‘I’m not ready.’
Connie scrambles on to the bed and wraps her arms around me.
‘You’ll get through this,’ she says, kissing the top of my head and looking me straight in the eye, hammering the message home.
The thing is, deep down, I know that at some point I will. I’ll wake up and be happy again, I’ll wake up and won’t feel so hurt, betrayed and humiliated. But right now the journey ahead seems bleak, lonely and hostile. This wasn’t a road I ever envisaged seeing myself on and I’m in no shape and no way prepared.
‘You’d better go before you’re late,’ I say, looking around the room for more clothes.
‘Have you met my boss?’ she asks, raising an eyebrow at me, making me feel sorry for him again. ‘I’ll wait for you and then we can walk to the station together. Give you a hand with all of this.’
‘You sure?’
‘Absolutely. Trevor won’t mind too much. I’ll mention periods or something. That’ll keep him quiet.’
Connie cackles as she gets off the bed and heads towards her bedroom door.
‘I moved your suitcase and bag to the bottom of the bed for you. Your clothes from last night are in there too … Get dressed, you little nudist.’
I pull the duvet up over my head, close my eyes and take a few deep breaths, preparing myself for the day ahead – because that’s all I can focus on at the moment. A day at a time. Or maybe that should be an hour at a time, or minute or even second … I’m not sure I’m ready for what lies ahead.
9
I get a new phone. The nice man in the shop even sets it all up properly for me so that all my apps and music store are running by the time I leave the shop. I’m now completely contactable.
The first thing I do is put it straight on airplane mode.
Later.
I’ll deal with everyone later.
I don’t listen to music on the way to Mum’s, because I know I’d gravitate towards something depressing and solemn. Seeing as I’m already consumed with such a heavy sense of foreboding, I don’t think I need something to drag me down further. I might’ve listened to Bananarama last night when I was drunk, but I’m not in the mood for them now. I can’t force happiness upon myself. I’d rather just sit in silence and listen to the sound of the train roaring its way back into my home county.
Ingatestone is the little Essex village I grew up in, which is only a twenty-minute drive from the place Ian and I bought together. It’s quaint, picturesque and has a real sense of community thanks to the club down one end and the many pubs scattering the High Street. Mum and Dad moved here before I was born and Mum still lives in the same house now, just with someone else. Mum was there on her own for years before Ted came along, and Michelle and I had moved out as soon as we could, so it doesn’t feel weird to have another man in the house we all used to live in together. I guess other people might think it’s strange, especially when Dad still comes over for dinner with them both, but it works for us.
I’ve got the key in my hand and am about to put it in the lock, when the door flies open and Mum comes leaping out, grabbing hold of me and causing me to drop everything I am carrying. I’ve never had as many hugs as I’ve had over the last twelve hours, and it’s starting to make me realize that I have had a real lack of physical interaction in my life lately, and that’s including with Ian. It seems like such a natural thing, yet it feels so alien. Saying that, I’ve needed and wanted each and every one. They don’t take away the pain, but being enveloped in someone else’s arms for that little moment makes me feel safe, as though I’m not having to face the scariest chapter of my life alone.
‘I’ve been so worried about you,’ Mum says, grabbing hold of my hands and kissing me on the cheek before kissing my hands.
Mum is never one to step out of the house without ‘her face on’ and her hair done, yet here she is in all her natural beauty with her honey-blonde hair in a scrunchie on top of her head.
Oh, the sweet woman.
I might’ve been freaking out about her quest to get me married off, but I just see the love and concern pouring out of her and am floored. Granted, I’ll probably be annoyed with her again in half an hour, but that’s the way we are. She loves to protect and mollycoddle me while I protest her love, but beneath it all, knowing she has my back, no matter what is a huge comfort.
‘Come on, before they all start yapping,’ Mum says, picking up my dropped items and shooing me inside before the neighbours come out and have a nose at her heartbroken daughter.
