Nearest Thing to Crazy (13 page)

‘Hello, darling,’ I gave her a hug, feeling her skinny little frame that seemed so fragile and vulnerable she might snap like a twig in my arms. Her bracelet-strewn arms jangled around my ears as she hugged me back. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’

‘I thought I said I’d be on the fourth floor.’ Selfridges was familiar territory for us, and we each had our separate hunting grounds; Laura’s being on the first floor where the likes of Top Shop and Juicy Couture were situated.

‘Well I thought you’d be at Hobbs, or even Jaeger, but I didn’t imagine I’d find you at Whistles. What’s the occasion?’

‘Oh God, don’t you start. You’re beginning to sound like the assistant.’

‘Sorreeee.’

‘No . . . no . . . take no notice of me. You know how much I love shopping.’

‘Okay, then. Give me a clue.’

‘Supper. Saturday night. Casual.’

‘Casual. O-kay,’ Laura repeated slowly. I knew exactly what she was thinking. Why would I have chosen to come to Birmingham to shop? Why, especially, when we were supposed to be, how I hated the expression, ‘tightening our belts’? But I couldn’t explain to Laura that I was shopping for confidence; that I was searching for something to help me face Ellie’s bloody screensaver; something that might help me cover up my anger . . . and disguise my fear. I’d booked a haircut for the end of the week and I’d even flirted with the idea of perhaps squeezing in a visit to the nail bar before the end of today. I knew this wasn’t really normal behaviour, but I wasn’t really feeling normal.

I attempted to justify myself to my daughter. ‘I haven’t bought anything new for ages, and I feel dowdy. Middle aged and dull.’

‘Who’s giving it?’

‘Oh just a new neighbour . . .’ I tried to sound vague. I didn’t want to make a big deal of it in front of Laura.

‘Not the novelist that Dad mentioned?’
‘Dad mentioned her? When?’

‘When we had lunch yesterday –’

‘He didn’t tell me you had lunch.’

‘Didn’t he? Well it’s hardly a secret,’ she said, giving me a sideways look. ‘We often do on Tuesdays – he says it’s his way of making sure I eat something. I get to choose. It’s cool.’

‘I didn’t realize.’

‘It’s not like he’s been deliberately keeping it from you, he probably just forgot to say.’ I could sense Laura getting defensive.

‘Forgot?’ What other things wasn’t he telling me?

‘It’s hardly important.’

‘No,’ I said, keeping my voice light. ‘It’s not.’ I didn’t want to spoil our time together. It wasn’t Laura’s fault. Dan might not have told me, but
she
had. She wasn’t the one deceiving me.

‘So,’ I said, cheerfully, ‘What’s the plan?’

‘I’m taking you to Jigsaw.’

I pasted the veneer of a smile on my face as we walked out of the artificial world of the Bullring and into the daylight. We almost crashed into a balloon seller plying chirpy cartoon characters printed on shiny helium lollipops. There were lots of other mother and daughter couples just like us. The world was going about its normal business and I wondered how many people around us were also struggling to hold on to the fragile strings of their lives. The wind coming down Corporation Street was chilly and I pulled my cardigan tighter around me. Laura never seemed to notice the cold. She was wearing leggings, black ballet pumps, and a sort of diaphanous chiffon tutu that skimmed the tops of her slender thighs. A faded denim jacket that she’d probably picked up from some flea market somewhere finished off the ensemble. She was a great one for vintage finds, stretching her meagre allowance and still managing, always, to look fabulous and hip, or ‘cooool’ as she would say.

She hooked her arm through mine and guided me up the hill. I caught sight of our reflections in the window of Primark, Laura tall, reed slim and beautiful; and me, squat, frumpy and middle aged.

‘I can’t wait to meet her.’

‘Who?’ I pretended that I didn’t know who she was talking about. The fact was that Ellie’s name had never been out of my mind.

‘The
writer.
Ellie. Isn’t that her name? Eleanor Black? What’s she like?’

‘She’s okay.’

‘I can’t believe we’ve actually got someone exciting in the village for once.
Nothing
ever happens in the village. I can imagine the place must be
buzzing.
’

‘Yes, probably. Though she strikes me as being a bit odd, to be honest.’
‘She might be able to help me, with contacts.’

‘Oh I wouldn’t have thought so.’

