Jo said nothing, aware that, in point of fact, she had always held something of a grudge. No one could dispute that she’d been a dutiful daughter, cared for both her parents in their increasingly incapacitated old age but, as far as her mother was concerned, a certain coldness and distance had come between them all those years ago, and never quite disappeared. Her mother’s continuing phobia had both infuriated and baffled her, as something groundless, irrational and out of all proportion.
‘Or I hope at least you could understand,’ Michelle added, in a pleading tone, as if she, too, were begging forgiveness and compassion – from her boyfriend, perhaps, or from other friends whose lives she had curtailed.
Jo remained uncomfortably silent. No, she hadn’t understood – or not until this very moment, when all at once it dawned on her that, in 1954, her mother would have been much the same age as Michelle, and equally young and vulnerable; basically a decent, gentle person, but in the grip of something way beyond her control. Maybe, she, too, had suffered a trauma similar to Michelle’s, but would never have dreamed of mentioning it, of course, in those stoical, buttoned-up days. And, as for therapy, it was unheard of for working-class folk and way beyond her parents’ modest means.
‘I have to confess, Michelle,’ she said, at last, ‘I didn’t really understand or sympathize. You see, I’ve always been a fearless type of person, so my mother’s terror seemed – well, ludicrous.’
‘Oh, please don’t say that, Jo! I know people feel the same about me and it only makes me feel worse – guilty and selfish and ridiculous.’
I’m the one who should feel guilty, Jo reflected – guilty for her lack of empathy and understanding. In every other way, her mother had been a kind and caring parent, ashamed of her phobia, yet unable to overcome it; like Michelle in that respect. Yet, she, the obdurate daughter, had failed to show any pity or forbearance, but allowed one childhood incident to impair their whole subsequent relationship; even considered herself superior on account of her natural courage, which was simply a lucky accident, rather than a virtue on her part.
She turned round to glance at Michelle, struck by the unsettling fact that the girl did bear an uncanny resemblance to her mother at that age: the same dark eyes and thick, dark hair contrasting with the fragile, milk-pale skin; the fine-arched brows and delicate oval face. Crazy as it sounded – indeed, all the more crazy for someone who prided herself on her innate rationality – she had the peculiar sensation that this was, indeed, her mother, returned or reincarnated, to teach her a salutary lesson and enable her to make long-overdue amends.
‘Hey!’ the girl cried, springing up from the bench with a look of mingled triumph and relief. ‘My train’s approaching, the board says. Oh, thank God! Thank God! And thank you, too, Jo, for being so fantastically kind.’
Quick as the thought, Jo reached up with fumbling fingers and unclasped the gold chain round her neck. ‘Have this,’ she urged, pressing the pendant into Michelle’s hand. ‘It’s like a sort of talisman, to give you courage, keep you safe. It’s protected me all these years, but I’ve had my life, whereas yours is still in front of you, and I want you to feel safe, as well.’
‘What is it?’ Michelle asked, examining the image but clearly not recognizing St Christopher.
‘Just take it, please. There’s no time to explain.’ The train was already clattering into the station.
‘I couldn’t possibly! Gold’s worth a bomb, and this feels heavy and solid, and must be really valuable, so why the hell should you give it to a stranger? I’m the one who’s in your debt, not the other way round.’ Michelle thrust it back at Jo, then, as the doors slid open, darted into the carriage.
Jo, too, jumped on to the train, just for long enough to push the pendant deep into the girl’s coat-pocket. ‘You’re not a stranger, Michelle, and I do actually owe you something.’
‘But how could you? I don’t understand. I mean, you don’t know me from Adam, and—’
The doors were closing, cutting off Michelle’s bewildered remonstrations. Jo nipped off the train only just in time and with no chance to reply. No matter. The important thing was that, at last – and shamefully late – she had made some recompense to her misunderstood and unfairly undervalued mother.
And, extraordinarily, she felt lighter altogether, disencumbered from a burden she hadn’t realized she was carrying and she knew, in some mysterious, totally inexplicable way, that both she and her mother were finally at peace, and that even Michelle, now with St Christopher as her chaperon, would feel a shade less panicky when next confronted by a mouse.
