Mothers & Daughters (47 page)

‘How's he getting on with his electronic book?' I asked. They'd bought him a device to help accelerate his reading, a ring-bound contraption with a wand that spoke the words as you pointed at them. Terrifically complicated, it looked to me.

Jaz pulled off her coat and laid it on the chair arm. ‘Not shown much interest in it yet. It does say “age three or over”, but he's bright, I thought he'd be able to cope with it.'

‘Don't wish his time away,' I said. ‘He'll be there soon enough.'

‘He likes the bead frame you bought him, though. He's never been off that.'

‘Wanted it in the bath last night,' said Ian, sitting down opposite her.

‘Did he?' Jaz smiled.

‘Oh yes. I had to distract him with Squirty Fish.'

‘Well, I hope Squirty Fish confined his exploits to the tiles, and not the carpet or the wallpaper like last time. You should have seen the state, Mum.'

‘It was him,' said Ian, pointing at Matty. ‘He led me on.'

They were laughing together, just like a real family.

‘Are you staying for a drink?' I asked hopefully.

A signal passed between them.

‘No,' said Ian. ‘I have to get off. I'm working tomorrow, this project where they've brought the deadline forward and we're all scrambling to get it finished. So I need to make tracks. Sooner it's started, better chance we have of nailing it.' He ruffled his son's hair, and stood up. ‘Bye, Mattster. Be good.'

Jaz stayed where she was. ‘See you Tuesday,' she said. Then she saw my expression. ‘We came in separate cars, Mum. I'll have a coffee, if you're making one.'

Looking back, I suppose that's the point I should have twigged.

After I'd got Matty in bed, I came down to find Jaz standing by the back window with the light off. She'd opened the curtains and was staring across the garden.

‘I was checking out the stars,' she said. ‘It's a really clear night.'

‘Frosty.'

‘I'll say. It was bitter coming over.'

‘Has Matty got a hat?'

‘Yes, Mum, he's got a hat. And mittens, and a quilted coat and boots and a scarf. So no need to worry.'

‘My mother once accidentally locked me out on a night like this, then blamed me. I was too small to reach the door knocker. A neighbour let me in, in the end.'

Jaz snorted. ‘She always sounds a bit of a cow, does Grandma.'

‘I think she was just one of those people who's born discontented. And maybe I was a disappointment to her.'

‘In what way?'

‘I don't know. We never talked about things like that. She just gave that impression.'

‘Am I a disappointment to you?'

‘Oh, love,' I said, ‘how could you think so?'

She spoke without turning her head. ‘Ian and I are getting a divorce. I'm sorry.'

The stars beyond my daughter's silhouette stayed where they were, unblinking.

‘He's OK with that?' I managed to make myself say.

‘We've spent a long time talking it over and he can see it's best. I'm not being awkward, Mum. I need to start again. With someone I can trust, if there is anyone out there. I'd never be able to trust Ian again, not totally, and I can't stay in a marriage like that. It would destroy me. I'd rather be on my own.'

Tears threatened, but I fought them back. This was not the time to load her with my distress.

‘Matty can see his dad when he wants?'

‘Oh, yeah, that's key. I figure it'll be less damaging to him if he grows up knowing we're separated, than if we try again and Ian and I split later. Two houses'll be normal for him because it'll be all he's ever known.'

‘You know you'll need to cite this woman in the divorce papers, like I had to do with Penny. You'll have to see her address and everything. It'll rake a lot back up again.'

‘Yeah, I know. It's got to be done, though.'

I sat myself down in the armchair.

‘You always said I should have divorced when you were little, Jaz. I want you to know that I would have done if I'd seen – the whole—'

‘Oh, that's the past, don't beat yourself up about it,' she said carelessly, as if she couldn't hear how those words echoed round the room, rebounding off walls and colliding against themselves till it hurt my head.

Or perhaps she did realise, because she came away from the window and stood by me. Her hand came out of the dimness and touched my shoulder.

‘You're being really good about all this. I thought you'd have hysterics or something. Did you already guess?'

