by Louise Voss
I was rarely out for more than twenty minutes, and I always took a rape alarm with me. Some nights I even dressed up – not short skirts and high heels; but just a bit of mascara, black trousers and a swirly hairdo – so I could pretend that I was an ordinary nineteen year old, coming home from an ordinary night down the pub. On those nights I walked briskly, purposefully, clutching my empty handbag firmly under my arm.
I walked down to Ealing Broadway, glancing in the windows of a few bars and pubs to see people drinking and having fun. I saw girls laughing and flirting, leaving lipstick imprints on their wineglass rims; and I wanted to press my own lips up against the glass of the windows. I wanted to leave my mark somewhere.
Sometimes I even saw girls I’d been to school with. Half of me wanted to go in and talk to them; but the shy part of me knew that I never would. It was enough, really, just to see that life was going on without me. I realised that this sounded horribly self-pitying, but it was true.
I could’ve got a babysitter for Stella, and gone out for real, if I’d really put my foot down. But she was so clingy, those first few months, that if I even tentatively mentioned that my friend Esther had rung to invite me to a party, Stella’s eyes would get huge with panic, her voice instantly thick with tears, and she’d whisper ‘please don’t leave me.’ And that would be that.
Other nights I just meandered about, up and down the residential streets near our house, my head dragging with grief, stumbling and blinded by the tears that I couldn’t shed in front of Stella. I’d walk to the nearest bench and sit down, pulling my knees up under my chin, not caring who saw me crying. I wanted to be rescued: I didn’t care who by. I wanted someone to take the burden off my shoulders and the decisions out of my hands.
There was no way I’d ever have told that to the camera, though.
Chapter 2
‘So, tell me about this book you used to read Stella. What’s it got to do with the man on the tube?’
‘It was called ‘Are You My Mother?’. It’s a really sweet book, about this baby bird who hatches just after his mother’s gone to look for some food for him. He jumps out of the nest and goes to find her, only he doesn’t know what she looks like, so he goes up to all these different animals and asks them if they’re his mother, but of course none of them are. In the end he gets so desperate that he’s asking aeroplanes and ocean liners and, eventually, this big scary digger…
‘Oh no. I can’t believe that even telling you about this is making me sad. It’s a kid’s book…that’s ridiculous. Sorry. I’m a bit emotional at the moment, what with one thing and another. Can we stop for a bit?’
I probably hadn’t given Are You My Mother? a thought for fifteen years. It was Stella’s favourite book when she was three years old. I read it to her, every single night for months, over and over again until the words were printed indelibly on my mind. I could still remember most of them, the same way that you remember all the lyrics to certain pop songs even though you never consciously learned them in the first place.
At that stage, Stella couldn’t read, but familiarity had branded the text into her head too. She used to recite every sentence along with me, verbatim; cackling and squirming with a toddler’s heartlessness at the subtle pathos of the story. If I ever tried to miss out a single line, or, God forbid, skip a page, it provoked a storm of protest.
Mum had worried when the book first came into our household; a birthday gift from Stella’s rather tactless godmother. Mum even took me aside and asked if I was OK about it, since I was the one who’d have to read it - I was, officially, on permanent bedtime story duty.
‘I could get rid of it, Emma darling, really,’ she’d said. ‘I could just put it in a bag for jumble before we’ve even read it to her, and she’ll never miss it, not with all these other presents’.
I was touched by Mum’s unwarranted concern - until she mentioned it, I hadn’t thought twice about its subject matter. After that, though, I did feel a bit funny the next few times I read it. I supposed, subconsciously, I did identify with that poor lost baby bird when I was thirteen years old. Although back in those days, I had Mum and Dad, so why would I need to look for my real mother?
