The Pupil

by Dawn Goodwin

  I flipped him my middle finger and carried on walking, a little of the old Kathy awakened inside of me.

  *

  I closed the front door and reached down to let Bert off his lead.

  ‘Hi Mam.’

  Bert rushed into the lounge to say hello to her and I wandered straight through to the kitchen with the sweating bag of food, my pulse still jangling from my run-in with Darren. The dinner trays were still stashed on the top of the cupboard – the same ones we had used when it was just Mam and me. I laid out cutlery and turned to fetch some plates, taking deep breaths.

  Her hushed slipper shuffle drew up behind me as I reached into the cupboard.

  ‘Don’t bother with plates. We can eat from the paper. Vinegar on?’ Mam asked.

  ‘Yes. Mr Liu says hello.’

  ‘Bless him. Did he send a battered sausage for Bert?’

  ‘He did – and extra scratchings.’

  ‘Grand. Did he tell you his wife died a year or so back? Probably all that chip fat they breathe in. He is lovely though. Such a thoughtful man.’

  I raised an eyebrow at her but didn’t say anything. I had a sneaky suspicion my mother was eating more chips than usual, which might explain her widening girth and the twinkle in her eye as she spoke about Mr Liu. She’d never admit it though. All men are bastards after all. That was practically my lullaby from the age of twelve.

  I placed the oily paper packages straight onto the trays and opened them up, releasing salt and vinegar tartness that set my mouth to watering instantly.

  Mam trundled back to the lounge and I carried her tray through for her, waiting until she’d settled in her chair before placing it on her lap. She began to break off bits of sausage for Bert, who sat obligingly at her feet, the slobber dripping from his jowls.

  I fetched my own tray and settled myself down on the couch as the instantly recognisable chords of the Coronation Street theme tune began to play. I dipped a chip into Mr Liu’s curry sauce and an overwhelming sense of nostalgia took me straight back to the years after my dad had left when it was just me and Mam.

  Time had a way of standing still here. When it came time for me to leave home, she had let me go for many reasons. She’d always wanted more for me than just settling down like most of the girls I knew. Pushing me to leave had been a way of avoiding the inevitable. But ultimately, I’d still done just that and failed her all the same.

  ‘You’re not eating.’ Mam’s voice cut into my thoughts. ‘You going to tell me what’s wrong yet?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong.’

  ‘You don’t normally just turn up on the doorstep.’

  ‘It’s fine, Mam.’

  She turned her attention back to the television and I tucked into the plate of food in front of me. Mr Liu still made a good batter and I wolfed it down. Paul would’ve been horrified at my table manners. Bert had finished his sausage and was now being hand-fed chips.

  In the ad break, I picked up my tray and wandered through to the kitchen, my dinner demolished and my belly swollen. I went back to collect Mam’s tray, stepping over a satisfied Bert who lay sated and snoring at her feet.

  As I returned to my seat, Mam said, ‘Is it man trouble? You fallen out with Paul?’

  ‘No, nothing like that.’

  ‘Oh god, it’s not something to do with that nasty business you got caught up in, is it?’

  I said nothing.

  ‘What happened to the book and that author who was helping you?’

  ‘Mam, I don’t want to talk about it.’

  She went quiet, but I could feel her eyes on me. The ads punctuated the silence between us.

  ‘I’ve told you before, you can’t trust a man and you certainly can’t pin your future on one. They always let you down. Has your father not taught you anything?’

  I had wondered how long it would take for her to mention him. When he’d left, my mother had given up on everything: her job, looking after herself, even looking after me to a certain extent. I learnt independence the hard way so that I could stand on my own two feet rather than relying on a man to prop me up.

  She had battled with depression, which meant holding down a job became difficult and I had never known what I would come home to on any given day. Of course, I had first-hand experience of it all now and understood, but back then I was just a kid trying to do my best. My mother’s sense of betrayal and hurt had been all-encompassing and she had never really recovered or let it go. She had exuded disappointment from every pore at her lot in life from the moment my father had left. Instead of cuddles, I got pep talks about aiming high and reaching for the stars, and not letting emotion cloud my ambitions – or worse, stony silence for days.