The place has hardly changed since we all lived here. Most of the furniture is the same – it’s just been reupholstered umpteen times by Mum, who loves giving herself little projects to do. I might not have lived here for over a decade, but it still conjures up the feeling of going home to the place I belong. It’s my little cocoon and as soon as I step inside I realize I never want to leave it again.
‘Take all this up so we’re not tripping over it, Elizabeth,’ Mum orders of my life possessions as she hands me the items she has picked up. ‘I’ve made you some lunch.’
‘Thanks, Mum.’
She purses her lips together sadly before making her way into the kitchen. God knows why it’s me feeling sorry for her.
I trudge upstairs and dump my stuff on my old bedroom floor, although now it looks nothing like it did as it’s been transformed into a guest room. No longer do posters of Take That adorn the walls; it’s stripped and fresh and painted in a mellow yellow, with white bed sheets and curtains, and little soft teddies lining the windowsill.
It might sound horrifying to see your childhood bedroom stripped back to its bare bones, but I got the good end of the deal so I can’t complain. Michelle’s old room has been turned into a mini home gym by Ted. She was pretty pissed the day she came back to find a treadmill where there used to be a bed, but it’s not like she ever stays over. She only lives five minutes up the road. In fact, I suspect this was all done long before we even realized, as we never usually have any reason to come up here.
Before heading downstairs for lunch I go over to the mirrored wardrobes that line one side of the room. Sliding open one door, my throat constricts at finding it completely empty, except for a dozen empty hangers waiting for guests to use them. Swiping the door back to where it was and opening the second one, I breathe a sigh of relief. There it all is. Stacked up in a variety of cardboard boxes I pillaged from the local Budgens before I left for uni, is my stuff. The bits and bobs I need to help me find out if I’ve become the person I’m meant to be, or grown into a complete fraud who was willing to lose herself for love.
Who is the real Lizzy Richardson? I guess we’ll find out soon enough.
My mum will be shouting up the stairs for me to go down soon enough, so I decide to leave it all where it is so that I can start my quest properly after lunch. Knowing that I’m so close to the old me is enough to lift my spirits. Not so much that I bounce gaily down to Mum, but enough to ignite a little excitement as I close the door and head towards the dozens of questions I’m sure she is going to be firing at me.
They don’t come.
Instead, when I walk into the kitchen all of my favourite Mum-inspired delights are laid out on the kitchen counter – torn roast chicken, a mini shepherd’s pie, a massive crustless quiche, baked eggs, sausages, bacon, muffins and crumpets. It’s a feast and, as far as I’m aware, it’s only the two of us eating.
‘I didn’t know if you’d fancy anything so thought I’d see if I could tempt you,’ Mum shrugs shyly, her lips pursing together and twisting.
‘Oh Mum … you shouldn’t have.’
But that’s what she does. That’s the sort of mother she is. If I think about anything I went through in my early life Mum was always the first one there trying to sort it out for me. She was made a bit redundant in that role when Ian came into my life because he was always there to pull me through instead. Plus, I largely kept any struggles from Mum – not because I didn’t want to share it, b
ut more because I didn’t feel I had to. But now that I need her again, here she is – with an army load of food that she’s slaved over.
I sit at the wooden worktop and take in her offerings.
‘I’m sorry,’ I blurt out. It catches both of us by surprise.
‘Elizabeth?’ Mum says softly, her shoulders dropping. Only now do I realize she was doing her best to stand strong and be the one in control. I might be the dumped fool, but I know her dreams for me have flitted away too – dreams she must’ve wished for before I was even born. Hopes of my happiness, contentment, and meeting the love of my life before settling down to give her grandchildren. ‘You don’t need to be sorry.’
‘I don’t know what happened.’
‘And that’s life,’ she says, popping serving spoons and forks into the dishes laid out before sitting down opposite me. ‘Sometimes things just don’t work out and there’s no real reason for it.’
‘But there’s always a reason.’
