Just before I get there, I give myself a final talking to. I always have to do this before I see my mother. Alice calls it consciously managing my expectations. She says that because there’s a part of me that remembers what my mother was like before The Accident, I am constantly subconsciously hoping to see her again. And that’s why I always expect more than she can give. I don’t really believe that The Accident could have changed my mum that much – I can’t imagine she was ever warm – but Alice’s theory does make sense. And I have to admit that the thing about consciously managing my expectations does seem to work.
‘She will not be happy for me,’ I say to myself, standing at the gate. ‘She will not hug me when she sees me, and she will not express joy that I’ve found Daniel. She might be mean about him being married and she will probably just not react at all. I will be okay. I will survive.’
That last part is what Alice says I must say, but whenever I say ‘I will survive’, I want to burst into song. Alice says this isn’t a bad thing, because it makes me greet my mother with a cheerful attitude.
I ring the bell and my mother answers so quickly she must have been standing on the other side of the gate. I hope I whispered my affirmations as quietly as I meant to. I hope I didn’t yell ‘I will survive’ out loud just before I pushed the bell. But I might have, so I start giggling.
I don’t know if it’s because I’m laughing, but my mother smiles as she steps aside to let me in. And then she touches my arm as I walk past, and it is as soft as a butterfly but it burns into my bare skin and I feel it etched on my arm as I walk in the front door and down the passage. My mother is not a toucher. I don’t know what to do with this touch.
‘Tea or something stronger?’ she says as we turn towards the kitchen. We always end up standing around in the kitchen. It’s not like it’s one of those kitchens – like Claire’s – where there’s a table and chairs in the middle, maybe with a vase of flowers, and people sit around chatting and laughing. My mum’s kitchen is just a bog-standard kitchen, and most of our exchanges happen with us standing propped against the melamine cupboards.
I’m about to ask for wine when I remember the baby. ‘Tea will be fine,’ I say, and my mum smiles again as she turns to the kettle.
When she’s made the tea, she says, ‘Let’s go sit in the lounge – it’s more comfortable.’
I just follow because this visit is feeling so different already that I don’t know how to react. And I haven’t even told her my news yet. ‘Don’t have expectations,’ I whisper to myself.
‘What’s that?’ says my mother, who’s walking in front of me with the tea tray.
‘Nothing, Mum,’ I say. ‘Talking to myself.’
Well blow me down, she turns to put the tea down on the table and smiles again.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask her.
‘Why?’
I can’t exactly say that she’s smiled three times and touched me on the arm and this is so unprecedented as to be a bit frightening. Put it like that, I sound crazy.
‘You seem a bit different today,’ I say.
‘I’m very pleased to see you,’ she says. ‘And you said you have news for me, so that’s exciting.’
‘Really?’
Now she pulls the face I’m more familiar with, a sort of despairing, why-is-my-child-such-a-trial-to-me face. I make a mental note to tell Alice how much more comfortable I am when she’s back to sneering.
She pours both our teas and then we do our usual thing of sipping and not talking, with my mother’s eyes glazed over like she isn’t even in the room. I don’t know how to get back to where we were. Eventually I say, ‘So,’ and watch as her eyes slowly refocus.
‘Your news?’ she says, taking a sip of tea. ‘Don’t keep me guessing.’
She smiles again, and looks almost flirtatious.
‘So,’ I say. ‘It’s complicated.’
My mum sighs. ‘Life is complicated, Julia.’ And then she laughs as if she sees the irony of her of all people telling me of all people that life is complicated. But that can’t be right.
‘So, I met this man,’ I start, and slowly, haltingly, I tell her about Daniel.
One of the many strange dynamics between my mother and I is that we very seldom lie to each other. It’s not easy telling your mother that you’ve basically seduced a married man away from his wife and child – but not for one minute in any of this did I consider not telling her the truth.
As expected, she doesn’t react strongly to anything I’m telling her. But she nods as I speak, and she says things like ‘Mmm,’ and, ‘I see,’ and once she even says, ‘How difficult for you.’ I can’t believe how she isn’t judging me at all.
For once, it’s like she’s completely on my side.
Helen
As Julia speaks, I’m having to bite the inside of my cheeks. Because when she starts talking about this couple she’s met, this perfect couple with the perfect lives, I’m not thinking about this Claire-and-Daniel couple, I’m thinking about Helen-and-Mike. I’m thinking about my own perfect marriage and my own perfect family. And then when the story starts turning, and she’s telling me how this Claire didn’t appreciate her husband, Daniel, and never showed him any affection or support, I’m still thinking about Helen-and-Mike, and I’m thinking how I thought we had forever and we didn’t, and I’m wondering if Mike knew how much I loved him before The Accident, and I’m wondering what an interfering little hussy would
