Chapter Thirteen #2
‘I’m glad you’ve got this little library job, Hattie,’ she said, pouring us both a glass of lemon-infused water to go with our smoothies, just in case there was any danger of either of us not taking on sufficient liquid. ‘It’ll do you good to get out of the house. Earn a bit of money for yourself.’
‘Uhm – I have been earning money,’ I said. ‘For the past seventeen years. I’ve been copy-editing and proofreading ever since Layla was tiny, if you recall.’
She wrinkled up her nose. ‘Yes of course, but doing little projects on websites and what have you, working from home, it was never really a career, was it.’
I exhaled slowly into my chia seed and papaya smoothie, which I now realised smelled a bit like vomit.
I wanted to say, It was a career, Mum. It wasn’t hugely life-affirming or world-changing, but it paid pretty well considering.
A lot of people have careers that involve working from home.
And a lot of people work flexible hours.
It doesn’t make their job any less valid.
And my main reason for working from home was so I could be around for Layla, because we both know you’d have given me an absolute earful if you thought I’d been neglecting my daughter, or she’d become some sort of latch-key kid.
But of course, I didn’t say this. Instead going for a far gloomier option: ‘Well, I’m not going to be earning much more doing this job.
It’s barely minimum wage and when you factor in the travel and parking, I’m probably going to lose money compared to what I was doing before.
’ (Just in case there was any doubt in anyone’s mind about how much I valued myself and my employment potential.)
‘Hmm,’ she continued, brushing this aside.
‘It’s like I was saying before – it’s good for you to have something of your own.
Even if it is just, I don’t know, “stamping books”.
’ (She did the inverted commas in the air).
‘You need to be defined by something other than Layla, because she won’t thank you if you keep yourself in suspended animation, only jumping back into life as soon as she comes home for a week. ’
‘I know that,’ I said. ‘But it is hard.’ I was determined to winkle some sympathy out of her.
‘Partly because I’m not sure that she is very happy at the moment.
I know you and Joe and even bloody Jaqueline all think this is about me being self-absorbed and wallowing about in my own sadness, but actually I’m a bit worried about Layla.
I think if she seemed more upbeat about university, I’d feel happier. ’
‘But you see, that’s part of the problem. It’s too much pressure to put on Layla’s shoulders if she feels that your happiness is too intrinsically linked to her own.’
‘Well, I can’t win then,’ I said, dropping my fork onto my plate. ‘I can’t not worry about my only child just because you tell me to. And I can’t simply forge on with a new independent spirit as if there isn’t a significant piece of me unhappily missing in action.’
‘Oh darling,’ she said, pushing a napkin my way. ‘Dry your eyes. There, there. Nobody said it would be easy. It’s early days and you’re managing in the best way that you can.’
This was hardly a ringing endorsement but it wasn’t really a criticism either, so I decided to take the proffered olive branch.
‘Thanks,’ I said.
‘I wouldn’t set much store by Jaqueline’s opinion either. Your sister-in-law hasn’t got to the same point yet with the boys. It will be interesting to see how she copes when the time comes for Hugo and Lawrence to leave home.’
‘I suspect she’ll barely notice,’ I said and we both tittered together, united in our mutual distrust of Jaqueline’s chilly parenting style. ‘I’m having the boys to stay at the end of the month actually.’
‘How’s that going to work with the new job?’
‘Well,’ I said. ‘I’m not really sure. I’d already told her and Rich I could have the boys you see, so I didn’t want to let them down.
They popped in last week to see Layla, which was very sweet of them.
’ It hadn’t been terribly sweet, it had all been a little forced, with my brother constantly questioning Layla about what an amazing time she must be having, how many trillions of friends she must have made, and exactly how many nights she was out getting wasted – so keen to vicariously relive his student days through his niece that he couldn’t pick up on the cues of her lacklustre responses and cease the interrogation.
‘When I mentioned the library job potentially clashing with the childcare, Rich looked really annoyed.’
‘Oh, I’d be surprised at that,’ Mum scoffed, never one to hear a bad word about her darling boy. ‘He’s always been very reasonable about that sort of thing, your brother. And no surprise with a wife who prioritises work as much as his does.’ Her mouth formed a little moue of disapproval.
‘Anyway, Jaqueline said it was absolutely fine and she had no intention of disrupting my career, so she’d go back to the agency they’d used last time.’
‘The agency?’ The moue became tighter.
‘Yes, they used a…’ I trailed off. There was always a huge temptation to slag off my sister-in-law to my mother, but it was a potential minefield.
If she thought I was criticising Richard, then I’d get very short shrift.
‘I think they’ve previously used agency nannies,’ I said, thinking this sounded better than the house-sitter Jaqueline had threated.
‘Anyway, I don’t really want my nephews being looked after by a stranger, not when I’d promised to have them, so I said, no, I’d find a way of making it work. ’
‘Well, that’s very good of you, Harriet,’ she said, taking a sip from her smoothie with a small grimace. ‘And I’m sure I can help out too. Just remind me of the dates when we get back to the changing room and I’ll check my diary – make sure there aren’t any clashes.’
‘That would be great, Mum,’ I said. ‘If you’re sure. I don’t want to take you away from anything else you might have planned.’ I left a pause, but she didn’t fill it. ‘Do you have any holidays or trips scheduled in the next few weeks? Are you being whisked off anywhere nice?’
