8
Imogen
I mogen paced the corridors of the hospital. She’d spent far too much of her life in places like this, waiting for news on her mother. She’d eyed enviously the anxious relatives who formed small groups, supporting each other through their own crises. Imogen had stood by herself, handling it alone.
In the beginning it had been fine, mostly because of Terry, the man her mother had married when Imogen was seven. Imogen had liked Terry. He’d read to her, helped her with homework and took her to the park, although for some reason she hadn’t understood, his attentions seemed to annoy her mother.
Leave the kid alone. She’s fine.
Her mother had been relatively stable during those years and Imogen’s homelife fairly normal, if lean on affection and warmth. Occasionally, her mother would drink and she and Terry would have a huge fight about it, but they always seemed to make up.
And then when Imogen was eleven, two things happened. Her mother lost her job, and Terry decided he’d had enough of Tina and walked out.
Imogen had been bereft. It had felt like losing a father.
Things had gone downhill from there. For the next few months her mother was drunk more than she was sober. On one occasion, Imogen had taken her mother to hospital to be stitched up after a fall and someone had called social services. A woman had arrived and had asked awkward, probing questions about Imogen’s home life and Imogen had smiled and made up a story that seemed to satisfy her. This has never happened before. Yes, things are fine at home. My aunt comes to look after me when necessary, and I can always stay with my grandmother.
That was when she’d learned that sometimes presenting a fictitious life was better than revealing the truth. She’d read enough to be fairly sure that if they knew the truth about her homelife they wouldn’t be happy. Her mother, while far from the figure she read about in storybooks, was her only family. And even though her mother would never admit it, Imogen knew she was needed. It was the two of them against the world.
Gradually, her mother had got herself back on her feet. She’d found another job. Stopped drinking. It was a nonstop struggle, but she’d gone a whole year before lapsing again.
And that was how it continued.
Whenever things were bad, Imogen had reminded herself that this was not all her mother’s fault. She’d been abandoned by her own family at a vulnerable age, and that was inexcusable in Imogen’s opinion. No wonder her mother knew so little about stability. She didn’t know how to mother because she hadn’t really been mothered herself. She didn’t know how to give unconditional love because she hadn’t received it from her own family. Her own mother had thrown her out of the house when she’d become pregnant.
Imogen had constantly reminded herself of that. Her mother had no faith in family. It was up to Imogen to fix that and heal her. It was up to Imogen to prove that some family could be relied on to step up and be there.
It had sounded straightforward, and it had been anything but.
When she was twelve, social services had done a spontaneous home visit, possibly triggered by another trip to the hospital with her mother, but by then Imogen was keeping house. Their small apartment was clean and tidy. Her schoolbooks were stacked on the small kitchen table, and a pot of homemade soup was bubbling on the stove. Fortunately, it had been one of her mother’s good days. Her hair and her clothes were clean, and she’d returned to her job in the local pub (Imogen had tried to persuade her to take a job in a bookstore, or a coffee shop—anywhere that didn’t have temptation under her nose—but her mother loved the pub). Often she’d come home with someone she’d met there and Imogen would lock herself in her room and try not to listen.
Social services had apparently been satisfied with what they’d seen because they never came round again, and for much of the time Imogen’s homelife had been uneventful, if lonely. Despite her best efforts, her relationship with her mother was never more than transactional.
And it was still that way.
Imogen sighed. This whole scenario was wearyingly familiar.
Her mother. In hospital.
The staff kept asking her to take a seat, but sitting just made her agitated. She’d thought this would be quick. She’d thought she’d be able to see her mother and leave, but it hadn’t worked that way. They’d asked her to wait. And wait a little longer. Things were taking time. Her mother wasn’t back from having her scan. Her mother needed a blood test.
To make matters worse, her phone was exploding with messages from Sophie, each more urgent than the last. She’d switched it to vibrate, but then it kept buzzing against her thigh like an angry wasp.
