Chapter 27
27
H elen sat at the tiny table, in the tiny kitchen, in Libby’s tiny flat, watching her daughter stir a pan of minced beef. The baggy jeans and sloppy t-shirt didn’t disguise the extra weight Libby carried. And the way her hair had been scraped back into a thin, sad ponytail was a contradiction to the forced cheerfulness Helen had noticed her daughter had fallen into. The bossy confidence of Libby’s teenage years had been replaced by this chippy, I’m fine attitude, which didn’t fool Helen. It was, she understood, a riposte, Libby’s defence against the world for having the temerity to think that she couldn’t cope. For even considering that having a baby so young, with no resources, might not have been the smartest idea. And as Helen watched, she remembered the young men and women she’d met in the offices of Stronger Together just two days ago. They had been full of plans, full of ideas, shiny, confident, happy, and she had thoroughly enjoyed the hour long ‘break-out’ session she had spent with them, (the noodles were good too). Her heart ached. Almost the same age, Libby’s stooped shoulders and tired eyes were the polar opposite, and thinking this Helen felt scared. She’d also met Dr Fiona Chambers, a smart, witty and formidably intelligent woman who had spoken to Helen as if she too were smart, witty and formidably intelligent. Her second interview had been interesting, thought-provoking and challenging. She’d kept her cool, answering questions that she’d prepped for and, knowing that this was her last chance, had tried hard to make sure that, if not exactly selling herself, she wasn’t hiding under a bush either. Because wasn’t that the best kept secret in life? Having the insight to understand when a never-to-be repeated opportunity has presented itself? And then possessing the courage to grab it? The interview had finished with Fiona standing up, shaking her hand and saying: ‘Welcome to the team,’ and Helen feeling supremely confident that she could do this job. More, she desperately wanted the opportunity to prove it.
Walking away, she had been walking on air, a feeling that had only inflated when the formal offer had come through. Terms and conditions. A list of vaccinations, visa requirements. Salary: for something she would have done for nothing. It had been an extraordinary couple of days in which she had struggled to keep the news to herself. With references still to clear she had held off from talking to either Caro, or Kay, wanting to present her achievement only when it was beyond doubt, a fait accompli. And maybe, like a child hiding a painting until completion, this was silly, but she couldn’t help it. For years she had watched her friends’ careers bloom, seen their professionalism, admired their achievements. Now that it might be her turn, she wanted to be sure. She picked up her cup and took a sip of lukewarm tea. It wasn’t only the references that had stopped her calling Caro or Kay. It was Libby. She needed to tell Libby first. Ironic as it was, in a direct reversal of roles, she felt she needed her daughter’s blessing before she could accept a job, halfway across the world.
‘Won’t be much longer,’ Libby said turning from the pan.
‘Don’t worry.’ Helen’s stomach grumbled. She’d been here forty minutes, and she was hungry and hot. The windows were open, but it hadn’t made a difference and with Libby so caught up in changing Ben and checking her schedule, she’d only just started on a dinner that Helen knew would take at least another half hour. Legs sticking to the back of the plastic chair she sat on, she watched her daughter move around the cramped kitchen, rinsing and stacking Ben’s plastic cups, chopping carrots for himto snack on. ‘Can I do anything?’ she said. It must have been the third time she’d asked.
‘All under control.’ But Libby looked as if she’d lost something.
‘Tomatoes?’
‘Oh yes!’ Libby grabbed a can of own-brand tomatoes. ‘Ouch!’ She yelped, pulling her finger back and dropping the tin in the sink.
‘Are you OK?’
‘Fine, mum.’ Libby grimaced. ‘I just cut myself. It’s all under control.’
‘OK.’ Every minute she could feel herself deflating. How on earth was she going to start the conversation? She’d felt guilty enough accepting the job, which she hadn’t. Not officially. Yes, she had shaken Dr Chamber’s hand and beamed and said, ‘thank you’, but she hadn’t signed the contract. Not yet. She watched as Libby held her hand under the cold tap, a thin stream of blood escaping. How many times had she done that for Libby? Held a cut thumb or a cut finger under a cold tap, made it all better and safe again? They were, surely, in the wrong positions. It should be her making dinner and Libby sat, drinking tea at the table. Helen put her hand to her heart and held it there. It might as well have been yesterday that Libby had been the oneat thetable, still in her school uniform, while she peeled and chopped by the sink. Those afternoons,looking out of a kitchen window to a garden burnished by the last rays of a winter sun had been special, and she had felt the grace of them as she had lived them. Her nearly grown daughter munching on carrots, divulging gossip from school. Her boy, still a boy, safe upstairs.How did it go so fast? Where were those people?
‘Ben!’
Like a nail through glass, the scream shattered her daydream. She felt a brush at her shoulder, a drip of water on her face as Libby flew past, crossed the living room in one stride and scooped Ben from the stool he’d climbed on. The stool he’d placed beneath an open window, forty feet above the ground.
