by Yvette Clark
When I’ve finished writing today’s entry, an unusually exciting day for Alfhild since some of the sheep have escaped into the longhouse and trashed it, Imogen and I get to work on Dad’s laptop. She shows me how to look through the history of websites that Dad has visited. Top of the list is a site called Flying Solo, which apparently offers support for parents “going it alone after the death of a partner.” Dad’s username on the forum is WWLD, which he explains in his introductory post stands for “What Would Laura Do?”
“Laura was my wife’s name,” he wrote, “and I think WWLD about a hundred times a day as I do my best to raise our two daughters.”
There was a flurry of welcoming replies from other community members who have names like Emma1982, Snoopy, MrB, Fairydust, and JDNYC. I find the comments fascinating, and the website has a helpful feature that stores the logged-in member’s posts in a separate tab so that we can easily check all of Dad’s comments and questions. His most recent post was:
“How often should I talk to the girls about their mum? I want to keep the memory of her alive, but I don’t want to make it seem contrived or morbid. Sometimes when I mention her, the girls look upset and clam up. Any advice would be appreciated. TIA, WWLD.”
The responses are mostly sensible.
“WWLD, you should talk about your wife as often as feels natural to you.”
“Take your cues from your kids. Why not ask them what they think?”
“I’m sure you are doing an amazing job. Be kind to yourself.”
A few are bizarre: one, in particular, causes Imogen and me to pause in our scrolling:
“I always find myself speaking to my husband as if he were still with us. I’m not sure what my kids think, but it feels right to me.”
“I can imagine what her kids think,” says Imogen. “They think—‘Oh crap, our dad’s dead and our mum has completely lost her mind!’ Some of these people are total weirdos. Dad might actually be doing a good job of ‘Flying Solo’ after all. What a cheesy name for a website.”
One response makes me feel terrible.
“D’s dad died before he was born and I’m sure I talk about him way too much. D seems to love hearing stories about his dad, but he’s only four. I’ll see how it goes as he gets older. Good luck. JDNYC.”
The awfulness of never having known your mum or dad is too much to comprehend. At least I had ten years of having a mum and a dad.
I could have continued reading the posts for hours, but Imogen says it’s getting boring and shuts down the laptop. As soon as she leaves the room, I log back on and quickly write another entry in Alfhild’s diary. Ingolf falls into the stream, catches a cold, and is subsequently bedridden. Alfhild has to take over his animal care duties for the next few days until he has recovered, which is quite a relief since there are only so many times I can write about the poor girl sweeping the floor and sewing mittens. After finishing this gripping and most satisfying diary entry, I go back to the Flying Solo home page and sign up for my own account. I ignore all the disclaimers, cheerfully clicking the boxes agreeing that I am over eighteen, etc., and within minutes have my own profile set up under the username MMM for Miss My Mum. I am going to have some excellent advice for WWLD. For example, he should under no circumstances consider getting into a romantic relationship, and the younger child in a family should always get more attention than the older sibling, who was lucky enough to have priceless additional years with his or her parent.
I don’t tell Sam about the website Flying Solo. He’s always giving me books to read about grief with titles like Healing your Heart and Love and Loss for Tweens. He gave me a journal to record my “grief journey,” as he called it. Sam also recommended local support groups and even told Dad about a club for kids who’ve lost a parent. Imogen and I refused to go. Come to think of it, Sam probably already knows about Flying Solo. He may even be the one who told Dad about it. There’s a strong possibility Sam would recognize me as MMM, so I’ll have to be careful to disguise myself. I do ask Sam things though—things that I can’t talk to anyone else about, things that keep me awake at night.
“Do you think Mum was scared?”
“Scared of what, Kitty?” Sam says, even though I’m 100 percent sure he knows exactly what I’m talking about. He just wants me to say the words.
“Scared of dying.”
