But if we do move, I’ll write to you again so you’ve got my new address. Just in case you want to send a proper letter or something one day.
I’m so so so sorry, Mum. Jude said I’ve fucked up our whole family (I know, swear word, but that’s what he said), and I know he’s totally right about that. I don’t expect you two will ever forgive me for taking Scott away from you. I know how much you both liked him. The really sad thing is that, deep down, I think I did too.
Anyway, please tell Jude I’m sorry. Tell Scott, too, if you ever bump into him.
I hope you’re OK and you’ve managed to put your life back together in Nottingham.
Lots of love from your very bad, very sorry, very sad daughter, Zoe.
Re: Sorry
From: Amanda Fuller ([email protected])
To: Zoe Fuller ([email protected])
On: 13 June 2020 at 05:25
Re: Sorry
Hello Zoe,
I’m so happy you wrote to me! I burst into tears the second I saw your email.
I wanted to write to you last year after Jude got back, but he convinced me that it was best to wait for you to make the first move. But I kept writing letters and binning them all the same. I’ve written at least ten.
Firstly, please stop feeling bad about what happened. This family has had enough suffering, and now it’s time for it to stop.
I’ve been thinking about this all night, and really, Zoe, the one thing that I want is for us to draw a line under this so that we can enjoy being a family from here on in.
I know you don’t have any children of your own, so you won’t understand this, perhaps, but I never stopped loving you, Zoe. I never wanted to disown you. All I ever wanted was to make things right for you, even when you were being awful. Because I’m not going to deny that you were, truly, awful!
But you’re my daughter, Zoe. I know it will make you queasy, but you came out of me. My body made you. I carried you inside me for nine months. And that bond, well, I honestly don’t think there’s anything stronger on planet Earth. I suppose it’s not likely that you’ll be a mum one day, but I hope you will. It’s a very special feeling and one that never goes away, no matter what happens.
I’m also very sorry, Zoe. I’m really, really sorry for what happened to you. I know how traumatic Dad leaving was for you and I know exactly what you mean about him not being that interested in us towards the end. Because yes, your instinct is right. He was already seeing Linda for some time before he left.
I’m sorry, too, if I wasn’t everything I needed to be for you. I tried really hard, but I’m human and fallible, too, Zoe. I was pretty young, still, and hurting from having been dumped. And then I was madly in love with Scott, and if I’m perfectly honest, I didn’t really know how to deal with your pain either. But know that even if I was a bit ‘rubbish’, as you would say, I was doing my best. And hear me again when I tell you that I never stopped loving you.
Now that you’ve written, please don’t ever stay away again. Please, please, please keep in touch, even if it’s just by email. I’ve missed you so much. I’ve got so much I want to say to you. God, I’m crying now, as I type this.
I’m just so, so happy you’re back!
Come and visit me, please, or tell me if I can come and visit you in France, maybe.
And if you want to move back, please get in touch so we can talk about it.
I’m back with Scott (ever since the day Jude got home from seeing you, actually) and we have two places between us, one in Nottingham and one in Bakewell, so I’m sure we can put you up for a while if you need it. I’m dying to meet Nick, too. From what Jude and Jess say, she sounds really nice.
Scott, who is as lovely as ever, and who is sleeping upstairs, told me to give you his love if I write to you. He also said to tell you that if you ‘ever start all that shit again’ he’ll ‘whack you one’.
And don’t worry about Jude either. He’ll be fine, I promise you. He’s your brother.
He and Jess are getting married on the 3rd of July, and you should definitely come. Don’t ask him, or tell him you’re coming. Just come. I promise I’ll make sure it’s all OK. My heart’s been broken since you left, Zoe, so please come home. Please come home and let us be a family again.
Your loving Mumsy.
Epilogue
Zac hugs his mother’s leg as she pours ground coffee into the cafetière.
‘Zac,’ she says. ‘Please don’t hang on me like that. Not first thing in the morning.’
‘I’m sleepy,’ he says.
‘Then go back to bed.’
‘I’m not that kind of sleepy,’ he says. ‘I’m waking-up sleepy.’
‘Then please go and wake up somewhere else, babe,’ she tells him gently, smoothing his hair. ‘Just give me half an hour and I’ll do something with you, OK?’
