After You

‘So why didn’t Treena come?’ I said, hurriedly changing the subject.

‘She couldn’t find a sitter for Thom.’

‘You said she was busy.’

Mum’s eyes darted across to my reflection. She pressed her lips together and snapped her lipstick back into her handbag. ‘She seems to be a little cross with you right now, Louisa.’ She activated Maternal X-ray Vision. ‘Have you two had a falling out?’

‘I don’t know why she always has to have opinions about everything I do.’ I heard my own voice, the sulky tones of a twelve-year-old.

She fixed me with a look.

So I told her. I sat up on the marble basin, and Mum took the easy chair, and I told her about the job offer and why I couldn’t possibly take it, how we had lost Lily and found her again, and how she was finally beginning to come out of the other side. ‘I’ve arranged for her to meet Mrs Traynor again. So we’re moving forward. But Treena just won’t listen, although if Thom were going through half the same thing she’d be the first person saying I couldn’t walk away from him.’

I felt relieved telling my mother. She, of all people, would understand the ties of responsibility. ‘So that’s why she’s not talking to me.’

My mother was staring at me.

‘Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, have you lost your mind?’

‘What?’

‘A job in New York with all the trimmings and you’re sticking around here to work in that godawful place at the airport? Did you hear this?’ She turned to the attendant. ‘I can’t believe she’s my own daughter. Honest to God, I wonder what happened to the brains she was born with.’

The attendant shook her head slowly. ‘No good,’ she said.

‘Mum! I’m doing the right thing!’

‘For whom?’

‘For Lily!’

‘You think nobody other than you could have helped get that girl back on her feet? Well, did you speak to this chap in New York and ask him whether you could defer the job offer a few weeks?’

‘It’s not that kind of a job.’

‘How would you know? You don’t ask, you don’t get. Isn’t that right?’

The attendant nodded slowly.

‘Oh, Jesus. When I think about it …’

The attendant gave my mother a hand towel and she fanned her neck vigorously with it. ‘Listen to me, Louisa. I’ve got one brilliant daughter stuck at home weighed down with responsibility because she made a bad choice early on – not that I don’t love Thom to bits, but I’ll tell you, I want to cry my heart out when I think of what Treena could have become if she’d just had that boy a bit later. I’m stuck looking after your father and Granddad, and that’s fine. I’m finding my way. But this should not be the most you have to look forward to in your life, you hear me? Not a bunch of half-price tickets and a fancy tea every now and then. You should be out there! You’re the one person in our family with an actual ruddy chance! And to hear you’ve just chucked it away for the sake of some girl you barely even know!’

‘I did the right thing, Mum.’

‘Maybe you did. Or maybe it wasn’t actually an either/or situation.’

‘You don’t ask, you don’t get,’ said the attendant.

‘There! This lady knows. You need to get back there and ask this American gentleman is there any way you can come along a bit later … Don’t you look at me like that, Louisa. I’ve been too soft on you. I haven’t pushed you when I should have done. You need to get yourself out of that dead-end job of yours and start living.’

‘The job is gone, Mum.’

‘Gone my pearly-handled backside it is. Have you actually asked them?’

I shook my head.

Mum huffed and adjusted the scarf around her neck. She pulled two pound coins from her purse and pressed them into the hand of the attendant. ‘Well, I have to say, haven’t you done a grand job! You could eat your supper off this floor. And it all smells simply gorgeous.’

The attendant smiled at her warmly, and then, almost as an afterthought, held up a finger. She peered out of the door, then walked to her cupboard, unlocking it swiftly with a bunch of keys. She emerged and pressed a bar of floral soap into Mum’s hands.

Mum sniffed it and sighed. ‘Well, that is just heaven. Just a little piece of heaven.’

‘For you.’

‘For me?’

The woman closed Mum’s hands around it.

‘Well, aren’t you the kindest? May I ask your name?’

‘Maria.’

‘Maria, I’m Josie. I’m going to make sure I come back to London and use your toilet the very next time I’m here. Do you see that, Louisa? Who knows what happens when you break out a little? How’s that for an adventure? And I got the most gorgeous bar of soap from my lovely new friend Maria here!’ They clasped hands with the fervency of old acquaintances about to be parted, and we left the hotel.

I couldn’t tell her. I couldn’t tell her that that job haunted me from the moment I woke until I went to sleep. Whatever I said to anyone else, I knew I would always regret to my bones missing the chance to live and work in New York. That no matter how much I told myself there would be other chances, other places, this would be the lost opportunity I carried, like a cheap handbag I regretted buying, wherever I went.

And sure enough, after I had waved her off on the train to my, no doubt, bemused and blustering father, and long after I had made a salad for Lily from bits that Sam had left in the fridge, when I checked my email that night there was a message from Nathan.

I can’t say I agree, but I do get what you’re doing. I guess Will would have been proud of you. You’re a good person, Clark x

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

These are the things I learned about being a parent, while not actually being a parent. That whatever you did you would probably be wrong. If you were cruel or dismissive or neglectful, you would leave scars upon your charge. If you were supportive and loving, encouraging and praising them for even their smallest achievements – getting out of bed on time, say, or managing not to smoke for a whole day – it would ruin them in different ways. I learned that if you were a de facto parent all these things applied but you had none of the natural authority you might reasonably expect when feeding and looking after another person.