Things I Want My Daughters to Know (14 page)

Things she wanted us to know, I suppose. And we all got these letters.

She left these letters for each of us.”

“What did yours say?” From anyone else, that might have been an intrusive question. From Ed, it didn’t seem to be.

“I haven’t read mine.”

“Why not?”

She shrugged. He was the only person in the world who knew she hadn’t opened it. She carried it everywhere—it was with her right now, in her bag, tucked into the front of her diary. “I’m afraid to.”

“Why?”

“I’m afraid that she was angry with me, at the end.”

“Because you weren’t there?”

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She nodded slowly.

Ed leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table. When he spoke, his voice was gentle and slow.

“I didn’t know your mother, of course. Sounds like I missed out there. But I very much doubt that someone—someone’s mother—would go to all the trouble of writing a deathbed letter simply to give someone a bollocking from beyond the grave. Particularly the mother you just described. To the daughter I’m just beginning to get to know.”

Amanda smiled at him, grateful as a child being told of course there’s a Santa Claus.

“You think?”

He nodded. “I think.”

The bell rang. The landlord was looking specifically at them. Since the pub was empty.

“I also think we should leave now. . . .”

The street outside was deserted. It was still cold, and their faces, which had been turned red and hot by the fire, were stung by it. Ed put his arm around her and pulled her toward him.

“Will you stay tonight?”

She was a little taken aback. She realized she hadn’t for a moment considered doing anything else. A tiny seed of doubt sprang up in her head. Did he want her to stay?

“Is that okay?”

He kissed her, hard. “That is so much more than okay. I don’t think I’d let you leave, matter of fact. I may never let you leave . . .”

It was probably just talk. But it felt really good.

That second night was less Judith Krantz, more Danielle Steele. His eyes almost never left hers, never closed, never stopped telling her how much he felt. She loved believing him.

On the second morning, the milk, a relic from before Christmas, smelled bad, and the bread had a pale green hue that was distinctly unap-T h i n g s I W a n t M y D a u g h t e r s t o K n o w 99

petizing. Ed went out for supplies. He banned her from dressing, saying he would be back in ten minutes and he wanted to find her naked and warm under his quilt. She lay back, her arms and legs splayed like a child’s, and made a bed angel of happiness, the duvet tucked obediently in her armpits. Everything about this, right now, felt right. That didn’t happen every day. It felt like the start of something. The fact that she’d gone from zero to sixty even felt right—strange but right. But if he thought she was going to miss the opportunity to tart herself up while he was gone, he didn’t know women as well as he thought he did. She went to the bathroom and looked at her wanton self in the mirror. Her bed head of shag tangles was a fright. She brushed her teeth and showered quickly, wondering whether you could borrow the razor of a man you’d only just met, and deciding that if you’d let him do some of the things she’d let Ed do to her last night, the razor seemed a strange place to draw the line.

Clean again, wrapped in a towel, she pulled her handbag onto the bed, into her lap. She’d been incommunicado for thirty-six hours now, and she should check her phone. She switched it on and waited to see who might want her. No messages. Charming. But no more than nomads could expect. She put the phone back into the bag and was about to put it back down onto the floor so she could lie back and luxuriate in imagining Ed’s hands moving all over her, which, if she was lucky, they were about to do all over again, when she saw her diary. She pulled it out, her fingers stroking the worn brown leather, pale now in places. She opened it and took out her mum’s letter, her own name written in a familiar round hand, in Barbara’s trademark turquoise ink.
Amanda.

She was sitting up in bed, hugging her knees, with the letter balanced on top of them, when Ed got back.

“What you got?”

“My mum’s letter.”

“You going to read it?”

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“Thinking about it.”

“Do you want me to get lost for a bit.”

“I’d rather you stayed with me.”

Ed didn’t answer. Amanda surfaced from her reverie and peered at his face. Had she frightened him? Was this all a bit much?

He nodded slowly. “Right.”

“Right.”

“I’m going to get into bed, next to you, and just lie here and not say anything for a while. Does that seem right?”