Mum smiles at me as she picks up a knife and cuts into the quiche. ‘The next few weeks are going to be rubbish. You’ll wallow, you’ll cry, you’ll wonder why this has happened to you and what you could’ve done differently. You’ll mourn for the future you thought you were heading towards and be angry that it’s not materialized. Then it’ll all stop. You’ll accept that you have a new version of life ahead of you and, more than that, you’ll start living and loving again.’
‘Said by a woman who knows what she’s talking about.’
‘Amen to that,’ she nods.
I never interfered when it came to Mum and Dad’s divorce and I have to say, it was a total shock. There were no arguments or doors being slammed. No sign that they weren’t getting on aside from the usual squabble over something meaningless. We were on holiday on the coast when they sat us down and told us, together, that Dad was moving out. We thought they were joking. We’d just spent five days laughing and being silly together as a family and couldn’t fathom how they’d reached that decision. Sure enough, though, the day after we got back, Dad packed up his suitcases and a couple of boxes and moved into a flat at the back of Budgens. Waving him off was incredibly bizarre. Mum shut the door and got on with making us dinner, but we noticed her slipping into the sadness that lay underneath her cheery exterior. It wasn’t what she wanted. It was clear it was Dad who’d initiated the whole thing, yet she never spoke badly of him.
I was fourteen at the time, and Michelle was twelve. We were aware of what was happening and Mum knew we were looking to her for reassurance that life was going to be OK. And most of the time it was. There were emotional times when I was a total shit and backchatted too much, which led to her screeching and sobbing at me (I felt awful), but we made the situation work and we got through it. We recovered enough to be able to pull together again. I won’t lie, there were times when I called them both from uni, calling one after the other, and hated the fact that they were both on their own. It was surely better to be together than lonely and bored.
Still, they only lived a few streets apart in the village. It took time, but soon enough, once Mum had started dating Ted and her heart was on the mend, she started inviting Dad over for dinner and they started seeing more of each other, making birthdays and Christmas one hundred times easier. Ted didn’t mind or feel threatened by the presence of an ex-husband, and so a firm friendship was formed.
I know Mum knows all about heartache and having to rebuild the foundations beneath her. I’d go as far as to say she had it far worse, because she had to consider my and Michelle’s feelings too. It’s funny how things happen when you get older that give you a newfound respect for the adults you were sure were only out to ruin your life when you were growing up. Mum, more than anyone, knows what I’m going through, and that must be tough on her to witness. I feel shit for having to put her through it, to be honest.
I look out to the garden and see Ted banging about in his shed at the far end, the flat cap on his head making his ears look even bigger than normal. Grabbing a hanky from his pocket, he gives his nose a blow and wipes his crystal-blue eyes with the back of his hand. It’s freezing out there. Mum probably banished him from the house so that she could have some alone time with me to fully assess how I’m doing. Ted’s a good man. A solid example of how being broken doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll never be fixed again.
‘Can I stay here for a bit?’ I ask. Connie’s does sound appealing, but I have my own room here, my mum and a heap of clues as to who I was when I left for Sheffield.
‘This is your home for as long as you need it to be,’ she says, flashing a smile that doesn’t quite reach the softness around her eyes. She’s hurting because I’m hurting and while that pains me, it makes me realize there’s nowhere else I’d rather be right now than with the woman who has nothing but unconditional love for me.
‘Thanks, Mum,’ I say, piling some sausages, shepherd’s pie and a crumpet on my plate before tucking in.
Mum looks delighted at her success.
10
Half an hour later, and probably a full stone heavier, I decide to revisit my wardrobe of stuff, pulling out boxes and placing them in the middle of the room so that I can tackle them one at a time.
Each box is carefully taken to my bed and opened with trepidation, expectancy and excitement. Slowly I unfold the cardboard flaps, as though by respecting the vessel filled with my old toot, they’ll be more likely to respect me back and provide me with the answers I desire. I feel like I’m in some cheesy 90s movie, or an episode of Eerie Indiana – a throwback to my childhood of weekend morning TV viewing.
