Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
I knew what day it was before I was even properly awake.
Sunday. And not just any Sunday – the day that had been entered into my online calendar for years, reminders set for a week before and a day before so that there was no risk of me forgetting.
As if I’d forget. Even without the alerts pinging dutifully at me, my own knowledge of what forgetting would lead to was enough to prevent that happening.
Mum’s birthday.
Which this year happened to fall on a Sunday, the tenth of July. Even if things had been normal between Sam and me, there was no chance that either of us would say, ‘What shall we do?’ today because we both knew what I was going to have to do.
It was seven o’clock – way too early to get up on any Sunday, including this one, even though Milton didn’t agree and was already stomping determinedly on my chest. I was fully awake now, the flat already warm with the promise of a scorching thirty-degree day incoming, the duvet feeling stifling even though I was only covered from mid-thigh downwards, Sam’s sleeping body like a radiator on full blast next to me.
I sat up slowly, dislodging the cat and trying not to wake Sam, but that didn’t work.
He turned over and opened eyes, his hair clinging damply to his brow.
‘It’s Sunday,’ he muttered.
‘I know,’ I said.
‘Are you…’ he began, then stopped.
He knew the answer, just like I knew the question.
‘Yep.’ I swung my feet out of bed and stood up. ‘Coffee?’
‘I’m all right. Think I’ll try and get some more kip.’ He closed his eyes, then opened them again. ‘Unless you want…?’
‘Don’t worry. I’m all good.’
Naked apart from my pants, I went through to the bathroom and cleaned my teeth, enjoying the cool of the tiles under my bare feet, then pulled on a T-shirt. I fed Milton, then made coffee and drank it perched at the kitchen counter, thinking while simultaneously trying not to think.
It’ll be okay. It’s just one day. Remember when it was every day.
You could ask Sam to come with you. That would be easier.
I promised, last time. I said I wouldn’t make him come again.
And then the worst thought.
If he’s with you, at least he can’t be with Ava…
But Sam had given me no indication that he was planning to see Ava that day.
‘I might go for a swim,’ he’d said, when I’d reminded him the previous day what tomorrow was.
The awkwardness of our date and his encounter with Jamie had persisted throughout Saturday, unacknowledged by either of us other than through silences that were tense rather than restful.
We’d had sex on Friday night for what felt like the first time in ages, which should have reassured me that my plan with Jamie was doing its work, but instead of feeling like a reconnection, it had felt… combative, almost.
As if we were challenging each other.
You still like me, don’t you? My hands had silently asked as I eased them down beneath his boxer shorts.
Are you sure you want this? had been unspoken in the brief pause before he slid inside me.
And when I’d opened my eyes at the point when I’d realised I wasn’t going to orgasm, hoping that he would soon, I’d seen him looking down at me, his eyes full of doubt.
We stopped after that.
‘It’s too hot,’ I said.
‘I’ve had too much to drink,’ he apologised.
Maybe Jamie’s plan was working, but I hadn’t meant it to work like that.
Next to me on the kitchen counter was the parcel I’d carefully wrapped the day before. A bunch of peonies stood in a jug of water, still in their cellophane wrapping. The card was in its sealed envelope, the pink sparkly letters spelling out Mum just visible through the white paper.
I should probably write Mum on the envelope as well, I thought. It might make all the difference. It might be the one thing that transformed my gift from acceptable to welcome. But I didn’t hold out much hope of that, so I didn’t bother.
By eleven, I was ready to leave. I’d ironed my dress and straightened my hair. I’d put on a carefully judged amount of make-up and painted my toenails.
I’d said goodbye to Sam, who was sitting in his swimming trunks looking a mixture of guilty and relieved.
And by half past twelve, exactly on time, I was knocking on the door of the Bayswater flat where I’d spent those hellish few months four years ago.
I could have sworn I smelled my mother’s perfume before the door opened, but that was surely my imagination.
Her personality might have the ability to cut through two inches of solid wood, but surely not her scent.
In any event, I smelled it as soon as the door opened, a waft of Chanel No.
5, closely followed by the fragrance of roast chicken.
Nice smells – at least they would have been anywhere else, on anyone else.
Let me take you out to lunch, I’d said. It’s your birthday, after all.
But she’d flatly refused, preferring to have me on her own turf.
I handed over the gift, flowers and card, and kissed her on the cheek.
Up close, I could smell her foundation as well as her perfume and see a tiny bruise at the corner of her eye that must have been caused by her latest Botox jab.
She was wearing a coral shift dress that showed off her yoga-toned arms, just the right side of skinny.
Her hair was its usual smooth, highlighted bob.
The slim gold hoops she’d had made from her old wedding ring hung from her earlobes.
There’d been an engagement ring too, once, but I couldn’t remember ever seeing it on her finger.
‘Gigi.’ She held my shoulders, keeping me at arm’s length once I’d kissed her. ‘Let me look at you.’
Any time anyone else tried to shorten my name, I set them straight sharpish.
‘You’re looking well, darling,’ she went on, which I knew was code for You’ve put on weight.
‘Thanks, Mum. You too.’
That wasn’t code for anything – it was true, but it was also expected.
