Chapter 25 One Candy Necklace and a Herd of Fluorescent Ponies
I find myself trapped in a hellish one-way system as I try to leave, which is perhaps reflective of my state of mind. I did the right thing, going to see her. I know I did.
And she seemed good, really good—yes, she was sad, and nervous, and presented familiar moments of potential confrontation, but all within the loose parameters of “normal” under the circumstances. She hadn’t magically transformed into a cartoon mother, but I never expected that. I certainly hadn’t magically transformed into the perfect daughter either.
But it was, I decide, positive. I coped. She coped. It didn’t feel as though she was going to spin off into oblivion just because she’d had to deal with a difficult situation. Or that I was going to either.
Maybe that’s because she is clean and managing her illness, maybe that’s because of Sam, I don’t know. Either way, I am grateful for that, grateful to have a new memory of my mother—a stabler one, a happier one. At the moment it is too early for that memory, that version, to superimpose itself over the one that lives in a vulnerable corner of my mind—the corner where little-girl me lives.
Yes, it was right to reach out, to see her—but just because something is right doesn’t mean it feels right, and I am hyped up and wired as I drive. Like I’ve had too much coffee and stayed up for three nights solid.
I find, as I fight my way through traffic to the highway, that I am distracted, on autopilot, not paying anywhere near enough attention to where I am going.
Perhaps that is why I take the wrong turn. Perhaps that is why I find myself on the M6 heading south rather than the M6 heading north. Why I find myself driving toward Birmingham and not toward Liverpool.
Perhaps, though, it is not simply because I am distracted—perhaps I am operating on some kind of instinct, motoring toward Karim and not toward home. I’d told him I wanted to be alone, but now I am not so sure. It is my default setting—but that doesn’t mean I can’t change. Look at my mum—she’s changed, under far more challenging circumstances.
I am upset, and I need comfort, and I am driving toward Karim. It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but I feel a sense of mild surprise at my own actions. This by itself may be cause for celebration—hang out the bunting, Gemma, you’re actually starting to behave like a human being!
Once I’ve come to terms with what I’m doing, I call in at a service station near Stafford to get a coffee and pop his address into the GPS. It is not far—less than an hour away now I am on the motorway and away from the sprawl of one city and near to the sprawl of another. As I glance at my phone, I see a glut of messages from Karim. I smile as I open them, feeling a simple thrill of happiness that he is checking up on me.
There are a couple along the lines of “How did it go?” and one with kiss and hug emojis, because he’s mature like that. Next there are lots of photos. They show a large garden in full kids’-party mode—a big table set up with food and drink, a bouncy castle, groups of men and women of all ages, kids in costumes. He has sent close-ups of the popcorn machine and the birthday cake, and I realize that I should eat sometime soon. There is a group shot of his sisters sitting with his dad, who looks like an older version of him, silver threads in his hair.
I smile at the photos of his family, and laugh at his comedic captions, and flick through onto a video that he says one of his sisters took.
It is of the bouncy castle, the low-level hum of the pump almost drowned out by the delighted screams of the children. Shoes and boots are flung far and wide, and about a dozen little ones are leaping around on the purple-and-green plastic, falling over, doing rolls, attempting somersaults. In the middle of them all, looking just as happy to be there, is Karim.
He is bouncing as hard as he can, making them all wobble and shake, the shrieks and laughter equal parts fear and pleasure. A little girl—his niece, I assume—clings to his calves, and he lets out a fake film-villain laugh and shakes her loose before leaning down to tickle her. She clambers back up, scales his body like a climbing frame, and wraps her arms around his head.
It makes me smile to see him like this, at the heart of it all, surrounded by people who love him, and whom he loves in return. But it also makes me realize that today is not the day for me to meet his family. There might be another time when it feels right—there might not. Who knows? But I don’t want to go into that garden, into that party, into that scene of communal happiness. I feel too toxic. Too full of my own needs.
Today is not the day to plunge myself into the silliness and purity of a kids’ party. Not the day for me to wonder if I am passing muster with his family, with his dad, his sisters, all those cousins and nieces and nephews. Not to mention the strangers, the family friends, the mums and dads of school pals, possibly one of those scary clowns that claim to entertain children but actually only give them nightmares . . .
I feel myself spiraling off into the land of fictional anxieties and walk back to the car. I have made this little detour for nothing, and I need to head home. Before I start the engine I reply to his messages, telling him I am fine, that I will see him tomorrow, that I am glad the party is a raging success. I add four kisses, going crazy.
I am disappointed that I don’t feel like I can fit into his world, but I remind myself that this has been a difficult day, and that it has taken its toll.
I feel a sense of distance between myself and Karim, between myself and the rest of the world, but I also know myself well enough to understand that it will pass.
It is a temporary coping mechanism that my psyche has thrown up to help me get through everything—a barrier to protect me from the barbarian hordes. A wall of safety to buy myself the space and time to process what has happened, the way it has affected me.
