Chapter 15
‘That’s round one,’ my mother says when I relate the conversation to her at breakfast.
I lift my head over my cup. ‘You mean there’s more?
‘Oh, most definitely,’ she assures me. ‘Now that she knows you’re human, too, you can pull back a little.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t be desperate to connect. It translates as your wanting to have control over her.’
‘But I do want control over her,’ I argue. ‘Not like she thinks, obviously, but she’s my child and I need her to know that I care.’
My mother raises her hand. ‘She knows that now. So let her come and find you. You’ve set out the bait. Now she needs to bite. If she comes willingly, then you’ve got her.’
‘A bit like you inviting me here, I guess…?’
‘Touché,’ she says, smiling. ‘Did it work?’
Does she mean, can I actually forgive her, rather than just shut her out of my heart and get on with it?
I put down my cup and look up at her. Actually, not only do I not hate her so much anymore, I’m starting to enjoy her company. Yes, she’s choc-full of flaws, but who isn’t?
I nod. ‘I think it did,’ I whisper, and she takes my hands in hers, her own eyes moist, and she laughs.
‘We’re being silly, aren’t we?’ she says and I realise that she’s not very good at taking her own advice.
She lost me for over twenty years. And now she has been able to try and make amends.
Something in me has shifted. I don’t know what exactly, or why, but suddenly I see things in a different light.
*
‘So how was the CPAP experience for you?’ Dr Severini asks me as soon as I sit down opposite him. I swear, he seems entertained by my life. How professional is that?
‘A walk in the park,’ I lie.
‘Compared to what, life at home?’ he offers.
This guy has me down pat, so I roll my eyes. ‘Really? Is that going to be your angle? That things are that bad at home?’
‘Aren’t they?’ he insists. Between him and Markus, I’m running out of places to hide from the truth.
I shrug. ‘Not really. I have my kids, my father and my business partner.’
‘Aha, we have a new entry, then. Tell me about your business partner.’
Aha, indeed. If I start talking about Markus, this shrink will suss me out immediately. As if I needed telling that lusting after your best friend is a no-no when you’re married (to someone else) and have kids.
‘He’s all right,’ I concede.
‘So it’s a man. Are you attracted to him?’ he persists.
Who on earth wouldn’t be? ‘How is that in any shape or form relevant?’ I counter.
‘You know it is. It’s what’s missing at home.’
I open my mouth. How does he know these things? Are all his female patients the same woman over and over again, with different names and different faces, but basically loaded with the same problems?
‘So, are you attracted to him?’ he wants to know.
I shrug again, not liking where this is going. If I say yes, I’m officially a Mary Magdalene. If I say no, I’m a liar.
‘Everyone’s attracted to him.’
‘But you especially. Are you in love with him?’
Aaaarrrggghhh. When is this torture going to stop?
‘Of course not.’
‘Okay, change of subject,’ he says. ‘I can see you’re not ready to talk about him yet. How are things going with your mother?’
‘My mother? Actually, much better. She’s giving me some advice on how to deal with Cassie.’
He nods. ‘That’s good.’
‘Basically I’m getting a crash course into my future with Cassie if I don’t give myself a good sorting out.
If I don’t make an effort with my mother, I could meet the same fate when I’m older.
Hell, Cassie’s already more ruthless with me than I was with my mother.
If I don’t sort her out now, when we’re older she’ll cart me off to some old folks’ home where I’ll be painting watercolours and still trying to finish Ulysses. ’
He looked up, impressed. ‘You’re reading Ulysses?’
‘I read some of it at university. I never got past the ‘Sirens’ chapter. It must have been the flirty barmaids pissing me off.’
‘Olivia, to know you is to be entertained.’
‘So I’ve been told.’ I shrug. ‘It must be my suitcase full of happy memories, Doctor.’
*
When I get back to my room, I can hear my mother laughing through the wall. I never ever remembered her laughing that loudly when I was growing up.
‘Oh, you monster, you!’ she cackles. ‘And what did he say? Really? I told you how to handle him. Try it my way next time! You will? Good girl!’
Ah, Mother and her relationship advice. She’s always got a full-proof solution for some desperate friend. I wonder how she got to be such an expert?
‘And remember, Cassie, girls never chase boys!’
Cassie? Did she say Cassie? As in my Cassie?
‘Sweetheart, if you want Liam to find you interesting, you just need to be mysterious. Indifferent. It gets them every time! Now you be a good girl and call me back tomorrow, okay? I want to know how it goes. Nonna loves you! Talk tomorrow!’