Imogen, how long until you get here?
Imogen, can you call me—it’s pretty urgent.
Imogen, where are you?
Imogen, call me VERY URGENT
IMOGEN HAVE YOU DIED?
A fierce-looking nurse approached. “You can’t use your phone in here, it interferes with hospital equipment.”
“I thought that was a myth.” Imogen had worked for a pharmaceutical client and had watched entire box sets of hospital dramas. She knew how things worked.
“You can’t use your phone. It disturbs the patients.”
“I need to be somewhere urgently. I’m in the middle of work.” She gave a pleading smile, hoping to appeal to the nurse’s good nature. “Do you have any more information on how long it will be?”
“Since you asked me three minutes ago?” The nurse didn’t return the smile. “No. You’re not a special case, you know. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but we have a department full of people waiting to be treated. I’m going to have to ask you to sit down. When I have information, you’ll be the first to know.”
Imogen watched her go and wondered what it was about hospitals that made her feel so helpless.
That was pretty easy to answer. Some of her worst moments had happened in hospitals, and her mother had played a starring role in all those moments.
But honestly it could have been worse. Her mother had never been violent. She’d always had enough to eat. And there had been plenty of fairly long spells where her mother was fine. Not warm or affectionate or even particularly engaged, but at least things had been relatively calm.
Her phone vibrated again and she checked that the nurse wasn’t watching her and sneaked a look.
She was going to have to reply before Sophie had a meltdown.
She turned her back on the nurse and typed quickly.
Sorry. Dealing with minor crisis. Will be there soon.
Hopefully Sophie would assume it was a work crisis.
She still had more than three hours until the event started. That was plenty of time. She could do this.
How badly injured was her mother? What was taking so long?
Apparently, she’d fallen onto a train track. Fortunately, there had been no train in sight, and by the time the 12:46 had hurtled toward the station her mother had been rescued from her drunken mishap and transferred to an ambulance.
Imogen had been given no more information than that. Other than the fact she’d asked for her sister. She didn’t know if her mother had lost her balance, or if she’d thrown herself onto the track. Emotion knotted itself in her stomach. Had her mother done it on purpose?
It was that thought that kept her here. Her chest ached and she felt torn between wanting to be there for her mother and needing to protect herself. And she did need to protect herself, because if there was one lesson she’d learned in childhood it was that no one else was going to do it. There was no one supporting her. No one standing by her side. Still, on the positive side she’d learned self-reliance and she considered that nothing but a good thing. She didn’t have to learn how to look after herself. She’d been doing it since she was twelve years old.
It was one of the reasons she worked so hard. She had no backup.
She checked the time again.
Maybe she should leave. But if the doctor was right then her mother had been asking for her, even though she was still maintaining that ridiculous charade that Imogen was her sister. It was a change to be asked for something other than money.
Maybe this latest incident had shaken her mother and reminded her that she had a daughter. Maybe her mother was trying to reach out.
Another hour passed, by which time Imogen’s stress levels were soaring. How much longer? She couldn’t miss tonight’s event, she just couldn’t. The best plan would be to leave and come back later.
Decision made, she went and found the nurse.
“I need to leave for work, but I’ll have my phone with me at all times and I will be back later to—”
“Your mother is back from her scan. You’ll be able to see her in ten minutes. We’ll be keeping her overnight.”
Ten minutes. Imogen did some calculations. Ten minutes of waiting, twenty minutes of conversation, twenty minutes in a cab to the venue—she could still make it in time. She could still do this, and no one would be any the wiser.
She messaged Sophie.
I’ll be there within the hour.
Sophie immediately called her.
Deciding that she couldn’t put this call off any longer, Imogen lifted the phone to her ear and then caught the nurse’s eye.
“Sorry.” She rejected the call. “I’ll go outside and take it there.”
“You can see your mother now. But don’t upset her.”
