Mothers & Daughters (17 page)

So it was all the more mystifying that, this afternoon, there was suddenly nothing in the room that suited me. Not one item. It was as though a stranger – conservative, uninspiring – had broken into the house while I was at work, and planted her outfits in place of mine.

I picked up a suede-front cardigan and held it to the light. Decent quality, well looked-after, practical, comfortable, there wasn't anything wrong with it. There was nothing wrong with the four pairs of jeans or the six pairs of cords, the chunky sweaters, the row of white blouses, the black evening tops, my dark jackets. True, there wasn't a lot of colour here – only really my blue going-out skirt, my red wedding suit, and a turquoise patterned dress I'd not worn for over twenty years but was too fond of to throw out. Yet, till today, this collection had functioned perfectly well as a working wardrobe.

Now not even my old favourites felt right. All about me sat heaps of alien clothes with me in the middle, wondering who I'd turned into.

I checked myself in the dressing-table mirror again. No doubt about it, the new haircut was at the root of the problem. Since Wednesday I was flickier, choppier, highlighted and properly coloured, as opposed to home-dyed in twenty minutes while I caught up on the hoovering or sorted my knicker drawer. I'd gone to bed worrying I'd hate my new hair in the
morning, dreamed all night about my teeth dropping out, but then, when I got up, the style had fallen into place with a light brush. She'd told me it was low-maintenance, the girl in the salon. ‘Takes years off you, too,' she said. And it did, I couldn't argue, only it somehow made me feel all exposed as well. My head no longer matched my body.

A memory of something that had never been popped into my mind: Jaz and me in a café in town, chatting happily, bags of shopping around our chair legs. It shouldn't have been an unreasonable scenario. Other women did these things, mums and daughters together. I thought, We could go round the precinct next week; she could give me advice, I could treat her to something new. Then I remembered how stroppy she'd been on the phone last time we'd spoken. And anyway, who'd look after Matty while we were trailing round the changing rooms? Not Ian, for sure. (A real memory: Jaz at fifteen disappearing into a shop called Scruffy Herbert's, telling me
on no account
to come in after her; me standing in the doorway like a fool while youths in Doc Martens pushed past, knocking my Wallace and Gromit shopping bag.)

I glanced down at my pile of also-wrong shoes. Next to my navy courts was a
Woman's Weekly
back page showing an advert for a locket, one of those collectibles you have to pay for by instalments.
To a precious daughter
was engraved on the gold outside, then, when you opened it,
The day you were born I was truly blessed
.
Celebrate the special bond that only a mother and daughter can appreciate
, urged the text below.
Imagine her delight when she unwraps this unique gift
. Imagine her falling about laughing, more like.

I kicked the magazine under the bed, sending one of my courts skidding after it. Then I lay back on the duvet and contemplated the ceiling rose for a while. If I turned my head I'd be able to see, above the mirror, the picture Jaz drew for me
one Mother's Day when she was about nine.
To Mum
, it said.
I love you. X X X X X X
, the faded felt-tip elephant holding a bunch of flowers in its trunk. Which made me think of some of the presents she'd given me over the years: how she'd scoured the internet to replace the Sylvac bowl I loved but broke; the shoebox she decorated herself with silver-sprayed lace and pressed flowers; the Joanna Trollope novel she'd queued for an hour to get signed.

One of those optical illusions, my daughter was: two black faces in profile or was it one white vase, and you never could see both together at the same time.

CHAPTER 14

Photograph 414, Album Three

Location: Paignton, summer of 1999

Taken by: Eileen

Subject: The sun shines strongly on Carol (oatmeal sundress) and Jaz (thick grey cardigan). They are squashed into the carriage of a miniature train that carts visitors from one side of the zoo to the other. Jaz isn't bothering to smile for the camera and neither, for once, is Carol. Her thoughts are too full of last night's events
.

Eileen began it that first evening, mysteriously buying four ice creams, and then passing one to a shabby drunk sitting on the beach steps. ‘Well, why not?' she declares gaily. Carol can think of several responses, but daren't voice any of them. It could be the medication that's making her so high, but then Eileen's always had a tendency to make the sweeping gesture
.

