‘Mum,’ said Gina, heavily, ‘how on earth can Kit have had anything to do with my marriage ending?’
‘Hasn’t he?’
‘No!’ Gina didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t make her look guilty. ‘This is entirely the fault of me and Stuart. No, actually, it’s not anyone’s fault. We should never have got married in the first place.’
‘Oh, Georgina! How can you say that?’
‘Because it’s true.’
‘I suppose it’s my fault that—’ Janet started, but Gina stopped her.
‘No, Mum,’ said Gina, shortly. ‘It’s no one’s fault. Sometimes things just don’t work out.’
They sat in stubborn silence until Gina got up to get the bag she’d left by the door. ‘I don’t want to fall out,’ she said, in a more conciliatory tone. ‘I’ve brought some things of yours that I found while I was going through my boxes. Look, here’s your carving set, from last Easter. And some recipe books I borrowed, and your flan dish . . .’ Gina stacked them on the coffee table, relieved to see them become part of her mother’s house now. ‘And those books about . . . you know.’
The pile of self-help books about Being On Your Own that Gina had found monumentally depressing. At least the self-help books Naomi had given her had been cheerful in a brutal sort of way. Practical shoves to get you back on the path to fulfilment whether you liked it or not. Janet seemed to have found a special sub-section of guides to maintaining your grief at a low simmer for the rest of your life. Gina didn’t want to join her mother in the ‘very supportive’ circle of lone middle-aged women she’d joined, moving from book group to flower arranging, privately ranking each other in order of abandonment, from divorcees to widows.
‘There’s no need to give those back,’ said Janet. ‘Don’t you think you should hang on to—?’
‘No, thank you. I’ve read them.’ Before she could protest, Gina put a large cut-crystal bowl on top, anchoring them to the table. ‘And this is your trifle bowl, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Janet. ‘Mine’s Dartington crystal.’
‘I think it is. I borrowed it from you a while back.’
Janet peered at it, then sighed. ‘It’s your Auntie Gloria’s.’
Auntie Gloria was actually Janet’s Auntie Gloria, a matronly figure of whom Gina had only the vaguest memories. She had smelt of dry fruitcake, and had been a live-in nanny-housekeeper for a big family near St Albans.
‘Do you remember the lovely trifles she used to make for tea in that? With Bird’s Custard. Remember?’ Janet added, seeing Gina’s blank look. ‘You used to love them. She put sprinkles on top for you. Red, white and blue.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Gina murmured, automatically. Auntie Gloria could have kept frogspawn in it for all she remembered. Janet’s memories of her own childhood teas were more familiar, through repetition, than Gina’s own.
After Gina’s dad had been killed, Janet had left Leominster and its reminders of their old life, and moved back in with her parents in Kent for a while. Gina didn’t have many memories of that time, beyond Janet wearing a particular blue dress for weeks on end, but she’d happily accepted second-hand memories of her early childhood there – picnics with aunties, and trips to see donkeys on a farm in Granddad’s Ford Granada. It sounded nice. Neither grandparent was around to corroborate the various stories, but Gina had the few images from the photo album imprinted on her brain from regular intense inspection, and mostly they seemed happy.
Her mother had been on the other side of the camera, taking the photos while Gina gazed solemnly from under her dark fringe. She appeared later on, when Terry arrived on the scene with his top-of-the-range SLR camera and insisted on posing them in front of his car, which was always more in focus than they were. Janet and Gina both, it turned out, had automatic ‘photo faces’: a bright, slightly fixed smile that remained exactly the same in every photo, regardless of weather or setting.
Janet was holding the bowl, gazing into it as if she could see the past in its depths, family trifles and all. ‘Gloria always had nice things,’ she said. ‘This was a wedding present, from that family she was with for years. From Liberty, she said it was. Lead crystal. They were very good to her. Mind, she was very good to them. Gave them twenty-two years of her life.’
Gina experienced a familiar tug of collector’s acquisitiveness but she squashed it. She had to focus on the flat, and how there was room only for her in it. ‘It’s lovely, but the thing is, Mum, I’ve got no storage, really. I don’t have room for trifle bowls.’
