by Dawn French
She wanted to make Saturday soup for her with alphabet pasta in it.
She wanted to teach her alternative swear words.
She wanted to braid her hair.
She wanted to read her to sleep.
She wanted to google Captain Paul Cuffee with her.
She wanted to put a plaster on her hurty toe.
She wanted to take her to Center Parcs.
She wanted to apologize to other shoppers in Tesco when Bean ran around; she wanted to say, ‘Oops, sorry, she’s a wild one, my granddaughter!’
She wanted to count her fingers and toes.
She wanted to dance the reflection of light from the biscuit-tin lid on the walls and make it their own personal fairy.
She wanted to teach her about ‘wawa’.
She wanted to shout out ‘BUMS!’ extra loud any time they were in a quiet place, to make her laugh.
Yes, Hope wanted all that and plenty more, but she wasn’t going to get it, not for a long time, it seemed.
Hope had meetings with her officious legal-aid defence lawyer each week to clarify exactly what her defence was going to be when they eventually got into court. There were pre-trial meetings and planning meetings, and further interviews and lots of waiting for Julius’s lawyer and the Crown Prosecution Service to decide what the charge was going to be.
Hope had given up her jobs. She wanted to watch Minnie as closely as possible while she could. This pregnancy had to go well. Lee offered to give up his job too, but the Parker family persuaded him not to, and they reassured him that they were all there for support, which they certainly were.
Glory and Ky and Princess came round to cook and play on the PlayStation and help Minnie continue to do all her appliqué and clothes customizing. Nanna Doris brought DVDs (mainly of films she wanted to watch) and old photo albums to browse through with Minnie, to distract her. Her uncles came over and hosted card games with betting for pennies.
It felt strange and normal at the same time. Everyday stuff happening on the surface, whilst life-threatening ill health and life-changing court procedure were chugging on below. Occasionally, Hope would stop to consider it all, lock herself in the bathroom, breathe deep and sob at the enormity of it all, wishing she had someone to share it with, but mostly she just got on with it, moving from one cup of tea to the next, doing her best to keep it normal.
In between those cups of tea, ordinary extraordinary family life was taking place, where Minnie could feel comforted and as safe as she could be in light of the craziness. She had regular hospital appointments, which Hope went to with her. Hope wrote every word down in a notebook so she might better understand the confusing world of medicine.
Hope learnt a lot. The difference between doctors and consultants and surgeons. The difference between the various scans. How the blood pressure and heartbeat are monitored. Hope took every transplant leaflet home and spent hours online, researching the whole organ-donation world, and educating herself about the intricacies of blood groups and tissue-type compatibility and all the sundry complications. She urged everyone in the family to sign up for organ donation, once she realized how understocked the system was. She became a transplant bore. She wanted Minnie to be well informed and positive, but she also knew that time was limited, and she wanted Minnie to have plenty of slobby seventeen-year-old time, whenever she could.
Social services had allocated a support team to Minnie since the news of her discovery was now becoming daily tabloid fodder. No one had yet identified her or Hope, but it wasn’t going to be long. Minnie was the top of the pyramid when it came to priorities. She was labelled the ‘victim’. Then came Julius and Anna, her parents, also referred to as ‘victims’. Hope wasn’t anywhere on the pyramid. She was buried underneath, the lousy ‘criminal’.
They knew much more about Minnie’s biological parents now. They knew the couple had since divorced. Hope could put names to the sleeping woman on the bed and the snoring man in the chair in that fuggy hot room all those years ago. Minnie rolled these names around in her head. Julius. Anna. They were strangers to her.
Minnie was in her PJs one day with Cat curled up on her bed near her. Cat had been off her food recently. When Hope and Minnie returned from a hospital appointment, she was standing in the hallway with another dead Mouse in her jaw. If this was any other cat, it would be a normal sight. Cat catches mouse in garden, kills it and brings the trophy home to show human mother. A conquest. Not this Cat. This Cat was holding the corpse of her companion Mouse, who had simply conked out from old age and natural causes, as had all the descendants of Mouse every eighteen months or so, since the very first one. Cat had not been without a Mouse for five years now, and it looked like this was going to be the last since there were no more babies to raise. Cat had taken to shadowing Minnie everywhere she went. Their bond was stronger than ever; just when Minnie needed it most, she had a purring chum. Hope came in and sat on Minnie’s bed, gently shoving Cat over.
