The Day We Met (18 page)

This is a button from my mother's favorite dress when I was a very little girl—almost five years old, to be precise, which is when she lost this button. I remember the date because it is her birthday, and that year we spent it alone, just the two of us.

That was the day it got caught on something and pinged off, never to be seen again—or so my mother thought. But I saw where it landed, and I secretly picked it up when she wasn't looking, and hoarded it away like it was treasure. Mum thought the button had just done that thing that things sometimes do when they just vanish into the fabric of the universe, and there is no chance of retrieving them—but that wasn't the case. I saw where it went, and I quickly picked it up and held it secretly in my fist. It was mine.

See how it is coral-colored and sort of carved, with a pattern, which I used to think was a face, but now I think it is just
a pattern. I loved those buttons; I loved the dress they came off, blue as a cold sky. I think the glow of those buttons against the cool of the blue might be the first thing I remember about my mum. That and her toes.

Before Dad died, Mum did not wear shoes—never in the summer or inside the house, and quite a lot of the time not outside of it, either. I became very familiar with her feet, the shape of them, the particular bend on her right foot that was not mirrored on the left, the blond hairs on her toes and the blush of rough skin on the soles of her feet. We spent a lot of time together, when I was very little, me and Mum. Dad went to work, but Mum and I were always together. Mum wrote plays, back then, before Dad died and she had to get a job that would pay us money. Now I know that, but I didn't know it then. I remember her sitting at the kitchen table, her feet bare, her golden hair flowing over her shoulders, writing out a script by hand, and sometimes she read lines out to me and asked me what I thought, and sometimes I'd have an opinion. Mum had two plays put on in fringe theater in London; she still has the programs in a box. When she wasn't writing, we would play, and those were the times I lived for, because Mum was an expert at playing.

On the morning of her birthday, she'd filled the house with music and we'd danced, all over the house, up and down the stairs, in and out of the bathroom; we turned on the taps and the shower, opened all the windows and danced in the garden, round and round, hollering and singing. Mum was wearing her blue dress, and whatever she did I followed her, never taking my eyes off her, not for a second. She was like the flame and I was the moth, constantly fluttering around her, desperate to always be bathed in her warmth. I don't know where Dad was. I suppose he was away working, or something, but it didn't matter because afterwards, after we had danced, she cut me a huge slice
of birthday cake and I sang to her. Then we fell asleep, lying on the living room carpet in a patch of sunlight, my head on Mum's tummy while she told me tales that came out of her head. It was when she got up that the button came off; it was then that I claimed it as my own. My piece of her to keep.

After Dad died, five years later, Mum changed, and I suppose that is not very surprising to anyone. Except it was to me. I grieved for him, but also for Mum and me. I missed that mother, the one who walked barefoot to the park, and made up stories in the long grass that, in my imagination, always grew right over our heads. There can't have been anything like life insurance, or an inheritance, to help financially. There was a widow's pension, left over from the army, but it wasn't enough, I don't think, and so Mum had to put on shoes and get a job, which meant tying up and eventually cutting short her mane of yellow hair. There was no time for stories, or dancing, anymore, and although Mum still wore the dress with the buttons sometimes, because we were too poor for her to get anything new, she didn't glow anymore. She stopped being special. After school, I went back to this other girl's house, and I hated her. I hated her stupid pink cheeks, and her mother who made me drink squash.

I missed my dad, although I don't think I really knew him, but I missed my mum more. My mum, who was tired, sad, and lonely, and couldn't seem to get better, not even for me. Which was why I held on to the button. It was a sort of talisman: I had an idea that if I kept it, then things might go back to the way they were once. That never happens, of course. Things never go back to the way they were once. I think I've been cross with my mum for a long time—not for being an imperfect mother, but for being a perfect one, for those happy years that I lived through and that then were suddenly gone.

I'm not a perfect mother: I am the opposite. I had Caitlin
because I wanted her. I never thought about what life with a single mum would be like for her, without a father to protect her, even from a distance. I never thought about the day that is coming soon, the day when she has to explain who she is to a man she has never met. I took Esther out in the dark, to a place full of danger, when I knew that I didn't know the way home. I can't read her stories from her favorite books anymore, and soon, too soon, I may even forget who she is. I want Esther to have this button, and the shoes in the cupboard that are covered in crystals—the ones I wore with the very hot-colored dress on the very happy day. I want her to have those shoes, and I hope she will think of me and remember that I tried hard to be a perfect mother for her, and that I'm sorry I failed.

Whenever I think about what I am doing in a hotel room in Manchester, I freak out. So I write myself a list on the hotel notepaper. It makes me feel like I should be in a film: writing myself notes on hotel notepaper…it feels awfully dramatic. It feels like some kind of dream. I've never checked into a hotel room by myself before, and this is a nice hotel. Malmaison, right in the heart of the city. Greg booked it for me with his credit card. He said he wanted me to be safe and comfortable. Well, I am safe, but I wouldn't say I am comfortable. When I don't think about the reason I am here, I feel excited and grown up. And then I freak out again.