What the hell is going on here? I can’t even get my daughter to answer a call from me, and here she is having conversations with my mother? About boys? I didn’t know there was a boy on the scene!
So I knock on my mother’s door.
‘Come in!’
If I go in there, I know I’ll lose my rag. I just know it. So I merely poke my head round the door.
‘Mother, was that Cassie on the phone?’
She pushes her hair away from her face, eyes on the Berber rug. ‘Cassie…? Uhm, yes…’
Well, at least she’s not trying to lie her way out of it, I’ll give her that.
‘You know, Mother, you’ve got more front than Brighton. You knew that I was trying to speak to her. Why didn’t you tell me you two were talking?’
‘But love, I thought you knew. We always talk,’ she says. ‘At least three times a week.’
‘What? Since when?’
‘Since always. Oh, don’t make that face, Olivia. You should be happy that she talks to someone about these things.’
‘Yes, Mother, but that someone should be me.’
‘What can I say? We have a lot in common. We get along.’ She bows her head. ‘Which is more than I can say for the two of us, unfortunately.’
Oh, I can feel it. A biblical migraine forming right behind my eyes. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out. I have to get out of here before I get into an argument with her. So I take another deep breath. ‘I’m going to have a shower now, Mother. I’ll see you downstairs.’
‘Okay,’ she says meekly. She has chosen not to argue either. Good. We’re making progress.
Or, I thought we were. How could she keep this from me? She knows I’ve been struggling in my relationship with Cassie. Not because I’ve told her, but because Cassie has. I wonder what not-so-charming things she’s told her about me?
As it is, I need to know more. I’m certainly not giving my mother the satisfaction of asking her about my own daughter’s life, and I can’t trust Simon’s discretion as he is like the proverbial bull in a china shop. Nor do I want to worry Dad, so there is only one solution. I call Markus.
‘Did you know that there’s a Liam?’ I ask as soon as he picks up.
‘What?’ he says.
‘Liam. Does it ring a bell?’
‘You mean the bloke Cassie likes?’
‘Does everyone but me know about this?’ I whine, raking my hand through my hair.
‘Who’s everyone?’
‘My mother.’
‘Oh. Well, they talk often, don’t they?’
‘Okay, now I’m officially the worst mother on the planet. How did I not know about this? How do you even know about this?’
‘Easy, Liv, don’t get angry. She probably didn’t want to upset you.’
‘So she goes behind my back instead?’
‘She’s not, really. I mean, they see each other every summer. It’s only normal for them to develop a relationship.’
‘How often do you talk to your grandmother then?’ I ask.
‘Every Sunday, actually. When she gets back from the market we have a chat.’
‘Oh.’ Christ, am I that self-centred that I don’t know these things about the people I care about? ‘Right. Sorry. Where is Cassie now?’
‘She’s out with her friends. George has gone to pick her up.’
‘Out where?’ This is getting out of hand. I should know where my daughter is at exactly every moment of the day, even if I’m an hour ahead.
‘At a cricket game…’
‘Since when does she…? Oh, I get it. Liam’s playing, is he?’
‘Yes. Listen, Liv. I understand where you’re coming from. But you can’t force her to talk to you if she doesn’t want to.’
You know when your child is being fractious and you tell them that you would never have answered back to your mother the way she is doing? Well, that’s a line I have never been able to use while raising my children, for obvious reasons.
So all I can come up with now is: ‘Wow. Whatever happened to old-fashioned discipline?’
Markus is silent for a moment. ‘Tell you what. I’ll have a chat with her. See what I can do, okay?’
To have someone else, albeit your best friend, intervene on your behalf is humiliating. But all I can do is accept. And make mental notes so that next time it will be different.
‘Thank you, Markus. I owe you one. Or a hundred…’
He chuckles. ‘No worries. It’ll all be okay. She’ll grow out of this phase and you’ll be back to being besties before you know it.’
‘Yeah, maybe,’ I say. ‘Thanks again.’
‘Talk tomorrow?’
‘Of course,’ I assure him. Who understands me better than Markus?
*
Simon hasn’t called since the spaghetti sauce debacle.
Now, I’m used to him doing this occasionally when I’m at home because God knows how unreliable he is at the best of times, but this?
I’m out of the country and he totally ignores me?
I know he’s alive because Joe has answered my texts, bless him.
Cassie has elected to continue to ignore me as she does when I am at home.
So I bite the bullet and call his mobile again, and I swear the ring has a new-found, ominous tone. Good!
‘Hi, Simon. How are things?’
‘Fine,’ he says. ‘The kids have finished their homework.’
