Are You My Mother? (24 page)

The Indian ladies were long gone, and only one man had passed by since, a large Rasta whose dreadlocks hung in a long straight tube down his back, secured in three places so that they resembled some kind of plumbing arrangement. He half-walked half-skanked, into the butchers’, and came out clutching a softly-bulging package in a paper bag.

Bored of staring at number seven’s blank face, I studied the butchers’ shop instead. Four weeks before Christmas, and the interior was already festooned with paper chains and crappy plastic trees; snowflakes and deformed-looking snowmen stuck to the edges of the windows. Lurid baubles littered the sawdust, lying with the fake parsley where disembowelled loins and ribs and shiny dead organs jostled for space with one another. Across the middle of the plate glass was a foot high cardboard Father Christmas with a blood-stained striped apron tied over the top of his red uniform. “Ho, ho, ho, and a Merry Christmas from Winthrop the Butcher” said the cartoon Santa, a meat cleaver in one hand and a string of sausages in the other. I thought it would have been funny to have Donner and Blitzen lurking petrified in the background, but there were no reindeer in sight.

I tried to imagine myself growing up in this street; riding my bicycle along its uneven pavements, maybe playing Knock Down Ginger with other local kids – although I’d never played it at our house in Acton. It just seemed fitting, like the thought of me as a latchkey child, letting myself into the cold, dank little house opposite every day after school, making my own tea and watching television while Ann – my mother – was out at work as a cleaner, maybe, or a factory worker. Oh, the crassness of my preconceptions, I thought. Just because she lived in a run-down house? I never realised what a snob I secretly was; me, who always tried to be liberal, egalitarian. I felt ashamed of myself.

‘
Come on, Emma. We’ve been here for an hour and nothing’s happened. I really think you should knock on the door – she might not come out all day.’

I took out my mobile phone and rang the number again. Still no answer. ‘That’s because she’s not
in,
’ I said.
‘We’re waiting for her to come back, not go out.’

‘
She’s probably at work.’

‘
Yes.’

‘
So, knock on the neighbours’ doors. You don’t have to tell them why you’re looking for her. At least they should be able to tell you if she even does still live there. They might know where she works, and we could go there instead.’

He had a point.

‘
Come on, then.’ I climbed out of the car and jogged reluctantly across the road, feeling like Anneka Rice, my trusty cameraman by my side. ‘Let’s try this one,’ I said, opening the gate to number five.

I rang the doorbell and a small child with a dirty face opened the door, a thick plug of green creeping from her nostril inexorably towards her top lip, like lava flow. She wore a pair of Bob the Builder pyjama trousers on her head, the empty legs draped over her shoulders. As soon as she saw Mack and his video camera, her mouth dropped open in a gormless stare of bewildered suspicion.

I crouched down in front of her, although the snot was making me feel sick. ‘What’s your name?’ I asked. She was about four or five.

Still staring at the camera, she wiped her nose on her sleeve, dashing the slime across her cheek in a splatter effect. ‘My name is Mrs. Pringle,’ she said, haughtily. ‘Do you like my hair?’ She tossed her head, and the pyjama trouser-legs swung from side to side.

‘
Yes, it’s lovely and...long,’ I said. ‘Is your Mummy there, Mrs. Pringle?’

‘
Mu-um
!’ she suddenly screamed into my ear, so loudly that my eye twitched involuntarily.

A tired-looking blonde woman about my age suddenly appeared in the doorframe. Her roots were black and strong, as if responsible for the energy drain in the rest of her body. ‘Yeah?’ she said, unsmiling, staring at the camera as suspiciously as her daughter had. I felt the old, discomforting shyness flit across my skin like a shadow across the sun.

‘
Oh, um, hello. Please take no notice of the camera; my friend’s just filming me for a documentary he’s making. If it’s a problem just say and we’ll stop. I’m really sorry to bother you, but I’m actually trying to get in touch with the lady next door, Ann Paramor. Do you know if she’s out at work?’

