by Tammy Cohen
I wish I had the luxury of forgetting.
We go to the park and I buy him an ice lolly then watch him on the swings. He’s met a friend from school and I chat with the mother as the boys kick out their legs with all their strength, racing to go highest. Sometimes I feel awkward with the other mums. All of them in their happy family groups.
‘Are you waiting for someone?’ the other mum asks. ‘Only you keep glancing around.’
‘No. No one,’ I reply, smiling, and force my eyes straight ahead.
But that’s not exactly true.
I’m waiting for you.
21
Just suffering from post-parents-consultation blues, that’s all.
Parent consultations are why afternoon drinking was invented.
I’m liking your style.
The truth was, I was liking more than Nick’s style. It was only a week since we’d started messaging each other, but already his emails had become the highlight of my day. You know how there are some people you might have known for years but, somehow, the deeper connections aren’t there? You’re friendly, affectionate even, but essentially you’re skating across the surface of each other. And then there are people you meet for one evening and somehow you recognize each other on a level that makes superficial conversation unnecessary, almost ridiculous.
Well, Nick was like that. Over the course of several long messages we’d talked about our parents (his dad was dead, his mum had a seventy-five-year-old toyboy whom Nick fell out with over Brexit) and our children. I’d told him about Emma’s attack, and he knew my relationship with Rosie was difficult at the moment, although I hadn’t been able to bear to go into detail. How could I talk to him about what I didn’t even admit to myself? He knew I blamed myself for losing Dotty, and I knew he regretted the things he’d said and done when he’d discovered his ex-wife was having an affair and how much he missed being part of his stepson’s life.
I found myself wondering whether, if I’d been as open with Phil over the last few years we were together as I’d been with Nick over just a few intense days, things might have turned out differently.
It’s always the roads we don’t take that come back to haunt us.
I’d tracked Nick down on social media. I knew he had a Facebook account but held back from sending him a friend request, not sure if I was ready to see photos of his ex-wife or her son. He was an infrequent poster on Instagram and Twitter. Mostly comments on things in the news or in films he’d seen, a few retweets of funny political cartoons. One Instagram post showed a photo of his departmental Christmas dinner, and I’d spent far too long scrutinizing all the women around the table, trying to gauge their body language in relation to him.
Nick was the main topic of conversation when I met up with Kath and Mari two days after the disastrous parents’ consultation, at the chic private members’ club in Soho that Kath belonged to. It was so private it didn’t have a name on the outside and the first time I’d gone there I’d walked up and down the street for several minutes, in front of the crowds of twenty-somethings spilling out on to the pavement of the cocktail bar opposite, scouring the numbers, too scared to ring the bell.
‘He sounds too good to be true.’
Mari was renowned for her caution, but even so I was irritated by her response. It was so long since anything had gone my way. Couldn’t she just be happy for me?
‘So when are you going to meet up with him?’ Kath wanted to know.
‘No plans. Don’t want to rush things.’
Instantly, she was on the offensive.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. This isn’t the bloody Victorian era.’
‘Are you looking for a boyfriend – or a pen pal?’ added Mari, who seemed to have overcome her earlier misgivings.
‘I’m not looking for anyone. Anyway, I look too disgusting to meet anyone new at the moment.’
They both put on their reading glasses so they could inspect me properly.
‘Mmmm …’
‘Well …’
That was the problem with really good friends. They didn’t lie to you.
‘I did suggest a phone call, but he said he was enjoying the slow burn of the emails and we should just carry on with the written messages a while longer. He says I’ve got the sexiest sentence construction he’s ever come across.’
‘Definitely hiding something,’ said Kath. Mari, on the other hand, thought it was cute.
Kath and Mari ordered cocktails. Kath had had enough of clean living and declared her intention of drinking back every one of the calories she’d lost. I eyed the cocktail menu greedily before asking for a Diet Coke. Then we ordered three salads and a huge bowl of chips, as we always did. The room was wood-panelled, with a roaring fire down one end, even though the mild March temperatures outside hardly merited one. The low-level lighting illuminated walls and surfaces covered with quirky objects and framed photographs and paintings.
I started telling them about what had been going on with Stephens, but their suddenly serious expressions stopped me well before I got to the part about me going round to his house and exposing him to his grandmother.
Mari leaned forward, wearing what I imagined was her therapist face, her features radiating empathy, understanding and concern.
‘I know it must be tough knowing that the man who did that awful thing to Em is wandering around scot-free, but you have got to stop this obsession with him, Tess. It’s really taking its toll.’
‘You mean I look like shit.’
‘What she means is you look like a woman who’s been through the mill and who’s desperately worried about her daughter,’ interjected Kath, with untypical diplomacy. ‘But you need to start looking after yourself, Tessa, or you’re no good to Emma or anybody else. For God’s sake, put this arsehole out of your head and start concentrating on you for a change.’
I nodded, because what else could I do?
Now there was no way I could face confessing that it had all got so out of hand. I’d told them, of course, that I’d lost Dotty, but they didn’t know about the bloodstained collar, or about the anonymous letter to Phil or the visit from the police.
