Are You My Mother?

by Louise Voss

  But I wouldn’t have time to do anything about it in the near future, not with the other, much more pressing, issue at hand. I needed to phone Mack, immediately, and ask for his help. The only problem was, I couldn’t remember where I’d put the piece of paper with his new mobile number on it, and hadn’t got around to programming it into my own phone. He’d said something about helping a colleague in an edit suite all that week, so I knew he wouldn’t be at home.

  I crept into Stella’s bedroom, on secretive tiptoe even though she was out, and began to rummage for her Filofax, in the vain hope that she might just have written the number down when he gave it to us. He was the only person who possessed a spare sets of keys to our flat, and Stella locked herself out so regularly that she needed all his contact details.

  The Filofax could have been anywhere. There was so much stuff packed into the bedroom that it was hard enough to see the floor, let alone one small fur-covered address book. I gazed around despairingly, resisting the temptation to sweep all Stella’s junk into several bin-bags and take it down to the two old ladies at the blind shop. They’d be in for a surprise if I did. Stella’s outlandish clothes were all over the place, draped over a tailors’ dummy by the window, or untidily shoved onto hangers on wheely rails down the side of the room. Feather boas, skimpy little vest tops, studded belts and sequinned long skirts jostled with hooded sweatshirts and a variety of decrepit leather and suede jackets bought at Portobello market.

  Her designs lay around everywhere, in varying stages of completion from paper to uncut fabric to the finished article. The bed in the middle was covered with bits of sari material and several yards of gingham. Her bedroom looked more like a theatre dressing room or a photographer’s studio, or an indoor version of the market stalls she frequented every Sunday morning as religiously as church.

  It was Mum who’d first taught Stella to sew. By the time she was nine, Stella’s success in the craft was on full view in the Victor household: in the neatly stitched embroidery on all our pillowcases; the casual jersey dresses she could almost make by herself; the jumpers she knitted for Ffyfield. It was the one thing in which Stella really excelled – her teachers were gratifyingly amazed when she would appear in school, yet again, with a homemade zip-up jacket or pearl-buttoned shirt or halter-necked top.

  ‘I made this,’ was practically her catchphrase. She courted the compliments with the subtle fervour of a medieval lady being wooed by her knight.

  Ten years earlier, Mum had tried to teach me the same skills. We begun, in the same way, with knitting. Unfortunately, Mum hadn’t realised that the fact that I was left-handed would be such an obstacle, and within two abortive lessons had concluded that it was impossible to teach someone in a mirror image of how one learnt it oneself. I could knit one row of stitches perfectly, if in slow motion: poke the wool over the end of the needle, wrap it around, stick the other needle through – but after that I was lost.

  ‘Sewing’, Mum had said. ‘That’ll be easier – it doesn’t matter which hand you use. Come on, Emma, let’s make a skirt for you!’

  And I was thrilled, caught up in the excitement of going to the department store and choosing a pattern from the Little Miss Vogue collection; watching some beautiful cotton material being unwound in lush folds to be cut into skirt lengths on the counter, with the peculiarly satisfying dark metal sound of the scissors shearing through it; then buying all the matching accoutrements; zips, buttons, thread.

  Disillusion crept in at the pattern-cutting stage. Even with Mum showing me where to cut, all the black lines and arrows and triangles on the horrible flimsy paper confused me , and I got it hideously wrong. The pattern ripped, or crumpled, or I found I’d cut it out a size too small… and that was the easy part.

  ‘Relax, Emma darling. Your shoulders are up round your ears.’

  ‘I can’t do it!’

  ‘You can. I promise, you can. Look, just tack these two bits together – no, these two, and then sew the waistband on. It’s easy.’

  ‘Mum! It’s not easy…. Why is the waistband all thick in the middle?’

  ‘Ah. Good question. How did that happen? Here – give it to me and I’ll re-do it. You carry on tacking that seam.’

  By the time the fabric was eventually, with many pricked fingers and tearful expostulations, cut out, pinned together, and sewn up, my disillusion had turned into extreme frustration. This escalated to utter loathing of the finished product, with its wonky, gappy seams, ill-fitting zip, and too-tight waistband, despite Mum’s best attempts to put it right. What was intended to be a simple A-line skirt looked more like a tea cosy. The skirt would never be worn, and I felt like a failure every time I noticed it, scrunched up at the back of my wardrobe.

