The Storyteller's Daughter (6 page)

I know not to push this matter any further. I am defeated. There is no making her see sense. Getting her to face reality is, and always has been, like swimming against the tide. No matter how hard you struggle to reach dry land, a huge wave always comes and washes you back to where you started. This is what Mark doesn't understand. It's all very well asking me why I put up with my mother's ridiculous delusions, but he doesn't know how exhausting it is trying to reach the distant shores of reality. Somehow it is just easier to float along side her in a sea of make believe.

“Fine,” I say, raising my hands in surrender, “it was just an idea. I'm going inside to make us some coffee.”

Chastened, I throw my gardening gloves on the ground and follow the little brick path between the sprawling vegetable patches back towards the house. But before I reach the back door I stop, racking my brain to try and throw some light on my mother's words.

“When did you grow vegetables before?” I ask, turning around.

My mother shields her eyes against the sunlight and squints at me, a trowel dangling from her hand.

“What?”

“You said you managed to grow vegetables with me clinging to the hem of your skirt. When? We moved from here when I was six months old and went to live in our flat in Tottenham. We didn't even have a garden.”

My mother stares at me like she can't understand what I'm saying, as if she's trying to process the words into some sort of logical order.

“We had a window box,” she says, quickly.

“You grew vegetables in a window box?”

“Of course. Just small ones, obviously. Little carrots, a few radishes… ”

“I don't remember.”

“Well, of course you don't remember,” she says tersely, “but that doesn't mean it never happened.”

Rosy red patches have formed on her cheeks and she is anxiously picking little pieces of dried mud off her trowel.

I shake my head, too hot and tired to think about whether there could be any truth in this, and turn to go inside, feeling that I have over-stepped an invisible boundary once again.

As the coffee brews I open the front door and pick up the single pint of milk that has been left on the step. There is something comforting about villages where milk bottles still appear during the night as if by magic. It's so much nicer than having to fight your way through the chaos of a twenty-four hour Tesco, and I'm glad my mother is being spared that one stressful chore.

The little lane where she lives is quiet and peaceful. The cottages are small and modest, spaced just far enough apart to afford privacy without isolation. This is perfect for my mother who, despite her talkative energy and eccentricity, is very much a loner. She is happy with her pots, pans and vegetable garden, chattering away to the plants and animals or even to herself. She goes out only when it is essential, scurrying to and from the shops with her head down. I don't think she's ever spoken to any of the neighbours, insisting that all the people who lived in the lane when she was growing up have long died or moved away, and that she can see no point in getting to know anybody new.

‘What would I want to talk to people for?' she always says, ‘I already have everything I need.'

Back in Tottenham she used to connect loosely with people through food, leaving casserole dishes or baskets of muffins on our neighbours' doorsteps, but what they took for an invitation to friendship was no such thing; it was merely a desire to see others eat well. Comforting, nutritious soups were left for Mr Ginsberg who had lost his wife and also his teeth. Re-heatable curries were left for the medical student from India who pored over his books late into the night. Healthy vegetable stews were left for Mrs Wallace who needed to lose weight so that she could undergo a hip-replacement but who had no idea about calorie control. Cakes and biscuits were left for the painfully thin girl in the flat below who my mother assumed had an eating disorder but who was in fact a heroin addict. Yet when any of these people tried to engage my mother in conversation she always had an excuse at the ready, some reason why she had to dash away and couldn't possibly stop. I think it made them feel awkward at first, not to mention confused. They weren't sure what my mother wanted if it wasn't their friendship, and their efforts at paying her back in some way were always rebuked. But after a while my mother's ways were simply accepted. Freshly washed dishes would appear on our doorstep every other day, sometimes with a thank you note and sometimes without. If ever anybody ventured to knock on our door my mother would open it with a warm smile on her face, chatter and laugh energetically for a few minutes and then shut herself away again without inviting them in. I heard her being described as ‘lovely', ‘wonderful', ‘peculiar' and even ‘mad', but generally people learnt to accept her dishes without a fuss and offer nothing in return. She wouldn't have it any other way.

