For starters, not for one second today did I think about alcohol. We went to All Bar One before the film to grab something to eat, and not only did I order a ginger ale, I didn’t then spend the rest of the evening looking around me at others drinking and wishing I could do that too.
When I got home I went to the fridge and pulled out the bottles of wine and beer and did the unthinkable. Opened them and poured the contents down the sink.
I may not be an alcoholic, but if I stand any shot at all with Jason, I have to get sober. I’m not doing this for myself, I’m doing this for him, but the end result is the same, and taking a quick bath, still smiling the whole time, I replay every moment of the day, astounded at how life can change so quickly, how I have met someone who feels like he’s going to be significant, and how I am absolutely certain that from here on in, things are only going to get better.
* * *
I can’t sleep. I think it’s the excitement of the day, until I realize that I have not climbed into bed without some kind of alcohol for … well … I don’t actually remember the last time I did that.
And I am slightly shocked at the realization. I have no idea how people sleep. I open a book and read, thinking that at some point I’m going to get sleepy, and I watch the clock move through midnight, and then the early hours. If this were a weekday, I would probably be so stressed I would go and get a drink, except I no longer have a drink in the house, and actually, every time I think about that, I then picture Jason, and I know I won’t be doing that anymore.
So it’s a very long night. But sometime after four, with a smile on my face, I finally fall asleep.
Nine
There was once a freelancer at work who used to sit on the desk and fill all her spare time with personal phone calls. It never particularly bothered me, but Jackie used to go nuts, eventually getting rid of her rather than tell her to stop making the calls. We all learned a valuable lesson, which was, essentially, do not take personal calls unless it is absolutely necessary.
The truth is, outside of family, very few people call me at work. I love the phone, could sit on the phone for hours and hours, and on the weekends usually do. I make myself coffee, sometimes—well, often—with a splash of Baileys to soothe the headache, then sit on the sofa, feet curled under a cushion, talking about everything under the sun. More often than not, it’s Poppy on the phone, or Gina, so at work we don’t have to worry about taking precious work time to talk on the phone. If anyone needs something we just wander down to the cafeteria for a coffee, or the bar for a drink.
Years ago, when I first started here, I couldn’t believe the freedom we had, until I realized that when we work, we work hard. Why shouldn’t we be allowed free time too?
Today I’m working on deadline. One of the magazines printed a photo of Kylie Minogue with an ankle bracelet, and now the editor of the paper wants a thousand words on how trendy ankle bracelets are, with Kylie, naturally, as the inspiration. I have to find other celebrities wearing ankle bracelets, and we all put our heads together, Poppy, thankfully, remembering seeing Madonna in one, and Jackie sending me down to Roy at the picture desk, convinced both Cameron Diaz and Julia Roberts have been wearing them of late.
I find enough pictures, then sit, tuning out the buzz all around me, scribbling notes on ankle bracelets. God only knows how I’m supposed to spin a thousand words out of ankle bracelets, but I start by naming the celebrities spotted wearing them, making my descriptions of their outfits as lengthy as possible.
Ankle bracelets, I say, are the hottest thing to have hit town, and all the beautiful people are showing off their delicate ankles with thin strands of gold. The more creative the artist, the more unusual the design, Madonna with her beaded black leather band.
Four hundred words. Bugger. Now what. I take my fingers off the keyboard and sit back, desperately trying to think of what else to write. History! I get on a computer and quickly look up the history, discovering the ancient Sumerians in the Mesopotamian region wore ankle bracelets, possibly to signify the wealth of their husbands. It doesn’t really matter whether it’s true or not, it’s going in, padding out the story and making it seem substantial.
Egyptian royalty wore anklets made of precious stone and metals! I ring down to the picture desk to call up a file on ancient Egyptian royalty. Thank God, the story’s now coming together. Only a couple of hundred words left to go.
Everything we write, however flimsy, has to be padded to make the Daily Gazette reader feel intelligent. We can spin an article out of an opinion, but we have to get an expert to back it up, to authenticate it, to leave the reader feeling she’s learned something new.
My go-to girl for pretty much all my articles is the psychologist Robyn McBride. She wrote a couple of books on couples and how they communicate, which got her on all the talk shows, with a reputation for being an excellent talking head. Which is what I love about Robyn. Despite her degrees and the letters after her name, she is nothing if not populist. I can ring her up about anything, even something as seemingly prosaic as ankle bracelets, and she’ll not only have an expert psychological opionion about them, she’ll make it sound brilliant.
“Robyn? It’s Cat here. From the Gazette.”
“How are you, Cat?” We have never met, but from the warmth in her voice, you would think we were old friends. I do, in fact, feel that she is almost a friend, at the very least someone I would absolutely talk to if ever I felt I had a problem and needed some help.
“I’m okay,” I say. “Writing about ankle bracelets today! Can you give me a quote, maybe about women using jewelry to attract the opposite sex, and maybe something about the ankles being a long-forgotten erogenous zone?” I am quite impressed with myself, having just come up with the idea about ankles, and Robyn laughs.
