Both of You Page 2

  Don’t get me wrong. We’re a very happy family. More often than not. Very happy. It’s just sometimes – and any mother will tell you this – sometimes being a mum seems a bit thankless, a bit hopeless. Well, if not hopeless, then certainly outside of your control. I think that’s the hardest lesson I have had to learn as a parent; no matter how much I try, I am not able to guarantee my sons’ happiness and success. There are constant outside forces at work that disrupt things. Forces that matter to them more than I do. Friendship groups, strict or nagging teachers, Insta likes and follows, whether or not they are picked for a team or invited to a party, whether they think they are tall enough, too fat, too thin, too spotty. Whether they are the best at something, at anything. It was easier when they were younger; a cuddle, a colourful Elastoplast or an ice lolly solved just about everything.

  I like to listen to music when the house is empty. Two reasons. One, to fill the void that is normally owned by the noise of video games beeping, music blaring and the TV streaming, and secondly because when the boys are home, I rarely get to pick what music is played. Oli likes hip-hop and rap, Seb pretends to like these things because he lives in awe of his big brother and tries to ape his every move – adopting his style, claiming his tastes in music, food, TV shows – much to Oli’s annoyance. Because both the boys like hip-hop and rap, the angry lyrics and heavy, insistent beats tend to thud through our rooms whenever they are about; my preferences are not considered. No one would call me a muso. I stopped following bands when Oasis and Blur started to slip down the charts. Most of the music I like is blacklisted on Radio 1, but I do like dancing. I like a beat thrilling through my body. I guess I’m the musical equivalent to that person who says they know nothing about wine, except what they like to drink.

  Sometimes I’ll hear a track that Oli and Seb are listening to and I’ll say, ‘What’s this? This is good.’ Up until about six months ago that would make Oli smile; he’d excitedly show me some incomprehensible YouTube video and tell me facts about the singer: they’ve been in prison, they’ve performed on a yacht to crowds on the shore, they gave away ten million in cash in their local hood. The worlds he describes are alien to me; I remember when the most surprising thing a pop star could do was wear eyeliner. But I liked to listen to him enthuse. I liked to see him animated, I felt honoured that it was me he chose to share his excitement with. I miss that. I miss him.

  I once made the mistake of commenting that after hearing Taylor Swift on Radio 1, I considered her my spirit animal – because if you listen to her lyrics, she writes the things I feel. Well, felt, when I was young and vulnerable. It appears those things don’t change for a woman no matter how woke a world becomes. It was around this time that I noticed Oli change towards me. When I said the spirit animal thing, he didn’t get the sentiment, couldn’t see my joke or my attempt at connection. He was horrified. Suddenly furious that I might encroach on his world of youth and possibility, crushes, and illicit under the covers (solo) activity.

  ‘You don’t even know what a spirit animal is,’ he snapped. ‘Another person can’t be your spirit animal.’

  ‘I know, I was making a joke!’ I said, smiling, trying to get him to engage. ‘But she is brilliant, isn’t she? It’s as though she understands everything there is to understand about secret longings, triumphs and mistakes.’ After hearing her on the radio, I had downloaded her latest album. I pressed play on my phone. ‘Listen.’ I began to dance around the kitchen. We first bonded over dancing, me and Oli. He used to climb onto my feet, and I would step with him, in a strange slow shuffle dance, the way my father had once moved with me. Obviously, he’s far too big now. He’s taller than me! He’s a great dancer. I like watching him. It takes a confident teen to dance anywhere, let alone in the kitchen with his mother. That day, when I said the thing about Taylor Swift, I waited for him to join in, but Oli just scowled, said Taylor Swift was crap and then disappeared to his room. I can’t remember him dancing with me since.

  Wallowing in the luxury of an empty house, I pump up the volume and listen to her touching lyrics and dazzling melodies whilst I mop the kitchen floor. She sings about young love and irresponsibility. Mark and I never had that. He was a father when I met him and I became a mother the day I agreed to be his girlfriend – or at least a stand-in-mother, an almost-mother. Yet as I listen to the words, I am flung even further back into days defined by spectacular failures, magnificent consequences. I like to dance, it’s a great source of joy to me. I adore the sheer extravagance of it. The alone time on a Sunday afternoon seems deliciously illicit, indulgent. I start to sway my hips, move my feet, click out a beat. Soon the lyrics and rhythm infiltrate my body like a stranger. I give in to it. No, that suggests resistance – I jump in to it. I let myself go. I let it all out. I’m normally in control of everything: myself, my family, time. I’m relatively self-conscious, constantly aware of the impression I make. But when dancing, that drops away. My arms and legs loosen, I shake my hips and my head. I start to use the mop as a fake dance partner and spin and twirl.

