I smile as the lift takes me down, imagining Mum breaking out and running away to the library. I know it’s been hard on Gran, what with Mum scaling fences and sneaking under tripwires and laser beams. But somehow it makes me feel invincible too.
As the doors slide open I see Zach sitting opposite the lift, reading a paper. I press the CLOSE DOORS button again several times, and the person who is standing outside waiting to go up in the lift repeatedly presses the CALL LIFT button. As our thumbs battle it out for maybe fifteen seconds, Zach looks up and sees me.
“Caitlin!” He calls out my name as though we are old friends. Short of going back upstairs with the man I have already annoyed, there is nothing I can do to avoid him.
Reluctantly, I concede defeat, stepping out of the lift as the victor barges past me, muttering under his breath. I stay where I am and let Zach, if that is even really his name, come to me, because there is a CCTV camera pointing right at the lift doors.
“Are you stalking me?” I ask him, although admittedly it does seem preposterous that a man wearing black-and-white-checked skinny jeans, a wine-colored shirt and yet another waistcoat would try to stalk anyone, apart from maybe the person who told him those trousers were a good idea. All he’s missing is an ill-advised trilby.
“No! Well, a bit.” He offers me a small folded-up square of paper. “I found this. You left it on the bar. I’m sorry, but I read it.”
I take the piece of paper. I don’t need to look at it to know that it is my list.
“So, now you know a little more about a complete stranger who means nothing to you, so what?” I say. “You just turn up at my hotel, in a textbook example of extreme weirdness?”
“I wanted to make sure you are okay,” Zach says. “I mean, yesterday, it must have been hard for you, to see your father that way, without him knowing about you. Especially…you know, in…um…”
“In my condition? Why is it that men just can’t say the word ‘pregnant’?” I raise an eyebrow. I cannot work him out. What is he doing here? What on earth is in it for him? “Look, are you some sort of religious nutter?” I ask him. “Is this about getting me into a cult, or something? Because I’ve read about it, how they get good-looking people to go and flirt with the vulnerable, and the next thing you know you’re living in the middle of Kansas married to a man with a beard and sixteen sister-wives.”
“So, you think I’m good-looking, then?” Zach grins and I blush at once, which infuriates me, because despite the fact that he dresses like a popstar who shops at Topman, he is undeniably attractive—which makes me even more cross, because I am quite obviously not in any position to be finding boys attractive, especially strange boys who turn up unannounced, for no apparent reason.
“Oh my God, what are you doing here?” I ask him again, exasperated with myself as much as with him. “What business of yours can it possibly be?”
“It’s not, I suppose,” Zach says. He looks awkward and embarrassed. “I thought…you know, you’re far away from home and pregnant, and you’ve never met your dad. I just thought that…you maybe could use a friend.”
“You’re a pervert,” I say. “You are one of those perverts that fancies pregnant women. You’re a cult-joining, pregnant-woman-fancying pervert.”
“You don’t meet a lot of nice people, do you?” Zach frowns and smiles at the same time.
“Don’t feel sorry for me!” I order him, with one outstretched finger, raising my voice so that the people on the front desk look up.
“Look, why don’t we have a coffee, in there.” He nods toward the bar. “And, as an ice-breaker, you can tell me your other theories on my psychosis, and maybe neither of us will get arrested or thrown out for causing a commotion, and you’ll see I’m just a bloke who is, oddly, pretty decent.”
He seems so easy, so happy in his own skin, as though turning up unannounced at the hotel of a person you have only met fleetingly, with some unasked-for offer of solidarity, is the most normal thing in the whole wide world. I can’t make sense of his being here, apparently just for me.
“You don’t understand it, do you?” he says, thinking for a moment. “Look, I’m not from a cult, I’m not a pervert who’s only into pregnant women—although I would say that finding pregnant women attractive isn’t necessarily intrinsically wrong. But my mum brought me up to be really, really nice. She had this crazy obsession with turning me into a decent sort of person, one who gives a damn about the world and the people in it. I went through a rebellious phase when I was fifteen, and for about four years did exactly the opposite of everything she’d taught me to, and lost a lot of people who cared about me, did some stuff I shouldn’t have, and then I realized that life was miserable—that it sucked. I finally got that my mum was right. The world is a nicer place when you care about people. Which is kind of sappy, but there you go. I’m a sappy bloke.”
“Is your mum Mother Teresa?” I ask him.
“No.” He smiles. “She died, actually. When I was fifteen. Lung cancer. She never smoked, but she worked in pubs most of her life, so…”
“My mum is dying,” I say. “Well, not dying, exactly. She has early-onset familial Alzheimer’s, and there’s a fifty percent chance that one day I might get it too.”
There’s silence—just a beat when nothing happens, except the chatter in the hotel lobby and the dim rush of traffic outside the building.
“You’re having a really stressful time,” he says. And it’s not a question, or a platitude: it’s just a statement of fact and, for some reason, hearing someone else say the words out loud is quite calming. Yes, it helps: to acknowledge that I am having a really stressful time. I feel better.
“So, do you want a coffee?” I ask him. “You can help me plan how I introduce myself to my dad.”