  So of course Stella would be brilliant at it, a natural. I would come home from school to find her and Mum at the kitchen table, their heads together, silent in amicable concentration, embroidering intricate flowers along the bottom hem of a perfect little maroon taffeta skirt, and it would give me a feeling like pinking shears trimming around the lining of my stomach. Without even speaking to them I’d stomp up the stairs to my bedroom, listen to my Cure records at full volume, and contemplate dying my fringe pink.

  By the time Stella was twelve, all she ever talked about was becoming a fashion designer. The job was made for her. Designing clothes was a doddle – and not only would she get huge amounts of money for doing it, but she could also parade up and down a catwalk in triumph, the world’s press at her feet and the standing ovation of the glitterati in her ears. But also by the time Stella was twelve, she had already grown out of the black dress she’d insisted on making to wear to Mum and Dad’s funeral, eighteen months earlier.

  Lifting a purple lacy Wonderbra off the edge of a picture frame on Stella’s mantelpiece, I gazed at a photograph of Dad and Mum on their wedding day. Their expressions were carefree, almost smug, and it was such a very Sixties photograph: with Dad’s huge tie and Mum’s white crocheted mini-dress and floppy-brimmed hat. The steps of the registry office filled up the rest of the frame, dotted with confetti and good wishes. Poor things, I thought. The couple in the photograph had no idea of the trauma in store for when they later tried to have the family they longed for. All those nights of pre-marital courtship, when they’d been tipsily suggesting names for their children.

  Mum had, laughing, told me about this once. Before they were even officially engaged, they’d decided they wanted at least three or four children. They would be called Olly, Molly and Polly. Next might come Dolly, ‘…the show girl, obviously; and then, if we can face having any more, we’ll have Solly – and he’ll be the Jewish one!’ Mum had wheezed, slapping her thigh with hilarity.

  I never understood this joke, not for years. In fact, it made me feel uncomfortable and inadequate. They’d envisioned five children, and all they got for nine whole years was me, short, skinny, second-hand, and suffering from regular migraines. It was a bit like wanting the Swiss Family Robinson, and getting that sour-faced Mary from The Secret Garden instead.

  I replaced the photograph on Stella’s mantelpiece, catching sight of her furry zebra-print Filofax across the room as I did so, half-hidden beneath a pink Stetson. Better still, she actually had written in Mack’s new mobile number, which I copied onto my palm in black felt-tip pen.

  It was a measure of how completely I’d forgotten about my twelve o’clock massage – if I’d massaged anybody then, they’d have ended up with Mack’s phone number in black streaks down their back. As I wrote the last digit, I wondered why on earth I didn’t just walk out of the bedroom with the Filofax and replace it later; but somehow the whole operation had assumed a kind of furtive secrecy. I didn’t want Stella to know I’d been in her room at all.

  I went back into my bedroom and dialled Mack’s mobile off my palm.

  ‘Hi, Mack, it’s Emma.’ I noticed that my foot was jigging up and down.

  ‘Emma! How are you? Is everything OK?’ Mack sounded surprised, but then, I
never usually rang him during the day.

  ‘Yeah, everything’s fine, thanks. I’m really sorry to bother you. I just wondered if I could ask you a favour.’ I winced, thinking how often this was the reason I contacted him.

  ‘Oh, yes, look, I’m sorry I never got around to bleeding those radiators when I was over last night – are they still banging?’

  Poor Mack. I made a mental note to buy him a really nice present for all the odd jobs he’d done for us recently. ‘No, no, not that sort of favour. Actually, it’s sort of a long story. I need some information, and I wondered if you could help me look it up on the internet. All that Lori Singer stuff gave me the idea. I meant to ask you last night, but I… forgot.’

  ‘Sure. No problem. Want me to pop around again tonight? I’m playing squash but I could-’

  ‘No…listen, would it be OK if I came over to yours? This sounds kind of weird, and I’ll explain it later, but….I don’t want Stella to know what I’m up to.’

  There was a pause. In the background I could hear a voice in a thick Northern Irish accent shouting ‘JUST REBOOT IT! RIGHT NOW!’

