‘Well, as you see it.’
‘As I know it.’
‘And that’s another way you’re alike,’ she says. ‘So you’d rather never have anything to do with her again than go halfway?’
I’m firm on this point. I’ve had plenty of time to mull it over in the past few weeks.
‘Yes.’
‘You know you’ll never see her again, don’t you?’
I make a ‘don’t care’ face.
She sighs. ‘You’re so alike.’
‘Now what?’
‘Both of you. Sometimes I could bang your heads together. If she wasn’t six inches taller than me and twelve years younger … Listen to yourself. Can’t you hear your mother when you talk, sometimes? You’d rather die than admit you might be wrong. You’ve always been like this. Someone does something, or something doesn’t suit you, and you just slam the door and throw away the key. Sometimes I think you’d actually commit murder rather than be wrong-footed.’
I say nothing.
She continues. ‘Of course, she was always exactly the same. But she’s had no chance at all, really. At least you’ve seen some examples of how adults behave. You could always have a go at leading by example.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘Look, she’s the mother and I’m the daughter. I know I’m grown up, but in the case of mothers and daughters, she’ll always be the adult and I’ll always be the child. That’s how it is.’
She sighs again. ‘Anna. Just try for once to see things outside your own point of view. Think about your mother. You were the lucky one. You may have had a miserable time of it, but at least you got to mix outside the bubble. Think about what life’s been like for your mother. Trapped with that awful man and no one else. Bred up for her life like a suckling pig …’
‘No more than I was.’
‘Much more,’ says Carolyn.
‘What exactly do you mean?’
‘Oh, dear,’ she says. ‘You really don’t know anything about your family, do you?’
I stare.
‘Did it ever once occur to you to ask questions, Anna? Or were you so busy hiding everything you didn’t have any room for anything else?’
‘What are you on about, Carolyn?’
‘If I tell you, you’ve got to promise that you’re not going to blow up like you did last time. I really couldn’t bear to have another scene like last time.’
‘Yes, yes,’ I bark impatiently. ‘I promise. Now what are you on about?’
‘Your mother,’ says Carolyn, ‘was an early experiment in this genetic thing they’re all going on about.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well.’ She thinks for a bit, then begins. ‘I don’t think it started that way, mind. I mean, obviously he’d always had the ambition to produce a genius. I don’t think it would have occurred to your grandfather for a minute that any child of his could have been anything else. And I don’t think he ever intended to share the limelight either. From what I’ve picked up about your grandmother, the whole thing was fairly much a temporary arrangement, anyway. It certainly wasn’t a love match. He wanted a child and she wanted a good lump sum to emigrate with. She went to South Africa when they split up, you know. That’s why she never put in any inconvenient reappearances. I don’t suppose the Afrikaaner farmer she married would have been too chuffed to find out that his children weren’t alone in the world, if you know what I mean.
‘But then there was a spoke in the works.’
I suppress a smile, carry on listening.
‘I don’t know exactly what happened, but the baby didn’t materialise. They thought it would be an eighteen-month, two-year process – bang, as it were and you’re out – but nothing happened. I’m not sure if it was that Peter was firing blanks, but between you and me’ – she puts a finger to her lips and looks around her as though we are surrounded by spies rather than sitting on wicker furniture in an empty conservatory on the south coast – ‘I don’t think he was a very sexual man, if you see what I mean. And as it turned out, there certainly wasn’t anything wrong with her waterworks.’
By now, I’m riveted. This doesn’t feel like my family history at all, more like one of those Channel Four documentaries where nonogenarians reminisce about bunk-ups behind the glue-works.
‘Anyway. After two and a bit years, they realised that it just wasn’t going to happen. So she said come on then, give me my money and I’ll be off. And he said no, love, the deal’s not completed. No kid, no cash. So she said you can’t do that! and he said just try suing me in a court of law. I don’t think a judge would take a very kindly view of an arrangement like ours. As a matter of fact, I think in those days a judge could have refused to give them a divorce altogether and they’d have been shackled together in perpetuity. So she said well, what do you want me to do about it? And he said well, if we can’t get a baby this way, we’ll have to go about it another. Obviously, they didn’t have that artificial inspermination in those days. You used turkey basters for basting turkeys when I was young. And he didn’t want just any old donor.