Joy
JOY… .
So jubilant a word, Ken mused, should be rainbow-coloured, glitter-sprinkled, flower-garlanded and audibly Hosanna-ing. Yet, rather than whooshing high into the stratosphere, it was sitting in prim silence on several successive pages of Tesco’s glossy Gift Guide. Nonetheless, he had noticed it, if only for its frequency: six sightings in the guide, so far: first, embroidered on a scatter-cushion; then blazoned on a coffee-mug and on a blue enamelled plaque; next, as three separate letters suspended from a silver chain and, one page on, interspersed with the word ‘peace’ on a roll of festive wrapping paper and, finally, the shout-line on various Christmas decorations.
And, despite the lack of garlands and glitter, those three letters seemed to him the very essence of excess. Joy was a foreign country, as far beyond simple pleasure or contentment as Mount Everest was above Box Hill. A cup of coffee in Starbucks could afford a sense of enjoyment, a new library book even induce well-being, but joy spectacularly outsoared them, comprising, as it did, elements of ecstasy and bliss.
Closing the guide, he decided to make himself a cup of tea, inspired by the polka-dotted Tesco’s teapot, with its scarlet lid and spout. Since he had never owned any sort of teapot, he resorted to his usual cheapo teabag dumped in a plain white mug and, while waiting for the kettle to boil, continued to reflect on joy. Had he ever felt it and, if so, why and when? Not for decades, certainly. There was little in his current job in the back office of a recycling centre to cause his pulse to race or his heart to flutter, and, after work, it was straight home, most nights, to his cramped and lonely flat. Even on his pub evenings, joy was hard to come by, what with the inflated price of beer, the ever-increasing decibel-count of what passed for music there, and his colleagues’ habit of rarely allowing him a word in edgeways. Fine for them to label him ‘the quiet one’, when they never gave him a chance.
He took his tea back to the kitchen table, along with a couple of digestives, ruefully aware that, if he sought joy on the biscuit front, he should replace drab, workaday digestives with chocolate-coated, cream-filled confections, sumptuously basking in gold foil. Munching his modest, no-frills biscuit, he tried transforming every bite into heavenly ambrosia – not easy, when the digestive was dry and semi-stale.
However, he did strike gold when, still in search of joy, he began taking stock of his childhood and, suddenly, miraculously, a few long-forgotten memories exploded into life. Yes, he had felt joy, as a six-year-old, at his first sight of the sea – a sea stretching away, away, away, into a far-distant bluey mist, yet which also kept rushing forward in frantic, foamy frills, to thresh around his legs. And, five years later, when he landed his first fish off Brighton Pier, the experience had definitely been joyous. Admittedly, he’d caught only a small pout-whiting, but it was still a source of secret pride; making him almost equal to the gnarled old anglers hunkered down beside him, with their impressive hauls of plaice and dab. Then, two years on, he was fishing again, this time by the River Wey, when he had actually spotted a real live adder swimming right towards him, in a wriggly but determined manner, as if wanting to join him on the bank and whisper something mysteriously snaky into his waiting ear.
But, after that, joy had seemed to vanish. Adolescence brought bashfulness and blushes, acne outbreaks and a new, treacherous voice that kept plunging disconcertingly from baritone to squeak. As for girls, humiliat
ion had been more the general theme than any sort of bliss. Devoutly Catholic Eileen had refused to allow him so much as a kiss; Kirsty had dumped him for a football star, and adorable Susanna had coolly informed him she’d outgrown him, after a mere three months. And, as the years rolled on and somehow he’d reached fifty-five, still with scant success, it was clear that he had ‘missed the boat’, to use his sister Tessa’s phrase. Tessa, in contrast, was happily married with a brood of kids and grandkids, and a husband so faithful and attentive, he resembled a soppy but devoted Labrador.
On impulse, he grabbed his mobile and, after the usual dutiful preliminary enquiries about the health of her numerous tribe, put the crucial question: had she ever experienced joy?
‘Joy?’ she repeated, sounding a little nonplussed.
‘Yes, joy, the real McCoy – it even rhymes, you see! I’m not talking about run-of-the-mill contentment, but something more akin to rapture.’
