Are You My Mother?

by Louise Voss

  I fell asleep immediately, plunging into a dream where I was still driving on the M1 and singing, as lamp-posts whizzed past me. The yellow baby bird was huddled in a cage on the back seat of my car, reproachfully asking me over and over again where its mother was; but I turned up my Robbie Williams CD and drowned him out. ‘Why do I bloody well have to do everything for you?’ I demanded crossly of it. ‘Find your own sodding mother; I’ve got enough problems of my own.’

  Next time I turned around, the cage was empty.

  I was woken by the sound of someone crashing into the flat, and the door slamming. I sat up, wide-eyed with befuddlement and momentary fear.

  ‘Emma, are you there? It’s me.’ Stella stomped into the bedroom. ‘God, the day I’ve had. I just could not get this bloody crushed organza to do what I wanted – my collection is going to be a disaster. So, how are you? Are you disappointed that you didn’t find your mother?’

  I rubbed my eyes, reached for my glasses on the bedside table, and slid them on so I could see Stella better. She looked pale and cross and I wondered, if she too had seen Charlie hanging around outside the flat, would she tell me? Was I going to tell her that I had? Something was on her mind.

  ‘Well, yes and no, I suppose.’ I yawned, switching on the bedside lamp, feeling the strange fuzzy dislocation of waking from daylight sleep. ‘It was a really great trip; you know, like an adventure. You wouldn’t believe what happened when I went to the aqua class – I got talking to this really nice woman called Ruth who was pregnant, and she went into labour in the middle of the class! I went to hospital with her because she didn’t have anybody else. It was all so dramatic that it kind of put looking for Ann into the shade somewhat. And then – ‘

  I was about to tell her about meeting Robert when she reached out her hand and squeezed my wrist; hard enough that the links of my silver bracelet, underneath her grasp, left angry red indentations on my skin. Her face was so pale that even her freckles seemed to have disappeared.

  ‘Ow. What’s the matter?’

  ‘I need to tell you something,’ she said.

  My heart jumped. ‘Oh God, not about Charlie – what’s he done? What’s happened?’

  ‘No. Nothing. Well, actually, not nothing. But that wasn’t what I was going to say.’

  ‘Not nothing? What do you mean? Tell me that first, then the other thing.’

  ‘Well…..OK.’ She bit her lip and looked away, as if she’d had a brief stay of execution. ‘The lab results came back. I got a call this morning.’

  I sat up, fast. ‘Well?’

  ‘They found his DNA in my mouth.’

  I couldn’t understand why she looked so miserable. ‘But Stella, that’s great! We’ve got him now – that proves he was lying! When’s the trial going to be set for?’

  She twirled her tongue stud for a moment before answering. ‘It’s not.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ve dropped the charges.’

  I gaped at her. ‘You WHAT?’

  She stood up, marched over to my full-length mirror and examined herself, posing defensively, pulling at the hem of her skirt, flicking a tiny dot of eyeliner out of the corner of her eye.

  ‘I don’t want to hear it, Emma, OK? So just don’t say it. It’s my decision. I don’t need my private life, or my dirty knickers, on display for an entire courtroom to see, and that’s the end of it. Yes, I know he shouldn’t be allowed to get away it, blah blah; but I don’t see why I should suffer any more for what he did, by having to rake it all up again. If it had been an actual….rape, then yes of course I’d do it. But we were both drunk and stoned, and I’m not for a second condoning what he did - but what if the jury believed him and not me? It’s not a risk I’m willing to take. I just want to get on with my college work, and my life. That’s it. It’s over. The DNA results prove him a liar, and that’s good enough for me.’

  I sank back into my pillows, exhausted as an invalid. ‘What did the police say when you told them?’

  ‘They weren’t happy. In fact that PC McClement was pretty cross with me. But I don’t care.’ She sounded like a sullen child.

  ‘And does Charlie know that he’s off the hook?’

  I had a momentary and very appealing mental picture of Charlie hanging helplessly from a large meat hook, but it was swiftly followed by the more realistic, and less attractive, memory of him hiding behind the car outside.