History was splitting off into decisions made and not made. Other versions of my life spooled out against the gloom.

She bent and peered into my face. ‘Are you OK?'

‘Yes.'

‘Look, I'm going to pop upstairs and check on Matty,' she said. ‘Then we'll talk some more.'

I don't know how long she was gone, it could have been a minute or an hour. When she came down she said, ‘Someone's letting off fireworks on the cricket field.'

I glanced over at the window as a spectacular rocket burst, on cue, into a golden chrysanthemum. ‘Early for Bonfire Night. Mind you, that seems to last about a fortnight these days.'

Three glittering green stars bloomed, and faded.

‘It might be a wedding reception, or a party,' I said. ‘Draw the curtain right back so we can see properly.'

‘Why don't we go out? I could put the monitor on the patio.'

‘We'll freeze.'

‘Stick your coat on. I could do with breathing some cold air,' she said.

We leaned over the back fence. The larch lap panels were already glistening with ice.

‘You can smell the cordite,' she said, ‘or whatever it is.'

‘They must have a bonfire, too. You can see the glow.'

Fireworks screeched upward, little bright nuggets tracking across the wide sky, to explode into fleeting brilliance. The night cracked and whistled around us.

‘There was something else,' said Jaz, below the whine of
rockets. Her face lit red, then green, then was dark again. ‘Sam's been in touch with me.'

‘It was when I was looking for you,' I said quickly. ‘I was trying any avenue I could think of.'

‘What did she tell you?'

‘About some of the things that made you leave university.'

‘The abortion?'

‘Yes.' My breath came out in a puff of white.

Jaz shifted against the fence, and I wondered if I should put my arm round her.

‘I know what you want me to say, Mum. You want me to say it was terrible and I was really upset, and it's haunted me forever after.'

‘Oh, Jaz, you know I'd
never
wish for that.'

‘Didn't you think I'd “let you down”?'

‘No! Good grief, no. Just sorry I wasn't there to help you. Have you any idea how it made me feel, as your mother, hearing that you were upset and frightened, and I wasn't with you? There's nothing worse, believe me. You wait till something happens to hurt Matty and you can't make it better. See how that cuts you up.'

‘You need to hear how it was,' she said, and it was a kind of challenge.

Smoke hung in a pall over the far gardens, like the remnants of a battle.

‘It was dire, Mum, having to go to the clinic. It's quick, the actual … but there's a lot of stuff beforehand, talking to people, which churns you up, and then you feel pretty shit for a few days after. I wouldn't have managed without Nick and Steph.'

‘They've been good friends to you.'

‘You think I don't know that? But the abortion wasn't anything compared with the rest. It was Tom who broke my heart. That's what did the damage.'

‘And the boy who died?'

‘Sam told you about him too. Oh, God.' She buried her face in her hands. Then she raised her head and said, ‘It's like it never goes away. Will it ever go away?'

This time I did touch her arm. She stiffened immediately.

‘I don't want your sympathy, I'm just telling you how it was because you need to hear. It was really, really shit. I couldn't think about anything else for weeks, Sam just kept going on and on about Andy dying, and I was sick in case Tom told her what I'd done. But I only lied to Andy because I was desperate to get her out of the way. I thought she quite liked him. I thought if Sam was hooked up, she'd leave Tom alone, and then—None of us knew Andy was ill. And a lot of it was Sam's fault; she didn't have to be so fucking vile with him. Trying to impress Tom, mocking Andy because she thought Tom would find it funny. I actually said to her, “Don't be such a bitch.” He didn't deserve it. He didn't deserve any of it. It was so fucking awful, what happened.'

‘Oh, Jaz,' I said. ‘I can see why you got poorly, keeping all this to yourself.'

‘Then, when I came home, you didn't understand.'

‘How could I, love? I didn't know! Why didn't you tell me?'

‘Because.'

I closed my eyes for a moment, thought again about Andy Spicer's parents standing in that courtroom. But the picture hardly touched me. The instinct to protect my own child obliterated any connection with their pain, to a degree I never could have credited. ‘Have you talked about this with Nick?'