  ‘Well, I’ve got to go and see my mother tomorrow, but I’ll be back in the evening if you want to come over then. Although you’re probably seeing Gavin, aren’t you, on a Saturday night…’

  ‘Um….no. No, that would be fine.’ I felt so uncomfortable that I had to clamp the receiver to my ear to prevent myself slamming the phone down, and pretending that the conversation wasn’t happening. Once it was done, it couldn’t be undone. I was going to have to look for her, and no more prevaricating.

  ‘Come round at about eight-thirty then.’

  ‘Thanks, Mack. If that’s OK?’

  The same background voice could be heard again: ‘Oh, you complete tosser!’ Then there was the sound of a muffled murmur from Mack, as he put his hand over the receiver. When he returned, he was brisk and abrupt. ‘Yeah, sure, Emma, that’s fine. Listen, I’ve got to go now. There’s a bit of a crisis going on here with a machine that they need help sorting out. See you tomorrow, then. Bye.’

  I hung up, slowly, my foot still jiggling uncontrollably. There was an unpleasant squeamish feeling in my stomach, and sweat was prickling at my forehead, as if I’d started something I might not be able to finish. Still, it made a change from the dull ache of missing Gavin.

  As I replaced the cordless telephone on its stand, I noticed the light flashing on the answering machine. I pressed the button to hear my twelve o’clock massage’s angry voice calling from a mobile phone, traffic noises audible in the background : ‘I’ve been standing on your doorstep ringing the bell for five minutes, which was a waste of time, since you obviously aren’t even in... Well, just forget it. I’ll go to the Sanctuary in future if I need a massage – so much for stress relief! It’s a joke.’

  Bugger, I thought, closing my eyes so tightly that little shards of colour splintered off into infinity behind my eyelids. The intercom must be playing up again. Sometimes you couldn’t buzz people in – but this was the first time the damn doorbell hadn’t worked either. And how could I not have heard the phone?

  Something poked me in the stomach as I leaned forward, so I straightened up and investigated. It was the plastic bottle of sweet almond oil which I’d forgotten I had put in my trouser pocket when I went to look for Stella’s Filofax. It felt squashy, inviting.

  As if in a dream I walked into the kitchen and over to the sink, uncapping the bottle and squeezing the woody-scented oil all over my hands so that it dripped through my fingers and in oily globes which fell golden on the white enamel. I stared at my coated hands, thinking of how much flesh they had touched and caressed, taut peachy baby flesh, old baggy diseased skin. But they had never touched the skin of any of my own flesh and blood – at least, not to my knowledge. I poured more and more oil out of the bottle, trying to get it to act as a protective covering over the fear which was making my hands shake.

  A picture of the baby bird in Are You My Mother? came back to me again; his disconsolate face and wide-open beak as the snorting digger picked him up in his scooping metal maw and carried him off, squawking, into the unknown. Help had come from an unlikely quarter for that baby bird, and it had been the digger who’d ended up saving the day. It had deposited him right back in his nest, where the embrace of his real mother’s warm wings and a fat, juicy worm awaited him.

  It had to be worth a try, I thought, as the last of the oil dripped like honey from the bottle and swirled slowly away down the plughole, leaving a pale greasy skin on the bottom of the sink.

  Chapter 17

  Saturday night. I had to endure what seemed like hours of Stella and Suzanne giggling and gossiping all around the flat: face-packed and tweezing, coiffing and buffing, the entire contents of Stella’s wardrobe alternately on each of their bodies and then discarded on the bedroom floor, running in and out of my room because my full-length mirror was, allegedly, more flattering than Stella’s.

  ‘Honestly,’ I said, trying not to sound too disapproving. ‘I thought you were only going to the pub?’

  ‘We are,’ retorted Stella, adjusting the ring in her bellybutton under a very short crop top. ‘Gotta look our best, though, haven’t we?’

  ‘Why? Who’s going to be there?’

  Stella pouted exaggeratedly in front of the mirror, before unscrewing a tub of gel and applying it to her individual curls, with a movement akin to a Victorian twirling his moustache. ‘Oh, you know, the usual crowd. Dan and Lawrence. Suze fancies the pants off Dan – ‘

  ‘Stel- la!’ came an aggrieved shout from the bathroom. I called out to her, ‘Don’t worry, Suzanne, your secret is safe with me,’ before turning back to Stella.