  ‘Probably not yet. I only just got off the phone with the police.’

  An idea came to me, on delicate little trotters. Perhaps I could ring him, tell him that the charges were dropped, but if he even showed his face round here again, Stella wouldn’t hesitate to haul his ass into court? But no. It probably didn’t work like that, did it – once you dropped the charges, there was no going back. I thought of charges like eggs on a stone floor; fragile things which you could drop but never pick up again. Stella’s butterfingered fears meant that Charlie had got away with it.

  I tried to look on the bright side. At least there would be no reason for Charlie to lurk around here anymore – surely the only reason he had been was to try and persuade Stella not to go to court? I decided not to tell her I’d seen him that day, and prayed that this would be the end of it.

  I looked at her, still posing miserably in front of the mirror, sweeping up her hair with her hands and pouting. Her own reflection was her biggest comfort in times of stress, I thought, uncharitably.

  ‘Well. I can’t say that I think you’ve done the right thing – but I do understand why you don’t want to go through with it.’

  ‘And you won’t give me a hard time about it?’

  I sighed. ‘No. I won’t. Like you said, it’s your life. So – what was the other thing you were going to tell me?’

  Stella gazed even harder at herself, and I thought I could see the reflected panic in her eyes. What now, I wondered.

  ‘Gavin tried it on with me.’

  A pigeon chose that moment to bump awkwardly onto the windowsill in a flap of wings and a crunching headbutt into the glass.

  My first reaction was confusion. Part of me, in a bad sit-com kind of way, wanted to say, ‘Sorry Stella, I must have misheard. I thought you said Gavin tried it on with you.’

  ‘Well, say something, then.’ She had finally stopped looking at herself, and was staring at the pigeon so intently that I knew I hadn’t misunderstood her.

  ‘When?’

  Stella wiggled her tongue stud around until it poked out of her mouth. I felt so enraged that I wanted to grab it, to yank it out myself. My voice was shaking with the effort of keeping it low, and I felt furious with her that I was in bed when she told me. I snatched my arm away from her, swung my legs over the side of the bed, and stood up. Stella blinked at the sight of me emerging, fully dressed and crumpled.

  ‘That day when you saw him leave the flat.’

  I slapped the flat of my hand, hard, against the window frame, and the poor pigeon fell off the sill. I saw the brief panic in its eyes before it righted itself and flew away, and then I turned to face Stella, coming closer and closer to her. She shrank away slightly, but I advanced on her and hissed furiously in her ear, as if we were two soap-opera characters in the same shot. My palm smarted from the sting of the glossy window frame.

  ‘I knew it! I knew something had gone on. I waited for you to say something – naturally I didn’t expect Gavin to – but no, God forbid that you should be honest for once! You let me go through all that at Suzanne’s at Christmas, plucking up the courage to tell you about Ann Paramor, and all the while you omitted to tell me your own little secret? And now, right at the moment when things are starting to come right for me – Gavin and I are back together, I’m getting out and about a bit more, looking for my mother – now you tell me? Are you trying to ruin my life?’

  Rare tears rolled silently down Stella’s cheeks and she looked out of the window at the sky, pitch black and starless at five o’clock. The pigeon should have been tucki
ng its head under its wing and settling down for the night, not being scared away to find somewhere else to sleep. I felt bad for it.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, finally turning to look at me. ‘I know I was wrong, not telling you before, but I just couldn’t. I know how much he meant – means - to you. I just hoped that we wouldn’t see him again and you’d meet someone else, and I’d never have to tell you. Then you said on the phone yesterday that you were back together. It was nothing to do with me, though, Em, I swear I didn’t come on to him. I was in a state about Charlie’s message, Gavin was there. He cuddled me and then…. it was like he just got carried away and kissed me. I told him to get lost. But that’s twice now a man’s got the wrong idea from me…. What’s wrong with me?’

  However much sympathy I felt for her, I was not prepared to let Stella turn the conversation around to her own problems. Not this time.

  ‘So how far, exactly, did you go?’

  Stella sighed and bit her lip. ‘I swear, Emma, on Mum and Dad’s lives, I didn’t lead him on.’

