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I carried on reading.
Three more items to tick off on my list.
I crossed off ‘Lose a stone’ and wrote ‘Eat less’ in its place. I crossed off ‘Get a new boyfriend’ and wrote ‘Prepare for a new boyfriend’. It was all in the wording, the semantics. Aims must be achievable, measurable, exact. Each day must have a new list. Each list must have ten items. I was in control.
My sister thinks she’s so bloody perfect. So does my mum. Perfect. Someone ought to tell them.
THREE (#ulink_80593c60-22ba-59ab-ab09-4edaa4447d30)
I was kneading the dough on the wooden kitchen table, my rose-print apron wrapped around my hand-made gingham dress, when I had a maternal impulse to pat my two daughters on their plaited heads as they looked up at me with awe and gratitude…
Well, if you have no hope of being a perfect mother, you might as well imagine it.
‘We’ve run out of milk again,’ Jo whinged, crashing the fridge door shut. I abandoned my Walton fantasy to deal with the latest domestic crisis. ‘There’s plenty in there if you’d only looked properly,’ I shouted in my best bad-mother screech.
‘I have skimmed milk now, I told you.’
‘You never…’ But Jo was out of the door, slamming it behind her as if I were on a train about to leave the station. If only.
I checked the fridge and there was plenty of ordinary milk there. Not much else, though. I thought about going up to Jo’s room to apologise for shouting but I sensed that might be the wrong tactic. I always felt so apologetic, apologetic for being inadequate, I suppose. But whenever I tried to say sorry or explain myself, Jo looked at me with an adolescent contempt as if admitting my shortcomings was in itself a shortcoming. I have always approached parenting as if trying to work a new washing machine without the instructions—by trial and error. What on earth does anyone else do? Yet part of me suspected that other mothers had received the instruction booklet with their children, while mine had been missing. Still, back to the Waltons…
Imagining is good strategy. It’s so easy to imagine fresh ironed sheets on the bed, an Aga in the kitchen and a nanny in the back bedroom—a perfect lifestyle maybe. But imagining yourself as perfect comes a little bit harder, although it can be done with practice. And back then I was well practised. When the girls were little, I used to walk around with a picnic basket in one hand, a copy of Parenting magazine in the other, smiling confidently should Eliza or Jo fling herself onto the floor at Tesco in a temper tantrum. As if I knew exactly how to handle the situation. As if I were in complete control. Still, I muddled through those early years well enough, a permanent splodge of jam on my blouse like a bullet wound, play dough under my finger nails. I always seemed to be wiping one of the girls down with a licked handkerchief while forgetting even to clean my own teeth some days. I can’t think why Roger left me and quickly moved in with the highly successful, designer-clothed, play-dough-free Alice.
Now I have a teenager, things are very different. I adore Jo, yet sometimes she is barely recognisable as the little girl I once knew. Sometimes she is barely recognisable as a human being, but I still adore her. If I’m honest, I would like to press my remote control and fast-forward her past the teenage years and straight into a mother and daughter bonding session in the spa pool, bypassing hormones completely. I desperately tried to hang on to my ideal vision of the future: shopping together without arguing; eating a meal together without an uncomfortable silence; talking together without…well, just talking together. Properly. I thought all it would take was for Jo to change, I didn’t realise I had to change too. Not then, not before Lily Finnegan.
When we went to Victoria’s wedding, I found myself chatting to a fellow parent-of-a-teenager, whom I’d spotted across the marquee—she had that tired, bewildered, confused expression we all share.
‘What are teenagers actually for?’ I asked her, as we stood looking at her daughter, who was sprawled on the ground in her pink frock and Doc Marten boots, with a Walkman plugged into her ears.
‘To make us feel permanently inadequate,’ she suggested.
‘To make sure we never dare see ourselves as anything more than a taxi driver.’
‘Or cash dispenser.’
As we tried to laugh about it all, I discreetly scanned the marquee to ensure Jo had not slouched off to sit in the car be-cause it was all ‘so sad’. In fact, Jo was in rather a good mood, chatting to all the relatives and smiling from time to time. Not a stray hormone in sight. I almost relaxed.
