Conditional Love

by Cathy Bramley

  The screen went black.

  Would it be too dramatic if I changed my Facebook status to ‘orphan’? With shaking hands, I turned the laptop off and threw the rest of my tea down the sink. A text alert made my phone ping: I’ve cancelled your birthday massage.

  What have I done?

  This sudden interest in my father, was it worth damaging my relationship with Mum for? Perhaps I was dredging up ancient history which would be better off left buried in the past?

  Either way, it didn’t look like I would be enjoying ‘La Vida Loca’ anytime soon.

  I trudged out of the kitchen. My bedroom opened its shabby chic arms and surrounded me like a comfort blanket.

  ‘The sacrifices I made for you,’ Mum had said.

  The duvet beckoned. My body felt heavy and tired. I could so easily have dived back under the covers, blanked out all my problems with sleep. Instead, I sat down at my dressing table and attempted to weigh up those sacrifices, balancing them against the ones I had made, unbeknownst to her.

  At twenty-one, I had been utterly confident of a successful future. I had had it all mapped out in a three-year plan. By twenty-four I would be an interior stylist for a top London magazine. The world would be my exquisitely accessorised oyster.

  I had set myself a goal and worked my naïve little butt off to get there. I spent hours working on my portfolio, designing schemes for rooms of all shapes, sizes and styles. From Shaker to chic, beach house to Bauhaus, rustic to romantic, I had more ideas than Kirstie Allsopp. Finally, after writing letter after letter, applying for job after job, I’d cracked it.

  I opened up the slim drawer of my dressing table.

  It would still be in here, I was sure of it; there was no way I would have thrown it out. My fingers scrabbled around, pushing past the bank statements, old bus passes and twenty-first birthday cards until they found their quarry.

  There it was. Underneath a decade’s worth of detritus, hidden but not forgotten, a white envelope, ordinary enough, except for the franking label.

  BBC Good Homes Magazine.

  My heart leapt as I read it, as it had all those years ago when it had arrived in the post. I remembered squealing with joy reading those words, ‘We are delighted to offer you the position of Junior Stylist.’

  Jess and Emma hadn’t been at home for some reason and I was bursting to tell someone. Mum! I would ring Mum in Spain. She would be so proud of me. My dream was coming true, I was on my way!

  I cast my mind back to that night. My mum hadn’t been in Benalmádena then. She had been living and working in a hotel further up the coast. It had been a nightmare to get hold of her. Mobile phones were really expensive in Spain at the time, so I could only ever speak to her when she was in her hotel room, and as she was such a sociable creature, that was virtually never!

  I lost count of the number of times I phoned the hotel’s reception that evening, trying to catch her in. But at nine o’clock, Mum called me. As fate would have it, she had news of her own. The local Spanish hospital had removed a lump and she wanted to come home to start a course of treatment and convalesce. She wanted to stay with me, she explained, so that I could look after her, so she could see her old English doctor with whom she felt more comfortable, no problems with the lingo. It would only be for six months. That wasn’t too much to ask was it? After all she had done for me?

  My dreams had come crashing down round my ears. As of that night, I turned my back on all those grand plans. What was the use? I clearly wasn’t in control of my own destiny anyway. Far safer to coast along and see where I ended up. If I didn’t have dreams then I couldn’t fail. Safe, secure and no surprises. That became my new motto.

  Writing back to the magazine to tell them I wouldn’t be joining the team was one of the most painful things I had ever had to do. I never told anyone about that job offer. It didn’t seem fair to burden Mum with it and I didn’t want Jess or Emma to pity me; I could manage that quite nicely on my own.

  From then on, I stopped thinking about the future and consigned myself to accepting what came along, my feet firmly on the ground instead of chasing the stars.

  Now though, with Mum’s accusations ringing in my ears, I couldn’t help but wonder how things might have turned out if I had only kept hold of those dreams.

  twenty-eight

  It was a bright Saturday morning in October, one of those fresh autumn days when you get the urge to run through piles of carefully swept up leaves for the sheer hell of it.

  However, my task for the day was much less fun. I had been procrastinating about clearing Great Aunt Jane’s bungalow for weeks. The idea of digging through a stranger’s possessions was giving me the heebie-jeebies. But as I had run out of excuses today was the day.

