Out on a Limb

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

Still, it does feel nice to be visiting my mother. With special emphasis on the word visit. Dee’s right. This is best. This is progress. This is right. It won’t feel exactly comfortable till I banish the demon guilt from my psyche, but I think I can live with it. Just.

  ‘Ah, Abbie, dear!’ coos Celeste as she answers the door. ‘What perfect timing, too. I’ve just cut the cake.’

  ‘Cake? Is it somebody’s birthday?’

  ‘Oh, no, dear. We don’t tend to celebrate those these days. No, no. We’ve just been up to Lidl and they had some on offer. Anyway, do come on in. Mind the boxes as you go.’

  ‘Pru’s been round, then?’

  ‘Yes, bless her. With some of it, anyway. I don’t for the life of me know where we’re going to put everything. But we’ll muddle through together. As we do.’

  My mother is coming down the s tairs as I enter. As ever, I’m amazed at her astounding resilience. Were it not for the scar, you wouldn’t know about the knee op. Won’t be long, I surmise, before she’s back at the dance club. And back with another Hugo. Despite what she’s said.

  ‘I brought your cheval mirror,’ I tell her, as she gives me the two perfunctory Garland air kisses. ‘Oh, and here’s your post.’

  She takes it. Riffles through it. Re-sorts it. Pulls one to the top. ‘Well, well, this looks exciting. I’ll just get my glasses.’ Then she’s rattling back off up the stairs.

  Celeste, in the meantime, takes me through to the living room, while she goes off to pour me a nice cup of tea. It’s a warm, fuggy room with much sat-upon sofas, that have crisp embroidered caps on the backs and the arms. There’s a brace of little plates and, as promised, a sponge cake, which is sitting on a cake stand atop a silver doily, as if beamed here from the pages of an Enid Blyton book.

  There are photographs everywhere. Of Celeste’s children and grandchildren. Soon to be augmented, no doubt, by my own mother’s extensive collection. Of my mother, my mother, my mother. I think once again about existing on memories, and I hope she will find some that bring her some peace.

  ‘So,’ says Celeste, handing me a cup and saucer and then perching herself at the other end of the sofa. ‘How are you?’

  Don’t you just hate it when people ask that? Well, not so much ask that, but ask it like that. How are you, with special reference to the word in the middle. As in shorthand for saying that they’re very well aware that things are not all that they might be. Well, not so much aware that things are not all they might be, but that one specific thing, which they are too polite to mention, is at the nub of the question they’re asking. Well, not so much asking, but politely implying. Which is all well and good, if you know what they’re on about, but altogether less good if you don’t. What on earth does she mean? Is my wretchedness really that obvious? Or has Mum been banging on some more with her mid-life-Charlie crisis? Celeste pats my hand and says, ‘hmm?’

  I pull a blank face. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Oh, my dear,’ she says, turning the pat into a squeeze. ‘I am so, so glad to hear you say that.’

  ‘Er. Um,’ I say. ‘Great.’

  She gives me my hand back. ‘Your Mum didsay, of course.’

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘Well, you know. This and that.’

  I sip my tea and try to fathom where all this is leading. This and that? I must be looking fairly nonplussed, because she then grabs my hand again. ‘Abbie, you’re sure you’re not cross about all this?’

  ‘About what?’

  She puts her cup and saucer down on the coffee table. ‘About your mum moving in here. With me. I mean, I would hate to think you were. I know what a help she’s been to you these past months.’ What? ‘And I know you feel her place is with you – and why wouldn’t you? She is your mum, after all – but it’s just that your mother feels, well, that now she’s back on her feet again that it’s important that you have a little time for yourself. Oh, I know what it’s like when your children start to fly the nest – believe me, I’ve lived through it – and I know it’s difficult to adjust to the thought of being on your own –’ Whhaatt? ‘– but you’re still a young woman and the last thing you want is your cronky old mother under your feet.’ She looks tenderly at me. ‘You know, sometimes, being on your own is the best way forward. The best way to grow. To make a life for yourself. Particularly given, well, your situation, of course.’ Whhhaaattt? ‘I don’t know what she’s said to you, but I know she’s been ever so worried about you, dear. Which is why she feels it’s for the best that you have a little time and space to yourself without having to run around looking after her. And I absolutely agree with her. I’d just be mortified if I thought you felt I was stealing her away from you, that’s all.’