If Sam asks me if I think Mum was frightened I might punch him in the face. He does this sometimes, turns the question back on me, which is another classic therapist technique that Mum used on us all the time at home. He doesn’t throw it back at me though but looks at me thoughtfully.
“Laura used to talk a lot about how much she was going to miss you, Imogen, and your dad. She talked about how proud she was of all of you, but your mum never told me she was scared. That doesn’t mean she wasn’t frightened though.”
“I would be scared and furious. Why wasn’t Mum angrier, Sam? Gran’s the only one apart from me who gets mad about it. Sometimes when Gran talks about the cancer, I see her clench her fists until her knuckles turn white.”
“Have you ever talked to your gran about feeling angry? Maybe you should, Kitty. It might help her to know she’s not the only one white-knuckling it.”
“Maybe,” I say, knowing that I won’t. I don’t need to. Gran sees my rage as clearly as I see hers. We don’t need to talk about it. She knows. Our hands are clenched in fists of fury right next to each other. She also sees how scared I am. No one ever told me that grief feels like fear and that I’d be terrified every single day.
“Anything else, Kitty?” Sam asks, using his mind-reading techniques.
“Nothing important,” I tell him, but even as I say it, I know I won’t be able to hold it in much longer.
Chapter Seven
Kneading Therapy
As the days pass, I get more scared, not less. I jolt awake with my heart racing and my mouth dry. My eyes shoot open, and I scan the room for hidden terrors. I feel wide, wide awake. I’m afraid of growing up without my mum. I’m terrified that something terrible is going to happen to Dad, Imogen, Gran, Kate, Jess, or Cleo. I’m scared that my love will have nowhere to go. I’m afraid to read Mum’s birthday letter. I decide to focus my fears on the letter, which is the only one I have any control over, since I could choose to tuck it away until I’m not afraid anymore. Last night I lay awake thinking about it—I imagined opening the envelope and it containing a blank sheet of paper, or maybe worse, words from Mum that don’t sound like her or that tell me something I don’t want to know.
As well as having Sam to talk to, Mrs. Allison acts as my unofficial, unpaid, and unqualified therapist. Today when I get home, she is already in the kitchen laying out ingredients, bowls, wooden spoons, spatulas, and baking trays.
“Hello, dear,” she says when I walk in and slump down at the table, dark circles under my eyes. “Oh no, not a good day at school?”
“Not really.”
“Well, why don’t you make some bread with me? Pounding away at dough is as good a way to get rid of stress as I’ve ever found. Some people say that bread tastes best when it’s made with love, but the most wonderful loaf I ever baked was the one I made after I found out about William and that floozy from his office. Do you know what he said to me when I confronted him about his affair? ‘The heart wants what it wants, Lizzie.’ How dare he quote Emily bloody Dickinson to me? I’ll tell you something else Emily Dickinson said, she said, ‘a wounded deer leaps highest.’ Well, she was right, wasn’t she, as here I am, all cozy in Belsize Park with you and Sir Lancelot, and about to be a television star, and last I heard William was living in a nasty apartment in Clacton-on-Sea with soon-to-be wife number three.”
Mrs. Allison had kicked out her husband, “the Lothario of North London,” as Dad calls him, after she found out about his latest dalliance. This was many years before we moved in, so we never got to meet him. Even though he sounds like a complete loser, Mrs. Allison says he is the only man she could ever love, whi
ch is why Sir Lancelot is now her chosen life partner.
“Now, let’s get on with it. We’re going to bake an eight-strand plaited loaf. It was the technical challenge on Bake Off last season, so we’re not likely to get it again, but you never know. Those judges can be tricky. Grab an apron, Kitty. You’re going to make one all by yourself.”