The thing about walls, though, is that they don’t only keep the bad stuff out—they keep the good stuff out as well. I know that, and I am alert to the fact that I need to tear them down again if I want to live the kind of life I am starting to see glimmers of.
That, though, will be a task for tomorrow, I think. I am not superhuman, and I am not perfect, and I am not capable of switching change on and off like a lightbulb. It will take time, and today I need to give myself permission to retreat.
The journey home takes me the best part of three hours, between toilet breaks and traffic snarls, and it is fully dark by the time I park outside my flat.
I sit in the car for a moment, relieved to be here but also emotionally queasy at the thought of heading inside. My flat will be cold, and empty, and bleak. It is what I need, but it is not what I want, and there is a world of difference between the two. I feel heartsick and lonely and utterly incapable of reaching out to any of the people in my life who might make me feel different.
I know that I need to call in and say hi to Margie and let her know I am safely home. I know this because I am very perceptive, and also because of the text she sent me earlier that said, Make sure you call in and say hi and let me know you’re home safe.
She’s not fooling me—I’m sure she wants to know all about everything, down to the last oatcake, but I am too tired for that. I have driven hundreds of miles and been in a time machine and have eaten nothing but service-station food all day. I can manage “Hello, look, I am alive,” but I think that is about all.
I let myself into the communal hallway and hear a welcome-home woof from Bill. Margie has left the door to her flat open again, and I smile as I see he is waiting to greet me just inside as I push it open. I crouch down and let him give me a big slobbery hug with a lot of face licking.
Down the hall and into the lounge, I am greeted by not only Margie but Erin and Katie too. They are all sitting around the TV screen, the lights are off, and whatever they are watching is casting an eyeball-searing neon glow around the room.
I stare at the TV, hearing a mishmash of accents and seeing cupcake-colored characters involved in some kind of dispute—horses, I realize. They’re talking horses. It’s all very surreal.
“The wanderer returns!” announces Margie when she sees me, pausing the pink horses midsentence.
“Sit down, love!” she says. “We’ve been watching TV shows we loved as kids. Katie’s been finding them on her phone and then throwing them onto the telly—”
“Casting them, Margie!” Katie interrupts, giving me an eye roll as though to say Old people, huh? when in reality I have no idea what is even happening.
“I chose The Flintstones,” declares Margie excitedly. “It made me feel all Yabba Dabba Doo! Erin went for The A-Team, because apparently she was once in love with Face. Now here we are . . . My Little Pony!”
“This is mine, in case you hadn’t guessed,” Katie adds. “It’s the one where Applejack tries to do the whole harvest on her own, refusing all help until she realizes that she needs her friends . . .”
“I still don’t understand,” says Erin, who is sitting next to her on the sofa, “why they have farms and harvests. I mean, they’re ponies!”
“Yes, but they’re anthropomorphic ponies,” replies Katie, in the slightly exasperated tone of someone who has had to explain this before, “so they live human-style lives.”
Erin winks at me behind her back, and I see it is a running debate between them.
“Well, I’m just glad they didn’t take it too far,” she adds. “I mean, can you imagine? My Little Pony: The Slaughterhouse Edition?”
Katie groans and punches her in the leg, and Margie gestures toward the chair that is going spare.
“Come on, love, we saved you a space . . . and there’s an open bottle of Baileys around somewhere—unless Katie’s necked it all.”
“Yes, that’s me,” says Katie jauntily, “just turned eighteen and a complete alcoholic! Gemma, sit down, will you, so I can see how Applejack’s story ends?” I have not said a word throughout this exchange, this explosion of banter and convivial chat. I have smiled, and nodded at the right places, and absentmindedly scratched Bill behind the ears as he sits next to me.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that all three of them are here. That all three of them have obviously been filling in time, waiting for me to come home. They know this might have been a difficult day, and they are, in their own slightly bonkers way, offering me a kind of support group. A soft cushion to land on after any traumas I might have endured.
It is sweet, and I appreciate it, but I still feel the urge to run. To hide away in my own space and lick my wounds.
“Ladies, this all looks wonderful,” I say, “and on any other night I’d have an episode of The Worst Witch on quicker than you could say abracadabra, but I’m absolutely wiped out. It all went fine, and I’ll fill you in tomorrow, but for now I need to crash out. I’m not being an Applejack, my lovely friends, but I hope you’ll forgive me if I say good night?”
Katie gets to her feet, clambers over the tangle of dog and human legs, and presents me with a half-empty bottle of Baileys. Aha—she did have it after all.
“There you go,” she announces, wrapping my hands around it, “a half-full bottle of Baileys for you.”
Half full, I tell myself as I prepare to leave. Half full, not half empty. An important distinction.
Katie throws her arms around me and gives me a squeeze. Before I know it, all three of them are surrounding me. I get hugs from them all, Margie tucks my hair behind my ears, and Erin kisses me on the cheek.
I feel overwhelmed, in both good ways and scary ways. These three women have waited up for me. They care about me. They are showing me that so clearly that it almost makes me cry. I know they all want to hear about my day, but I don’t have it in me to talk.
