Getting Over It (21 page)

Chapter 29

W
HAT IF MY OBITUARY
states to the nation that I had a knack of failing at almost everything I did? I start fretting about this on reading about Mr. Cane in the
Daily Express.
“The prosecutor said Mr. Cane, who had not been reported missing, was a shy introverted loner who appeared to have a knack at failing at almost everything he did… .” I sit on the train and I can’t get the sentence out of my head. A knack at failing at almost everything. What a terrible legacy. It churns me up because I feel that I’m heading the same way.

I now live with my mother and grandmother, both of whom prefer Robert Redford to me. I’m too feeble to live on my own. I’m still Deodorant Monitor at work. And Tom hates me. I haven’t got a capsule wardrobe. We’ve destroyed the ozone layer. I’ve got an itchy spot on my stomach which may be a flea bite. A forest fire somewhere hot has just decimated millions of trees. Which negates the fact that I recycled all my newspapers last week. A meteorite is probably going to smash into Earth. And I can’t stand what I’m wearing. Someone is poisoning dolphins. I have a fear of estate agents, so am doomed to live with my mother forever. My hair is as flat as if I’d pasted it to my head. And no one even noticed that Mr. Cane was missing. By the time I get into work, I’m feeling a bit low.

So it doesn’t help that when I return from the toilet, Laetitia screams across the office in a voice as loud as a Concorde taking flight, “Helen, private call for you—it’s your Community Psychiatric Nurse!” I freeze and stare, as does the entire office. Laetitia trills sweetly, “Shall I transfer him to you now?”

I stare at her in dismay and say, “If you must.” She smirks. I decide to intercept her invitation to the Hasbeen Debutantes Christmas Ball and amend the dress code from “Black Tie” to “Beekeepers.”

I snatch up the phone. “Yes?” I hiss, cupping the mouthpiece.

“Helen Bradshaw?” says a warm voice. “Sorry to hassle you at work. Cliff Meacham—your mother’s CPN. Hope she warned you I was going to call!”

I swallow. I am bubbling with rage at his indiscretion when he adds, “Your colleague wouldn’t pass me on unless I identified myself. But we can schedule the call for another time if you prefer.”

I forgive him and make a mental note that Laetitia’s invitation will also read “Please Bring Own Hive.” I sigh and say, “Could you call back at lunchtime?” Infuriatingly, he can. And he does.

Thankfully, Laetitia is lunching “a contact” at the Ivy, and so the office is deserted. I expect Cliff to leapfrog the pleasantries and land on the point, but he seems determined to chat.

“So you’re a journalist!” he begins. “How exciting! Do you interview lots of famous people?”

“Masses,” I reply, trying not to laugh outright.

Cliff is so enthralled by his glamorous vision of my profession that I invent three celebrity exclusives so as not to disappoint him.

His interest is beguiling, and I am explaining why Demi saw fit to confide in me about her marriage difficulties before she told, ah, Bruce, when I realize I’m a mile out of my depth and should bail out now.

“Anyway, enough about her. She’s a very private person. What can I do for you?” I say politely. Cliff drags himself back to mundane reality and tells me it’s important for him to understand my mother, her relationship with my father, and how she’s changed since my father died.

“But I thought you asked her all that,” I say. He tells me it’s useful for him to hear my impression of events as well as hers. I say, in the understatement of the year, “She’s been a bit up and down.” He doesn’t say anything, so I add, “I’ve tried to look after her, but she misses my dad.” I stop. Nothing.

Then Cliff says casually, “And how do you look after her?” I tell him about the cooking and the gallery trips and the reiki and the supper party and the listening and the forcing Vivienne to invite her to dinner. Cliff says, “Wow.”

I’m puffed from talking, but Cliff doesn’t notice. He asks about ninety more mother questions. He wants to know who I think is the strong one in our relationship. He wants to know whose needs I think take priority. He wants to know everything I’d prefer not to tell him.

Then he asks, “And what happens when you need looking after?”

I’m stumped. “I don’t follow,” I say.

“Well, when you need mothering, what happens then?” A question which would have been more appropriate when I was four.

I say brusquely, “It’s not really like that.”

I hear Cliff take a deep drag on his homemade cigarette. “I see,” he says in an indefinable tone.

He coughs, excuses himself, then says that as from tomorrow, my mother has a weekly appointment at the clinic, and ideally, he’d like me to attend at least one session with her!

“I’d love to,” I lie, “but I’m afraid I can’t.”

Cliff pauses. “Work,” I explain. He suggests that maybe I could think about it. “Yeah, sure,” I say briskly. “Anything else you need?” I say this as a shooing ploy but he ignores it. He explains that it’s helpful if he understands the family “as a whole.”

