She Chose Me

by Tracey Emerson

  Hot, thick air assaults me when I step inside. Ammonia and floral air freshener battle for dominance. One of the cleaners, the ironically named Memory, is wiping down a high-backed chair in the reception area with a disinfectant spray. Wide-hipped and stoic, she rubs at a brown stain with a sigh.

  I glance along the two corridors that lead in opposite directions away from reception, wondering if John might appear. He doesn’t, and I’m not sure if I’m relieved or disappointed.

  ‘Do you have an appointment?’ Sitting at a desk by the front door is Brenda, who still thinks she’s a receptionist for a stockbroking firm in the city. She scowls, impatient, her black hair standing on end. ‘Have you got an appointment?’

  ‘She does indeed.’ Kegs, the manager, waves at me from his cluttered office, and I wave back. Short and stocky with a shaved head, Kegs looks nothing like the other managers I met while vetting care homes. Tattoos of parachutes decorate his forearms, inky reminders of his years as a paratrooper. Last week he told me running an old folks’ home was tougher than his tours of Northern Ireland and Iraq.

  Brenda turns the pages of a non-existent diary. ‘Mr Armstrong will see you now,’ she says.

  ***

  ‘We’ll soon have you looking gorgeous.’ Emma lifts the index finger of Mum’s left hand and applies a coat of pearly pink varnish to the yellowing nail.

  ‘I can’t believe you persuaded her to put some proper clothes on,’ I say. ‘And to get up.’ Mum, dressed in grey trousers, a white blouse and a pink jumper, is sitting in the armchair with Emma perched on a stool beside her.

  ‘And we’ve had a shower, haven’t we?’ Emma says.

  Mum blinks, too engrossed in the news to answer Emma’s question. What is it about old people and the news? Even before the dementia, she spent hours every day soaking up the doom, hate and violence. Maybe the closer the elderly get to death, the more they need to convince themselves the world isn’t worth living in.

  ‘Thanks for doing her nails too,’ I say from my seat by the window. ‘She always liked them neat.’

  Emma shrugs. ‘No probs. I do all the women in here.’

  ‘It’s very good of you.’ Despite that first shaky encounter, Mum and Emma get on well. Mum seems calmer when Emma is around, and I’m always grateful for the distraction her cheery banter provides. ‘I’m rubbish at anything beauty-related,’ I say. ‘I never do my own nails.’

  ‘I thought about being a beautician once,’ Emma says, ‘but no way could I wax people’s hairy bits. Gross.’

  Over the past two weeks, I’ve discovered Emma is nineteen—older than I thought—and that after working in shops and cafés since leaving school, she’s decided to get some experience in a care home. She hasn’t been at Birch Grove long but says if she likes it, she might do a foundation course in Health and Social Care at Brentham College. She should; she’s a natural with the elderly.

  ‘Will you get a Saturday off soon?’ I ask her. ‘You’ve worked every weekend since I started visiting.’

  Emma picks up Polly’s wedding finger. ‘I like working Saturdays.’

  ‘Must play havoc with your social life?’

  ‘I don’t have one.’ Emma’s head is bent over Mum’s hand. I can’t see her expression, can’t tell if she’s joking or not. I watch her delicate fingers wield the nail varnish brush. Her hands are tiny, as are her feet. My size-seven boots feel huge in comparison. I have Mum to thank for my large feet; a gift from her side of the family.

  ‘Hello, my sweet.’ Vera, one of the staff nurses, bustles into the room. ‘Just need to take Mum’s temperature,’ she explains. ‘It was a bit high this morning.’

  Vera is all fleshy arms and greying, frizzy hair. Warm and efficient as always, she slips a thermometer into Mum’s armpit. ‘I’ll try not to mess up your nails,’ she says. The keys attached to her elasticated belt clank together as she moves. The ominous percussion makes me shiver.

  ‘You all right, love?’ Vera asks. ‘I can turn the heating up if you’re cold?’

  I shake my head and smile. ‘I’m fine.’

  Vera removes the thermometer and declares Mum’s temperature satisfactory. After checking there are enough incontinence pads in the en suite, she hurries out of the room.

