Chapter 34 #2
‘Nothing. Just happy to be here, I think.’
‘Well, I’m glad! You need a break, don’t you? You work so hard all the time.’
‘I don’t feel like I’ve been working very hard this year . . . that’s part of the problem. Last year I felt much more on top of stuff by this point, but now . . .’ I sigh.
‘Had a lot going on?’ she asks, sitting down next to me and stroking my hair.
I nod. ‘A bit. How are you doing?’
‘It’s strange without Stephen but . . . not unpleasant, I must say.’
‘I suppose he was part of the furniture really. He was just sort of . . . here.’
Mum nods. ‘I hadn’t really spent that much time thinking about how I felt about him, which is maybe a bad sign.’
‘Not that it excuses what he did,’ I say, lest we forget his crime to which I was a witness.
‘Not at all,’ Mum says, jumping to her feet. ‘Have you eaten?’ I shake my head. ‘Well, we can’t have that, can we? Let’s order something fun.’
‘Garlic beef pho?’ I offer as a suggestion, as if there’s any question of what we’re going to order.
‘What a great idea,’ Mum says, as if it wasn’t the exact thing she was thinking too. ‘Oh, and some of that divine salt-and-pepper squid.’ Again, we have never ordered garlic beef pho without salt-and-pepper squid.
* * *
When the takeaway arrives and Mum has pressed an incredibly generous tip into the delivery driver’s hand, we sit in the living room, the strong scent of the food mingling with the not unpleasant smell of the paint.
‘Mum . . .’ I venture.
‘Yes, darling?’
‘You know all the . . . home transformations?’
‘I do,’ she says, before picking up a piece of squid.
‘Is it . . . I mean, is it healthy? Like, are you maybe . . . chasing something with all the change, all the makeovers? Something you can never really catch?’ I say gently, wondering about that question I had on the podcast the other week.
‘Darling, the thing you need to understand is that I don’t think these little makeovers are going to change my life. I think you’ve got it wrong there. I enjoy the act of doing them. The point isn’t the fantasy, it’s the doing part. Does that make sense?’
It surprises me, I have to say, that she has thought about this. Maybe I need to give my mother more credit. Clearly, I do.
‘I guess so,’ I say, shrugging.
‘I mean this in the kindest possible way, darling, but . . . not everything is a problem for you to diagnose and solve in a column. Some things just . . . are.’
I smile. Ordinarily this is the kind of comment that would set off a sharp little skirmish between us. ‘No, you’re right,’ I say, appropriately put in my place by my mum. ‘But I didn’t know you really knew about my advice column.’
‘You told me about it when you got given it last year!’
‘I know . . . but I thought maybe you’d forgotten. It’s not like it’s important, you know?’
‘It sounds important to you. How’s it all going?’
‘Well, I’ve had a bit of a change of scenery and I’m doing it as a podcast rather than in the magazine.’
‘Exciting!’
‘Yeah, it’s . . . it’s been a good change. I had to get out of the magazine. Too complicated. Boy stuff.’
‘It’s good to know when to get out,’ she says.
‘It was definitely the right time.’
After we eat, we lie around watching TV. I could have been doing this all the time, but I’d been keeping my distance because, what, I find my mum a bit annoying? It makes me feel so silly and immature that I couldn’t just get over it and hang out with her more.
When the random programme about Second World War air force pilots (that we were both too lazy to turn over) finishes, I get to my feet. ‘I think I’m going to go to bed so I feel nice and ready to revise in the morning.’
Mum squeezes my hand before I head upstairs. ‘Good idea. I’m glad you’re here, darling.’
‘Me too,’ I tell her.
* * *
I spend the next week deep in my books (punctuated by little daydreams about Laurie), going for little walks down to Greenwich (wondering if Laurie has been in any of the places we go), helping my mum change the handles on a chest of drawers (don’t think I thought about Laurie then), changing the configuration of a gallery wall that lines the steep stairs up to the bedrooms (again, DIY seems to be a Laurie-free zone for my brain) and just chatting to Mum and watching TV (contemplating what Laurie watches on TV).
