Getting Over It (22 page)

Lizzy takes a breath. Then she says, “I don’t think Tina’s happy. Despite Adrian. Or I can’t believe she would have said those things.”

I shrug. “Whatever.”

Lizzy perseveres. “About what she said about your dad… well, firstly, it’s your right to feel what you feel. Even if you weren’t that close, which I can’t believe. And, er, secondly, well, maybe reiki could help?” I wonder, if a madman hacked off my leg with an axe, would Lizzy offer to kiss it better?

I force brightness into my voice and say, “Lizzy, you know I dislike people fiddling with me.”

Lizzy replies, “Well, I don’t know… .” She is reminiscent of myself tempting Fatboy from behind the radiator with a bowl of tuna juice. And I must say, it’s working. I feel one degree calmer.

I mutter, “I just said the dad thing to make Tina feel bad. She’s right. I’m in a foul mood.”

Lizzy sighs and says, “Why, though? If it’s not your dad, is it Tom?”

I knew this lunch was a bad idea. I throw my napkin on the table and say, “Tom puts his hand up dogs’ bottoms and his car is worse than mine. It isn’t Tom.”

Lizzy says crossly, “Helen, you don’t give a fig about cars! And he gets paid to put his hand up dogs’ bottoms!”

I mumble, “What—and that’s supposed to make me feel better?”

Lizzy purses her lips and says, “Maybe it’ll be good for you to be on your own for a bit.”

I tut loudly and say in a bored tone, “Why?”

Lizzy dabs her mouth with her napkin (her perfect lipstick remains perfect) and like an archbishop delivering the punchline to a televised sermon declares, “You’ve got to be happy alone before you can be happy with someone.”

I sit back, fold my arms, and try to look agnostic. “Liz,” I say, “did you read that in
GirlTime
?”

“I might have done,” says Lizzy airily. “So?”

I reply sternly, “I wrote it.”

Chapter 31

I
T TAKES TWO HUNDRED
thousand frowns to etch a line on your forehead. I look at the deep furrows on my mother’s brow and wonder how many of those two hundred thousand sorrows and puzzlements were down to me. I’m doing my best to be impassive, so I’m not pitying—just curious. I can’t think of anything more stressful than being a parent. It must be even worse than having Laetitia for a boss.

Being responsible for the health and happiness of a live person. Scary. I spent forty-five quid on cat books and another fifty on cat string before I dared purchase the orange orphan from Battersea, and I still regard his lardy survival as a miracle. All the plants I’ve ever bought have perished within a fortnight, even the cactus. My mother is the same. There’s no greenery in her house and never has been. She buys flowers for herself, but that’s different—they’re expected to die after a week. So how she managed a smelly, crotchety baby, I don’t know. Actually I do—she hired an au pair.

Isabella was scared of the vacuum cleaner and wore fabulous white stilettoes that made grooves in my mother’s polished wood floor. I liked her very much. Once, at the skinny age of five, I moaned to Isabella that I was fat because I’d heard Vivienne moan it to my mother. Isabella hoicked up her orange t-shirt to reveal bunched up rolls of brown flesh and declared happily, “You not fat! Zees eez fat!” I was mesmerized, and after that, fat was no longer something to be feared. Thank God for Isabella. She saved me. Without Isabella and her clumsy exuberance—“I look Helen, Meeseez Bradshaw, you go shop!”—I think my mother would have suffered a breakdown. And possibly I would have done, too.

As it was, thirty pounds a week plus meals (which probably made it up to £130) released my mother from the slave labor of parenthood and she fled it. So her attempt to sidle back up to it twenty-six years on is amusing. Bless her, but she’s useless at it. I slink in from work and she hijacks me in the hall. The first thing she says is “Florence wants to move out!” and the second is “I’m losing all my family!” and the third is “I’ve made you tea!” I drop my bag on the floor and try not to look alarmed. I also try to respond fairly to all her questions.

“Is Nana moving out because of me?” I say.

My mother flaps her hands as if to ward off the idea. “Sort of,” she says.

I knew it. I bleat, “I didn’t think! Christ, where is she, I’ll go and explain!”

My mother looks confused. She says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about! It was the sardine pilfering!”

I squeak, “What sardine pilfering?”

It emerges that this morning Nana placed her favorite lunch—three sardines and a slice of white bread—on the side to “air.” Ten minutes later she discovered Fatboy, whose motto is “finders keepers,” crouched next to the plate chewing at his third sardine. This confirmed her every prejudice about living under the same roof as “vermin,” and as a direct result, Nana is returning to her stringbeans first thing tomorrow morning. “Sorry,” I mutter, “I’ll try and stop her if you want.”

My mother shakes her head and says cheerfully, “She’s in her room, packing! Don’t bother! You’re here now! And I’ve made you tea!”

“But I don’t drink t—” I begin as I walk into the kitchen. To my surprise and dismay, the table is heaped,
heaped,
with sandwiches and little cakes—concoctions I didn’t think existed anymore, like chocolate Wagon Wheels and pink and yellow Fondant Fancies. There is even a Battenberg cake.

