by Adele Parks
At night I fall into the deepest well of self-pity. Then not only am I dejected and mortified at my inability to comfort my mother – I actually resent her. I'm almost jealous of her. At least Mum once enjoyed a young family. At least she dwelt in love, to an old age, with my dad. These possibilities are lost to me.
Chuck.
During the day I wander zombie-like through the house. Mutely, I accept the tomato soup and soft-boiled eggs that my mum prepares. As she hands me the invalid food that she used to make when I was a kid with tonsillitis I see her eyes brim with concern and my feelings of self-abhorrence grow; not only am I unable to help her but I'm adding to her woes by being a worry. I realize she's lost her husband and she's old and I ought to be taking her on jaunty trips to Royal Horticultural Society gardens or to National Trust houses for a mooch and tea and scones, but I can't. I wish I was a better person, but the most I can manage is to put the kettle on and shuffle down to the corner shop to buy Jaffa Cakes when required.
'Go and get showered instantly,' says Alison. 'You smell horrible. Then we are going for a walk and a talk.'
I moan and pout but she glares at me and I know that she's a force to be reckoned with whereas I am minuscule and weak right now, so I do as I'm told.
I do feel better after my shower. Mum has left out a warm, fluffy towel and a new, posh hair conditioner. I take my time, luxuriating in the creamy bubbles popping between my fingers. The hot jets massage my shoulders and back. I turn round and open my mouth; the water pours in and out again, dribbling down my chin. I close my eyes as the water drills against my lids. At least in the shower it's impossible to tell when I'm crying.
When I finally emerge I find Alison and Mum sitting around the kitchen table. I hesitate before entering the room, shy and unsure how to announce myself although I know I'm the one they are waiting for. The June sunlight blazes in through the open back door. I can hear the neighbour's kids in their garden; they are arguing over something or other. Their indignant and self-righteous voices whiz over the fence and mingle with the more sombre but equally earnest tones of Radio 4 presenters, which are constant in our kitchen. The sweet aroma of over-fat roses flows into the house. I glance out of the window. The garden is in full bloom now, in fact the petals will soon drift loose from the stems, fall to the ground and start to decay, sending up an altogether headier, slightly sickly stench. I feel a little sad that I've let the beauty of the garden slip past me unnoticed this year. Mum and Dad have a fabulous garden which is carefully planned to look resplendent all year round. The crocuses and daffodils dance buoyantly in cheerful gangs of colour in the borders in spring, the Japanese maples are resplendent, defiantly spattering scarlet and orange against the grey mornings in autumn, the evergreens look dignified under glistening frosts or dustings of snow in the winter months, but for me the unequivocal high point of the year is the summer, when the rose beds are mesmerizing. I adore the silky, delicate petals clustering together in such perfect forms. In that instant I regret that I have stayed stuffed in my room for the lion's share of the past month, rather than enjoying the fresh air and blooms. I think of Dad and the fact that he's missed his beloved roses too. Worse, he won't ever see them again. I'm freshly stabbed with anguish and grief.
Mum and Alison are clearly not swamped in the same distress just at this moment, they are chatting, and Mum suddenly breaks into peals of laughter at something Alison has said. It's only hearing her laughter that I realize how absent it's been in the last three weeks. I really should be trying harder to distract her and not wallow so much.
'What's funny?' I ask as I take a place in between them.
Alison pushes a mug towards me and a plate of chocolate digestives. I double take at the sight of the mug. Mum must feel really comfortable with Alison, normally she insists on cups and saucers – we only have mugs in the house at all because I like to use one first thing in the morning. Alison stayed here with us when I got married, as she was chief bridesmaid, and they've met a number of times when Mum and Dad visited me in London, but I hadn't appreciated just how well they got on with one another.
'Fiona, Alison's girlfriend, is funny,' says Mum in reply to my question. Again I'm startled. While I've never hidden from my parents the fact that Alison is gay, it's never been openly referred to. I don't swear in front of them either, I'm an eternal eight-year-old in their presence.
