by Elisa Lodato
‘I know he won’t forgive this. And I don’t blame him.’
‘I’d say come over, but I’m up in Derbyshire for the weekend. My train gets in at quarter past five. Do you want to meet me at St Pancras for a drink and a chat?’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll be OK.’
‘I’ll give you a ring when I get home, OK?’
‘OK. Speak to you soon.’
‘I love you, OK?’
‘Yep.’
I had some breakfast and a second cup of tea and decided I’d drive over to see Helen. She had seemed quite keen to meet up when she phoned the day before. She was also the closest thing I had to a mother.
I had never been to her house before; Helen always came to see us when I was a child, but I had her postal address and had used it last February to send her some reading suggestions for the funeral. She lived in a small cottage behind Twickenham Green, in an impossibly narrow street. It took me a long time to park, announcing myself with frustrated revs of the engine and endless corrections as I finally forced my car into a tiny space. By the time I emerged from the driver’s side, sweating and stressed, Helen was watching me from her window. She looked surprised. She opened the door just a crack, not willing to admit me. Then I heard the scrabbling paws of Sandy and understood.
‘Hi Helen. Hello Sandy.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m sorry it’s unannounced. I just wanted to come and see you. Can I come in?’
‘Yes. Of course. Hang on a second – let me shut the dog away.’ She closed the door for a couple of minutes and returned, opening it wide to admit me. She was wearing a dressing gown over jeans and a turtleneck jumper. When she hugged me, I felt how cold her face and hands were.
‘Are you OK? You don’t look well.’
‘No, I’m not. Bloody cold – I can’t shake it. Come on through.’
She led me into the small living room at the front of the house. She’d lit the fire and had evidently been reading when I arrived. Her book was splayed open on the table with her glasses folded across the pages.
‘This room is so cosy – and warm. Do you spend most of your time in here?’
‘Yes, and sometimes the nights too. It’s like a bloody womb. The rest of the house is so cold. Sit down, Laura, I’ll make you a cup of tea.’
‘That’s OK. I can make it. You’re the patient here.’
‘Don’t be silly. Sit yourself down.’
I sat down and reached for her book. Her glasses fell from the pages, landing face down on the lenses, and as I righted them, I saw she was reading Tess of the D’Urbervilles. It was the same edition my mother had kept beside her bed: a Penguin English Library edition with Stonehenge on the front cover. It looked as though it hadn’t been very well cared for; the front cover had been torn and repaired with sticky tape. I got up from the sofa and walked into the kitchen, where the kettle was boiling and Helen was carefully pulling a teapot from one of the cupboards.
‘Is that my mother’s copy of Tess?’
She put the teapot down quietly and closed the cupboard door. ‘Yes, I found it the other day. Kath must have left it here.’
‘Here? When?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. One afternoon.’
‘How long ago?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve only just found it. You can see – I’m only a few chapters in.’
She fired two tea bags into the pot and laughed. ‘I wasn’t keeping it from you. Do you take sugar?’
‘Yes. One, please.’
She reached up to a different cupboard and began rummaging inside. In her effort to locate the sugar, she pulled down a box of porridge oats and left it on the work surface.
‘She lived here, didn’t she?’
Helen stopped in her tracks. The steam from the kettle continued to climb in powerful spirals.
‘She lived with you. That’s why her book is here.’
She put the kettle down and turned to me. ‘So, she left her bloody book here! So what? We were friends. She came to see me from time to time, and must have left it here.’
‘You’re lying to me.’ My insides burned. ‘I know you are.’
‘How can you say that to me? Of course I’m not lying to you.’
‘She had porridge the morning she died. It was in her stomach when the pathologist opened it with his scalpel. And there wasn’t a single porridge oat in her kitchen.’
‘Oh, Jesus.’ She leant on the work surface for support and hung her head between her taut arms.
‘That’s why you’ve never invited me here. And didn’t want to open the door to me a minute ago. It’s because—’
‘She didn’t want you to know, Laura.’
‘She didn’t, or you didn’t?’
‘I’ve always wanted to tell you. But she wouldn’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because she thought you’d already experienced too much. The mess with your father, the thing in the playground … She was convinced, when he finally left, that you needed a simple life. And she wanted to give that to you.’
‘When did she move in?’
‘When Christopher moved to Australia. In 2007.’
I heard the numbers and tried to make sense of it. 2007. Two years after that day by the South Bank. When she’d told me to make room for the things I wanted.
Helen stood up straight and poured the boiling water into the pot. She was calm again. ‘Five years. She was here with me for five years,’ she said impassively. She put the teapot, some milk and two cups on a tray and lifted it to her chest, suddenly substantial: ‘Let’s go in and sit down. We need to talk.’
I turned on my heel and walked back into her living room. I made my way over to the corner where Helen had been reading and picked up my mother’s book. I closed it shut in righteous defiance of her attempt to mark her place.
‘You should have told me.’
‘I couldn’t, Laura. It was your mother’s decision, and she didn’t want you to know.’
