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‘Matt? That’s a foxy name. I think I read a survey once that said men called Matt have very large penises.’
‘No you didn’t,’ I said, laughing despite myself. It’s impossible to keep a straight face when you’re talking to Becca.
‘What does he look like?’
I thought about that question and realised I didn’t want to be totally honest in regard to how much I remembered about Matt’s appearance. Mainly because I remember way too much: him, bare-chested, water dripping down onto broad swimmers’ shoulders, towel hanging low on angular hipbones, the shape of muscular thighs pressed against the fabric … if I tell her that I’ll never hear the end of it. She’ll call the local vicar and start getting the banns read.
‘He looks a bit like Harrison Ford,’ I said, eventually.
‘Saggy Harrison or fit Harrison?’
‘Fit Harrison.’
‘Han Solo Harrison or Indiana Jones Harrison? Because I think the latter might be useful – your vagina is so well hidden it might as well be in that warehouse with the Ark of the Covenant …’
‘Becca!’ I snapped, torn between horror and amusement. So, it’d been a while. I think your husband dying is pretty good excuse for a lack of sex life, don’t you?
‘Okay, okay … just saying. You could always borrow my Princess Leia outfit.’
‘What kind, or do I need to ask?’
‘Slutty slave girl in Jabba’s palace, obv. You need to get a bit more slutty slave girl, you know.’
‘I do not!’ I spluttered, half-heartedly. She sounded distracted and was paying no attention to my half-hearted outraged spluttering anyway. To be honest, I’d had a couple of glasses of wine by that stage, which was definitely helping me feel more mellow. It’s hard to do full-hearted spluttering when you’re a bit tipsy.
‘Aaah …’ she said.
‘Aaah what?’ I asked.
‘Aaah, I see – yes, he’d definitely get it. Han Solo, though, with that hair, don’t you think? If Han Solo wore Levis that showed off his arse like that, anyway … gosh, he’s really tall, isn’t he? Total man totty.’
I was silent for a few seconds, wondering if Becca had developed powers of clairvoyance since I’d left home. Or if she was possibly having some kind of filthy, illicit sexual relationship with the head of NASA and he’d redirected all European satellites to focus on a small village in Dorset.
‘What … what do you mean? How do you know what he looks like?’ I said, frowning. I looked suspiciously around the room just in case somebody had installed a spycam and I was broadcasting live to the nation like some especially boring episode of Big Brother. There was no spycam. And no kids – Nate had dragged himself to bed, exhausted, and Lizzie had gone upstairs to ‘communicate’.
Becca didn’t answer straight away. She was too busy laughing. Not a polite chuckle either – but a fully throated guffaw. The type that makes you cry and potentially suffocate.
‘Oh God!’ she finally said, clearing her throat, ‘that one of you with the whole cupcake in your mouth is priceless! All that green icing over your face! You look like a Teletubby!’
By that stage I was starting to get a vague inkling of what was going on. I poured another glass of wine and decided that I probably needed a firmer inkling. Also, I wondered what an inkling was – it sounded like it could be a baby fountain pen.
‘Becca,’ I said, as firmly as I could: ‘Tell. Me. What’s. Going. On.’
She giggled, obviously intimidated by my powerful big-sister voice.
‘It’s all on Lizzie’s Instagram account,’ she said, ‘the whole day. You with your mouth wide open in the car – looks like you’re singing … oh yeah, it’s a little video! Ha ha, Meatloaf – seriously, sis? This is too funny …’
She paused and I could hear her clicking through the images.
I stared at my own mobile and considered going online myself. In the end I decided it was bad enough hearing about it, never mind seeing it.
‘There’s one of poor Nate chucking up, the little love,’ Becca added. ‘You’re holding his shoulders and leaning down over him. You have about seventeen chins, you’ll be glad to hear. One of the back of your head. One of Nate asleep, dribbling a bit … there’s loads. Oh … here’s a nice one, though. It’s one of you standing in a very pretty lay-by, gazing out over the hills … your hair’s all flowy and hippy-ish, you’re all thoughtful and pensive, and you look gorgeous, honest! She’s even captioned it “Mum looking less than hideous” – isn’t that nice?’
Nice, I thought … nice? That wasn’t the word I’d have used. ‘Nice’ applied to Cornish cream teas, or a Cath Kidston tote bag, or a cosy night in with a box set of Midsomer Murders. ‘Nice’ was a way of describing your mother’s new perm, or a bath towel set you’ve seen in John Lewis, or a recipe book you buy in a National Trust gift shop.
