Mothers & Daughters (20 page)

Jaz seems OK, as far as he can tell. Has a boyfriend, has a girlfriend, likes her tutor, isn't living in squalor. He'd say
she's a bit restless, a bit impatient, but maybe that's just with him. Hasn't she always found him irritating?

Then the boyfriend makes an appearance, and she loses interest in her dad altogether
.

Before Phil leaves, he gets the boyfriend – very full of himself, that one – to take a photo. It would be nice to show the picture to Carol; she worries about Jaz being away from home. That he can never do, though. She'd winkle out the details of the trip in no time. For all he's a practised adulterer, he's a lousy liar
.

I'd come off the machines and was doing my stretches when Sheila bounced into the gym. (Poor Sheila, whose grandchildren were growing up on the other side of the world.) She clocked in at the computer, looked across, and saw me.

‘You drive a blue Micra, don't you?' she said.

My heart sank. ‘What's up? Have I been pranged?'

‘Not exactly.'

I cut the stretches short, picked up my keys and hurried outside to see.

My car was parked in its usual spot, unharmed, except that tied round the driver's-side wing mirror was a silver helium balloon. It strained and twisted on its string, flashing in the sunlight.

‘Looks like someone's got an admirer,' said Sheila behind me.

‘Looks like someone's playing silly beggars,' I said.

I walked around and started picking at the knot. It wasn't very secure and soon came loose under my fingernails. I teased out the loop, pulled the tail free and the balloon jerked, jerked again, then floated upwards, off to God knows where. A fraction of a second too late, I realised I could have kept it for Matty.

‘You know about Monday?' said Laverne over the fence as I was attempting to skim duckweed off my pond.

‘Josh not needing a lift? Yes, he reminded me. And it's two weeks, isn't it?'

‘That's right.'

‘Is he looking forward to his work experience?'

‘Yes – well – I don't know. Why he chose the cottage hospital, all those ill people, when he could have gone in a nice clean office.'

‘I should imagine he'll be good with the patients, though. Is that what he wants to do when he leaves school? Nursing, something in that line?'

Laverne pursed her lips doubtfully. ‘I'm not sure. I don't want to think about it. My little boy, growing up too fast. I've no idea what to do about his birthday, either, that's coming up next month. He's at a funny age. You haven't any suggestions, have you?'

‘For his party or his present?'

‘Both.' She tilted her head back and looked at the sky, as if inspiration might be writ there. ‘It sounds silly to say it about your own son, but – he's strange, in some ways. I don't feel I know him that well.'

‘It doesn't sound silly at all,' I said, then wondered whether I'd come across as rude. ‘What I mean is, just because someone's part of your family doesn't mean you're privy to their deepest thoughts. It used to be a struggle to buy for Jaz. In the end we just gave her money, and that always went down well.'

‘Oh, I'm not giving him
money
,' she said, as though I'd suggested parcelling up some crack cocaine. ‘He's got to have a proper present.'

I tried to imagine what might make it onto Laverne's approved list. A book? A non-violent video? ‘How about one of those “experience days” where they get to drive a rally car?'

She shuddered. ‘Not that.'

‘Or zookeeper for a day? Dorothy Wynne's chiropodist did that, said it was amazing. Josh likes animals, doesn't he? And he could invite a few friends to meet him at the zoo afterwards.'

‘I'm not . . .' Her face grew vague. ‘His friends . . . It's a part of his life that . . . Look, Carol, does he ever talk to you about school? I know you chat in the car.'

The truth was, Josh wasn't talking to me at the moment. Nowadays we mainly sat in silence on the drive to school. The most response I'd had lately was when I told him the story of how Eileen and I had covered our maths books in foil and then flashed them in the eyes of the teacher all lesson long, but even then he was only briefly interested.

‘I thought he might have let something slip,' she said. ‘To you.'

‘What about?'

‘I don't know.' She was looking straight at me now, her stringy neck at full stretch, her eyes too wide. I thought of a programme I'd seen about parents who have their kids micro-chipped, and who put up hidden cameras to spy on their childminders. Then I remembered Josh running into the road. What he needed for his birthday were self-defence lessons and a Kevlar vest.

‘I think there's something going on. Sometimes he – You would tell me,' she said, ‘if you knew there was something wrong?'

The moment teetered on its edge.

‘Wouldn't you?'

It was the pause that undid me.

I was actually in bed when the phone went. Not asleep, but settled and wound-down with the lights low. Chilled, as Jaz would say. Then this jaunty blast of music, jerking me into
wakefulness. It wasn't the landline, either, it was my mobile, which meant I had to get up, switch on the main light, and hunt the thing down.

‘Seriously, though,' went Phil's tinny little voice, as though we'd been in the middle of a conversation, ‘I don't think you should be having him round.'

‘What?'

‘I've been thinking about road signs. You know.'

‘No.'

‘Those flashing boards that tell you to slow down.'

‘Are you drunk, Phil? You sound drunk.'

‘A bit.'

I retreated to the bed and climbed back in, pulling the duvet up around myself for decency. ‘Where's Penny?'

‘Not here.'

Why else would you be calling me so late, I nearly said. ‘She's not in hospital, is she?'

‘God, why do you say that?' Phil sounded frightened.

‘You told me she wasn't well.'

‘Oh, no, she's fine. She's, no, she's. Gone to a friend's. Anyway, we're not talking about her.'

‘Look, Phil, what do you want?'

There was some scuffly noise and heavy breathing; perhaps he'd dropped the phone. I was on the point of giving up when he spoke again.

‘It's bothering me. If you keep having Ian round, Jaz'll find out and then there'll be hell to pay.'