  I pulled on my jeans, a hoodie and a pair of warm boots, collected a pile of Marc’s dirty clothes off the floor and went in search of willing assistants.

  ‘Ah, sorry, babes,’ said Jess, head bent over the kitchen table. She put a final stripe of varnish on her thumb nail. Her nails matched her violet leggings perfectly. For some reason, Tinky Winky came to mind.

  ‘Spike and I are calling in at Mum and Dad’s later.’ She beamed up at me and squealed, ‘It’ll be the first time they’ve met him! I can’t wait.’

  I smiled back at her as I stuffed Marc’s laundry in the washing machine and did a rough calculation; she must have been going out with the policeman for about six months now. It was unheard of for her to be so restrained about getting the stamp of approval from her parents.

  Jess had a catalogue of habits to frighten the bejaysus out of potential partners, which usually had them doing a runner with wedding bells ringing in their ears at the earliest opportunity; from practising her married signature in front of him, to checking how he felt about the names Scarlett and Rhett for their future children to stopping outside jeweller’s and pointing out her favourite rings.

  Normally, the poor chaps are subjected to a ‘Meet the Parents’ ordeal within the first few weeks. Jess must be serious about Spike to be playing it so cool.

  Emma appeared with her cheeks bulging, accompanied by a strong whiff of antiseptic. She gargled loudly, spat into the kitchen sink and grimaced.

  ‘I’m sure I’m coming down with laryngitis,’ she moaned, reaching for the kettle to refill it.

  ‘Come home with me and Spike. Mum will make you Ribena and a hot water bottle,’ said Jess.

  I hid a smirk. I was always amused when either of them referred to their parents’ house as home. Well, amused or envious. The flat was the only home I had, unless I counted the bungalow, which I didn’t.

  ‘No thanks,’ said Emma, looking like she’d rather have all her teeth removed with pliers than play gooseberry to her sister. ‘I’m helping Sophie clear the bungalow.’

  She smiled at me and coughed delicately to reinforce how much of a sacrifice she was making.

  Jess waved her nails in front of her face to dry them.

  ‘Dad is going to love him,’ she sighed. ‘Spike is every parent’s dream for their daughter.’

  ‘He’ll certainly send them to sleep,’ snorted Emma, pouring hot water in a bowl. I took the kettle from her and made myself a mug of tea with the remains of the water. She did have a valid point; the most interesting thing about Jess’s boyfriend was his name.

  Jess pursed her lips and smiled primly. ‘We are two peas in a pod, Spike and I. Two servants of our community: I shape the young minds of the future generation and he keeps the streets safe, putting himself in danger so that we can sleep soundly in our beds.’

  ‘Give it a rest, Jess,’ said Emma, lowering her face down over the steaming bowl and covering her head with a cloth. ‘To hear you talk, you’d think he was trawling the streets of Miami instead of crawling through traffic in Mapperley.’

  The doorbell rang. Jess pushed herself up from the table, still with her hands outstretched.

  ‘Jealous,’ she mouthed to me.

  ‘I heard that,’ mu
ttered Emma from under her towel.

  An hour later Emma and I were rattling along the country lanes towards Woodby in my new car. I had bravely dipped into my inheritance for the first time and bought a ten-year-old mini from a lady who had advertised it in The Herald. Such a luxury to hop from the flat and straight into the car!

  Emma wasn’t taking any chances against the autumn wind. She was wrapped in a ski jacket, wore a fleecy hat with ear flaps and had a scarf wound so tightly round her face that I could hardly hear her when she finally piped up, ‘I am a bit jealous.’

  ‘You don’t fancy Spike, do you?’ It was news to me if she did. She used her special brand of sarcasm when she talked about him, the one usually reserved for Marc.

  ‘God, no!’ Emma winced in horror. She looked at the clock on the dashboard. ‘She’ll be there now, parading her perfect boyfriend and their perfect jobs under Mum and Dad’s noses. Makes me sick.’