  I put my tea down and pick up my slice of raspberry sponge. I have a fancy that she’s actually reading from a script. ‘That’s very thoughtful of you, Celeste,’ I manage to muster through the cake. ‘And, really, I’m absolutely fine. About everything.’

  She beams at me. ‘Good. I’m glad we’ve got that sorted.’ She pats me again. Should I wag my tail as well now, perhaps?

  It takes me several bites of cake to digest the salient points of Celeste’s speech. And I find myself quite at a loss as to whether to feel relieved it’s all sorted, upset at Mum’s chutzpah, or just plain-old in a huff that the most salient point is that because of what Mum’s said to her, and she’s obviously been doing so, Celeste seems to think I need patting. Just what has she told her? And why? But then it occurs to me that there are many, many ways of getting through endless grey voids, and re-inventing yourself as a post-modern martyr is actually probably quite a sound one. My mother is an actress. Fiction is her business. So facts get blurred too. What of it?

  So I’m glum and fed-up. That’s a fact, for sure. And does it really matter now whether I’m glum because of her? Am I even, in fact? When I think about it hard? Yes, I was. That’s a given. That’s always been a given. But things have moved on since that momentous day in June. Now I’m glum big-time; cinemascope glum. And that really has nothing to do with my mother, and everything to do with the weather.

  I’m just thinking that, when my mother reappears in the living room with her glasses on her nose. And brandishing the post I gave her. Amongst which, it seems, on this occasion anyway, there is something more thrilling than personalised offers of unsecured loans at Extremely Competitive Rates. ‘Saints alive!’ she cries. ‘There is a God after all!’

  We both blink up at her, startled. She’s flapping a letter in front of her. ‘What, Diana?’ says Celeste. ‘Tell us! What’s happened?’

  ‘Salvation!’ she declares. ‘Oh, pinch me, Cel. I can’t believe it!’

  ‘Believe what?’

  She pauses to inspect herself in the nearest mirror. ‘That I’ve got a job!’

  ‘A job?’ says Celeste. ‘What sort of job exactly?’

  ‘Well, an acting job, of course. What do you think?’

  I’m certainly not thinking she’s been invited to appear on Strictly Come Dancing, that’s for sure. I reach for the letter she’s handing to me. And scan it. And, coo, she’s right. She does have a job, too.

  She claps her hands together. ‘And there was me thinking he was dead!’

  Celeste shakes her head. ‘Who was dead? Diana, you are making no sense.’

  ‘Her agent,’ I tell her. ‘The letter’s from Mum’s agent. She’s been asked if she’d like to make a TV commercial.’

  ‘And how flattering!’ She whips off her reading glasses and primps her hair in the mirror. ‘Me! I mean I know June Whitfield’s knocking on a bit too, but haven’t I seen one of those with Linda Bellingham in it?’

  Celeste spreads her hands. ‘Linda Bellingham in what?’

  ‘Oh, you know, Cel. They’re always on the television. Those ads for insurance policies you can buy to pay your funeral expenses.’

  ‘Charming!’ says Celeste.

  Mum laughs. ‘Who cares? They’re da
mned lucrative too, believe me.’

  ‘Speaking of ads,’ I say, the mention of funerals having caused me to remember. ‘Hugo’s car. I was speaking to Dee earlier. And I wondered if perhaps she could borrow it. She doesn’t have the money to buy one at the moment, but it occurred to me that as it’s just sitting there rusting, and no one seems interested in buying it, she could use it until she gets back on her feet, and then maybe Jake could still have it after all.’

  My mother claps her hands together again, all at once alight with good cheer and bonhomie, and I marvel. That a simple request to do a couple of days work could make such a huge difference to her life. But then I realise that has always been her life, more or less.

  ‘Oh, of course she can!’ she says expansively. ‘What an excellent idea. Yes, yes. Of course. Do whatever you will with it, darling.’ She pops her glasses back on and picks the letter up again. ‘Do not go gentle into that goodnight! Rage! Rage! Against the dying of the light!’

  ‘Beg pardon, dear?’ says Celeste, somewhat startled.

  ‘Dylan Thomas,’ I tell her.

  ‘Indeed!’ cries my mother. ‘And now I must get on to Lance about this lovely, lovely, lovely, lovelynews!’

