Woman Last Seen(5)
“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 multicolored chili-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 okay 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 soul mates, 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.