“I made it for you!” she repeats, like a six-year-old who has fashioned a monstrous pom-pom at school with card and wool and expects her mother to attach it to her smartest hat.

“That’s, er, very kind of you,” I say, as I sink into the chair she yanks out for me.

She sits down excitedly and watches eagle-eyed as I reach for a Marmite sandwich. I hate Marmite. I take a small bite and wonder what the hell’s going on.

“How are you?” asks my mother.

“Fine,” I say, trying to swallow the sandwich without retching.

She sighs pointedly, as if this is the wrong answer and snaps, “No, how are you
feeling
?” I hear this sentence and it all becomes clear. The dastardly Cliff!

“Mummy,” I growl, “what has Cliff been saying to you?”

She looks guilty and says sulkily, “Nothing! Nothing at all!”

I point a finger. “You never ask how I’m feeling! He must have said something! What did you discuss this morning?”

She wriggles crossly in her seat and says, “That I don’t like going to the clinic because everyone in the waiting room is mad!”

I allow myself to be sidetracked. “Oh! How come?”

My mother leans forward and shrieks, “It was positively Kafkaesque, I’ve never seen anything like it! Psychotic, the lot of them! I couldn’t believe I was there! So drab! And dirty! It was disgusting! Worse than school! This woman, this woman wearing a plastic bag on her head, mumbling to herself, and shouting at the ceiling, her bag was full of carrots and she, she, she asked me for money!”

Poor thing. To be mentally ill enough to think that my mother—with her neat bob and tightly clasped handbag—would relinquish even fifty pence without receipt of a cut-glass “please.” I say, “She was probably desperate, Mummy. I hope you gave her something?”

My mother shakes her head and says, “I told her to go away and leave me alone. She smelt funny.”

I sigh. To think that the moral education of thirty impressionable children is in this woman’s soft yet brutish hands. And they consider her their best teacher!

“So what else did you talk about with Cliff?” I demand.

“He wasn’t so nice this time,” she replies. “I didn’t like him as much.”

I place my Marmite sandwich on my plate. “Mum,” I say, “the clinic is not a dating agency. You don’t have to like him. So what did he say?”

But my mother is determined not to tell and becomes agitated. “It doesn’t matter!” she insists. “Just tell me how you feel! And don’t stop eating!”

I grab a Fondant Fancy, peel away the pink icing, and lick a glob of cream off its top. If my mother is treating me like a toddler, I might as well make the most of it. “How I feel about what?” I gasp, as the nerves in my teeth revolt against the sugar.

“I don’t know!” she cries. “Everything!”

I take a sip of lemonade (she’s bought that, too) and try to think. What can I say that won’t upset her? That I don’t mind about Christmas? That the additives are delicious? That she shouldn’t worry about Nana Flo? That I won’t move out until she wants me to? That I’m glad she’s returning to school in January? All these thoughts are anodyne, inoffensive, and safe. Feelings are trickier. But feelings are what she wants. And if I don’t tell her, she’ll never learn. She has no imagination, and if this silly tea is anything to go by, no common sense. Fine. She asked. I realize my mother is staring at me at the same time I realize I’m rocking in my chair and nodding like a little old lady. But it’s hard to speak. I am terrified that the ache I want to think of as a fading bruise will be diagnosed as gangrene.

Finally I blurt, “How I feel is that I miss Dad.”

My mother claps her hands and exclaims triumphantly, “That’s how I feel!”

I conceal a smile. My mother is fifty-five and never going to change. Cliff is fifty years too late. I was going to add, “Yes, but you have the right. You loved each other,” and see what—on the crest of her new empathy fad—she made of it. But I decide I’d be better off working out the answer for myself.

When the phone rings and I hear Luke’s voice at the other end of it, I practically deafen him, such is my joy at being whisked from Fondant Fancy & Feelings Prison. “You sound pleased to hear from me,” he says delightedly.

“I am!” I squeal. “How are you! I miss you!”

Luke says bashfully, “I miss you, too. It’s not the same without you.”

I suggest, “It’s tidier?”

He laughs. “Much.”

I beam. “So what’s up?” I say.

Luke pauses. “You heard about Michelle and Marcus?”

I reply, “Yeah! I don’t know who to feel more sorry for!”

Sounding surprised, Luke says, “So you’re not upset?”

My tone is shrill. “God, no!” I squeal, pressing the tip of my nose to stop it growing.

I can hear the smile in Luke’s voice. “Great! So uh, how’s Tom?”

It’s my turn to pause. “I haven’t seen him since Sunday,” I say shortly.

“It’s only Tuesday!” says Luke. “Give the man a chance!”

I feel obliged to set the record straight. “We’re not seeing each other,” I say. “We fell out.”

Luke replies, “Oh. Well, can you give us his number? I’m going out with the lads on Friday, thought I’d ask him along.”

I am divided between fascination (how is it possible to be so interested in football and so uninterested in human-relations?) and admiration (so sweet-natured yet so acutely insensitive—surely the pinnacle of self-preservation?).