Of course, every time they go down after that, he's there again and they have to repeat the exercise. Once Eileen adds a cone of chips into the bargain. ‘Ketchup,' says the tramp. Not ‘Thank you,' Carol notes. She can just imagine what Phil would have to say and wishes, fleetingly, he were on holiday with them. ‘It might not be the kindest thing,' she says to
Eileen later. ‘Like feeding those stray cats in Portugal. What will he do when we leave?'

The situation resolves itself when, on the penultimate afternoon of the holiday, the drunk man collapses in front of them like a pole-axed heifer. Crack! goes his head against the concrete steps. ‘Quick,' says Eileen, reaching for her mobile. ‘Make sure he doesn't swallow his tongue.' I'm not putting my fingers in there, Carol thinks, but she does run over to check his airway. He's shivering and his teeth are chattering, despite the day's heat. If only she had something to throw over him, a blanket or a coat, but all she has on is her strappy dress; Eileen's no better, in her shorts and Aertex top. How lucky, then, that Jaz has her thick cardigan (even if she has worn it all week in the face of stifling heat and commonsense). Before her daughter can argue, Carol has whipped it off her shoulders and thrown it down
.

‘Oh, heavens,' says Eileen, her attention diverted momentarily from the prostrate tramp. ‘Carol, whatever are those marks all over Jaz's arms?'

The rockery at the far end of the pond had been there for as long as we'd lived in the house, and I'd never liked it. To me, a garden's for living, flourishing plants, not lumps of stone. It hadn't helped that my thyme had disappeared, and though I'd replaced it twice, the new shoots hadn't taken. Then the heather had become diseased so that meant another bare patch. There was a bindweed infestation coming up one side and now, while the rest of the garden bloomed, the rockery just looked like something mid-moult.

I'd asked Laverne if I could employ Josh to help dismantle it, and she'd immediately volunteered his time for free. I hadn't argued. Instead, Josh and I had come to a private arrangement, involving the minimum wage and my lemon-rind cake. Here
he came with the pick, thunking it into the earth and levering away energetically. Under his long-sleeved T-shirt his shoulders were becoming bulky with muscle; only in the western world did we call a fifteen-year-old a child. Yet at the same time it was astonishing he'd so lately been a little boy, whizzing Hot-Wheels cars off the front step and building slug traps. As we worked, I saw again a tiny Jaz toddling along the path; on her first bike riding circuits round the lawn. It felt like all my married life was recorded in this garden.

An hour into the job, the plants had been grubbed up, and the top rocks removed and wheeled down to the scrubby space behind the shed. We still had the sides to deal with and the soil to shift, but it was clear we'd be done before the end of the day.

‘Make sure you bend your knees when you lift,' I warned as we hoisted an extra-large slab between us. ‘I don't want to have to cart you home in that barrow.'

Josh shook his head. ‘All teenagers' spines are made of elastic, didn't you know? We're indestructible, we are.'

Together we inched our way crab-wise towards the bottom fence.

‘If we were shifting rocks on the moon,' Josh said, ‘we could carry them on our fingertips. We could boot them along like footballs.'

‘I remember a man playing golf on the moon.'

‘For real?'

‘And his friend threw a javelin. It went miles. Are you ready to let go?'

Josh nodded, and the stone thudded onto the turf between our feet. At the same moment I looked up and Jaz was standing by the back door.

‘I did ring the bell,' she called, letting go of Matty's hand.

I came forward and held out my arms for my grandson, but
he veered off towards the flowerbed by the fence, after something he'd spied there. Jaz walked up to the blasted rockery and inspected our work.

‘Ooh, nice gloves,' she said, tipping her head at Josh. ‘Very
floral
.' He coloured immediately.

‘They're mine, as you know,' I said. ‘He borrowed them to protect his fingers.'

‘If you say so.' She poked the soil with her toe. ‘Looks like a bomb's gone off here. God, so many worms. Don't let Matty see them.'

Josh pulled off the offending gloves and dropped them in the barrow. He hitched up his trousers nervously.

‘Everything all right?' I asked her.