  ‘Let’s finish you off, shall we?’ says Emma and resumes the manicure.

  ‘Hello, Angela,’ Mum says to the TV, greeting the German chancellor as if they are old friends.

  ‘When I lived in Singapore, I had manicures all the time,’ I tell Emma. ‘They were so cheap.’

  ‘I couldn’t go anywhere like Singapore,’ she says. ‘Wouldn’t like the food.’

  ‘The food’s incredible.’

  ‘Don’t like foreign stuff.’ She dips the brush into the pink varnish and dabs it against the neck of the bottle as she pulls it out. ‘You lived in loads of places, didn’t you? South Korea, Thailand, Borneo. Somewhere else, hang on. Taiwon.’

  ‘Taiwan. Mum told you all that?’ This accurate recall unsettles me. Mum never showed much interest in where I was living and never offered to visit. She labelled my move abroad as ‘typically selfish’. Never forgave me for choosing a life so different from hers.

  ‘Yeah, she told me.’ A surge of red in Emma’s cheeks. ‘We often chat about you, don’t we, Polly?’

  ‘Amen,’ says Mum.

  ‘She said you lived abroad for twenty years,’ Emma adds. ‘That’s ages.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  She lifts Mum’s little finger and coats the nail with three fast strokes. ‘What made you decide to be an English teacher?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ I twiddle my puzzle ring round and round. ‘Just fell into it.’

  ‘You went to university though?’

  I nod. ‘First person ever in our family to go.’ Why do I feel the need to tell her this? It’s as if I want to reassure her our backgrounds aren’t that different.

  ‘Did you do English?’

  ‘No. I did a drama degree at the Northern Theatre School in Leeds.’

  ‘Wow.’ Emma straightens up. ‘That’s well cool. Were you an actress?’

  I like the fact she is impressed. ‘I did a few bits and pieces. Theatre stuff.’

  ‘Bet you liked going to see Grace on stage, didn’t you?’ Emma says to Mum, who looks at her nails and declares them beautiful.

  ‘She thought a drama degree was a waste of good A-level results,’ I say. Mum tried to stop me going, but Dad intervened as usual and took my side. ‘We argued about it for ages,’ I add.

  ‘I’ve never argued with my mother.’ Emma looks sad, as if not arguing with your mother is a bad thing.

  ‘Never?’ I say, unable to keep the disbelief from my voice. I’m about to enquire if she still lives at home, but she interrupts and asks why I gave up acting.

  ‘Don’t really remember.’ I twist the ring one way, then the other. ‘Wasn’t cut out for it, I guess.’

  Emma looks disappointed at the explanation, but I have nothing else to say. Names and places, circumstances and reasons. They all fade over time. Emma will understand that one day. She will discover she cannot retrieve everything, even if she wants to.

  7

  Saturday, 1 August 2015

  No mother-and-daughter relationship is perfect. We all have bad days, and today was one of them.

  I arrived at her block this morning, excited about spending the day with her. As I took up my position behind the recycling skips, a trio of skateboarders rattled past, forcing me to jump out of the way, right into a pile of dog shit. I was so busy trying to wipe my Prada high-tops clean with a discarded copy of The Sun, that she left her building without me noticing. By the time I realised, she was already turning onto Goswell Road, and I had to run to keep up.

  When we reached Islington, I crossed my fingers she wouldn’t lead us into Angel Tube station and from there to Liverpool Street and to Brentham. The thought of another hospital visit didn’t thrill me. Hours of waiting in the WRVS café in Brent
ham General with all the sick people and their depressed relatives, desperate for my mother to reappear so we could return to London.

  Luckily she kept going along Upper Street. I kept my head down while passing Aroma, just in case Ryan was working. Shagging him was stupid, as it meant my mother and I couldn’t have tea together in there anymore. No chance of sitting quietly and observing her, not with him all over me. He’d called me loads over the past ten days, leaving a message each time. Hey, Cass, how you going? Hey, Cass, been thinking about you. Hey, Cass, give me a call some time. How dare he abbreviate me after just one night? I suspected he could be the clingy type, a bit obsessive. Not that I hadn’t considered calling him back; he was sweet and good fun, and he didn’t mind using a condom even though I was already on the pill. Can’t be too careful, I told him and he agreed. What would be the point of calling him though? It wouldn’t last, nothing ever does.