The woman rubbed a finger across her front teeth as if checking that she didn’t have lipstick on them. Since she wasn’t even wearing lipstick, it seemed like an unnecessary precaution.

‘
This gonna be on telly then?’

‘
Possibly,’ said Mack, ostentatiously zooming in on her. The little girl tried to push her way past her mother’s legs to get in the frame, but her mother blocked the doorway and wouldn’t let her through. A discreet but unseemly tussle ensued.

‘
I wanna be on teeveeeee!’ came a muffled voice from behind the mother’s thighs.

The woman folded her arms across her chest, pursed her lips, and spoke directly to the camera, ignoring me. ‘Her next door works down the Post Office, on the counter.’

‘
She’s a weeeeirdo an’ she eats bats,’ added the little girl, forcing her head out in the gap between her mother’s skinny thigh and the doorframe.

‘
Shut up, Charlotte,’ said the mother, reaching back to slap Mrs. Pringle lightly on the pyjama-clad head. They both had severely adenoidal voices, and breathed noisily through their mouths when not talking.

‘
Is it far?’ I felt sick again, this time with nerves.

‘
Nah. Round the corner, second right, can’t miss it.’

‘
Thank you very much. Um – can you tell me, roughly, how old she is?’

The woman looked at me as if I’d asked if she knew how many sexual partners Ann Paramor had had.

‘
Late forties?’ she said, shrugging.

Shit. The right sort of age. And we knew where she worked.

‘
Right. Thanks. One more question – is there a Mr. Paramor?’

‘
Telly or no telly, if you’re from the police, I wanna see your badge,’ said the woman, moving to close the door in my face.

A blush branded my face, and I could feel sweat on my palms. It wouldn’t be nearly so awful if Mack and his bloody camera weren’t recording every painful exchange. I considered asking him to stop.

‘
No, no, I’m not from the police at all, it’s just…personal. She, um, used to know somebody that I know.’

‘
No, there ain’t no Mr. Paramor. She ain’t never been married, far as I know.’

Shit, shit. With every new piece of information, I realised with a sinking hear t exactly how much I didn’t want this to be the right Ann Paramor, and how much she really could be.

I thanked the woman and her daughter, and trailed back to the car, trembling. Mack bounded gleefully in beside me, still filming.

‘
Right; Post Office, here we come!’ he said, making ignition-key-turning motions with his free hand. ‘It’s perfect – you can check her out by buying a couple of stamps; she’s bound to have a name tag on.’

I made a decision.

‘
No,’ I said, folding my sheet of Paramors into a fan as wobbly as my lower lip. ‘I’m not going to the Post Office.’

‘
Why?’

‘
Because I’m a snob and a terrible person; but I don’t want it to be her because of where she lives,’ I said, and burst into tears.

Mack turned off the camera at once. He hugged me awkwardly, leaning across the handbrake. ‘You’re not a snob or a terrible person. I’m sorry, Emma. God knows I should have been more sensitive, after my own experiences. I just got carried away with finally getting somewhere.’

‘
I know. But I keep thinking about you and your birthmother. What if Ann’s like that?’

‘
Emma, I keep telling you: what if she
isn’t
? Of course it’s natural to be apprehensive, but you’ve got to be prepared for anything. She might be an alcoholic, or a criminal, or mentally ill – you just have no way of knowing until you find her. At least this Ann is responsible enough to hold down a job at the Post Office, so she can’t be a complete loser.’

‘
You’re right. Maybe if I draw a blank with all the others, I’ll come back here and try again another time,’ I sniffed, taking off my glasses and drying my eyes.

‘
Well, up to you, of course. Although I do think that it would be best to rule her out altogether, otherwise you’ll always be wondering.’

‘
I know. Just… not today, OK? I feel like such a failure, running away like this when we’re potentially so close, but I can’t face it.’