‘Nice’ was most definitely not the right word for this scenario – the scenario where my teenage daughter and budding photo-journalist has been reporting live to the world at large for the last twenty-four hours without ever mentioning it to the stars of the show.
As Becca went on to describe yet more of the photos, my heart began to sink even further. It really didn’t feel nice at all. I felt humiliated and hurt and ready to cry, none of which was helped by Becca’s laughter, or the fact that I knew Lizzie was entirely possibly upstairs as we were speaking, adding even more pictures.
I closed my eyes and listened as Becca continued her commentary. She was especially amused by my Incredible Escaping Underwear, and by a shot of Matt wearing my bra on his head. Oh God … Matt. I’d have to either get Lizzie to take them offline, or tell him. Or, possibly, simply pack us all back in the car and just flee the scene of the crime …
‘You’re not upset, are you?’ asked Becca, presumably when she’d noticed I’d been stonily silent for a few minutes.
‘Yes,’ I said simply, draining the glass of wine and giving in as the tears started to flow over my cheeks and pool at the base of my neck.
‘But you shouldn’t be! I know it’s cheeky – I know some of the captions are a bit rude – but it’s harmless, really. It’s just her way of dealing with the change … you know she didn’t want to come. You didn’t give her any choice, though, you made her, so she has to let that frustration out some way.
‘It’s hard at that age – you have no power, do you? You’re grown-up enough to think you know your own mind, but not grown up enough that anybody ever listens to you … you’re completely controlled by your parents, by school, by teachers. It’s horrible – especially for someone as bright and independent as Lizzie.’
I nodded, miserably, then realised she couldn’t see me. I knew she was trying to make me feel better, and I could even hear the sense in some of what she was saying. Lizzie was much more like Becca than me at that age, more naturally prickly, more fierce. Stronger in some ways, more vulnerable in others. Becca ‘got’ her, which occasionally makes me jealous, petty as it sounds.
So while the rational part of me could accept the truth in Becca’s arguments, the rest of me still felt like crap. Crap and out of touch, and useless – a million light years away from the precious baby girl who was lying only a few steps away from me. I felt old and tired and mainly – mainly – I just felt terribly, horribly alone.
The kids were upstairs. Becky was on the phone. Matt was nearby in his cottage. The dog was on the sofa. The other holiday homes were full. I was not technically alone. But none of that mattered – I could have been at Mardi Gras in New Orleans, or at Trafalgar Square at New Year, or surrounded by family and friends at a party. I would still have felt alone – no matter how big the crowd. I’d felt alone ever since he left me.
‘I know,’ I mumbled, trying to pull myself together. My family were finally starting to believe that I was moving on, finally starting to believe that I was feeling better. That I might be behaving a bit irrationally, but I was past the worst of my grieving.
Clearly, they actually knew sod all.
‘I know,’ I repeated, more firmly the second time. ‘I’m just a bit knackered. And I feel bad for Matt – I mean, he probably doesn’t want the world to see him with a bra on his head, does he?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Becca, ‘he might love it. For all you know he’s the chairman of the Dorset Bra-On-Head-Wearers Committee, Han Solo branch. And anyway, it’s not really the world – it’s only people who are her friends on Instagram. That’s me and a handful of teenagers in Manchester. I’m sure she’ll add you as well, if you ask.’
‘I’m pretty sure she won’t … and that’s probably for the best. You’re right. She needs some privacy. She needs a way to blow off steam. I just need to tell her to lay off the innocent bystanders.’
‘Yeah, do that. And look, don’t feel bad – I’m sorry I described it all like it was hilarious, and I know you’re sitting there half cut and pretending not to cry even though you are. There are some lovely pictures on here as well, honest. I’ve been looking through while we’ve been talking and lots of it’s really nice – views of the scenery, the stone circles, a fab one of you and Nate eating ice cream under a huge weeping willow tree … one of Jimbo peeing on someone else’s car wheel at a service-station car park and you looking a bit shifty as you try and drag him away … one of you outside McDonald’s, with the caption “Best. Mum. Ever”.’
‘And there’s an absolutely beautiful one of the front of your cottage. It’s quite darkly lit and very arty … Hyacinth House? Is that what it’s called, where you’re staying? That’s very hip for Dorset!’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked. I’d been wondering why it sounded familiar all evening.
‘The Hyacinth House. It’s a Doors song. Remember, from my hippy rock phase?’