‘And you?’ I ask.
‘I don’t have any homework.’
‘Seriously, Simon.’
‘Seriously, Olivia.’
‘Can I talk to them?’
‘They’re out.’
‘Where?’
‘At the movies. With your dad and your buddy.’
‘Markus?’
‘Him.’
The implications of that ‘him’ were endless. Simon doesn’t like Markus because:
He is jealous of his looks, success and general attitude towards life;
He is jealous of the fact that the kids always talked about him and wanted to include him in all their activities.
In the evening we would all (minus Simon) have dinner together.
And on weekends we would invite him to come round to hang because we loved him and not because, as Simon puts it, ‘That poor sod doesn’t have a life of his own. ’
He is jealous of the fact that Markus and I sometimes spend a good eighteen hours together at a time, albeit for work.
He is jealous of the way Markus and I have bonded over the years and is afraid that our friendship might turn into something that would endanger his position as my lawful partner and head of the family.
Scratch that. I was just having a laugh. Back to reality and this dreary telephone conversation we’re having. I want to say something meaningful, something that might remind him that we were a team, once. ‘So a movie, that’s nice,’ I soldier on. ‘Which one?’
A sigh. ‘I don’t know, Olivia. Why do you even care?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I mean, you left, so…’
‘Simon, the fact that I left doesn’t mean that I don’t care about my kids.’
‘Ha. That’s rich from you.’
Of all the things to say. Trust him to use my issues as ammunition against me. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means whatever you want it to mean, Olivia. I’m done arguing with you.’
‘Actually, Simon, we don’t argue. You and I never talk. Or rather, I talk and you don’t even listen.’
‘Here we go…’
I take a deep breath, ready to launch into yet another tirade of accusations as to why he’s so distant and uncaring, but then I stop, suddenly completely, absolutely saturated.
I’ve had enough of all this fruitless bickering that always leaves me looking like I’m the witch.
What’s the point in sparring with someone who isn’t even listening to you, but whose instinct is to oppose you as a matter of principle, no matter what you do or say?
Simon and I are past being at loggerheads. I’m so over all of this.
‘You know what, Simon? I’m hanging up, now. Goodbye.’
‘Yep,’ he says. And that’s about it from him for now, apparently.
*
Tonight is 1970s Nostalgia Night. Everyone is wearing clothes I wouldn’t be caught dead in but that, apparently, bring back happy memories for the guests, particularly the Villa dei Respiri Ladies, as I’ve dubbed them, my mother included.
There are crazy outfits and wigs and I’m assuming they are impersonating some Italian singer at karaoke. I catch a few titles and look them up on the internet.
There is one singer from the sixties, a certain Mina, who is amazing.
Taller than most women, lithe and extremely classy and sexy at the same time, she has a voice that tells a million stories.
I look up the lyrics in English and read of difficult relationships and heartbreak and loving an immature man who is never available; it reminds me somewhat of Adele’s songs today.
Even the blonde hair and long lashes and gold lamé dresses add to the similarity but the voice is different.
Mina’s is velvety, more delicate but just as powerful.
Rather than just singing the words, she seems to be telling stories from her own life, shaking her head at her own mistakes and laughing at her own naivety, but vowing to recover. I can relate to that, as could so many women in the sixties, as divorce, I read, was not legal in Italy until 1970.
I learn that Mina was and still is an active icon.
Back then she challenged society by having an affair with a married man and was subsequently kicked off the major television networks for ‘moral reasons’.
But she didn’t care, and soon, as Italy was finally breaking its own taboos, the public clamoured to have her back.
And come back she did, with a vengeance.
Now over eighty, she lives somewhere in Switzerland and can be seen wearing her iconic look: a pair of huge shades and her hair pulled back tight in a sleek ponytail.
There have been singing rivals over the years in the names of Iva Zanicchi, Ornella Vanoni, but no one has ever come close to being the icon that Mina was and still is today.
I make a secret playlist on my phone because I want to discover all the work of this remarkable woman who seems to have life figured out. I might even learn something about love and life from her.
From the corner of the room I watch my mother as she plays her favourite Mina song, ‘Se telefonando’, on the piano. It’s about a woman who wishes she could end her relationship over the phone to make it easier, but realises that, in fact, it is already over. Remind you of anyone?
My mother is so into the song and so intense, almost as if making love to the piano, her voice mellifluous.
Almost too much so. She truly is talented, though.
There is nothing she can’t play or sing, and I would know with the number of times she’s performed in public while I watched from the shadows, wishing I had half of her talent.