‘So they cooked up this plan. There was a conference going on in London that summer – I can’t remember which college, but it was something to do with science – and there were going to be all these Nobel prizewinners there. So he agreed to bung her an extra thousand, which was a lot of money in those days, believe me. You could have bought a whole street in Salford for that.’
She pauses. ‘Still could, mind you. And she agreed to go along and hang around at all the social events and see what she could pick up, if you see what I mean. Conferences then were exactly the same as they are now. Knocking shops. Anyone who hasn’t brought his secretary is looking to see what he can find among the delegates. Only difference was that there weren’t so many female delegates to choose from in those days.’
‘Good God,’ I say.
Carolyn nods. ‘Well might you say it. So anyway, Sylvia buys a new wardrobe of low-cut dresses and small hats and sets off to London to do some fishing. She targeted only Nobel prizewinners or men who’d got more than one doctorate.’
‘How many?’
Carolyn shrugs. ‘The conference lasted a week,’ she replies. ‘And bingo-bango, nine months later your mother pops out. Peter gets what he wanted, Sylvia gets a heavy handbag and everyone’s happy.’
‘So Grace is the first Nobel baby.’
‘I suppose you could put it that way.’
‘Good God.’
‘So you see,’ she says, ‘you weren’t the only experiment in your family.’
‘Good God,’ I say again, because it’s taking me a while to think of anything else to say. ‘No wonder she’s so obsessed with the heredity thing.’
‘Exactly,’ says Carolyn. ‘You would be too if you’d been bought off the shelf like that. And don’t think he didn’t throw it in her face every time he didn’t think he was getting value for money. Poor little thing. Never learned anything apart from disapproval and implacable hatred.’
I light a cigarette to give me time to think. Can’t think of anything much to say, so stay silent.
‘The stupid thing is,’ says Carolyn, ‘I look at your mum and, despite everything, I think she’s done pretty well for herself. I mean, obviously not with you, but if you consider the start she had, you’d have expected much worse. It’s just that Peter never thought about the fact that people need social skills as well as qualifications if they’re going to get on in the world. Your mum’s won prizes galore and everyone says they admire her, but no one’s exactly going to be crying at her funeral, are they?’
I shake my head.
‘It’s all a question of presentation, isn’t it? Your friend Harriet’s mum, for instance, she was all presentation, but dying was marvellous for her public standing. You probably don’t remember, but the public was getting pretty sick of her and her “poor me” this and her “admire me” that. I don’t think we’d really even remember who she was today if she hadn’t died like that. Your
mum has had the misfortune to keep on living, and her reward is that she’s got no friends and a daughter who can’t even bring herself to hold out an olive branch.’
She’s an effective persuader, Carolyn. I’m beginning to crumble. She’s watching my face and sees that she’s winning.
‘So do you see now,’ she starts again, ‘why you need to try being a bit more forgiving?’
‘Yes,’ I reply slowly. ‘Yes, I do. I understand. But it’s not as straightforward as all that, is it?’
Once more, Carolyn lets out a sigh. ‘Anna. I watched your mum go through her teens without any niceness at all. And I watched something similar happen to you. But believe me, you had more chance than she did. You’re much better equipped than she was, even if it was tough. You really could try doing the adult thing. You’re nearly thirty, after all.’
‘Twenty-seven,’ I correct her.
‘Twenty-ni—’ she starts, then colours slightly and shuts up.
‘WHAT?’
‘Silly me, I’m getting old. Memory like a sieve,’ she stammers.
‘DON’T EVEN TRY THAT! WHAT DID YOU SAY?’
‘Oh, bugger,’ says Carolyn. Funny how ‘bugger’ is a totally acceptable swearword to the older generation where practically every other is not. ‘I’ve done it again, haven’t I?’
‘Are you telling me I’m twenty-nine? How the hell did that happen?’
‘Forget it, Anna. It was a slip of the tongue.’
‘Uh-uh. You don’t make slips of the tongue. Tell me.’
‘Just a silly—’
‘TELL ME!’
