Something I'm Not (23 page)

I run back to the car, where Vasant is listening to what sounds like an instalment of a Wilkie Collins adaptation. He winds down the window and a breath of warm car fug brushes against me. I remember the Ganesh picture hanging in his kiosk, and I say a little prayer. Then I bombard Vasant with questions: Did Mother ever mention a date? He's not sure. What kind of date? I give him more detail, quoting Antonia. Suddenly, his face lights up. From his pocket he draws out a small notebook, the one he was scribbling in when we first met. He consults its pages carefully.

Armed with Vasant's information, I race back to Antonia's wind tunnel; the gravel beneath my shoes gives off a satisfying scrunch. After a brief flick through the appropriate leather-bound tome, Antonia locates the precise coordinates. She comes over to me beaming, removes her glasses, and gives me an enormous hug, rubbing my back. Then she leads me to the doorway to point out where I must go.

The copper trees lining the paths rustle in the wind. They sound as excited as I am. After a few minutes, I get to an informal T-junction in the gravel. I spin round to find Antonia still standing in the doorway, pulling her cardigan around her. She waves energetically, and signals left.

I set off along this next path, a fist squeezing at my heart.

Chapter Thirty-one

W
HEN
I
WAS
a child, I had hoped I was adopted. Attempts to carbon-date the moment when I hit on this notion are for ever linked with the grey of my parents' bedroom, before I started school.

‘Don't ask stupid questions,' Mother replied from her bed. ( The phrase ‘Your mother's just having a lie-down' is one of my earliest memories. My first mimicry of this line earned me a wallop, but the stifled giggles from the greengrocer made it worthwhile.)

It wasn't just that the idea would have led to fantasies as to the fairy-tale lives of my true parents. It would also have legitimised my early ambitions to escape.

*

Mother is being discharged today. Dylan has dropped me
en route
to meeting the Bishop. I've decided not to drive. Of the two possibilities (that my failure to provide transport will be viewed as typically thoughtless, or that my offer to drive Mother home will be rebuffed), I prefer the former. Maybe I endure my mother's contempt because it is less shattering than outright rejection. Her corridor greets me with the smell of bleach.

Mother sits at the foot of her bed, talking to a male nurse I do not recognise. She wears an oatmeal-coloured jacket with matching slacks; the outfit, presumably, from the day of her collapse. I have never seen her look so smart, so coordinated. Beside her in a neat pile lie all the new clothes I bought her during her stay. The nurse excuses himself.

‘Agency,' whispers Mother, arching her eyebrows. I feel as though I am expected to concur with the implied insult.

‘Shall I get you a bag for those?' I ask, nodding at the clothes.

‘No. I'm leaving them here. They're not what I would buy,' she adds.

I let this pass. I cross to the window and look out at the river and the Houses of Parliament. A police motor launch bumps against the tide, doggedly in pursuit of something.

‘You don't have to stay,' says Mother. ‘They've organised a car to take me home.'

‘All the way? It's over seventy miles.'
No wonder the NHS is over budget
, I think.

‘I can't manage on my own. What with all the equipment I must take.'

I turn around. ‘What equipment?'

Mother gestures limply at a black oblong box on wheels against the wall. I go over to inspect it. It has dials, and a corrugated tube connected to a grey mask.

‘What's it for?' I can guess, but having established a base camp of neutral conversation I don't want to aim for the summit too soon.

‘Oxygen. The bronchial pneumonia has left me very weak—' I hear pride in her voice, as though she has reached the next round in a national competition. ‘—and I need help breathing. I can use it during the day, but it's mainly to wear when I'm asleep. Not that I intend to.' Mother's back appears to ripple. ‘So, as I say, the unit's very kindly arranged a car. It's nice to feel that someone cares, at least.'

I make a conscious effort to resist the familiar bait, but ‘I can't imagine you'd've wanted
me
to drive you all the way to Sussex' blurts out. I want to slap myself.

‘Of course not,' says Mother, sharply. ‘Don't be so stupid.'

I take a deep breath. ‘I'm not stupid,' I say, more evenly. ‘I am merely pointing out that you'd've loathed the trip as much as me.'