‘Didn’t want me to know what? That she was gay?’ The reality of what I’d uncovered was starting to dawn on me. ‘It all makes sense now. You shared a bed with her after she had Christopher.’
‘That wasn’t what you think. That wasn’t sexual. I was there to support her as a friend, at a very difficult time in her life.’
‘But the reason she rejected my father was because—’
‘No, Laura.’ She was shaking her head emphatically. ‘No.’
‘It was because of you. You were the reason she didn’t want to be with him any more.’
‘That’s not true. Your mother never wanted to be with him full stop. She got pregnant, and then your grandmother saw to it that she got drawn into a life she never wanted.’
‘Bullshit! You were very keen to step into his shoes. And she let you.’ My lungs were hot with pain: the injustice of my father’s rejection and then, devastating in its connection, Tom’s humiliation at my front door.
‘Your father knew. Your mum had told him there’d been someone from her schooldays. And then, as time went on, he came to understand that it was me. But they decided to give things a go. Christopher was the child they set out to have together. He was planned in a way you weren’t. He was her big effort at the heterosexual wife.’
‘And what happened? She just gave up trying?’
‘Christopher’s birth, and her depression afterwards, it frightened her. She felt very alone. Like no one could help her. I tried to convince her to end the marriage.’
‘So she could be with you?’
‘Well, ultimately, yes. I’m not going to lie to you, Laura; I wanted your mum to be with me.’
‘But she wouldn’t.’
‘She knew that if she left your father her options were to be alone or come out as gay. And she couldn’t do the latter while you and Christopher were still young. So she tried to maintain the status quo until you left home.’
‘The status quo? You mean she lied to me.’
I broke down and wept. I looked at the book on the table and felt wave after wave of my own misery.
‘Please listen to me. I loved your mother very much – no, listen, Laura. You may not want to hear this, but it’s the truth. I loved her and she loved me. And it wasn’t about being gay or lesbian or anything like that. It was just the two of us. And we always loved each other. From the very first day of school.
‘You’re looking for her, Laura. I know you are. But the trouble with your mother is she liked to lurk in the shadows. She was very reluctant to be herself. I wanted her to own the situation with your father, I implored her to end things because I could see what it was doing to you and Christopher. And I can still see its effects this afternoon. But she was stubborn. And she had to do things her way. I tried, Laura. I tried to encourage her out.’
‘You mean you wanted her to come out?’
‘I just wanted her to be herself. And if that was a gay woman in her fifties living with her lover, then so be it.’
‘And she wouldn’t?’
‘No. She drifted into a strange middle ground where she was living with me but pretending she wasn’t.’
‘Were you supporting her?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Financially. Who paid for her life here with you? I’m assuming my dad had stopped paying any maintenance for me and Christopher. The house was paid off.’
‘You have to understand that your mother and I, we didn’t spend much. We went for walks, cooked together – having your mother here was no great expense.’
‘So you did, then? You kept her. Like a wife.’
Helen sighed. As though I was deliberately misunderstanding her. ‘I took care of everything until 2009, when she sold your grandmother’s house. She gave some of the money to you and Christopher and kept the rest for herself.’
‘What did she do all day? While you were out at work?’
‘She read, she walked a lot down by the river, prepared an evening meal. And when I got home she’d bleed me for details.’ She smiled down at her knees. I knew that grieving smile – a reflex of the facial muscles before they fold in pain. ‘I’d save up stories for her, Laura,’ she said, her face smooth and appalled. ‘Sometimes I’d embellish them and make up details I knew would make her laugh. Because I loved to hear her laugh. Oh God, I miss her. I miss her so much.’
‘And the day I found her?’
‘She got up early and took the bus to Surbiton.’
‘To maintain the fiction.’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘So tell me about her, then.’
My mother was extremely shy as a young girl. And Helen was the only girl she wanted to play with. On her first day at school she watched Helen playing with another girl on the carpet – they were building a house together – and decided she wanted to build a house. With Helen. Not the other girl. They were sitting cross-legged, happily constructing a building bright with primary colours and its own impermanence. My mother walked over to them and, without speaking, crossed her ankles and dropped down next to them. Helen reared up like a snake, suddenly attentive and full of venom: ‘This is our house. Go and build your own!’
My mother was stung by how angrily her bid to join in had been inspected, spat upon and passed back to her. She did the only thing she knew to do in such circumstances. She sought out the nearest adult and cried to them. Her teacher, Ms Rogers, called Helen over and asked her what had happened. Helen bowed her head so that the greasy, unwashed strands could fall forward. She continued to stare through them at my mother, the interloper, who was now crying with fresh vigour.
‘Katharine, what’s the matter? Did you want to play with Helen?’
My mother nodded her head.
‘Helen, Katharine here is very shy. Would you please let her join you and Christine in your game?’
‘No,’ she said, defiantly.