“Does this mean you’ve stopped thinking I am either going to induct you into a cult or try to abduct you?” Zach asks me cheerfully.
“No,” I say. “But I’ve got no one else to talk to, so I’ll chance it.”
—
It was not as easy as I first assumed it was going to be to get into the English Department building. You needed to scan your ID card electronically, or have a staff ID pass.
“Well,” I say to Zach, “give me yours, and I’ll use that to whiz in before anyone notices I’m not in a boy band.”
Zach grins. “My card won’t work in there. I’m only in catering.”
“Your student card, then?” I demand, holding the palm of my hand out flat.
“I’m not a student,” he says.
“Yes, you are!” I’m brought up short by this. I mean, why would anyone my age be hanging around a university campus, working in a university bar, if he’s not a student? “You said you were a photography student?”
“A photographer, not a student of photography. And I’m a skint one, so I work in the bar to help me pay the bills. I’m not ready to do weddings yet. Not quite yet. Maybe this time next year, if I haven’t had my big break.”
“Where do photographers get big breaks?” I ask him, diverted from my real purpose.
“Well, I’ve yet to quite work that out,” he says. “But I’m sure there are big breaks for photographers. Somewhere out there.”
“And if that fails, you’ve got the right haircut for The X Factor,” I say.
I like the fact that he is not a student, and that he doesn’t seem to have much of a life plan apart from avoiding wedding photography and being a decent person. I like his lack of a life plan.
“So,” he says. “We’ll have to bluff our way in.”
“What?” I question him in an unfeasibly high voice.
“Yep, I’ve seen it in the movies all the time. Come on.”
A little dumbfounded, I follow him into the faculty block’s reception, where he leans across the desk and twinkles at the woman—and I mean twinkles. One look at him and she is more or less melting over the desk. It’s ridiculous.
“Hey,” he says, and she giggles. I almost
want to reach over and shake her, and tell her to stop it, but then I remember that he is using his superpowers for good—for my good, anyway—and I restrain myself.
“We’ve got an appointment with Paul.”
“Sumner or Ridgeway?” the girl simpers.
“Sumner,” he says. “Sorry, to me, he’s always just Paul.”
“And how do you know him?” she asks, completely inappropriately in my view, and obviously in a desperate bid to strike up a conversation with a man who could easily be my boyfriend, as far as she knows. It’s women like her that hold back the march of feminism.
“He’s her dad,” he says, nodding at me. “This is Caitlin.”
“Oh!” The girl looks at me in genuine surprise. She has only just noticed that I am there. “I didn’t know he had older kids.”
“From a previous relationship,” I say, wondering exactly how come I am revealing my secret past to this woman and not my father.
“Oh, well, you’d better go up, then. Just push on the gate when I press the buzzer, and go through.” She beams at Zach again, and lets us into the faculty building.
“Shall I call up, let him know you are on your way?”
“Oh no, thanks,” Zach says. “We want to surprise him.”
“How can we surprise him if we have an appointment with him?” I hiss, as we make our way up the stairs to the third floor, where he has an office.
“Luckily, we weren’t trying to get past your steel trap of a mind,” Zach says, clearly enjoying himself far too much. “We’re in, aren’t we? And we didn’t lie very much, so that’s a good thing.”
“You are so strange,” I say, as we stop outside Paul Sumner’s office. I can hear his voice on the other side of the door. “There’s someone in there. We’ll wait for them to come out, and then I’ll knock.”
“Yep,” Zach agrees. “And what are you going to say?”
“I have no idea,” I say. “I’ll just explain that…I’ll apologize for being weird, and then I’ll tell him who I am. And then…”
The office door opens, and a pretty young girl walks out, clutching folders to her chest, her cheeks two bright-pink full stops.
“He’s a fucking bastard,” she tells me, then marches off down the corridor.
“Oh, good,” I say.
“I’ll wait out here,” Zach says. “I’ll be here when you come out.”
I pause. Somehow I expected him to come with me. But of course he wouldn’t—that would be weird. Weirder. Another student, a boy this time, lumbers up the corridor looking half asleep.
“Quickly,” Zach says, “or you might miss your chance.”
And before I know what’s happening, I open the door. Paul looks up from some papers he is reading, and recognizes me. I’m the crazy girl from his lecture—the strange girl from the bar.
“Can I help you?” he asks me, looking puzzled.
And there really is nothing else to do but to say it.
“Do you remember my mum, Claire Armstrong?” I ask him, as I close the door behind me.
He smiles. “Claire, yes, I remember Claire. Claire is your mum? Why didn’t you say so? Of course I remember Claire. My first love, how could I forget?”
He is beaming. He looks so happy to hear her name that I smile too, and then the tears come, filling my eyes, and I can’t stop them.
“Oh, look…” He passes me a box of tissues. “I’m sorry. I don’t even know your name.”
“I’m Caitlin,” I say. “Caitlin Armstrong. I’m twenty.”
“So nice to meet you, Caitlin,” he says. “You look like her, you know. I knew there was something about you, when you sat in the lecture yesterday, something I recognized, but I just couldn’t place it. But, yes. Different coloring, of course, but other than that…You look just like her.”