‘Don't pick me up,' says Mother, quickly. ‘It would have been unbearable, because you're always so cold.'

‘Only with you,' I say, in spite of that mantra in my head telling me not to get involved.

‘You always were a secretive child,' Mother continues, ‘rehearsing your little plays. You never even cried in the night as a baby. You were so self-sufficient.'

There is a soreness at the base of my neck. We have never talked this way before, and I'm not entirely sure I am happy with us talking this way now. All the same, I feel unjustly accused.
And why do you think that was?
I long to say.

For the first time, she turns to look at me. ‘You have no idea, have you, what it was like watching you with your father? To see the way you played with him and not with me. When you came home from school, you used to race to his studio and sit fumbling with clay. For hours! What did you find to model all that time? It's just pieces of baked mud. I just don't get it. Do you have any idea how much that hurt me?'

‘I was just playing, for God's sake. I was being a child.'

Mother's eyes flash with anger. ‘You took him away from me.'

I stare at her, astonished. ‘But you and Daddy shouted all the time. He left us.'

Her eyes narrow. ‘Yes, you've always blamed me for that. But where were you the evening he left? Flounced out to a party, as I recall. Came back and bragged that you'd started smoking.'

I cross over from the oxygen tank and sit down on the bed beside her. I look down at her bony hands and think how simple it ought to be to reach out and take them in my own, and how sad it is that I can't bear to touch my own mother. Before I know what I'm doing, I've tucked my hands under my thighs. Pity I didn't think to do the same with my tongue.

‘Actually, you're not the warmest of people.'

At this, Mother stands up abruptly and starts pacing the room. ‘What an extraordinary thing to say. You were fed, weren't you? Clothed? Your father was devoted to you. I wasn't aware I'd been such a bad mother. But now I know that this situation is one hundred per cent
you
, and nothing to do with me—'

The agency nurse appears in the doorway. The car is running late, he tells us with an apologetic grin. Could he get us cups of tea? We both quickly shake our heads.

‘It's a result of your behaviour, because of how
you
were,' hisses my mother as the nurse retreats.

‘Well, there's a context for everything, and mine is that I was raised by someone who was very closed off. I'm a product of my upbringing just as you're a product of yours.'

‘How dare you presume', seethes Mother, striding to the bed, ‘to know about my upbringing. You don't know anything about my upbringing—' She towers above me, the lines at her lips standing to attention.

‘And you accuse me of being secretive!'

‘You were too young. You wouldn't understand.'

‘You say that as if you can't believe I'd understand
today
.'

‘The world's a brutal place, Amber,' Mother declares. ‘One will always be betrayed. When my parents died in the war, I had nobody to help me. I was out of London, and my carers couldn't have cared less.' I watch as Mother reaches up her sleeve for a small lace handkerchief and uses it to blow her nose. Its delicate fabric makes me feel warmer towards her.

‘And you were very afraid—' I say, moving towards her.

‘Don't tell me what I did and didn't feel,' she snaps, shrinking away from me. Her eyes are bright and sharp. ‘You're jolly lucky I'm not the sort of woman to roll around on the floor—'

‘But that's what I've been trying to tell you. It's very hard to be the child of someone who's so buttoned up.'

‘Oh, really. Then I can't wait to see how yours turn out.'

I take a deep breath and turn back to the window. The old buildings stand tall and strong across the water. A lone buoy bobs in the current left by the police launch. ‘I'm not having children. That is, we aren't. Matt and I.' I bristle. Even this disclosure feels irresponsible.

‘You never told me,' says Mother, the words like pips on her tongue that she spits on the lino.

‘I'm careful never to tell you anything,' I mutter under my breath, appealing to the House of Lords.

‘But I've always wanted grandchildren.' I turn in time to see her move slowly, reaching out for the bed before sinking into the mattress. Her eyes are fixed on her shoes, as though she might find my babies playing at her feet.

‘But you told me once you didn't
like
children.'

When she speaks, her speech is slow, as if she's trying to remember. ‘I said that? When?'

