Mothers & Daughters (10 page)

He faced me again. ‘Could I possibly have a drink, Carol?'

‘Oh, of course. Yes. I should have asked. Tea? Coffee?'

David raised his eyebrows at me.

‘I might have some red wine in the larder.'

‘That would do it,' he said.

‘I'll get a glass.'

‘Aren't you having any?'

My first instinct was to say no, and then I realised I did want some wine, very much.

We sat in opposite armchairs with the buff-tiled fireplace between us and the bottle on the cold hearth. I noticed the way he leaned back, relaxed: a man at ease with himself. Meanwhile I could have run up the walls. ‘You're wearing a suit again,' I said.

‘Possibly more appropriate than an apron.'

‘Bloody hell.' I dropped my gaze to my lap and saw gingham. ‘You could have said.'

‘I just have.'

I put my glass down and untied the apron strings.

‘So,' he said. ‘How are things with you?'

‘Well, Jaz is still all over the place, but Matty's on good form. He's discovered the birdfeeder and he likes nothing better than to put bread out and watch the jackdaws squabble.'

‘What about yourself, Carol? How are you doing?'

‘Me? Gosh. You know! Staggering along.' I gave a nervous laugh, and reached for the first thing I could think of. ‘In desperate need of a lawnmower, actually.'

‘Oh?'

‘Phil's taken mine – to fix, he claims – and shows no sign of bringing it back. But that's standard. I don't know why I expected anything else.'

‘You seem to get on with him pretty well, though.'

What mad gremlin had made me bring my ex into the conversation? ‘It depends what you mean by pretty well. You know how things were at the wedding. We're civil. We don't throw things at each other.'

‘Better than me and Jacky, then,' he said. ‘I lost a few plates to her before she left.'

Jacky gone? That was a turn-up for the books.

‘I didn't realise.'

‘About six months ago, now.'

‘I always had you two down as suited.'

‘Apparently not.' David raised his glass and stared through the wine, like a mystic. ‘She said she wasn't happy, and then she went.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘There's no need to be. I'm—'

‘Seeing someone else?' I don't know what made me cut in like that. Nerves, probably.

‘Well, I suppose.'

‘Oh, great.'

‘I don't know if it's that,' he said, oddly.

I imagined him at some dinner-party, surrounded by other suits and Jacky-lookalikes. Luckily his phone beeped as I was wracking my brains for an appropriate reply. He took the mobile out again, checked the screen, sighed, and switched it off.

‘Anyway,' he went on, shifting forward in his seat. ‘To the matter in hand.'

‘Yes.'

‘Starting from the point,' he said, ‘that basically we want Ian and Jaz back together.'

‘With the proviso he apologises, and that he never ever strays again.'

‘Strays,' David repeated.

‘What?'

‘It's rather an old-fashioned word.'

I didn't like to say it was what Phil always used.

‘But yes, obviously,' he went on, ‘Ian's got to give. So has Jaz. Important, I think, for her not to end up using it as a stick to beat him with later on. Forgiving someone entails moving on.'

‘Except it'll take time to get over.'

‘Understood.' He put his fingertips together.

‘The person who's most important here,' I said, ‘is Matty. He's at the centre of all this, he's the one caught up in the middle. Matty changes everything. If it weren't for Matty—'

If it weren't for Matty I'd say to Jaz, ‘Kick the bugger into touch. You don't want to waste your life on a cheat. Find someone who deserves you, or it'll eat up your self-esteem to nothing. Life's hard enough without being taken for a fool by the person who's supposed to be your number-one support.'

David nodded once, but I didn't know if it was in sympathy, or to check me. ‘It seems to me, then, that if we can keep the discussion from getting too heated, and we can keep stressing the positives of staying together, then we should be able to make a little headway.' He paused. ‘I know what you're thinking: easier said than done.'

‘They're not going to walk out of here hand-in-hand, are they?'

‘I never said they were. But maybe we can point them in the right general direction, or at least plant the possibility in their minds. You look doubtful, Carol. Don't be. We have to try. Someone has to get them off the starting blocks.'

