Losing You (50 page)

‘But you can now, so you’d like to have the house back to yourself? It’s all right, I understand that ...’

‘For crying out loud, I don’t want you to go, all right? I want you to stay for as long as you like.’

‘You’re just saying that now ...’

Emma growled in despair. ‘What is it with you?’ she said furiously. ‘Let’s just forget I said anything, shall we? We’ll
go back to pretending that everything’s absolutely perfect and that we love being under the same roof as one another, and that we get along just fine, the way most mothers and daughters do ... We can do that, can’t we?’

Phyllis’s face was crimson. ‘I didn’t realise I was annoying you so much.’

‘You don’t usually,’ Emma lied, ‘but right now you are, probably because it’s my time of the month, but also because I’ve never damned well understood you and whereas I can usually cope with that, today I’m finding it hard.’

Phyllis tried to speak, but Emma hadn’t finished.

‘For most of my life,’ she ranted on, ‘you’ve never wanted to be there for me – if anything you’ve done your level best to make me feel left out, unwanted, a nuisance, a liability, you were good at them all ... In fact, if it weren’t for Berry I wouldn’t know what it was like to be loved, and yet now, here you are, prepared to give up everything to be here for me, and even when I give you the chance to escape with no recriminations you don’t take it. So please forgive me for not understanding you and the way you operate because you’re only my mother, so why should I?’

Phyllis’s head was bowed as she allowed the anger to fold around her like shadows. ‘Do you really have to shout?’ she asked quietly.

Incensed all over again, Emma cried, ‘No, yes, maybe I do, because I want you to hear me, Mum. I want you to know that I have feelings that can be hurt like anyone else’s, especially by
you
, and God knows how often you’ve managed that over the years.’

‘You always make so much of this,’ Phyllis said haltingly, ‘telling yourself that I don’t care when I do and I always have ...’

‘Care, maybe, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, as a mother, but you’re supposed to love your children too ...’

‘I’ve always loved you,’ Phyllis protested, ‘but I know ... I accept I haven’t always been good at showing it.’

‘Are you kidding? You’ve never even tried to show it, at least not with me. You didn’t have a problem with Harry
though, did you? You were always there for him, going to his sports days, his weekend football matches, his prize-givings ...’

‘I came to yours too. I never missed one, so please don’t ...’

‘The difference was with Harry you were always so proud of him and full of how brilliant he was, while with me you’d just say well done, you worked hard at that. Or don’t let it go to your head now, we don’t want you turning into a show-off. The only thing I’ve ever done that you seemed to think at all worthy of your time or attention was give birth to Lauren, and even then you behaved as if I’d played hardly any part in it. In fact, once you started bonding with her I was more in the way than ever, and no one was happier than you when I asked you to be her minder while I was working. You could have her all to yourself then and not have to worry about me, her mother, coming between you, because I didn’t count anyway.’

‘Emma, please ...’

‘No, I’m sorry, but you’re going to hear me out whether you like it or not. It’s high time you faced up to how awful you’ve been to me over the years, how small and insignificant you’ve made me feel, how sorry I always thought you were that you’d even had me. You wouldn’t even allow me to talk about my own father. What kind of mother does that to her child, tries to shut her up every time she asks about her daddy? Why was it left to Berry to fill in the blanks, to paint the pictures of who he was and how much Harry and I meant to him? What was wrong with talking about him yourself? Didn’t you think I had a right to know? Are you so selfish with your memories that you can’t even allow me to share them?’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ Phyllis choked. ‘The way things happened ... You were very young, in my way I was too, and I admit I got things wrong ...’