‘Oh, dear.’ Carolyn picks up her knitting and starts, stitch by stitch, to unravel it.
‘You were a small baby, you see …’
Chapter Fifty
LEEZA HAYMAN
She’s young, she’s fun and she takes no prisoners
If there’s one thing that makes me sick to my stomach, it’s the sight of a celebrity crying over spilt milk. So the sight of our own Lady of the Airwaves, Godiva Fawcett, aka the Duchess of Ditchwater, Bleeding Heart of Belhaven, weeping and beating her suspiciously perky breast this week had me on my knees by the nearest toilet. I mean, here we are, our boys are off in the Falklands, wives and mothers everywhere are waiting with hushed breath to hear whether their loved ones are going to come back alive, and this spoiled madam wants us to spare our sympathy for her misfortunes? Give me a break. There’s no misfortune you haven’t brought upon yourself, Godiva, so don’t even think about trying it on.
In case you’ve been living on the planet Venus for the past week, Godiva Fawcett has been found out. And boy, has she been found out. Our sister paper, the Sunday Sparkle, did a bit of digging and discovered that practically everything this self-styled angel of mercy has said about herself is untrue. And her response is a classic example of the way the famous try to pull the wool over our eyes, the way that, whenever the proverbial hits the fan, they will come out weeping and claiming that it was all someone else’s fault. Well, boohoo, Godiva: you’ve been found out. And because you’re so transparent, I’m able to deliver the Boohoo Guide to celebrity excuses:
Found Out: you’re not a poor liddle Orphan Annie after all. Your aged parents are alive and ailing in a council old folks’ home in Rotherham, where you grew up over a butcher’s shop. And your name is plain old Geraldine Pigg.
Boohoo: You didn’t want to tell anyone, but you had to cut off all contact and change your name because they were so cruel to you when you were growing up. It was only loyalty that kept you from ever revealing your injuries to the teachers, social workers, etc. who came into contact with you throughout your childhood and never remarked anything untoward, but once you reached adulthood, you had no choice but to never, ever have anything to do with them again.
Found Out: You weren’t a poor but honest waitress, but coworkers remember that you were an enthusiastic ‘dancer’ under the name of Geneva West in a Soho nightclub in the late fifties.
Boohoo: How could you have ever told anyone? You were so ashamed. You were only very young – fifteen when you started – and you were exploited by older, ruthless men who seduced you into the lifestyle before you were old enough to know better. And anyway, you were desperate.
Found Out: Papers left to be opened after the death of his wife show that your so-called mentor, the late Leonard Wildenstein, didn’t discover you and promote you out of admiration for your talents at all. In fact, he hated you and only gave you parts because you were blackmailing him.
Boohoo: I can’t believe he could say things like that about me. I loved that man with all my heart, even though he subjected me over the years to the vilest practices. I only went along with it in the name of love. I feel so soiled.
Found out: Your separation from your husband, the Duke of Ditchworth, wasn’t amicable at all. He kicked you out, and won custody of the daughter you had together.
Boohoo: I’ve kept quiet about this for too long to protect the innocent, but now I have to speak out to protect my own reputation. When I met Gerald Moresby, he seemed like the perfect gentleman, but once I married him I discovered a whole other, darker side to his character. He drank and often closeted himself away with his guns for days on end. Our marriage was a loveless sham from day one, and it was only from the great love I had for my daughter that I stayed as long as I did. And the custody hearing was a conspiracy: what chance does a poor, powerless commoner like me have against the combined might of the British aristocracy? They say that abused children often marry into similar situations, and that’s as much as I am going to say. I want my daughter still to have a chance of loving her father, in spite of all the things he’s done to me. Why does everyone have to concentrate on the negatives? Why can’t people look at all the good things I’ve done? I’ve thrown myself into charity work since I discovered the emptiness of my married life, and I think I should be given credit for all the love and affection I have lavished on the suffering.