It was a happy day, as weddings so often are, and when Jo didn’t feel well, I didn’t give it another thought. The unwritten rule of teenage behaviour is to make a drama out of the mundane and Jo was no exception. One slight spot or blemish put her straight into quarantine in her own bedroom. One little tiff with her friend Scarlet had her announcing that nobody liked her, she might as well commit suicide, and when she did nobody would come to her funeral. So a slight period pain at the wedding meant leaving early with a view to hospitalisation later.
Should I have insisted she lie down in George’s spare bedroom so that Eliza and I could carry on enjoying our day out? Did I do more harm than good by giving in to Jo’s foibles? I have no idea, I simply made my decision knowing that it was probably the wrong one. As always.
There are no manuals on how to parent teenagers. It is assumed that once you get them sleeping through the night, using the potty and counting to ten, you can sit back and relax. Surely a parents’ magazine for those of us with teenagers would be snapped off the shelves. We would be able to read articles like ‘A Valium-free Method for Dealing with Your Child’s Mood Swings’ or ‘Just Giving You the Benefit of My Experience’—and other phrases never to say to your teenager. All I could do was carry on with the washing-machine approach to parenting.
When we got home from the wedding, I made a positive decision not to ask Jo accusing questions about her apparent stomach problems.
‘Are you better?You seem to have made a speedy recovery,’ I said, the message from my brain not quite reaching my lips.
I must check the hinges on Jo’s bedroom door, I thought, they may have worked loose by now.
The wedding had exhausted me. You never completely relax when you are out with growing children in an environment containing alcohol and collapsible tables. And I had sole responsibility for anything that might have gone wrong. The burden of being a parent on my own suddenly seemed to weigh heavily on me, for I had nobody to shift the responsibility onto, no one else to take the blame, no one else to share my doubts with. I sensed that the stress of lone parenting was beginning to take its toll on me.
The next day, I decided it was time her father got a taste of what I had to deal with, and time I had a desperately needed break. So I dialled Roger’s number, praying out loud as I held the receiver to my ear, ‘Please don’t let Alice answer, please don’t let Alice answer…’
I hadn’t heard the click on the line.
‘I’m afraid it is Alice,’ came the well-enunciated tones of my ex-husband’s partner.
I put the phone down quickly and stared at it. It rang.
‘Answer it, then,’ sang Eliza as she danced past me and into the kitchen.
‘Hello.’
‘That’s Lizzie, isn’t it?’
‘Well…yes.’
‘It’s Alice. I do believe you’ve just telephoned us.’
‘No, it wasn’t me. I’ve just this minute got in—the girls and I were out shopping.’
‘That’s funny…I pressed 1471 and your number came up as the previous caller. So I made the obvious deduction.’ Ever the lawyer.
‘Oh, it was Jo probably.’
‘I thought she was out shopping with you.’
‘She ran on ahead.’
‘So does she want to speak to her father, then?’
‘Yes. No. She did but she changed her mind. I’ll speak to Roger, though, seeing as you’ve phoned.’
Roger and I have an amicable relationship.
When we split up, we gave each other leaving presents and vowed to remain best friends. I was so delighted when he met his young, attractive partner so soon after our separation that I sent Alice a bouquet of flowers…
Well, it could happen—in certain parts of America, perhaps. In reality, my main aim with Roger was to let him know how miserable he had made me.
‘Hi, Roger, sorry I took so long to get back to you—the girls and I have been out shopping and having a wonderful, wonderful time. Together.’
‘You phoned me.’
‘Did I? Oh, yes. Sorry, I’ve had so many calls to make today—work, the hairdressers, Gordon, of course—just someone I met at Victoria’s wedding. Now, what was it I needed to talk to you about?’
‘Jo and Eliza, presumably.’
‘Oh, yes, would you like Jo to stay for a few days next week?’
‘Yes, that suits me fine. Eliza?’
‘Rehearsals. But she could spend a couple of hours with you when I bring them over. If it’s Sunday. Then I could bring her back again.’