  My mother turned off Upper Street and took us to the N1 shopping centre. We ended up in Sainsbury’s, a new experience for a Marks and Spencer girl like me. Before getting started on the food, my mother picked up a bunch of white lilies and put them in her basket. She gets herself some every week.

  We trawled the aisles. I decided to pick the same stuff as her, so I could imagine us having dinner together. A fun idea, but my mother turned out to be an irritating shopper. She examined every item she picked up for ages, reading all the labels. Sometimes she would put the item back on the shelf, only to return to it minutes later. Funny, the time she could take over decisions that didn’t matter.

  By the time we reached the checkout, my basket contained a jar of green curry paste, a tin of half-fat coconut milk, an organic chicken breast and a variety of vegetables.

  ‘I’m making a Thai curry tonight,’ I told the pudgy, fake-tanned woman at the checkout. Sandra, according to her name badge.

  ‘Good for you,’ Sandra said, her voice flat with disinterest. Her lack of enthusiasm didn’t dampen mine.

  ‘My mother and I love Thai food,’ I said. ‘Family meal-times are so important, don’t you think?’

  ‘Crucial,’ deadpanned Sandra. ‘Will you be needing any carrier bags today?’

  When my mother and I left the supermarket, we lingered in the open-air precinct for a while, listening to a jazz trio that had set up in front of H&M. A lovely interlude, soon spoiled when my mother spotted a beggar outside Pret A Manger and hurried across to do her Good Samaritan routine.

  The beggar was a girl about my age in a mud-streaked walking jacket, ripped jeans and battered hiking boots. Mousy dreadlocks hung around her pockmarked face. My mother crouched beside her and whatever she said made the girl smile. They spoke for a few minutes before my mother disappeared into Pret A Manger. She returned with a large paper cup of something hot. From the way the girl wrapped her filthy hands around it, I could tell she was grateful.

  Jealousy gripped me as my mother squeezed the girl’s shoulder in a comforting gesture. I’m only human. I wanted her hands on me; she owed me twenty years of touch and attention.

  When my mother walked away, I didn’t follow. Fuck her. Anger blazed inside me. Remembering a technique Dr Costello gave me to use in such moments, I visualised the anger as a ball of knotted golden thread, only I swallowed it, the reverse of the proper exercise, in which the knot of anger is unravelled and pulled out through the mouth in a long, golden line.

  The beggar didn’t see me coming. I waited until she put her drink on the ground and then marched past, making sure the toe of my left shoe found the cup and sent it flying across the concrete. Steaming tea spilled everywhere.

  ‘Stupid bitch,’ the girl screamed.

  Back on Upper Street, remorse made me stop and take a few deep breaths. What if my mother had witnessed my cruelty? What would she think of me?

  I returned to the precinct. The girl saw me coming and shrank back against the wall.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, handing her a twenty-pound note. ‘It was an accident.’

  The girl snatched the money. ‘Whatever.’

  I felt like snatching it back but restrained myself. The girl had nothing, and I had everything. A mother I loved. A mother who would soon love me back.

  8

  Tuesday, 22 September 2015

  ‘What are the words for when you meet someone you like and over time you realise you are starting to like them more and more? We say you are…’ I gaze out at the class, expectant. ‘Three words. Third word is someone.’

  ‘Fallen for someone.’ Han from Korea the first to speak, capping his answer with his trademark cheeky grin.

  I nod. ‘Fallen?’

  ‘Falling.’ The correction comes as a chorus—Waleed, Bettina and Sophia.

  ‘That’s right,’ I say, ‘you fall for someone. And what kind of verb is this?’

  ‘Phrasal verb,’ says Waleed, fiddling with the zip of his red tracksuit top.

  ‘And phrasal verbs are?’

  ‘A verb plus a particle.’ Nieve, nineteen and gloriously Spanish. Wide dark eyes, olive skin, long black hair twisted over one shoulder.