‘
Emma, you aren’t a failure. Don’t be daft. It’s a very traumatic thing you’re doing – take all the time you need. We’ll try the others first, and then take a view on coming back here later, OK?’

I nodded miserably. As I pulled away, I looked back at number seven in my rearview mirror , hoping against hope that I’d never have to see it again. A small canary-coloured fledgling was standing disconsolately in the road, gazing after my retreating car.

‘
Damn,’ said Mack. ‘I should’ve filmed all that.’

‘
Too late,’ I replied. Too late.

Chapter 21

I felt depressed after the abortive trip to Harlesden. Despite Mack’s reassurances that my concerns were completely natural, I couldn’t stop feeling ashamed of my negative feelings about the house and its putative occupant. Every time I tried to think positively, I saw the muscular weeds forcing their way up between the paving stones on Ann Paramor’s front path, and the scabrous moulting once-white pebbledash on the house’s exterior, grey and baggy like elderly underwear, and it made me feel sick. Perhaps it was a mistake. Perhaps it was better never to know. There would be no shame in giving up. I could stop the filming, and Stella would never find out.

I was missing Gavin even more than ever, too. I felt a teenager’s irrational compulsion to hear the ring of the phone in his flat; to know that something of my own volition, even as trivial a thing as a telephone’s ring, was once more impacting on his life.

Stella wasn’t helping, tripping around the flat in huge clunky wedges and a skintight dress, preparing for another Saturday night out. She was sitting at the kitchen table, peering into a compact, applying make-up with the painstaking application of Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel.

‘
Are you OK, Em?’ she said, plucking a rogue hair out of her eyebrow. ‘You’re biting your fingers.’

I looked down at my hands. I was literally tearing at the skin around my cuticles, shredding it with my teeth even as I was aware of the white pain which would follow later, after the blood had stopped flowing.

‘
No. I’m fed up. I want to see Gav.’

I wondered what Gavin was doing tonight. It would probably be one of four options: beer n’takeaway in front of the telly; night out with the lads; or unidentified dodgy dealings with unnamed contacts in out-of-the-way places, probably underneath railway arches or round the back of empty shopping precincts. Or there was a worse possibility: out with new girlfriend. I didn’t even want to
think
about that one.

It occurred to me that none of the first three options made him sound like a particularly good catch, and then found myself leaping to his defence. Ridiculous – defending him against my own charges…

‘
So do you?’

I hadn’t even noticed that Stella was talking to me. ‘Do I what?’

‘
Want to come to this party with me and Suzanne?’

Here we go again, I thought. Younger sister takes pity on sad, Bridget-Jonesesque spinster. I couldn’t think why she was asking me, after our last fiasco at the pub.

‘
I don’t think so, thanks. I fancy a night in watching TV.’

Stella cackled like Cruella de Vil. ‘What, another one? There’s nothing worth watching tonight.’

‘
Yes there is, actually. There’s a really interesting documentary on about the rise of Nazism.’

Stella laughed again, thinking I was being sarcastic. I was annoyed.

‘
I’m serious, Stella. I’m sick of watching these stupid vacuous reality TV things, or unfunny sitcoms. We should both watch more educational television. I mean, what do we ever talk about, except blokes, pop music, last night’s crap TV, or what shopping we need to get?’

Stella rolled her sparkly eyes at me. ‘Emma, I’m nineteen. I don’t care about politics or history. I just want to have a good time.’

‘
Well, I’m thirty, and I do care,’ I said, picking a vase of dead freesias off the window sill and dumping them in the kitchen bin. They’d been there so long that the water had evaporated and the petals turned crispy and fragile, empty like discarded snakeskin.

‘
I want to be someone who has
opinion
s. I want to be able to make informed decisions about things other than how many boob jobs Posh Spice has had.’

‘
OK then, you should definitely come to this party. It’s at Yehudi’s house, you know, my art tutor, so there’ll be lots of mature people there. Probably masses of single, intelligent men who you can talk about Nazism to until you’re blue in the face.’