‘Fine. Look, you might as well stay to lunch. There’s no need to go all the way home and come back again.’
‘Fine. The only thing is, I would prefer it if your new partner wasn’t there. Well, Jo would prefer it, I don’t mind. After all, we’re both meeting new people. All the time. Practically on a daily basis.’
‘Alice lives here. Anyway, the girls have met her twice now and they all got on fine.’
‘It’s just something Jo said. About being just with you.’
‘Alice did offer to go to her mother’s but I think—’
‘That’s settled, then. About twelve-thirty.’
‘Fine. Alice should be out of the house by then.’
‘Will you be able to bring Jo back on the following Saturday?’
‘Yes, I should think so.’
‘About five o’clock would be good.’
‘I’d rather make it in the evening. About eight maybe.’
‘Six o’clock would be more convenient.’
‘Between six and seven, then.’
‘Fine.’
‘Can I speak to them now?’
‘They’re busy. You could phone back later.’
‘About six?’
‘Seven.’
‘Fine. It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.’
‘Bye, Roger.’
Roger had prepared a cold meat salad for us.
‘You didn’t tell me you were a vegetarian now, Jo,’ he said.
‘I thought Mum had told you.’
I had a choice of answers, starting with the fact that I didn’t know myself, or ‘it must have slipped my mind’, or ‘how come you ate my spaghetti Bolognese, then?’ (which was provocative). I decided to remain completely silent and resist saying something meaningless.
‘Well, there’s vegetarian and there’s vegetarian, isn’t there?’ I laughed.
Jo pushed her salad around on her plate as if she were designing a collage. She cut it up into smaller and smaller pieces, rearranged it, poked her fork into tomato and cucumber and hard-boiled egg and pulled it out again. Her mind was in orbit, it seemed, circling the world and searching for significance. When Jo thought, she thought deeply, penetrating her own soul, searching, probing, reasoning, analysing. She was a lot like I was at that age. Teenage angst, they call it. Eventually you learn to live on the surface, it’s safer.
‘Did you sign up for that additional course for next term?’ asked Roger.
‘Yes,’ muttered Jo, glancing at me.
‘What additional course?’ I almost whispered, hoarsely. I cleared my throat.
‘She’s doing an additional course in IT,’ explained Roger. He had clearly already done his additional course—in smugness.
After lunch, Roger sent the girls upstairs so that he and I could spend some quality time together. Maybe.
‘What’s happened to Jo?’ he asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘She looks like a hat stand, and she hasn’t eaten any lunch.’
‘For God’s sake, Roger, she’s a teenager—that’s what they do.’
‘Only Alice thought…’
‘What the hell does Alice know about having children? She probably thinks ovaries, uterus and fertility are a firm of solicitors.’
‘She’s my daughter, too.’
It is always tempting at such times to launch into the ‘I’m the one bringing them up and you’re the one who walked out’ speech, but I decided against it. Instead, I said nothing.
‘Haven’t you got anything to say on the subject?’ Roger asked, eventually.
‘Not really. I mean, I’m the one bringing them up and you, for whatever reason, decided to leave me to it.’
‘Lizzie, let’s not go over all that again.’
‘No, you’re right. Look, all her friends are the same, it’s nothing to worry about, but if you like I’ll talk to her when she gets back. Don’t make a thing of it.’
‘Fair enough. Does she eat at all?’
‘Of course she does. She had spaghetti Bolognese only yesterday.’
‘I thought she was a vegetarian.’
‘Only a part-time one.’
On the way home, I wanted to think about what Roger had just said, make sense of what he seemed to be implying, but I pushed the thought from my mind as if thinking about it would give it some truth. I screeched to a halt at traffic lights I hadn’t even noticed and banged hard on the steering-wheel, angry with myself for being so distracted, distracted by mere possibilities for nothing had actually happened. I started to sing, and right on cue Eliza joined in. There was a quiver in my voice, a quiver of fear, but I wasn’t even sure what I was frightened of. I slapped my thigh like a pantomime character, grinned and sang louder until everything seemed all right again.
