When he came round to take my mother out, while she was upstairs getting ready, I’d catch him wandering around the house. If my mother was within earshot, he’d make an effort to engage me in conversation – about college, my friends, watching my mother brighten, flattered by his interest, taken in by the façade of his seemingly considerate ways.
It was after he moved in that the changes started. The brands of cereal in the larder, dairy milk and cheese in the fridge suddenly appearing when my mother and I were vegan. Our comfy old sofas replaced by new expensive ones, the ugly painting he loved hung over the fireplace, the walls now country house shades of paint. The meat I was prepared to tolerate. Neither of us expected everyone to be vegan. So I kept quiet, until the day Matt cooked steak.
Excusing myself, I went outside. I could cope with him eating it, but the smell of seared animal flesh revolted me. Even ten minutes later, when I went back in, the kitchen stank. Opening the window, I heard my mother say behind me, ‘She doesn’t like the smell.’
‘That’s a shame,’ Matt’s voice was smooth. ‘You should have some, Jess. It’s ethically produced. You never know, you might like it.’
‘No way.’ I flinched at his suggestion that any slaughtering of animals could be described as ethical. After serving myself some veggie casserole, I went and sat down, but something made me glance in my mother’s direction. My mother, who had sworn off meat since as long as I could remember, was cutting into a steak. ‘Mum?’ Incredulous, I watched her eat a piece, before cutting off another.
For a moment, she looked mildly discomfited. But only for a moment. ‘Matt feels very self-conscious about the fact that he’s the only one of us who eats meat. I thought …’ Breaking off, she glanced at him. ‘I thought I’d try eating it again – only now and then. And Matt’s going to try more vegan meals. Aren’t you, honey?’
‘That’s right.’ He stared as I started eating. ‘In the circumstances, Jess, I’d suggest it’s only reasonable you do the same.’
He had to be joking. But when I glanced at him, his face was deadly serious. ‘You are kidding.’ Putting down my fork, I glared at him. ‘I can tell you right now, that for the rest of my life, I will never eat anything that’s suffered in order to be shrink-wrapped in plastic before being served up to the ignorant masses.’
‘Jess, don’t you dare speak like that.’ I rarely saw her angry, but pinpoints of red appeared in my mother’s cheeks. ‘Matt isn’t ignorant. He’s no different to anyone else we know who eats meat.’
‘I think you’ll find he is.’ Shaking my head, I knew she was wrong. Matt was trying to control, manipulate, both of us – not because he cared about what we ate. That she couldn’t see it made it even more wrong. Getting up, I picked up my plate, sweeping the leftovers into the recycling, before storming out. On the way, catching Matt’s eye, I saw rage flicker.
It was his first attempt to impose his will on me, the first wedge he tried to drive between me and my mother. The next morning, I waited for some kind of fallout. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d spoken to anyone in that way. But it wasn’t just Matt’s attitude that had riled me. It was the change of my mother’s heart he’d forced. No matter what her reasons were, I felt betrayed.
The next day, Matt wouldn’t look at me. When I spoke, he blanked me. Shocked, I started to wonder if I’d gone too far. A couple of days later, and you’d have thought I was his best friend. I watched him do the same with my mother, treating her with contempt, punishing her with his silence for something she allegedly hadn’t done, then after a day or so, buying her a lavish bouquet of flowers, apologising exaggeratedly. It hadn’t been a good day. He was under so much pressure at work. He promised he’d never do it again.
It was a pattern that recurred, so that you couldn’t tell what was coming. Calm Matt or raging Matt, or almost jovial Matt the best friend. It was impossible to predict, while over time, it took less and less to trigger moods that grew progressively extreme, until in the end, we were walking on eggshells.
I learned about change. When it’s gradual, you don’t notice it. Not at first, as it gently twists invisibly, pulling you in. It was only when I came back from uni that first Christmas, Matt’s behaviour shocked me, more so because my mother seemed blind to it. His criticism and expectations of her; the blow ups and rows over nothing of any significance that left her tiptoeing around him, terrified of upsetting him, of the unleashed anger that would follow. The fabricated accusations he would hurl at her, her protestations that went unacknowledged. Ludicrously emphatic apologies that reeked of insincerity. While I wasn’t there, the spiral had tightened.
I could forgive her the first few times. Understand when she made allowances – told herself it was a one-off, an aberration; an overreaction after a tough day at work; that it was all her fault: she pushed him too far and it was her who should apologise, not him. It would pass. Tomorrow was a new day. How deluded she was. Oh, the lies we tell ourselves.
Then the day came when she seemed to retreat inside herself, bled dry. Matt’s cruel words; narcissism, opportunism, self-interestedness, control, all of them steel grey shades that had merged into the bewildering blackness I saw reflected in her eyes. But even then, she kept repeating