She smiled weakly. “That seems right.”

He lay down beside her, with one arm around her back, resting on the mattress, gently stroking her hip. She took a deep breath and opened the letter.

Darling Amanda,

So brave, so fearless. My adventurer. You’ve given me more sleepless nights than all the others, you know that? One day, you’ll know the worry of a mum waiting for a fortnightly call from somewhere, wanting to know that your baby is okay and safe and happy. I wouldn’t have stopped you, even if I could. I envy you your spirit.

Blimey—this letter’s the toughest. So I’ve put it off until the last, and now I’m tired, so tired you can’t imagine. And just the tiniest bit afraid that I’m not making complete sense anymore—you take enough pills and you start to question everything.

I remember the day you were born. When Lisa came, I was young, and ridiculously overexcited, and she was the baby I had for Donald, and for the family, and for everyone else. I was still in the baby fog when Jennifer came, bless her, and whole months passed in a blur. And still, there were people around all the time—Donald, his mum—other mums with babies and toddlers the same age. But it was different with you. It was just us. The two of us. Your sisters had
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gone to stay with their cousins in Yorkshire for the week; I was supposed to be getting a room ready for you. I’d painted the walls, and I was just about to get up a ladder and start hanging this frieze—

Winnie the Pooh and friends—when my water broke and stopped me. I guess you had artistic sensibilities even then! Never did get to hang that frieze. You were a few weeks early—it was like you couldn’t wait to see me. Fast, too—in a hurry—like you’ve always been. And it was just you and me and the midwife—and she slipped out and left us alone. It was so quiet. You didn’t even cry. No fuss-ing, no noise, and no interference. No one else wanting to hold you.

You were mine, Amanda. All mine. And I loved you, so much.

People were gossiping about me in the ward. I could see them, behind their banks of tasteless flowers and helium balloons, and relatives bearing down with Chelsea strips and baskets of grapes.

The single mother with no visitors. I didn’t give a damn.

You mustn’t blame Donald. Okay, you can blame him for being an inadequate human being, because he pretty much always was. But it was me who held him at arm’s length when you came. We’d been living apart almost the whole time I was pregnant. The decree nisi was through, and we were waiting for the absolute. He’d already met Marissa, hadn’t he—started his new life. I know he wanted to do the right thing. Or at least that he wanted to be seen to be doing the right thing. He was always a stickler for appearances. But I couldn’t see the point.

Have you guessed, my darling girl? Have you wondered and thought and imagined, lying in the couchettes and hammocks and tents and beach huts of your long journeys? Have you already hated me for my dishonesty, or does that start here? Will you listen to my excuses and my justifications, or stop hearing at the first words?

Because, of course, and now isn’t it so obvious? Of course Donald isn’t your father.

I’ve known I would tell you this since they told me I was dying.

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No one else knows, and I couldn’t let it die with me. But I have played the conversation and written the letters over and over in my head, and never been sure until this moment whether I would tell you who the man was. I can’t call him your father, because he isn’t—he hasn’t been. Neither was Donald. Mark—wonderful Mark—he’s been the best I could do for you, and he’s been pretty bloody terrific.

And so I won’t tell you. It doesn’t matter. We had an affair. My own marriage was even more in tatters than I thought it was. I don’t know about his. I don’t even know if I was the only lover he had had.

He was, for me. But it wasn’t a wonderful thing. It was a tacky, sort of sordid thing. It didn’t last long. I’m a lousy liar. God, are you reading that and thinking what a stinking irony that is? I’m not lying about this. A few weeks—that’s all.

He didn’t even know I was pregnant when we stopped. There was no point. I wish I could say I’d stopped because I didn’t want people to get hurt. In lots of ways I wish I could tell you I’d done that—made the ultimate, noble sacrifice and given up someone who was the love of my life, because it was the right thing to do.

I did give him up. Because I didn’t love him. That was why.

I was flattered and excited and I didn’t love him.

I don’t think he loved me, either.

We were slightly pathetic, actually, the pair of us. Acting like teenagers when we were far too old.