At the time I’d told myself it was because I didn’t want them to worry, but now I wondered if I just couldn’t bear hearing what I knew they would say. And of course, the longer I put off telling them, the more impossible it became. It was as if a gap had opened up between my old life and this new frightening reality and Kath and Mari were on one side and I was on the other and the gap was getting bigger and bigger and I had no idea how to bridge it.
Back home, I sat at the kitchen table with my head in my hands. Em was at Phil’s, so there was no one to hear the ugly, snorting sobs that tore from me in great gasps.
Kath and Mari had been my support system my entire adult life, and without them to lean on I felt acutely alone.
My phone beeped with an incoming email, my mouth turning suddenly ash-dry when I saw it was a message sent via my website.
Sure enough, when I clicked on it I saw that it had come from that same anonymous email account as the photograph of the outside of my house, the mixture of letters and numbers sinister in their randomness. The subject line read: ‘NEW RECORDING’.
There was no written message, just an attachment in the main body of the email, a pink square titled ‘New Recording.m4a’.
I stared at the file and thought about Kath and Mari’s warnings, and their alarm when I’d started telling them what had been going on.
I was conscious of my breath coming out fast and shallow.
I shouldn’t open it. Things had already escalated so far beyond my control. I should ignore it. Get on with my life.
But even while those thoughts were coursing through my mind, my fingers were over the screen, clicking on the blue lettering under the pink box. The download notification appeared at the bottom of my screen.
It wasn’t too late. I could still ignore it. I should ignore it.
Instead, I turne
d the volume of my phone up to full and clicked on ‘open’.
Immediately, there came a clicking sound. And then …
No, no, no. This couldn’t be happening, it couldn’t be.
Yet I knew it was. I was listening to a recording of a dog’s high-pitched whimpering. And I knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the dog I was listening to was Dotty.
22
I couldn’t remember ever being this nervous.
I’d washed my hair and put on make-up and stressed over what I would wear, trying on various outfits until I settled on jeans and a new orange top from Cos. I didn’t want to appear to be trying too hard, but really, who was I kidding? Desperation leaked from every pore until I felt sodden with it.
The one upside to my current state of nerves was that my thumping heart effectively drowned out the agonizing sound of Dotty’s whimpering, which had been lodged in my brain since I’d pressed ‘open’ on that audio link the night before.
Rosie had suggested meeting at a small, achingly hip café in Muswell Hill rather than one of the bigger chains. I knew it was because she didn’t want to risk being seen. Probably, she hadn’t told her father or Joy that she’d agreed to meet me. Well, that was understandable. She was just testing the waters. I knew that.
But God, I was nervous. I’d messed up so badly with her. When her text had come through just a few hours before, while I was still grappling with what to do about that terrible audio recording, I’d been too excited to mind the clinical language. I’m ready to take a first step to reconciliation. I’d known that was Rosie’s way of covering herself, allowing herself an opt-out clause.
Who could blame her?
She was five minutes late, and I was getting hot and breathless and couldn’t tell whether that was because of Dotty or hormones or because I was so anxious about seeing my own daughter.
I found myself remembering the last time I’d talked to her, when I’d turned up at the hospital.
‘You can’t be here,’ she’d said, bundling me down the corridor away from the ward. ‘What are you thinking?’ And then, ‘Please don’t come here again, Mum. I just can’t see you for a while.’
Rosie always was true to her word.
And now here she was. Wearing a denim jacket over a vintage dress in a style that was purely her own.
This beautiful girl who somehow, impossibly, had come from me.
I stood up, overcome by a wave of emotion that left me quite mute, and we faced each other awkwardly, not sure whether to shake hands or embrace. In the end, nature took over and I stepped forward to hug her. Though she held herself stiffly, I felt her arms close lightly around me. Somewhere in my mind, hope tentatively shrugged off its coverings and laid itself dangerously bare.
My girl. My precious girl.
We sat down and Rosie ordered an Americano. I asked for the same, just because I couldn’t concentrate on the menu or on anything but her.
I asked her when she was going back to Manchester. I’d meant it as an ice breaker, an innocuous way of easing into the difficult conversation that surely lay ahead. I certainly wasn’t prepared for her to say:
‘Actually, I’m not going back to uni. I dropped out. It wasn’t what I thought it would be. And really, what’s the point of spending all that money on something that isn’t all that?’
‘All that what?’
Rosie studied me through narrowed eyes, as if testing to see if I was joking, but the truth was her bombshell had knocked the sense clean out of me.
‘I just wasn’t learning much, Mum,’ she said.
‘But what about all the money you’ve already paid?’
She waved her hand dismissively, as if all those thousands of pounds were a mere detail.
‘I might be able to use the credits to switch into another course in the future,’ she said. ‘The main thing is not to waste any more money.’
No! I wanted to yell at her. The main thing is to get a degree, to complete this rite of passage that opens up the world to you. But I bit the words back. Our new-found connection was too gossamer-thin to risk putting any strain on it.
‘And before you kick off, Dad only found out a few days ago and I swore him to secrecy. He and Joy are as anti it as you are. But they know it’s pointless trying to change my mind.’
