Chapter 33
SARAH
Having heard Mum disappear to the garden I decide it’s safe to grab myself a cup of tea. But I’m just washing my face to try to rid it of some of the evidence that I’ve been crying when there’s a knock on my bedroom door.
‘Yes?’ I say, towelling my face in the en suite.
It opens and from my position in the bathroom, I see Mum enter, looking strangely contrite. Her hands are clasped in front of her, and her shoulders are stiff as if she’s really uncomfortable. I really hope she hasn’t come in for round two, but I get the impression that’s not it.
‘Hang on a sec!’ I say, putting the towel back on the rail and running my hands over my hair to smooth it a little. Then, ‘Everything all right?’ I ask.
‘Well,’ she says carefully, ‘I think it might be a good idea if we had a little chat.’
Her manner reminds me of the excruciating talk about periods she gave me when I was twelve. I want to tell her that it’s fine. I’m a dab hand at managing my ‘monthlies’ as she calls them. But I dutifully sit down, my heart somehow full of dread at what might be to come.
‘Hal thinks we should talk,’ she tells me.
I look at her, a thousand questions shooting through my mind. First of all, when was it that she started taking advice from Hal? And what exactly does he think we should talk about? But remembering our earlier argument, I decide to proceed with caution. ‘He does?’
‘Yes.’ She nods her head and then, just as I’m expecting her to launch into something, falls silent.
I wait until I’m absolutely sure she’s not going to say anything, then, ‘So what would you like to talk about?’
She sighs, wrings her hands. Then starts: ‘Listen, I know you were a bit… hurt when I moved out here.’
‘It’s OK, Mum. I get it.’
‘Do you though?’ Her eyes meet mine and I look away.
‘Because I would understand, with hindsight, if you hadn’t.
Back then I was… well, grief does funny things to a person.
I thought I was seizing the day, doing something adventurous.
But when I think about how I felt then… well, I suppose I was just running away. ’
I take her hand, squeeze it. ‘I get it, Mum. Yes, I would have liked you to be around. But I might have done the same in your position. Losing Dad when you’d been together so long.’
‘Yes, but you lost him too.’
I try to keep a straight face, but know I’m not doing a very good job. ‘Well, yes.’ I think of Dad. If he were here now, he’d say something to lighten the mood. And somehow it would work.
‘Your father—’ Mum continues. ‘You’re with a person so long – fifty years almost – and you don’t realise how much you rely on each other. Not just silly things like putting the bins out or sorting out the bank accounts, but parts of your… well, personality, really.’
I look at her, wait for her to continue.
‘I wasn’t a natural mother,’ she says. ‘Wasn’t maternal, I suppose.’
‘But you were always there for me,’ I tell her. ‘Even… I know you weren’t thrilled when I got pregnant so young. But you supported me. Helped.’
She shakes her head. ‘Perhaps. Financially. And you must know how much I care about you. True, you had all the essential things. But I’ve watched you with Louis over the years, and I see how close you two are, how natural everything is between you. We’ve never really been like that, have we?’
‘But that’s not just your fault.’
‘Perhaps. Perhaps we’re just very different in some ways.
But still I think I probably relied too much on Dad to be the go-between, when you and I couldn’t find a way to open up.
And when he went… When he went, I realised how woefully inadequate I was.
How I was unable to communicate with my own daughter. ’
‘It’s OK, Mum,’ I squeeze her hand again. ‘I mean, I’m a grown-up. It takes two to communicate!’
‘I think if I’d really known how you felt, I would have thought twice about moving to France.’
‘But that’s not just your fault. That’s my fault. I didn’t say anything.’
She smiles, thinly. ‘True enough. In fact, I think I remember you telling me to go for it. You sounded so enthusiastic that I allowed myself to believe that you didn’t need me around at all. Perhaps didn’t even want me.’
‘Oh, Mum. Don’t be daft. But you’re right – looking back, those words do seem a bit… heartless. I think I was just in shock. I thought that if you wanted to go, leave me, without a second thought, then you must not care. So I suppose I decided to sound… breezy.’
She laughs. ‘Perhaps we’re more similar than I gave us credit for.’
‘Both excellent actors.’
‘Both terrible at expressing ourselves,’ she says at the same time.
‘It’s OK though, Mum. We’re OK, I tell her,’ rubbing her shoulder.
She coughs and I think for a moment she’s going to do something regular like offer me a cup of tea. Instead, her cheeks slightly pink with effort, she continues to open up. ‘Hal thinks that I’m lonely,’ she declares.
‘Hal does?’
‘No. No. I mustn’t put this on him,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘Hal noticed that I’m lonely. Forced me to admit it, really. That I’m out here in paradise, but I haven’t escaped anything. I’ve brought it with me.’
‘Brought what?’
She shakes her head. ‘I can’t… it’s hard to explain.
Well, the fact of the matter is that Hal pointed out that I must be lonely.
And I’ll give that boy his due, he hit the nail on the head.
