Chapter Twenty-Five
Mum was in the clinical room for less than half an hour and emerged looking buoyant, carrying a large paper bag.
‘Nurse Geoff told me they see a lot of patients in their sixties,’ she said as she wrapped her scarf around her neck.
‘You did tell him your real age?’ I said, ushering her towards the exit. ‘You aren’t in your sixties, Mum.’
She batted away my quibble. ‘Over sixty, he meant. He says there’s an epidemic of STIs – meaning sexually transmitted infections – in the senior population because nobody’s worried about getting pregnant.’
‘That makes sense I guess,’ I said as we made our escape into the cold evening air. ‘So nobody’s using protection.’
She nodded gravely. ‘He gave me a huge supply of condoms,’ she said, patting the paper bag, ‘and told me to be hypervigilant in future. No excuses, he said.’
‘Well – good,’ I said. ‘And the – uhm – the gonorrhoea?’
‘Swabs and blood tests done. They’re checking for chlamydia, HIV, hepatitis, gonorrhoea, bacterial vaginosis and something called trichomonas.’
‘The full bingo card,’ I said.
‘Hmm, yes. Sounds quite pretty really, trichomonas, don’t you think?
Anyway, I’ll know in the next few days.’ She pointed to her handbag, presumably where her phone was.
‘They’ll text me apparently. All very confidential and hush hush.
It doesn’t even go on my health record. Which is something of a relief.
I’d hate to think of my lovely GP Dr Baramghoudar finding out I’d been to an STD clinic.
She was such a support to your father at the end.
I simply wouldn’t be able to look her in the eye. ’
‘I’m sure she’d understand.’ I pulled out my umbrella and we both huddled under it as we walked back to the car. ‘Besides,’ I said. ‘It’s not as if you’re somehow being unfaithful to him or his memory. You’ve very much moved on. As you said on our spa day.’
She gave me a shrewd look, which I avoided by squinting through the rain to where the car was parked.
‘And you’re okay with that, Harriet?’ she said. ‘The fact that I’ve moved on?’
‘Yes, of course. It’s the right thing to do. I said so at the time.’
‘It’s just that you don’t sound like you’re okay with it.’
‘Let’s just get back to the car, Mum. It’s freezing and it’s been a long day.’
She remained silent until we were safely inside the car, seatbelts on and collective breath steaming up the windscreen.
‘Is there something you wish to get off your chest, Harriet?’ she said eventually. ‘Do you have a problem with the life choices I’m currently making? Do you feel that I am in fact being unfaithful to the memory of your father, despite what you just said about Dr Baramghoudar?’
I took a deep breath. ‘Not unfaithful. No. I just – I understand everything you said about needing to live your own life. I get that you don’t want to commit to having to look after someone else for a while.
I do genuinely understand that.’ I paused as we pulled out of the car park into the city traffic.
‘It’s just… this flitting from one unsuitable bloke to another, the constant series of mediocre men and one-night stands. It does feel a bit – reactionary.’
I risked a glance at her and regretted it. Her mouth was set in a thin line.
‘I see,’ she said.
‘I feel like you’re trying to prove something to yourself,’ I said.
‘I’m not sure what exactly. Maybe that you’re still attractive or…
?’ I glanced again. Shit. I was digging myself further into this hole and she looked deeply pissed off.
But on the other hand, I was a bit cross too, even if I wasn’t entirely sure why.
‘I just wonder,’ I said. ‘Why it’s not enough to know that Dad adored you for his whole life and – and why you still feel this need for validation from men who are at best mediocre and at worst, downright idiots. Is it just – vanity, or what…?’
There was an ominous pause. I knew I’d overstepped the mark. I’d never spoken to my mother like that before and probably never would again. I wasn’t sure if I was extremely brave or extremely suicidal. Mum put me straight rapidly – it had been a death wish.
‘Vanity,’ she said quietly. ‘Vanity?’ She turned to face me while I stared studiously at the brake lights of the car in front.
‘Do you know how brave you have to be to throw yourself into the dating market at my age, Harriet?’ Her voice was getting louder.
‘Do you know how terrifying it is to sit in front of a mirror applying lipstick to a seventy-four-year-old mouth and mascara to seventy-four-year-old eyelids. How many times you have to tell yourself that you don’t look like a bad drag version of Barbara Cartland?
’ She paused to draw breath in the manner of someone reloading a rifle.