In the book, of course, it all worked out in the end. The scary digger picked up the bird in his scoop and popped him back into the nest, just as the mother flew home, worm in beak. Mum used to snort through her nose at this part of the book. ‘Typical,’ she said. ‘The mother comes back, completely oblivious to the fact that her baby’s even left the nest. She’d be appalled if she knew what he’d been up to, talking to all kinds of strangers and getting himself in trouble! He should have just stayed put and waited patiently.’
That was one of the things I really liked about Mum. For a scientist, she got really passionate about things. Sometimes we used to actually act out the entire plot of Are You My Mother?, after I’d finished reading it. Stella would be curled up as the egg, and I’d pretend to sit on her. I’d fly away and look for a worm, Stella would hatch out, and Mum would put on silly voices for all the animals she approached in her search. If any of my friends had ever seen me participate in this little charade, I would have had to kill myself. Obviously.
After six or seven months of daily recitations and numerous dramatic productions, even Stella eventually got sick of Are You My Mother? To my great relief, she gradually stopped declining the offers of other bedtime books, and we got into, respectively, The Diggingest Dog, Hop on Pop, and The Tiger Who Came To Tea. By the time she was four, she could read herself and she didn’t need my services so much anymore. Instead, more often than not, she read to her two imaginary friends, Gunk and Marmalay, the ones who lived inside the lamp-post on the pavement. They were allowed into the house just once a day, so that Stella could read them a bedtime story.
Things had changed so much since then. Now, seeing that desperate, abandoned-looking man howling on a tube train, staring at me as if I might just be his salvation – well, it made me realise that, like the baby bird, it was time I did a little searching of my own.
The train eventually, finally, vibrated back into life with a whirr and a reluctant whine. After a further few seconds it hauled itself down the remainder of the track to Notting Hill, and the doors slid open. I stood up, still gazing into the green eyes in front of me. Then I bent down and picked up the two halves of the verruca leaflet, just because I couldn’t stand litter in trains.
Finally, and maybe because on all those cold nights walking around, I’d so passionately wanted someone to do this for me, I took the man by the hand and led him out of the carriage at Notting Hill station. Before I even had time to think about it, I’d escorted him calmly up the escalators to the main ticket hall. Passengers descending on the opposite escalator sailed past us in a blur of incredulous features and unsubtle stares as the man keened and wailed; his dirty hand clasped in mine. I gazed grimly at the caked-in grime between the metal corrugations of the escalator stairs, stabbed with a sudden desire to scrub them out with a toothbrush; to make them shiny and new again.
Back in the bowels of the tunnel, the doors once more slammed shut and the train continued on, oblivious to the small but life-changing event which had just occurred on board.
It was the most out of character thing I had ever done, in my whole life.
Chapter 3
‘What did Stella think, of you leading this man off the tube? Was that when you told her about wanting to look for your birthmother?’
I couldn’t tell Stella about the man straight away. What with the shock of everything else that happened that evening, it took me a couple of days to summon up the energy to relate the story at all. And it was much, much longer before I told her about the decision regarding my mother.
When I finally mentioned the encounter on the train, Stella looked at me with an expression of such distilled horror that it was almost comical, and I wished I’d kept quiet.
‘You’re out of your mind,’ she screeched, rolling the stud which pierce
d her tongue around and around her mouth, as far as its bolt would allow it to travel, teasing it against her top teeth so it stuck out between her lips like a metal full-stop at the end of her sentences. I thought it was a good thing the stud was screwed down on both sides, otherwise she’d definitely have swallowed it.
‘I mean it, Emma, that is the most insane thing I’ve ever heard. What the hell got into you? I’ve seen men like that on trains, ranting away – Christ, everyone has. They’re unbalanced. They kill people, Emma – he could’ve had a machete under his coat, or anything. He might not have realised you were trying to help him; he could easily have lashed out at you! It’s that Care in the Community thing, isn’t it; well, it just doesn’t work, and you might have ended up as another statistic, and then where would I be?’
I was torn between being impressed that Stella was even aware of the Care in the Community scheme, and irritated by her selfishness.