Now that she’s said it, I did remember, a little bit. Dimly and distantly, a vision of Becca with her tie-dyed T-shirts and greasy hair and the stench of patchouli oil came back to me. It had been a deeply unfashionable phase, that, not to mention smelly. Sadly we’d shared a room, so her taste in music became mine by default.
‘Just about,’ I said, a ghost of a tune playing in my head. ‘Weird. Look, I’m going to go, Becca. I need to get some rest. I just hope she doesn’t creep into my room at night and take a picture of me drooling onto my pillow.’
‘I’m sure she won’t. And just remember – there are far, far worse ways for a teenage girl to rebel than this. And I know, I tried them all.’
By the time I finally hung up, I was too exhausted to even think about it any more. I decided that the best course of action would be to let Lizzie know I knew, lay down a few ground rules, but not try anything too heavy-handed like banning her, or forcing her to close her account, or confiscating her phone, or killing her.
Besides, a sneaky part of me thought, as I let Jimbo out for his last wee of the night and prepared to climb the stairs, it might be the best possible chance I had of understanding what was going on in her brain. Surely Becca would warn me if she started posting pics of naked teenage boys or open condom packets or crates full of alcopops?
Jimbo had wandered back in and did his usual circling around routine before he curled up in a ball on his bed. I scratched his ears goodnight and went upstairs to do the same. Not circle around three times before curling up in a ball, but my own bedtime routine.
I took the framed photo of me, David and the kids that I’d brought with me and placed it on the bedside cabinet, facing inwards so it was the last thing I’d see before I went to sleep, and the first thing I’d see in the morning. It was taken when we were all scuba diving on holiday, and we have big plastic masks propped up on our heads. Nate’s missing his front teeth; Lizzie’s still a little girl, and me and David … well, we look happy. One of those perfect moments, frozen in time.
I positioned it perfectly and because it had been a very tough day and I was feeling emotionally drained, I resorted to the Sniff and Cuddle technique to settle myself off.
After David had died, I couldn’t bring myself to wash his clothes for ages. They just sat there, in the laundry basket, with everyone else’s getting thrown on top of them. Nothing was ever added to David’s pile and nothing was ever taken away from it.
I never had to wash another clean work shirt for him or sort a fresh pair of socks, or dry his favourite Superman T-shirt that had holes in the armpits. I never needed to use the special Fairy non-bio because of his sensitive skin, and I never had to iron another pair of trousers. Because he never needed anything else from me ever again.
Eventually, my mother took charge and simply bundled the whole lot home with her to do herself. She washed them and dried them and folded them, and together we decided what needed to go to the charity shop, and what should be binned. To be fair, it’s not as callous as it sounds – those clothes of his had been in the basket for three months by that stage, and it wasn’t fair on the kids, apart from anything else, constantly seeing them there. It makes me cringe when I look back, in all honesty. I was definitely a teeny bit insane, which must have been frightening for them.
So I let my mum bag them up and bin them, partly because it was the right thing to do, and also because I was going through a kind of zombie stage back then. I was very malleable and easy to move around, like a lump of play dough in human form. I wasn’t good at making decisions and I wasn’t good at resisting them either.
Luckily, my mum didn’t expand her Empire of Common Sense to the bedroom, and I took comfort in the knowledge that I had a secret stash of David lurking on a hook on the back of the door.
I had his dressing gown, a big bulky burgundy fleece. He’d had it for years and he’d lost the belt in the garden when we used it for an impromptu tug of war with the kids. Jimbo had chewed one sleeve and the left-side pocket was falling off. He’d really needed a new one and I’d mentally added it to his Christmas list.
But its ragged state didn’t matter at all to me. What mattered was the fact that it still smelled of him; of him, and his deodorant, and the Old Spice aftershave the kids had bought him as a joke birthday present and he claimed to love.
If you’ve ever lost anyone, you’ll know how important your sense of smell is. Walking into a room that smelled like David could literally take my breath away. An impromptu waft of his aftershave could reduce me to rubble. I couldn’t even sit in the car for weeks afterwards, the aroma was so very ‘him’. I also kept automatically getting into the passenger side, because he did the bulk of the driving, and waiting for him to get in next to me.
After a while, those little things – the outward signs of a life being half-lived, of a life in flux – started to fade. I got used to the driving. I accepted that his clothes were gone. I stopped bursting into tears every time I smelled Old Spice. But I never, ever, let go of that dressing gown.