Two hours later, my navy uniform covered in flour, I am feeling better. I had battered my dough relentlessly, but my loaf didn’t rise well. It looks as if it’s been sat on in the oven, while Mrs. Allison’s bread is so gloriously plump that you could use it as a pillow. Mrs. Allison said I overworked the dough, but since I seemed to be finding it therapeutic she’d decided to leave me to it. I was good at plaiting the strands of dough though; all those hours of braiding my dolls’ hair had set me up well for that part of the recipe. Over a cup of hot chocolate and a slice of Mrs. Allison’s loaf with some of her homemade blackberry jam, I unburden myself about the letters. I keep my other fears to myself. They’re just too big to talk about to anyone.
“What if Mum doesn’t sound like herself? She knew everything about me from the time I was born, but she doesn’t know me now. She wrote those letters to an imaginary future Kitty, one who’s probably much nicer than me. She always thought I was a better person than I am.”
“Oh, I think your mum knew exactly who you are, Kitty Wentworth, and that is an absolutely lovely girl who is growing up to be a wonderful young lady. It’s a great sadness to me that Mr. Allison and I were never able to have a family, although given his shortcomings maybe that was a blessing. I do know a thing or two about mothers though, and mine always used to say that the very first time she looked into my eyes, she knew precisely who I was. It was the same with Laura—she knew you inside and out, Kitty.”
Mrs. Allison pats my hand and wipes away the tears that I hadn’t noticed falling down my cheeks with the corner of her floury apron.
“Right then, madam, next up, sticky toffee pudding.”
“I think I’ll just watch you if that’s okay,” I say. Despite her lack of qualifications, Mrs. Allison is quite a good therapist. She talks a lot more than Sam though.
“That’s fine. We can pretend you’re one of the judges. I need to get used to an audience. Do you know that as well as the other contestants, presenters, and judges, there’ll be camera people, directors, producers, and heavens knows who else in the tent? Do you think they’ll have someone to do my hair and makeup?”
Filming starts soon for Mrs. Allison’s season of The Great British Bake Off. She’s been trying to lose weight in preparation for her television appearance.
“They say the camera adds ten pounds, Kitty, so I decided if I lose ten then I’ll look exactly like myself.”
In the competing priorities of a slimmed-down waistline and needing to taste her biscuits, cakes, and puddings in order to perfect them, baking is the hands-down winner.
“You don’t need to lose any weight, Lizzie,” Dad told her last week. “What’s that old saying? Never trust a skinny baker.”
That weekend, Mrs. Allison persuades me to go shopping with her to buy new outfits for the show. She chooses ten brightly colored, short-sleeved linen shirts in shades that Farrow & Ball will likely never make into paints. The changing room is an explosion of lime green, shocking pink, lurid orange, a vibrant shade of aqua, and electric blue. She also selects three pairs of comfortable khaki trousers and two pairs of white capris. The capris are not particularly flattering, but Mrs. Allison possesses what Mum would have described as a refreshingly healthy body image along with an extra serving of self-confidence. She maintains a cheerful running commentary through the curtain of the changing room.
“These trousers are perfect because they’ve got a bit of stretch in them, which I’ll need for bending down to get things in and out of the oven.”
The curtains burst open as she does a few daring test lunges in the trousers, much to the surprise of the woman coming out of the neighboring changing room.
“Short-sleeved shirts are so practical for baking since you don’t want to keep having to roll your sleeves up, do you? Now, the notes from the producer said no stripes, not that I would wear them anyway, the vertical ones make me look like a deck chair, and the horizontal ones obviously wouldn’t work with my chest! They suggest no patterns at all, which is a real shame as there was that lovely floral blouse. Do you know we have to wear the same clothes for both days of filming? I always used to wonder why contestants had the same outfits on the second day—it’s for something called continuity. I suppose people wash their clothes overnight, but I don’t fancy that so I’m splurging on two of each. I’ll leave the tags on in case I can return one of them. I don’t want to jinx myself, but I’m buying an outfit for the final.”
Mrs. Allison has barely taken a breath during this stream of consciousness. Dad says that she could talk for England. She emerges from the changing room red-faced and triumphant. After we’ve finished paying for her outfits, Mrs. Allison announces in a loud voice that our next stop is the lingerie department. She pronounces lingerie with a French accent.