‘But you never did anything to put them right. I kept on and on as a child, always needing to know what I’d done to make you angry, why you couldn’t bring yourself to love me the way my friends’ mothers seemed to love them, and that hasn’t changed because I
still need to know
. No,
stop, I know what you’re going to say, that I’m exaggerating and getting hysterical, because that’s what you always say at times like this. You tell me I’m working myself into a state that won’t do any good at all, because everything’s in my head and I’m so full of self-pity that it’s no wonder you can’t feel sorry for me; there’s no room left for any more.’ Though her mother flinched and tried to interrupt again, Emma still wouldn’t let her. ‘You’re so full of sensitivity and understanding,’ she said scathingly, ‘so blessed with warmth and generosity that I can only wonder how I’ve managed to concoct such a dreadful image of you. Everyone respects and admires you, talks about how dedicated and courageous you were to bring up two children all on your own, and what a wonderful job you’ve made of it. Just let’s not talk about Berry and how everything, probably including you, would have fallen apart if it weren’t for her. Let’s not mention how miserable and alone I would have been if it weren’t for my grandmother; how insecure I always felt, and unworthy, because you never seemed to have time for me. The only reason I’ve managed to reach where I am now without massive complexes or hang-ups is because Berry made sure I didn’t. She’s always been there for me, making me feel special, loved, clever, all the things you should have been making me feel, but you never wanted to, did you? You could do it for Harry though, Harry who made you light up whenever he came into a room, while you barely even managed a smile for me. Even he knew it was all wrong, which was why he used to stay at home such a lot to play with me when he should have been out with his friends conkering, or swimming, or doing whatever the hell else little boys of his age do. He used to feel horrible about being the favourite, it created its own kind of pressure, but you never saw that, did you? You only saw what you wanted to see and that was hardly ever me.’

Phyllis’s face was in her hands. She was shaking so badly that it was a moment before she could say, ‘I don’t know what to tell you to try and make things better. Maybe I should go home, but I ... I know what Berry would say, she’d say I was running away again and I don’t want to
do that any more.’ She brought her head up; her face was tormented with misery and guilt. ‘I’ve wanted to talk to you for such a long time, but the gulf between us is so wide ... Every time I try to reach out I end up clutching empty air because you’ve already gone. I don’t blame you, why would you want to listen to anything I have to say after all I’ve put you through? I know I should have tried harder when you were young, that I shouldn’t have allowed my own grief to come before yours, but that’s the trouble with grief, it changes us, makes us behave in ways we never would have before. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry,’ she sobbed, too devastated to say more for the moment.

Embarrassed by her mother’s tears, and guilty for having caused them, Emma said, ‘Well now’s your chance to tell me why there’s such a gulf between us. I’m listening, and I want to know why you’ve always been so cold with me.’

‘It’s not how I wanted to be,’ Phyllis assured her brokenly. ‘It was just ... I ... We were close before your father died, the way you were with Lauren when she was that age. You were always a daddy’s girl though, but that was something I loved, so did he. He’d do anything for you, the discipline was left to me, and you turned out to need more than Harry had when he was two and three. Your father used to call you the champion tantrum-thrower; he actually seemed proud of how good you were at them. He was the only one who could laugh you out of them, while I could never get you to stop. If your father wasn’t around you’d go on and on screaming until you finally wore yourself out or wore me down.

‘Then one day, it was the day of the storm that ... We were all at home feeling dismal because it hadn’t stopped raining for days. Your father was due to go off on tour the following week, so he was taking some time off to be with us before he left. We’d planned lots of day trips, the zoo, Longleat, the beach, but the furthest we’d managed by Thursday was our own back garden for a picnic in the Wendy house. Do you remember that Wendy house?’

Emma shook her head.

Phyllis smiled sadly. ‘You were still very young, so I don’t suppose that’s surprising. It’s a pity though, because
your father and Keith from the band built it for you. It was just about big enough for us all to squeeze into, you, me, Dad and Harry, and so we sat around your little table drinking lemonade and eating the biscuits you and I had made. You’d brought your favourite doll, Maryjo, in her pushchair, and Harry had brought his bike which he’d parked outside. The rain wasn’t quite as fierce as it had been, so we were quite cosy and warm inside with not too many leaks. We had a little sing-song and then Dad told a story. He was very good at making up stories. I often wish I’d written them down. I kept saying I would, but somehow never got round to it, and then it was ... Anyway, those brief couple of hours turned out to be our only excursion of the week, because later in the day the rain became torrential again, and the thunder was so loud I was terrified a bolt would come through the roof.