And actually, I didn’t know for sure that you were his. After the first time, I went home and went to bed with my husband. Pretty grim, when you think about it; believe me, Amanda—nothing about that time in my life makes me especially proud of myself—but I was frightened. So I couldn’t be sure.

Of course, you didn’t look a thing like Donald, when you were born. And I knew then.

By then they’d moved away—he was spooked as hell by my be-T h i n g s I W a n t M y D a u g h t e r s t o K n o w 103

ing pregnant. My belly was his scarlet letter. Not that he ever asked me, the coward. And I didn’t want him to, anyway. He got himself transferred, and they sold their house and moved away. And I honestly never saw him again.

I’ve always wondered whether I would have stayed with your father—with Donald, I mean. If he hadn’t left me. I’d like to think not, but maybe I’m lying to myself—maybe I never was that brave.

So here we are, and I’m a coward again. I’m writing this down, when I should be telling you face-to-face. And I can honestly say, as I lie here, waiting to die, that how you feel about this letter is the biggest thing I have to worry about. I should have told you the last time you were home. We both knew you weren’t coming back until it was all over. I should have told you then. I made excuses—you seemed happy and excited about the trip—there were people around all the time—but they were all just excuses. The truth was just that I was frightened. And I let fear make me fail you as a mother. And I will die (I guess I have, if you’re reading this) with that guilt.

Maybe, if things had been different, you would never have needed to know. You weren’t close to Donald, I know. I gave you a happy childhood, I think. No, I know. Whatever else I have to feel bad about, that I don’t. I was the best mum I knew how to be, and when Mark came along, whatever problems Jennifer and Lisa might have had with him, he was great for you. I remember watching the two of you together and thinking that I had gotten so bloody lucky. And even when Hannah came along, he still loved you the same, I know he has. We made a family, and we were happy. He was the miracle of all of our lives.

But there is a thing in you, my lovely. The thing that keeps you traveling. The thing that makes you hold yourself a little apart from people. My girl with a thousand mates around the world but no best friend. The beautiful woman who slays men with her smile and her wiggle, but has never been in love. The thing that took you away 104 e l i z a b e t h

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from me, let you walk away, or made you walk away, knowing that you would never see me again. I feel like there is something inside you that I need to solve. And I wonder if this is a piece in your puzzle, Amanda.

I hope that knowing doesn’t make more questions than it answers. I’m sorry I’m not here to answer them. I should be, I know. I hope it helps. And most of all, I hope that it doesn’t make you hate me, because I have always loved you so, my beautiful child. Not more than I have loved your sisters, but differently. Because you were always just mine to love.

Mum

Amanda was still for a long while. The letter lay beside her on the bed. After a few minutes, Ed stroked her and asked, “Okay?”

“My dad wasn’t my dad.”

“What did you say?”

“My dad—the man I thought was my dad—the man Mum was married to when she got pregnant with me—he wasn’t my dad.”

“Christ. That’s what’s in the letter?”

“Yep.”

“And that’s the first you’ve heard of it?”

“Yep.”

“Bloody hell, Amanda.”

She smiled at him, tight-lipped.

“Yep.”

“Does anyone else know?”

Her voice was quiet and controlled. “Apparently not. She’s only telling me now so that ‘her secret doesn’t die with her’ . . . I think that was the expression she used.”

“That’s a pretty big lie to carry around with you for twenty-odd years.”

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She snorted and raised an eyebrow. “Mark doesn’t know.” She was talking more to herself than to him now.

“Mark?”

“My stepdad. I can’t believe she wouldn’t have told him.”

“So he’s not your dad, either?”

“Course not. I told you—I was, like, eight or something, when they got together.” She knew she sounded irritated, which was unfair—

they’d only talked about family once, last night, and he’d hardly expected to have to fill in a timeline the following morning. But she couldn’t help the shortness in her voice.

“Sorry.”

She tried to remember that she liked this guy; she really, really liked him. That this was nothing to do with him. “No . . . I’m sorry . . . how should you know?”