The Mother And Daughter Diaries

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‘I know, I know. Please, Mum, don’t pressurise me. I’ll be all right, I promise.’

Her eyes pleaded with me, she looked so sad, even desperate, and I couldn’t reach her. I wanted to hug her, to tell her I loved her, that I missed the old Jo, that everything would be all right. But it was as if she had put a barbed-wire fence around herself to keep people out. To keep me out. Still, I tried to get through. I was not going to give up on my own daughter as, it seemed, Lisa’s mother had.

‘You are under pressure, I know,’ I said as gently as I could manage. Yet my voice was shaking, unsteady, as if I were at an important interview. A test to see if I was a fit mother. ‘School is full of pressure these days, I do understand. And the divorce, I realise you took it—’

‘I’m over it, OK?’

‘I know, but these things…Anyway, maybe a counsellor or a therapist or something…’

So Jo came to the doctor as the easier option, the more acceptable one, to both of us.

In my best hat and coat and clutching Jo’s medical card and inoculation record, I helped my poorly daughter out of the car and into the doctor’s surgery where I queued patiently to speak to the bright young receptionist who…

‘You’re late,’ said the not so bright young receptionist.

‘Sorry, couldn’t start the car and then I’ve been queuing here so I wasn’t as late as…Sorry, it’s for my daughter, Joanna Trounce. Jo…? Jo?’

I went back to the car to get Jo.

‘You didn’t say it was for an actual appointment.’

‘What did you think we were doing here? Having a pint and a game of darts?’

We sat among the coughs and heavy breathing of the waiting room, flicking through old magazines repetitively, rhythmically, as if searching for information.

‘There are a lot of bugs around at the moment,’ I told Jo and myself. ‘The problem is when you feel unwell, you worry about it and that worry makes you worry even more. It’s so easy to let these things get out of hand. I’m sure Dr Robinson will sort it all out.’

After my good-mother speech, I was carried along by a strong sense that everything would be all right in the morning, that a muddle would be unmuddled, that we would look back and laugh at it all. But the words ‘eating disorder’, ‘anorexia’, ‘bulimia’ repeated themselves over and over in my mind like a mantra wanting to push all other thoughts away.

It was with some relief that we were called into the surgery. I felt we had begun what we had come for and it would all be over soon, like taking your driving test. As we sat down, I decided not to take over but to allow Jo to describe her symptoms.

‘Joanna is having difficulty eating, not difficulty as such, I mean her mouth works well enough! Yes, well, I mean she eats and then feels sick. She has some intermittent diarrhoea and her stomach hurts again, usually after eating. Of course, it’s put her off eating, as you’d expect. She hasn’t eaten any-thing the rest of the family haven’t had so we don’t think it’s…Sorry, I’ll let Jo tell you all about it.’

‘I think that’s a good idea, Mrs. Trounce. Perhaps you would like to wait outside. Is that all right with you, Joanna?’

I looked at Jo as if she were at school, choosing who she wanted to be her partner.

‘That’s fine,’ she said eventually.

‘I don’t usually wait outside,’ I objected. ‘I mean, she is my daughter.’

‘Mum…’

So I left the room like someone who has just failed a job interview and been eliminated for saying the wrong thing, only to sit in the waiting room and wonder what was being said about me. At least, I thought, the day couldn’t get any worse. It could.

‘Hello, Lizzie, I’m glad I ran into you.’

There stood the wonderful Alice, not looking the slightest bit ill. Still, it’s hard to look sick in an Armani suit. I wondered what to say about Jo and thought about hinting at head lice, but Alice had other things on her mind.

‘Have you been painting Jo’s room?’ she asked.

‘Yes, it was a surprise.’

‘Only I think we’ve ended up with your paint. Of course Mother’s got very muddled about it. I think you must have our tins of pink.’

‘No, I’ve got the right paint, thanks. Maybe your mother wanted a black and purple bathroom.’

‘How did you know she had black and purple paint?’

‘Just a guess.’

‘Are you here with Jo?’ Alice asked—rather nosily, I thought.

For one second, I wanted to tell her the truth, to take the forced smile off my face and explain how bad everything was.

‘It’s that time of year,’ I said instead, the smile remaining rigidly in place.

Just then the door to Dr Robinson’s surgery opened and out came Jo.

‘Hi, Alice,’ Jo muttered.

‘Hello, Jo, it’s good to see you.’

I bundled Jo out of the surgery as quickly as I could before Alice asked any of her awkward questions. I thought I was protecting my daughter but perhaps I was trying to protect myself. I didn’t stop to think seriously as to why Alice was visiting the doctor, my mind was too full of Jo.

‘All right?’ I asked as we got into the car. But what exactly was I asking?

