Fifty Is Not a Four-Letter Word (12 page)

I pretend not to have heard her and put three chocolate biscuits on a plate. I’ve been here under five minutes and my mother
has already as good as told me that I’m fat, unemployed, and my husband must find me unattractive. How am I going to get through
this?

I pick up the tray and return to the living area, placing the tray on the rough-hewn slab of granite that has been fashioned
into a coffee table. I pour the tea and take a biscuit. I make a decision to eat all three, even though I’d be quite satisfied
with one or maybe two.

“You shouldn’t let yourself go, Hope,” my mother continues.

“I’m not letting myself go, I’m having a biscuit.”

“What does Jack say?”

“Jack doesn’t say anything. It’s got nothing to do with Jack.”

“Men are vulnerable at his age.”

“We’re all vulnerable. But I wonder what exactly you mean by that. If you mean vulnerable to an affair, I don’t suppose nine
pounds is going to be the deciding factor. Ten or eleven, maybe,” I say, “but surely not a mere nine.”

“There’s no need to be sarcastic, Hope. I’ve always made the effort to look my best for your father. As should you for Jack.
To the best of my knowledge, Abe has never strayed.” I hate it when she emphasizes a point by using my name. It’s like being
scolded by a teacher.

“That’s because you’ve never had anything better to . . .” I hate this. It can only be downhill from here. “Stop it, Mummy,
please stop it,” I plead.

“Stop what?”

“Stop criticizing me. I’ve put on weight because I haven’t got a job and I’m fifty and I feel bad about it. It doesn’t mean
that Jack will have an affair. He’s really not that shallow.”

“You can’t stand me speaking my mind, can you, Hope? Was I really so bad a mother that my opinion counts for nothing?”

“Please let’s not do this. Not now.”

“But we need to be honest with each other, Hope. Don’t think I don’t know you’d like to clear the air before I die.”

“Clear the air?” The woman’s crazy. “Clear the air in an afternoon? How do you do that? How do you clear the air of fifty
years of stinking smog in a single encounter? Where do you want to begin?” She’s pressed the right button, she always does.

“You never saw it from my perspective, did you?”

“I was a child, for heaven’s sake. How was I supposed to see things from
your
perspective? Even now I don’t know what your perspective was or is. But I do know the truth, I’ve always known it. You just
didn’t love me, it’s that simple. You didn’t want me around. Sarah was more than enough. The only person you ever truly wanted
was Daddy, and I got in the way.”

My mother’s expression doesn’t change. I don’t mean for us to be doing this, not now, not ever. I can’t get this sorted before
she dies, I realize; it was a ludicrous idea. I can only make it worse.

“You have no idea how I felt,” she says.

As usual, once I start, I can’t stop. It was the same when I got fired.

“No, but I’ll tell you how
I
felt. Like I was some bad-taste ornament someone bought you as a Christmas present. Only you couldn’t put me to the back
of the cupboard, then dust me when the friend who bought it came to visit. And you certainly couldn’t take me down to the
charity shop. You were stuck with me. But unfortunately, I didn’t fit into your design scheme. I was clutter. All uneven edges
and uneven emotions. Neither organic nor minimalist. Just a messy blot on your personal landscape. And unlike Sarah, I didn’t
fade into the furniture, I didn’t put up with everything and let it all wash over me. I know the truth, Mummy, I don’t need
you to tell me it.”

I’m shaking, she’s not.

“You’re wrong,” she says quietly. Is that a hint of regret I detect in her voice? I doubt it. It’s probably the cancer eating
away at her lungs and maybe now her larynx, too. I feel cruel, but I don’t think I’m a cruel person.

“You just don’t understand.”

“What’s to understand?” I’m suddenly overwhelmingly weary.

“The war. Marrying so young. No career.”

“You never wanted a career.”

“It’s not that I never wanted a career. I never wanted to be in any situation that made me unavailable to your father. He
rescued me.”

“But you could have worked. Later. When we were at school.”

“As what, with no qualifications? In a shop? That’s exactly what I’d escaped from. And no one was going to pay me to be an
artist. As an actress, I was pretty hopeless.”

“Well, that’s an admission. You gave the impression you thought you were Grace Kelly. Are you telling me you were unhappy?”