‘When I was little. I think it was your way of treating me like an adult. Can you imagine how I felt when I heard that?'

When Mother looks up again, it's to ask me why I'm not having children.

‘God knows,' I sigh. ‘Because of all this, maybe? As I said, you told me you didn't really like children.'

‘Oh, so it's my fault?'

‘No, I'm not saying that.'

‘So, what are you trying to say? That I should have provided you with brothers and sisters for you to practise on? That this is your revenge for being an only child?'

I have a knot in my stomach. ‘But there was another child, wasn't there, Mum?'

‘This is stupid—'

‘Vasant took me—'

‘Vasant?' she screams, rising. ‘How dare you!' She leaps for the doorway. I've never seen her move so fast. ‘When's that car coming?' she yells to the empty corridor. I sit on the bed and watch her dart back and forth. ‘This will have huge reverberations,' she announces, before running back out into the corridor. When she finally returns, it's to the armchair, where she sits clutching its armrests. There is a silence before she speaks again. ‘I don't think I can bear sitting here with you until the car comes, so perhaps you'll be on your way.'

I hear the familiar strains of Mother deciding what is best for both of us. I slide off the bed and stand alongside the chair, gazing out over the river, tugging at the hair at my parting. The police launch is now heading back the way it came, gliding by beyond the double glazing. I have the impression it wasn't successful in its mission.

‘I always thought it was my job to make you happy,' I say, my words on the pane of glass becoming spores of condensation. ‘But, because you were always so miserable, and bitter, I guessed I'd let you down.'

Mother is silent for some time. When she finally speaks, her voice is completely flat. ‘I think your father had the same idea – that he could turn my life around. That he could spin me on his potter's wheel and create a happy woman, like one of his vases. I've always suspected he married me out of pity. And that made me contemptuous of him, that he could have been so noble and warm-spirited towards someone like me.' Her eyes light up. ‘When we were first married, he'd sketch me. Those drawings made me feel special – whole again, somehow. But then you came along, and he took to sketching
you
instead.' Her mouth is set rigid.

I feel things clicking into place, like reading a perfectly crafted sentence. ‘But that doesn't mean Dad stopped loving you.'

‘Believe me, Amber,' Mother says, sharply. ‘You have no idea. No idea about anything.' Mother's gaze is fixed on the squares of lino. ‘Wretched was the word they used about me.' She folds her arms across her chest. ‘I never dreamed I'd tell anyone this. I never even told your father, I was so ashamed. I wanted my parents to stop thinking of me as wretched. I was so sorry for what I did that, when they told me I must leave London to stay in a home— It meant being alone at the birth, but I was prepared to do anything to earn their forgiveness.'

I crouch down on a level with her knees.

‘I hadn't meant to disobey. The Common was out of bounds, they said. It was so visible from the air, it made the perfect landmark for German bombers. And what with being so close to the river and the docks, it wasn't considered safe to even play there, let alone walk home across it. But I was tired, and it was about four o'clock. Dusk. So I took the short cut home— And afterwards, I felt so guilty. I couldn't tell anyone what had happened.

‘And later, when I began to show, my parents changed their mind about keeping me in London. I was never an evacuee like other youngsters. I wasn't sent to a family, but to a home for fallen women, to be punished for my indiscretion. I never even got to finish school.' She pauses. ‘I've thought about their decision all my life, and now I think perhaps they were also punishing themselves, for not being able to keep me safe.'

Cramp forces me to shift position; to kneel. Mother half turns at the adjustment and looks at me. There are tears massing in her eyes.

‘So, you see, love is very fickle. It's turned on and off like a tap.' She looks away again. ‘They never came to visit. Of course, I thought that when they saw my baby they would love me again. That they'd see I hadn't meant to hurt them. And then they were killed in a raid on Battersea, and they never got to see her—'

My mother weeps. It is an uncomfortable sight, not least because it's as though she doesn't know how to do it. The water that swells her rheumy eyes is stopped before it has a chance to become tears. She weeps in the manner in which I guess she has grieved in private for decades, taking care not to tear again the fragile fabric of her life.