Don’t upset her? That was rich. Imogen wondered what the nurse would say if she was aware of the reality of her relationship with her mother. It was far likely to be the other way round.
A few minutes, she promised herself. That was all this was going to take, and then she’d go back to work and hope no one would ask her too many questions about the missing hours in her day.
She followed the nurse down the corridor and up a flight of stairs. Her knees were shaking and her brain was telling her to run fast in the opposite direction. But this was her mother and what sort of a person would she be if she didn’t respond to a call from a hospital? This was a genuine medical situation.
And yes, she could have refused to come, but what if her mother had died? Would she have been able to live with that decision? All they had in the world was each other.
Her mother was lying in a bed, surrounded by machines that beeped and flashed. Her eyes were closed, as if she was determined not to look her predicament in the face. She was wearing a printed shirt that was badly creased and there were stains that probably preceded her recent misadventures. Stains that suggested the shirt had been worn long after the time it should have been consigned to the laundry pile. Her appearance told Imogen everything she needed to know about her mother’s current state.
“Mrs. Thorne?” The nurse adjusted the flow of her drip. “We have your daughter here to see you. Just a short visit as you were asking for her. You need to rest.”
“My daughter? I didn’t ask for my daughter.” Tina Thorne opened her eyes and slowly turned her head, and Imogen was eleven years old again.
I’m in the school play, Tina. Will you come and watch me?
Why would I want to do that?
Terry would have been there, but Terry was gone.
She’d told her school friends that her mother had a big job and couldn’t make it, and she’d pretended that she didn’t care that she was the only person in the cast who didn’t have someone who loved them watching from the audience.
Imogen had done it alone, the way she did everything alone. She taught herself to cook because her mother couldn’t be bothered. She did the laundry and the shopping. As soon as she could, she’d got herself a Saturday job and she’d started saving. She loved working and getting paid for it and she’d loved school. She’d been saved by school, or more specifically by Miss Winston, her English teacher. Miss Winston had seen something in her that no one else had. Deprived of any positive reinforcement at home, Imogen had discovered that school was different. The harder she worked, the more she achieved, the more she was praised. She aced every exam she took. She was easily the best student in the school, and the better she did, the more delighted and proud they were. Imogen was never happier than when she was at school. Working hard didn’t worry her. Working hard brought rewards. Validation. There was a point to it. A purpose. And she didn’t care that she had to work so hard at home that keeping up with schoolwork ate into her sleep time. She was just relieved to have something that was hers. Something she could control.
It was the staff at her school who had encouraged her to apply to university and helped her navigate the system. She’d had offers from all the colleges she applied to, but she’d picked one far from home. And she’d built a life and grabbed every opportunity that came her way. Her years at school had taught her how different her homelife was from most people’s, and she’d learned to hide that fact. She learned how to blend, and how to fit in by studying people and copying them. The way they dressed. The way they talked. The things they talked about. She became someone people might want to spend time with and developed a small friendship group of similarly studious people. She participated fully in most aspects of student life, although when other students experimented with drink and drugs, Imogen walked away. That was a path she was never going to tread. She’d seen where it could lead. She was looking at it now.
She pressed her fingers into her palms and forced herself to stand her ground. She was an adult now with her own job and her own home. She didn’t need to feel afraid.
Her mother’s stare was blank. “What are you doing here?”
“The hospital called me when you were brought in.”
“Why?”
“Because you had my number in your purse. I’m your next of kin.” And for a moment she wished that wasn’t the case. As a child she’d sometimes wished her mother would disappear overnight and be replaced by a different version. A better version. And then she’d feel guilty for thinking that and modify her wish to having a sibling. It would have been easier if she’d had someone to share it with. Our mother is in hospital again.
“I’ll leave you two alone for a moment.” The nurse checked the monitors one more time and glanced at Imogen. “Don’t tire her out.”
The nurse was probably wondering why she didn’t give her mother a hug, but Imogen knew a hug would be as welcome as a mosquito bite.