  And I have to get on with life as well. I still have to take all Seb’s ski gear to the post office and walk Spike and do Jake’s washing and…and…well, and.

  I go out to the car and manhandle the mirror from the back, then carry it back up the front garden path.

  Mum’s standing in the doorway, holding it open for me. Beaming. Her default expression for a while now, I guess. Which is, I decide, no bad thing.

  Oh,’ she says, just as I’m carrying it inside. ‘What with all this excitement, I almost forgot!’

  ‘Forgot what?’

  ‘Forgot about the watch!’

  ‘What watch?’

  ‘Hugo’s, of course! Hang on there. I’ll have to go up and fetch it from my bedroom.’

  She ascends the stairs once again, as if propelled on faerie feet, and returns moments later with a small cloth pouch, from which she tips a fob watch into my hand.

  The metal is cold. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘It was Hugo’s. I found it earlier in the week, when I was sorting out some of the things Pru bought over. In the bottom of my old jewellery box. I had entirely forgotten it existed. Go on, open it. See what it says.’

  It’s very old, obviously. And very gold. And somewhat heavy. I prise open the cover, and Mum points. ‘There. See?’

  It’s inscribed. Inside the lid it says Gabriel Ash. With gratitude. And underneath, 1952. I feel a lump form in my throat. How ridiculous am I? I swallow it. ‘Well, I never,’ I say.

  ‘It belonged to Hugo’s father. I imagine it was presented to him when he left some job or other. Anyway, there it is. I thought Gabriel would like it.’

  ‘I’m sure he would.’ I close it up, and Mum passes me the pouch. I slip it back inside and hand it back to her. But she shakes her head.

  ‘No, no,’ she says. ‘You take it.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘That’s why I brought it down, silly. For you to give to him.’

  ‘Me?’ I say again.

  ‘Yes, of course you. I told the girl you’d give it to him when he came to the clinic.’

  ‘What girl?’

  ‘The girl I spoke to at the BBC. He wasn’t in when I called so she said she’d pass on the message.’

  ‘But he doesn’t come to the clinic any more.’

  ‘Doesn’t he? Oh, well, no matter. He can pop round for it or something. Anyway, I dare say he’ll be in touch. It’s rather splendid, isn’t it?’ She presses it into my palm once again. ‘And you know, dear, here’s the funny thing. As soon as I saw it, it all came back to me.’

  ‘What did?’

  ‘The business with the watch. Oh, it was years ago, now. Before I married him even. But I remember saying at the time what a shame it was that he didn’t have a son or a grandson to pass it on to. And you know what he said?’

  ‘No, I don’t know what he said.’

  ‘It was the strangest conversation. He said – and I remember it now, clear as yesterday. He said, ‘Oh, I dare say it’ll find it’s way home.’ Such an odd thing to say, when you think about it, wasn’t it? But what with the name and everything, it makes perfect sense now.’ She pats the hand with the watch in and opens the door for me. ‘Poor Hugo.’

  ‘Poor Hugo.’

  ‘God rest the old bugger.’ She mwah-mwahs my cheeks. Order is restored. ‘Do remember to send Gabriel my love.’

  Chapter 28

  LOTS OF THINGS MAKE sense. Umbrellas make sense. Non-stick frying pans make sense. Even fiendish Su Dokus make sense once you’ve licked them. What does not make sense, however, is the fact that now my mother has gone from my house, it suddenly seems so much smaller.

  As if the walls are closing in on me. As if, without the constant white noise of her presence, I have nothing to buffer me from the thoughts in my head.

  And I wish I could whistle up some better ones, frankly. This lot must have been a bunch of Friday afternoon ones. They’re all completely substandard and of no use at all. And worse, they’re all of a mind, too. It wouldn’t be so bad if I could lay hands on a nice one. That it’s the weekend, perhaps. That I have a nice job. That my boys are such a joy. That I’m healthy (if not wealthy), that I have all my teeth. That there’s nothing so bad that it can’t be made better. That life’s a bloody minestrone. Anything.

  But I can’t seem to find one. They’ve all flown the nest.