I’m nodding and saying “Mm,” and wondering what Cliff does for fun, when he asks me how my life has changed since my father died. Spaghetti in my head. I think of my post-orgasm outburst and my insides float with panic. I itch to slam down the phone and bolt. After a full minute, Cliff says, “I sense you’re having difficulty in talking about how you feel.” He must have
The Ladybird Book of Psychiatry
open on his lap at page seven.

I reply tartly, “I’m not feeling anything.” It’s nearly true. Cliff is disbelievingly silent. I blurt, “I’ve been too busy at work and looking after my mother.” Cliff remains silent. It’s like talking to a stone. Hey, maybe he is actually a cliff. “She’s been very upset since, you know,” I say.

“What?” he says.

“My father’s death!” I snap. What did he think I was talking about?! Her team’s relegation?

“She cut her wrists!” I exclaim. Cliff seems to expect elaboration so I tell him what happened, even though I’m sure my mother has told him at rambling length. I make it plain to Cliff that the wrist-cutting night was the only Monday night I’d missed and of course, after that, I’d never ever miss one again. I don’t want to be accused of parental neglect a second time.

But when I’ve finished, Cliff says, “You’ve been devoting a lot of your time to your mother.”

I nod and realize he can’t see me nodding. “Well, she needs me now,” I say. Cliff goes silent again. Jesus, I’d hate to be his girlfriend. I joke, “I turn my back for one minute, and bam! She’s whittling at her wrists!” It’s not one of my best jokes and Cliff doesn’t laugh. He says it sounds to him as if my mother was trying to force me to look after her. “But I was!” I squeak. I bloody knew we’d get round to this.

Then he says it sounds as if she was trying to punish me for not being there. “Well, you got that right,” I say sourly.

“But, Helen,” he says, “what about
your
life?”

I am speedily tiring of our conversation. It’s like an extremely dull quiz show without the cash prize incentive. “What about it?” I say sharply.

“You can’t be living it totally for your mother,” he replies.

“No, but—” I start and then stop. “I’m not. She needs me. Anyway, I’ve got nothing better to do. She’s got no one else,” I say crossly.

“She’s got herself,” he replies.

I am about to remark on the fatuity of this comment when Cliff adds that it isn’t healthy or normal for a mother to be so dependant on her child—
child!
I’m older than he is, the little schnip! Cliff says the higher I jump every time she pulls a strop, the worse it will get. “It’s just not helpful,” he concludes.

Oh, so it’s my fault. “No, it is not your fault,” says Cliff quietly. “You are not responsible for your mother’s behavior. Only your own. The most helpful thing you can do for yourself and your mother—in that order—is to let her learn to manage her own grief.” Easy for him to say, sitting in his clinic, smoking his stinky cigarettes, never having experienced the wrath of Cecelia Bradshaw Upon Not Getting Her Own Way.

“And so I just ignore her, do I, until she leaps from a window?” I say sarcastically. Cliff—who is turning out to be as charming as halitosis—admits that resisting my mother’s demands is a gamble. But he also says if I’m always available to bail her out, neither of us will “move on.” I’m not sure I like the all-inclusive nature of that last statement. “What do you mean by that?” I say haughtily.

Cliff coughs and says, “If you can’t deal with pain, the easiest thing to do is to put it back in its box. If a person spends all their time worrying about someone else’s pain, they distract themselves from their own.”

I feel uneasy so I say stiffly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Cliff hesitates, then changes the subject.

“Okey-doke,” he says. Bet he doesn’t say that in front of his right-on friends. “Helen, tell me a little about your relationship with your father,” he says in a melty-honey tone.

I say sourly, “What’s to tell.”

Cliff waits. Does that classify the situation as a cliffhanger? “Well, for instance, what did you like to do together?” he prompts.

“Not much,” I say.
Analyze that up your bum.
My shoulders are so hunched they’re level with my ears. I look at the clock. Christ, I’ve been on the phone to this man for thirty minutes! Hasn’t he got a life to lead? I pick at a mystery green crust under my left thumbnail and say, “Look, I’ve got to go. I need to get a sandwich. Anyway, I thought this call was about my mother.”

Cliff pauses. I can hear him flicking his lighter. I suspect he’s about to say something pompous. I’m not disappointed. “Helen,” he says. “When someone dies, a door opens into a room where there’s grief. There may be more rooms. If you have the courage, you can look further. Some people shut the door again.”

He then starts wittering about “closing” and asks if there is anything else I want to say, but there’s nothing.

I stare into space for ten minutes then start calling estate agents.