‘Oh, I see. Yes, definitely – when each of my kids was born, especially the first. I can’t tell you the elation I felt when the midwife laid Sammy in my arms. I just couldn’t stop smiling, Ken, like an Olympian who’d been awarded triple gold. And the whole world seemed a better place, as if all its wars and troubles had ended at that very moment.’
Ken said nothing, unsure how to react. From what he had seen of childbirth on TV, it was a messy, gory, agonizing business – in fact, one of the few things that made him glad to be male.
‘And, before that, on my wedding day, I certainly felt joy – I mean, to be marrying my childhood sweetheart, and both of us ecstatically in love. And also being the star of the show in that dress-to-die-for, and with all my friends cheering me on, and Dad in tears of emotion and… .’
Ken, for his part, remembered the wedding as something of a trial, drawing unwelcome attention to his own failure in the marriage department. And the celebrations had been so relentlessly protracted, he’d been drooping by the end of the reception and had to steel himself to face the raucous disco-dance, which whooped on till the early hours. But then he was probably just a party-pooper – in which case he didn’t deserve joy.
‘And I felt joy again this very week, when I took Will and Daisy to the Arndale Shopping Centre, to visit Santa’s Grotto. They’d already written their letters to him, which they posted in this big red mail-box, just outside the entrance to his grotto. Then, in we went, and Santa sat them down and asked them if they were good children and always did what Grandma told them – giving me a complicit wink, at that point. And, when they lied through their teeth and said they were little angels, he promised to try to give them exactly what they’d asked for in their letters. And I was over the moon, Ken, just to see their delight. I mean, they were tickled pink by it all: the elves, the sleigh, the reindeer, the bulging sack of presents, the showers of fake snow falling over the grotto.…’
Tessa’s voice had taken on a lyrical note, causing Ken to wish that he could share her rosy view of defiant Daisy and stubborn Will – not that they were any worse than other small-fry grandchildren. Kids, in general, seemed inevitably to bring chaos, noise, disruption, in their wake.
‘But, listen, Ken, talking of Christmas, I do wish you’d change your mind about coming over to our place. I hate to think of you stuck on your own in that poky flat of yours. At least, if you joined us, you’d have a decent meal.’
‘I’ll be fine – I’ve told you, Tessa. Christmas is only another day.’
‘It’s not – it’s special, especially with a family around you.’
Yes, that was the trouble. He always felt spare at Tessa and Gordon’s – the bashful uncle and great-uncle, who still hadn’t learned the knack of bonding with small children, and felt equally ill at ease with their successful, sophisticated parents, all of whom had high-powered jobs, stylish cars and well-honed multi-tasking skills. Forget multi-tasking – it was all he could do to drink his tea whilst completing his trawl through the Gift Guide. And success had been sadly lacking. He had still failed to make any decision about what to buy for Norah, because every time he lighted on something vaguely appropriate, he would worry she might think it odd for him to be giving her a gift at all. Admittedly, he was in her debt, since she had returned his thick, black, woolly gloves, which he’d left behind on the counter last time he was in the newsagent’s. She had waited till the shop shut, then come all the way in the dark and cold, so that he wouldn’t be without them in the present biting weather.
‘Won’t you stop for a coffee?’ he had dared to say, feeling touched, embarrassed, flustered all at once.
‘I’d love to, but it’s late and I still have masses to do.’
Although disappointed, he was nonetheless emboldened by her ‘I’d love to’ – so much so that, once she had left, he stretched out on his bed and pretended she had accepted the coffee. Soon, they had progressed to sherry and a little cosy hand-holding and, eventually, he’d coaxed her to join him on the narrow divan – and, well, after that, it had been fireworks all the way.
‘Ken, are you still there?’
‘Yes. Sorry, Tessa.’
‘Did you hear what I just said?’
‘Er, no.’
‘I asked if you’d consider coming just for Christmas Day. I know you don’t like staying the night and, with such a full house, it’s true there won’t be much peace and quiet. But at least you’d have a few hours of fun, if you came for lunch and tea.’