‘It was in the middle of Friday morning that lightning struck the Goodleys’ horse chestnut next door and brought it down. It’s strange, but I don’t remember it making any noise as it fell, but I’m sure it must have. In fact, none of us heard it. The first we knew of it was when you looked out of the window and saw that your Wendy house had been crushed. It wasn’t the house you were so worried about, it was the doll you’d left inside. You wanted to go running out to get it, but the storm was so bad we couldn’t allow you to. We tried telling you she’d be fine and that you must wait till the storm was over, but you wouldn’t listen. You had to have her now. You started screaming and kicking, begging me to let you go, but I wouldn’t give in. There was no point, you wouldn’t have been able to get to the Wendy house anyway. So you turned to your father, telling him he had to go. “Please, please, please,” you kept saying. “Daddy, you have to ... You have to.” You were in such a state that in the end he couldn’t stop himself giving in to you. So he scooped you up, gave you a great big kiss, then set you back down on the floor and went to get his coat. “Superman to the rescue,” he cried.’ Phyllis’s voice had become quavery and thin. It was clear how hard it was for her to be saying all this. ‘You giggled, the way you always did when he played the hero, and
then off he went into the storm, in spite of knowing how impossible it was going to be to get anywhere near the Wendy house through all the branches of the fallen tree. He tried, though; he really did. I expected him to pretend for a while, then come back with one of his stories about how Prince Charming had beaten him to it and dolly was now a princess in a far-off land, but would be back to see you when the storm was over. Or maybe he was going to say that she was busy saving all the other toys from the storm and would be in as soon as she knew they were safe. He’d think of something, he always did, it just never occurred to me that he’d actually try to get her.’

She had to pause for breath, and Emma felt her heart churning with pity for the young woman who’d lost her husband so suddenly and tragically. It was almost unbearable. Were it possible she’d have gone to embrace her mother, but habits of a lifetime were hard to break. They simply didn’t do things like that.

‘Neither of us even thought about the power cables,’ Phyllis struggled on. ‘We hadn’t even noticed they were down ...’

Realising how hard this had become for her now, Emma said gently, ‘Mum, it’s all right, you don’t have to put yourself through any more.’ Her own eyes were filling with tears as she envisaged what her mother must have been seeing in her memory.

‘He was a wonderful man,’ Phyllis sobbed, ‘the best father ... It broke my heart to lose him, and I ... Oh God, I’m sorry, Emma, I’m truly sorry that I blamed you. You were just a child, you didn’t know any better, but I told myself that if it weren’t for you he wouldn’t have gone out there. He could never say no to you, and after he died it was all I wanted to say, no, no, no, as if it might make up for all the times he should have said it, and somehow bring him back. I never told anyone the reason why he’d gone out into the storm. I didn’t want them to know that he’d died so needlessly – so stupidly heroically. Maybe it was because I didn’t tell anyone that it all got mixed up in my head – I don’t know. I only know that I felt this awful need to punish you, and my way of doing it was to keep you
at a distance, withhold all displays of love, make you feel guilty somehow even though you didn’t know what you were feeling guilty about. How could you, you hadn’t done anything wrong, and you were far too young to understand what was happening to me. By the time I realised what I was doing to you, too many years had gone by to undo the damage. We’d grown apart – Berry kept warning me we would; she’d say, “You can’t go through the motions of being a mother without putting in the emotion,” and I’d tell her she didn’t know what she was talking about. My arrogance was insufferable. I don’t how she put up with it. I never wanted to listen to her. I didn’t want to do anything except find a way to bring your father back. It was all that mattered for more years than I care to remember. It sounds like madness, I know, but I’ve learned the hard way that grief is a kind of madness. We never know how it’s going to take us, or what it’s going to make us do. It’s like a life force of its own and escaping it is almost impossible. Or that was how I found it, until ...’ Her head went down as she swallowed hard. ‘Until I finally took Berry’s advice and got some counselling.’

Emma felt quietly stunned. Her mother had sought help?
Her mother
had been to see a therapist, a counsellor? It seemed improbable, incredible, until she remembered that this was a woman she hardly knew, so how would she have any idea what Phyllis might, or might not do? And since she still wasn’t sure whether she herself should be feeling guilt, pity, anger, relief, or some other emotion for sending her father out into the storm, she found that all she could do was stay silent.