‘But what if we do more harm than good? Maybe we shouldn't be interfering. They're adults, after all.'

‘Adults who've backed themselves into a corner and don't know how to get out. Adults who need our help.'

‘Will it help, though? You don't know Jaz like I do; if you try to pressure her, she might go the other way out of sheer cussedness.'

‘I think you're underestimating her.'

Underestimating my daughter? Mild as it was, the accusation sent me into a flurry of panic. What kind of a mother made such disparaging claims? Whose side was I supposed to be on? Appalling. And yet, Jaz
did
sometimes behave that way, and David needed to be aware of that. Was I wrong to warn him? For all he'd set this meeting up, had he really grasped the situation? Why should his approach be any better than mine?

From the garden came the sounds of Matty's squeals, Laverne's bright tones, faint saxophone music. Jaz would be taking Matty back home after this, whatever the result. His bag was packed and on the stairs.

‘See, I believe Jasmine has more about her than that,' David went on. ‘I've always had a lot of time for her. I like people who have something a bit unusual about them, not-your-average. She's clever, and she thinks for herself. It was a great shame she didn't get her degree in the end. She told me she was predicted a First.'

‘That's right.'

‘I'm not surprised. How long was she ill?'

I took a deep breath, because this was always a tricky question to answer. To measure the exact length of Jaz's depression, I'd have to be clear on when it began, and I've never got to the bottom of that. Sometimes I think it started before she went to university, in that lead-up to A-levels when I worried myself sick in case she was taking drugs, and Phil claimed it was hormones, or my fault, depending how well the divorce negotiations were going. At what point does moping about and general moodiness become a clinical condition? And, do you know, no one's ever been able to answer that for me.

I said, ‘She came home from Leeds – she'd just started in her second year – because she said she wanted to change courses and they wouldn't let her, she was too far along. I can see her now: her face was grey and she had this awful rash round her chin. All she did for that first week was lie in bed. I didn't know what to do. It was the worst time, actually, because my dad had just been diagnosed with dementia and, to be honest, I was more focused on that. I thought Jaz was just a bit down.'
I thought Jaz was being self-dramatising and lazy, and heaping pressure on me for the hell of it
.

David was watching me closely, as though he could see the big cloud of guilt gathering over my head.

‘But she was officially diagnosed?'

I nodded. ‘Not for a while, though.' I'd stood in her bedroom doorway and yelled at her to get up and shape herself. Me, her mother. ‘If she'd got help sooner . . .'

‘She was recovered by the time she met Ian.'

‘Oh, yes. She was working, in the Rocket café. Now a tanning salon.'

‘I dimly remember it.'

‘It only lasted two years. Too far off the High Street, and vegetarian wholefood's a niche market round here anyway. But she did like the place, she got on well with her colleagues. Then again, she enjoys being a freelance translator; she can pick her own hours, take on as much as she feels she can cope with. It leaves her more time to do other things.'

‘She has a lot of friends?'

Again I hesitated. Jaz's friends. I wasn't about to go into that business during her teens when she claimed she was being bullied, and Phil and I marched round to the school only to be told that Jaz herself was one of the perpetrators. ‘Six of one,' the Headmistress had said, ‘and half a dozen of the other. A – well, a boy – some silly gossip, I'm not entirely clear what
kicked it off, but I'm not taking any action against individuals. In my experience, these things usually work themselves through without too much adult intervention.' After that, Jaz didn't go out so much, and you'd not to mention certain names in her hearing. Nights I lay awake, worrying. ‘I thought you wanted her to stay in more,' Phil had said. Which shows his grasp of the situation.

‘Her best friend's Natalie,' I said to David. ‘Nat. The one who was chief bridesmaid.'

‘Ah yes.'

The sort of girl who's pleasant to your face and flicks Vs behind your back, I could have added. Who'd laugh if you fell over and hurt yourself. Who – and I'll never ever forgive her for it – played dumb the time my daughter ran away. Standing there in her school uniform, shrugging at me, looking at the floor.

