Are You My Mother? (3 page)

Back in the bowels of the tunnel, the doors once more slammed shut and the train continued on, oblivious to the small but life-changing event which had just occurred on board.

It was the most out of character thing I had ever done, in my whole life.

Chapter 3

‘
What did Stella think, of you leading this man off the tube? Was that when you told her about wanting to look for your birthmother?’

I couldn’t tell Stella about the man straight away. What with the shock of everything else that happened that evening, it took me a couple of days to summon up the energy to relate the story at all. And it was much, much longer before I told her about the decision regarding my mother.

When I finally mentioned the encounter on the train, Stella looked at me with an expression of such distilled horror that it was almost comical, and I wished I’d kept quiet.

‘
You’re out of your
mind
,’ she screeched, rolling the stud which pierced her tongue around and around her mouth, as far as its bolt would allow it to travel, teasing it against her top teeth so it stuck out between her lips like a metal full-stop at the end of her sentences. I thought it was a good thing the stud was screwed down on both sides, otherwise she’d definitely have swallowed it.

‘
I mean it, Emma, that is the most insane thing I’ve ever heard. What the hell got into you? I’ve seen men like that on trains, ranting away – Christ, everyone has. They’re unbalanced. They
kill
people, Emma – he could’ve had a machete under his coat, or anything. He might not have realised you were trying to help him; he could easily have lashed out at you! It’s that Care in the Community thing, isn’t it; well, it just doesn’t work, and you might have ended up as another statistic, and
then
where would I be?’

I was torn between being impressed that Stella was even aware of the Care in the Community scheme, and irritated by her selfishness.

‘
Oh cheers, Stell – I’d be dead, but all you’re worried about is where that would leave you? Well, I’m touched by your concern but as you can see, I’m fine. I just felt sorry for him, OK? I’m not saying I’d do it again, but it felt right at the time. Don’t give me a hard time about it, I’ve got enough else to worry about.’

Stella suddenly leaned across and hugged me wordlessly. She smelled of teenager’s make-up – cheap sparkly tubes of things - and, even in November, she smelled of summer. It occurred to me that her freckles probably contained slow-release sunshine. Our mother had freckles like that too. Stella looked more like her every day.

The man and I had eventually got up to the relative safety of the ticket office. A flower stall blazed a riot of colour in the tunnel leading to the exits, and I gulped down the beauty of fresh green leaves and velvet petals; yellow, orange, crimson, blue, the blessed shades of life. Every other person passing through the station seemed to be staring, riveted, at me as I stood frozen to the spot, just by the turnstiles. I tried to drop the man’s hand but he wouldn’t let go. I felt as if he and I were at the centre of that time-lapse cinematography where we stood still and everyone else whizzed past us in a blur of speeded-up film. The man seemed to be simmering quietly, seething with some sort of suppressed emotion. I was afraid to imagine what.

In a funny kind of way he reminded me of a pregnant woman. Through my association with GP surgeries and ante-natal clinics, I’d massaged quite a few, over the years, and some of them exuded a definite air of panic. I supposed it was the sensation of being out of control, powerless. All those hormones whirling around, carefully maintained bodies suddenly exploding in all directions. It must be awful if you didn’t want the baby, and just about bearable if you did. It was always a shock to me, how many of them felt so ambivalent about it.

Of course, I thought, he probably doesn’t have a ticket. He didn’t look strong enough to vault over the turnstile, and now a small cluster of uniformed London Underground officials had assembled at a safe distance, clearly wondering whether to intervene or not. I was still holding his hand – for all they knew, he might be mentally disturbed and I his carer. I felt as if this was true, but tried to swallow the thought, for that implied even more of a responsibility towards him. He smelled so bad that my eyes were watering, and I found myself taking tiny little huffing breaths through my mouth to avoid having to inhale him.

I felt fearful for myself again – never mind the smell; what if he pulled a knife on me? He'd been threatening enough in the tube. I looked away from him, and caught the eye of one of the guards under his blue peaked cap. I shook my head infinitesimally, just enough to tell him, no, it’s OK, I’ll handle it. But please don’t go away, just in case.