‘Well, Marrakesh is off the agenda,’ she said. ‘Maurice is still keen to go but I don’t think his travel insurance will cover him at the moment – and to be honest,’ she lowered her voice, ‘I don’t think he’d be up to much in terms of activities.’
‘Eeew. Okay,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to hear about what Maurice can or cannot stretch to with bedroom athletics.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Bedroom athletics,’ she scoffed. ‘You’re so coy, Harriet. No, I meant activities of a cultural nature, visits to the kasbah, camel rides across the Sahara, etcetera. I wasn’t talking about sex – that really might finish the poor chap off altogether.’
I spluttered into my smoothie, which I still hadn’t finished despite my best efforts to overlook its vomitty smell.
‘It really is very tedious how these men just seem to become terribly old almost overnight,’ she continued, airily dismissing half the human population. ‘I know it’s not their fault – they have weaker constitutions than us, but it’s a bit like your father.’ She looked sad for a moment.
‘Do you mean after his operation,’ I said, remembering the huge change Rich and I had both seen in our dad following his triple bypass.
She nodded. ‘Suddenly he just became so elderly,’ she said.
‘Such a frail old man. I mean there had always been the age gap but previously I’d never really noticed the fact he was ten years older than me.
He’d always been so full of vigour, the life and soul of every party, and then there he was, my vibrant bon viveur of a husband suddenly needing to be back home in time for an afternoon nap, or back to make sure the bins were out, obsessed about tiny little issues, fretting about having the curtains drawn before nightfall. ’
I nodded, remembering the change.
‘Even months after the operation, when he’d made a full recovery, he was still never quite back to normal.’
‘Do you think he was a bit depressed?’ I asked. It was something I hadn’t ever really considered before; my parents’ psychological state not being high on my list of concerns.
‘He may have been, but he’d never have admitted to it to me,’ she said, frowning.
‘I did occasionally suggest we speak to the doctor about how he was feeling but it inevitably ended up being a consultation about his heart failure. I think he was just of that generation who believed it was a sign of weakness to admit you were struggling with your mental health, like you might end up in the loony bin if you so much as mentioned feeling a bit low.’ She sighed. ‘It was a difficult time.’
I considered this for a moment. The period of time Mum described had lasted for almost eight years.
Dad had his heart attack and bypass surgery in his mid-seventies but he went on to reach his eighty-second birthday shortly before he died last spring.
That was a long time to be caring for someone, I realised.
Particularly someone who was becoming increasingly cantankerous.
I’d always known that Mum was completely devoted to Dad, and she’d never complained, not once.
But seeing the situation now, in retrospect, I realised how much she’d had to give up during that period.
And all when she’d still been in her sixties.
‘I guess there was a lot you missed out on,’ I said now. ‘I know you wanted to travel a bit more and with Dad working well into his seventies I guess you didn’t get to do that as much as you’d hoped. And then by the time he was ill you’d missed your chance.’
‘I do wish he’d retired a bit earlier,’ she admitted.
‘We could have done so many fun things together. But you know your father. He enjoyed work. He liked to feel useful, as if he was still a productive member of society. And where he led, I followed. It wasn’t my place to question him really, or that’s how I felt at the time.
Looking back, I wonder whether I should have pushed a bit harder. ’
‘Still,’ she said, folding her napkin decisively onto her plate, ‘I wouldn’t have changed it for the world – those years of being his carer, they were hard, but it brought us closer together. He needed me.’
‘He did,’ I said, suddenly feeling a bit choked up in the face of my mother’s previously unrecognised sacrifice. ‘And you were always there for him.’
She nodded. ‘But that’s why I won’t do it again, Harriet,’ she said, some steel returning to her voice.
‘I can’t be a full-time carer again. Not just yet anyway.
I can’t switch from years of looking after your father right up to when he was on his deathbed, straight to attending to the needs of other elderly gentlemen, mopping brows and spooning feeds, washing bedding and checking tablets have been taken, sitting through endless medical consultations and procedures designed to eke out a tiny bit more life from the shell of a person.
I need to live a bit of my own life first.’
‘Hence the serial dating and the non-exclusivity clause with the Silver Soulmates,’ I said.
‘Exactly.’ She folded her hands in her lap to indicate that this part of the conversation was closed.
‘Well,’ I said. ‘For what it’s worth, I think you’re doing the right thing.’
I meant it. Although it hasn’t been the easiest sometimes seeing my mum dating multiple men following the death of my father, I knew I couldn’t expect her to remain in purdah for the rest of her days just to honour his memory.
I had to remind myself on those occasions when I felt hurt on Dad’s behalf that Mum’s moving on wasn’t a reflection on how much she’d loved him – the fact that she’d cared for him so uncomplainingly and for so long was testament to how very deeply she had loved him.
And I knew also that in putting herself first for a change she was setting a good example to me and her granddaughter.
We smiled at each other, aware that big topics had been covered – both knowing that we needed to scale back down to the shallower levels of our usual discourse in order to lighten the mood.
‘Does your smoothie smell a bit like sick?’ she said, peering into the dregs of her glass.
I nodded. ‘Yes, and the gusset of my swimsuit is starting to chafe. I’m concerned if I stay here any longer I’m going to get thrush, which wouldn’t be very relaxing.’
‘Rightio,’ she said, rising from her chair. ‘Well, that was an interesting luncheon, wasn’t it darling. Shall we go to the pool before our hot stone massage or sit in the jacuzzi and read magazines for a while?’