'Share the joke then,' I say, trying to sound jovial. I'm aware that if I don't make an effort to act semi-human Alison will be down on me like a ton of bricks.
'Fiona wants a baby,' giggles Mum. 'And she's trying to persuade Alison that it's a good idea so she's started this campaign. She's been leaving little hints around the house. Alison found a pair of Gap baby socks in the bed but as she didn't have her lenses in, she thought it was a mouse and hit the poor defenceless socks with her shoe!' Mum starts to chuckle again as she imagines the scenario. I can't see the funny side. I stare at Alison in disbelief.
'You're kidding, right?'
'No, I honestly thought we had mice.'
'I mean about her wanting a baby.'
Alison looks mildly uncomfortable. 'I think she's serious.'
'But you've only known each other five minutes,' I say irately.
'Elizabeth, don't be rude,' admonishes Mum. She pushes the plate of biscuits back towards Alison. 'Do you want another or will it be Fiona who is eating for two?'
She giggles again, probably fired up by how risqué the conversation is. And given my mum thinks two-piece bikinis are a new and scandalous invention, talking to my best friend about whether she or her lesbian lover will be carrying the child they may conceive (presumably with the help of a turkey baster) is being risqué.
'Well, nothing is decided. There's a lot to talk about. We're just mulling over the idea, but I think Fiona would be doing the heavy work.'
Alison grins at me, almost as though she's expecting my congratulations. I stare at her, truly bewildered. Alison doesn't like kids. Alison is a career woman. Alison is a lesbian and yet despite all these things she's probably going to have a baby before I am. Of course she bloody is! The Pope is probably going to have a baby before I am! I'm sure that Alison can feel my malevolence surge over the plate of biscuits, waiting to hit her between the eyes, because she refuses to meet my gaze. It's not that I object to lesbians bringing up children, of course not, it's just I thought Alison was immune to the charms of a mewing and snuffling tot. I thought when absolutely every other friend of mine had a Russian Doll set of offspring, Alison, at least, would remain childless. In my bleakest moment it's been a comfort that, if the worst came to the absolute worst, we would be able to lunch together when we were in our forties and be safe in the knowledge that we would not have to sit through endless shows of photos of children. Our handbags would be devoid of Calpol sachets, our purses empty of small pieces of broken plastic toys.
But it appears not.
'Come on, you,' says Alison, getting to her feet and nudging me quite hard in the arm. 'Your mum has some overdue library books that need returning. Let's wander into town and stretch our legs.'
66
The books that need returning to the library are Dad's. Mum has many interests, but code-cracking during WWII and golf courses in north-west Scotland do not number among them. I hand the books over with reluctance. I want to hold on to them because I can imagine my father slowly pulling books from the library shelf, deliberately leafing through them and then finally, after great consideration, making his selection. I wonder if he read them. Did he have time? Anger flares up inside my stomach as I think of all the things that are interrupted by death. Dad never took a world cruise, he never saw Britain host the Olympics, he never held a child I'd given birth to.
Alison doesn't allow me to linger; after I've paid the fine on the overdue books she drags me off to a coffee shop and insists we both have gooey cakes.
'So?' she demands, the moment we are furnished with homemade lemonade and Victoria sponge. I tuck
in; unfortunately grief has not subdued my appetite.
The 'so' is all encompassing. She's expecting me to explain why I didn't call her to tell her about Dad's death or to invite her to the funeral. Plus, depending on what Mum and Roberto have said, she's probably also wondering where I was when I went AWOL for the week before that, while my family were desperately trying to find me so that they could bury my father. She might want to know why I'm barely speaking or sleeping and why I have no plans at all to return to Italy.
I haven't the energy to fudge. I tell her in gruesome detail about my terrible time in Italy; the full extent of Raffaella's meanness and Roberto's coldness, culminating in her flinging away my belongings and him carrying condoms. I tell her about running away with Chuck and having wild abandoned sex with him for nearly a week and I tell her about my final conversation with Roberto, the one where we let each other go. I don't tell her about Chuck's text. Right at this point, that's one humiliation too many, even to share with my best friend.