‘Like what?’ Zac asks.
‘I don’t know. Whatever you want.’
‘Like Pixtures.’
‘Yes, OK. If you want, we can play Pixtures. But you have to give me time to wake up first, Zac. OK? You know I don’t function properly before coffee.’
‘Can I go and see Grandma?’
‘Grandma won’t be up yet,’ she tells him as she presses on the plunger of the coffee pot.
‘Grandma gets up really early,’ Zac says. ‘I bet you she’s been up for ages and ages.’
She rolls her eyes and sighs silently, then crouches down so that she’s at the same height as her son. ‘OK, I’ll tell you what you can do, OK? You can creep very quietly up to the house and look in the kitchen window. And if Grandma’s up, if you can see her in the kitchen, then you can knock very gently on the window, OK? But quietly, so you don’t wake the whole house up. Because even if Grandma is awake, everyone else will be asleep, OK? Not everyone wants to get up at crazy o’clock.’
Zac nods, his eyes wide with excitement at the idea of this morning mission.
‘But you have to be quiet, and if Grandma’s not in the kitchen you come straight back here, OK?’
‘OK!’ Zac says, already running towards the door.
‘Zac!’ she calls out. ‘Shoes!’
‘Oh yeah,’ he says, changing direction to the cupboard under the stairs, which he opens to retrieve a pair of small white trainers. ‘Do I have to do socks?’ he asks, sitting on a kitchen chair and pulling back the Velcro fasteners.
‘No,’ she says. ‘No, you don’t have to do socks. We’ll do socks later after you’ve showered.’
He pulls the trainers on to his bare feet and stands again.
‘And remember,’ she says. ‘Don’t—’
‘Don’t make a noise. I know.’
‘And if Gran’s not in the kitchen, then—’
‘Don’t wake her up. I know!’
‘That’s right,’ she says. ‘Good boy.’
He slides open the French window and steps out into the early-morning air. The sun hasn’t been up for long and the garden is still damp and fragrant with dew, but even this early, it’s not cold. The last few days have been hot, like when they went to Spain last summer. He likes it when it’s hot because they let him use the blow-up pool.
His arms stretched like wings, he runs through the garden, weaving back and forth between the neat rows of vegetables. He pauses as he passes the raspberry bush and picks a berry and puts it in his mouth, but it’s not ripe and it tastes so acidic that it almost hurts, so he spits it out and says, ‘Yuck,’ and runs on.
When he reaches the house, he stands on tiptoe and sees Grandma sitting at the kitchen table, so he raps on the window and she startles and turns to look at him and smiles.
‘Morning, Gran,’ he says, before she’s even finished opening the door.
‘Morning, early bird,’ she says, sweeping him into her arms and then snuffling his neck like a monster. ‘Lordy, you smell good in the mornings,’ she says. ‘You smell like honey and flowers and caramel. How do you manage that?’
; ‘Mum said you’d be asleep,’ he says. ‘But I knew you’d be up already.’
‘Shh!’ she says, gently. ‘You have to whisper. Everyone’s still asleep.’
She returns to the kitchen table and sits with him on her lap.
‘What are you doing?’ he asks.
‘I’m just looking at these old photos,’ she says. ‘I should get your mum to put them in the mat thing, really.’
‘She’s probably already got them,’ he says. ‘Mum’s got everyone’s pictures in her PhotoMat.’
‘Not these,’ she says. ‘These are old ones. Look.’
She leafs through the photos and then pulls one out to show him. It’s a faded, dog-eared picture of a man in a suit and a woman holding a bunch of flowers.
‘Is that Mum?’ he asks.
‘No, that’s me!’ she tells him. ‘That’s on my wedding day. That’s the day I married Grandad Ian, a long, long time ago.’
‘You were pretty,’ he says, pointing at the bouquet of flowers.
‘You’re supposed to say that I still am,’ she tells him, tickling him until he giggles.
‘And who’s that?’ he asks, pointing at another photo.
‘That’s your mum when she was about thirteen,’ she says. ‘And that, next to her, is Uncle Jude.’
‘She’s skinny like String Lady in the cartoon,’ he says. ‘And that doesn’t look like Uncle Jude at all.’