‘Oh cheers, Stell – I’d be dead, but all you’re worried about is where that would leave you? Well, I’m touched by your concern but as you can see, I’m fine. I just felt sorry for him, OK? I’m not saying I’d do it again, but it felt right at the time. Don’t give me a hard time about it, I’ve got enough else to worry about.’
Stella suddenly leaned across and hugged me wordlessly. She smelled of teenager’s make-up – cheap sparkly tubes of things - and, even in November, she smelled of summer. It occurred to me that her freckles probably contained slow-release sunshine. Our mother had freckles like that too. Stella looked more like her every day.
The man and I had eventually got up to the relative safety of the ticket office. A flower stall blazed a riot of colour in the tunnel leading to the exits, and I gulped down the beauty of fresh green leaves and velvet petals; yellow, orange, crimson, blue, the blessed shades of life. Every other person passing through the station seemed to be staring, riveted, at me as I stood frozen to the spot, just by the turnstiles. I tried to drop the man’s hand but he wouldn’t let go. I felt as if he and I were at the centre of that time-lapse cinematography where we stood still and everyone else whizzed past us in a blur of speeded-up film. The man seemed to be simmering quietly, seething with some sort of suppressed emotion. I was afraid to imagine what.
In a funny kind of way he reminded me of a pregnant woman. Through my association with GP surgeries and ante-natal clinics, I’d massaged quite a few, over the years, and some of them exuded a definite air of panic. I supposed it was the sensation of being out of control, powerless. All those hormones whirling around, carefully maintained bodies suddenly exploding in all directions. It must be awful if you didn’t want the baby, and just about bearable if you did. It was always a shock to me, how many of them felt so ambivalent about it.
Of course, I thought, he probably doesn’t have a ticket. He didn’t look strong enough to vault over the turnstile, and now a small cluster of uniformed London Underground officials had assembled at a safe distance, clearly wondering whether to intervene or not. I was still holding his hand – for all they knew, he might be mentally disturbed and I his carer. I felt as if this was true, but tried to swallow the thought, for that implied even more of a responsibility towards him. He smelled so bad that my eyes were watering, and I found myself taking tiny little huffing breaths through my mouth to avoid having to inhale him.
I felt fearful for myself again – never mind the smell; what if he pulled a knife on me? He'd been threatening enough in the tube. I looked away from him, and caught the eye of one of the guards under his blue peaked cap. I shook my head infinitesimally, just enough to tell him, no, it’s OK, I’ll handle it. But please don’t go away, just in case.
‘Are you hungry?’ I said eventually, trying to keep the quaver out of my voice. ‘Do you want some money for a sandwich or something? Because I’ve really got to get going. I’m late meeting my boyfriend.’
He growled at me, and I nearly wet myself. The thought of Gavin, clean, and smelling of bike oil and aftershave, appeared like a mirage in my mind and I clasped the mental picture to me.
Then he said, ‘Yes please, I'd love a sandwich’, obedient as a child.
‘If you let go of my hand, I can get you some money,’ I said, desperately. The fearful heat of our combined palms had created a sticky vacuum between our hands, and his huge thick curved yellow fingernails were beginning to dig into my flesh. I began to wonder if we’d have to be surgically separated and, without waiting for him, I wrenched my hand away. It took every single ounce of self-restraint I possessed not to wipe my liberated hand on my coat.
With trembling fingers, I got a ten pound note out of my purse and thrust it at him. He promptly scrunched it up in his palm, really fast, and pushed it into a pocket somewhere - I didn't see where, but wouldn't have been at all surprised if it was his body which had pockets rather than his clothes.
‘Bye bye then, thanks, girlie,’ he said, turning directly towards the gaggle of uniformed officials, as if resigned to his fate. Suddenly I couldn’t bear the thought of him being escorted into an office, patronised and probably prosecuted.
‘Have you got a ticket?’