I suspect it’s a sign of some kind of mental breakdown, so I keep it secret, tucked away in a Tesco carrier bag in my underwear drawer, only getting it out at night. It’s rarely seen, but always nearby – usually under the pillow he slept on (and yes, it did take me a very long time to allow my mother to strip the bed linens as well), or on particularly difficult evenings, cuddled up in my arms like a big, fleecy cat. The smell is faint now, barely there – but it’s comforting anyway.
That night had definitely been a full-on fleecy-cat-cuddling kind of night, and I finally fell asleep after half an hour of Very Deep Thinking. About Lizzie. About Nate. About me. About our future, and what it might hold. About starting a new job tomorrow. About meeting Cherie Moon. About Matt. About the fact that Jimbo was so very old. About that scene in Casino Royale where James Bond is in the shower comforting a trembling Vesper Lynd and manages to be really sexy even though he’s fully clothed … at that point, I suspect I drifted off into a happier place.
I was still cuddling my fake David, but he wouldn’t mind. He’d always respected my relationship with Daniel Craig.
I’d slept surprisingly well, which was perhaps a result of the wine intake, and now I’m awake. Groggy, but awake. I glance at my watch on the cabinet – 9.38am – and give David a quick ‘good morning’ smile.
I stretch out, swipe the sleep out of my eyes and get out of bed. I carefully wrap my precious dressing gown up in the carrier bag and tuck it under the pillow for later.
I go for a morning tinkle and then tiptoe to Lizzie’s room. I push the door open, just a teeny, tiny bit, and see her there. She’s splayed across the predictably flowered duvet, one pyjama-clad leg under and one leg hooked over, and her hair is a mass of tangles against the pillowcase. She’s still fast asleep, her eyelids moving slightly as she dreams, her lips open. She looks about ten years old, and my heart melts. Still my precious baby girl. Especially when she’s asleep.
Today, I promise myself as I head for the shower, is going to be a good day. It will be positive and exciting, and fulfilling. And I will do my very best not to end up in any ridiculous situations that give Lizzie the opportunity to document my downfall live and online.
Chapter 8 (#ulink_6dd777b7-7b04-54f3-a410-afbab08fdad1)
‘Mum!’ shouts Nate, as I am busily burning toast in the kitchen. ‘There’s a picture of a strange man in the downstairs loo!’
I frown, throw the irredeemably black slices into the bin, and go to see what all the fuss is about. I make a mental note to dash back in time to turn the new, improved toast over on the grill. Some cook I’m turning out to be – completely flummoxed by the lack of a toaster.
I knock politely on the toilet door, because despite the fact that I carried this small person in my own body for nine months, Nate has become quite private since his twelfth birthday. When I have time, I feel a little worried about it – he’s at that age where there is probably a lot of stuff going on with him; a lot of boy stuff, which he obviously doesn’t want to talk to me about. So I tread carefully, let him know I’m available and don’t barge into the bathroom.
He pulls open the door and points in something akin to wonder at a framed black-and-white photo that’s hanging on the wall over the cistern.
At that point, Lizzie also comes in, her hair doing the Macarena over her face, phone in hand as usual. Just to complete the set, Jimbo pokes his way through our legs, sniffing at the toilet rim and wagging his tail so hard he’s whacking the sides of my thighs like a carpet beater. It’s suddenly very crowded in the downstairs loo.
‘Who is it, and why’s he there? It feels weird having him watch me while I pee …’ says Nate.
I stare at the picture: at the long hair, the leather trousers and the arrogantly handsome face.
‘It’s Jim Morrison,’ I reply. ‘He’s from a band called the Doors, and they recorded a song called the “Hyacinth House”. I’d thought perhaps Becca was over-stretching to assume the cottage was named after it, but it looks like I was wrong …’
Lizzie pushes to the front of the crowd and gazes up at Jim. Poor dead Jim, one of the brightest stars of his time, now performing in front of an audience of three (four if you count the dog) in a very small lavatory.
She closes the wooden lid and climbs up on it, so her face is right next to the photo.
‘Nate!’ she says, passing him her phone. ‘Take a picture! This is so cool – Becca did me a playlist that had the Doors on it. That song about people being strange. Come on, Nate, I can’t stand on the bog all day. Take the bloody picture!’
She does that strange fish-like pout that seems to be a legal requirement of teenagers’ photos the world over these days, and Nate takes the picture.