‘I need to talk to you, Min,’ she said.
‘OK. But, like, no more huge revelations, OK? I can’t deal with it. Like, are you going to tell me you’re a man or something? If you are, can you delay it ’til Bean’s born? Keep a lid on the stress? I’m really trying to convince Bean she’s going to come into a boring, regular family who are just, y’know, a family without dramas, nothing extra. I talk to her all the time.’
‘You are going to be such a beautiful mum, Min. Look at you doing it already, looking out for her,’ Hope said.
‘Yeah, well. You do, don’t you, if you love your kid, you know that.’ Minnie touched her mum’s hand.
‘I just want to say a couple of things, Min, that’s all. There’s going to be a trial, pretty sure of that, so before it all gets out of our control, I want to be sure you know some stuff. First, the request is here for you to meet Anna and Julius. Feels weird even saying their names …’
‘I know.’
‘And listen, Min, I’ve been thinking that you might be avoiding meeting them to sort of spare my feelings … and you really don’t have to do that. I’m the one who made all the decisions about this. Not you. Not them. So, I am the one who should sit with all the wrongness of it, not you. You are fully entitled – hear me now, FULLY ENTITLED – to meet your biological parents. Truly. It’s natural curiosity. I am the one who has to deal with who I was, what I did, and what I’ve become. We are all the result of every choice we make, and I’ve had years to make friends with what I did. I’m OK with it. I’d even go so far as to say I don’t regret it. I really don’t. The only remorse I have is for their pain. They lost out on you, and I did that. For that alone, I will hold my hand up, hold my head up, and take whatever’s coming my way. But for having you in my life? No regrets. Not one.’
‘Oh Mum.’ Minnie started to weep.
‘I’ll cope, Minnie Moo, I will, because look at us: I know what it is to have love, and to give it. I know the sweetness of it. I know now, more than ever, what it’s like when love lives in you, and you are the one who’s taught me all of it. Little mighty Minnie, full of light and love. You are the best blessing, such a gift, and I’m never going to be sorry you ’n’ me built our home, our life together. This was not your secret, not your lie, but it is your life, and you must grab it, Min. Everything about it. They are part of your story. They deserve to know you too. They do. They should feel the power of all the goodness in you, just like all of us who know you do.
‘And y’know what? I ain’t threatened by them. Know that. I am your mother. I always will be. I’m sure of the love, darlin’, and I know you are. That’s our foundation, isn’t it? It’s solid. You can rely on it like the air you breathe and the ground you walk on. It won’t change. Not going to be toppled. Reinforced. That’s us. Like concrete, my love. Going nowhere. Me ’n’ you. Heart to heart. The mother line. Unbreakable. Got it, child?’
Minnie was bursting. She was stuffed with love, fed to her for her whole life from this magnificent woman, who never fa
iled to fill her up with nutritious care, and was now making sure she had a delicious pudding of devotion, to be sure she’d eaten her fill. No hunger whatsoever. No need. No question. No want. All truth.
‘I’m scared, Mum.’
‘I bet.’
‘I won’t know how to live without you for comfort. You always make it OK.’
‘That’s my job, sweet cheeks.’
‘I don’t know them. I’m not from them. I’m from you.’
‘Yes. You are. Which is exactly why you will deal with it. Besides, you know the first rule of Wawa club?’
‘What?’
‘Never doubt the Wawa.’
And with that, Hope underpinned Minnie with her honest and huge mother-love, forever.
1 January 2018
Dear Daughter,
Cushah! So today is your eighteenth birthday. Little Minnie grows up! How did all these years flow past without me noticing? I feel cheated that I haven’t been able to see you grow into your adult skin, but it was my choice to go, so I have no one to blame but myself, and believe me, I do that all the time.