She didn’t think it was worth trying to explain her hundred-things target to her mother. Janet didn’t hold with anything that smacked of New Age philosophy or not having enough tablecloths.
‘But it was Auntie Gloria’s! She’d have wanted you to have it.’ Janet offered it to her. ‘Have it, to remember Gloria by. It’s a lovely thing.’
Gina steeled herself. This was exactly the trait she was trying to overcome. ‘Mum, I don’t remember her. She died when I was five. And I’m not going to remember her by a glass bowl I never get out of the cupboard, am I? You should tell me about her instead. Then I can keep the memories in my head.’
‘There’s no need to be flippant, Georgina.’ Janet’s gaze returned to the heavy etched glass. ‘Poor Gloria. She was a nice old dear. It’s a shame you can’t remember her – she made your christening cake. Cream, with pale yellow daisies.’
That was a detail Gina hadn’t heard before; there were no photos of her christening cake in the sparse album. She felt pleased. ‘Really? So do I take after her at all? Do you?’
‘She was like you in some respects,’ said Janet. ‘She could hang wallpaper better than any decorator, and she was . . . romantic. Gloria would never admit it, but your granny always said she was in love with the father of that family she worked for, Dr Meredith. It was why she stayed so long. Best years of her life she spent there.’
‘Really?’ Gina leaned forward in her chair. Her mother rarely confided stuff like this. ‘Did he love her?’
Janet shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. I mean, she was good-looking enough, had plenty of other offers but, no, Gloria was fussy. And by the time she decided he wasn’t going to, well . . . By the time she left, it was too late for her to have a family of her own. And I think Gloria regretted that.’ She gave Gina a meaningful look. ‘It was all very well her getting flowers at Christmas from those four she brought up, but it’s not the same as your own kiddies visiting you, is it?’
Gina groaned inwardly. She knew where the conversation would be heading now. ‘Mum, please. Not today.’
‘I’m just saying that I don’t want you to end up missing out on a family of your own because—’
‘Did I say I wanted a family? And, Mum, I’m only thirty-three.’
Janet ignored her. ‘Then I’m sorry but you have to be practical. You know I’d be happy to help out if you wanted to have one of those check-ups. You know, so you’ve got an idea of where you stand.’
Gina’s fingernails dug into her palms. Janet’s yearning for grandchildren had started out as playful hints, but it had got much less playful since all her friends had started crying off coffee mornings to babysit their ‘little ones’. ‘That’s very generous, but it’s the last thing on my mind right now.’
‘You could freeze your eggs!’ Janet gabbled. ‘Then you don’t have to rush into anything. I read an article in the Daily Mail about it.’
Gina shoved her hands into her hair, then looked at her mother, sitting, back straight, in the same brown leather chair she’d sat in every night while Gina was at school. By the window, the better to see the quick crossword by. Terry had sat in the matching armchair opposite the television; the cushion Janet had finished stitching for his fiftieth birthday still plumped ready for his return.
Sunday afternoons in this house: cold ham and Songs of Praise and heavy silences. It rushed up at Gina so vividly she could smell it. Everything she’d longed to get awa
y from as a teenager, and thought in some ways she had – yet here she was, even down to the same Sunday-afternoon paranoia that she hadn’t wrung enough out of the weekend as Monday approached. And the time ticking inexorably past, metronomed by the carriage clock on the 1950s slate mantelpiece.
If only Terry were still around. There was absolutely no way Janet would have said something like that if he’d been sitting there, coughing in the discreet tension-breaking way he had. He’d oil the waters, as he had done so many times in Gina’s childhood, so well, in fact, that she’d only noticed years later when she was old enough to appreciate how hard it was to defuse tension between two very similar women.
‘Mum,’ she said carefully, the effort clipping each word into a hard shape, ‘I can’t freeze my eggs because the chemotherapy might have damaged my ovaries. I can ask about tests when I go for my check-up later this year but I wouldn’t hold your breath.’
‘You don’t know what medical advances they might make in the next few years,’ said Janet, obstinately. ‘Positive thinking, Georgina!’
