Everyone was a bit worse for wear after their New Year celebrations the night before, but they wanted to be there for little Minnie, whom they’d all taken entirely to their hearts. They’d clucked around her all year commenting on how like her mother she looked. Only the first time this was mentioned had it occurred to Hope that it was a strange thing to say. She’d had a brief moment then, where she looked closely at Minnie’s features, at her faultless skin, at her mop of cinnamon curls, at her huge expressive eyes, at her chunky-lunky toes and fingers, and she remembered the big snoring black man with his chin on his chest in that maternity suite and the dark blonde hair strewn across the face of the slumbering mother.
Mother?
No, no, no. Don’t think about that. HOPE is Minnie’s mother. She’d vanquished all those threatening thoughts, and consigned them to a deep, hard-to-reach place behind the back of her memory, marked ‘unremembered’. From then on, she easily accepted all comments made about Minnie’s physicality and personality as a kind of vicarious flattery, and it wasn’t hard to acknowledge that yes, Minnie really was so very like her.
And her dad, of course.
But mainly HER.
And with each compliment or remark she accepted about their similarity, the sediment of denial incrementally forming firmly on top of the truth gained another weighty layer.
‘One, two, three … blow!’ said Hope, clapping and smiling along next to Minnie, who was utterly unaware of what was expected with the candle, so Hope blew it out for her and she squeaked with delight.
One person who was clearly struggling to enjoy the party was Doris, Hope’s mother. Glory had her arm around her and Hope noticed that she was making brave attempts to smile, but she seemed pitifully sad. No wonder – it had been a hell of a year. She’d gained two grandchildren, lost a husband and started a serious attempt to conquer her relationship with vodka. She was feeling hugely wobbly.
‘Let’s have some music! Your choice, Uncle Devon! Something to kick us off into a fantastic New Year, eh?’ said Hope optimistically as she delegated the job of jollying up the party to her uncles.
Then: ‘Cut up the cake, G, I’ll sit with Mum for a minute,’ she said as she took Doris’s arm, ‘and, Ky, can you keep an eye on Minnie?’
‘Sure,’ replied Ky as he lifted Minnie out of her high chair and into the clamouring arms of her several young cousins who loved to pretend that Minnie was their baby.
Hope led her mum to the sofa and sat next to her. ‘You OK, Mum?’
‘Yes. No problem,’ replied Doris.
‘Lies. Mum, it’s OK not to feel OK, OK?’ she comforted her mother, putting her arm around her, noting just how scrawny she’d become under the clever camouflage of one of her big woolly jumpers. Winter allowed Doris to wear layers of loose warm clothes to hide her bony body. Until someone touched her like this.
They both knew Hope was noticing. Hope wanted to reassure Doris. ‘You’re not alone, Mum, and you never will be. Not as long as I have breath in my body – and Glory’s the same – and we’re bringing more kids into the family by the minute, so, honestly, you’ve got loads of us …’
‘I know, darlin’, I truly know. I jus’ not sure how much strength I have in m’blood for all dis.’
‘For a party?’
‘For life.’
That floored Hope. Her mum had been battered by a tough year, but Hope had never heard her sound so defeated. She needed to say the right thing.
‘Mum, listen to me …’ Hope started, but noticed that Doris’s head was drooping. ‘Mum, please look at me. Please,’ she tried to encourage her.
Doris raised her face towards Hope. All the skin on her skull seemed to be tired of holding on tight, and had given up, just as Doris had in this moment. She had lost her way and her sorry eyes told Hope that. Even in her worst drunkenness, Doris had always had a flare in her eyes. She had a purpose: to get to a bottle; and once she had, she was content for a while until her purpose rose up to consume her again. It was a dreadful cycle, but it was a structure of sorts. All habits are. The familiar, however destructive, is better than the new. Even in her haziness, Doris had always loved her girls. She hadn’t always remembered about them, but they were in her heart. And, unbelievably, Doris had kept her cleaning job; somehow she muddled through and no one ever reported her because everyone loved her, and because her hours were night-time hours, and Doris was skilled at scuttling about, getting her job done without being spied on, often without being really noticed at all, it was easy to camouflage her sozzled state.
All of that had changed in the summer when Zak died and Doris suddenly had a dark hole at the centre of her already unsteady world. Part of the reason Doris had numbed herself with lots of alcohol for so long was that she knew Zak would never reach old bones. How could he when he polluted his body so regularly with such a potent poison? Doris needed the booze to help her avoid thinking such unthinkable thoughts. When they were both in their Elysium, nothing else mattered, and nothing bad was ever going to happen, so that’s what they both chose. Their habits were benign. No one else had to witness them once Hope had moved out and subsequently away. Glory had been propelled into the arms of Ky by a need to escape the stupor of her parents’ home. She’d left them to it, and they muddled on in their interdependent fug, oblivious.
When Hope had arrived back in Bristol with her new baby,