Do you drive a car yet? I’d love to know. Your mother and I had an old Honda Civic years ago. I can recommend them: they might rust, but they keep going. We brought you home from the hospital in it, eighteen years ago. I wish I was the one to teach you how to drive. I am patient and prepared to die. That is a joke, which is also not a joke!
Minnie, I am determined to make a plan to see you sometime soon, but I don’t want to upset Hope or you or anyone you love, so I will stay here unless I hear from you. I have no idea whether you have ever seen any of the letters I’ve written over the years. I have left that decision to Hope. It’s the least I could do. On the back of this letter I have written my details if you should ever want to contact me. I hope you do, but I will completely understand if you don’t or can’t. I expect nothing, but pray for everything. God willing, one day, we will meet again.
Once more, api batde, Little One.
From your loving father,
Isaac xx
The Meeting; the Mirrors
Anna could hear Debbie Cheese calling out to her, ‘Ready when you are, Anna!’ She’d already encouraged her to come, a few times, but there seemed to be no movement from the bedroom.
Debbie knocked gently on the door. ‘We really must make a move, Anna. Can I come in?’
She pushed the door open and saw Anna in her bra and pants, glued to the spot in front of the mirror, with sheer panic in her eyes.
‘Umm. Look, I don’t think I can go after all.’ Anna looked firmly at the floor.
‘OooKaay,’ replied Debbie, ‘but why?’
‘Because … because I don’t know how to be a person. I’m about to have the most important meeting in my life. I’m meeting my daughter for the first time. Who the hell is she going to meet? I have no idea. What is she expecting? Someone mumsy in a floral dress? Or a rock chick in a leather jacket? Who am I anyway?’
‘You are Anna.’
‘Who the hell is that?’ she shouted. ‘I knew who Julius’s bloody wife was. I knew that costume. Anything bland and expensive that I could disappear into the background in. Anything that would allow him to be the peacock up front! It was my job to disabloodyppear!’
On this day Anna had ripped her way through her wardrobe, discarding all the dull things. And there were many: a mountainous pile of personality-sucking beigy-grey unremarkable clobber was soon going to be gracing the rails of the nearest charity shop. To see the fabric slag heap of her past so starkly in front of her, indicating the alarming extent of desuetude her poor personality had fallen into, owing to lack of respect or attention or love, was sobering.
‘That’ – Anna pointed at the sad pile – ‘is the person I’ve been for ages, got totally stuck in it, but I don’t want Florence to meet … THAT.’
The two women stood side by side in silence as they looked at the pile.
‘Do you like what I’m wearing?’ offered Debbie.
‘Umm, yes, s’pose so. Looks … normal.’ Anna clocked that Debbie was in some plain black trousers and a simple shirt with a jaunty cherry design on. Nothing too challenging. Nothing too boring. She was shocked when all of a sudden Debbie started unbuttoning her shirt and pulling down her trousers.
‘Right, put these on. We’re close enough in size, come on.’
‘What! What are you doing? I can’t—’
‘Put them on, Anna. You can work out who you are another time. You’re not going to miss out on meeting your daughter after eighteen years because of some trousers. Come on. Please.’
Anna hesitated for a couple of seconds. Debbie was now down to her bra and pants too. It was mighty odd, the two of them standing opposite each other like this. Not so odd that it prevented Anna from noticing that Debbie had a very good pink balcony bra on, encasing lovely small full bosoms. Anna jolted herself out of that surprising observation and took Debbie’s offer of clothes from her outstretched hand. She clambered into them immediately, while Debbie rooted around in the old boring Anna pile and found the least awful blouse and trousers, and started to re-dress. Within thirty seconds, both of them were looking in the mirror.
Debbie spoke first, indicating Anna’s reflection. ‘Ideal. Yeah?’
‘Yes. I think so. Yes,’ Anna agreed, adding, ‘But you look sort of awful.’