‘Yeah.’

‘Do you need to make another appointment?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Let’s do it now, then.’

‘No. I meant not another appointment.’

‘What do you mean? Do you or do you not need another appointment?’

Maybe it’s all right to use a sharp, brittle, bad-mother’s voice if you say sorry afterwards. Sorry is the magic word your own mother told you about. It turns you into Saint Mary.

‘Sorry,’ I muttered. ‘It’s just…’

‘I know.’

We looked at each other. For just a moment there seemed to be some joint understanding, some mutual emotion be-tween us as if we were in it together, like musicians playing the same tune. But anxiety separates us from others. Laughter is a joint, shared display of emotion. You do anxiety on your own, even if it is in parallel.

We were silent on the way home and then I insisted on conversation, a sharing of information, my right to know. I stood firm. Jo tried to push me away, exclude me, fly solo, but I persuaded her I was there for her. This was not intrusion, this was loving care, wasn’t it? They should extend those nanny-knows-best programmes to include stuff like this.

When in doubt, put the kettle on. Jo drank her coffee black. I sloshed some milk into mine and dunked a digestive into the hot liquid. We needed our drinks to focus on, to keep our hands busy, avert our eyes, give us something to do, a reason for sitting across from one another at the kitchen table. This was a chat over coffee, not an interrogation. Pauses were necessary to sip our drinks, not as a withholding of information or feelings.

‘I’ve been referred to the eating disorders clinic.’

I felt the hot coffee drip down the back of my throat and warm my oesophagus. I could almost sense it arriving in my stomach. Its warmth was in welcome contrast to the cold, stark message from Jo. Yet still my fingernails clung onto a cliff edge that was not really there.

That’s good. At least we know what’s wrong now. I feel so much happier and calmer now I know. I could walk on air, skip through daisies, holding your hand as I guide you though this difficult time…

But those words were erased by fear and anger before they reached my lips.

‘How does that bloody doctor know anything? Is he going to carry out any tests? Is he an expert on eating disorders or does he spend all day looking at gout, verrucas and snot? I think we should try another doctor.’

‘I knew this would happen,’ Jo snapped.

‘Knew what would happen?’

‘You’d go all hysterical.’

‘I’m not hysterical.’

‘I’ve seen the bloody doctor, I’m going to the bloody clinic. What more do you want? Sorry I’m not the perfect daughter.’

That sounded ridiculous to me. Why would I want a perfect daughter? I just wanted Jo, Jo as she was, with all her ups and downs, faults and blemishes, the whole package. But the eating disorder was wrong, it just didn’t fit, it wasn’t part of Jo. It was like one of those modern conservatories tacked onto the front of a beautiful, old, beamed Tudor house. Like a down-and-out with a bottle of meths and a Gucci handbag. I tried to change my anger into gentle understanding.

‘All I’m doing is giving you some support. Perhaps I should have just let you walk to the doctor’s.’

Oops, I had played my joker—the guilt card.

Guilt goes with motherhood. Guilt because we dare to go out to work, guilt because we failed to buy Barbie’s health spa, jacuzzi and leg-waxing centre three Christmases ago, guilt be-cause we sometimes buy pre-packed, e-numbered, shove-in-the-microwave suppers. And every now and then we try to disperse all that guilt in another direction.

Jo raged upstairs, stamping her feet on every step and leaving me sitting there like a damp firework. I knew I wasn’t handling this very well but I felt out of control. Something was happening that I couldn’t keep tabs on, it was running away with me, spinning out of my hands. I felt frustrated, inadequate, out of my depth. I just sat there, staring into my coffee-mug, weighed down by thoughts and emotions. I don’t know how long I remained in that position, but when Jo appeared in the kitchen doorway I realised that my hands were numb from holding the weight of my head in them for so long.

‘Mum, there really isn’t anything to worry about,’ began Jo. ‘They’re going to run some tests but the doctor was right and so were you—I’d just become frightened to eat, that’s all. I suppose it’s a sort of eating disorder and I have lost weight but not that much. The thing is, I’ve been to the doctor as a precaution but I can sort this out myself. I probably don’t need the clinic at all. I might go just for a bit of one-off advice. I won’t be like the others there.’

Suddenly the sun shone through the yellow curtains in our kitchen and we all danced together in the sunbeams, like fairies on a midsummer’s evening.

When Jo was little, I used to read her stories about magical places. I also used to sit her in front of the television while I topped up on caffeine and magazine gossip. I used to take her to the park and push her on the swings for as long as she wanted, but then I would wheel her pushchair around the clothes shops until she was stiff with boredom. I was, in many ways, a near-perfect mother but on a part-time basis. Now I simply tried too hard to be that story-reading, swing-pushing mother.