I’m starting to feel slightly better when a sharp rap against the window startles me, jettisoning all the calm.
It’s Larry, peering in through the glass, his face worried. I roll down the window.
‘I saw you park,’ he says, ‘and then you didn’t get out. I got worried.’
‘I just needed a moment,’ I say. ‘Want to be at my best to meet Miriam.’
I try to laugh, but it comes out like a bray.
Larry looks at me for a moment. ‘This is complicated for you.’
‘Yes.’
‘Because of Mike?’ He’s stooping to talk to me through the car window, and there is something so endearing about that.
‘Yes. Because of Mike. But also because of you.’
‘Me?’
‘If Miriam doesn’t like me, you and Eddie won’t want to be friends with me any more.’
Larry reaches awkwardly through the window to touch my shoulder.
His hand is so warm I can feel it through the fabric of my shirt.
‘Besides the fact that Miriam is a very nice person, and she will like you,’ he says, ‘even if she didn’t, that makes no difference to me. I’m a big boy. My sister doesn’t get to choose my friends.’ There is an infinitesimal pause before the word ‘friends’. I think I’ve imagined it, but he blushes when I look at him.
That somehow gives me the wherewithal to pull myself together.
‘Come on,’ I say. ‘Let’s not stand here chatting all day. Let’s go meet your sister.’
Larry smiles and steps away from the car. ‘You’re going to like her, Helen,’ he says as I get out. ‘And she’s going to like you.’
I take his arm as if it is the most natural thing in the world. As we walk in, I realise Larry hasn’t broached the issue of Mike again.
‘I need to pop in and say hi to Mike first,’ I say. I feel Larry’s arm tense very slightly beneath my hand.
‘Sure thing.’ He changes direction. ‘I’ll wait for you outside.’
‘You can come in. It’s not like you haven’t before.’
‘I know,’ says Larry. ‘But I think you need to be alone with him today.’
He’s right, and I am so grateful. I want to say something, but instead I just squeeze his arm. I think he understands, because for a moment he puts his arm around my shoulder and pulls me close.
‘It’s all going to be okay,’ he whispers into the top of my head. ‘We just don’t know what okay means.’
Julia
My belly feels tight around the baby, but I have too much to do to let a bit of discomfort stop me. As well as painting the walls – I mean, what was I thinking with that colour? – I really need to unpack my childhood books, and I don’t know how I haven’t realised this before. I know they’re somewhere in the spare room cupboard – the room that’s now mine. I called it the spare room in my head for a long time, convinced that living with my mother was a temporary measure, but now that the baby is about to be born, I realise I’m going to need her for the foreseeable future. Maybe that’s why I got the room colour wrong. Maybe it was a subconscious rebellion against staying.
I think about phoning Alice to ask what she thinks, but then I realise this might not qualify as a therapeutic emergency. When I phoned earlier to tell her the colour was wrong, she reminded me that I’m only supposed to phone for emergencies, otherwise I must save it for therapy. And then, when I told her the names of the colours, she paused and said we would definitely talk about it next time she sees me. And who knows when that will be because I could have this baby any minute.
I go into the bedroom and start digging through the cupboards. There isn’t an awful lot – my mother’s not the type for sentimental keepsakes, so the stuff I do find is mostly mine. There’s a box I’ve marked ‘Do NOT throw this away, Mum’, but inside are old school books, and I can’t think why I would have thought it was so important to keep them.
I put them back in the cupboard. The only other box has my matric dance dress and my mother’s wedding dress in it. When I was little, my biggest treat in the world was to take out the wedding dress and touch it. My mother wasn’t mad about me doing this, and she only let me do it very occasionally – which meant that it kept its magic and always felt like a treat. When I was a teenager I once tried it on when she was out. It didn’t fit me well, and looked a bit frumpy. The disappointment was huge, and I never asked to look at the dress again.
I touch it gently now. As an adult, I can imagine how painful my mother would have found my obsession with her dress. Not that she showed it. In fact, she might not have even realised herself that it was painful. But it must have been.
Anyway, my books are not in this cupboard. I think of phoning my mother, but I send a message instead. She doesn’t reply, so I start wondering where else they could be. Perhaps in her room.
Going into her room feels naughty. I am determined my child will never feel like this – that my bedroom is a forbidden space. My child will always feel welcome and safe in my bedroom.
Opening the cupboards feels even sneakier. First, I just look at her clothes, hanging neatly, sparse enough that they don’t even touch each other. My cupboard is always jam-packed with clothes – most of which I never wear – but my mother throws away anything she hasn’t worn for a year. Once I asked if she doesn’t feel attached to her clothes and sad to see them go, and she looked at me like I was speaking another language.