‘Vanity?’ she said, spitting the word out.
‘Vanity? How dare you! Courage. That’s what it is.
Determination. Resilience. That’s what keeps me doing this. ’
‘Okay. I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I just—’
‘And as for the men I date,’ she said, crashing through my apology.
‘Yes, some of them may be a little less than ideal, a bit mediocre. But your father wasn’t perfect – and he wasn’t entirely deserving of the pedestal you put him on.
It’s cheering that you seem to believe he worshipped the ground I walked on, but he didn’t necessarily make that worship obvious on a daily basis, believe me.
In fact, sometimes I think he barely noticed me.
As long as his shirts were ironed and there was a hot meal waiting for him when he got home, my physical presence counted for very little.
I might as well have been a housekeeper. ’
‘Well, I’m not sure that’s true,’ I said, bristling on Dad’s behalf. ‘He loved you. He was always saying he’d be lost without you.’
‘But it’s not quite the same thing.’ Her voice had dropped a notch.
‘Being needed is not the same as being wanted.’ She sighed.
‘Do you know how it feels to be seen again, Harriet? Properly seen, for the first time in years? Do you have any idea how long it’s taken me to reach a point where I’m not just Graham’s wife, or Hattie’s mum, or Layla’s granny?
I love those roles; I loved them all. But there is more to me than that.
I am a person in my own right.’ She folded her hands into her lap.
‘And I deserve to have that acknowledged. If that’s vanity, so be it. ’
We drove the remainder of the journey in silence.
I wasn’t sure where my anger had come from and I understood what my mother was saying about feeling invisible – I see it mirrored in my own life, that sense of being defined exclusively by your role in relation to someone else – but I still felt a tiny bit resentful of how she continued to make the entire world revolve around her whilst complaining that it didn’t.
Today was a prime example. And she simply couldn’t see it.
I pulled up outside her house, and she gathered up her bag and scarf. ‘Thank you for taking me to the clinic, Harriet,’ she said stiffly as she opened the car door. ‘Your support was much appreciated.’
‘Mum, I—’ I faltered, not knowing what to say. ‘Let me know when you get the results, okay?’
She nodded curtly and closed the door. I watched her make her way to the front door along the tiled path with its neat box hedging and fumble with the keys for a moment before she let herself into the house and turned on the lamp in the hall, its light filtering through the side window and throwing her profile into relief.
She looked smaller from this distance, her head bowed as she shrugged out of her coat, and I was struck with a pang of melancholy as I pulled away.
Back home I had planned to FaceTime Layla while I made dinner but she was busy, which I took to be a good sign.
Instead, while I stirred the risotto with my left hand, I made a list of things to do with my right.
It was only a week until Layla came home for Christmas, which was obviously AMAZING but also meant that I needed to crack on with the boring life admin to get it all out of the way before she arrived.
And as every middle-aged woman knows, Christmas admin is a whole different kettle of fish to your regular life admin.
Festive tasks basically require an additional person in the house whose sole occupation is ‘Sorting Out Christmas Shit’.
By seven o’clock my list was nowhere close to being complete and read as follows:
Presents for Layla – stocking and main gift – find out about skin rash from last lot of bubble bath (hypoallergenic needed?) – new saucepan, too boring?
– More jeans? Skinny or Baggy? Festival tickets for main gift?
Which bands?? Also, will both sets of grandparents give her money this year? Need ideas for them – and Rich.
Presents for Joe – golf jumper, golf balls, golf socks, golf magazine subscription, golf clubs (expensive?) – let his parents know about golf hobby and suggest something golf-themed from them, otherwise will end up with another set of table mats and coasters (probably still will end up with these, but golf-themed).
Presents for Mum + + + – as only person who buys for her (other than Rich who will buy bottle of Chanel as per every Christmas for past seventeen years) and can’t rely on multiple boyfriends to give gifts.
Cashmere (blend) jumper (could try and get away with Vinted?
– would she know?). Nice blouse for dates.
Bath smellies. Gardening bits. New handbag – old one looking a bit tatty – don’t mention this though.
Presents for Joe’s parents – voucher for musical theatre tickets again? Remember they do not like Les Mis, and also strong feelings about The Lion King. Sensible cardigan for Susan, bottle of Famous Grouse for Fred.
Presents for Rich, Jaqueline (!!!) and boys.
Present for Farah (and her kids or are they too old for that now and what would I even get them?).