Chapter 7
‘Mother? What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in Sicily?’ WTF?!
She grins her beautiful, impish grin that I loved as a child. She hasn’t changed an iota after all these years. ‘I’ve come to spend some quality time with my daughter! We’re going to have sooo much fun together, Livvie! And because we’re shareholders, we get special treatment!’
All I wanted was to kick my shoes off and let my hair down, on my own – or with my Markus fantasies at the most. But this? My mother, here, in the same place with me, is the stuff of my very worst nightmares. A moment ago I was finally feeling so happy and alive! Now I just want to die.
Mother is trying to impress me, not so much to win me back but to show off just how well she’s done for herself.
Of course her husband is one of the benefactors of this place.
She would have chosen a wealthy man and a life of ease over my father.
And now she’s trying, in her own twisted way, to make amends without even doing what is necessary to make amends.
She thinks just because she has money that I’m suddenly going to want to be her daughter again.
For years I’ve fended off her exaggerated, pseudo-compensatory gestures of love, leaving the kids to absorb her too-muchness, while doing all I could to ignore her. But here, in the flesh, without anyone as a buffer between us? This is a total disaster!
I haven’t seen her for almost twenty-two years. Now in her mid-sixties, she has long blonde, healthy hair, huge turquoise eyes that I didn’t inherit, by the way, and a beautiful, firm, if round, face.
Her figure is hidden by a loose-flowing, beautifully embroidered caftan. I know from Dad’s pictures that in the summer she wears sundresses with huge jewellery, but does she ever manage to look frumpy? Not one jot. I can’t even get away with that kind of garb and I’m thirty years younger.
What annoys me the most is that she is always so relaxed and smiling. To get me to smile you’d have to catch my finger in the car door, she often says to my dad, which is an Italian expression. I suppose Aldo must have taught it to her, precisely referring to me. As if he knew me. Ha.
And what’s worse is that Mother has never had a single clue about the effect she still has on me after all these years, with her loud clothes and her resonant voice.
It’s like there’s no getting away from her.
Already she’s attracting the attention of various ladies around her, who get up from their loungers in a hurry to come over and have a look. So much for rest and privacy.
‘Lucia, Maria! Meet my daughter Olivia,’ she says, beaming, while they stretch out their bejewelled hands to shake mine. ‘Piacere, Olivia! Welcome!’
‘Thank you,’ I grin back, my teeth clenched so tight I hope I don’t crack one.
‘Look at you, already in the vibe!’ the more tanned one says, noticing my dress.
‘Very nice!’
‘Th-thank you,’ is all I can manage, still reeling from surprise and frustration. Is it too late to make a furtive getaway?
‘So,’ my mother says, linking her arm through mine so her friends can see how close we are. ‘Tell your mamma about my gorgeous grandchildren, what have they been up to lately?’
I’m of a mind to tell her that I’ve never called her mamma, that Italian is not her first language and that she already knows how her grandchildren are because she and my father speak every bloody weekend.
But I really don’t have the energy to go down that road, especially not in front of strangers.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. ‘Oh, you know, the usual…’
She’s giving me her undivided attention, nodding and asking pertinent questions she already knows the answer to since she’s so up-to-date with everything, and it pisses me off.
Why couldn’t she be so interested in her own kid back then?
Why all this sudden interest in my family now, and not, say, when I needed her?
‘I think I need to rest a bit. N-nice meeting you, ladies,’ I mumble as I make to turn away, hopefully before my head explodes. ‘I’m going back to my room for a nap.’
‘A nap? You just got here,’ Mother protests. ‘Come and have a glass of cucumber water, it’s good for you!’
Sighing inwardly, I give up and let her pour me a glass which I down in one go, gagging on it in my haste to go.
‘What’s wrong, isn’t it good?’ she says, taking a sip from her own glass and making a face. ‘Ugh, that’s nasty, isn’t it? All right, love, you run along and get settled. We’ll have plenty of time together. Eight weeks, just think!’
Exactly. Eight whole bloody weeks.
Back in my room, I lock and bolt the door and do my little thing, i.e.
, dog-whistle scream at the ceiling. It’s been my thing since she left when I didn’t want my dad to hear me.