“No, not unhappy. I had your father and Sarah and—”

I butted in before she could lie. “Don’t you dare lie to me, don’t you dare say you had me. What was the good of having me
when you didn’t want me?”

“If you could hold your tongue long enough to listen, I’ll attempt to tell you.” She’s breathless now, but her anger is helping
her through. “I’m trying to tell you that I was a little bit jealous of you. A lot jealous, actually,” she says, raising her
hand to her chest and wincing as she coughs.

Jealous? Of me? Impossible. This is some kind of ruse to get her off the hook. Maybe it’s my duty to help her get off the
hook, as none of this is going to make anything any better. And she looks as though she might be in pain.

“You’re not up to this,” I say. “Why don’t we watch
Richard & Judy
? This isn’t doing either of us any good.”

She waves her other hand at me, dismissing my remark. “Your father adored Sarah, but you and he always had something extra
special. You made him laugh. The two of you had such an easy rapport. You were quick with your tongue, like him. He always
said you’d do something with words when you grew up. But you were such a fierce and focused little girl, you used to frighten
me sometimes. I didn’t recognize you as belonging to me, I couldn’t find any of me in you—not in your looks, your manner,
or your approach to life. You were like a little stranger. But you charmed the pants off your father.”

I’m shivering despite the fire. What I want my mother to tell me is that it was all a ghastly mistake, that she did love me,
that I had misunderstood, that all my life I’d been laboring under a terrible misunderstanding. But she’s not saying any of
that. This is even worse than I feared.

“Why was it so hard? Why couldn’t you just love me for being your daughter? For being me? I don’t love Olly because he walks
or talks or acts in a particular way. I love him because he’s my flesh and blood, because Jack and I created him, because
how can you not love something to which you have given life, nourished in your belly for nine long months? A tiny human being
who depends utterly on you for survival. What was it that made me so unlovable, so unbearable to be around? It can’t just
be that my father liked me. Fathers tend to like their daughters, it’s not an aberration.”

“I don’t know, Hope, I really don’t know. I didn’t want to hurt you. That’s never been my intention. I’m sorry.”

I shut down. Suddenly and without warning. Like a crashed computer. “Would you like some more tea?”

“No more tea. Too tired.” Her chest is rising and falling rapidly. “I’m not used to . . . Would you mind if I dozed for a
while?”

“Of course not.” This means it’s over. Thank God.

My mother closes her eyes, and her breathing slows. I take a throw from the armchair and place it over her lap. While she
sleeps, I watch her. Going over my childhood. Wondering what made me unlovable. Thinking how different it might have been.
I watch her face, looking for clues or understanding, finding neither. I sit and watch her for two whole hours, until my father’s
key sounds in the lock and she stirs.

“Had a good time, you two?” he asks.

“Yes, darling,” my mother replies sleepily. “Good bridge game?”

“Yes, we won. I’m going to blow the tenner I made on an extra portion of spare ribs and some wonton soup with tonight’s takeaway.
So what have you two been up to?”

“Not much,” I reply. “Just chatting, and then Mummy had a little sleep. I’d better be going.” I pick up my handbag from the
floor and prepare to leave.

• • •

“Good choice,
mon amour,
” I say as we leave the cinema.

“But you really didn’t want to see it, did you?” says Jack.

“I never said that.”

“No, but I saw the look on your face.”

“It’s just that the French do seem to make more than their fair share of poncy, pseudo-philosophical, and pretentious movies.
But this one was great. Sexy and smart and stylish. I think I held my breath for the whole last half hour. Did you fancy her?”

“Who?”

“You know exactly who. Chantal what’s-her-name. She’s definitely over forty, but totally amazing.”

“Mmm, but not really my type.”

“And your type is . . . ?”

“Oh, you know me, I like them younger. Chantal what’s-her-name is too old for me by at least fifteen years.”

The restaurant is walking distance from the cinema, and we’re almost there.

I say, “I could never lead a double life like that. If you can tell from one look at my face that I don’t want to see a particular
movie, imagine how guilty I’d look if I were having an affair.”

“Would you like to?”

“Have an affair? Why, do you have someone in mind for me?”

“I’m working on it.”

“My procurer. I like the sound of that.”