He shook his head, and I could have sworn I saw the look of the baby bird from Are You My Mother? in his eyes; that combination of naked vulnerability and a pinch of bravado.
‘Here. Have mine.’ I handed him my one-day travel card, making sure that the guards didn’t see me do it. I’d just have to pretend I’d dropped mine when I got to my stop. As a rule, I was almost ridiculously law abiding but, compared with the embarrassment I was currently enduring, a scolding and even a fine did not seem worth worrying about at that juncture.
I might have been imagining it, but there seemed to be an element of triumph in the way that he pushed the ticket into the machine, claiming it again as he walked into the yielding turnstile under the stern eyes of the three guards. I watched him go with a strange mixture of relief and something approaching a bizarre pride, as if he was my child off to school on his own for the first time.
I headed left, towards the tunnel leading to the District and Circle line, just as a gruff but strident voice stopped me.
‘Hurry now, darling, or you’ll be late for work. I'll see you tonight for dinner, OK?’
Surely not. But yes. I looked over my shoulder and there he was, leaning on the far side of the turnstiles, waving coquettishly at me with his horny yellow fingernails. Colour, deep and painful, flooded my cheeks and chin and ears. But as I turned away again, worse was to come. A full-on, no-holds-barred yell of ‘I LOVE YOU’ echoed around the tunnel as I hurried away for the last time, a flurry of light sniggers whispering in my wake.
Chapter 4
‘Tell me about you and Gavin. How did you meet?’
‘What’s that got to do with anything? I don’t really want to talk about him at the moment, actually.’
‘Emma. Don’t be defensive. I’m just trying to build up a picture of your life . It’s helpful to have lots of background information - I can always cut it out later if there’s too much.’
‘Oh, right. Sorry. It’s just… well, there’s something I haven’t told you about Gavin yet.’
How did we meet? I didn’t have to struggle to remember that – I’d been thinking of little else other than Gavin for the past couple of weeks; since the night of the man on the train, and The Who. Certain songs remind you of certain times of your life - and only that morning, on my way to work, I’d heard some music thumping out of a souped-up Ford Mondeo crawling round Shepherd’s Bush Green in rush hour traffic; a loud and distorted bass, the sound leaking away into the rainy atmosphere. The rhythm, even muffled, was familiar: Stereo MC’s, Connected, one of the best records around to dance to in the early nineties. That was what Stella and I had been dancing to right before I met Gavin.
Stella and I did a lot of dancing in those days. We hadn’t been getting on too well before then, around the time that she hit adolescence like a sledgehammer and suddenly I became the embodiment of Satan.
I’d had no idea how to handle a nubile teenager – even at thirteen, Stella knew exactly how beautiful she was, and the power that her looks allowed her to wield. It frustrated the hell out of her that it didn’t work with me, though.
We had such ferocious rows, mostly about money, that I just wanted to get up, walk out of the flat, and never come back again. Or else slam her head repeatedly against the kitchen counter until she saw sense. I felt so resentful – how many other 24 year olds had to bring up a stroppy teenager? It wasn’t fair.
More often than not, we both ended up having tantrums, usually climaxing in Stella threatening to call her social worker and get herself fostered ‘anywhere but with you.’ That was the cut-off point, where even Stella knew she’d gone too far; the collapsing into each other’s arms and sobbing point. I was proud of myself that I never once suggested that I’d call the bloody social worker myself. Mum had always told me that I was tenacious, and Stella proved it.
So, thankfully, when I started taking her to parties with me, it all changed again. Things were beginning to settle down anyway - finally. I’d finished my aromatherapy course and met a few new people. Plus, we’d sold the house and moved into the flat, so money was no longer such a worry. Stella was only fourteen or fifteen, young for adult parties but, I figured, by bringing her out with me, I could keep an eye on her, rather than worrying about what she was up to at home on her own. It empowered both of us, in a funny sort of way. She helped me to be less shy, and I bestowed on her the ‘grown-up’ status she craved.