One night, as we’re eating a delicious pasta I’ve prepared, the fancy mafalde from the Italian deli all frilly and coated in spinach and goat’s cheese and pine nuts, I remember something I’ve been meaning to ask Mum about. ‘Whatever happened to that Sabor jeans shoot you were asked to do?’
Mum sighs heavily. ‘I’ve been thinking about it, sweetie. It’s not for another, oh, couple of months, and I haven’t turned it down, but . . . it’s hanging over me a bit.’
‘I think if it’s stressing you out then maybe you should just say no,’ I offer.
‘The thing is, darling, I want to do it.’
‘So what’s the problem?’
‘It sounds silly,’ she sighs, ‘but I wish I was just . . . someone else. I wish I could do the shoot, but could have someone else’s face. Someone else’s body.’
‘But there’s nothing wrong with the way you look,’ I protest.
‘You have to say that,’ she says, a sad smile on her face.
‘No, I don’t, you know I could be a rude little troll if I wanted to. But I don’t want to, because it’s true.’
‘It’s just hard,’ she says, shaking her head, her curls bouncing.
‘When you used to make money off your appearance, it ends up being the most important thing about you. And then it changes. And now I’m wondering if it’s too late to bring it all back.
I’m sure a little lift here and a little injection there wouldn’t do any harm. ’
‘Are you really thinking about that?’ I ask as neutrally as I can.
‘I’ve been to see someone, a nice doctor that Laila Benayoun recommended on Harley Street,’ she says, referencing one of her model pals. ‘I’m giving it some thought. And if I really hit it hard, I could lose, what, at least a couple of stone between now and then, couldn’t I?’
I shrug. ‘That’s not my area of expertise,’ I tell her, my chest heavy. We sit in silence for a moment. Then I break it. ‘There’s something I don’t . . . understand,’ I say, trying to think it through in my head.
‘What, sweetie?’ she asks me as she takes a sip of rosé.
‘If you’re so critical of your own appearance, so worried about what people think about you, why have you never been hard on me about the way I look? Not that I want you to be, I mean. I’m just curious, I guess.’
She sets her wine glass down on the side table next to her end of the sofa.
She turns to me and cups my face in her hands.
I don’t have any urge to wriggle away, to roll my eyes at her, to tell her she’s being too much.
I just want to hear what she has to say.
‘Because you’re perfect. Why would I want to change a thing about you? ’
For all my mum’s been hard work my whole life, one thing she’s never done is try to change me or the way I look.
I don’t think I really understood until now how lucky I am – and given how much she struggles with it herself, it all seems even more miraculous.
She lets go of my face and I feel my eyes prick with tears.
‘I think that’s why I . . . why I’m so against you doing anything to your face.
Not on an ideological level, you know?’ I say, trying to fight back the urge to cry.
‘I don’t really care what people do with their bodies, or how they want to express themselves.
But . . . when I grow up I hope I look like you .
. . and I want to know what that means. Does that make sense? ’
I’ve never seen my mum look at me the way she’s looking at me now. She’s always been so touchy-feely, throwing herself at me, pawing me and pinching me. But I feel a greater sense of intimacy and genuine connection from this look than from any hug, any kiss.
‘I’ve realised something . . .’ I say, my cheeks burning with shame that it’s taken me so long to get here.
‘I’ve always been hard on you because I could be hard on you, because you’re around.
Whereas my dad always gets a free pass because he’s .
. . well, wherever he is . . . So it’s harder to take my frustrations out on him than it is on you.
And I think I understand now how –’ I struggle to find a big, important word to describe it; there isn’t one – ‘wrong that is for me to do to you.’
‘Darling,’ Mum says, ‘I think maybe we finally understand each other.’
And I realise that’s what I’ve wanted all along.