  ‘Don’t, Mam, please.’

  ‘Just don’t let a man ruin your life like he did mine, is all I’m saying. You’re more than that. I said that when you left, but you didn’t listen.’

  I sighed.

  ‘What? What have I said now?’ Mam glared at me.

  ‘Nothing.’ I stared resolutely at the television screen without seeing it.

  ‘You’re just like your father, you know.’ I’d heard this a few times over the years too. ‘Letting your heart rule over your brain. You always were a dreamer. Well, dreaming doesn’t do much good for people like us. That’s how you got yourself into trouble – too much dreaming and not paying attention.’

  She was another one that kept throwing past mistakes in my face. I couldn’t keep quiet any longer. ‘You never thought I would be successful anyway, did you? You would’ve preferred me to get myself a sensible little office job and to live a quiet life. Well, don’t worry, I’ve knocked the whole idea of being a writer wide. I got ahead of myself and let my heart rule my head just like you said. So much for being an independent woman with ambition.’

  ‘I never said you wouldn’t be successful as a writer. I just didn’t want you to waste your life chasing a dream that might not happen. At least you chose a man who can look after you, instead of a waster like I did. That’s something. And you came to your senses over that Darren, who was just like your father.’ She stared at the screen, her face drooping into her neck.

  My dad. He was like a shadow that hung over me. He hadn’t stayed in touch with me after he left, hadn’t even said goodbye, and I had no idea if he thought about me or remembered he even had a daughter. Would he be proud of the ghost I had become? At least my mother had always been there, even if she hadn’t been one for tactile displays of affection or soft words of encouragement.

  I reined myself in, like I always did. It wasn’t worth the argument. ‘I saw him at the chippy. Darren.’

  ‘Oh yeah? Smarmy git.’ We agreed on that at least. I smiled sadly.

  ‘For what it’s worth, I always thought Dad was a coward for leaving us. He was wrong for hurting us, particularly you, and I think he will likely have regretted it. But I also think you should’ve moved on.’

  ‘Moved on?’ Her voice was shrill. She finally turned away from the television and was almost threatening to get out of her chair. Bert looked from her to me, then got up and waddled from the room in the hope of staying out of the line of fire. ‘Don’t you think I’ve tried? But what did I have to move on to? There was nothing for me. I gave up everything to be his wife and your mother. I had a good job before I had you, but he wanted me to be at home. Then, when he left, it was too late for me to start again. Instead, I’m in the same house, in the same chair, eating the same fish and chips.’ She threw herself against the chair cushions, looking wretched.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mam. I’m just tired. I don’t want to argue with you. I just wanted to come and see you and Bert, spend some time at home and regroup. As I say, I’ve given up on the book and I’m concentrating on my family now.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have bothered coming back. There’s nothing here for you. You’re better off in London with your husband, your fancy house and children. Paul may not be very interesting, but he’s stood by you. That whole bu
siness, seeing you dragged through the papers like that, knowing the neighbours were whispering about it. It was a terrible time. But he stuck with you when other men wouldn’t have. God knows, it’s not like you were clever at academic subjects or anything at school. The pretty one, yes, but not the smartest. Mind, you could always tell a good story. Sure, you could’ve had a nice life here, but as a single mother probably if you’d stayed with Darren, working in Morrisons on the tills. That’s not what I wanted for you, but I told you nothing would come of the writing. It’s not for people like us, all these grand ideas of fame and fortune.’

  ‘You’re right. Moving away was not what I wanted, but I didn’t really have much of a choice, did I? I don’t think you ever asked me what I wanted then. You just packed me up and didn’t look back. And you never actually bothered to come and see for yourself what went on in scary, nasty London. Even when I was in trouble and needed you, you stayed away. Embarrassed by your own daughter. You’d rather hide in here in your chair with your daytime telly. And for the record, I haven’t failed at being a writer; I’ve just decided to put my children first for now. An unfamiliar concept, I know.’