  ‘Mum and Dad are already dead. Did you kiss him back?’

  Stella blushed scarlet, fiddled with her hair.

  ‘You did!’

  She turned and looked at me, pleading with her eyes, clutching my arm with both hands so hard that she left more red marks on my skin.

  ‘Only for two seconds, Em, I promise. I was just so taken aback, and so upset about the message, it was like this weird sort of dream. But as soon as I realised what was going on, I kicked him out.’

  She hesitated. ‘And if it’s any consolation, Gavin immediately realised it was a mistake too. He jumped away from me like I was on fire. He was mortified – I honestly think he just got carried away. Mid-life crisis, that sort of thing.’

  I snorted. ‘Bloody great. The asshole! I can’t believe he had the gall to show his face around me ever again. How dare he come crawling back and…. Well, anyway, wait till I get hold of him!’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Ditch him, of course. I should never have got carried away with him sniffing round again, being all lovey-dovey. He was obviously only after a quick shag. I’m such a moron. Why did I let myself do it?’

  ‘I’m really sorry, Emma. I’ve wanted to tell you for weeks. I’ve been sick with the worry of it. Please forgive me?’

  I thought about it. I was angry with her, but I was also only too aware of how persuasive Gavin could be, and how much else Stella had been through recently. Plus, as rekindled romances went, this one really had the makings of a damp squib. Gavin hadn’t been in touch with me since Valentine’s Day, not even to ask how things had gone in Nottingham.

  ‘As it happens,’ I said, dragging my trainers out of the bottom of the wardrobe and putting them on. ‘You’re somewhat off the hook. I met someone else in Nottingham.’

  Stella gaped at me. I laced up my shoes, ferociously, letting my hair swing over my face so I didn’t have to meet her eyes. It was a measure of conciliation to Stella that I was mentioning Robert, and I wished I hadn’t. Superstitiously, I worried that telling her about him would somehow jeopardise our future - if we even had one.

  ‘I don’t expect anything will come of it. I’ll probably never hear from him again. He did take my number, but I don’t have his.’

  ‘How did you find the time to meet somebody? I thought you spent the whole time doing aqua aerobics and delivering babies? What was he, a doctor?’

  ‘No. His parents owned the guesthouse I stayed in.’

  ‘What’s he like, then?’ Stella was so desperate to get off the subject of Gavin that she almost tripped over her words.

  ‘Gorgeous. Great looking, sensitive, smart, and he didn’t even smirk when I told him that I play the recorder; he just said, “I love people who are musical”’.

  Stella was impressed. She knew that it had taken me two years to admit my recorder habit to Gavin, and that he’d teased me mercilessly about it from then on.

  ‘But I’m still pissed off with you,’ I continued, severely. ‘I’m going round to Mack’s now, to tell him that I didn’t find Ann, and if, by the time I come back, you have organised us some dinner, I might find it in me to forgive you. And if Gavin rings, tell him to go take a flying fuck. From me.’

  I brushed my hair and twisted it up, securing it with a big flowery butterfly grip, before spotting my jacket lying on the floor where I’d discarded it when climbing into bed. Stella’s foot was on the sleeve.

  ‘You’re standing on my jacket,’ I said, tugging it out from underneath her sole. It reminded me of that trick when people pulled tablecloths off fully laid tea-tables leaving all the crockery intact. Dad had tried it, once, for Stella’s amusement, having set the table specially with her Winnie The Pooh tea service. It backfired on him when, predictably, the featherlight plastic cups and saucers flew all around the room, and the edge of the tablecloth caught Stella a glancing lash on the side of her face. Mum and I had laughed like drains about it for weeks afterwards. I almost told the story to Stella, just to make her smile, and then thought, no. I don’t always have to think of ways to cheer Stella up. It actually isn’t my job.

  Instead, I pulled on the jacket, gathered up my keys, and left Stella sitting on my bed, looking somewhat shell-shocked.

  ‘Bye,’ I added, sticking my head back around the door.

  ‘Bye,’ she said distractedly.

  As I ran down the stairs, I felt strangely light-hearted.