  I smiled at her sympathetically. I hadn’t had much experience of sibling rivalry. Except that recently I had started imagining my father with a proud arm around his son. I shook my head to make the mental picture vanish.

  ‘I’m sure your parents are just as proud of you as they are of her.’

  Emma turned away and gazed out of the window. ‘Nah, Dad said once that teaching was a proper career. He might as well have said that silversmithing was a ‘Mickey Mouse’ profession.’

  I slammed the brakes on as a tractor pulled out of a farm gate in front of us. Emma swore and gripped the door handle so hard her knuckles turned white.

  ‘Prove him wrong then!’ I said, peering round the tractor and overtaking it as fast as the little car would allow. ‘Can’t you enter an award or something? There are always prizes being handed out in my industry. There must be an equivalent for jewellery? Your dad couldn’t fail to be impressed, plus it would do wonders for the business.’

  Emma frowned and popped a throat lozenge into her mouth. ‘Not a bad idea. Not that I’d have a chance in hell of winning.’

  ‘Rubbish. I can see it now,’ I said pulling onto the drive of number eight. ‘Emma Piper – award-winning silversmith.’

  ‘Pfff.’ Emma rolled her eyes dismissively. ‘Talking about parental approval, what are you going to do about your mum?’

  ‘Let her stew,’ I replied, yanking the keys out of the ignition with more force than was entirely necessary.

  One side of Emma’s mouth lifted in a half smile.

  ‘What?’ I demanded.

  ‘Nothing,’ she grinned. ‘Good for you, that’s all. About time you stood up to her!

  ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she said, catching a glimpse of my indignant face, ‘I love your mum; she’s the life and soul of the party. But you’re always walking on eggshells around her. Anyway,’ she nodded towards the bungalow, ‘what are we going to do with all the junk in there?’

  My stomach lurched as I contemplated the ordeal ahead. Apprehensive didn’t begin to cover it; the idea of sifting through a dead person’s things was horrific.

  ‘No idea. Come on, let’s get this over with,’ I said, climbing out of the car.

  Once inside, we stood in the living room in silence. The bungalow was so damp and cold that we could see our own breath. My eyes took in all the furniture, the pictures and the knick-knacks. I dreaded to think about what lay in wait for us in the bedrooms. The place was full of stuff, it would take us hours to sort through everything.

  Emma opened up the writing bureau and groaned. It was heaving with papers. I bet she was wishing she was sitting at her mum’s kitchen table with a bowl of chicken soup in front of her.

  I was about to admit defeat and retire to the pub when we heard a ‘Cooee’ coming from the porch. Before we had had a chance to respond, an elderly lady let herself in. She was rake thin, as tall as Emma, but slightly stooped with white hair swept up in an elegant bun.

  ‘Audrey Davis,’ she pronounced, striding forward with an outstretched hand. ‘From next door.’

  I shook her hand and introduced myself and Emma.

  ‘I found her you know,’ said Audrey, in a stage whisper. ‘It gave me quite a fright, I can tell you. Still, best way to go, in your sleep, no fuss.’

  She looked at the roll of black bin bags in my hand. ‘Having a clear out? Good idea,’ she continued without waiting for a reply. ‘I’ve got the number of a house clearance company in my book. Follow me. I’ll make tea and we can get cracking.’ She marched off.

  Emma and I stared at each other and then like giggling school girls scurried after her.

  Over tea drunk from china cups and walnut cake eaten with cake forks, we devised an action plan. Well, Audrey did. I wouldn’t have dared argue with her even if I’d wanted to. She was like a cross between Mrs Pepperpot and the scary fitness instructor off The Biggest Loser.

  She had booked the house clearance company to collect everything except Great Aunt Jane’s personal items. A friend of Audrey’s who volunteered for a charity shop was going to take all her clothes and books, and bed linen and towels were going to the local hospice. All Emma and I had to do was pack up photographs and paperwork, and the rest, Audrey would take care of.

  Everyone should have an Audrey, I decided, dabbing my finger round my plate to collect the last few crumbs.

  ‘Shall we?’ said Audrey, striding to her front door.

  Emma released the radiator reluctantly and shrugged her jacket back on. ‘She’s even bossier than Jess!’ she whispered in awe.