‘
Are you hungry?’ I said eventually, trying to keep the quaver out of my voice. ‘Do you want some money for a sandwich or something? Because I’ve really got to get going. I’m late meeting my boyfriend.’

He growled at me, and I nearly wet myself. The thought of Gavin, clean, and smelling of bike oil and aftershave, appeared like a mirage in my mind and I clasped the mental picture to me.

Then he said, ‘Yes please, I'd love a sandwich’, obedient as a child.

‘
If you let go of my hand, I can get you some money,’ I said, desperately. The fearful heat of our combined palms had created a sticky vacuum between our hands, and his huge thick curved yellow fingernails were beginning to dig into my flesh. I began to wonder if we’d have to be surgically separated and, without waiting for him, I wrenched my hand away. It took every single ounce of self-restraint I possessed not to wipe my liberated hand on my coat.

With trembling fingers, I got a ten pound note out of my purse and thrust it at him. He promptly scrunched it up in his palm, really fast, and pushed it into a pocket somewhere - I didn't see where, but wouldn't have been at all surprised if it was his body which had pockets rather than his clothes.

‘
Bye bye then, thanks, girlie,’ he said, turning directly towards the gaggle of uniformed officials, as if resigned to his fate. Suddenly I couldn’t bear the thought of him being escorted into an office, patronised and probably prosecuted.

‘
Have you got a ticket?’

He shook his head, and I could have sworn I saw the look of the baby bird from
Are You My Mother?
in his eyes; that combination of naked vulnerability and a pinch of bravado.

‘
Here. Have mine.’ I handed him my one-day travel card, making sure that the guards didn’t see me do it. I’d just have to pretend I’d dropped mine when I got to my stop. As a rule, I was almost ridiculously law abiding but, compared with the embarrassment I was currently enduring, a scolding and even a fine did not seem worth worrying about at that juncture.

I might have been imagining it, but there seemed to be an element of triumph in the way that he pushed the ticket into the machine, claiming it again as he walked into the yielding turnstile under the stern eyes of the three guards. I watched him go with a strange mixture of relief and something approaching a bizarre pride, as if he was my child off to school on his own for the first time.

I headed left, towards the tunnel leading to the District and Circle line, just as a gruff but strident voice stopped me.

‘
Hurry now, darling, or you’ll be late for work. I'll see you tonight for dinner, OK?’

Surely not. But yes. I looked over my shoulder and there he was, leaning on the far side of the turnstiles, waving coquettishly at me with his horny yellow fingernails. Colour, deep and painful, flooded my cheeks and chin and ears. But as I turned away again, worse was to come. A full-on, no-holds-barred yell of
‘I LOVE YOU’
echoed around the tunnel as I hurried away for the last time, a flurry of light sniggers whispering in my wake.

Chapter 4

‘
Tell me about you and Gavin. How did you meet?’

‘
What’s that got to do with anything? I don’t really want to talk about him at the moment, actually.’

‘
Emma. Don’t be defensive. I’m just trying to build up a picture of your life . It’s helpful to have lots of background information - I can always cut it out later if there’s too much.’

‘
Oh, right. Sorry. It’s just… well, there’s something I haven’t told you about Gavin yet.’

How did we meet? I didn’t have to struggle to remember that – I’d been thinking of little else other than Gavin for the past couple of weeks; since the night of the man on the train, and The Who. Certain songs remind you of certain times of your life - and only that morning, on my way to work, I’d heard some music thumping out of a souped-up Ford Mondeo crawling round Shepherd’s Bush Green in rush hour traffic; a loud and distorted bass, the sound leaking away into the rainy atmosphere. The rhythm, even muffled, was familiar: Stereo MC’s,
Connected,
one of the best records around to dance to in the early nineties. That was what Stella and I had been dancing to right before I met Gavin.