As I take the milk into the house I absentmindedly give the bottle a quick shake and examine the contents, just to make sure there are no fairies trapped inside, before I realise what I am doing and curse myself for being so stupid. When I was small my mother and I often used to try and catch fairies in the park, tip-toeing softly around the bushes in the early morning, empty milk bottles at the ready, but logic soon taught me that this, too, was nothing but make believe, and the next time my mother asked me to go hunting for fairies I snapped, ‘Stop being silly! I'm not a baby!' I thought she was doing it for my entertainment, but in fact she still went without me. And it's not just fairies she believes in, it's all things other-worldly. She's fascinated by spirits and crystals and leprechauns and aliens… anything that sparks her wild and unruly imagination. Growing up I always connected her bright, crumpled, flowing dress-sense with the mystical nonsense she believed in, and in reaction deemed only ever to wear plain clothes in neutral colours so that no-one could ever accuse me of being anything less than perfectly sensible. Unlike my mother's flowing cotton skirts and brightly coloured shapeless tunics, I choose neat blouses, plain t-shirts, flat shoes and neutral v-neck sweaters. I keep my mousy brown hair at shoulder length, wear only stud earrings and use a hint of make-up only in emergencies. I buy my mother sensible clothes, too, clothes that I think are more suitable for her, and over the last couple of years she has actually started to wear them. Her wardrobe these days is a strange mixture of new-age hippy meets Marks and Spencer.

That evening we eat fresh salad with gorgonzola cheese, crispy bacon and slices of avocado.

“One of Jamie's recipes,” my mother explains. She's on first name terms with all the celebrity chefs, so much so that for while I thought Jamie, Delia and Nigella must all be friends of hers she'd met since moving to Cambridge.

“Ainsley is such a card,” she chuckles, soaking up some garlic-infused olive oil with her morsel of ciabatta, “he had me in stitches the other day, you'll never guess what he said… ”

She loves all this modern food. ‘Balsamic Reduction' is now one of her favourite phrases.

After eating we lounge on the sofa, eat homemade toffee ice-cream and play a game of scrabble, where my mother attempts to cheat by forming the word ‘bongle' (“It's a word! We found ourselves in a right old bongle. You can say that!”) and I pretend to be significantly less intelligent than I am (“I just don't think I can make a word from the letters C, T and A”).

“Are you letting me win?” she asks when she's twenty-three points ahead.

“No.”

“You are.”

“I'm not.”

“You are! I can tell by the look on your face, you cheeky monkey!” She dips her finger in the ice-cream and puts a blob on the end of my nose.

“Hey!”

I wipe the ice-cream off my nose and smear it on her cheek as she squeals and tries to push me away with the little strength she can muster after our hard day's work. She looks tired and has done all evening, but she's trying, for my sake, to be lively.

“Meg May!” she laughs, wiping her face. “That's no way for a university student to behave! You're meant to be the sensible one. You won't be able to behave like that once you're a famous physicist.” “Mother!” I groan, covering my face with my hands, “I'm not going to be a physicist!”

She bites her lower lip sheepishly, knowing she's got it wrong again. According to my mother, over the past two years I have studied everything from physics to pharmacy, and just about every other subject ending in ‘ology'.

“I do try, darling,” she says, apologetically, “it's just I don't understand about all these sciency things. I was never good at all that. I don't know where you get it from.”

Neither do I, I nearly say, but I hold my tongue. The question of how a French pastry chef and an amateur cook produced a daughter who can barely make a piece of toast yet who can comprehend the complexities of bio-science has always been sidestepped.

“I study genetics, Mother,” I tell her for the one-hundredth time, “it's not that hard to remember. DNA. The human genome. It's actually rather important.”

She sighs, looking pale and worn out.

“I know. I suppose I just can't get my head around it all.”

“But if you'd give it a chance you'd realise how fascinating it is. It's what makes us, us. It's all about knowing who we are.”

She smiles proudly and pats me on the knee, then stands up and gathers the empty ice-cream bowls.

“But you know who you are, darling,” she says, as she leaves the room.

I bury my head in one of the sofa cushions in despair.