  I wanted to say more, but bit down hard on my lip because I had already said too much, the years of frustration, loneliness and disappointment using me like a ventriloquist’s dummy. I pushed to my feet and stalked from the room, the air oppressive and suffocating. But as I went, I couldn’t help but see the hurt on her face all the same.

  I leaned over the kitchen sink, looking out at the dark backyard. I felt desolate. Bert came to rest his head on my foot. Guilt put its arms around me and, along with it, shame. I should never had said those things, I knew that, but there were only so many times my mother could push me. She wanted me to be independent, but not to follow my dreams. She wanted me to have a family, but didn’t approve of the man I had chosen. She wanted me to have a career, but scoffed at the choice I had made. She claimed to be my mother, but was never there when I needed her. I couldn’t win, no matter what I did, and the irony of it was that I had ended up exactly where she hadn’t wanted me to be: married, dependent on a man who made all of my decisions for me, victimised by my past mistakes, with all my teenage feistiness wrung out of me like dirty water.

  After taking a moment to slow my heart rate and diffuse my anger, I returned to the lounge.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mam. I should never had said those things. I was just angry, is all.’

  She had resumed staring at the screen and didn’t look at me. ‘You’ll be going first thing, will you?’

  I watched her for a moment, sadness weighing me down. ‘Yeah, the early train. I won’t wake you, so I’ll say goodbye now.’ I walked over and gave her a kiss on her weathered cheek. ‘Love you, Mam,’ I said quietly.

  I got no response, so grabbed my bag from the hallway and headed upstairs to my old bedroom.

  It was like a mausoleum, a monument to my childhood. Mam had made my bed up in my old duvet cover when I was out fetching the dinner, the red and yellow pattern a familiar friend. I ran my fingers down the bright, geometric-patterned wallpaper and flicked through the pages of the piles of novels still sitting on my desk: Wuthering Heights; Return of the Native; Jane Eyre – all the romantic novels I had devoured as a teenager and had wanted to emulate.

  I pulled open the wardrobe and musty air escaped, revealing Connect 4 and Operation on the shelves and my old jeans hanging on the rail. I pulled them off the hanger and marvelled at how much bigger I had been as a teenager, how I’d had to lie down on the bed and breathe in before I could do up the zip, too many chippie teas making the seams strain. I could wear these now and they’d be baggy.

  Peering into my bedside cabinet, I pulled out a pile of my old journals, each one dated and locked with a tiny padlock. My mother had bought me a new one every year from when I was about ten and I had written in it every night, the words on the lined pages comforting me more than any person could.

  I spread the journals out on the bed, desperate to reconnect with my teenage self when I was still a dreamcatcher. Reaching into the back of the drawer on my desk, my fingers felt around and found the familiar bunch of tiny keys for the padlocks.

  I pulled the curtains against the cold night and undressed down to my T-shirt and knickers. The room was stiflingly warm, but then Mam always had the heating ratcheted up.

  Lying beneath the duvet as the shadows drifted across the walls, I felt old feelings of resentment and injustice inching across my skin. My relationship with my mother had never been a loving one. Even before my dad had left, any affection had come from him, while Mam had lavished all of her attention on him. She had idolised him, her childhood sweetheart. After he left, my mother had gone into mourning for the man who had abandoned her. I then spent years trying to make up for his defection, to fill the crater he had left behind, to distract her by trying to make her proud. With no siblings to lean on, my predominant memory of my teenage years was loneliness.

  Perhaps that was why I had fallen so hard for Darren, hoping to mimic what my mother had had with my father, but more successfully. However, this time it had been me that had left him before he could leave me.

  I sat up late into the night reading the journals, my mind full of could’ve beens, wanting to weep for the mistakes I’d made. I had been on the right path for a while and a moment of carelessness had brought it all to an abrupt halt. Then, years later, another moment of carelessness and…

  I slammed the last journal shut. Why had I come back here? What had I hoped would happen? That my mother would give me a hug and offer me some sound advice? Tell me that I should follow my dream after all and make something of myself, even if I was almost forty years old and someone’s mum? There was a first time for everything, I suppose.