  Outside, the sky dips from bruised grey to a dark indigo as I clean and dance. Mark texts to say that he and the boys have gone back to Paula’s for supper. Decision made. I’m not being consulted, just kept up to date. But I was only planning a sandwich tea, it’s not like I can complain. When the floor is clean, and all the surfaces are gleaming, I put away the mops, cloths and bucket but – a regular Cinderella determined to go to the ball – I continue to dance. My stomach becomes clammy with sweat, my hair sticks to the back of my neck, and I am loving it! The pleasure, the freedom is absolute.

  That’s why I am so angry with Mark and the boys for taking it away. The pleasure. The freedom.

  I hear them. Their laughter. Loud and unruly. It is pitch black outside now and I have the light on in the kitchen, it is as though I am on a stage, performing but also exposed. Mark, Oli and Seb are stood at the glass patio door, laughing like hyenas. I wonder how long they have been watching. They pile into the house, still laughing. Carelessly ridiculing me.

  ‘Quite the performance,’ says Mark. He kisses me briefly, his cold lips bite against my blushing cheek. ‘I forgot my key, so we came around the back.’

  ‘God, Mum, you dance like Grandma,’ says Seb. I don’t. Their grandmother still does the twist – to her credit – I’m a little more 90s. Yes, stuck there, probably but it is not the twist, it’s a lot of jumping up and down and arm waving. Still, I understand the point Seb is making. Hurriedly, I pull my arms to my sides. If I could chop them right off, I would. I imagine reaching for the carving knife, clean and gleaming on the kitchen unit.

  ‘Wash your hands. Thoroughly. Sing “Happy Birthday” twice, like we’ve been told,’ I say. No one responds.

  ‘You are such a loser, Leigh,’ mutters Oli. Barging past me, he grabs an apple from the fruit bowl I’ve stocked, bites into it aggressively. He shakes his head. Not the way I did when dancing, not with joyful abandon, but with despair. Disgust. ‘Embarrassing.’

  I turn to Mark and plead with my eyes for him to say something, I know he understands me, but he just shrugs. His eyes say, don’t bring me into this; it’s your battle. Sometimes being a wife and mother feels like death by a thousand cuts. I straighten my shoulders, force out a smile, albeit a small one – no one is going to think I am deliriously happy right now, but I don’t want to cause a scene. Or maybe I do, but Mark doesn’t. I am master over my own body. I choose what to reveal. I keep my face relaxed, my brow unfurrowed, my chin stays high. Unreadable. You are not meant to feel like an outsider in your own tribe. It’s unnatural.

  ‘Can we get a dog?’ Seb asks.

  ‘No,’ I snap. He’s been asking this question on and off for about six months. Normally I’m more serene and make an effort to let him down gently but I don’t have the patience, the energy. How would a dog fit in with my lifestyle?

  Seb looks startled, his face is shadowed with a hint of worry. I instantly feel guilty. Twelve-year-olds s
houldn’t worry about their parents. He’s an observant and kind kid. Funny and light-hearted himself, he wants the same brightness in everyone’s world. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asks.

  How do I tell him everything is wrong, except perhaps him? Although even loving him is complicated. There is no pleasure in my life that is absolute. I am entirely to blame for that fact.

  ‘Nothing, I’m just tired. Look, why don’t you go and have a shower? I’m going to call Fiona. I’ll come up and see you before you turn your lights off.’ He nods, dashes off obediently, willingly, wanting to believe I’m just tired.

  I pour myself a healthy-sized glass of wine and tell Fiona about Oli’s loser comment. I try and fail to make it sound like I think it is no big deal. She knows me too well to be fooled. I’m glad, I don’t want her to ignore the situation, the way Mark does. I need her to sympathise, to affirm that it’s unfair, that I don’t deserve to be treated this way. There’s been a suggestion that Oli and Seb ought to see a grief therapist. Actually, the idea has been mooted more than once. I think Fiona was the first one to bring the idea to the table and she does so again tonight. She’s my best friend. I love her, she means well but her timing couldn’t be worse.

