The Cornflake House

by Deborah Gregory

  I couldn’t believe that during our formative years, while we were dreaming of and searching for our fathers, we children should also have been looking out for our mothers. No wonder Victory could only conjure phantom men for me that night, she probably never even met our dads. Perhaps when I eventually capitulated, walked to the Visitors’ Room and sat opposite Taff, it was because at least she really did know who’s sperm had made me. Except, in retrospect, having been flighty and given to urges, she’s not a reliable informant either.

  Well, I’ve seen Taff several times since reading that letter, very awkward meetings at first, with her weeping into a pile of Kleenex and me studying her wrinkled brow for family likenesses. It is from her that I get my fair hair and my tendency to put on weight. It seems my dad was a dark, handsome hunk; but then she would say that. Taff’s been with some pretty horrendous men and I’ve yet to hear her admit that any of them were less than perfect. Please God I haven’t inherited her lack of taste. At night I lie awake imagining my future self in a home full of orange glass ornaments and plastic flowers. During these bedtime stories, as I grow older, I begin to resemble Taff in every way, getting fatter, coarser, more eccentric, until, having also inherited her sense of humour, I can see the funny side of the situation. My inheritance isn’t a home or possessions, it is Taff. If I couldn’t be Victory’s daughter, I might have been anybody’s; but I’m not. I’m the flesh and blood of the woman I’ve spent my life loathing; of the woman my ‘mother’ loved best.

  I, who mourned the loss of my mother deeply, have been given a second chance. Isn’t that what bereaved folk long for? You lose a mother, you want a mother; it’s every motherless child’s dream.

  It was during my second meeting with Taff that a blinding thought occurred to me. I hardly dared to ask, not sure which would be most alarming, an answer of yes, or a disturbing no. She was chatting away at the time, telling me how she’d got something for me, how she hoped the size was right. I wasn’t paying much attention, my mind being occupied by my blinding thought.

  ‘Here you go, Lovey,’ she said and passed a Tesco’s carrier bag across the table to me. I put my hand inside before looking. The contents were soft as candyfloss, but without the stickiness. When I pulled the gift out it was actually the colour of candyfloss but garnished with a bright orange. Three knitted tubes, joined at the shoulders by thick blue thread.

  ‘It’s a woolly,’ Taff told me. I was grateful for this information.

  ‘You made it?’ A fairly safe guess.

  ‘Just,’ she grinned. My blinding thought was momentarily banished to a dark corner as I pictured her in the Home, knitting furiously into the night so as to have this thing ready to present to me on time.

  ‘Thanks,’ I offered as graciously as I could. ‘Taff?’ I hadn’t yet managed to call her mother, and the name Mum was taken, but since her revelation I used the name Taff awkwardly. She waited. ‘I’ve just had a thought. Maybe it’s absurd but I have to ask. You say that you’re my mother…’

  ‘I am, I am,’ she cried and many heads twisted to look at her earnest expression.

  ‘Yes. Well, I was wondering if that was it, surprise-wise, or if there’s more you’d like to tell me?’

  The woman blushed deeply, turning her thick make-up from suntan to sunset. She played with the Tesco bag, twisting a corner into a horn.

  ‘Please,’ I prompted, ‘I need to know.’ For a second I thought she was going to begin an I-don’t-know-what-you-mean routine, she looked coy enough to do so. She’s no coward though. Leaving the bag alone, looking me straight in the eye, she told me I was a smart one and no mistake. At this I picked up the sweater and crumpled it in my hands, holding it under my chin like a security blanket. It would be taken off me when the visit was over, for a while, kept back. It made my skin itch anyway.

  ‘So I’m right?’ I whispered.

  ‘No use denying it now,’ she admitted. Some might have expected her to look a little ashamed of herself, or at least to pretend to be abashed. I knew her better than that; the pride on her face was no surprise to me.

  ‘All of us?’ I marvelled.

  She nodded, ‘Every last one.’

  The answer, being yes, seemed both better and more upsetting than a no might have been. Yes, she had given birth to each one of us kids. This meant that I still had a family, people other than Taff were flesh of my flesh, which was, as Oscar Wilde would have said, a good thing. It had been lonely out there, in the wasteland of only-childness, but now I could return to cosy shared bedrooms, big family meals, the joys of being a family member. On the other hand, Taff’s yes meant that I’d been carried in the womb of a monster. The woman had left not only me but Fabian, Zulema, Perdita, Merry, Django (well…) and Samik (how could a mother leave Samik?) to be brought up by her best friend. Then, while Victory mothered us, she’d popped in and out of our lives, like an auntie, or a granny or, it has to be said, just as a lot of fathers do.

  I studied her, sitting opposite me, and saw no resemblance to any of my brothers and sisters. Just my luck to have been the only one to inherit her colouring and her bulk.