‘I don’t give a toss. Let’s go.’ And with that, Debbie took Anna’s arm firmly and led her out of the door with the kind of assurance only someone in the police force can wield, the kind that lets you know, without doubt, that you will be exiting right now. You will.
Meantime, Minnie and Lee were also in front of a full-length mirror in the London hotel room the police had organized for them. The meeting was to be held in this same hotel, in a private room, so Minnie and Lee had travelled to London on the train with strict orders to stay in constant contact with Hope, who’d armed them with a list of hospitals and consultants near their hotel. They were only due to be gone for twenty-four hours, but Hope and Minnie hadn’t been parted before, and it was strange and difficult for both of them. Especially in these circumstances.
Hope told her, ‘I believe, in every fibre of my body, everything I told you, Min. You and I are mum and daughter forever, come what may. And by the way, look ’pon this face, girl, do I look threatened? Nah! Go on now. Do what you gotta do. I’m right behind you, OK?’
But she knew that this meeting was giant.
For everyone …
Minnie wore a bright green dress that gathered under the breast and flowed out, allowing for the increasing bump that was Bean. She put on a short denim jacket, which she’d customized herself, and tied her mass of curls up into a bright red bandanna so that they were contained around the sides of her head, but blurted out in a messy explosion on top. This was the authentic Minnie. Bold and colourful.
Minnie knew exactly who she was.
Nevertheless, she was nervous. Would she be the person Anna was hoping for? How could she be the person Anna was hoping for, when she didn’t know Anna?
Lee was next to her. In every way.
He reassured her, ‘Hey, Curls, you look gorgeous – course you do, you’re my bird, incha, and I wouldn’t be with any ol’ minger.’
‘Umm, thanks? I think!’ She thumped him.
‘You’ll do all right today, Min, how could she not love you? Everyone who meets you loves you. And listen, if she turns out to be a twat—’
‘Like you.’ Minnie giggled.
‘Like me, then just tip me the wink, and I’ll end her with one swift karate chop. I’ll put her closer to her God … hoyaa, like that. Two seconds tops. On the floor. Never sees life again. Bye, Anna.’
‘Yeah, not sure any of that is relieving my stress, to be honest.’ Minnie turned back to the mirror.
He put his arms around her from behind, framing her swelling belly with his big builder’s hands, and he kissed her ear. ‘All I’m sayin’ is – it don’t matte
r what she thinks. If she’s nice, it’s a bonus: you get an extra mum. If she isn’t, it’s you, me and Bean, just like it always was going to be. No big deal, OK?’ he clarified.
She turned to face him and took his face in her hands. ‘Yes. Love you.’
‘Love you back,’ he said.
‘Love you front,’ she said.
‘Love you sideways.’
‘I’m ready. You’ll wait here, yeah? See you when it’s over.’ She kissed him gently and turned towards the door.
Julius was checking his tie in the mirror. He decided it looked great. Really great. He had arrived early at the hotel. He had plenty to organize. This was a huge day. For him.
Thripshaw met him in the designated room. ‘Morning, Mr Lindon-Clarke. Well, here we are on this suspicious day. A long time coming, I think.’
‘Yes, indeed. Longer than it should’ve been, thanks to you and your dozy team,’ Julius snapped back sarcastically as he took off his coat and handed it carelessly to his secretary Kirsty.
‘There’s no need for that, sir, my team were, and still are, splendid folk, who’ve gone above and behind to tie up all the loose holes in this case. Yes, mistakes were made. No one can be the suppository of all wisdom, least of all me …’
‘Never a truer word,’ emphasized Julius.
‘But,’ continued Thripshaw, ‘this matter concludes here today, and is a perfect case and point that, with perseverance and justice, it can always turn out to be rosie dosie in the end. Agreed?’
Julius looked at him, aghast. ‘When can I see her?’
‘We’ve asked Mrs Lindon-Clarke, sorry, the ex Mrs Lindon-Clarke to join us in here, and then my colleague Debbie will collect the young lady and bring her down. Then I think it’s for the best if we leave you three alone together. We don’t want to upset the apple tart.’