I made myself count to five before I replied.

‘So you said, Phil. But if I block him from seeing his son, there'll be trouble from a different direction, trust me. And when I've tried to negotiate between them, that's been disastrous too. Far as I can tell, I'm between a rock and a hard place and another rock.'

‘He's not threatened you, has he? Stuck-up bastard. Because if he has—'

‘It's not like that. But Ian has rights, and if Jaz ignores them—'

‘We can't start telling her what to do or she'll get shirty with us as well.'

‘You think I don't know that? For God's sake!'

‘I don't have an answer,' said Phil.

‘So what's new?'

‘Carol, I—'

‘Stirring things up, to no purpose! As if you're in any position to adopt the moral high ground. And stop tying balloons to my car, stupid bloody carry-on. And stop calling me when your girlfriend's away. And get my shed cleared out. Why don't you
ever
do anything
useful
?'

I switched the phone off.

Might as well get up and make a drink, do some stretches, maybe sort out some bills. There was no chance of getting a good night's sleep now.

When I'm in a particularly self-destructive mood, I get out the photograph of Penny. No one knows I have it, not even Jaz, and she actually took the damn thing.

It was one afternoon when Phil had dropped by with some message or other (this was after the divorce, when we were supposed to be square and sorted), and Penny was in the car. He told me. ‘Pen's outside,' he said. I don't know if he was expecting me to ask her in. I'm ashamed to admit this, but my immediate response was to stalk across and jerk the curtains closed. Then, of course, we'd been plunged into ridiculous gloom. I ought to have taken him through to the kitchen, only that felt like defeat, so whatever it was we needed to talk about we did in semi-darkness, like those ex-cons on TV whose faces
have been hidden to protect their identities. I'd been aware of Jaz crashing about upstairs, but my mind had been on other things. Then, when Phil had gone, she came down and showed me what was on my own digital camera: a bored-looking, pudding-faced blonde gazing out of a car window. That was the first time I'd laid eyes on my husband's mistress.

I could have seen her before, if I'd wanted. I'm sure I could have found all kinds of evidence over the years, had I looked for it. I could have hung around near the office, or hired someone to trail her and make a report. Some wives do that, collect files of information; their way of coping. My energy's always gone into blotting Penny out.

Nevertheless some fragments of unwanted information have slipped through. She wears contact lenses; her brother's a nurse; she has to use special shampoo or she gets eczema; she has a mild London accent; her dad once served Dick Emery a tank-full of petrol; she's never wanted children; she's an immoral, unsisterly witch.

I ought to have deleted the picture at once – two presses of a button and it would have gone for ever. But instead I put the camera to one side, waited till Jaz was out one evening, and printed a copy. I wiped the image off the camera, then sat and held the photograph in my hands for an age, just looking at it. This is her? I kept thinking.
This?
Penny's mouth was one of those too-small smug ones, her cheeks plump and going to jowl. Her hair hung to shoulder length, in no particular style. Difficult to tell much about her figure or clothes, but she looked wider than I was, and lumpier. Like me, she was middle-aged. That was all. A completely unremarkable woman.

I remember laughing, at first, in disbelief. Mistresses were supposed to be glamorous and young and willowy. I imagined saying to Phil,
God, is she truly the best you could manage? You
junked your marriage for THIS?
After a while I put the photo down, went to my bedroom and, with trembling hands, redid my hair and make-up, as though I was getting ready for the date of my life.

For half an hour after that, I'd been high as a kite. Then, without any warning I was sobbing without restraint, the way I hadn't let go in years. Within minutes my face was a slimy mess, my breath juddering uncontrollably. It felt as though every single tear I'd held back, every spurt of rage I'd stifled over the years was now rushing out of me in a torrent, a huge outpouring that I was physically incapable of stopping.

I have no idea how long this session lasted, but finally I think I just ran out of steam. That was the last occasion I cried over Phil. By the time Jaz came home I'd showered and blowdried my hair, rubbed on my night cream, and was sitting watching
Blackadder II
in my dressing-gown. ‘Everything OK?' she'd asked me. ‘Fine,' I'd told her.

I keep meaning to get rid of Penny's photo: burn it, or post it through the floorboards so that, in years to come, strangers will go searching for wires or pipes and find this fragment of an evening's self-harm under a layer of dust and mouse dirt. It's what she deserves. And yet I can't quite bring myself to let the picture go. So it lives in my bureau, face down at the back of the drawer, and whenever I need to stick a knife into myself, out comes Penny again.

I'm well aware I shouldn't, but it's not as if I actually cut myself, the way some women do. The way my daughter did.

CHAPTER 17

Photograph 404, Album Three

Location: a Little Chef car park, half way between Sunnybank and Leeds University

Taken by: Carol

Subject: Jaz leaning against the bonnet of Phil's car. She looks cross, but that's only because she's trying to hide her nerves. Behind her, the boot and half the back seat are crammed with the gear she thinks she will need for her first term
.

Phil is not in the picture, even though he is the one doing the driving. As a now officially ex-husband, he shouldn't be on the scene at all, except that Carol's car is suddenly kaput and there seems no other way, at such short notice, of transporting Jaz's goods and chattels across the country. Penny has magnanimously agreed it is OK
.

Never have fifty miles seemed so far
.

At the previous stop, Carol had to go in search of Phil; found him standing by the side of the road wearing his old fluorescent jacket and holding Jaz's hairdryer to simulate a police speed trap. ‘Bloody hilarious watching them slam their brakes on,' was his explanation
.

‘Why does Dad have to be such a prick?' mutters Jaz, below Phil's hearing, and both women snigger miserably together. It is the one bright spot in a long, long journey
.