Before I got chucked off my course, I had a creative writing lecturer whose catchphrase was: push yourself out of your comfort zone and see what you are really capable of. For the first
time, I feel like I am doing that. I feel like I am completely out of my comfort zone, and it is sort of exhilarating as well as awful.

My list is sort of like a to-do list, and sort of like an aide-mémoire, because it's not like I can change my mind about anything on it, even if I want to, not now. It's a short list. It reads:

I am going to have a baby.

I am going to meet my father.

And he doesn't even know it yet.

I tucked the list into my pocket and came here, and now I'm holding it, the tiny little square of folded hotel paper, in the palm of my hand, imagining that I can feel the words with the tips of my fingers. The words are all that is stopping me from running away.

I wait outside the lecture theater, catching my breath, and just try to focus on this one thing: on going in there and seeing him. I try to forget everything else—Mum, her illness, the baby, everything—and just be here now, doing this. It's hard; I'm scared. It doesn't feel real, me here, about to go in there, walking toward the moment when I will be in the same room as my father. I can't picture it, even though it is now only seconds away.

I join the back of a group of girls, and slip into the lecture hall along with them. No one gives me a second glance. I still look like a student in my black, low-rise jeans and long black shirt. I brushed my hair into a storm before I came, and put on as much eyeliner as I could, cramming layer after layer of black around my eyes. The only color I'm wearing is the red lipstick that I put on for Mum: when I'm wearing it, I feel a little like she is with me.

My initial instinct is to sit at the back of the lecture hall,
but it is solidly occupied, and by people who will know I am an unfamiliar face. So I go to the front row, which is empty, and all at once I can see him. My father. He is right there.

There is a dizzying moment, and I am tempted to laugh out loud, laugh and point, and maybe scream a bit. Fortunately, I don't do any of those things. Instead I sink lower into my seat, pulling up the collar of my shirt. It helps a bit if I think of myself as an undercover private investigator.

He's unpacking his briefcase, staring up at the screen and swearing under his breath at his Mac. He's obviously not got to grips with PowerPoint. I could help him with that; I am really good at presentations. He looks older than I thought he would. For some reason, I pictured him as still being the young man in the photo Mum gave me the day I decided to come here, thick black hair, tall, and ungainly in a sort of graceful way. But he is not as tall as I imagined, and there is an almost-bald patch on the back of his head that reflects the spotlights. He dresses quite well, though, for an older man, wearing what look like Diesel jeans, and a nice shirt…well, it would be nice if he didn't tuck it in and do it up all the way to the top.

Watching him arrange his notes, I see him glance up at the room, which is simmering with noise, perhaps trying to get a sense of what his audience is like today. The room can't quite be full enough yet, though, because he picks up his phone and checks it, maybe for a text from his wife, and then…I freeze.

He catches my eye and smiles at me. Instinctively I smile back in recognition, because I've seen that smile a hundred times before, in my bedroom mirror, or in photos my friends have taken of me that I used to stick to the wall above my bed. He looks like me! I expect him to gasp with the same sensation of recognition, and realize at once exactly who I am, this person who has been missing for so long. But he doesn't.

“Don't normally get punters in the front row.” He actually speaks to me.

He's well-spoken, his voice is deep, rich. Yes, I think, it's rich. He's confident, sure of himself. He is speaking to me.

“I'm not a student here,” I say, with ridiculous honesty, because I don't want the first thing I say to him to be a lie. “I just heard about the lecture, and how good it is, and I wanted to attend.”

He looks pleased, really pleased—stupidly pleased, actually, like a man who doesn't get enough reassurance. I notice the thick gold wedding band on his left hand. I knew he was married, but I wonder what his wife is like, and whether she will like me. I wonder about my half sisters, and whether they look like me too. It's funny, I never think of Esther as my half anything: she was always wholly my sister from the moment she arrived. But these strange creatures that I don't know and can't even picture…I can't imagine them even being halves. Add us all up together and we might manage a quarter, perhaps.

“Well,” he says, actually winking at me. “I hope you enjoy it.”

I spend the next few seconds adjusting to the idea that my father is a man that winks at total strangers.

Of course, I don't listen to anything he is saying. I just watch him, and readjust my thoughts every few seconds into remembering what I am doing, and why. What I am doing is looking at the man who donated the sperm that created me. And even if one moment is all that it took, he is still half of me—of the way I look, the way I talk, the way I am. Maybe he is even half of the reason why, when everything went a little bit wrong for me, I went off down a dark and dangerous path determined to make it worse—a path I might still be on if it weren't for Mum and Gran charging to the rescue.

So he's talking and I'm just staring at him, and he glances at me from time to time, with a sort of frown, like maybe he's seen me around somewhere, or we have met before. And as the lecture is coming to an end, I know he is going to talk to me again, and ask me what I thought of it, or maybe even ask me where he's seen me before. And suddenly, I have the feeling that he knows, he knows who I am, and I panic. I get up, even though he is still talking, and I make my way along the row and then toward the exit, keeping my head down.

