My mother had shown up wearing drapey white trousers, a floaty shirt and sandals even though it was November. She’d not said a word to anyone – not even me – when she arrived but when Max had come into the court, flanked on either side by the security officers, she’d gasped loudly and theatrically, and stood up, clasping her hands to her chest. My father’s face had grown red and his eyes bulged a bit and he’d started muttering about “what gives her the right” and “she would have walked past him in the street” which wasn’t entirely true, but felt it.
Before Dad exploded and got himself arrested, I had edged over to Mum on the shiny wooden bench where families sat, and gently made her sit down. She’d sat with her eyes closed throughout the whole thing, and I’d fixed my gaze on Max, willing him to glance in my direction. But he didn’t look up. Not even when he was taken away to the cells. Afterwards, when we loitered outside the court building, like awkward strangers, my mother looked at me properly for the first time.
‘Stephanie,’ she said. She gave me a tight hug, her bangles jangling, and said: ‘How did this happen?’
But I thought what she was really saying was: “How could you let this happen?”
Even though she clearly blamed me for Max’s “troubles” as she called them, I was pleased to see her. I clung on to her, desperately, because she was still my mum and I’d not seen her for so long. But she’d carefully backed away from my embrace. ‘I can’t stay here,’ she’d said, looking round at my dad and his partner Chrissy, talking to Max’s – very expensive – solicitor.
‘I need to be alone,’ Mum added. She was like that, my mother. Ethereal. Impossible to pin down. She had never been one to go along with the normal trappings of everyday life or to be bothered by things like parents’ evenings, or graduations, or court cases. ‘This is not where Max would want me to be.’
And I’d nodded, sympathetic even though I thought Max didn’t really care where she was. I wanted to go with her, away from this murky autumn street, and the people in suits spilling down the stairs of the court building. Away from the guilt. But I knew if I asked to go with her, she’d say no, and that would be worse than not asking at all. So I’d watched her leave, wafting down the dingy street like a shaft of sunshine breaking through a cloud. It reminded me of when teenaged Max and I had pressed our noses to the living-room window and watched her dance down our front path with a rucksack and her passport in her hand.
‘I need to be me,’ she’d told Dad at the time. ‘Not a mother, and certainly not a wife.’ She’d not even looked up at us though I was pretty sure she knew we were watching.
Of course Max had thought it was brilliant. ‘Yes, Mum,’ he’d breathed, doing a little air punch. He’d always been far more accepting of her “free spirit” than I was.
I had watched from outside the court, as she reached the end of the street, where she climbed into the passenger seat of a battered camper van parked in a disabled space, and embraced the driver who was wearing a cowboy hat and looked vaguely like our old next-door neighbour Graham. I’d not seen her since.
‘What about your mum?’ Tara asked, reading my mind. ‘Could she help with your nan?’
I snorted. ‘She never liked Nan anyway,’ I said. ‘Which was a bit rich, to be honest, seeing as Nan was the one who looked after us when she went off to find herself.’
Tara looked at me carefully, like she was weighing up what to say. Then she slid off her stool and took a step towards me. I held my hand out to stop her.
‘Don’t,’ I warned. ‘Don’t. You know it’ll make me cry if you’re nice.’
‘I wasn’t going to be nice.’
I narrowed my eyes. ‘You were going to hug me.’
‘Was not.’ She reached a hand out towards me and I batted it away.
‘Stop it.’
‘Stevie, Jesus. You’ve got something in your hair. I was just going to pick it out.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. I promise not to be nice to you, okay? God forbid I show you a bit of affection.’
I gave a small laugh. ‘Sorry,’ I said. I leaned my head towards her. ‘Go on, pick it out.’
Tara reached out her hand again and yanked a strand of my hair.
‘Ow!’ I jerked my head away. ‘No need to be so heavy-bloody-handed.’
She grinned. ‘Got it,’ she said holding up her fingers so I could see.
‘And half my hair.’ I clasped my head. ‘What is it?’
Tara rubbed her fingers together. ‘Oh my God, Stephanie Barlow,’ she said in wonder. ‘It’s paint. Have you been painting? This is brilliant.’
‘Don’t get excited,’ I warned her. ‘It’s emulsion. I’ve been painting a wall.’
Tara went round to the other side of the bar and washed her hands in the metal sink. ‘I thought you were a carer, not a handyman.’
The gloomy customer had finished his coffee and was heading to the door, just as a group of women who I recognised as teachers from the local primary school came in. It was Friday so I knew we’d be busy and I was glad we’d had a chance for a break before things got too hectic.