Rosie tossed her head of faded highlights as if her intransigence were a point of personal pride. She’d always had this need to appear completely in control of her own destiny. Hadn’t yet realized that no one really is.
‘But what will you do here?’
‘I’ve got a job working at the cinema, and maybe I’ll start looking at courses I can do here in London in September. Please don’t worry about it, Mum.’
She sounded so casual. This, the girl who’d plastered the walls of her bedroom with Post-its and sheets of dates before her history A Level, and who, unbeknown to us, had ordered ‘smart drugs’ over the internet so she wouldn’t need so much sleep and could spend more time studying.
A cloud of suspicion formed.
‘This isn’t because of some new boyfriend?’
‘Great that you have such a high opinion of me, that you think I’d change my life because of some man. Thanks a lot.’
‘Sorry, it’s just—’
‘Actually, I have just started seeing someone. But it’s only been a few days, so please stop looking at me like that. I’d made up my mind about uni way before I met him. Honest.’
Rosie’s small, fine features were set in that way I recognized from old and I knew that if I carried on pushing I would lose her again, and I couldn’t take that risk.
We changed the subject. Rosie wanted to know if there was more news about Dotty. I shook my head, hating how her eyes blurred with tears. She was so sensitive under that prickly armour she wore. There was no way I could tell her about the collar and the weird audio recording of the night before. She started reminiscing about the day we took Dotty home from the rescue shelter when she was still just a puppy. ‘Can you remember, Mum, how she used to fall asleep standing up, just topple over on the carpet wherever she was?’ I nodded, but really, I was only half listening to her, happy just to stare at her lovely face, as if I could commit it to memory so that, if she snatched herself away again, at least I’d have this.
Suddenly, I became aware of a shadow blocking the light. Looking up, I saw Frances standing on the other side of the window. She smiled broadly and pointed at the door to indicate that she was coming in, moving off before I could communicate that now wasn’t a good time.
‘Is that …?’ But Rosie’s question was cut short by Frances’s arrival.
‘Tessa! How are you? I’ve been meaning to get in touch to see if you’ve got Dotty back yet.’
Frances was dressed down in a parka and jeans with her thick hair pulled back and her face scrubbed free of make-up.
I saw Rosie look at her appraisingly and for one selfish moment I resented Frances for being there. I’d waited so long to be with my older daughter again. I didn’t want to share her.
Introductions were made. ‘I recognized you from Emma’s Facebook page,’ said Rosie, jumping to her feet. ‘I was hoping I’d meet you, to thank you.’ She stepped towards Frances and enveloped her in a hug. Frances was several inches taller and stood awkwardly, but I could see from the pink glow on her cheeks that she was touched. I invited her to join us and, for one agonizing moment, I thought she was going to say yes, but then she said she’d better not after all. She was just passing on her way back from the dentist’s a few doors down and she had to get home to make her mother’s lunch before heading back into work for the afternoon.
‘So that’s the famous Frances our Emma is so star-struck by,’ Rosie said after she’d gone.
She smiled, but her face looked strained. Impulsively, I put my hand out to cover hers.
‘Darling,’ I said, emboldened by the fact that she didn’t pull her hand away, ‘I know it must have been hard for you to watch your little siste
r go through something like that.’
Rosie gave a single nod of her head.
‘But maybe slightly worse for her,’ she said, and laughed to show it was meant as a joke. ‘You know, though, Mum, I really thought she’d be over it by now. I mean, he didn’t actually do anything. Thank God.’
‘You mean, besides bashing her round the head and trying to abduct her off the street?’
Rosie made a face.
‘You know what I mean. He didn’t do whatever it was he set out to do. But Em still seems really hung up about it. The other day, we were walking up to the shops and this jogger came running up behind us and she almost had a heart attack, I swear to God.’
I swallowed painfully. I’d wanted this meeting to be all about me and Rosie and building bridges, but worry about Emma was a loose thread on the surface of me – the slightest snag and I felt myself unravelling.
‘I just feel,’ I began thickly, staring down at the point on the table where my hand met Rosie’s, ‘that I’ve made such a mess of being a mother.’
Rosie took a while to reply, though I could sense that her direct gaze was fixed on me.
Eventually, she spoke, and though her tone was gentle, her words broke me a little.
‘Mum, sometimes it just isn’t about you.’
23
I hadn’t been to Phil’s studio in years. He’d got it on a long lease way before Shoreditch became the new Notting Hill, which in turn had once been the new Soho.
When he’d first signed the lease, we’d had two small children and a negligible bank balance but big dreams we’d discuss at night, lying in the dark with my head on his shoulder, his fingers stroking my arm. Even so, it had been a risk. I remember how drunk we’d got the night he signed, trying to drown our nerves in cheap cava.
God, I missed those two people.
I rang the top bell, telling myself there was no need to feel so anxious. I had a perfectly legitimate reason for coming to see him. Still, I knew I should have called ahead to warn him I was coming. Thing was, I wanted to catch him unawares, so that he wouldn’t have a chance to discuss things with Joy. Oh, I knew they were a unit now, and I’d more or less accepted that, but I still missed getting his honest opinion, not the view he’d reached after careful consultation with the woman he left me for.