It stuck with me over the years and now, when I’m so angry that not even a good shouting session will curb my rage, I whisper-scream.
It’s the only thing that works for me. I’m good at it, too, not letting my rage be heard by others.
I practise this at home after an ‘argument’ with Simon, or when something royally pisses me off.
Usually it’s connected to Mother’s weekly calls and incessant gifts for us all (I can’t deny them for the kids, but I’ve always given my gifts to the charity shop).
I haven’t seen her or even spoken to her for over twenty years and she thinks she can just pick things up from where she left me?
But today’s dog-whistle screaming is accompanied by what I call my own personal Māori haka, where with every wave of rage, I stomp my feet.
First my right one, then my left, and on it goes until I’m all stomped out and breathless.
Looking at me from the outside I must seem like a child, but I guarantee you it’s the only thing that will get something out of my system. It works wonders.
When my throat is raw and my thigh muscles take over the silent screaming, I throw myself onto the bed.
Okay. Think. There has to be a way to get out of this without making an arse out of myself.
I could cite an emergency at home. But then my dad would assure her that everything’s okay.
I could cite a work emergency. Get Markus to invent some huge business predicament.
No. He’s not like that. He doesn’t indulge in fake drama.
He already plays down my bone-fide dramas as it is.
‘Livvie? Open up, the door’s locked.’
Her again. Shit. ‘Mother, can you come back later, please? I’m trying to sleep.’
‘Hurry up, I need the loo.’
The loo? Why doesn’t she use the one in her own room?
And then I tunnel-vision on a door that leads into another bedroom.
I didn’t notice it before because it was closed, but now that it’s ajar I can see it’s already occupied, an open suitcase spilling flowy multi-coloured clothes all over the floor.
This can’t be! I didn’t think I’d have to share with anyone, let alone my mother.
And now she’s banging on my door with a weak bladder.
Trying to suppress my annoyance, I unlock the door and she dashes past me with a ‘Thanks, love!’, lifting her skirts like a medieval damsel in distress before she’s even got to the bathroom door. Someone please kill me now.
*
Some mothers sing lullabies to their children when they’re little.
My mother is singing every Italian song she knows to me, at the ripe age of almost thirty-five, while I’m trying to nap, asking me if I remember them when I’ve never heard them in my entire life.
I live in the UK and have no affiliation with Italy.
Why would I be interested in this or that Italian singer’s tragic life?
If there is one tragedy, though, it’s this bedroom.
Because this is not going to end well. But have I got the guts to tell my mother that I don’t want to have her in an adjoining room?
I have never argued with her. I decided never to tell her how I feel about her abandoning us.
How can I start bickering with her when she’s forcing me to spend eight weeks in such close quarters, and at her expense?
I can’t very well say that I can barely stand her presence, can I?
Now the long weeks stretch out ahead of me, like a big, black hole ready to swallow me up.
I can’t do this. There is no way I can ever do this and not physically clobber myself over the head at least a couple of times.
And I’m not one for violence, but if I had a brick wall right in front of me, I’d have put a hole through it by now.
‘Sorry, I forgot my key,’ she says as I get back into bed and, through the open bathroom door, she proceeds to tell me about her husband, Aldo, and her cleaning staff at home. She has staff. I can’t even get my own husband to take out the rubbish. Life is just not fair.
‘And Aldo sends his love, of course.’
Of course. I’ve never met the bloke in my life, but he sends his love.
Does he also send an apology for his contribution to ruining my life?
I’ve only seen him in pictures that Mother constantly sends to Dad, showing off her new life and really rubbing it in.
I mean, who does that to the person they abandoned?
‘Livvie?’ she calls.
I turn onto my side, fitting my pillow over my head to deaden the noise, but it’s not working. ‘Yes, Mother?’
‘Am I talking too much? I’m so sorry, I’m just excited to see you! I’ll let you sleep, love…’
‘Thank you,’ I say begrudgingly.
‘Go to sleep, sweetheart. We’ll talk when you wake up. You must be absolutely knackered, you poor thing!’
Then her phone rings. ‘Ciao, Sandra, come stai, bella?’ she trills and I know I’m never going to get to sleep.