She waited for the nurse to leave. “They told me you fell on the train line.”
“I don’t remember. And I still don’t know why you’re here.”
Imogen took a breath. She was not going to let her mother upset her. “I’m here because they called me. You were asking for your sister. I explained you didn’t have a sister.” When her mother didn’t answer, she sighed. “Had you been drinking?”
Tina’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you stand there judging me. You have no idea what my life is like. Did you bring the money I asked you for?”
Her heart was thudding. “No. I told you when you called last time, I won’t give you money. I’ll buy you food, I’ll pay your rent or your bills, but I won’t give you money to spend on drink.”
“How I spend my money is my business.”
“When it’s your money that’s true, but not when it’s my money.” She shook as she said the words. It had taken her years to learn to say no to her mother, and even though she did it, it never felt easy. It left her insides feeling twisted and tense. “My money is definitely my business.”
“You patronizing little—”
“Mum! There are other people in this ward, trying to rest.” She’d discovered early in life that it wasn’t possible to die of embarrassment, but that didn’t mean she didn’t occasionally wish it to happen.
“Stop calling me Mum! You don’t get it, do you?” Her mother was pale and hollow eyed. Blood had dried on her hair and the strands clumped together, matted and tangled.
It would have been unsettling and scary, except Imogen had seen her mother in a similar state before.
“I d-do get it. You’re feeling really bad and you’re taking it out on me.” She tried to sound firm and in control, but all the confidence, all the joy, everything she’d ever made of herself and achieved was sucked from her in her mother’s presence. She was a little girl again, feeling completely alone. “And I understand that you don’t want people knowing you’re old enough to have a daughter my age, but—”
“That’s not it. For a supposedly smart girl, you’re very stupid. The reason I don’t want you calling me Mum is because I don’t want to be your mum.”
Imogen flinched. “I—”
“I never wanted to be your mum, and now that you’re an adult I don’t have to pretend anymore, so go and live out your happy family fantasy somewhere else. Do you hear me? ”
“I h-hear you.” Everyone was hearing her. Her mother had finally made a public announcement that she didn’t want Imogen. That she’d never wanted Imogen. She’d said it before, but never in public and never when she was sober.
Imogen stood there feeling vulnerable and exposed, the last of her protection ripped to shreds like wrapping paper on Christmas morning. She tried to summon up some of the strength and determination that had kept her going through tough times, but there was nothing there.
And now her mother was glaring at her, as if she was expecting Imogen to do something, or say something.
“Mum—Tina—”
“Just go. I don’t even know why you’re here. You’re like a barnacle! I can’t get rid of you.”
Imogen tried to formulate a reply, but she couldn’t. Why was she here? There had been many times over the years when she’d asked herself that question and today was another one.
They’d had bad exchanges before, plenty of them, but never quite like this. Never as brutal, and never in public.
And there was no point in pointing out her mother’s inconsistencies. No point in reminding her that she regularly called Imogen when she wanted something or was feeling vulnerable. That she might not want Imogen, but she definitely seemed to want what Imogen could provide.
She was shaking and her chest felt tight. She was conscious of the three other people in the ward who were probably listening to every word. She might as well have painted a sign on herself. Unlovable. She tried hard to detach from the emotion, but it was too big. It filled every corner of her.
And then something, the part of her that was an adult, not a frightened child, flickered to life.
“I’m here because they called me. Because I’m your only family.” And that should mean something, shouldn’t it? However messy, however tangled and imperfect, it should mean something. She’d always hoped that eventually her mother would realize that not everyone walked away. That Imogen really was family and that she wasn’t ever going to walk away.
“Family? No. What you are,” her mother said slowly, “is the worst thing that ever happened to me. If I could change one thing in my life, it wouldn’t be meeting Terry, or the drink or any of that. It would be you. Because it all started with you. You ruined everything. I lost my own family because of you. Because of you, they wanted nothing to do with me. They kicked me out. And every time I see you, I think of how my life might have looked if you hadn’t been in it. I think of the life I might have had, and how much better it would have been. I could have gone to college. Got a good job. But instead I had you. Why do you think I didn’t have any more kids? Because when you make the biggest mistake of your life, you don’t do the same thing again.”
