Out Late with Friends and Regrets (42 page)

Ellie hugged the desirable leather around her.
 
It was a little too small for perfection.
 
It would just fit me, thought Fin, with a superficial fragment of her brain.

“Oh, oh right.
 
Yeah, OK, thanks. Watson Street first, all right, driver?” and she got in, followed by Anna and Fin.

“Good night, Anna.
 
It was an absolute pleasure to meet you,” said Ellie, as they arrived at the house, “And Fin, be sure to call me, as and when,” and kissed them both.

“Ellie, you’re amazing,” said Anna, “hope we can meet again, sometime.”

“I’m sure we can. ‘Bye.
 
Weir Street, please, John.”

Fin’s decoy thought was to wonder if the driver’s name was indeed John, and was known to Ellie.
 
But
as and when
waited behind the front door, and it was time.

It was at once irritating and endearing, seeing her home garnished at random with Anna’s belongings.
 
She had to remind herself that this was still a teenager, however mature she seemed.

“Right, darling, do you want to pick up your stuff and take it upstairs?”

“Sure, Mum.
 
Can I leave my case in your room, there isn’t really space in the office with the folding bed made up.”

“Yes, course you can.
 
I did offer you my bedroom.”

“No, you older people need your comfort.
 
Our generation can cope with anything.”

I truly hope so, thought Fin.

“Would you like to get ready for bed, and I’ll get you some hot milk?”

“Ah, Mum! Sweet... Got any hot choccy?”

“Yes, as it happens.
 
Go on, get your jimjams on and your slap off, and we can have hot chocolate by the fire.”

“Ooh, lovely.
 
I’ll be down in a minute.”

A little more time, a few moments in which to experience the feeling of the relationship in its healing stages, the warmth, the hope, the... normality of it.
 
Was it really worth telling Anna that her mother was different? How was it relevant, after all, to a girl who didn’t even live in the same city, the same world?
 
And whereas young people could be tolerant of the most extraordinary behaviour in their peers, there was much anecdotal evidence to show that they could be very sniffy indeed if their parents kicked over the traces.

Kicked over the traces. Fin considered the phrase.
 
This was no act of rebellion, though. This was how she
was
.
 
It would be unfair not to tell Anna, if there were to be any chance of Fin having another shot at motherhood.
 
The later along the line she left it, the more damaging it could be.
 
It wasn’t as if she was introducing a partner: “Hello, darling, I’d like you to meet your new mummy...”

The heaviness centred in her solar plexus felt physical.
 
It pulled her shoulders forward, and she realised her breath was making a sighing sound.

“Oi! Where’s me hot chocolate, then?”

Anna stood in the doorway, clad in a zany set of knee-length leggings and matching T-shirt, horizontally striped in rainbow colours.

“Didn’t think I’d need my sunglasses at this time of year,” said Fin, smiling, “do you want a dressing gown?”

“No, I’m lovely and warm, thanks, Mum.
 
Got any slippers I could borrow, save wearing my trainers? The floorboards are a bit cold on the old tootties.
 
Aren’t we having hot chocolate, then?”

“I didn’t want it to be cold before you got down.”

A lie.
 
Could she not live with a bigger one? “I’ll just nip up for some slippers for you.”

She put milk on to heat, and fetched a pair of slippers that Margaret had given her last Christmas.
 
They were pink and large, in the shape of pigs complete with tails, and wobbly eyes that gave them a comically knowing expression.
 
She had never worn them, but at the last minute had balked at throwing them away when packing up at the cottage.

Anna giggled as she put them on.
 
Just a kid.

The chocolate was warm, comforting, delicious.
 
Fin hugged it to her.

“Anna -”

At the same moment, Anna said, “Mum -”

“Go on, you first.”

“Just wanted to say what an amazing time I’ve had this evening.
 
Thanks for the theatre, it was fantastic, and Jetsam’s - well, I’d never have imagined you in a place like that.
 
And you seem so relaxed, Mum, I can’t get over it!”

Relaxed?
 
She was evidently a pretty good actor herself.

“Things have... kind of changed for me, darling, in a lot of ways.”

“Well, it really, really suits you.
 
And what amazing friends you’ve got! You never seemed to have friends, before.
 
Oh, Mum, I’m sorry, I meant-”

“It’s OK.
 
You’re right, I didn’t have any.
 
I’ve just been really lucky, since-”

“Since you moved into Harford?”

“No.
 
No, since, er, since I met Ellie, really, and that was months ago.”

Anna was looking at her, an uncomfortable steadiness in her gaze.
 
Fin stared at the flickering flames of the gas fire.
 
Her face was hot.

“Mum?”

Fin cleared her throat.

Get a grip
.

