nervously with Byron’s ears as he snores softly in her lap, exhausted by his tussle with Digger. I try to remain calm and still, waiting patiently for her to speak, sensing one false move could scare her away. I don’t want to pressurise her. But if she thinks I won’t barricade the door and slash the tyres of her car in order to stop her leaving she is making a big mistake.
After laying my mother on the couch, Ewan left, quiet and confused, and I sat with her, stroking her hand, watching her eyes racing back and forth behind their papery lids, whilst Gwennie hovered anxiously in the doorway, chewing her fingernails and asking how she could help. Finally, once my mother’s nightmares had subsided, giving way to dreams that made her smile and mutter quietly about butterbeans, I felt able to leave her side.
“If you really want to help,” I told Gwennie matter-of-factly, hardened by shock and exhaustion, “then tell me the truth about my life.”
As she gazed at my mother lying listlessly on the couch, her pale, thin body tucked beneath a blanket, perhaps she finally understood that she really was my only chance.
“Alright,” she said, “alright, I’ll tell you.”
“Your mother and I had been best friends for many years,” Gwennie says, her hands wrapped tightly around her mug of tea, “since we were eight or nine I suppose, when I joined her school. I lived a couple of roads from here, and we were always running around together, getting into mischief. We both loved being outdoors, and we used to take milk bottles and go fairy hunting in Coley Woods, even though we weren’t allowed to go in there. We had such wild imaginations. I think that’s why we got along so well. A hole in a tree could instantaneously become the porthole into the fairy kingdom, and a glint of sunlight through the leaves could suddenly turn into two fairies dancing. We would always come home covered in dirt and our parents would get ever so angry, but we didn’t really care. Our games were all such good fun. One minute we would be red Indians looking out for cowboys, and the next we would be elegant princesses waiting to be rescued from our tower. We lived in a wonderful, magical world of make believe, just like little girls should. Not a care in the world. We would laugh and laugh until our bellies ached and tears streamed down our cheeks, the kind of laughter you forget as an adult. It was a fantastical, carefree, happy time. The best years of my life in many ways.