  ‘And what about you? Who are you after?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Stella, airily. ‘I dunno. I quite like Charlie, you know, that one you met that night – ‘ She stopped abruptly, not wanting to remind me of exactly which night.

  ‘Not that older one, the rugger-bugger? I thought he was awful – there was something really sinister about him.’ I remembered Charlie’s small lascivious eyes following Stella’s every move, and felt a wobble of unease.

  ‘No he isn’t! He’s really sweet, when you get talking to him. I like older men – they’ve had so much more experience; know what I mean?’ Stella danced around me, running her hands over her own breasts and down her thighs in an effort to rile me. It worked.

  ‘That’s not funny, Stell. You’re only nineteen. Besides, if you want an older man, why not Mack? I’m sure he’s got a crush on you, and he’s a sweetheart.’ But I said it very half-heartedly, knowing what her response would be. I couldn’t say I blamed her, either.

  Predictably, Stella made a gagging face, and then pretended to yawn noisily. She looked like a puppy, clowning around, velvety-skinned and sharp-toothed, and my heart constricted with love and fear for her.

  ‘Rightyho, I’m ready.’ Suzanne emerged from the bathroom in a tight Eighties-retro stripy dress with a big flower pinned on her left breast, trainers, and with her little dreadlocks corralled into a shock on top of her head. She looked bizarre and, I thought, bloody awful.

  ‘Babes! You look awesome. Let’s go, shall we? See ya Em; wouldn’t wanna be ya!’

  ‘Bye. Let me know if you’re going to be too late,’ I replied, weakly, feeling a sudden urge for a cigarette even though I hadn’t smoked for nine years.

  As soon as the door slammed shut behind them I stripped off my jeans and slid on a pair of tights and my purple satin Whistles skirt, combed some semblance of order into my hair, and burrowed about in my make up bag to find my expensive lipgloss. It felt as if some sense of occasion were required: I was dressing up for the possibility of my real mother.

  Squeezing several dropperfuls of Rescue Remedy on to my tongue, I took a deep breath and left the flat, less than ten minutes after Stella and Suzanne. On the way downstairs I saw that Percy’s door was open, and heard the sound of his TV blaring from inside. I almost st
opped to check if he needed anything, as I sometimes did, but at the last minute the prospect of the terrible old-unwashed-man smell made my stomach heave, reminding me too horribly of the man on the tube. On top of the fearful churning at the thought of what Mack might unearth, it was too much, and I crept on past.

  Inside of another minute, I was descending the six steep and broken concrete steps leading to Mack’s basement flat; steps so narrow that my feet had to go on sideways, and so perilous that I wondered how he managed not to break a limb every time he went down them. Maybe that was why he always wore Converse All Stars, I thought, for their good grip.

  Mack must have seen me coming because the door swung open, just as my finger was hovering over the doorbell.

  ‘Hi, Emma, come in,’ he said. ‘You look gorgeous.’

  ‘Oh, I might be going out later. I like your hair, by the way.’

  Mack had had quite a radical haircut. His blond wisps had all been clipped off close to his head, creating a sort of fuzzy-gangster look. The semi-skinhead image reminded me a little of Gavin; except that Gavin could have stepped out of ‘Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’, and in comparison Mack just looked like a little boy whose mother had given him a buzz cut. I had an image of him at the barbers, sitting on up on a board with a huge black cape swathed around his neck, big-eyed and on his best behaviour, like Stella was when Mum used to take her for haircuts. I imagined that the barber never had to sweep up after Mack when he’d finished, because Mack’s hair was so fine that its trimmed ends wouldn’t show on the floor.

  ‘Come in. Would you like a drink? Beer, wine, tea?’

  ‘A beer would be lovely, thanks.’ I stepped inside Mack’s flat, thinking, as I always did, how much more tasteful it was than I would have imagined; with its enormous maroon crushed-velvet sofa and cream walls. Today there was also a vase of gerbera daisies on the mantelpiece, and Coldplay’s ‘Parachutes’ swelling out of hidden speakers. When I’d first met Mack, his red All-Stars had erroneously led me to assume that he’d have had a flat full of pink inflatable armchairs and posters of S Club 7. I’d been gobsmacked when he said he was a TV producer – I thought people who working in television were cool, and Mack so obviously wasn’t.