You know, I’m not sure I even realised it before.
But I am. I miss you, Louis… And your father, of course.
And I’m living here, and it is wonderful. But I get lonely too.’
‘You could visit more?’ I suggest.
‘I don’t want to get in the way.’
‘Mum, you wouldn’t!’ I say and she looks at me, her bullshit radar practically flashing. ‘OK, well, perhaps sometimes you would. And I’d get in your way. But we’re family. We’re allowed to annoy each other. Because we love each other too.’
She nods, looking pleased. ‘Well, perhaps I’ll do that then. And you must come out here too. Oh, I know I’m a lot at times, but I do love having people in the house.’
‘Are you sure?’ I raise an eyebrow and we grin momentarily at each other.
‘Why do you think I bought a four-bed house?’
I grin. ‘Well, in that case – yes. Of course. I’d love to.’
She looks at me and I can see there’s more she wants to say. I feel a sudden flicker of something inside; it’s fear, I think. I’m afraid that she’s going to tell me something awful. ‘There was something else, too, Sarah,’ she says.
‘What’s wrong?’
She shakes her head. ‘No, nothing’s wrong.
Not really. But I’ve been thinking a lot about the past these last few days – something about Summer and Louis’s news I suppose.
And perhaps to do with spending a little more time with Hal than I have before.
Sarah, I hope I didn’t… Did I drive a wedge between you two back then? Did I ruin things for you?’
‘Oh, Mum…’
‘Because all I could see, all I could think about then was your future. And the stigma that teenage mothers faced back then, and still probably do now. I was so frightened that I could only see the pregnancy. I couldn’t imagine the person you’d be bringing into this world.
Or what your future might look like beyond the immediate. ’
‘It’s OK, Mum. It’s a long time ago.’
‘I painted Hal as a villain, to myself at least,’ she says quietly, almost to herself. ‘But he’s a good man. Better, really, than I imagined him to be.’
‘He is. But Mum, we were seventeen. I don’t think either of us imagined any sort of future at that age.’
‘Perhaps not.’
‘I know Hal was scared of you. But if he’d been ready – if I’d been – I think we’d have overcome that, somehow. Found a way. We just aren’t meant to be.’
‘Weren’t,’ she says.
‘Sorry?’
‘I’ve been thinking more and more about how fond Hal seems of you. And I have wondered sometimes whether… Well, you know.’
‘Hal? Really.’
‘You could do worse. He’s kind. Adores Louis. Seems to like you a hell of a lot. Love you, even. And I’ve seen him in the pool, and I hope you don’t mind me saying that that man has quite a perky little bottom on him.’
‘Mum!’
She laughs. ‘I suppose I’m just saying, never say never.’
‘Noted,’ I say, wondering whether I should tell Hal about my Mum’s appreciation of his rear end, or whether that might be the death of him.
We sit silently and I lean into her, resting my head on her shoulder briefly, like I used to do when I was much younger. She’d be watching TV with Dad, and I’d come in in my pyjamas and sit between them, cuddling up to one or the other, quietly hoping to be allowed to stay up a little later.
She raises a hand and pats my cheek gently. ‘You know, your father was such a natural communicator.’
‘I know.’
‘And so very funny.’
‘Yeah. He was hilarious.’
We sit for a moment, remembering.
‘What do you think he’d make of us now? The mess we’ve made of things?’ she asks.
‘I think,’ I say carefully, ‘that he’d look at us right now, and he’d say, “What took you so long?”!’
She laughs. ‘Oh yes! I can see it. “Do I always have to sort everything out around here?”’
‘Poor Dad.’
‘Yes.’
‘And poor us. Having to manage without him.’
She nods. ‘Well, perhaps it’s time we made a better job of it.’
‘Definitely.’
‘And you know, a friend of mine – Maud, from singing group – often tells me that I should be grateful for the sadness too.’
‘What?’ I sit up. ‘She thinks you should be grateful for being miserable? Grateful for grieving? Is she insane?’
Mum laughs, pats my knee affectionately.
‘It sounds absolutely dreadful when I say it. But she’s got a way with words, has Maud.
When she says it, it seems to make perfect sense.
’ She pauses, her forehead creased. ‘That’s it!
’ she says after a beat. ‘She says that I’m only sad because I was so very, very lucky.
That grief and sadness are the price we pay for love.
Yes, it’s horrible to grieve, to feel lonely or sad.
But how wonderful that we had someone in our lives who is worth grieving for. ’
I nod, feeling something well within me. On good days, I can think about Dad and smile. But some days my grief still feels like a weight I have to carry, a heaviness in my heart. He was more than just a kind person, a great dad. He was the glue that held our family together.
‘We were so very lucky,’ I murmur at last.
‘Yes,’ she says, squeezing my hand. ‘We really were.’
‘I’ll do things better from now on,’ I tell her. ‘I’ll try to be more open with you. With myself.’
‘Me too.’