“Absolutely,” she says. “But let me just check in with you. Usually you say you’re great, and today you just said you’re okay. Are you okay? Anything you want to talk about?”
And this is why she feels like my friend. Or perhaps my unofficial therapist. Because who else would be able to ascertain, from two words, that I am completely preoccupied with the changes in my life?
Not that they’re bad. For the last few weeks my life has, in many ways, been better than it has been in years. I’m seeing Jason pretty much every evening at an AA meeting, and afterward, we’ll go out and grab something to eat, or see a movie. Often there will be others with us, and it’s the first time in my life I haven’t actually felt like I’m standing on the outside; it’s the first time in my life I feel like I fully belong.
Although it’s not all perfect. Technically I do have a sponsor, but I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with her. She said I had to call her every day, but I don’t call anyone every day. Not even my mother. What am I supposed to say to her? What if she tells me I have to do something?
I’m definitely drinking less. I tell them I’m counting days, but I’ve had a couple of … slips. A few. But I’m not drinking every day, and that’s definitely progress.
It’s not the drinking stuff that keeps me coming back, though. It’s the camaraderie. And if I’m honest, it’s wanting to see Jason, and of course keep him happy. He seems so proud of me not drinking, I’m trying to do it for him, and what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.
I had no idea how lonely I was before I met Jason and started coming to these meetings. Not at work, I was never lonely at work, and after work I tried to fill every evening with launches and parties. When we were all single, it was a blast. I wouldn’t change a thing about my early twenties, but even I know that to expect to live the same life, do the same thing, as you approach your thirties is just a little bit sad.
The girls are all with their boyfriends or husbands, and I’m still going to the parties, still drinking, only now I think I really do want to stop. These past few weeks I’ve had a glimpse into a different way of life, and I’m beginning to think it looks better.
Given what I now know about m
yself, that I am not the woman I always thought I was, that I have this other family, I am even more amazed I’m not getting blasted every night.
Because I’m scared.
I know my mum has written to him, but what if he doesn’t write back? What if he wants nothing to do with me? What if I’m left completely fatherless? Even though, clearly, up until a few weeks ago I thought I had already been left fatherless. Could I go through that sort of rejection again? After the way the man I thought was my father rejected me his entire life by withholding affection, support, love?
The very thought of it makes me want to drown my feelings in a very big bottle of vodka. Which I have done, but not every night, not those nights I go to meetings and hang out with Jason afterward, and hope and wish and pray that even though he has been quite clear he will not get involved with me during my first year of sobriety, I can somehow make him change his mind.
Do I want to talk about it? Professionally? I saw a therapist once, years ago, because I felt … lost. She was a very old German woman in a big stucco house in Belsize Park. She was very nice, if entirely clichéd. The house was filled with abstract paintings and interesting sculptures. When I say interesting, I don’t mean beautiful. She would sit in her big leather chair and just look at me, her face blank, and I had no idea what to say, and would blurt out stuff about my father because I was sure that’s what she wanted to hear, and I didn’t want her to think I was wasting her time.
Oh, but it was such a waste of time.
I felt a constant vague embarrassment at telling a stranger things I hadn’t said to anyone before. I’m sure I made some of it sound a bit better, because I didn’t want her to think too badly of him.
I have no idea what she thought of him. She was, I suppose, of the school of thought that a therapist is there as a, what do you call it? Tabula rasa. A blank slate, there to help me understand my life through her silent stares and occasional nods.
It didn’t work for me. If I were ever to have therapy, and I’m going to tell you this, I’m frankly extremely uncomfortable with the idea, but if I were to, it would need to be someone with whom I had a dialogue, someone who felt like a friend, someone who would actually give me advice, direct me, shed some light on why I am the way I am.
If I were to see someone, Robyn McBride is exactly the sort of person I would see. I could, in fact, very clearly imagine sitting on a small sofa in a cozy yellow office, chatting away and telling her everything. But I’m not going to. At least not today. I have an article on ankle bracelets that needs to be sent to the subeditors in thirty-five minutes, so I reassure her I’m fine, and she gives me, as she always does, the perfect quote.
* * *
I have finished the article, sent it to the subeditor, am just about to tap Gina on the shoulder and ask her if she wants to grab a coffee downstairs, when my phone rings and it’s my mum.
“Darling,” she says, her voice happier than I have heard in years. “I’m so sorry to trouble you at the office, but I wondered if you and I could meet for a coffee after work?”
“Did you speak to him?”
“I did. Too much to talk about over the phone, so let’s try to get together.”
My heart stands still. What does that mean, too much to talk about over the phone? Was he happy? Shocked? Angry?
“What does that mean?” I manage to get out.
“It’s all good,” she says, hearing the anguish in my voice. “Why don’t you come over after work today and I’ll tell you all about it?”
I think about what I have planned today after work; a meeting with Jason, then up to the Everyman in Hampstead for some Gerard Depardieu film I’m pretending I’ve been dying to see because he’s been talking about it for days, even though I’ve never heard of it.
“Tell you what.” I look at my watch. “Why don’t I come over now? We could have lunch.”
“Wonderful!” she says, and I put the phone down, scribble a message on a piece of paper to leave for Jackie, and head out the door.