  Audrey offered to tackle the kitchen and within seconds, the clatter of pots and pans filled the little bungalow.

  I paused outside my great aunt’s bedroom, my hand on the door. So far I hadn’t dared go in.

  ‘It doesn’t seem right going through her things,’ I hissed to Emma.

  ‘She’s dead, she won’t mind,’ she replied with her trademark bluntness. ‘Besides which, she put you through hell by making you meet your dad. You’ve earned the right to be here.’ She squeezed my arm as I pushed open the door.

  The bedroom seemed warmer than the other rooms and even after all these months, there was a lingering scent of floral perfume.

  I sat down on the pink bedspread and tried to slow my breathing. I wasn’t one for believing in ghosts, but I did feel more of her presence in this room than the others. I shuddered. This place gave me the creeps; my arms were covered in goose pimples.

  I did it, Great Aunt Jane. I met him, like you asked. But I’m none the wiser. What was the point? What were you hoping to achieve?

  ‘I’ll do the drawers and you do the wardrobe,’ said Emma, breaking the spell and galvanising me into action.

  Emma started lumping piles of clothes onto the bed. I looked inside the wardrobe. There was a shelf above the hanging rail. At first glance it looked empty, but I could just make out the edge of an object. I fetched the stool from underneath the dressing table. There was a shoe box right at the back and, using a coat hanger, I managed to hook it close enough to reach.

  I climbed down off the stool and blew the dust off the box. The lid was broken and there was Sellotape at two of the corners where it had been mended in the past.

  I took a deep breath and removed the lid. At the top was a handful of old photographs, some black and white and some colour. I was looking at special moments in the old lady’s life, all mixed up and out of order. My fingers flicked through the pictures greedily, hoping to find something I had never seen – a photograph of my parents’ wedding.

  ‘Look at this!’ I waved a picture at Emma. ‘It’s my mum and dad!’

  It wasn’t their wedding, but both of my parents were in the photograph. If I’d been looking for proof that my parents had once been happy, I hadn’t found it. My mum looked about eighteen; she was wearing a blue and white stripey dress and white stilettos. She was standing next to two boys with a glass in one hand, her head thrown back in laughter. Terry, on the other hand, was a picture of abject misery. He was standing on the far edge of the group, scow
ling like a grumpy teenager. He had a long curly fringe covering one eye, the other eye was trained on my mum. Whatever she had found funny, he clearly didn’t share the joke.

  ‘Looks like the writing was on the wall, even then,’ said Emma. ‘What else is there?’ She took a handful of pictures out of the box and rifled through them.

  My eye was drawn back to the box. Underneath the pictures, I could make out something pink, an envelope. I plucked it out with trembling hands and stared at it. It was addressed to me, care of my great aunt. There was another envelope just like it, this time in white. And underneath that several more. All with my name on them.

  All at once, I knew exactly who the sender was. The hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention as I slipped my finger under the flap and ripped it open.

  ‘Sophie?’

  My legs gave way and I sank back onto the bed.

  Happy sixth birthday Sophie, love Daddy.

  He hadn’t forgotten me. I tore open the next one while Emma picked up the first.

  Happy seventh birthday Sophie, love Daddy.

  He had remembered my birthday. Not just my thirty-third.

  Happy eighth birthday Sophie, love Daddy.

  Terry had cared about me.

  ‘Bloody ’ell,’ said Emma, collecting up all the torn envelopes. ‘There’s a card here for every birthday from six ’til you were twelve.’

  It didn’t make sense. Why start at six? Why stop at twelve? As far as I could remember I had never received a card from my father. It wasn’t something I was likely to forget.

  ‘She wanted me to find these,’ I said, looking up at Emma through eyes brimming with tears. ‘She warned me that she was meddling, in her letter. I think this was what she meant.’

  These cards didn’t fit with my mum’s side of the story. According to her, he had never shown the slightest interest in his wife or daughter after they split up. This little pile of birthday wishes proved otherwise. There were so many questions needing answers. Or were there? I was torn; what would I really achieve by digging up the past? Terry was back in America and Mum wasn’t speaking to me. Would knowing all the facts about their break up change anything?