Chapter 30

I
ROUNDED UP ALL MY
favorite memories this morning. They have one thing in common—food. Being taken to a grown-up party and asking the hostess for fruit salad, “but only the cherries,” and getting them. Michelle’s grandma buying us comics and a Curly Wurly each. A peach in Spain as big as a ball, my skin smelling like toffee in the sun. Delicious.

But my best edible memories revolve around Christmas. Helping my mother make a currant-filled cake for her class and scraping out the bowl. Baking gingerbread men at school with cut-out shapes. Stuffing myself with a box of Godiva until I felt sick. Asking for six roast potatoes and leaving three and my father being too merry to boom, “Your eyes are bigger than your stomach!”

My father was fun at Christmas. He’d creep into my bedroom late on Christmas Eve and plop a Terrys plain chocolate orange into my stocking. (I prefer milk chocolate, but he wasn’t to know.) We’d drive to the garden center and choose a tree and I’d breathe in the smell of fresh pine and he’d say, “Highway robbery!” or “Peculiar shape!” And he’d buy himself a cigar and me a pack of sugar cigarettes and we’d smoke them in the car on the way home. Naturally, this tradition came to an end when I turned seven, but I think of it today and I want to drag him out of his grave.

I am dreading Christmas without him and so is my mother.

Understandably, Vivienne’s benevolence does not stretch to inviting Cecelia round for Christmas dinner. Especially now she comes with the unseasonal condition of Nana Flo (who is to parties what myxomatosis is to rabbits). I know my mother perceives this as a slight because at breakfast she declares, “I’m not doing Christmas this year, I’m staying in bed. So don’t expect any presents!”

I pause from feeding Fatboy his Turkey & Giblets Pâté and exclaim, “But, Mummy, we can’t not do Christmas! Even Michelle does Christmas!”

My mother snaps, “Michelle’s father is still alive!”

I am about to say, “Look, I know it’s hard for you,” when I think of Cliff flicking his lighter. I say calmly, “I’m still alive. Nana’s still alive. Just. What about the cake we made together?”

My mother slams down her teacup. “I don’t care about the stupid cake!” she whines. “It’s not the same without a man in the house!” Indeed it isn’t. There are no willies lurking under trousers.

“Oh, Mum,” I say sadly, “I know it isn’t. But why can’t we have a quiet Christmas, just the three of us?” She sticks out her lower lip. She must have learned it from one of her kids. It’s so comical—a four-year-old’s expression on a fifty-five-year-old face—I have to bite my tongue to stop myself laughing.

“I can’t be bothered,” she says defiantly.

“Mum,” I say, “is this because you’re going to the clinic today?”

My mother snorts and says, “No. It’s because I want nothing to do with Christmas and I refuse to go Christmas shopping. I shun it!” Fine.

“All right, Scrooge,” I say sternly, “then Nana and I will have to celebrate it ourselves. Won’t we, Nana?” Nana Flo, who has just shuffled in carrying her hot water bottle, shrugs and mutters, “Nothing to celebrate.”

I feel foolish for thinking that Nana would help me out. She doesn’t go a bundle on helping people. Not even herself. I remember last Christmas when, in a burst of benevolence, I bought us tickets to see
Les Miserables
(I wasn’t sure what it was about but it sounded perfect. And I felt guilty for not visiting her in six months). As I was working that day, I suggested that we meet in the foyer. She rang me at 5:45
P.M.
and announced she couldn’t make it, as “if you haven’t the time to come and fetch me, what’s the point?” This from a woman who’s been traveling on buses ever since they were invented!

I look at Nana Flo in her ugly black shoes and beige tights and drab frock and the opal brooch at her neck holding it all together, and I wonder if she has ever been happy. And I’m not just saying that. Really, I wonder. “Nana,” I say, “when do you think you were, ah, when do you think you were happiest?”

Nana Flo’s pinched face seems more colorless than usual. “On my wedding day,” she says.

“Of course,” I mumble. “Well, I’m going to work now, see you both later.” I scurry out of the door, berating myself for my jabbering stupidity. Nana Flo married Grandpa Gerald on her eighteenth birthday, a fortnight before Hitler invaded Poland. A week after war was declared, Grandpa Gerald was conscripted. Two months after that, Grandpa Gerald was blown to smithereens by a shell during training.

I think Nana Flo put her grief back in its box.

I am still brooding about my grandmother being robbed of her sweetheart before he had the chance to be very brave and fight the enemy like a lion, when Michelle calls to inform me that she and Marcus are engaged. Her exact words: “I guess you were his final fling!”