Jaz shrugged. Over her shoulder I watched Matty fish a rubber ball out from the leaves, then start across to us, holding the ball out in front of him. When he got near he held the ball not to me or his mum, but to Josh.

‘Oh no, mustn't interrupt the worker,' said Jaz, swiping the ball from Matty's hands.

‘Actually,' said Josh, ‘I might have to go.'

‘So soon? How's school? Getting all gold stars, I hope. Have you got lots of friends? What's your favourite subject? I'm guessing it's not sport. Computers? Maths?'

‘He got all As and Bs last year,' I said.

‘Oh, jolly good. Mind you, exams are easier than when I was at school.'

‘You're only twenty-seven, love.'

‘Yeah, but the pass mark gets lowered every year. They were probably twice as hard when I did them.'

Is that why it took you two goes to get your A-levels? I could have said. But that wouldn't have been fair. Or wise.

‘I'm trying to think who he reminds me of,' she continued, putting her index finger against her chin.

‘Come on,' I said to Josh. ‘You can rinse your boots off under the outside tap. I've put the money next to the kettle for you.'

He dithered for a second, then re-hitched his trousers and set off across the lawn.

‘Aled Jones,' Jaz shouted after him. ‘That's who you look like. Stick a ruff round your neck and you'd be the spit.'

‘Leave him alone,' I said, taking the ball from her and passing it back to Matty. ‘And hush.'

‘What? What have I said? He's a dork, anyway.'

I bent to prise out one of the smaller stones. ‘No, he isn't. Why are you being so mean? He's a nice boy.'

‘Same thing. A bit of teasing'll do him good. He needs toughening up.'

‘He'll get there.'

‘I pity him if he doesn't. You can be too soft on people, you know.'

‘Like I'm too soft on you?' I said under my breath.

Perhaps she heard me, perhaps she didn't.

‘Your hair.'

The stone came loose and I stood up. ‘I wasn't sure you'd noticed.'

‘God, yeah. I've been considering it. It suits you. It's a shock, because you never change, do you? But, yeah. What prompted the chop?'

‘An impulse.
Ten Years Younger
. Who knows?' I set off with the stone towards the shed, and Jaz followed me.

‘I used to help you in the garden, didn't I?' she said.

The rock dropped from my hands and I turned round to look at her. ‘Oh, Jaz. You aren't jealous, are you? Is that why you chased him away?'

‘Course not. I just wanted to talk to you on your own.'

‘Oh?'

‘Don't get your hopes up. It's nothing new, you've heard it
all before. Only, everything's really bad today, really bad. Like when it first happened. It's like, your anger kind of holds you together for so long, keeps you running, and then all at once you come crashing down?'

I nodded.

‘How did you stand it, Mum, being on your own?'

She wasn't after an answer, which was lucky because I didn't have one. ‘Here,' I said, reaching over for my spade, and she took the shaft in both fists as though it was a weapon.

‘It's not that I want him back,' she said, ‘but that doesn't stop me from feeling shit. I've not been sleeping. Everything goes round and round and round in my head till I have to get up even if it's two, three, four in the morning. Sometimes I catch myself talking to Ian out loud, as if he's in the room with me. I can't concentrate on work or anything, keep forgetting stuff. The worst is, I get so I think I'm coming out of it, and then I have a day like this one where I literally can't stand to be in the house on my own. Before I came here, I thought I was going mad. When's it going to get better, Mum?
Will
it get better?'

It was her eyes that worried me. I thought I recognised that look from before.

‘Oh, love.' I was pulling off my gloves to hug her when my mobile went. Jaz swore again. ‘I'll let it ring,' I said.

‘No, go on,' she said. ‘You might as well get it.'

So I picked up.

‘Hello?' said David's voice. ‘Carol? Have I called at a bad time?'

I stood by the sink and watched Jaz through the window. She'd moved to the edge of the pond to throw little pieces of grass and leaves on the water. Matty was still poking around the bottom of the hedge.

‘We were just dismantling the rockery.' Guilt had me almost panting.

‘And what had the rockery done to offend you?'

‘Been a damn mess for years and years. It was when the heather disappeared it began to look really awful. The problem with heather is it tends to spread out and then die in the middle.'