‘Well, no. He was only twelve when I took that photo.’
‘He was lucky to have a sister,’ Zac says. ‘I wish I had a sister.’
‘Well, I think you’re right,’ she tells him. ‘He was lucky. But back then, I’m not sure he would have agreed with you. They didn’t always get on so well, you know.’
He pulls the box of photos towards him and starts to look through them, but quickly loses interest because he doesn’t recognise any of the faces. ‘Are there any of Mama?’ he asks.
‘No, those ones are in the PhotoMat,’ she says. ‘But I can’t seem to find it.’
‘I think it’s in the garden house,’ he says. ‘Mum borrowed it to show Mama the pictures. Shall I go get it?’
‘They’re not asleep, are they?’
He shakes his head. ‘No, they’re awake,’ he says. ‘Well, Mum is, anyway.’
He pushes out of her lap and runs to the back door. ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ he says.
She watches him go and then returns her attention to the box of photos. And here is a photo of Jude on his birthday. And here is another of Zoe, about a year before she vanished. She strokes the photo gently. Kids, she thinks, they bring so much heartache. But so much happiness, too.
She sifts through the photos, catching glimpses of her own mother and father, another of Jude, Zoe as a baby, and then she finds Scott’s business card. She remembers finding it in the old house, just before she moved out of Buxton. She hadn’t had a single photo of Scott, because somewhere along the way she’d lost all her digital pictures. Sadness, she thinks. It would be so much easier to bear if we could only convince ourselves how temporary it is.
The back door bursts open again and Zac runs in, brandishing the aluminium tube of the PhotoMat like a sword.
‘Careful with that, it’s expensive!’ she says.
‘It’s in a tube,’ Zac says. ‘It’s metal. You can’t break it, Gran!’
She smiles wryly at his mocking tone of voice and wonders if he’s going to be as much trouble as Zoe. She hopes not, for Zoe’s sake.
‘So, come on,’ she says, patting her knee until he climbs back up.
She takes the tube from his hands and unscrews the end. She pulls the rolled PhotoMat from the tube and lays it across the table like a place mat.
‘I’m not sure how to switch it on,’ she lies. ‘Do you know?’
Zac looks up at her and nods proudly, then presses one corner of the mat far harder than necessary. The PhotoMat lights up and a series of icons fills the screen.
Zac starts stabbing at the screen immediately, so she grabs his hand and restrains him. ‘Wait,’ she says. ‘I want to look at them in order.’
She jabs at a few icons across the top of the screen until a column of numbers appears on the left-hand side, running from 1990 to 2039. Have I really lived through all that? she wonders. Just the concept of having reached 2039 makes her feel tired.
‘Mum says she wants to put all your old ones in as well. She says she’s gonna ask Mama to do it for her.’
‘That’s a very good idea,’ she says. ‘But she’s been telling me that for years, and I’m still waiting. Actually, some of these are ones she’s scanned. Look.’ She clicks on one of the photos from 1994 and the image of her wedding to Ian comes up. ‘So who’s that?’ she quizzes Zac, pointing.
‘That’s you with the pretty flowers,’ Zac says. ‘And that’s Grandad Ian.’
‘Very good,’ she says, jiggling him on her knee. ‘So you do listen to what I have to say.’
‘Are there any pictures of me?’ Zac asks.
‘I’m sure there are,’ she tells him, clicking on the years one after another and glancing at the thumbnail pictures that appear. ‘But I want to look at these others first. Don’t worry, we’ll get to you in a bit.’
She clicks on 2021. ‘So this is your mum’s wedding to Mama. This is when they got married in Nottingham.’
‘Mama looks like a man,’ Zac says, causing her to laugh out loud, which, in turn, provokes a fit of coughing. ‘You’re right,’ she says, once she’s regained her composure. ‘She used to have her hair short back then. And she insisted on wearing trousers and a shirt for her wedding. See how pretty your mum looked, though? I bought her that dress. She wanted a wedding dress but thought it was excessive. So Granny had to surprise her with it.’
‘What’s excessive?’ Zac asks.