‘He says it wasn't my fault, people get knock-backs every day but they don't all take their own lives, and how could I have known? That if I'd had any idea of the result, I'd never have taken that course of action.'

‘Well, then.'

‘But if I hadn't made up the story. I keep coming back to that.'

‘Jaz,' I said, feeling for the right words, letting my breath rise and fall in time with hers, ‘you have to believe me when I say it was pure horrible awful luck.'

‘No, Mum.'

‘
Yes
. You might just as well have spoken to Andy and had him laugh in your face or tell Sam to get lost or drink himself into oblivion for two days and then be fine. The leap to – to that particular outcome was one you could never have anticipated. Not everything links up to this person's fault or that person's action. Most events just happen. The idea you can trace them back and make yourself responsible's a fallacy. David taught me that.'

She turned on me. ‘Oh,
David
. Well then, it must be true. I suppose you told him what I did at Leeds?'

‘Not the private stuff, not the things you hadn't confided to me yourself. Honestly, Jaz! I didn't even tell your dad about the boy who died.'

‘Because it was that shameful.'

‘No, because there was no need. Who would it have benefited? It's in the past, it's terribly sad but it's done with. As Nick said.'

Rockets were blasting the sky apart in front of us; there was no pause now between explosions. At my side, Jaz was shivering.

‘Let's go in,' I said.

‘Wait,' she said. ‘You know, it's been hard in the past to talk to you about anything upsetting. You're so bloody cheerful, Mum, so bloody brave. Even when your life's falling apart, you're smile, smile, smile. It's outfacing.'

‘Seems like I can't do right for doing wrong,' I said.

‘I'm only trying to explain.'

An aeroplane passed over the far rooftops, navigation lights winking red and white. ‘When you were little, you used to think planes at night were Santa's sleigh,' I said.

‘That's a long time ago,' she said. ‘Look, the fireworks are over.'

I took her hand and led her across the lawn, back to the house.

CHAPTER 37

Photograph 35, Album One

Location: 22 Manchester Road, Tannerside, Bolton

Taken by: Mr Ainscough from the Black Horse

Subject: the village snow plough, at the junction of Halfacre Lane and Church Street. This is the winter of 1947, and the snow lies in drifts that reach some second-storey windows. When Frieda's mother went shopping this morning, she tripped over the rung on a gas lamp post, that's how deep this snow is. The children have been forced to pick coal off the slag heap on the Brow, while the men cut down hedges and trees to burn. The roads are impassable
.

But here comes the plough, so perhaps the worst is over. Two cart-horses pull not only the wooden wedge but half a dozen children, who've been invited to sit inside for ballast. Frieda watches, half-jealous. She's too old for such activities now, although a snowball fight isn't out of the question, especially if it's with a certain young man living six doors down. She fizzes with energy and excitement at the thought
.

One thing's for sure: never, never will she moan about
snow, the way old people do. Why they can't see the magic of it is beyond her
.

It was with gladness I made up the spare bed for Jaz, unwrapped a spare toothbrush, laid out fresh towels, located Kitten. ‘I'm too tired to drive back now,' she said. ‘My head's all over the place.'

I said, ‘I meant it when I said you could always stay here for a while, till you get yourself sorted. This is your home.'

She closed her eyes. ‘I need to be moving forwards, not backwards. So do you, Mum.'

The next morning, while I was feeding Matty his breakfast, she had all my photograph albums out. I picked up straight away a sort of giddiness about her, a relief that last night's confession was out of the way.

‘Oh my God, look at this,' she said, as I brought Matty in and plonked him on the sofa.

Reluctantly I craned my neck to see. I'd been avoiding photos recently.

It was a picture of the four of us: me, Phil, Jaz and Eileen, standing on Chester city walls. It must have been a hot day because all of us were in short sleeves and Phil was wearing sunglasses. ‘How old were you there?' I asked her.

‘Fourteen, fifteen. That was the afternoon you dropped your earring and we had to go all the way back round. We found it, though. It was on the steps by the river.'