‘Is that for your Instagram account?’ I say, as she clambers down from the toilet lid. There’s a brief pause, where she looks twitchy and nervous and then tries to hide it. Caught between being a little girl who doesn’t want to get into trouble with her mum and a rebellious teen who wants to stick two fingers up at me.
I remind myself of what Becca said and remind myself that she was right – Lizzie didn’t want to come here and I did, in fact, force her to. If the only thing she has power over is taking crazed selfies and embarrassing pictures of me, I can live with it – it’s a shedload better than an eating disorder, that’s for sure.
I’m interested to see which way she’ll go, and can almost hear the cogs turning in her brain. In the end, she just shrugs, face neutral – not apologising, but not being aggressive either. Clever girl.
‘Yeah. Is that all right?’ she asks. She obviously knows now that I’ve spoken to Becca, and may be feeling a little anxious about my next move. Carefully, I also maintain a neutral face. We’re both trying very hard to be Switzerland, here, which is perhaps the best we can hope for.
‘It’s fine,’ I say. ‘Apart from taking photos of people who aren’t in the family. Like Matt. If you do that, you ask their permission to share, okay? You can’t invade people’s privacy like that. It’s not respectful.’
She nods, agreeing to my terms, and I feel jubilant inside. Like I have negotiated a peace treaty that has ended all conflict in the Middle East, and should now be made the chairman of The Entire World.
‘Mum!’ shouts Nate, sniffing the air, ‘I think that toast is burning again …’
Aaagh, I think, dashing out of the toilet, tripping slightly over the dog’s arse and running towards the kitchen. Perhaps being chairman of The Entire World can wait until I’ve mastered turning bread brown without starting a fire.
I give up on the toast and we all eat cereal. Cherie has kindly left us a little welcome pack of butter, milk, coffee, a few other bits and bobs. Plus a giant box of Sugar Puffs, which is strangely enough the kids’ favourite – an excellent guess from the mysterious Mrs Moon. I scoff down a huge mug of black coffee, and Nate and Lizzie guzzle some orange juice before disappearing off upstairs to get dressed. We have a couple of hours before we need to be at the café and plan to go and explore.
Having failed to cover all the mirrors up the night before, I was forced to confront myself in the bathroom after my shower. That resulted in a hefty spray of Frizz-Ease before I dried my hair, and a very light application of some tinted moisturiser. As a result, I look almost presentable and am dressed in some khaki shorts and a green T-shirt, along with a pair of Birkenstock sandals that were probably in fashion several years ago.
I take the precaution of hooking Jimbo up on his lead as we head out, just in case he decides he’s a puppy again and does a runner, and he ambles alongside us, at a plodding pace I use as an excuse to go slowly myself.
We start with a stroll through the woods at the back of the house, which is a pretty magical place. The canopy of the trees is so dense that only a few rays of sunlight manage to creep through and dapple the mossy ground beneath our feet, and the only sound is birdcall and the bubbling of a nearby stream. It feels very isolated and mystical, almost as though we’re in our very own private rainforest, even though I know the cottages are only five minutes away.
We do a loop, following a circular footpath that’s dotted at all the junctions and forks with garden gnomes. Each gnome seems to be doing something different – fishing, clapping, playing what looks like a ukulele – and each one has a wooden sign next to it on a stick, bearing a few words of gnomish wisdom in colourful speech bubbles. One says ‘the path to the cottages’; another says ‘the way to the falls’. One is holding little binoculars, and his sign says ‘the trail to the distant coast’. An especially jaunty fellow wearing a red beret tells us to follow the ‘road to San Jose’, but I think that one might be a joke.
Nate and Lizzie are fascinated by it all. Honestly, it’s as though they’ve never seen trees before. Everything seems to take on huge significance – a giant fern still dripping with morning dew; the hollowed-out trunk of an oak big enough to squeeze inside; faded pink bunting hanging from overhead branches, as though someone has been having a party; a patch of wild mushrooms that Lizzie swears is the spitting image of David Cameron’s face.
Nate isn’t quite old enough to have totally developed his sense of cool yet, so seeing him running around isn’t as much of a surprise. He still plays football on the street and likes to go to the swings.
But seeing Lizzie let go of her teenage diva image for even a few moments is a complete and unexpected delight. She’s running and jumping and exploring, and taking photos of everything, and I don’t even care when she takes one of me as I lean down to scoop up one of Jimbo’s giant poos in a plastic bag. At least it shows I’m a responsible dog owner.