I said, ‘She's quite different from Jaz, but they got together at primary school and they've been pals ever since. So I suppose you could say she's a loyal girl. She works as a receptionist at a garage on the industrial estate.'

‘It bothers me sometimes,' David broke in, in a way that made me realise he hadn't been with me for the last few seconds, ‘that Ian's rather isolated. He didn't keep in touch with his schoolfriends when he went to Bristol, and then he didn't keep up with the Bristol lot either. He socialises with people from the office. I've told him, it's not ideal.'

Blimey, speak your mind, I thought. I'd never dare say that kind of thing to Jaz.

‘Well,' I said, ‘I do think you need a best mate. It's part of who you are.'

Then I heard Eileen's voice going,
Remember Bentham's Outfitters?
and I was back there with her, standing by the changing rooms in our school uniforms, and making faces at
the ladies as they peered out. Our rule was, all the ones who looked a sight, we gave the thumbs up, big smiles, encouraging nods. To all the ones who looked nice, we'd fake dismay or horror. Eileen had gone so far as to imitate being strangled. One giant woman in purple satin we wolf-whistled. It took an elderly lady in a neckbrace to stop us. ‘Who do you think you are?' she hissed. ‘You should know, that lady you're laughing at has a degree in Biochemistry.' ‘Yes,' said Eileen, ‘but she also has a moustache.' Then we'd legged it. Your friends aren't just important for now. They validate your past.

‘But it's harder for young people today,' I said. ‘Making proper friends. Somehow they don't want to lose face, they take themselves so much more seriously. Get to my age and it doesn't matter as much. You don't care. I'll talk to anyone, me.'

‘That's because you've got natural warmth.'

The compliment, coming out of nowhere, caught me on the hop, and I felt myself blush. But before I could flounder, David stood up.

‘On your marks,' he said. ‘That's Jasmine's car. They're here.'

CHAPTER 9

Photograph 290, Album Two

Location: Jaz's bedroom

Taken by: Jaz

Subject: hamster Mojo's monument, restored after some nocturnal disruption by cats or foxes. Carol has donated a clump of snowdrops, together with a sneaky clove of garlic pushed into the soil, which she hopes will deter grave robbers
.

The day Mojo dies, Jaz, ten, announces, ‘I'll never smile again.' And for a week afterwards, Carol fears it might be true. Never has a rodent been so mourned. At the weekend, in desperation, Phil marches to the pet shop in town and buys a new hamster, a baby Russian Dwarf the size of a kumquat and almost obscenely cute. Even the woman behind the counter clucks and coos as she pops him in his little carrier. Jaz will be delirious. What child wouldn't be?

When Phil and Carol call her down to see, they are united in confident anticipation. The tiny creature is sitting in his dish, quivering
.

Jaz stalks over, takes one look, turns and flees back upstairs. When her mother goes to investigate, all Jaz will
say is, ‘It's not Mojo.' ‘Mojo wouldn't mind,' says Carol. But Jaz isn't for budging. There's only room for one hamster in her heart. Mojo was the one, and no other will do
.

To say the pet shop is not keen on returns is an understatement, but when Phil threatens to set the animal loose in the precinct, and Carol explains they aren't after their money back, the owner relents
.

‘Any normal kid would give their eye teeth for one of them little furry buggers,' says Phil as they trudge back home. ‘Not our Jaz, though, oh no. Nothing so straightforward. You wouldn't credit it, would you?'

I would, actually, thinks Carol, but sensibly decides to keep her mouth shut
.

‘Come in, come in,' David went, sweeping the door open. I felt a little flash of irritation as he nodded them past, into the hall: whose house was this?

‘We're in the lounge,' I added.

Jaz was looking better than I'd seen her for a while. She'd tied her hair back and put a skirt and jacket on, almost like someone attending a job interview. Ian, on the other hand, looked ill. ‘Carol,' he muttered as I took his coat from his thin shoulders. I touched his arm briefly, furtively, then moved away before he could show any kind of reaction.

‘Can I get anybody anything?' I said.

‘We're fine,' said Ian.

‘Drink? Tea, coffee, glass of Merlot?'