* * *
I stop at Waitrose and pick up a sandwich and a salad for Mum. Her American-ness seems to show itself mostly with her food choices. She has never ordered a meal in a restaurant without asking for something to be on the side, or for a substitution—salad instead of mashed potatoes, and she always, always eats the salad first.
The only safe thing, in fact, to ever buy my mother for lunch is salad, and sure enough, as soon as she opens the door and takes the Waitrose bag from my hand, her eyes light up at the salad in the way mine would at a huge bag of caramel popcorn. Or vodka. Take your pick.
“Salad!” she exclaims in delight, as if it were a chocolate éclair. “Yum! Come in, sweetie. I’ve set the table.”
I smile at how pretty she has made it; white linen napkins, sparkling crystal glasses, and a vase of creamy pale pink roses in the middle of the table. All this to eat salad out of a plastic container and a sandwich.
“So what did he say?” I can’t wait until we sit down, patience never having been a particular virtue of mine. “How did you tell him? Did he remember you?”
Her smile fades slightly, and she nods. “I knew you’d want all the details. Let me try to remember everything. I had written to him, you know that. I told him how terrible I felt and that I was too young and too stupid to realize he deserved to know he had a daughter in this world. I told him about you.” She smiles again then. “In the letter I told him you have inherited his dark skin, his dimples, and his creativity, only you express it through words rather than paintings. I told him a little about me. That it hadn’t been a particularly good marriage, but that I never felt I had another choice. I told him that I had never realized, until you were born, how unkind he was. And particularly to you.” My mother blinks back tears as she says this, and I have to swallow a lump in my own throat. “He was not a good father, and I didn’t protect you. I am so sorry.”
“It’s okay, Mum.” I want her to carry on with the story. I know she’s sorry, and I don’t bear any grudge against her for not protecting me from my father. She did the best she could, and it has never occurred to me to blame her for any of it.
“I sent him a picture of you. Three, actually. One when you were very tiny, then another from that holiday in Disney World when you were about eleven, and finally one from your birthday last year. I said you knew about him, that I had just told you, and that I had done you both a tremendous disservice in keeping you apart, and if he wanted to change that, as I very much hoped he would, this was the number to call.”
“Your number.”
“I thought it might be too much to give him your number from the get-go. What if he’d been angry and taken it out on you? I needed to check the lay of the land before anything else.”
“When did he call?”
“This morning. At eleven. Which is six a.m. his time. He said he’d been away in New York for a show and had only just got back to Nantucket to find the letter. He’d phoned immediately. I think he’s stunned, and happy.”
“What did he say? I mean, what exactly did he say?”
“I don’t know exactly. He said he had read and reread the letter. That you looked exactly like his two daughters there, who are just slightly younger than you. He said he wanted to talk to you, and wondered if you might consider going over to Nantucket to see them.”
“Oh my God!” My heart threatens to flip with joy. “Are you serious? Nantucket? And I have sisters?”
She nods. “Do you feel ready to talk to him?”
“Yes!” I leap up from the table and fling my arms around my mother in an impromptu hug. “I can’t believe this!” I say. “I can’t believe how easy this is!” My mother disentangles herself and pulls the phone over.
“You’re sure you’re ready?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.” I grin, jiggling my knee in excitement as she pulls out a piece of paper and dials the number written down.
“Brooks? It’s Audrey again.… Good, thank you. Look
, I’ve got Cat with me. She came over for lunch.… Yes. Right here.… Sure. Hang on.” And she hands the receiver over to me.
* * *
“Cat?” His voice is deep, exotically American. My mother’s accent is no longer exotic, as familiar as it is to me, but this is something that sends jolts of longing, a little girl finding her father, something entirely unexpected and discombobulating.
I can’t speak.
“Cat? Are you there?”
“I am. Sorry.”
“Oh wow. Listen to you!” I can hear the smile in his voice. “With your English accent!”
“I, um, am English,” I say, somewhat pathetically.
“I know, I just didn’t think. Your mom still sounds American, and I just didn’t think about it. And you look so like my own daughters, I mean, my daughters here, that I guess I expected you to sound like them. Stupid, I know.” He trails off. “Well. This is some big news, isn’t it?”
“You think?” I say, and he laughs.
“Big, but good news. I’m delighted to have found you. I only wish it had happened a long time ago.”
I don’t say anything, not wanting to point the finger at my mother, even though I am thinking exactly the same thing.
“I haven’t talked to the girls, but they’re both here this summer. We convene every year at the house here on Nantucket. Ellie comes with her kids, and Julia is always here, usually with whatever boyfriend she has at the time. I was thinking perhaps you ought to come out here and meet all of us.”
I am gobsmacked. So much, so fast. All of it wanted. “I would love to,” I say, unable to wipe the smile off my face. “But maybe you should talk to them first. I don’t want to cause any trouble.”
“You wouldn’t be causing any trouble,” he says. “But I’ll talk to them. Do you have a number where I can reach you? You and I have an awful lot to catch up on.”
“Of course.” I give him my home phone number, and the office, although I warn I can’t often chat when I’m working.