“Kitty, I talked to your dad and told him I thought it was time we got you a bra.” She looks down at my flat-as-a-pancake chest. “There’s not much going on at the moment, but it’s essential to have a supportive bra while things are developing. Anyway, he didn’t seem keen to discuss it but did agree that I could bring you shopping. You never know, you might suddenly blossom like I did, overnight. By the way, feel free to come to me when you get your period. I know your mum was always very open with you girls about puberty. I’m not a trained professional like her, but I am a graduate of the university of life. If you ever want to ask me anything about periods or whatever, I’m here for you, you know that, don’t you, dear? Mind you, it’s been a while since I had one!”
She chuckles, and I look around to make sure nobody is listening. Please let her have finished talking about periods and boobs.
Mrs. Allison continues, “M&S is where I got my first bra. It’s a British institution, although the queen apparently shops at Rigby & Peller. I went there once, just to have a look, and the bras were a hundred pounds each! Good old M&S charges eighteen pounds. I suppose the queen can afford it, though. Right, I wonder where the smallest bras would be.”
“They call them training bras in America,” I giggle. “Like your boobs are getting ready for an Olympic event.”
“Do they really? The things they say over there. We just call them small. Ah, here they are. Color-wise you can choose from white, cream, or maybe a very pale pink, but nothing too racy. Can you imagine your gran’s face if we came home with a red or black bra for you? Look at these, Kitty, the ‘Angel First Bra’ line, aren’t they pretty?”
I pick one up and examine it.
“Can I get padded?”
Mrs. Allison studies my chest.
“How about one padded and one not?” she says. “I used to stuff mine with socks, but not for long. I was an early bloomer. What size do you think? Twenty-eight AA is the smallest, but we should get you measured.”
“No way, Mrs. Allison! That would be so embarrassing.”
“They’ve seen it all before, lovey. I read in the Sunday newspaper that eighty percent of women in England are wearing the wrong size bra. You don’t want to start off in the wrong size, do you?” Mrs. Allison says this as if the wrong size might lead to ruin, or at the very least to bad posture and saggy boobs.
We look around and locate a lady named Gwen, who tells us she’s been working in the underwear department here for nearly forty years, has a grandson studying geography at Durham University, and loves to spend time in her garden. Gwen bustles me into the changing room, measures me in a brisk and businesslike way, and ceremonially pronounces me a twenty-eight A. It’s like the sorting hat in Harry Potter placing you in Hufflepuff because to be in Gryffindor you’d need to be a thirty-four B.
“Twenty-eight A!” says Mrs. Allison. “Well done, Kitty! It�
��s not even the smallest size. You’d never think it to look at her, would you, Gwen? Now, let’s get these paid for and get back home. I’ve got profiteroles to make this afternoon. I’m doing a lovely mango crème pâtissière filling for the choux buns with lemon icing on the top, but I’m not sure if I’ve got the balance of sweet and sour right, so I need you to be my taster please, Kitty.”
“I will. Mrs. Allison, please don’t tell Imogen or Dad my bra size.”
“Of course not. Your secret’s safe with me. Just let me know when we need to come back and get the next size up, and we can revisit Gwen.”
Mrs. Allison smiles at her new friend, who is excited to tell her colleagues that she just met someone who will be on the upcoming season of her favorite television show.
“The bra ladies from Marks & Spencer will all be cheering you on, Lizzie. Good luck!”
I take Mrs. Allison’s hand as we walk out of the shop. Mum was right; she is an excellent addition to Team Wentworth. I don’t know what we’d do without her. I don’t know what I’d do without her. We set off down Oxford Street to get the bus home, and I swing the little green carrier bag containing two bras from the ‘Angel First Bra’ line: one white and one shell pink, both padded! I can’t wait to see Mrs. Allison on TV wearing her new outfits, though I do need to find a way to tell her to avoid doing any lunges.