Yes, yes, I know she does a lot of work for charity, but don’t let that blind you to the facts. This isn’t the Slothful Seventies any more: it’s the Help Yourself Eighties, and there’s a lot of evidence that suggests that charity is a waste of time, just props up people who should be learning to stand on their own two feet. I know it’s upsetting to watch Bangladeshi flood victims, but you’ve got to remember: if you choose to live in a flood zone, what do you expect? And why, just because Godiva-better-than-us-Fawcett says so, should we be giving money to people we’ve never met, and who are as unlikely to thank us as Galtieri is to organise a Polo friendly with the Royal Windsor, when we’ve got a lot on our plates at home.
We’ve got enough demands onour good nature what with whingeing miners and whining steelworkers without some over-privileged biddy in designer combats coming along and telling us to dig even deeper in our already overburdened pockets. Maybe once we’ve had a few tax cuts, Godiva, but lay off for now. And don’t think that just because you’ve been seen playing kiss-chase with a few Africans that we’re going to forget about your exploits closer to home.
© Daily Sparkle, 1982
Chapter Fifty-One
Studland
I’m not a wimp, but it’s all quite a lot to take in in one go. Harriet and I keep in constant touch by text message, but it’s not the same thing.
After The Talk, I sent her the following:
BIG NEWS. MOTHER BASTARD CHILD OF ANON NOBEL PROF,
GRFTHR PIMP. I AM 29!! LIARS BASTARDS LOVE AXXX
and she sent, by return of receiver:
!**!?F**!! wot do u mean yr 29 yr older thn me &
how come u sa anon didnt she no who shagging? Hxxx
to which I replied:
SHAGGED 5 IN 1 WK DIDNT GET THEIR NOS PETER PAID
HER THEY PRET I WS 2 YRS YNGR 2 PRET I WS CLEVER XX
and she replied:
u r clever stupid but now I no why wrinkles. ruok?
how is henry gvng u xxxxs I hope. miss him & uxxx
Which isn’t quite the same thing as caning a bottle of rum and cussing out the world.
I’m still not allowed to know where she is. A representative of her Madge’s Constab came down to take a statement from me and spent the whole time eyeing me balefully over his teacup. So word’s got round, then. I think we’re not meant to be talking, even: the couple of times we manage to get through on our mobiles, there’s an odd constraint between us, as though someone’s listening.
So I go for walks. I walk along the pine-lined avenues of suburban Poole, marvelling at the way rhododendrons can look dank even at the end of a hot, dry spell, fantasising about the terrible revenges I will wreak with my walking frame when I’m old.
I walk past fish and chip shops and shops selling little plastic buckets and tinfoil windmills. I pass grocers that stock pasties, crisps and fizzy drinks, past bait shops and newsagents and row upon row of insurance HQs. Beats me why all these insurance companies would want to site their headquarters in the very heartland of those most likely to claim, but there you go. I sit on seafront benches and watch middle-aged couples argue over windlasses and outboards, and I think: I wonder if I’ll ever be like this, halfway to paying off my mortgage on the semi in Bournemouth and spending every weekend squabbling over mastery of ten square feet of boat.
I’m twenty-nine. Not such a big difference, is it? It bears no comparison with the eight years Godiva got away with knocking off her age, but I guess the effect an age difference has on you is directly related to whether you knew about it or not. And which direction it takes you in. If you’ve shaved a couple of years off here and there yourself, it’s like you’ve clawed back a few more years’ life; made your past more action-packed, your present more hopeful, your future more dynamic. Right now, I feel as though I’ve been robbed.
Because I have. All those years when I thought my early memories – learning to read, catching an aeroplane to the States, blushing as the owl eyes of my grandfather bored into me as I stumbled over my seven-times table – were from the phenomenal perspective of eighteen months old. Now I find they’re a bog standard three-year-old’s memories, with family weirdness tacked on top. And the worst thing is this: the barrier that stood between me and my classmates never really existed. I wasn’t two years younger than them, condemned to the cold zone of Not Fitting by my age at an age when two years mattered a whole lot. All that wasted time, girls looking down on me as the freak, the little kid who had somehow infiltrated the hallowed sanctum of their maturity, and every bit of it was based on a lie. I wasn’t two years younger: I was the scrawny midget I am today, ill-fed on beans and leaves to keep me small, puberty delayed by diet and stress, started off with a lineage where children have always been small, always been underweight, because poverty either makes you fat or makes you tiny.
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