‘It doesn’t matter. Just remember your father and I will still love you. Liza ... is it that disease?’
Liza stared at her.
‘What?’
Her mother’s face was creased with concern.
‘Do you ... have you got Aids?’
‘No!’ gasped Liza, laughing and crying at the same time. She jumped up from the chair and threw her arms around her mother. ‘Mum, no, of course I don’t have Aids!’
Margaret hugged her back, before reverting to type.
‘No 'of course' about it, my girl. These things happen, and we all know how they happen. You haven’t exactly led a settled life, have you?’
Liza smiled. There, she had something to be grateful for after all. She didn’t have Aids.
Mini-lecture received and understood.
‘He’s nine years younger than me.’
The words were out before she could stop them. Amazed, Liza wondered how it had happened.
Probably because compared with Aids it didn’t sound quite so terrible after all.
Chapter 42
Slowly, Margaret Lawson digested this information. She wiped her reddened hands on her apron and leaned back, thoughtfully, against the sink.
‘You mean ... he’s twenty-one.’
‘No.’ Liza managed another weak smile. Maths had never been her mother’s strong point.
‘Twenty-three.’
‘Oh. Still young though.’
Why am I smiling? thought Liza. Nothing’s changed.
She nodded. ‘I know. It would never have worked. It didn’t bother me at first because I thought I’d get bored with him. Except I didn’t.’ She shook her head. ‘But it really wouldn’t have worked. I knew I had to end it. Rather now than in a few years’ time . .. like cutting off a toe that’s gangrenous,’ she went on helplessly, her eyes filling up again. ‘Better to lose a toe than the whole leg.’
‘Yes, well, I can see the sense in that.’
‘I just didn’t realise it was going to hurt this much.’ Liza sniffed, found a shredded tissue in her pocket and blew her nose.
‘This young lad. What’s his name?’
‘Kit. Kit Berenger.’
Even the name sounded young.
‘Hmm. Got a job, has he?’
‘Family firm. Builders,’ mumbled Liza. ‘His father hates me.’
Margaret Lawson nodded.
‘It’s so unfair,’ Liza went on. Extraordinarily, now she’d started she found she couldn’t stop. ‘If he was older than me it wouldn’t matter a bit. That wouldn’t bother anyone.’
‘I know.’
There were dark shadows under Liza’s eyes. She hadn’t been able to sleep.
‘I shouldn’t have come down here,’ she mumbled. ‘It’s your birthday.’
‘You’re my daughter,’ said Margaret. ‘It’s not often I get the chance to comfort you. Isn’t that what mothers are for?’
‘I don’t think you can.’
‘Maybe I can’t.’ Margaret sat down opposite Liza. ‘But I do understand how you feel. I went through it too, you know.’
‘What?’
The look on Liza’s face was almost comical. Margaret smiled.
‘Liza, I may be your mother but I am human. I was thirty-five when I married your father. What do you think I was doing until then, sitting up on a high shelf gathering dust?’
‘Um ... er ...’
Well, yes.
‘I was working as a secretary in London.’ Margaret leaned back in her chair and gazed past Liza.
‘When I was thirty I fell in love with my landlady’s son. Michael, his name was. My bathroom window got broken and he came round to fix it. There was a spark between us right away. Of course, he knew how old I was, so he told me he was twenty-eight. We started seeing each other,’ she went on. ‘Neither of us had much money of course, but we’d meet in coffee bars, go for walks in Regent’s Park, see the occasional film. We were so happy together, but I always wondered why we had to keep it a secret from his mother. Michael said she’d only make a fuss if she knew, he said she was the possessive type.’