Instead, I decide that I can at least stay. I can just sit, and have a drink of Baileys, and let myself be comforted by the sounds of their chatter and their silly TV shows and their simple presence. I am quiet, and none of them try to force anything more from me—they just let me be.
It is soothing, and it calms me more than I ever could have imagined—but I am also genuinely exhausted. At the end of the episode I stand up and tell them all I need to go to bed for a few days.
“Fair enough,” says Margie, getting to her feet. “You look knackered, hon. Group hug!”
Before I can dodge out of the way, all three of them descend, laughing as they force me to accept another round of cuddles. We form a kind of rugby pile, Bill jumping up and down at our sides, keen to join in on the silly human fun.
It is silly, and it is fun, and as I make my way up my fourteen stairs, I hope I can hold on to that.
I open the door to my flat and feel both comforted and repelled by the silence. By the emptiness. I am trapped between worlds and worried that I might end up squashed.
There are signs of change all around me—there is extra milk in the fridge, two chairs left outside on the balcony instead of one. Karim’s “second-best jacket” is hanging on the peg on the back of the door; a spare toothbrush he uses sits in the bathroom. I am evolving, one inanimate object at a time.
I am also, I think as I crash down onto the sofa, glad to have this time on my own. It occurs to me that everyone I care about is actually happy right now, without me. Karim is with his family. Mum is with Sam. Margie is with Erin and Katie, and I know that Erin is a good person who will stay in Margie’s life.
If I were to disappear now, Margie wouldn’t be alone—she’d have a replacement me to help her. I could move on without leaving her in the lurch.
My daughter has not been in touch, and I am responsible for nobody else. That brings a sense of guilty relief that I hate. I don’t want to be like this, but it feels like an uphill battle to be anything else right now. I can only hope this is a temporary relapse.
I pull off my clothes, climb into pajamas, and lie flat on my bed. I stare at the ceiling, wishing there was something there for me to count. Maybe I should put up some wallpaper with a geometric design that would keep me busy during my idle hours.
I am exhausted but cannot sleep. My eyes are heavy but my mind is circling, leaping from one thing to another, overwrought and wasted. I am alone. I am safe. I should be content now—it’s always worked for me before. Now it is different. I am in limbo—not quite able to fully engage with the world in the way normal people do, but also not quite satisfied to be solitary.
I put the pillow over my face, willing myself to switch off, dreading the night ahead, knowing that I will lie like this for hours and wondering what I can do to avoid it. Every time I close my eyes, they ping back open.
When the knock on the door comes, I groan. I know it will be Erin, or Katie, or both—they will want to check up on me before they leave. They will want to hug me again. They will want to be my friends, my people, my allies. All I want is oblivion and a few hours of peace.
I sit up, drag myself out of bed, and walk toward the door. When I open it, I do a slight double take when I see Karim standing outside.
He looks tired, his hair sticking out at weird angles, and he needs a shave. He is wearing a T-shirt that says “World’s No. 1 Uncle,” and he is holding a cardboard box full of popcorn.
He smiles at me, sheepish, as though he is embarrassed at being here. Unsure of his reception.
“You’re supposed to be in Birmingham,” I say, confused. “Are you a mirage?”
“Nope, one hundred percent real. I just came back. I came home. I came here. I had a brilliant day, but—well, I knew you like popcorn. And I knew you had a less brilliant day. And I knew that you’d be up here, on your own, trying to sleep and not being able to . . .”
He hands me the popcorn, and I accept it with uncertain hands. I am baffled and bewildered and wiped out. I need to be alone, but seeing him, with his stubble and his smile and his simple sense of kindness, is undoing me. I am flooded with gratitude, with need, with so many things. I am thrilled and I am terrified at the deluge.
“I also brought you this,” he adds, passing me one of those necklaces made of candy on an elasticated string. I’ve not seen one of those since I was a kid and they used to come in Lucky Bags.
“I thought you could either eat it, or count the sweeties, or whatever.”
He drapes it over my neck, and I touch the pink nubs, my fingers tracing their outlines as I do, in fact, automatically start to count them.
“Can I come in?” he says quietly, and I realize that I have been blocking the door, staring at him silently.
“Oh! Of course you can!” I reply, backing up, walking into the kitchen, putting the popcorn down on the table. Popcorn. He brought me popcorn. What a man. He follows me through, and he does not speak. He seems to understand my mood, and he simply takes my hand and leads me through to the bedroom. He pulls back the covers and we climb in, and he pulls me toward him, snuggling me in so my head is resting on his chest and his arms are wrapped around me. I reach up and run my fingers over his jaw.
“I like the stubble,” I murmur, and sense his smile. “I like you. All of you. Even if I’m rubbish at saying it.”
“I know,” he replies. “And I left ‘like’ behind a long time ago when it comes to you, Gemma. Hush now. We both need some rest. You can explore my stubble in the morning.”
I grin, and I close my eyes, and I pull away from my limbo.
This is better, I decide, than being alone. We are better together.