‘Come in. We’ve got chicken salad and watermelon, and a lovely bottle of wine.’
‘Great!’ I forced a smile with as much difficulty as if I was on the phone to Cormac. ‘Thank you so much!’
She led the way into the flat. It had been two years since I last visited her here. For her last birthday, I’d insisted on taking her out for afternoon tea, an experience that had led to enough leftover cake to cater for a child’s party and me agreeing to lunch at hers this time round.
But the flat looked just the same now as it had then – just the same as it had when I’d arrived in 2020 after my six-week stint in Covid quarantine.
The walls were painted white. The fitted carpets were dove-grey, as were the sofas.
The kitchen units were white too, the worktops glittery quartz with sharply right-angled edges.
The only colour came from a serried rank of blue and green cushions teetering on their points on the sofa.
In fact, there seemed to be corners everywhere. Corners and edges, and the smell of cleaning products. Nothing soft; nothing homely.
It was like Mum’s resentment of having to live here – even though she had chosen and bought the place herself; even though the area was as desirable now as it had been then – had made her refuse to do anything that would make it feel welcoming.
She glided over to the fridge and took out a bottle of wine and two glasses, pouring a small one for herself and a larger one for me.
‘I know you like a drink, Gigi,’ she said. ‘Enjoy it – once you get to my age you’ll find it bloats you horrendously.’
She looked pointedly at my waist, and I involuntarily sucked my tummy in.
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Cheers. Happy birthday.’
We sat down and Mum opened the present I’d bought her – a silk scarf I’d found in the Selfridge’s sale, which I couldn’t have afforded if it hadn’t been reduced by fifty per cent.
‘Oh, that’s pretty,’ she said with a tight smile. ‘Now, you must tell me how you are, and then we’ll have something to eat.’
When I left home, I’d been hungry. I knew I’d be hungry again almost straight after I left.
But now, the thought of the chicken salad, every trace of skin removed, lemon juice spritzed homeopathically over the leaves and cucumber slices, and Mum’s loaded offer of some bread and butter if this wasn’t enough, removed every last trace of my appetite.
‘Really good,’ I told her. ‘Work’s busy. I’ve been going to the gym a couple of times a week.’
‘Mind you don’t bulk up,’ she warned.
Once, I’d made the mistake of telling her that women don’t bulk up from lifting the occasional heavy weight and even if we did, it would stand us in good stead when we got older. I wasn’t going to make it again.
‘I won’t,’ I said.
‘And how’s Sam?’
‘He’s well. He’s sorry he couldn’t make it, but he sends his love and birthday wishes.’
He’d signed the card, which she hadn’t yet opened – Many happy returns Marina, with love from Sam – and added a row of five kisses, such was his relief at not having to sit in this sterile room listening to Mum pick away at my self-confidence.
Even now, he was probably thanking his lucky stars that he was somewhere other than here.
But I didn’t want to think about where that somewhere might be. He’s swimming, remember? Just swimming.
Mum took a birdlike sip of her wine. ‘So, Gigi – and I know you don’t like me to ask this, but it’s my duty as your mother – has he… you know?’
I did know.
‘No wedding on the cards just yet,’ I said brightly. ‘I’m sure we’ll get around to it in a couple of years, though.’
‘You know what my mother used to say? “Why buy a cow when milk is free?”’ She gave a little laugh. ‘Thank goodness we don’t allow such horribly chauvinist attitudes any longer.’
Except you just did allow it – actually, you owned it, I thought crossly.
‘Just as well Sam doesn’t think I’m a cow,’ I said as calmly as I could, not allowing my voice to betray the disgust her words had made me feel.
How did you ever expect me to like myself when you don’t like me? I wondered, blinking rapidly to banish the tears that so often seemed to spring from nowhere when I was with her.
She laughed again. ‘Oh, sweetie, of course he doesn’t! But you must find yourself wondering sometimes, the more time passes, whether he’s actually that into you?’
If only you knew, I thought, how much time I’ve been spending recently thinking exactly that.
If I was a different kind of daughter, I might have been able to tell her my worries about Ava.
If our relationship was different, she’d have opened her arms, and I’d have gone in for a hug and had a cry on her shoulder.
If she was a different mother, she’d have given me advice that would have left me feeling a lot better, regardless of whether it was right or not.
But then, if all those things were different, Sam would have been here with us, sprawled comfortably on the sofa, and we wouldn’t have needed to have the conversation in the first place.
As it was, I felt as if Mum’s words had gently slid a sliver of ice into my heart.
It didn’t matter that I knew her marriage to my dad had destroyed whatever faith she might have ever had in men.
It didn’t matter I knew her own mother hadn’t loved her and that was why she couldn’t love me, even if she’d wanted to.
She still had the power to hurt me, and we both knew it.
‘Maybe we can talk about something else?’ I said. ‘Are you still going to that hot yoga place?’
Smiling obediently, she changed the subject, and a few minutes later we had our lunch. When at last it was time to leave, I kissed her cool chiselled cheek again and told her I loved her, even though it wasn’t true.
And she said, ‘Do have a little think about what I said about Sam, Gigi.’
As if I had any choice.