  This, Revelation Number Two, puts me in a tight spot. Do I tell my siblings the ghastly truth, or let them live in blissful ignorance? Maybe I should inform the strong and fool the weak. Perdita would probably keel over if she knew, not from shock but from mortification. Fabe, I think, will find it hilarious, I can hear him laughing now and crying, ‘No way. Taff? No way.’ Merry and Django are unlikely to take any of it in; Merry isn’t capable of understanding and Django wouldn’t allow himself to absorb information which could unbalance his precarious status quo. What about Samik? This might be too confusing for him to grasp. On the plus side, it might finally drive him from the safe but dull arms of Margaret. My God, to think of Margaret with this new mother-in-law; it almost makes the whole mess worthwhile. Taff might also, perhaps, be able to provide him with that long-lost father he so craves. I think I’ll make a deal with myself, I’ll only tell Samik on the condition that along with this new, alarming mother, comes a father to complete the set.

  That leaves Zulema. I shall have to tell her, to stay silent would be cruel. Besides, I have to share my feelings with somebody close. Not having seen her since Mum, or should I now say Victory?, died has been agony for me. I miss Zulema every day. Maybe this news will persuade her from her hideaway, back to the real world of people as diverse as me and Bing and Taff.

  It’s not easy having two Mums. I feel a traitor if I so much as think of Taff as ‘Mum’, because no matter what, I can’t abandon Victory, can’t dislike her, let alone desert her. She may not have given me life, but she saw to it that I had a life worth living. There was never a time when I felt, as many natural children must, that my mother didn’t love me. Victory’s love was all-encompassing and unconditional. If you need proof of that you only have to look at Merry and Django. People joke about ‘sending them back’ when children are difficult or different. Victory probably could have done this, if she’d been less of a mother.

  I feel such a fool. There I was, filling pages with what I considered to be essential information about myself, telling you stories to express my love for my mother, to help you appreciate the real me, when I was not that woman’s daughter in the first place. Who or what are we? We must be more than seeds surely, more than chemical infusions. I came, not from a magical, marvellous young woman called Victory, but from Taff. Cut me to the bone and find ‘made in Taff’ printed there in sticky peppermint. In this farce, it’s my turn to lose my trousers.

  There are a million questions I need to ask Taff. She knows this and the knowledge gives her confidence. I’ll have to go on seeing her until every one is answered. There is the issue of whose issue each of us is, if you see what I mean. The father question rears its fascinating head yet again. Where are they now? Which ones are alive and which have passed away? I doubt if Taff has kept in touch with these seven special men, there having been a fan club as long as your ar
m in her life. Once her relationships ended, we never clapped eyes on the old loves again. But to meet them, it’s still a dream that won’t end. I didn’t find the courage to ask, when gleaning details about my dad, whether he is still with us. Only part of me wants to know.

  One question I have posed was about the magic. It puzzled me because I’d assumed it was inherited, passed down through the genes.

  ‘A gift,’ Taff told me, ‘like that Sleeping Beauty story when the fairy godmothers came to the christening. Not that you were christened, like the princess was, though I’d have liked to be godmother myself, but Vic gave you and Zulema sort of christening prezzies anyway. She said she could tell you two wouldn’t confuse them.’

  ‘You mean abuse,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ the smile she gave me was permeated with affection, ‘you always were a clever girl.’

  Here is yet more proof that Victory pulled all the strings. Had my powers equalled Mum’s, I would have felt in my bones that Taff was more to us children than unrelated ‘aunt’. As it was, I never suspected; I was never meant to. It was a measured dose of magic Victory bestowed on her two most reliable daughters.

  Odd, isn’t it? While I was fretting because I thought Victory might love Taff more than she loved me, Victory was probably worrying that I’d form a bond with my natural mother. Maybe I did sense something, and that was why I felt such antagonism towards Taff. Hate and love, two sides of the same coin, they say.

  What the hell, Matthew, Taff’s a mess, but she’s warmhearted. She’s devoted to me, and she’s alive. More than alive, full of life. And she is a constant; a vital link with my past. But she’s not exactly young, she may not be around much longer. I don’t fancy years of feeling guilty for having spurned her. I reckon I should give her a chance.

  When I get out of here I’m going to learn freedom; to discover how to eat decent food again, how to get drunk, how to live a little and love a lot. I’ll begin by taking you, Bing and ‘my mum’ out for a slap-up meal: five courses and silver-wrapped chocolate mints with the coffee.

  THE CORNFLAKE HOUSE. Copyright © 1999 by Deborah Gregory. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

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  ISBN 0-312-20290-3

  First published in Great Britain by Picador, an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Ltd.

  First U.S. Edition: May 1999

  eISBN 9781466892385

  First eBook edition: February 2015