“Tough crowd,” I hear him say, just as I go through the door. The students laugh, and I realize I didn't do a very good job of keeping a low profile.

Freezing cold air immediately bites at my cheeks, and I shudder. I don't know what to do next. I feel like if I just go back to the hotel, then it's over, and really nothing will have changed, so I follow the signs to the student union building, hoping to find a warm place to think. I flash my out-of-date card at a bored-looking guy on security, and he lets me in with barely a glance, not even at my red lipstick.

It's the middle of the afternoon, and the bar is mostly empty, except for a few students playing pool and watching some sort of American sport on TV. There's one guy behind the bar, leaning on it, his eyes fixed on the TV too.

“Do you do coffee?” I ask him, making him start. He looks at me, and then looks at me again, which makes me feel uncomfortable. I touch my hand to my face, wondering if I've got Biro on my cheek again, or rubbed my mouth without thinking about it, so that now I have a clown's mouth rather than a femme fatale pout.

“Coffee?” He says the word like he's never heard of the concept. His accent sounds local, but he doesn't look like working in a student bar would be his first choice of job. He looks
like fronting a manufactured boy band would be his first choice of job. He's smartly dressed, wearing an ironed shirt tucked into skinny jeans, and a waistcoat, of all things, topped off with a thin black tie. He's got fairish brownish hair that's obviously been styled with the sort of care that only a girl should take—and is that a hint of mascara under those green eyes, or has he just got
really
thick lashes? I am looking so hard, I miss him repeating the question.

“Um, yes, coffee,” I say. “You know, became popular in the sixteenth century, black in color, unless you add milk. I like it with milk. And sugar. Are you familiar with the concept of sugar?”

“You are funny,” he says, lifting his chin a little and scrutinizing me by looking down an improbably straight nose. “I like that.”

“I'd like a decaf coffee,” I say sharply.

“Of course. A latte?” He smiles at me, and instantly I feel stupid for being sarcastic, because he has got this incredibly charming smile. I mean, it's ridiculous; it's like being thirteen again and having the stupidest instant crush on a boy in the Sixth Form. He smiles and he's all sparkly and pretty, and makes me want to squeal, like an actual girl. It feels like such a long time since I looked at a boy and thought about kissing him—weeks since anything like that has come into my head—but, oh my God, that smile! That smile is gold. Someone needs to get hold of that smile and exploit it to extort pocket money from thirteen-year-old girls the world over.

I dip my face away from him, and wonder about leaving before I try to flirt with the worst-dressed boy I've ever met, and then I remember what I am doing here, and why. I remember the baby, my mother, my father. All these reasons mean I can't run away from a boy with a sweet smile anymore. Life is no longer
about hiding—and it's not about flirting, that's for sure. He probably likes music with tunes, I tell myself. And stupid sappy words. I bet he likes Coldplay.

“To be honest,” he says, noticing that I have failed to reply, and kindly stepping in to save me, “all of the coffees come out of that machine, and they all taste more or less the same. Unless someone has hot chocolate, and then they taste of that.”

“The cheapest one, then,” I say, and I watch him grab a mug, stick it under a stainless steel machine and press a button. A few seconds later, a steaming cup of milky coffee is set before me.

“I haven't seen you round here before,” he observes.

I roll my eyes, wondering if I can make a break for a table, where I might be safe. “I come in here every Friday. You don't remember me?”

“Nice try.” He laughs, and wields that smile again. Stupid smile. “I wasn't trying out a line on you. I'd remember you, if we'd met before. I've got a thing for faces, and your eyes are the blackest I have ever seen.”

“Oh,” I say. I'm not sure how to take that.

“I'm a photographer,” he tells me. “I'm always looking for interesting faces.” He stares at me for one long intense moment, during which I think I might melt into a pool of my own hormones. “Yep, blackest eyes I've ever seen…” I sit transfixed, like a mouse about to be gobbled up by a snake, as he leans across the bar. “You can barely see the difference between the iris and the pupil. Can I photograph you?” He pulls back suddenly, and I blink as the spell is broken.

“No,” I say, firmly, winding my fingers around the cup. “No, I'm not from round here. I'm just here for a day or two, maybe less, even.”

My first encounter with my father has not made me want to introduce myself to him. If anything, it makes me want to
know him even less—the way he looked at me, the curiosity in his returning gaze. I can imagine it. I know exactly how it will pan out. “Hello, I am your long-lost daughter, the one you never knew about or wanted. No, I don't have a career. I failed my second-year exams because of a boy who got me pregnant and then dumped me, and I went to pieces because I'm a sap, and it didn't help that I found out that my mum—remember her, the one you knocked up?—is seriously ill. And then I ran away from my seriously ill mother, and got a job in a strip bar. I've bounced around from stupid to stupid for months, and I thought I'd round it off nicely by coming to see you. Oh, what's that? You'd like me to leave now? Thought so. See you in another life.”