Ms Rogers sighed with mock sorrow and told my mother and Helen to join hands. ‘Helen, you’re going to look after Katharine. We all have to play together, so I want you both to go and sit in the reading corner and get to know one another.’ It was a terrible outcome for Helen. She and Christine had been talking through plans for the roof when my mother came along and used emotion to bulldoze the project. My mother, on the other hand, was delighted with Helen’s hand. She was full of admiration for Helen’s strength and defiance. And now she was hers to play with. Ms Rogers had made that clear. Except as soon as they’d walked a few paces from their teacher’s desk, Helen dropped the hand she had never wanted to hold. My mother tried to grab it up again, but, like a reluctant fish, Helen twisted it away from her. ‘I don’t want to play with you,’ she said to my mother’s confused face. And with this devastating statement set off in search of Christine and the housing project my mother had so mindlessly delayed.
But my mother didn’t have time to indulge her sorrow. Helen was walking away. Quickly. She had to get her back. She sat down beside her. Too close.
‘Go away.’
My mother picked up one of the blocks and offered it to Helen.
‘We don’t need your help!’ Helen shouted with the callous cruelty of a young child.
‘Helen Saunders! Come here right now, please.’ Ms Rogers had heard, with her own ears, Helen’s cruel rejection of my mother’s advances. She was furious. Helen approached the desk with contempt. At just five years of age, she was already angry with the world and all that it wanted from her.
‘I heard what you said to Katharine. I thought I told you to go and sit together. Katharine! Come here please.’ My mother returned to the scene of their earlier peace agreement and began crying at the failure of it. Helen folded her arms across her chest and turned her back on the girl who wouldn’t leave her alone. Ms Rogers pulled at one of the arms firmly and turned the recalcitrant body back to face my mother. ‘You two are going to go and pick up all the blocks on the carpet and put them in the box. Come back and tell me when you’re finished.’
My mother’s optimism was renewed; she wiped away her tears and smiled happiness at Helen. Who would not look at her. Together they put the blocks away, my mother handing blocks to Helen who put them solemnly in the box. She would have happily used them to build a wall between herself and my mother, but for Ms Rogers glancing in their direction every few seconds.
Despite my mother’s best efforts, they did not become friends that day. But they did enter into a relationship of sorts: my mother attached herself to Helen and sought strength from her hard and implacable exterior. She hoped that one day Helen would relent and let her in. In fact, Helen simply accepted my mother’s need for her and eventually grew accustomed to her faithful company. Their unity was established and noted. It became a matter of interest for the adults, who realised that a class divide neither girl was aware of had been crossed. Their friendship troubled my grandmother for many reasons. It’s true that she wanted nothing to do with this family from the local housing estate, but in her heart, more troubling than the social difference was the fact that my mother’s reticence deepened as the friendship continued. Helen began speaking for my mother. She answered questions on her behalf, made decisions about where they’d play and who might join their game. She was my mother’s mouthpiece, and my mother was very happy to withdraw into silence.
My grandmother tried to push at the soft, pliable infancy of their friendship, fancying she could change its course. She was cold and cutting to Helen. And yet every morning my mother reattached herself to Helen’s side in the playground and stayed there until it was time to go to their different homes.
Helen’s poverty stemmed from her mother’s poor education and poor choices. She had two sons from a previous relationship and Helen, her youngest child, from a relationship that foundered days after Helen’s birth. Her father was very young – just eighteen when she was born – and completely unprepared for the physical assault of a newborn baby on a home. He didn’t care to bring up his girlfriend’s two boys, and after being wo
ken every three hours by hungry cries, didn’t care to raise his own daughter either. So Helen was brought up by a woman who had been flattened by life; who had only a dim perception that her need to feel wanted by unworthy men had led her to this damp and disappointing existence.
When Helen was nine years old, Ms Rogers knocked on the door of their flat. It was a Tuesday morning and Helen was at school. Her mother answered the door and assumed, not recognising the face in front of her, that it was somebody from the council asking her to account for her son’s absence from school. John was in the living room watching television. He hadn’t been to school in over eight months. He said he was being bullied, but when she’d tried to raise this with the headmaster he informed her that John was the bully – that he made the lives of the younger boys a misery. She had no answer to his accusation, concluding only that she too was as weak as her son’s victims. That she wanted to push him out and away but he was too strong for her.
But the woman at the door was not from the council. She was Helen’s teacher from her year in Reception. ‘Mrs Saunders? I taught Helen a few years ago. May I come in?’ Helen’s mother simply nodded in the face of authority, grateful for the opportunity to compose herself as they made their way, awkwardly, to the living room, where John’s face was lit up by the glare of the television. She switched it off, emboldened by the presence of a stranger who had come to speak to her about Helen. John continued watching the now dark screen as though nothing had changed. Ms Rogers looked from him to Helen’s mother, who was sitting down on the edge of the sofa expectantly, and decided she’d better get to the point.
‘I’d like to talk to you about Helen.’
‘What’s she done?’
‘Oh, nothing! Nothing at all. Mrs Saunders, I’m here because I think Helen is very bright.’
Ms Rogers had hoped the adjective, heavy with meaning, would convey her daughter’s academic potential and serve as a springboard for her proposal. But Helen’s mother remained impassive. She was waiting for something more substantial. Something she could understand.
‘I think she should consider sitting the eleven-plus and trying for a place at the local grammar school.’