‘Excessive is like too much,’ she explains. ‘She thought it was too much to wear a white dress, that it was over the top.’ She scrolls back to 2020. ‘And this is Uncle Jude’s wedding to Jess.’
‘Her dress is bright orange,’ Zac says.
‘Oh, I know!’ she laughs. ‘I did everything I could to talk her out of that, but she thought she knew everything about clothes. She’s usually so good with fashion, too . . .’ She shakes her head as she remembers. ‘But there was no telling her. And she’s regretted it ever since. She won’t even look at the photos, these days.’
‘Uncle Jude looks silly, too,’ Zac says.
‘Yes, that white suit was a mistake as well,’ she tells him. ‘He spilt wine all down his trousers at the reception. He had a big red stain in his lap. Anyway, once all the drama was over, it was a lovely day. I haven’t danced so much . . . ever, actually. My legs ached for days afterwards.’
She swipes at her eyes so that she can see clearly again. All these memories are making her feel emotional. She clicks on through the images.
‘Who’s that?’ Zac asks, pointing at a photo of two women in strange puff-sleeved linen dresses.
‘Ah, those are two of your aunties being bridesmaids at someone’s wedding. I don’t know whose wedding it was, but I think that’s your aunty Janis on the left,’ she says, pointing. ‘And that one must be Harmony. And that boy in the background is Terra.’
‘Uncle Terra?’
‘Yes.’
‘He looks a bit like me,’ Zac says.
‘You’re right,’ she tells him. ‘He does. Terra was a terror, like you. Did you see what I did there?’
Zac looks up at her and frowns.
‘Anyway, I think he was about the same age then as you are now.’
‘So what’s all this, then?’ asks a voice from the doorway, and they both turn to look. ‘The early-bird club, is it?’
‘Grandad!’ Zac exclaims, and she can see him wince at the appellation. He’s tried to get the kid to stop calling him Grandad, but he just can’t seem to make anything else stick.
‘We’re looking at old pictures,’ Zac says. ‘Uncle Terra looks just lik
e me.’
‘He really does. Come and look, dear,’ she says.
So, yawning, he crosses the room to join them. ‘Gosh, he does look like you,’ he says, crouching down and leaning in to push his head between the two of them. He pecks them on the cheek one after the other. ‘Any of me in there?’ he asks.
‘Nothing before 2019,’ she says. ‘You know how I lost all the photos from before. It’s such a shame. I hate digital.’
‘Well, that’s not such a bad thing,’ he says. ‘Some things are best forgotten.’
‘You!’ she says, laughing and elbowing him in the stomach. ‘But you’re probably right about that.’
He reaches forward and presses 2021 and then 2022. ‘There we go,’ he says. ‘Look how hunky Grandad was back in the day.’
Onscreen is a photo of him topless, his muscular torso shiny with sweat. He’s leaning on a garden fork.
‘You’re still gorgeous,’ she says, reaching up to run one hand down the grey, bristly hair of his beard as she continues to look at the screen. ‘But it’s true, you looked bloody amazing back then.’
‘Grandma!’ Zac says.
‘It’s OK,’ she tells Zac, wiggling her knee up and down. ‘Old people are allowed to swear. Just don’t tell your mothers.’
She clicks on another photo taken at Jude and Jess’s wedding. ‘Ooh, look at you, all suited and booted,’ she says, her eyes vaguely watery again. ‘I was already past my prime, but you . . . you were at peak gorgeousness . . . Grrr!’
‘You just said I’m still gorgeous,’ he laughs. ‘Or was that a lie?’
She turns in her seat and appraises him playfully, twisting her mouth and nodding thoughtfully. ‘Nah, you’re still looking pretty good,’ she says. ‘My toy boy.’
He snorts. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘That’ll be right. The toy boy’s fifty-six in three weeks.’ He straightens and heads towards the back door. ‘I’m just going to water those lettuces,’ he says. ‘Otherwise they’ll be cooked by the time we get back from the wedding. I swear, if it doesn’t rain soon . . .’
‘What’s a toy boy?’ Zac asks, once he’s gone.
‘It’s when an older woman gets together with a younger man,’ she explains. ‘But it’s all a bit sexist, so you can forget that I told you that straight away.’
The Road to Zoe Page 29