‘Fun’ was almost as challenging as joy. He suspected he’d been born without the ‘fun’ gene – proof that he was a misery. ‘But how could I get there, Tessa? All public transport grinds to a halt on Christmas Day.’
‘No problem. Gordon can come and fetch you in the car. It would have to be early, mind, so he’d get back before the others arrive.’
‘It’s a lovely idea, but an awful drag for poor Gordon. And, if he had to drive me back in the evening, he wouldn’t even be able to drink. And, anyway, Tess, I’ve told you, I’ll be perfectly OK.’ In fact, it would be something of a relief not to be surrounded by so-called festive cheer. The Gift Guide had already set him wondering if he was the only Tesco customer who didn’t need Christmas cards or crackers, tinsel, baubles, decorations, holly wreaths, fairy lights, Santa-printed aprons, poinsettia-patterned tablecloths. And, if so, wasn’t that a sad reflection on his isolated (selfish) life?
‘You’ve gone all quiet again. What’s wrong, Ken?’
‘Nothing.’ He forced a smile into his voice, to reassure her.
Once he had managed to ring off (declining further invitations for New Year’s Eve and Twelfth Night), his mind leapfrogged back to Norah. Motherly, kind and appealingly chubby, she was his ideal type of female. And he had a feeling she’d be a first-rate cook – not the glamorous Nigella Lawson sort, but homely and unthreatening, happily rustling up sultana scones in some cosy little kitchen, her large, maternal breasts half-hidden by a gingham overall. Secretly, he longed to give her something intimate to wear against her soft, pink, yielding skin, but that would seem brazenly presumptuous when they were still strangers, more or less. He didn’t even know her surname, or where she lived, or whether she already had a gentleman-friend. Mercifully, she didn’t wear a wedding ring, which at least allowed him to imagine taking her to bed without feeling like an adulterer.
He turned back to Tesco’s Top Ten Gift Ideas but, as before, nothing seemed quite suitable. Chocolates were unoriginal, books and music a minefield when he had no idea of her tastes, a ‘Down-the-Hatch’ hip-flask positively insulting, and the set of three body butters was, again, too blatant, although it sparked enticing pictures of her ample body glistening with cocoa butter. As for the scarlet cushion emblazoned with the word LOVE, well, that was a tad premature, considering their current non-relationship. Since early October, when she had first come to work at Martin’s, they couldn’t have exchanged more than fifty words, in total.
Aware he had made no progress on either the romantic or the present-buying front, he abandoned
the Gift Guide and resolved to venture out to a proper store, where there would be a much wider choice. Besides, distraction was always welcome on a Saturday, when time could hang heavy without an immediate family, or a zillion Facebook friends to impress with the latest photos of his white-water-rafting or camel-trekking exploits. If only. Even his recent timid day-trip to Calais, on the ferry, had brought little but successive bouts of humiliating seasickness.
However, despite his gammy leg, he could just about make it to the shops and, in fact, he decided to copy Tessa and head to the Arndale Centre – not her branch, of course (miles too far) but his local one, a short train-ride away. Relieved to have a plan, he set out for the station, his spirits so revived, he actually found himself humming Good King Wenceslas and tapping his stick in time to the catchy tune.
‘You can’t go wrong with toiletries, sir.’
‘Even for someone I hardly know?’
‘Absolutely. One of these gift-sets here would be perfect for that very situation – not too personal, yet universally acceptable. How about the Coty L’Aimant?’
‘Er, no,’ he mumbled, hoping the sales assistant, a terrifying female, with four-inch talons and six-inch heels, wouldn’t regard him as ‘picky’ or ‘difficult’. But he seemed to remember from his schooldays that L’Aimant had something to do with love, and Norah might regard it as impertinent for him to be galloping towards romance at so reckless and unwarranted a pace.
‘Or Dolce and Gabbana are always very popular. This particular set is called “The One” and, as you can see, it’s beautifully boxed.’
Norah might be ‘The One’ in his fantasies, but there was a distressing possibility that she had forgotten his existence, in which case it would be a trifle bold to trumpet her exclusivity in gold letters on a gift-box. ‘I need something a little more … neutral.’
Bad Mothers Brilliant Lovers Page 2