‘Mum . . . God . . . hello! She’s a writer, of course she might. She used to work on magazines. On
Mode
, apparently. She might be able to help, give me some advice.’

‘Oh I doubt that,’ I said, too quickly.

‘How would you know?’

‘I don’t. But she’s been out of it for a long time. She’s a novelist now, not a journalist.’

‘But even so, she must know that world. At least more than anyone else I know does. I might come back this weekend.’

It seemed that the buildings on either side of the street were pressing in towards me and the sky was a lead weight crushing me into the pavement.

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea . . .’ The words tumbled out before I could stop them.

‘Sorry?’ Laura stopped in the middle of the pavement, so I turned back to her.

‘Well we don’t know anything about her,’ I said awkwardly, realizing how unconvincing I must sound.

‘What else do we need to know? Like, she knows the world I want to get into. I mean, what
is
there to know? Don’t you like her, or something?’

‘I’m just not sure about her.’

‘You don’t have to like her, do you? You could just be excited for me.’

‘Excited for
you
?’

‘Oh Mum. Don’t be silly.’

‘Why am I silly?’ I shrugged myself deeper into my cardigan and felt Laura’s hand slip out from the crook of my arm.

‘You don’t want me to come back . . . you don’t want me to meet her?’ She folded her arms in front of her chest and set her chin defiantly. Laura was not easily dissuaded from doing what Laura wanted to do.

‘It’s not that I don’t want you to come home. I didn’t mean that. Of course I want you to come back. It’s just Ellie. I’m not sure about her. Come on, let’s shop.’ I reached out for Laura’s arm but she shrugged my hand away.

‘Then tell me why.’

‘Look, we’re causing a traffic jam.’ A woman with a buggy was struggling to get around us. I heard her mutter under her breath ‘. . . for God’s sake . . .’

‘Sorry,’ I muttered. ‘Come on, Laura.’

She stamped her foot on the pavement and sighed, heavily. ‘Mum
. . . honestly . . . just tell me what the problem is?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Then if you don’t know, there isn’t a problem.’

‘Laura . . .’

‘Is it something she’s done? Something she’s said to you?’

‘Laura, just leave it, and accept what I’m saying . . . please . . . darling.’

‘Look, Mum. I finish my degree next year. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get into journalism? How hard it’s going to be to find a job? Even getting some work experience is a nightmare. Obviously I’ve got to exploit every possible useful contact. At least Dad understands that. And frankly, so what if you don’t get on with her? You don’t have to, do you?’ I wanted to slap her. She could be so damned stubborn. ‘I can’t understand why you’re being so weird about her.’

I had to take a deep breath, to try and calm down. ‘Do you want to come shopping with me, or not?’

Her mouth twisted defiantly. An expression I knew all too well.
‘Actually I did say I’d meet George in the library. Look, you don’t mind, do you? I mean you’re probably better shopping on your own.’

‘Laura . . . come on . . . don’t be silly. We can have a nice day.’

‘I really did promise George, and he said he’d help me with my project. And I have to take all the help I can get. You know what it’s like . . . or maybe you don’t . . . I’ll come home at the weekend, see you then . . . Love you . . .’ And with that she turned on her heel and melted into the shopping crowds.

Deep in my stomach the gnawing ache which had been there since I’d read Ellie’s screen grew worse and it felt like my insides were being rung out. Why did Laura and I have to have this strained relationship? Why did she seem to get on so much better with her father than with me? He spoiled her. At nearly twenty-one she should be able to understand the fact that the world didn’t entirely revolve around her. ‘I should be excited for her . . .’ for God’s sake. No, Laura believed she was the centre of the universe. The price of being an only child. And Dan had fuelled it.

Things had never really been plain sailing. But then all normal families have ups and downs, don’t they? We’d had the horrible mid-teens when she seemed to loathe not only me, but Dan as well. Life was always a constant battle about something. The usual stuff, I suppose. Some of it seems really minor, remembering back. Dyeing her hair, using too much black eyeliner so that she looked nineteen when she was only fifteen, trying to sneak out wearing what Dan would call a fanny pelmet, coming home an hour later than agreed, so that I’d driven into Worcester to comb the bars and nightclubs while Dan waited at home in case she turned up there. Of course it all turned out okay in the end, but not before I’d convinced myself that she’d been abducted, raped, murdered, run over . . . It was all about growing up, making her own decisions, becoming her own person and breaking away from me. Some of the rows had been worse than others. Take the row over getting her ears pierced. I’d had this rather old-fashioned idea that she should wait until she was sixteen, like I had to. But all her friends were getting them done. She was as white as a sheet when her friend Katie brought her home. They both looked guilty as sin and scared. Apparently Laura had fainted and Katie didn’t know what to do. They’d had to sit in the piercings place drinking sweetened tea, getting her into a fit state to come home.
‘Why on earth didn’t you ring me?’ I cried. ‘I’d have come to get you, you twits. You should
never
have got the bus home.’