  Chapter 33

  Five days passed. Then seven, nine, eleven days; laborious clunking cogs of days, because Robert didn’t ring me. Nor did Gavin, for that matter - but then, I was used to Gavin not ringing, and I didn’t want to hear from him anyway. I was spending an awful lot of time on my own; too much of it taken up with checking that my mobile phone was fully charged, and the phone at home properly on the hook. Stella claimed to be working ‘all hours’ on a term paper with Suzanne, but I suspected that her absence had more to do with her confession, and subsequent reluctance to face me.

  There was nothing I could do but carry on as usual; on-site, clients at home, baby massage, shopping, cleaning, watching television, playing the recorder. Luckily, I was very busy, and the jigsaw chunks of time which slotted into my days left few spaces in which to brood. I vacillated between wishing I’d taken Robert’s telephone number, and gratitude that I hadn’t, thus sparing myself the potential humiliation of ringing and getting knocked back.

  About the only out-of-the-ordinary event was going round to Mack’s to record a voiceover, describing what had occurred in Nottingham. Naturally I omitted the story of what happened when I went back to the guesthouse; but when Mack finally allowed me to go home again, I continued the narration in my head, pretending that Mack’s microphone was still held out in front of me: “And then I met this cricketer, only he wasn’t a cricketer at all, and he was so gorgeous, and I really felt that there was a spark between us – at least until I hiccupped the house down and gobbed into his frying pan, but we won’t go into that – and he asked if I had a boyfriend and I said yes - oh God, I said yes! How stupid am I, exactly? - but nothing happened, not even a goodnight kiss, it was just sort of an atmosphere.’

  At first, I’d been so sure Robert would call. But as time passed, gossamer threads of doubt as to what had actually gone on that night began to weave a web in my head, befuddling me, causing sudden hot flashes of embarrassment to wash over me when I least expected it. I had obviously misread the situation catastrophically. Perhaps he was only being hospitable – he was, after all, the son of the hosts. Perhaps – horrors – he just felt sorry for me when he saw me turn up in such a bedraggled state. Perhaps he was one of those people who were super-good listeners. It was easy to feel that you were interesting and fanciable with a gorgeous man gazing into your (chlorine-bloodshot) eyes.

  I tried not to let the disappointment get to me, but I couldn’t keep Robert out of my mind. As I stretched clingfilm over a bowl of cold boiled pot
atoes, I tortured myself with the thought that I’d told him I was already involved with somebody. As I played along to Squeeze’s Greatest Hits on the recorder, I decided that whoever said that honesty was the best policy should be shot. As I demonstrated how to rub almond oil into tiny baggy baby backs, I succumbed to a growing conviction that I had made a huge fool of myself.

  But I swallowed the sadness like medicine and carried on, taking solace from my continuing ability to function. After everything I’d been through, I wasn’t going to let another man ruin my life, however nice his eyes were. We hadn’t even kissed. It was no real loss. I repeated this like a mantra, leaping inches into the air whenever the telephone rang, feeling the inside of my mouth turn to ashes whenever the message button blinked on the answer machine. At least it was a relief not to be pining for Gavin any more.

  After eleven days, and some urging from an increasingly impatient Mack, I decided to do something practical. I was going to write to the final Ann Paramor. I perched on the funny K-shaped chair at the computer, one of those which was meant to be good for posture and spines, but which always gave me terrible backache after more than ten minutes; and gingerly found my way into Wordperfect, terrified that I’d accidentally delete all Stella’s college projects in the process.

  Dear Ann, I typed, with two fingers. You’d be so proud of me. I really think that I’m beginning to get my life together at last. Six months ago I was in such a rut; but you know how one little thing can trigger a change? Well, I met this homeless man on a tube, and it made me decide that I wanted to try and find you. It’s been pretty scary, and loads of other stuff has happened too. My boyfriend Gavin dumped me. My sister Stella’s been going through the wringer. I met a gorgeous man, but he hasn’t phoned – probably because I told him I already had a boyfriend. But the point is, that even with all this crap going on, I’m OK. I just feel different, somehow…