  ‘Excellent.’ I lift my marker to the whiteboard, where PowerPoint has projected the first part of the morning’s lesson. My pen moves down the list of phrasal verbs on the board. Check out, ask out, go out. Turn down, let down, get on, split up. Phrasal verbs connected with relationships; the focus of the morning’s lesson.

  I stride to my desk in the corner of the room. Before class, I pushed the students’ desks together to make a rectangular conference table in the middle of the room, a hub designed to promote the idea they are learning from each other, not from me. I never sit, preferring instead to keep on the move, to keep the energy as high as possible in the classroom.

  ‘Okay.’ I hit return on my laptop keyboard, moving the lesson onto the next stage. The students laugh as images of a man and a woman appear on the whiteboard, a comic strip depicting the beginning and end of an ill-fated romance. ‘Split yourselves into two threes and a pair,’ I say. The group subdivides with minimal fuss. ‘Discuss what you think is happening in this story. Three minutes.’

  Good-humoured chatter fills the room as the students confer in their subgroups. A sound I still love to hear after all my years of teaching. I walk over to the second-floor window and gaze at the traffic crawling along King’s Cross Road in the rain. The grimy glass rattles in its frame. The three-storey office building the school occupies could do with renovations, but the organisation doesn’t have the money for that.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you.’

  I swing round to find Linda, the school’s Director of Studies, smiling at me from the open door.

  ‘Can you pop by my office when you’re finished?’ Linda says. ‘I need a quick word with you.’

  I nod as she pulls the door shut. My stomach clenches at the thought of my overdue background check. Has it come through? Stupid to worry, but I can’t help myself. The same anxiety surfaces each time I start a new job.

  ‘One more minute, everyone,’ I announce to the class. Returning to my desk, I sort out the next set of worksheets. The task calms me down and helps me focus. This Tuesday morning advanced group is one of my favourites. An interesting mix of Spanish, Italian, Korean and Nigerian students; all of them hard workers. Over the years, I’ve grown to respect my students and the effort they put into learning a language I take for granted. Many students I teach want to attend British universities, and to do so they endure years of graft before their degrees even start.

  When the last minute is up, I hand out the worksheets. Each shows a printed version of the comic strip, as well as a list of ten sentences. ‘Match each sentence below to one of the pictures,’ I say. ‘Five minutes.’

  I hurry back to my laptop and click on my music library. ‘Here’s something to help you along. It’s a song about a phrasal verb.’

  Immediate recognition and laughter from the students.

  ‘The Beatles,’ says Bettina, the bright beads in her braided hai
r clacking together as she sways from side to side. ‘Don’t let me down,’ she sings, raw and throaty. ‘Don’t let me down.’

  The others applaud her and then join in, one hearty burst, before returning their heads to their worksheets.

  ***

  Linda is attacking the keyboard of her computer when I step into her office.

  ‘Grab a pew,’ she says.

  I pull a chair up to her desk, silently admiring its organised appearance. Every sheet of paper corralled in a wire tray, no stray pens on the run from the penholder. Linda lost her marketing career to the recession in 2008 and recovered from the blow by retraining as a Business English teacher. It didn’t take her long to power through and become a director of studies. She still wears the skirt suits and stilettos that belong to her former career, and her black, bobbed hair is always straight and shiny. Whilst mascara and muted pink lipstick form the extent of my daytime make-up regime, Linda is never seen without red lips and a flawless, powdered complexion. I think she’s a few years older than me, but it’s hard to tell.

  ‘Sorry.’ Linda frowns at her computer. ‘Won’t be a minute.’

  My stomach tenses again. What is she looking at on her screen? Something to do with me?

  ‘Screw this.’ Linda pushes her keyboard away. ‘Sorting out next term’s timetables is a logistical nightmare.’

  I force a smile. ‘I can imagine.’

  She leans back in her chair. ‘I wanted to have a word with you in private. It’s a confidential matter.’

  The background check? My throat is dry, my heart pumping fast. I tell myself to relax. It’s not as if I have a police record.

  ‘There’s an assistant director of studies post coming up at the Capital School’s Hampstead branch,’ she says. ‘I thought you might like to apply.’