Helen stood, her stomach cold, her legs like string. ‘I’ll hold him,’ she stammered. She should have offered … Libby shouldn’t have opened the window … ‘I’ll hold him.’
‘I never open the windows.’ Libby slammed it shut. ‘It’s just so hot.’ She was crying, a look of wild bewilderment on her face, small as a child herself as she clutched her baby to her chest like a favourite teddy bear.
‘It’s OK.’
‘I shouldn’t have opened it … what if ––’
In the pan behind, the meat sizzled and spat.
‘It’s OK, it’s OK.’ She had her arms out, reaching for Ben.
‘What if he had ––’
‘He didn’t.’
‘But if he had … I …’
‘Libby.’ And when Libby looked at her, Helen could have cried. Twenty-three years old and her daughter’s face held the burden of a woman a decade older. ‘This happens,’ she said. ‘It happens to all of us.’ Whether Libby believed her or not, she didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. One day she would, but for now all that was needed was some forward motion, away from the window, away from the horror of what if … ‘You finish dinner.’ She urged Libby back towards the kitchen. ‘I’ll watch Ben. They all needed to eat, sit down, calm down, and be thankful.
But Ben was heavy and sweaty, squirming his body and twisting his head. And although she was looking for somewhere to put him down, nowhere presented itself. The kitchen was too small. Two tottering steps and he’d be close enough to reach for the pan, if he tottered in the other direction, he’d fall down the steps to the living room.
‘I’llsit with him.’ She set about moving a pile of laundry, and a stack of paperwork from the small two-seater sofa. Libby was at the end of the first year of a two-year masters. Twenty-five hours a week, plus Ben, plus all the housekeeping that goes along with keeping a house, no matter how small. Helen piled the laundry to one end of the sofa, put the papers on the coffee table and sat down, wedging Ben between her knees. ‘There,’ she whispered. ‘Get out of that one, Houdini.’
In response Ben picked up the top piece of paper and stuffed it in his mouth. Helen smiled. She didn’t blame him really; he was probably as hungry as she was.
‘Ben!’ And now Libby was back again, manically tearing the paper from his hands. ‘Those are my revision notes,’ she cried. ‘He can’t eat them!’
Ben’s face crumpled, he opened his mouth and let out an ear-splitting wail.
Nerves frazzled, Helen watched asorange sauce dripped from Libby’s wooden spoon, onto the papers she was frantically sorting.‘I didn’t realise,’ she said then, ‘we could go out to eat, Libby? If it’s easier?’ Breaking point was near. She could feel it. For Libby, for Ben, for herself.
‘No!’ Libby straightened up. ‘I invited you to dinner, mum. We’re not going out.’
‘I just thought it might be easier …’ And watching her daughter blot tears away, Helen’s voice trailed off.
‘It’s impossible, there just doesn’t seem to be anywhere he can’t reach now.’
‘I know,’ she said, and could have added, I understand, Libby. I’ve been there too, Libby. Something stopped her, and as Helen looked around her daughter’s tiny flat, she understood what. She hadn’t been there too. Not like this. Libby’s flat was on the fifth floor of a block, where the lift didn’t always work. There was no balcony, no dishwasher and only one tiny bedroom. To Helen, the space got smaller every time she visited. God knows what it was to live in it with a toddler. And she had tried. Before Libby had signed up for her degree, she had tried to explain the difference between a baby you can put down and find in the same place five minutes later, and a toddler that you can’t. She’d tried suggesting that Libby put the studying on hold until Ben had started pre-school, but Libby hadn’t listened, just as she hadn’t listened to her own mother. And that was just the way of the world. ‘You finish dinner,’ she said, when what she really wanted to say, but didn’t dare, was how on earth do you manage, Libby? How long can you keep this up for? At least she’d had Lawrence to pay the bills and share a bottle of wine with on a Saturday night. Libby was on her own, wholly naive to the toll of the workload she had heaped upon herself. This was going to be her reality for a while now, because the flat wasn’t shrinking, and Ben was growing. And short of locking him in a padded cell, Libby was going to have to learn to manage, in the same way that every other mother before had learned.
Confident that she had her grandson contained, she put her hand on Ben’s head and brushed his hair back, it was fine as spun silk, damp and warm and the urge to scoop him and his mother up, to take them back home with her, look after them and make everything alright again was a spark that lit a flame that grew into a bright light. She looked up. If she took the job, her flat would be empty, her lovely modern new-build, with its open-plan layout, and easy clean cabinets. The park opposite, the lift that worked. It was the perfect solution, so prefect that five minutes later when Libby presented her with an insipid looking plate of spaghetti bolognese, Helen barely noticed, eating quickly, impatient to get to her news, feeling herself inflate all over again.