Jack takes my hand. This feels nice. For the first time in ages.

We’ve arrived at Rib-Eye, and the aroma of steak sizzling on the wood-fired grill wafts over appetizingly as we remove our
coats. The contrast of the cold night and the warm restaurant makes my face tingle.

I decide quickly on an entrecôte, medium-rare, a salad, and no chips. When the waiter arrives, I order the fillet with chips
and creamed spinach, but I stick to medium-rare. Jack looks as though he’s about to say something, then changes his mind.

“My mother was asking if you’d commented on my weight,” I say when the waiter has departed with our order.

Jack shrugs. “Well, I haven’t, have I?”

“She says I’ve turned into a fat, ugly cow.”

“Is that a direct quote?”

“Not exactly, but that’s what she was implying. And she’s probably right. I am a fat cow, aren’t I?”

“No, you’re not a fat cow, but you are a bit of a silly cow. I will not deny that I’ve noticed you’ve put on a few pounds.
A few pounds don’t bother me. What bothers me is that they bother you.”

“Why are you always so incredibly reasonable?”

“Because if you’d married someone as unreasonable as you, you would have been divorced before the end of the honeymoon.”

“So how do you know they bother me?”

“I know because for twenty years your weight has never fluctuated more than a couple of pounds, and because your ability to
stay slim with the passing years has been only one of your many self-imposed disciplines to prove to yourself that you are
an okay person.”

“So now you’re not just a physiotherapist but a therapist- therapist.”

“I’m telling you the truth. And I’m with your mother on this one. Yes, I would like you to lose a few pounds, because it may
make you feel better about yourself. Personally, I don’t care. You don’t look that much different, and as for whether you
feel any different to the touch, I wouldn’t know. We don’t seem to go in for that kind of thing anymore.”

“Jack—”

“Shall we change the subject?” Jack never loses his composure before I do. Tonight is an exception. “I think we ought to talk
about what you want to do about work; you must be getting bored out of your mind at home all the time.”

“No, not work, Jack, let’s not talk about that.”

“Okay, what about you and Olly? We do need to talk about you and Olly.”

“No, not him, either, not tonight. I never stop thinking about Olly, and I need a break. You have no idea how I feel about
the idea of him going off for a year on his own and then to university. Olly leaving home is unimaginably awful.”

“So you think I’ve no idea. I’m mystified as to what makes you think that. What is it that makes you think you have the monopoly
on feelings? Do you perhaps think that I love my son less than you do? Is your love more special, more real, than mine? Is
that what you think?” Jack really angry is as rare as me really chilled.

“Of course I don’t, Jack. Please calm down. But maybe it doesn’t hurt you as much as it hurts me. Maybe it’s the difference
between being a man and being a woman.”

“So now you not only have the monopoly on feelings, you have the monopoly on pain. I can see you don’t want to talk about
Olly, what you want to talk about is
you
. You and your unique feminine feelings.”

“Fuck you, Jack. This is almost as bad as trying to talk to my mother.”

“I never thought the day would arrive when I would remind you of your mother.”

“You don’t remind me of her, you idiot, it’s just that I can’t seem to get through to anyone anymore. It’s all no-go zones
and ‘Danger: Do Not Enter’ areas. And then I walk through the wrong door, and the whole place fucking explodes. Can’t we be
kind to each other? Like we used to. When Olly goes, it will be you and me. Then what?”

Jack takes a sip of wine and picks up the menu, which he has already read and from which he has already ordered. I glance
at the couples at the other tables. Nobody appears to be listening in. The waiter is approaching with food. I focus on my
chips. I eat them all and then half of Jack’s portion as well. We order the bill. We’ve been in the restaurant only forty
minutes. I judge a successful dinner out by how much time passes without you noticing it. When you order your bill, then look
at your watch and say, “Two and a half hours. I can’t believe we’ve been here that long,” it means the enterprise has succeeded.
Jack and I used to do four-hour marathon meals when we first met. The waiters would be piling chairs upside down on top of
the other tables before we’d get the hint. Forty minutes is a pitiable performance. Jack moves to stand up. I put my hand
to my overstuffed belly and resolve to do something about it. Tomorrow. We walk back to the car, Jack’s hands deep in his
pockets, mine hugging myself against the cold.