Gina bit her tongue. Janet didn’t know the full extent of her treatment, the scouring, brutal effect it had had on her body while it was killing off the invading cells. She didn’t know, because she hadn’t wanted to know. Hospitals made Janet hysterical – understandably – so Stuart had passed on edited updates, all calm and authoritative, almost as handsome as a doctor himself. Her mother’s distress had made Gina feel even worse so she’d hidden away from it. Only Stuart and Naomi had been allowed to see her while she was at her greyest, her most exhausted.
The memory of that time dragged at her again, and Gina felt weary. She had work in the morning, and boxes to clear at home. She looked up, ready to tell her mother that she had to get away, but caught an expression of unguarded vulnerability in Janet’s eyes that stopped the words in her throat. Her mother seemed lonely, and older, but at the same time defiant, like a child, not ready to back down.
Janet caught her looking and raised her chin. ‘I never know what to say to you, Georgina,’ she said, in a wobbly voice. ‘It always seems to come out wrong.’
What’s the correct response to that, thought Gina. Exhaustion tugged at her bones, and she wished she were back in her flat, sorting, progressing, winnowing her life.
But this was her mother, half of her reason for being alive in the first place, even if they still couldn’t talk without crashing into conversational sandbanks.
‘I just don’t want you to end up lonely,’ said Janet, and Gina heard the silent ‘like me’ beneath it.
She took a deep breath. Fresh start, she reminded herself. Including with Mum.
‘I’m not going to end up lonely. I’ve told Naomi that if Willow plays her cards right she’ll be inheriting my diamond earrings and shoe collection. If that doesn’t keep her popping round in my old age, I don’t know what will. Now, do you want some fresh tea ?’ she said, even though the one she had wasn’t cold.
‘That’d be nice, love,’ said Janet, and managed a smile.
Stuart texted Gina while she was waiting at the traffic lights outside Longhampton, the trifle bowl rewrapped in two copies of the Longhampton Gazette on the back seat.
The message flashed up on the phone:
Mountain bike repair kit? Not in bag. Pls check ur boxes. Also pls send loan details for accountant. S
Gina ground her teeth. That was basically what it came down to. Nine years of trust and laughter and tears and hopes. Reduced to admin.
She still hadn’t got used to the bluntness of Stuart’s messages, carefully stripped of anything that might read like a change of heart. And even though Gina knew something had shifted, the distant click of a door closing behind her, she still hadn’t completely crushed the traitorous flicker in her heart that maybe the message would read, ‘I screwed up. Please forgive me’. Just so she could ignore it, if she wanted.
But it was always just about stuff. Who had what. Where was this, who paid for that.
She stared out at the sky, now leaden with invisible rain. In about fifteen hours, she had to go back to her office and open her files on other people’s homes, set her mind to absorbing the stress and paperwork for them. The last thing Gina needed, with her energy leaking away by the minute, was a reminder that the only thing her husband wanted from the remnants of their own dream home was a bicycle repair kit. Not the wedding photos, not their albums, not the thoughtful presents she’d chosen for him over the years. Not her.
Gina flipped the phone over and tried not to think about Auntie Gloria and her beautiful, unused trifle bowl.
Chapter Four
ITEM: the complete works of William Shakespeare – complete with essay notes, margin notes and notes passed between Naomi and me in English class
November 1996, Hartley High School
The sixth-form common room is emptying after break as Gina hovers by the pay-phone, and checks her watch again.
11.26 a.m.
She bounces on her toes. He’d said call at half eleven. Should she call early? Would that look too keen?
Yes, it would. Gina is desperate to hear Kit’s voice but at the same time paralysed with shyness. This is the best moment, just before it’s happened, and she’s hoarding it like chocolate cake, too nice to eat.
She looks around for Naomi’s copper hair in the crowd around the door, where books are dumped between lessons. She’d said she’d wait till Naomi got back, but Naomi’s always late.
11.27 a.m.