“Hang on,” I say, plodding into the hall, emptying my bag onto the floor, and sifting through the rubble. Eventually I find my phone book. I read out Tom’s number and try not to sound miserable.

“So what you doing for Christmas?” says Luke. His knack of hitting the nail on the head when it has a migraine is uncanny.

“I’m not sure,” I say. “How about you?”

Luke replies, “The usual. Going to my parents where there’ll be too much to drink and a monster family row.”

I say, “How lovely,” and mean it.

Then I trot back into the kitchen where my mother is staring forlornly at the Battenburg. “Leave it, Mummy,” I say. “I’ll clear it.”

She replies crossly, “You barely ate a thing! I’m going to wash my hair!”

I shout after her, “I’m taking some up to Nana! It won’t go to waste!” I listen to myself. I sound about ninety. The sooner Nana moves out the better.

I knock timidly on her door. “Who is it?” she shrills.

“Fatboy!” I feel like shrilling back, but don’t. “Helen!” I bellow.

She shuffles to the door and pulls it open. “Yes?” she demands.

I wave about the cake plate at nose level. “I brought you up some cake.”

She sticks out a hand and takes it. “Thank you,” she says—and tries to shut the door!

I stick my foot in the gap. “Nana,” I say in a clear voice, “I know you’re busy, but could I come in for a second?”

She shrugs and says, “If you must,” and doesn’t open the door any wider. I suck in my stomach and squeeze through. Her few clothes are neatly folded in a stiff battered suitcase which is lying open on the bed. Her purple thistle coat is hanging neatly over a chair. Nana herself sits in the chair and starts guzzling the cake. I notice that her swollen fingers are dry and cracked at the joints and suddenly I feel like crying.

“Nana,” I say in a rush, “I’m so sorry about my cat pilfering your lunch, and—”

She interrupts me. “I told your mother it was unhygienic to have that filthy creature in the house, but would she listen?”

Privately I think that letting sardines “air” is marginally more unhygienic than Fatboy but—as I accept it’s unpleasant to have one’s lunch munched by an animal—I keep my opinion to myself. I apologize again. Then I say, “And Nana, please forgive me for reminding you about Grandpa, I didn’t mean to. And I do hope you’re not leaving because of it.”

Nana makes a noise in her throat and for a nasty second I think she’s choking to death on the cake. When I realize it’s a gurgle of disdain, I’m relieved. For a couple to die, respectively, in smithereens and from cake would be too cruel. My grandmother says, “Not a day goes by when I don’t think of my Gerald.”

I’m thankful—so I didn’t remind her!—but unsure of how to react. I’d like to ask her all about him but I’m scared of upsetting her. So (as per programming) I say, “I’m sorry.”

Nana replies, not unkindly, “That’s life and you have to face up to it. I make the best of things.” She nods toward the door. I take this to indicate dismissal and head toward it. I don’t dare answer back but I wonder about what she says.
Do you?
I think.

My way of making the best of things is to run away from them. And I don’t care what anyone says—I stand by it as a basic human right. I wake up on Wednesday, become aware of a nasty sinking sensation inside, and remember that Tom and I aren’t shagging and I wish we were. I get to work and confess to Lizzy, who says, “Call him, then.”

I have a better idea. “Let’s get wasted!”

Lizzy pouts.

“On orange juice!” I add, knowing that the chance of getting Lizzy to put alcohol to lip is remote. “Wasted from a surfeit of vitamin C! Hooray!” I exclaim, to tempt her and to stop myself sagging. Lizzy looks unconvinced, so I say, “Brian’s in Hong Kong at the tai chi convention, you went to the gym yesterday, the day before, and probably the day before that. Too much exercise is bad for you! You’ll grind away your hip bones! Ugh! Think of the arthritis!”

I fold my arms and wait. “Did I tell you Michelle and Marcus are engaged?” I say, in a sly bid to further my cause.

“What! No! When? Ohmigod!” says Lizzy. “All right,” she adds reluctantly, “but don’t think I don’t know it’s blackmail.”

I say, “That’s a double negative, but good,” and start plotting.

The prospect of luring Lizzy to drink is so uplifting that I’m inspired to call an estate agent. To my surprise, Adam has two properties to show me. They’re both in Kentish Town and within my price range. One flat he describes as “well-located for all the local amenities.” The other is “spacious and well-positioned.” I tell him that I’m busy tonight but maybe tomorrow and he has a fit.

“There’s lots of people viewing!” he screams. “Are you serious about this or not! There’s nothing else around! They’ll disappear like that!” I hear a snapping of fingers and suspect that Adam is what Michelle’s grandmother would call a “meshuggener.” But I agree to view the flats tonight anyway.

I break the news to Lizzy at six and she doesn’t mind at all. “It’ll be fun!” she says. We take the subway to Adam’s office and announce ourselves. Adam is busy talking on the phone and gestures for us to sit down. Four minutes later, he leaps up, manfully jangles a huge bunch of keys in our faces, and ogles Lizzy. I can tell he’s impressed by her, and she and I are knocked out by him, too—or rather by his foul industrial strength aftershave.