“Mum, what’s up?”

The breath she took was so deep, Fin all but choked on it.
 
So much for calm and control.

“I’m, uh...”

“What, Mum, what is it?”

“I’m gay.”

The silence which followed must have been the longest in the history of the world.

“Oh.”
 
Neutral, no discernible expression in Anna’s response.

Another silence.
 
Then, “So Ellie’s your-”

“No, she’s not my partner, she’s a very wonderful friend.
 
I don’t have a - anybody special at the moment.”

“Oh, oh, right.”

Nothing to get hold of.
 
They might have been strangers at a bus stop, making remarks about the weather.
 
Anna was no longer looking at her, but down into her mug of chocolate.

“I realise it must come as a bit of a surprise, but I felt I had to mention it.”

“Sure.
 
Yeah, sure, Mum.”

Fin felt her skin go icy.

“Maybe I can hear all about it tomorrow.
 
Or whenever.
 
I’m - actually a bit tired, Mum, I think I’ll go to bed, if that’s OK,” said Anna.
 
Her tone was friendly, but detached.
 
She put down the mug, still half-full, and stood, putting a hand lightly on Fin’s shoulder as she leant over and kissed her mother on the cheek.
 
Her eyes were focused beyond Fin’s head.

“Good night, Mum,” she said, stepping out of the slippers and leaving the room.

“Good night, Anna,” replied Fin.

Pinky and Perky looked quizzically up at her, and after a while turned to a wet pink blur as she stared back at them.

She woke, shivering with cold, although the fire was still on.
 
She leant forward and turned it off; she should go up to bed.
 
She looked at her watch.
 
Five past three.
 
Her eyes felt sticky with mascara, and ached in that small-hours kind of way.
 

She sat limp in the chair, going over her route to bed.
 
Step over the slippers, get a glass of water in the kitchen, upstairs to the bathroom, pee, take make-up off, a lick-and-a-promise of a wash, fall into bed.
 
It seemed an awful lot to do before she could go back to sleep.
 
She shivered again.
 
Her head fell back against the cushions, and she drew her knees up and curled into a foetal position.
 
Too cold to stay, too tired to move.

When she next opened her eyes, she shifted one numb leg, and was puzzled by the weight on it.
 
It was the duvet from her bed, folded in half, draped over her lower body.
 
Anna must have seen her asleep, and brought it down.
 
Greyish light was seeping round the edge of the blinds – God, it must be morning, and late at that.
 
She pulled herself upright, slow and aching, started to fold the duvet into a manageable size to take upstairs, and dropped it in a puffy pile with an impotent sigh.
 
Sod it, she would take it up next trip.
 
She plodded up the stairs and into the bathroom, relieved herself and then turned on the basin tap.
 
Gripping the basin sides she stared down into the spiralling water.
 

“Come on, you silly bitch,” she told herself, continuing to watch the flow and wondering whether she felt sick or not. She decided she didn’t.
 
She looked into the mirror, at the used-up face of the woman in there, noting the splodgy black wash of mascara around the eyes, the pasty complexion, the lack of bloom and freshness, the unhappy droop of the mouth.
 
She cleansed her skin twice, rinsed her face in cold water, and slathered it with moisturiser.
 
That felt better; she could always have a shower later.

The office door was open, and she could see through the crack between the hinges that the bed was empty.
 
A brief check confirmed that Anna was nowhere in the house, and anxiety bobbed up and down inside her, until she looked behind the door of her own room and saw Anna’s careless baggage there.
 
So where was she? She didn’t have a key.
 
Fin checked the front door and saw it had been left on the latch.
 
Relief.

She showered, standing under the pelting hot water, trying to visualise the worry sliding down her flanks, rolling off her skin in greasy grey-yellow folds.

As she was dressing, the door slammed, and Anna came up with the duvet.

“Morning, Mum.
 
Thought I’d get some rolls from the deli.
 
And I bought some chocolate spread, there’s none in the cupboard.
 
Hurry up, the rolls are still warm.”

As if nothing had happened.

“That’s lovely of you Anna, take the money out of my purse, it’s in the tea caddy.”

As if nothing had happened.

“Nope, my treat.”

“Lovely! Shall I make tea, or coffee?”

Over breakfast, Fin tried to gauge how deep the damage might be, without success.
 
Anna appeared determined to avoid the subject of Fin’s defection from the straight world, but spoke of her own dalliance with vegetarianism, though she admitted to having recanted to the point where she would eat free-range poultry and wild, sea-going fish.
 
It was as if the two of them had only just met, and there were as yet few points of reference.
 
Almost as a conversational gambit, Fin brought up the subject of the squeeze on the business, and the possibility of subsidising her life in the city by training to be a fitness instructor.