And I guess I’m thinking about the shreds of my grandfather strewn across Salisbury Plain because—when I regain the power of speech—instead of saying, “Would you like me to recommend a quack specializing in penile augmentation?” I say I’m pleased and I hope they’ll be happy. My voice sounds high and thin but not, I hope, hysterical. Michelle—who has obviously psyched herself up for a flouncy row—sounds taken aback. She says, “Oh!”

Then she adds, in a deflated tone, “Oh sure! Thanks. And I, uh, I hope you’ll be happy with that guy, even if he is a complete jerk. He ruined my fiancé’s shirt. It was an Armani!”

I say before I can stop myself, “Michelle, I know that shirt and it was a present from Marcus’s mother, who bought it from BHS. And Tom is not a jerk, and anyway, I’m not with him.”

Ker-ching! Michelle’s ears prick up like an Dingo’s. “Oh?” she says. “Why so?”

Me and my yapping mouth. I say shortly, “It didn’t work out.” The carcass of my ill-fated romance is not going to be picked over by the spindly fingers of Ivana the Terrible.

“No way! Why?” she demands.

“Michelle!” I squawk. “I’m not discussing it.”

She huffs down the phone, “Okay, chill!” There is a pause before she asks in a whisper, “Did he beat you?”

I shout, “Beat me! Are you mad? He’s a vet!”

Michelle is put out. “What happened then?” she wheedles. The tenacity of the woman! She’s like a bloodhound sniffing at a crotch. “I said,” I say in a hard voice, “I don’t want to discuss it.”

Michelle snaps, “There’s obviously something you’re not telling me!”

I grimace and say slyly, “So has Marcus given you an engagement ring?”

She replies joyfully, “I’m taking him, I mean, he’s taking me to Tiffany’s this afternoon.”

I smile as I imagine a house falling on Marcus’s wallet.

“Ooh,” I say, “lucky you.” The scenario reminds me of father’s favorite joke: the one where Mrs. Goldblatt gets on a plane and the man sitting next to her admires her enormous diamond ring. Yes, it is beautiful, says Mrs. Goldblatt, but sadly this beautiful diamond ring comes with a curse. Mr. Goldblatt. Personally, I never thought it was funny, but now it seems apt. I know Michelle will take this question the wrong way, but I still ask, “Michelle, are you in love with Marcus?”

Silence. Then a tinkle of merry laughter and the gloating words, “You’re jealous!”

I say evenly, “Not really,” but Michelle insists and I’m too indifferent to argue so I let it be.

“You could always go back to Jason,” she says gloatingly.

“Jasper!” I gasp—my goat finally gotten—“Michelle, I am not going back in that muddy puddle. Give me credit! Anyway, I’m fine by myself.” Michelle brands me a liar and adds that the wedding will be a “select affair,” so if I don’t receive an invitation I shouldn’t be offended. “Michelle,” I say—before cutting this cancer off and out of my life forever—“let’s end it there.” I complete the purge with a double espresso.

None of the four estate agents I called have got back to me. This isn’t a huge surprise. When I rang JI & Sons in Kentish Town, the yob at the end of the line said, “So what you looking up to?” I told him and he said, “Have you tried our Surrey Quays office?” The response from Wideboy Estates was: “The cheapest we’ve got at the moment is £200,000,” and Gitfinger Properties enquired, “Is that per week for letting? Oh! To buy!” By far the most courteous was Snatchit & Co., who declared, “Let me put you through to my colleague who deals with flats—I only deal with properties over three hundred thou,” then put me on hold until the line went dead.

So when Lizzy—who was on a shoot all day yesterday and is “bursting” to hear my “news”—suggests I join her for lunch, I grab the excuse to postpone flat hunting. Only after accepting the invitation do I realize I don’t feel like talking.

“Tell me everything!” demands Lizzy. “No skipping!”

I pick at my lip. “You’re going to be disappointed,” I say.

Her face drops. “Why?” she cries, brimming with genuine concern.

I wrinkle my nose and say, “Tom and I had an argument and I shouted at him. Really shouted.” I cringe, remembering my frenzied rage.

Lizzy blurts, “Oh, no! Why? What about?”

I tell her. Or rather, I tell her the bits I want her to know. I don’t tell her about the woe-splattered gunk that spewed from me like blood from a slashed artery. I’d prefer not to believe in it until it fades away. So I gut and dissect the truth and present Lizzy with the leftovers. Lizzy is torn. Partly because she can’t bear to speak ill of anyone. But also because I give Tom a lousy write-up.

Eventually, she says sorrowfully, “What a terrible shame. He seemed so nice. Maybe he didn’t mean to interfere. Although I must say, it’s not nice to criticize someone else’s parent. Especially as your father was such a nice man.” My conscience—which spends most of its life asleep—pokes me at this point and I mutter, “It wasn’t all Tom’s fault. I did moan about Dad. Not very loyal of me, was it?”