Stella and I did a lot of dancing in those days. We hadn’t been getting on too well before then, around the time that she hit adolescence like a sledgehammer and suddenly I became the embodiment of Satan. I’d had no idea how to handle a nubile teenager – even at thirteen, Stella knew exactly how beautiful she was, and the power that her looks allowed her to wield. It frustrated the hell out of her that it didn’t work with me, though.

We had such ferocious rows, mostly about money, that I just wanted to get up, walk out of the flat, and never come back again. Or else slam her head repeatedly against the kitchen counter until she saw sense. I felt so resentful – how many other 24 year olds had to bring up a stroppy teenager? It wasn’t fair.

More often than not, we both ended up having tantrums, usually climaxing in Stella threatening to call her social worker and get herself fostered ‘anywhere but with you.’ That was the cut-off point, where even Stella knew she’d gone too far; the collapsing into each other’s arms and sobbing point. I was proud of myself that I never once suggested that I’d call the bloody social worker myself. Mum had always told me that I was tenacious, and Stella proved it.

So, thankfully, when I started taking her to parties with me, it all changed again. Things were beginning to settle down anyway - finally. I’d finished my aromatherapy course and met a few new people. Plus, we’d sold the house and moved into the flat, so money was no longer such a worry. Stella was only fourteen or fifteen, young for adult parties but, I figured, by bringing her out with me, I could keep an eye on her, rather than worrying about what she was up to at home on her own. It empowered both of us, in a funny sort of way. She helped me to be less shy, and I bestowed on her the ‘grown-up’ status she craved.

I tried my best not to let her smoke or drink or anything – not that it was really a druggy crowd, though, other than the odd late-night joint going around. Aromatherapists were mostly too holistic to want to get out of their skulls on Class A drugs, and they weren’t those kinds of parties anyway. There certainly wasn’t much in the way of the Madchester influence: baggy jeans and the Stone Roses and ecstasy. They were more your sort of spliff and lager brigade. Anyway, Stella didn’t care what they did or didn’t do. She was just so chuffed to be there, and to be able to tell her school friends that she’d been out till 5am on Saturday night.

My friends used to play things like entire Prince albums at their parties, or James Brown. Or
Funky Cold Medina
, Tone Loc – that was a favourite, I recalled. And later, the Stereo MC’s record, of course. Hearing it again, coming out of that car, reminded me so clearly of that party.

Stella and I had completely hogged the dance floor for the entire length of the extended mix of
Connected
. We were a team, we had all the moves. It was the sort of dancing you’d risk looking a prat if you did in a nightclub, but which was just perfect in a stranger’s front room, trying not to bash your elbows on their mantlepieces or your shins on their pushed-back coffee tables. The sort of dance where it was impossible not to grin manically the whole time you did it, not because you knew you looked stupid – the opposite, in fact. We grinned because we knew we looked cool as hell. It was mostly funky disco, with a few sub-Supremes steps and a touch of jive thrown in - over the years of practicing in our bedrooms, we’d refined these moves until all the cheesiness was eliminated and it was casual, hip. Heads turned, nodding along in unison, and because we were both doing it, I didn’t feel remotely shy. It was so liberating. And Stella could have been in Steps by now, I really thought that she could.

I had no idea whose party it was, or why Gavin was there. It was in this big mansion block flat off Baker Street, up millions of stairs and past several bicycles chained to the banisters. Stella noticed Gavin straight away, she said he was leaning against the bookshelf drinking a beer, and that he couldn’t take his eyes off me. Although I was sure I remembered him eyeing up both of us.

He was talking to a much shorter man – when they both propped their elbows against the bookshelf, Gavin’s elbow leaned on the second from top shelf, and the other bloke’s only rested on the middle one. After we had finished dancing to the next record - The Clash,
The Magnificent Seven
, a surprisingly good record to dance to – we’d gone into the kitchen, pink-faced, breathless and giggly, and Gavin had followed us in. The first thing he asked, gallantly, was what we wanted to drink. The second thing was, ‘Would you like to buy a Barbour?’