  ‘Why would the boys need therapists?’ I demand.

  ‘To process their grief.’

  ‘What grief?’

  ‘For their mother.’

  ‘I’m their mother,’ I assert hotly.

  ‘Their birth mother,’ she replies patiently.

  ‘She died years ago. They were practically babies. I’ve been their mother for nearly a decade.’

  ‘Yes, that’s my point, they were very young when they lost her. Too young to process it. Maybe they need help in doing so now.’

  ‘I’m their mother,’ I say again. ‘I don’t want some therapist poking about in their minds disturbing things.’

  ‘What’s the matter, Leigh? I know something is up with you.’ She doesn’t ask if it is Oli. Is it work? She leaves it open-ended and suddenly the question seems wild and dangerous. What if I told her? What if I confessed? The question opens up a wide chasm of longing. I wonder whether I’ll ever be able to close it down.

  I can’t answer that question.

  3

  Leigh

  Ten years ago

  It’s a Saturday afternoon, and the sun is shining. Outside of London postcodes hot days are without doubt, no qualms, heaven-sent. An opportunity to stride or cycle across the downs and through national parks, to set up deck chairs in the garden, maybe throw a few sausages on the barbie, go to a country pub. For a couple of thirty-three-year-old heterosexual women who share a poky, second-floor London flat, hot days are a moment when their lives feel exposed. Unsatisfactory. Like Christmas, Easter and Bank holidays. When it’s hot and the sun streams through the windows showing they could do with a wash, Fiona and I feel claustrophobic, trapped. Failing. Our flat which can look kooky, quirky – with its IKEA shelves and string of multicoloured chilli-shaped fairy lights hanging around the kitchen cabinets – is uncovered as cramped and juvenile; the damp patches may have dried out, but the drains smell awful.

  We both know we should be somewhere else. Further up the food chain. Maybe we should be lolling outside a bistro eating plates of watermelon and feta salad with our boyfriends, or wasting the afternoon in B&Q arguing with our fiancés about which Farrow and Ball paint shade will be most statement on the walls of our newly renovated kitchen; maybe we should even be pushing a pram around a park, or dipping a toddler’s feet into the fountain at Trafalgar Square. We’ve both missed the beats that so many of our friends seem to have effortlessly hit. On gloomy wet days we can hide this fact from the world and ourselves by staying indoors, watching crap reality TV and playing on our phones. When the weather is good, there’s an unspoken demand that the flat must vomit us out, that we must find a place in the outside world. Somehow squeeze into it.

  ‘Shall we go to the park?’ I suggest tentatively.

  ‘The local one?’ asks Fiona. Fiona is the closest thing I’ve ever had to a sister. It’s not just that we get along great, which we do, we know one another inside out and often, that’s even more important than getting along.

  ‘Yeah. The local one.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we go to like one of the proper ones?’ I know what Fiona means. I always do. Sometimes she can be bossy and yet I know she’s uncertain about herself, which is why she can occasionally come across as irritable or demanding. Dismissive. I don’t mind. Men do. She means sitting on the local green – which backs on to the railway track and is framed by a number of small but busy roads – seems defeatist. The local park will be full of local families, and that’s OK for them, because exhausted mums and dads can’t be expected to go to Hyde Park to rollerblade or Alexandra Palace to skateboard or Richmond to spot deer – the most that busy parents are expected to do is dress and drag their kids outside. But people like Fiona and me, women in the prime of our lives, who are still looking for our soulmates, should muster the energy to get out there. If we don’t, we are basically acknowledging that we’ve given up.

  I stare at Fiona, she knows all this as well as I do. It doesn’t need to be articulated. ‘If we stay local, we can come back and use the loo if we want to,’ she points out.

  I nod. It’s as though neither of us ever went to Glastonbury and used the portaloos from hell.