‘I thought you’d be mad at me,’ she said, pathetically.

‘Not mad, darling. Worried.’ Honestly.

I could have coped with just the ears, but I nearly dropped dead with shock when I realized she’d gone and got her tongue pierced as well. I was convinced she’d catch something life-threatening, some terrible disease like Hepatitis C, or B, or A or whatever it was. But thankfully everything was okay in the end. She got bored with it after a few weeks and the horrid stud was removed, and it was never mentioned again. Then there was the tattoo. I cried when I saw the tattoo, not in front of her, obviously. I just couldn’t see the point of desecrating her perfect skin with a stain that would stay there forever. But once I got over the initial shock even I had to admit that it was quite tasteful, for a tattoo. A simple little butterfly just above her left ankle, so it could have been worse. And she was thrilled with it.

We hadn’t had any terrible medical dramas to speak of. Just a broken arm when she fell off her pony the one and only time she went to pony club camp. No, no medical dramas other than the major one which neither she nor I would ever mention to
anybody
else, ever.

I’d had a panicked phone call from her: ‘Mum, you’ve got to come to Birmingham. Please, straight away, and don’t tell Dad.’

I’d jumped into my car and I was knocking on her door just an hour and a half later. She looked pale and puffy eyed, so I knew she’d been crying a lot. I thought perhaps it was something to do with her course, or maybe with Archie, her boyfriend. I was preparing myself for whichever support role I’d have to adopt, when she ushered me through to the kitchen and shut the door on the rest of the house. She put the kettle on and I knew she was struggling to tell me what the matter was.

‘Darling . . . whatever it is, you can tell me.’

‘Oh Mum,’ she flew into my arms and her body started convulsing with sobs. ‘Oh Mum, I don’t know what to do.’

‘Ssssh,’ I’d whispered into her hair. ‘It’s all right. Whatever it is, it’ll be all right.’

‘No it won’t,’

She broke away from me and started busying herself with making tea, but I could see her hands were shaking and fat tears were dripping onto the kitchen worktop. Poor Laura. I took her hand and guided her into one of the chairs by the kitchen table before taking over the tea-making. Sitting down opposite her, I hoped she’d calm down enough to tell me what was the matter.

‘I’m pregnant,’ she said.

‘Oh my God!’ I said. I couldn’t help it. I know it probably wasn’t the best reaction, but I honestly hadn’t expected this news. I had thought of lots of other things it might be, and I suppose with hindsight this was probably a pretty obvious possibility, in the circumstances. ‘I mean . . . oh darling. Goodness. Do you know how long . . . how many weeks?’

‘Six. Just six. I’ve known, obviously, since four. I did a test as soon as I was a couple of days late. But I didn’t know what to do. I haven’t told Archie yet, not until I’ve decided.’

I suppose I couldn’t be blamed for having such a mixture of feelings. Wouldn’t anyone else be the same? For a moment you think your whole world has fallen apart. And then you realize that you’re being selfish, self-centred and that actually it’s not your world that’s fallen apart at all, it’s just all the thoughts and plans and assumptions that you’d made for your daughter’s future that, actually, in the real sense are nothing to do with you. She was over eighteen, she was an adult. And it wasn’t as if she was sleeping around; she had a steady boyfriend – Archie, whom she’d known since school. He was a nice boy. I liked him. Not that, again, it was really anything to do with me, but I didn’t believe he was going to be
the one
for Laura. He just seemed a bit, well, hopeless really; hopeless in a very endearing sort of way. Whereas Laura had this wonderful sense of ambition, of an exciting future, and lots of drive and energy to get there, Archie seemed happy just to play lots of rugby, have a good time with his mates, maybe do a couple of ski seasons, bum around, and hope that at some time in his rose-tinted future he’d fall into a job.