  And I am doubly bereft on this bright and frosty late October morning, because I am standing outside Jake’s high school and waving him off on a coach. He’s going on a geography field trip for four days, where he will, or so he tells me, be standing thigh deep in water for the most part, apparently measuring stones. All part of the business of quantifying the fact that in the fast-flowing environment that is your average river, the rocks that fall in, having sheared off whatever mountain they were originally a part of, are progressively tumbled and whittled and blasted, all the way on their long, long journey to the river mouth, thus when they reach the coast they are much reduced in size. Which is why you get sand at the seaside.

  It’s called weathering. Which to my mind is a word that has no business invading my brain, being altogether too much the same as weather. And the weather round these parts is as bleak as can be. Oh, I wish I was going with him. I wish I was going to the seaside. I wish…

  ‘What do I wish, Spike, eh?’ I ask him once we’ve got home, parked the car and transferred instead to Hugo’s. Which is mildly unpleasant on account of having to sit on his revolting discoloured plastic seat covers. ‘That’s just the trouble with making wishes, isn’t it? That it’s a complete and utter waste of anyone’s time. And sometimes dangerous to boot. Mark my words.’ I turn the engine over and it hacks at me twice, before finally, reluctantly, convulsing into life. It coughs a bit more, obviously indignant about being pressed into service once again.

  ‘That was me, that was,’ I tell Spike as we pull out into the road. ‘Out of practice. Caught napping. All this time I’ve spent up on blocks, romantically speaking, and then – bam – I get a boot up the carburettor by Charlie, and as a consequence everything’s working again. Which is no good thing, let me tell you, my little munchkin. Not for nothing do people put plastic covers on their car seats.’ I squint into the mirror. He’s sitting on the parcel shelf. And doesn’t have a clue what I’m on about, clearly. ‘They do it,’ I explain, ‘to stop them getting dirty. Keep them pristine and protected and safe. Whereas…’ I brake, to let a squirrel cross the road. ‘Whereas once you expose them to the elements, to people, it takes no time at all for them to spoil. Tell you what, mate, you may not have liked it at the time but believe me you are so much better without your reproductive equipment. God, let me tell you, affairs of the heart are appallingly painful. You know? I really
don’t know which is worse. The thought that Gabriel Ash might want to come and get his watch back or the thought that he might decide not to.’

  When I get to Tim’s place, which, now I see it in daylight, is a modern two-bed terrace on the edge of a pretty and well tended estate, Dee is out in the immaculate little front garden wearing gardening gloves and a sleeveless puffa jacket and attacking a flowerbed with gusto. Her cheeks are pink. Her stomach is swelling. She looks like Demeter, the goddess of the harvest.

  And now she has a Nissan Sunny too.

  ‘Oh, this is brilliant!’ she says, having made her inspection. She is clearly more grown-up than I am about cars, and altogether less fond of looking gift horses in the gasket. ‘And it is just so sweet of your mum. You must give me her address so I can send her some money. Something, at least. I’m so grateful.’

  I follow her back into the house, where something rich and autumnal and parsnippy is cooking, filling the hallway with sweetness and warmth.

  ‘I told you,’ I say. ‘She won’t hear of it. She reckons that with the repeat fees she’ll get from this advert she’s making, she’ll be rich enough to take taxis everywhere anyway. And she’s probably right. They run to thousands. And Jake’s completely beside himself, of course. He’s already ticking off the days till his seventeenth. So everybody’s happy.’

  ‘Except you,’ she says, now giving me the once over. ‘You look glum.’

  ‘It’s just the botox.’

  ‘Yeah, right. As if. Look. Tell you what. Why don’t you come over to us for dinner tonight? Be nice for you to have a chance to get to know Tim properly. And Hattie, too. That’s his daughter. She’s staying over tonight. We’re going to have a bit of a Halloween thing going on. Nothing major. Just a pumpkin and a couple of skeletons and so on.’

  I don’t know about pumpkins but I rather think I’m up to here with skeletons, really. Particularly the one that was holed up in Hugo’s closet. Everything would have been so much better if he’d stayed there. I shake my head.

  ‘That’s really sweet of you,’ I say. I look out into the back garden, which is a jungle of truly Amazonian proportions, and am tickled that, away from the eyes of the world, there’s a different side to life round these parts. ‘But, oh, I don’t know, Dee. Now Jake’s gone off I’d kind of earmarked this evening for a spot of self-indulgent moping about in front of the telly, to be honest. You know, get in a bit of practice for when I really do have an empty nest on my hands.’