Imogen couldn’t catch her breath. There was no oxygen in the air; either that or her lungs had forgotten how to work. Her head spun and her vision was blurry. Dizziness? Tears? She had no idea.
Intellectually, she knew that what her mother was saying was ridiculous. Of course it wasn’t her fault. Plenty of people had babies and still went to college. Or made the most of other options. Night school. Online courses. There were so many opportunities. The world was full of them. You just had to grab them and go for it, and that was something her mother had never done. For Tina it was easier to blame Imogen than face the fact that she lacked the motivation. And whatever her family had done, however they had failed her, her mother could have chosen to do it differently. She could have chosen to be all the family she and Imogen would ever need. The situation could have brought them closer. They could have been a tight, unshakable unit. Instead, Tina had done exactly the same to Imogen as her parents had done to her. She’d rejected her daughter.
“You don’t mean it.” Imogen hated the fact that her voice wasn’t steady. “It’s the drink talking.”
“I do mean it.” Her mother’s expression was blank, and she looked at Imogen as if she was a stranger. “You ruined my life.”
That simply stated fact hurt more deeply than anything that had come before. It didn’t matter that it was unjust. It didn’t matter that Imogen could hardly be held responsible for her own appearance in the world.
“Do you know what, Mum?” The words burst from her, “You could have ruined my life, too, but I wasn’t going to let that happen. I chose not to let that happen. Because there is such a thing as individual responsibility. There are many things in this world we can’t control, but you can still make choices. But you choose to blame me for everything instead of taking responsibility for your own bad decisions.”
Her mother stared at her for a moment and then turned her head away.
Imogen stood there, frozen. She couldn’t believe she’d said those words. She shouldn’t have exploded like that. Already she felt terrible about it, but she felt even more terrible about the words her mother had said to her.
I don’t want to be your mum.
You ruined my life.
She badly wanted not to care. If she was as indifferent to the whole concept of family as her mother seemed to be, none of this would have mattered. But Imogen longed for family. She ached to have people around her who were connected to her life, part of her history. She wanted to be part of something bigger than herself. She wanted to buy Christmas gifts for a whole bunch of people, she wanted conversations that started do you remember when ...
And she knew that even “normal” families had their stresses and problems, but she would have gladly embraced those problems if it meant having people around her who had her back.
But she had no one, and she was so tired.
Tired of doing everything by herself. Of carrying every worry herself, of crying every tear by herself. What did she want for Christmas? Someone to lean on. Someone who wasn’t going to walk away when things got tough. Someone who wasn’t going to tell her she was the worst thing that had ever happened to them.
What was she doing here?
Her mother didn’t want her loyalty. Her mother thought she was a barnacle, not a support, so now was probably a good time to do something about that.
She had to leave. She had to get out of here, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to make that final move.
She heard the beep of machines and focused on the white walls and white coats of the doctors who bustled in and out. The atmosphere was sterile and cold, exactly like her relationship with her mother.
A woman who had been hovering in the doorway, presumably visiting a relative, approached and put her hand on Imogen’s arm. “Are you all right, love?” There was warmth and concern in her tone and she shot a look of disapproval toward Imogen’s mother, but Tina either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
Imogen felt her face burn. If there was one thing worse than being unwanted it was people knowing she was unwanted. She wanted to defend herself. She wanted to shout out that she hadn’t ruined her mother’s life on purpose, that she was an okay person and the worst thing she’d ever done was invent a dog. But she didn’t, because what was the point? “I’m totally fine.”
And she should be. She should not be feeling this shocked and vulnerable. Even though her mother had never spelled it out quite so clearly, she’d always known. There had been no point in her childhood, not a single day, when Imogen had thought that maybe Tina was pleased to be her mother.