I just sit and stare at him, taking him in. He has kind eyes, and his smile when he heard Mum’s name was warm and friendly.
“So are you studying in Manchester? How is Claire? I’ve often wondered what happened to her. I always thought I’d see her name up in lights somewhere. She had something about her. Something that set her apart.”
“Um…” I take a breath. “I don’t study in Manchester. I came here to see you. Mum told me to come, because she is ill and she thought it was time that I met you.”
“Met me?” Paul asks, looking confused. “I mean, if there is anything I can do to help…”
“I don’t know if there is,” I say. “But, um, the thing is…Paul, I’m sorry because I know this is going to be a shock to you, but you are my father.”
Paul stares at me for the longest time, and I’m wondering if he is noticing that my eyes are as black as his, and that our hair has exactly the same kink in it. Or that the tops of our thumbs are square. I wonder if he is noticing these things.
“Look, young lady,” he says, standing up abruptly, “you don’t turn up at someone’s place of work and come out with rubbish like that, okay? I am not your father, and I’m sorry that you have got it into your head that I am, but I am not. Your mum and I split up a long time ago, and there was no pregnancy. She would have told me. She would have let me know. And I don’t know if this is because your mother is ill—which I am very sorry to hear, by the way—and you’ve been rooting around in her past and trying to make sense of things…I am sympathetic, I am. But I am not your father, and you need to go now.”
He stands up and goes to the door, opening it.
“She never told you about me,” I say, not budging an inch toward the door. “Or me about you. I always pretended I was made in a test tube.”
“Oh God.” Paul looks horrified, frightened, sick. “Look, you must be going through a terrible time, but I am not your father.”
“Yes, you are. Mum told me you were, right after they diagnosed her with Alzheimer’s, and she wouldn’t lie.”
“Alzheimer’s?” Paul repeats the word. “Oh, Caitlin, the same disease as her dad?”
“Yes,” I say. “Yes, it runs in the family. And that’s why she told me about you. She wants me to have a family.”
“Oh, Caitlin,” he says again. “I’m not your father. I can’t be. Look, if it’s Alzheimer’s, well, haven’t you ever thought that maybe Claire is remembering it wrong? Maybe it’s all in her head?”
“No,” I say. “Mum wouldn’t lie about this.”
thursday, july 26, 2001
claire
This is the daisy chain that Caitlin made the summer she was nine, and this is the cover of the copy of Jane Eyre that it has been pressed in up until now. My copy of this novel has been so well read, so many times, that the cover all but fell off when I was looking for the daisy chain, and I think it’s right that the two things stay together. Two things that represent such a wonderful time in my life.
I was out of a job that summer—between jobs, if you like. I was still looking for my first proper teaching job, and we didn’t have very much money at all. We lived in this little two-bedroom Victorian terrace that I rented. It was a pretty little house, but it was a winter house, meant for cozy evenings in front of the fire. Even though that summer was blazing hot, the house remained cool and dark inside, like another world altogether, and so I would take Caitlin out as much as possible. I had this old picnic basket that used to be Mum’s, and that I had rescued when she wanted to throw it out, because I’d always loved to play with it as a little girl. It was a proper, woven basket, with a red gingham lining. Once, it came with a full set of white china plates and proper metal cutlery, but by the time I had full ownership of it, all of the plates and most of the cutlery had gone. I still loved it, though. I packed it up with sandwiches and bottles of pop, and with the sun beating down on our heads as we went to the park, I felt like I was leading a perfect life. A perfect mother, with a perfect daughter, and my not-so-perfect picnic basket.
We took books to the park. I was lucky that Caitlin loved to read as much as I did. Often, she’d be off, chasing ducks or imagining some g
ame, usually on her own but sometimes with school friends she’d bump into. But most of the time she liked to sit next to me, and we’d read. She had a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. I was reading Jane Eyre again.
One sleepy afternoon, lying under the branches of a cedar tree, she put her book down and rolled onto her side. “What’s it about, Mum?” she asked me.
“It’s about a young woman, an orphan, who is left to fend for herself in the world. When she is about your age, she is sent to a horrible, horrible school, and when she is older she becomes a governess at this big old scary house, which is full of dark secrets.”
“Is there magic?” she asked me.
“Not the wand-waving sort,” I said. “But I think it’s magical. I always have.”
“Will you read it to me?” she asked me, lying on her back and looking up at the branches of the trees. I felt sure that she would get bored before I’d even read a chapter, and go back to Harry Potter, or spot a friend on the other side of the park and run off to play. But she didn’t. She listened, her eyes open, gazing up at the dark, cathedral branches of the trees, as though she could see the book playing out among them.
Every day we’d come out into the blazing July sun, and I’d read to her, for almost a week. And she’d listen, sometimes sitting up, and once making this daisy chain, which for a few short hours she wore on her head like a crown. They were some of the happiest days I can remember, those moments when something that I have loved since I was a child became something that she loved too. And all of the darkness and chaos of Rochester and Jane’s romance became entwined with the light and joy of that summer. I picked her daisy chain up off the grass at the end of one day, and pressed it in the back of the book.
The Day We Met Page 21