'So what next?' she asks with a huge deep breath.
'I don't know. I'm disgusted with myself. I've messed everything up,' I moan. My shame at buggering up my life leaves me feeling physically sick on a more or less continuous basis.
'Well, it's not all your fault,' she says carefully. She places a heavy emphasis on all. Therefore assuring me that she certainly thinks some of it is.
'Alison, my dad was lying cold in front of an open fridge with hazelnut yogurt on his sweater and I was dripping with cum,' I wail. The guilt is intense. I can't forgive myself.
'Maybe you shouldn't have been having it away with the chunk of hunk, but I don't understand what difference it made to the situation with your dad. Even if you had been sitting with Roberto when Max rang with the sad news, it would have been too late. Your dad was already dead. It was over,' she finishes gently.
Intellectually I know that this is true, but I can't stop the guilt pumping around my body like a venomous poison.
'I should never have gone to Italy.'
'Nonsense. Your father was no doubt thrilled with your choice to travel.'
'No, I should have moved back home and spent more time with Mum and Dad. That's what I will do now.'
'Whoa, hang on girl. First of all I don't think your mum would want you to do that, especially if you are going to insist on moping round the house all day, every day, getting under her feet. Really, you're nothing but a nuisance at the moment. But even if you were being her lifeline, your mum wouldn't expect you to put your life on hold and look after her forever. She's never said she wants that, has she?'
'Well, no, but –'
'She's always struck me as an especially independent sort of woman.'
'Well, yes – but.'
'And what of Chuck?'
My cup slips a fraction, my hands are strangely clammy. 'What of him?' I ask cautiously.
'Well, the way you describe him sounds pretty full on. Doesn't he fall under the category of unfinished business?'
I pause. Yes, yes, of course he does. But then no, no, absolutely not. I realize I have no alternative other than to tell her about the text and the ensuing silence.
'What odd behaviour,' she says carefully.
'Odd!' I marvel at her understatement. 'He behaved like a total bastard.'
'But up until that moment he'd behaved like a total dream.'
'That just makes it harder to bear.'
'Some people aren't very good around death. Maybe he just panicked and didn't know what to say to you.' Alison trails off; we both know her excuses for his behaviour sound lame.
'This is going to make him sound hideous. I can hardly believe it myself but I've given his actions a lot of thought and the only conclusion I can reach is that everything worked out quite conveniently for Chuck.'
'What do you mean?' asks Alison, intrigued.
While I've been slouching in my PJ s seemingly gormless and inert, my mind has been whirling.
'Chuck was about to ditch me anyway. He used the timing of my dad's death to make a swift exit. He was not prepared to support me, follow me or fight for me because he knows that we have no possibility of making it as a couple. Chuck doesn't see a future for us.' I pause, take a deep breath and then admit, 'You see, he doesn't want kids. I do. End of.' I try to sound breezy and matter of fact as I push on. 'He never misled me; I can't even have the satisfaction of accusing him of that. He told me he didn't want kids well before I launched myself at him. He told me that he'd never intended to seduce me and was going to leave well alone if I hadn't run to him.'
Yes, he also told me he thought I was hot, and yes, he obviously had a good time in Venice too, but I have to remember that he never talked about a future. He never said he loved me.
'You really believe that?' asks Alison.
'I do. He's a classic commitment-phobic. He even admitted that he had a thing for married women; that is classic commitment-phobic behaviour, isn't it? Still, no matter, he was a distraction, that's all. You said as much yourself. You said I'd have fallen for a gargoyle, I was that lonely in Italy. Now I'm home he'll vanish.' I cross my fingers as I say this and hope I won't burn in hell.
'Unless I was wrong, of course,' Alison says carefully.
'You're never wrong.'
'I'm often wrong. Or I change my mind. It's normal.' Alison pauses. 'Have you talked to him since you received the text?'