With a last look at her mother, she stumbled back along the corridor. She knocked into a visitor, and then into a nurse carrying a bunch of files.
“Sorry,” Imogen mumbled, “so sorry.” She was walking blind, everything blurry, her whole world fuzzy and unfocused.
Somehow she made it through the waiting area and out into the busy street. The cold air whipped under her coat and chilled her, but she didn’t care. She walked until she reached the park that was adjacent to the hospital and then she sat down on a bench.
People scurried past her, wrapped up against the bitter winter wind.
Occasionally, people glanced at her, but that wasn’t surprising. Only someone with a death wish would sit outdoors on a park bench on a day like this.
Eventually, someone sat down next to her and she felt a hand on her arm.
It was the woman who had been on her mother’s ward. She’d followed Imogen outside. “I’m sure she didn’t mean it, love. People say things when they’re unwell and hurt.”
That was true, but Imogen knew her mother had meant every word.
Imogen said nothing. She just wanted to be left alone, but the woman didn’t seem inclined to leave.
“Is there someone I can call for you? A family member? A friend?”
A family member. If only. Unfortunately, her only family was lying upstairs in that stark hospital room wishing Imogen had never existed. That was it. There was no one she could call. No one who knew the truth about her life. No one who knew who Imogen really was, or where she’d come from.
She really was alone. There was something touching, but also bleak and depressing, about the fact that the only person who had shown her any care and attention was a stranger.
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “But thank you for your kindness.”
After a moment’s hesitation the woman left, and Imogen sat alone on the bench shivering. No one else stopped and she was grateful for that. She didn’t want to engage with strangers. Or anyone.
Bad things happened in life, she knew that. Accidents, illness, bad choices, bad luck. It was all part of being human. But when your own mother thought you were the worst thing that had ever happened? When you were the bad thing that life had delivered?
That was a tough one to deal with. That was hard. Mothers were supposed to love their babies unconditionally. Whether they were small, bald, ugly, loud—whatever—the one thing that was supposed to be guaranteed in life was a mother’s love. That was the basic requirement for a parent, wasn’t it? The whole job description. Forget reading together, or playing in the park, or eating vegetables—those were all nice to have, but not essential. But love? That was essential.
And when you’d never had that, when your mother had come without that guarantee, you never really trusted anything again, because if she couldn’t love you what possible chance was there of anyone else loving you?
In that moment, Imogen wished she did have a dog. Not fictitious Midas, but a real dog who would wag his tail and be pleased to see her no matter what.
The irony was that the life she’d invented for her colleagues had made her yearn for family even more than usual. Every time she described a family gathering, or a family member, she found herself wishing it was real.
She’d woken the other morning convinced that Midas was in the room, and she’d opened her eyes expecting to see those big brown eyes and wagging tail, but of course the room was empty, and the only noise came from the train, which ran so close to her apartment that the whole building shuddered every few minutes.
Snow dampened her hair and trickled down her neck.
She should move, she thought dully as she felt her fingers slowly start to freeze. She couldn’t feel her toes at all because her boots were built for fashion, not cold weather. She’d dressed to look smart and professional, not so that she could withstand arctic winds and barely above freezing temperatures.
Professional.
There was somewhere she was supposed to be. Where? She’d forgotten. Her mind was still in the room with her mother. No, not her mother. Tina. If she was the worst thing that had ever happened to Tina, then the best thing she could do was remove herself from her life permanently. She needed to stop pretending that they were a family.
She had no family. She had no one.
It was Christmas, and she’d never felt more alone.
In her pocket her phone buzzed, but she couldn’t summon the energy to answer it. The encounter with her mother had burned through the person she’d created, and all that was left was reality. She’d lost her energy and her confidence. She’d lost her drive and her belief in herself. There was nothing left except the stories she told herself. And they were as fake as the rest of her.