Cuckoo (aka Claire, Darling)

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

‘What are your plans for lunch?’ Sukhi asks. She pops her head over the top of the partition around my work-station, blowing a strand of her thick raven-black hair away from her face.

I am standing at my desk with Photoshop on my laptop, a half-designed press release displayed on the screen. I’m feeling particularly short of creative inspiration today, so I was about to take a break and suggest a coffee to her.

Sukhi always has a cup of coffee and biscuits at eleven in the kitchenette – she calls it elevenses – and I now go along with her, pleased to have been invited to join the ritual. Her mug is kept on her desk instead of in the kitchen cabinet, for fear of someone stealing it. It proudly declares her to be #1 Top Bitch and is shaped to look like a poodle sitting on its hind legs.

In comfortable silence we walk around to the kitchenette. Sukhi places her mug on the side and then takes two digestive biscuits from the communal jar, slotting them into the giant mug’s cookie slot, aka the poodle’s mouth. In contrast I pull out the cleanest-looking branded mug from the cupboard, and after a quick wipe of the rim with a piece of kitchen towel, set about making the coffee for us while Sukhi munches on a third biscuit. Apparently if she eats it away from her desk without anybody seeing, it still only counts as having two.

‘So, lunch?’ she asks again. ‘Our usual?’

‘I’m actually going to run over to Noah’s office and drop him off his favourite,’ I tell Sukhi as I stir sugar into my coffee, leaning against the sink. ‘He’s been really busy at work recently. I worry he isn’t eating enough.’

‘Very generous,’ she says, dipping a biscuit into her coffee. ‘Any special occasion or just general girlfriendly concern?’

‘It was our anniversary yesterday actually– the eighteenth of September. One year!’ I smile.

‘Oh, God, is that what the balloon by the door is? Gave me a fright this morning,’ Sukhi laughs.

‘Guilty,’ I admit, glancing at the giant pink heart balloon that I tied to the coatstand. ‘We celebrated last night with dinner. He’s working straight through lunch today. Some big meeting or something. I want to see he doesn’t starve,’ I explain.

‘You guys make me sick,’ she jokes.

A flush of smugness warms my spine. It feels the tiniest bit toxic, a sharp mirroring of Mother and her loftiness, but I’m too busy basking in my happiness to reflect on that side of myself too deeply. It’s okay to be happy, to feel content in myself. It doesn’t make me like Mother.

It doesn’t make me like Mother.

‘Look at you, you’re absolutely smitten!’

‘Are you not, with your husband?’ I ask, genuinely interested as I glance down at the jewel on my left ring finger.

‘Well, I was at the start… It’s different, we’re childhood sweethearts. Not sure it’s possible still to feel smitten after twenty years of farts and fights,’ she laughs.

I nod, understanding. ‘Yes, I suppose Noah and I did move quite quickly, but it feels as though I’ve known him forever. Though not too many fights– or farts– just yet!’

‘Nice that there’re still some things to look forward to.’ Sukhi grins, picking up her mug.

‘How young were you then? When you met?’ I ask as we head back to our desks. Sukhi gets to her chair and sits while I hover nearby.

‘Thirteen when we met. Our parents forced us to hang out in the hope that when we were older, we’d marry.’ She laughs. ‘He was an annoying idiot at first, and I was pleased that I wasn’t going to slot into that good-Punjabi-girl-marrying-right stereotype. But after a few years of occasional parent-organised meetings, we ended up actually getting along, and he asked me out properly when we were seventeen. My parents weren’t super strict, so they let us go bowling together on our own. No cousins spying on us, as far as I’m aware. I guess it all started there, love amidst the bowling balls.’

‘So your parents won?’ I grin.

‘I like to think we’re all winners.’ She winks.

I sit down as well, looking forward to lunch. I thought it would be nice to do a little surprise drop-off, something Noah would like. I haven’t visited his work in ages, even though it’s just around the corner, up Liverpool Street way. It’s always wild to me that one moment I can be rambling down Brick Lane, vintage thrift stores and Spitalfields food market screaming hipster at me, then five minutes later be surrounded by suits and skyscrapers. I prefer my side of the area, working down from Liverpool Street station towards Aldgate. It’s quieter, but a five-minute walk and I’m in the throes of Hipsterville. So Noah is always nearby, which is nice to know, but I don’t like to risk either of us feeling suffocated. This last year has been so lovely and perfect but I’m always worried that I’ll somehow mess it all up, freak him out and push him away. That he’ll wake up and realise he doesn’t want me. I have this fear with most people I meet, this overwhelming sense that I’m unwanted and driving them away without meaning to. I’d like to say it’s more complex than the cliché, but it’s definitely Daddy Issues.

Mother never let me forget that.

‘This is a bit messed up, isn’t it?’ Mother asked with a frown, holding up my homework sheet. I was eleven and had been asked to create a family tree for my history class.

I shrugged. ‘They said we had to start with our mums and dads and work our way back,’ I told her.

‘Don’t you ever call me “Mum”,’ she said with an overdramatic shudder. ‘It sounds common, darling. And we’re not common, are we?’

I shook my head, even though I wasn’t sure what being common meant. ‘No, Mother.’

‘Good. Well, I can tell you all about my history, no problem,’ she said with a big smile, lounging against the back of the sofa as though preparing to sit for a full-body oil study. ‘But when they ask about your father’s side, you can tell them to sod off.’

I shuffled my feet, a seed of anxiety planted in my belly. ‘I don’t think I can tell the teacher that. I’ll get in trouble.’

‘Well, you can’t be the only child without both parents to ask, can you? What if he was dead? Or missing? It’s not very sensitive to be asking kids about these things. If you ask me, this homework here,’ she tapped the paper furiously, ‘is a load of shit.’

I stood there gripping my pen and notebook, unsure what to say or do. ‘You can just tell me about your side?’ I suggested, eager to move the conversation away from my mysterious father.

‘Okay. Well, settle down, this could take a while,’ she said, clearly pleased to move the conversation back to herself. ‘And if they ask about your father, you’ll have to tell them the cold, hard truth. Maybe they’ll feel so bad for asking that they’ll rethink this ridiculous homework task.’

‘What’s the truth, Mother?’

‘That he left us. Because of you, darling.’