  Fury bubbled in the pit of my stomach the more I thought about it. I leaned over and shoved the journals into my bag to take back home with me, then pulled the duvet up higher, tucking it under my chin as though it could stifle the scream that was edging up my throat.

  I fell into a fitful sleep, in which I dreamt that I was pregnant, the labour long and torturous, the baby when it was born not human but a copy of my novel wrapped in a bright yellow velvet jacket. Darren stood by my bedside, laughing and saying, ‘I read it and thought it was shit.’

  I woke with the duvet strangling my legs, vinegar residue furring up my teeth and a dull ache in my temples. I looked at my watch and saw it was 6 a.m.

  I crept downstairs to find that Mam had fallen asleep in her armchair under a blanket, the television still on, the volume turned down low, with Bert curled up at her feet. I made a cup of tea and drank it in the kitchen, with the clock ticking in the silence and the sounds of Bert’s snores filtering through the thin walls. My mind was still now, the last threads of the dream dispersing into the morning.

  I quietly collected my bag, gave Bert one last tickle behind the ear, kissed my mother lightly on the cheek without waking her and headed towards the door.

  The darkness was losing substance around the edges as daylight made its presence felt, but I didn’t see any of it. I kept my head tucked down low and made my way back the way I had come.

  18

  I was a little late to step out of my front door later that afternoon, but I paused anyway, letting the weak wintry sun sit on my skin for a moment, my ears closed to the sounds of cars parking and mothers chatting as they rushed past the house on their way to collect their precious offspring from school. I still felt flat after seeing my mother and I needed to shake that off before I saw Paul. He had warned me not to go after all. He was always right.

  I walked quickly to the school gates, ignoring the other parents around me, oblivious now to the irrefutable dislike that emanated from them in waves. The air was alive with bursts of laughter as the children streamed out of the classrooms, their joy at being released tangible in the air.

  This was what was important. Not selfish goals and idealistic dreams, not people’s opinions and jud
gements, but the needs of my children. I had to put them first again. I had lost myself for a while, but I now accepted that this was my place. I waited in the main quadrangle, straining my neck to see over the heads of the heaving masses as I kept my eyes peeled for Lily and Jack. I could see Helen to my right and I waved.

  She threaded her way over and said, ‘You look better. Good trip home, I gather? Everything was fine yesterday, but you might have some making up to do with Paul. He was a bit chippy this morning. Sounds like the kids might have given him a hard time about bedtime or something.’

  ‘Oh, right, thanks for the heads-up.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘And thanks again for helping me out.’

  ‘Hey, any time. You’d do the same for me if I needed it.’

  I felt a tug on my arm and Jack was in front of me, eyes shining and a huge grin on his face. ‘Hey handsome!’ I said and pulled him into a firm hug.

  Helen smiled. ‘I’ll speak to you later,’ she said and moved off into the swarm.

  ‘Everything okay last night?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah, except dad wouldn’t let us watch the next episode of The Flash and then he sent us up to bed really early.’

  ‘Well, you know what he can be like. He likes his quiet time in the evenings, doesn’t he? And we have to respect that. Besides, it will have recorded, so you can watch it this afternoon as a special treat. We’ll make some popcorn and you, me and Lils will slob out on the couch and watch, okay?’ I smiled down at him. ‘Where is your sister anyway?’ I frowned and searched the faces around me, which were thinning rapidly now.

  ‘Her class was let out before mine. I saw her walking past our tutor room door, so she must be here somewhere.’

  There was now just a slow trickle of children and parents milling around, the initial rush of home time over, but Lily wasn’t among them. My eyes swept from one side of the courtyard to the other.

  ‘Did she say anything about a club after school? Does she have netball practice or anything like that?’ I asked Jack, trying not to let the unease I was feeling coat my words.