  We do at least make an effort with our picnic. Food is something we’ve started to pay more attention to in the last year or eighteen months. I guess as we’ve had less excitement on the dating sites, we’ve looked to replace that emotional hole at the local deli. Our deli has huge brine-cured hams hanging from scary-looking hooks swaying in the window, ripe cheeses sweat and swell, there are about ten different types of olives to be purchased. It’s intimidating, and that sort of excites us. We spend as much in that deli each month as we spend on our rent. We might not have boyfriends, mortgages or children, but we do have hefty chunks of salty pig. Today, we buy three good cheeses and a selection of charcuterie. We buy an overpriced, ready-prepared summer berry salad, but the convenience justifies the inflated price tag. We glance at one another half guilty, half encouraging and then add a four-pack of luxury chocolate brownies to the basket. At the till, I slip a packet of caramel popcorn in too and Fiona adds some hand-cut vegetable crisps. It’s a family-size pack, but we’ll make a heroic effort. Finally, we buy a large bottle of sparkly water and a decent prosecco. By the time we leave the shop, we feel in better spirits.

  As predicted, the park is full of families with young kids, but it’s a relief to note there are no loved-up couples. They are the worst. I guess the loved-up couples still have the impetus to get on the tube and haul their asses to London’s central parks which looks significantly more impressive on Facebook. Social media impact is a new but important part of dating. Equal to physical attraction and only a fraction below potential earning-power. I sigh, frustrated with how increasingly complex the dating scene is becoming. My mother and father met one another through friends who ‘thought they might click’. It seems quaint, being set up by mutual, interested parties. No one does that now. Probably because most people shag all their vaguely attractive friends throughout their twenties, and so passing them on seems vaguely inappropriate. Hey, I didn’t think he was quite, you know, but maybe you will … No one likes sloppy seconds. Thinking about sex takes my mind in a different direction. I suddenly doubt the loved-up couples of London are bothering with parks at all. Maybe they can choose to shun the sun, loll in bed, tangle themselves in sweat and sheets. As couples they have the confidence not to care if they are ‘wasting the day’, not to believe they are, since they are wrapped in one another. The thought of these imaginary couples makes me feel horny and depressed at the same time.

  Fiona and I spread out the picnic blanket. Settle. Whilst we eat and drink, we swap the odd comment but don’t commit to a conversation.

  ‘Oh my God, that brie.’

  ‘Good?�
�

  ‘Heaven.’

  ‘Tear me off some bread, will you?’

  ‘Top-up?’

  We don’t feel the need for constant chatter. We have known one another for twelve years. We don’t have many surprises to offer each other. There are few, if any, stories we haven’t shared. This week’s news and gossip from our respective offices has been dissected. It doesn’t matter, the silence between us is comfortable, companionable. We met just after we graduated, in the waiting room of a recruitment agency. Both of us clueless. I didn’t know much more than I wanted to work ‘in an office’. Fiona wanted to work ‘in fashion or interiors, something not boring’. We struck up a conversation and then after we’d both registered and interviewed we went for a coffee, eager to share our dreams and admit to our insecurities. We just clicked, easily and instantly became close. Thank God I have Fiona. I think I love her more than anyone else in the world. I don’t want this to be the case. I want to love my husband and my kids more but since neither thing exists, I’m grateful I have Fiona to love.

  We first flat-shared years ago, then went our separate ways. We both broke up from serious relationships around our thirtieth birthdays, neither of us could afford our own place, or bear to be alone, so we got a place together again. It was convenient, often fun. It was supposed to be a temporary measure, we didn’t buy, not wanting to tie up our cash. That was three years ago. Property prices have gone up so much since then. We should have bought.

  Fiona puts on her headphones and closes her eyes. I reach for my paperback. I open it where the bookmark nestles but don’t start reading. The sun is glaring, the glass of prosecco I’ve already downed is oozing around my bloodstream. I keep losing my spot on the page, rereading the same paragraph over again. I let my gaze drift to those around me. I like people-watching. I always have. In fact, I secretly feel considerably more comfortable observing than participating. Sunglasses offer a benefit. No one can tell if you are staring at them too long, too hard, trying to work them out. That is my habit. Working people out. Trying to solve the puzzle of who they are and what makes them tick. I’ve been told it makes me a little intense. It’s just I believe that there are people in this world who are simply better at living and being involved than others. They have the knack. A zest. I’m not one of them. I think maybe if I stare at such people for long enough, I’ll learn, discover the capability of being adult, of fitting in, maybe even thriving – something that seems eternally elusive to me.