Lizzy brushes away my gloom with an airy, “Don’t be so hard on yourself! Everyone complains about their parents occasionally—I know I do all the time!” (Lizzy only ever speaks of her mother and father in glorious, glowing hyperbole.)

I sigh. “You’re right,” I say. “You don’t tell people what to do. It’s intrusive.”

Lizzy—scrabbling desperately for a happy ending—says, “Are you sure he wasn’t just interested?”

I recall Tom’s snub over the flat and I’m too mortified to confide in my close friend. “Positive!” I growl.

Lizzy is silent. “Are you sure you can’t patch it up?” she says.

I reply, “This wasn’t a silly little tiff, Lizzy, it was a serious disagreement.”

She says dejectedly, “Maybe it’s best to leave it for a while, then.”

I nod, keen to switch the subject before Lizzy assails me with further questions. But every topic I consider is barred by a large “Don’t Go There” sign. I’m loathe to discuss living in Muswell Hill, because it may lead to smithereen grandfathers or psychiatric nurses. I’m reluctant to ask about Brian because we may edge back to Tom again. I’d prefer not to mention Michelle because my skin crawls when I think of Marcus and the phantom father syndrome. My head is one huge roadblock. I blurt, “Liz, do you think I smother my mother?”

Instead of answering, Lizzy clutches my arm—I assume to show me my question is on hold—and cries, “Tina! Tina!” I follow her gaze and see Tina ducking into a shoe shop. “Let’s ask her to have lunch with us!” exclaims Lizzy, skipping after her. If only Never Never Land was real, I think. Sugarspun Lizzy would fit in so well.

“I’ll wait outside,” I say. Seconds later Lizzy emerges with Tina in an armlock.

“Jesus! What happened to your nose?” I gasp. Lizzy answers for Tina: “She was getting a tin of baked beans off the top shelf and it fell on her. Poor thing!”

I say, “Does it hurt?”

Tina shakes her head. I sense that she isn’t overjoyed to be having lunch with us. Lizzy also feels uncomfortable, because she tries to lighten the mood by joking, “Well, it just proves that tinned food is bad for you!”

No one laughs. And from this low point, the mood goes into freefall. Tina appears to have taken a vow of silence, and I am nervous to ask Lizzy about her weekend in case she boomerangs it back to mine. So—foolishly—I whip a shred of beetroot from Lizzy’s plate, stick it across the bridge of my nose, and say, “Who’s this!” Lizzy is quiet. Tina looks at me. I stare back and I’m shocked at the revolt in her eyes. I remove the beetroot from my nose and mutter, “Bad joke, sorry.”

Tina says coldly, “You always say that but you never change, do you? You’re like a fucking broken record.”

My mouth drops open. “Shit!” I squeak. “I didn’t mean anything by it, okay? What is it with you? You’re so aggressive. I can’t say anything anymore without you leaping down my throat.”

Tina’s expression is molten rage but I rant on: “Ever since darling Adrian came on the scene—Adrian! Adrian!—we’re not good enough for you now!”

Tina bangs her fist down on the metal table making Lizzy and the plates jump. “You, girl, are out of line!” she snarls. “Vicious! What is it this time? Tom? Jasper? Marcus? Oh, sorry, I lose track.”

I feel hot with anger and I spit, “No, actually, it’s not about a man. It’s my father.” For once I am telling the absolute truth.

I expect it to silence her, but she snarls, “And the rest!” Then she jumps up and hisses, “Don’t use your dad as an emotional crowbar on me, Helen. You never liked him! You’ve strung it out long enough! Have some respect—let the bloke rest in peace!”

This is without doubt the nastiest thing anyone has ever said to me in my life. Michelle, in her wildest dreams, hasn’t come close. Marcus calling me a slut—chickenfeed! The fury is so fierce I want to hit Tina in the face. Luckily for her, she flees the cafe before I’ve organized my fist. I’m so aghast I can’t look at Lizzy. I sit trembling. I crush my napkin into a tight ball, and wonder how it came to this. I suck in huge gulps of air but find it impossible to catch my breath. Eventually, I feel a soft touch on my back and Lizzy says gently, “Are you okay?” I nod and shake off her hand.

She whispers, “Tina didn’t mean it.”

This rouses me from petrification and I snap, “She did, though. And she needn’t think I’m running after her this time because I bloody am not. That’s it with her and me.” The unwelcome thought occurs to me that I’m shedding friends and acquaintances at a rate of four a week—and there’s Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday still to go.