There’s a lot of crap. Seriously, there are things I can’t even believe Mum has bothered saving from a trip to the dump. Did I really put my foot down about keeping a lopsided clay bowl I made in junior school? Or my old maths books that are void of any personality or individuality? To be fair, the answers were probably copied from Connie’s anyway – she was the brainy one, I was the more creative one. Even the two-times table left me feeling a bit sick with anxiety, but a pencil and an idea left me enthralled for hours. My imagination knew no bounds, whereas my maths skills were highly limited.
Flicking through an old folder of my classwork entitled ‘The World of Work’, I find a drawing. It’s of what I wanted to be when I grew up, or what I assumed I would be. I’m playing tennis. Yep. That’s right. Tennis. My feet are the size of cruise ships against my skinny (one pencil-line worthy) legs and I’m wearing sweat bands on both my wrists and ankles, as well as around my head. I was clearly very focused on catching all the sweat I would be perspiring. My hair is tied up in a huge red bow and I have the biggest grin on my face as I hold my racquet in the air and people throw flowers at my feet. Some appear to have fainted – clearly in awe of my brilliance.
As the date on the art piece tells me it was birthed early July, I’m guessing Wimbledon was on and it was all people were talking about. That must be the case, as I don’t remember ever wanting a sporting career. I’m not putting myself down but I don’t have the drive, determination, self-control or self-discipline it takes to be a sporting hero. I also love my food too much – and I’m not talking organic kale and broccoli. Not without Ian around to scrutinize.
Come to think of it, I do remember begging Mum and Dad to get me a tennis racquet one summer, and then me dragging Michelle down to the tennis courts behind the community club for the majority of the holidays. It must’ve been nothing more than a summer romance, though, as it was quickly forgotten once I got back to school and realized that I was indeed shit at it. One of my classmates actually played for the county and I knew I didn’t look quite as fierce as she did when attacking that ball. She also made these guttural grunting sounds as she worked the court and I simply couldn’t master them. Sadly, tennis wasn’t for me.
The picture might not tell me anything about the person I could’ve been now, had I dedicated myself a bit more (I am not athletic, but Ian has got me more into my overall fitness – which I�
�m obviously thankful for), but it’s a reminder that not everything written or stored in these boxes is going to enlighten me beyond having a little chuckle to myself. I clearly had no idea who I was at just eight years old, and that’s fine. I’m obviously no better off now!
The next box I ceremoniously open contains my CDs and DVDs. Turns out I don’t have as many as I thought I did, but my absolute favourites are there. From Bananarama to Take That and So Solid Crew, from Sleepless in Seattle to Fifty First Dates and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. I breathe a sigh of relief as I pop my So Solid album into my laptop and let it play while I continue to sort and search, hoping that the sound of ‘21 Seconds to Go’ will make me feel like the boss of my own life.
The items start becoming more recent, evolving from an older version of Lizzy Richardson, and I soon locate a stash of photographs. I absolutely adored disposable cameras and usually had one on me to capture special moments, although I was careful not to take more than one picture of the same thing for fear of wasting the film. It was evidently a love affair that extended far longer than my non-existent tennis career, as I go from finding pictures of me and Connie dangling off my bed upside down, our big pre-brace teeth being shown in all their hellish glory, to us downing Sambuca shots in Dukes with a bunch of our other mates. The skirts we’re wearing are so short we might as well not be wearing them, and I have a cigarette in my hand.
In one particular image that’s been captured on another night out I appear to be wearing my top as a skirt and nothing but a bra to cover the top half of my body. Connie is rocking a similar look to mine.
A smile spreads across my face as I remember the night this picture was taken. It was a Thursday and we were only meant to be heading into Chelmsford to make use of happy hour in one of the pubs at the back of Debenhams. We got a message from a group of male friends, who were a few years older, saying they were going into Dukes so we decided to go last minute. We were literally on our way to the station to go home when we changed our minds. Only, when we got to the club we discovered that particular night was beach-themed, and they had a strict no-jeans policy, which was a disaster as we were standing there in skinny jeans and vest tops.
Some Kind of Wonderful Page 7