'Er, no. I told you, I broke my mobile.' I fight a blush as the memory of my flinging the phone bursts to the front of my mind. Maybe I was a little hasty. 'He can't call me and I don't have his apartment or mobile number. I never memorized it. Who does nowadays? I don't know how to get hold of him, even if I wanted to.'
'So you do want to,' says Alison, with more insight than I appreciate right now.
'No.' Yes. At least, sometimes I do. At night when I'm lying alone, I do.
'You could call the language school. You'd be able to find that number.'
It's a thought. Hope surges through my body. In a gnat's breath despondency catches up. What would be the point?
'I just have to start thinking of Chuck as a recreational fuck. You know – the one you're entitled to if you discover your husband is an adulterous bastard,' I bluster.
Alison looks doubtful.
She's right not to believe me. I am lying to her and I am lying to myself. Being with Chuck was not just a meaningless and vengeful act. It was something extraordinary. I thought he was something extraordinary. The week in Venice was a natural culmination to the months of deepening friendship and as such it was of great importance to me. With Chuck I felt entirely thrilled and thrilling and thoroughly known and knowing. While the week was possibly the most dreamy and romantic of my life, it was also the most vivid, intense and authentic. I wanted him with a ferocity that was beyond plans or propriety.
Sometimes when we made love it was all about answering to the primitive and visceral, other times it was bizarrely dreamlike and quintessentially quixotic. We were enveloped in a significance that made us into who I'm sure we are supposed to be. We fell apart from the crowd, even though the city was heaving with other lovers. We were different and separate from everything and everyone else and yet at the same time we were intrinsic and vital to the universe. For once I understood why I was born a woman. All the months and years of baby-trying and failing had made me doubt there was a reason, but for that all-too-brief week I had some sense of understanding. I evolved.
But thinking about Chuck, reminiscing about Chuck, elaborating fantasies involving Chuck, is not allowed. He's given me space. Heaps of it.
Suddenly, I feel like an empty plastic cup floating on an ocean. Lost, ugly and disposable. What a glum world if Chuck isn't in it. I sigh and rally. That isn't a helpful thought. I have to push on. I beam at Alison and say, 'If your firstborn is a girl, I'm expecting you to name her Elizabeth.'
Alison laughs, easily distracted by her own happiness.
67
21 June
Thr
ough the open window I watch Mum potter in the garden. For the millionth time that morning I find my gaze pulled towards Dad's office. His computer is in there. It's no good. I can't fight it any longer. I'm just not that strong. It only takes seconds to find the telephone number of the language school in Bassano del Grappa. Without pausing to talk myself out of it this time, I do what I know I've been wanting to do since I smashed my phone. I call to ask for Chuck.
The phone is picked up by the school secretary. Knowing she is a friend of Raffaella's makes this call a million times harder.
'I sorry, Elizabet –' she does not pronounce the 'h' – 'the teachers are all on the holiday now. Exams have started with supervisors from different schools. Our teachers all away having fun.'
'Oh yes, of course.' I fight back the disappointment. Hot tears burn my eyes. Too late. Too bloody late. What sort of fun is he having? Who with? I take a deep breath. 'Are there any messages for me?' I ask.
'Yes.' My heart leaps. 'From the Director.' And plummets again. 'She want your address to send wages and papers.'
'Anything else? Anyone else?' I ask, but I know I sound as hopeless as I feel.
'Nothing.' She's firm and final.
I give my home address and telephone number. I summon every ounce of courage and simultaneously throw away my last speck of dignity when I add, 'You can pass on this address to any of the staff, if they ask for it.'
'OK.'
There's nothing more to say. 'Well, 'bye then.'
'Good bye, Elizabet.'
68
22 July
'It's amazing, the World Wide Web, isn't it?' says Mum.
She pronounces each W carefully and excitedly. She throws me a sunny beam as she directs her mouse towards the favourites list, where she has already stored a number of sites. I can't believe that it's only nine in the morning and she's up, dressed and on the web.
'No one ever stops saying that, Mum. Do you want any breakfast?'
