Chapter Ten #2
‘But it would have been nice to be asked,’ I said, feeling myself well up. ‘Can you imagine what it must have been like to hear from one of the boys that that’s where they’d all gone? They didn’t even mention it to her. It all feels really underhand.’
‘She just needs to find a group that she’s better suited to, that’s all,’ said Joe. ‘It’s still early days. It doesn’t matter that she isn’t best mates with the girls in her flat.’
‘No, I know,’ I said as I started to run the taps into a bowl for washing up.
Since Layla left home it was taking an eternity to fill the dishwasher, and it seemed more sensible to do it this way.
‘But she doesn’t seem to be making friends outside the flat either.
She just doesn’t seem to be meeting people.
She’s not joined any clubs or met anyone she really gets on with on her course. ’
‘Well, she needs to push herself a bit more,’ said Joe, plugging the iPad in to charge. ‘Maybe that’s what we should be advising her to do – force herself out of her comfort zone.’
‘But then the whole process is outside her comfort zone,’ I said, whisking a cloth around the rim of the Best Mummy mug (which I used all the time now). ‘Maybe what she needs is a bit of familiarity, a reminder of home. We could go and take her out for lunch again like we did last weekend?’
‘That wasn’t a huge success though, was it? I’m not sure it helped anyone really.’
I considered this. Last weekend I’d basically held my husband at emotional gunpoint and said that I was driving up to see my daughter with or without him.
He had eventually capitulated and agreed that of course he wanted to see Layla too, he just felt it was a bit too soon, but seeing as I insisted…
However, with hindsight he’d been right.
The drive there and back had been exhausting and the three hours we’d spent in her company had been strained.
She hadn’t settled in enough to really show us around, so we wandered aimlessly through damp and chilly streets, past the imposing library and the less impressive Seventies architecture of the lecture theatre.
We didn’t see any friends for her to introduce us to, she didn’t know where a nice restaurant might be and we ended up in a horrible Starbucks eating tepid paninis and making stilted conversation about the few lectures she’d been to and how she was managing her food budget.
It was probably the least reassuring enterprise I’d ever conducted, and I was silent for most of the drive home, feeling all the sadness of the first day when we dropped her off, but this time with an additional helping of anxiety.
At least on that first day of term there had been an element of the unknown, a tiny frisson of excitement that this would be a lifechanging experience for her and perhaps manageable for Joe and I – but now I knew categorically how much I missed her and how much she was evidently missing us.
‘Well,’ I said. ‘How about instead of us going up there again, maybe she should come home for a bit, think about her options. I’m really starting to wonder if maybe it’s not a good fit for her after all…’
Joe turned sharply in my direction. ‘Don’t be giving her the idea of giving up, Hattie.
She needs to stick it out. If you suggest she comes home, subconsciously she’ll think she’s failed.
Or she might be tempted to jack it all in.
It would be such a shame. She just needs to settle into the whole thing, embrace it a bit more – it’s an amazing opportunity. ’
‘But what if it’s not an amazing opportunity?
’ I said, my voice a bit tight and squeaky as I tried to articulate my growing concern whilst rinsing out the saucepan.
‘What if it makes her miserable and then she ends up clinically depressed, and anxious, and on medication, and feels she can’t tell us?
There’s a mental health epidemic out there, Joe – I don’t want my daughter falling victim to it just because we turned a blind eye to her distress. ’
Joe leaned back in his chair. ‘She’s not distressed, Hattie.
’ He sighed in frustration. ‘And she’s definitely not mentally ill.
She’s just a bit homesick and a bit lonely, but that’s what growing up is about, learning how to live on your own, learning how to navigate life without your mother micromanaging every tiny aspect of it. ’
There was an ominous silence broken only by a confused woof from Orinoco and then the scrape of Joe’s chair as he pushed back from the table and came to join me by the sink.
He put his arms around my waist and rested his chin on the top of my head.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his voice muffled in my hair.
‘I didn’t mean that. I know you’re worried about her, but I honestly think she’s okay.
I think…’ He paused. ‘I think some of this might be more about your worries than hers?’
I pulled out of his embrace and blinked back the angry tears that were threatening to spill. ‘Fine,’ I said, sniffing. ‘Don’t blame me when she ends up spending years in therapy because her parents kicked her out, leaving her alone and friendless in a strange part of the country.’
‘You are being a bit ridiculous,’ he said. ‘You know that don’t you?’
I shrugged. Maybe I did.
‘Look.’ He tried again. ‘It was always going to be hard for her. She was so settled at home. You and she were always so tight, thick as thieves. And, you know, her circle of friends was small. She’d known two of them since pre-school, for goodness’ sake.’
‘And it’s a beautiful thing,’ I said. ‘To have longstanding friendships like that – people who’ve known you your whole life.’
‘It is, it is. But maybe she needs to branch out, find some friends who are a bit different. We need to encourage her to broaden her horizons Hattie, and I feel like… like, if she’s worrying about you and how you’re coping, if she’s spending every day messaging you and talking to you –’ I opened my mouth to contradict him and then thought better of it – ‘then she’s not going to feel free to get out there and spread her wings.
’ He took a deep breath. ‘I just wonder whether the closeness you two have, maybe it’s becoming a bit of a burden?
Or at least an excuse for her not to push herself a bit more. ’
‘So, it’s my fault? The fact that she’s lonely?
’ I was furious now. ‘Right. Great. Of course.’ I dropped the saucepan into the sink and went to storm out of the kitchen.
‘I’ve smothered her and the terrible burden of my parenting has stopped her from making friends!
And I expect, in addition, I’ve set her a dreadful example of how to integrate into normal society by becoming so isolated and reclusive myself! ’
This was my parting shot, laden with sarcasm. It wasn’t until I was halfway upstairs that I realised some of what I’d said might be true.