Gina’s ostensibly ringing to find out if Kit has got the tickets for a gig at one of the student unions; it’s an underground band they both thought only they’d heard of, booked before the band in question had had a surprise chart hit. It’s going to make her late for the one class no one’s ever late for, but now that’s not remotely important, not compared with hearing Kit’s voice.
Butterflies swarm around her stomach and, unable to stand it any longer, she lifts the receiver.
A hand claps on her shoulder. ‘Who’re you calling?’
Gina jumps, but it’s only Naomi, smelling suspiciously strongly of mints and perfume. ‘Who’d you think?’
‘Oooh. What did he say?’
‘I haven’t called him yet.’
‘What? Why not?’
‘Because I was waiting for you. And . . .’ Gina looks round: no one’s listening. ‘Because I’m nervous?’
‘Psch.’ Naomi looks scornful but excited. ‘Get on with it!’
Gina glances at the big clock on the wall. 11.30 a.m. It’s time. She piles her coins ready. She has so much change it’s nearly falling off the ledge. The humiliation of running out mid-conversation is unthinkable. She hesitates. ‘Do you think it looks better to wait until . . .?’
‘No.’ Naomi holds out her hand for the phone. ‘Do you want me to ring?’
‘No! I’m doing it! Is anyone looking at me?’
‘Course not. I don’t know why you can’t just call Lover-boy from home. Where you could, you know, enjoy talking to him.’
‘Are you kidding? You know what Mum’s like. She’d go mental.’
Naomi looks amused. ‘What’s she going to do when you get to university? Glue your knickers on and tie you to a big stretchy rope?’
‘Probably. Look, it’s still OK for us to stay with Shaun if Kit’s managed to get the tickets, right? He’s definitely going to let us stay in his room?’ Gina’s eyes widen. ‘And you’re definitely up for it?’
‘Yeah. A weekend with my pain-in-the-arse brother so my best mate can get off with some blond surfer dude who looks like Kurt Cobain’s public-school cousin, totally top of my list.’ She looks wry. ‘The things I do for you.’
‘It’s not like that, Nay.’ Gina’s normally good with words, but she can’t explain this. She used to think that it-was-like-a-thunderbolt stuff was ridiculous – until she met Kit, and something clicked inside them both. They’d spent the whole weekend after the student union event just talking. Through the night,
all next morning, till the second the train left. Tripping over words, shared thoughts, matching coincidences as if they might run out of time. ‘Kit’s not like that . . . We’ve got so much in common, he writes me actual letters. He makes me feel like there’s something special about me . . .’
‘Because there is, dumbo.’
‘And he really wants to see me.’ That’s the bit Gina can’t quite get her head around. That Kit wants to see her as much as she wants to see him, when he’s got the whole of Oxford University to pick from. ‘And I soooo want to see him.’
‘I know. It’s amazing. He’s a god. But can you please get on with it?’
Gina’s fingers tremble as she jabs the buttons. It rings at the other end. She gives Naomi a thumbs-up, and they bounce in silent, hysterical glee.
Then the ringing stops. ‘Hello?’
Gina’s heart swoops and plunges around her chest at the sound of Kit’s soft, slightly posh voice. He’s right there in her head, his voice already familiar. The common room vanishes around her as her world shrinks into the darkness of her ear.
‘Hello,’ she croaks. ‘It’s Gina.’
‘Gina! Hello!’
Next to her, Naomi rolls her eyes but still leans in.
‘Good news, I got four tickets,’ he says. ‘Are you still up for coming, then?’
‘Um, yeah. That’d be cool.’
Naomi mouths, ‘Cool,’ and looks appalled, and Gina has to turn round to stop herself giggling.
‘Fantastic. My treat, by the way,’ he says, before she can ask how much the tickets were. ‘It’s going to cost you enough to get here.’
‘That’s not a problem.’ Gina’s dipping into her savings; she’s claiming it’s another college visit. She’d better get into Oxford after all this. Although Kit will be gone by then. Graduated, and straight into the adult world. He told her he’s already been offered finance-sector jobs, but he really wants to go travelling before he settles into a career. Already Gina hates the idea of him so far away, out of her reach.