*
Somehow, I’ve slept through dinner and the rest of the night. When I wake up, my first thought is Cassie.
When I try her number again, it goes straight to voicemail. She must have seen my call and rejected it. Not that when I’m home she acts any differently. I’m hoping that it’s just a (very long) phase, and that sooner rather than later I’ll get my girl back.
Down on the eastern terrace, breakfast is a sumptuous affair, with more expensive linen tablecloths and more of the finest porcelain. Even the fruit juices arrive in crystal decanters.
Whatever your palate, there is more than something for you: fruit salads, yoghurt, muesli, nuts of all kinds, bacon, omelettes, pancakes, croissants, toast…
My mouth begins to water and I remind myself to err on the healthy side of luxurious, even though Mother is at my side, encouraging me to eat more.
I feel like I’m on the Titanic, and not just due to the perilousness of my proximity to my mother. Apart from her presence, this could have well and truly been a fantastic holiday.
After breakfast, we are given a pamphlet to book our appointments which are, yay, included in the price. So I book a massage, a facial, a pedicure and a manicure. That will take me up to at least dinner time without having to talk to my mother.
Or so I’d hoped.
‘Hello again, love! Isn’t this fun!’
I look up from my facial bed to see that my mother is being rolled up right next to me in her own massage bed. Where the hell did she pop out from? I thought I’d lost her when I abandoned her to her gaggle of girlfriends gossiping away after breakfast.
‘I’m so glad we have all this time together! Luckily the director was able to add me to every appointment that you’ve made, and for your sake, I’ve made a few more that you overlooked.’
On and on she goes, extolling the virtues of our masseuses amid comments like, Oh, and doesn’t she put those cheekbones right back up there where they belong?
It lasts forty minutes and by the time I’m done pretending everything is okay for her benefit, I need another facial to sort out the muscles in my own cheeks from all the false grinning.
It serves me right. If only I was brave enough to stand up to her.
When we’re done I pull out my mobile and message Cassie:
Hello, love. Hope you are well? Miss you already! Text me back when you have a minute.
Love, Mum. xxx
Then I text Joe:
Good morning, my darling. I hope you have a wonderful day at school. Be a good boy, as always. I love and miss you! Mum.
To which he answers immediately.
Hi, Mum, we’re in the car. Markus is taking us because Dad had an early morning at work.
It figures. I’m mere hours out of the country and already Simon is delegating his duties to Markus. But I promised myself I wasn’t going to worry about things like that while I was here. The kids are in good hands.
Lunch is a quick sandwich and a salad as we are having our manicures, followed by pedicures, still side by side, inseparable like a pair of Siamese twins.
Every cuticle is taken care of, nails filed into an elegant shape, buffed and pre-treated with a primer before the lacquer goes on. There is a small machine that emits blue rays into which we have to stick our hands in for a few seconds at a time before the application of the next coat.
‘Now, what colour should we have our nails done, love? Shall we go for a mother–daughter match? I think I’d like the pearly white, Damiano, what do you think?’
‘It’s very elegant,’ the nail technician echoes agreeably.
‘Yes, I agree. Livvie, what do you think?’
‘Pearly white is fine, Mother,’ I say, screaming on the inside. I don’t want a matching manicure with my mother – I’m not twelve.
Next follows a full body massage from Gertha, a Swiss masseuse who crosses the border every morning to Italy to come to work.
She is tiny but when she gets her poky fingers into my bunched-up muscles I know I’m going to love her.
The pain is excruciating at first, but I eventually manage to relax as she urges me to and it’s not long before I’m ecstatic with relief.
All the tension inside dissipates and I’m feeling like a new woman from head to toe.
I’m not even clenching my teeth anymore!
‘Ah, that was just lovely, thank you, Filippo, thank you, Gertha!’ Mother chimes as she slips them a 100-euro bill each.
‘I can pay for my tip, Mother,’ I say, reaching into my purse.
‘Nonsense, this trip is my treat, lovie! Gertha, Filippo, would you be so kind as to get us some juice before you go?’
The two take their hard-earnt tips and bow out, only to return with a trolley laden with decanters full of kiwi juice, orange juice and berry juice, plus a platter of puff pastry goodies of every shape, size and flavour. The power of money.