“But I don't,” I groan quietly, “thanks to you, I don't have a clue who I am.”

Chapter 4

Being born prematurely wasn't the problem. The problem was that I refused to grow. My grandfather insisted that plenty of sunshine would do the trick, so I spent the first few weeks of my life lying on a blanket on the garden patio, the same patio that is now crowded with ceramic pots sprouting mixed salad leaves, strawberries and little green peppers.

‘This baby's still not growing, Brenda,' my grandfather told my grandmother one day, measuring me against the length of a garden cane. ‘She must have come from bad seed I reckon.'

‘Would she do better in a greenhouse?' suggested my grandmother. ‘They work wonders for tomatoes.'

My grandfather shook his head. ‘I'm not building a bloody greenhouse just to grow one baby. I think maybe she'd do better in partial shade.'

So I was relocated to the end of the garden next to the hedgerow, where I got full sun in the morning and plenty of shade in the afternoon. But after another week, when I still hadn't grown, my mother was becoming anxious.

‘Is she getting enough water, dad?' she asked my grandfather. ‘It's been very dry this Summer. Even the apple trees look parched.'

So I was moved closer to the garden sprinkler, but extra water didn't seem to help me grow either. Fearing I might just shrivel up all together, Dr Bloomberg was called to the house as a matter of urgency. He turned me over in his large hands, pinched my arms and legs and agreed that I was still very firm for a four-week-old baby.

‘She should be plump and fleshy by now,' he declared authoritatively. He looked at my mother, still only sixteen-years-old, and shook his head as if this unfortunate situation had been inevitable.

‘It takes the mighty oak tree no less than twenty years to produce an acorn,' he said. My mother blushed and looked at her feet. She knew what he meant. It was no wonder her baby was so small when she wasn't even fully grown herself. But my grandfather was damned if he was going to stand by and let his daughter be insulted. ‘It takes the cherry tree almost no time at all to produce its first fruit,' he told the doctor, putting his arm protectively around my mother's shoulders.

The doctor ignored him.

‘Feed her one teaspoon of this a day,' he said, handing my mother a little bottle. ‘It's bicarbonate of soda, a good raising agent. Then leave her in the airing cupboard over night.'

My mother thanked the doctor profusely, in awe of his superior knowledge.

‘Thank goodness for Dr Bloomberg,' she said, rushing to get a teaspoon.

But another week on I still hadn't grown.

‘I don't know what to do,' sobbed my mother, clutching my little body to her breast. ‘She hasn't risen one bit, and she's still under-ripe. In fact, I think she's turning a little bit green.'

‘Have you tried talking to her?' suggested my grandmother as a last resort.

My grandfather looked at her as if she were mad.

‘Talking to her? What are you on about woman?'

‘Well, talking to plants is meant to make them grow, so I just thought… '

Her voices tapered off as my grandfather tutted and rolled his eyes.

My mother shook her head, confused. ‘But what would I say?'

‘I don't think it matters, Dear,' said my grandmother.

Despite his scepticism my pushy grandfather decided that if anyone was going to try it, he wanted to be the first. Barging my grandmother out of the way he stuck his face inside my blanket, nose to nose with me.

‘Hello,' he said, gravely. ‘Hello?'

‘You're not talking into a telephone receiver, Bob,' my grandmother huffed, ‘she's not going to answer you.'

‘Then there's no bloody point in talking to her, is there?' he retorted. ‘Don't listen to your mother, Valerie,' he told my mother, shuffling out of the room, ‘she should be institutionalised. We never spoke to you when you were a baby and you grew just fine.'

‘It was just an idea,' shrugged my grandmother, following him out of the door.

Once we were alone, my mother decided that anything was worth a go.

‘I'm not sure what to say to you,' she said, gazing awkwardly at me. ‘I don't suppose we have any of the same interests. I enjoy baking and reading. I'm not sure what you enjoy other than chewing on your blanket and gurgling. I like dancing, but I don't go out much, not now you're here. To be honest, I'm not sure what I'm meant to do with you. But I suppose that's not your problem, is it?'