Unlike her, I’m a brilliant actor, but I cannot find a single positive to focus on. It’s disgusting. “Home” (in heavy quotation marks) is a terraced house on a tree-lined street in Battersea. Bought by my parents thirty years ago, it still exhibits many of the decorative faux pas of the nineties, when the fast approach of Y2K—and the possibility of the world imploding—resulted in some questionable interior design decisions. I can only assume that the resurgence of net curtains was so that they would be able to make out the silhouette of the meteor hurtling toward the Earth.
Unfortunately, it is clear that my mother has not had a change of heart toward either the décor or standard-practice hygiene and cleanliness in the six years since I last set foot in this house. Yellow nicotine stains dribble thin lines down the browning floral wallpaper. The threadbare runner on the stairs peels away to expose damp, rotting wood. Even the plastic orchid by the front door appears to have died a long and painful death. The air is thick with stale cigarette smoke.
I try not to indulge in self-pity—when you’ve experienced as much tragedy as I have, there’s a very real risk of total submergence—but today is an exception. I allow myself a moment of longing for my lemon-scented flat. Even, briefly, for Barry, but I dispel that thought quickly.
“Did you do something new with the carpet?” I keep my voice light and point to the network of thread on the floor.
Mum’s eyes narrow. “You’re forgetting, Ithink, who took you in, in your hour of need.”
Annoyingly, she’s right, and it’s not in my interest to piss her off too early. I duck my head—the picture of subservience. “You’re right, Mum. I’m sorry. I really appreciate it.” Smashed it. There’s a lovely deep sincerity to my tone, which I must remember to use again.
She seems mollified, and finally the awkwardness of the initial reunion is over. Mum leads the way to the kitchen.
I thought the hallway was bad, but this is a total disgrace. It’s a mess of plastics. Only one thin layer of dirty linoleum separates us from the foundation of the house. The surface of the tiny Formica table is mostly hidden beneath bills and shopping bags, though a small space has been cleared at one end for an overflowing ashtray, a chipped mug, and a bottle of Tesco own-brand vodka. The counter surfaces aren’t much better.
It’s filthy. Visibly filthy. Doesn’t-even-bother-to-pretend filthy. All I can think of are the millions of bacteria that must be crawling over every surface. I hover in the doorway and wonder if there’s a way I can avoid touching anything. Mum bustles around the kitchen as though salmonella and E. coli and bacillus and H. pylori don’t feature in her vocabulary. I dry retch quietly. I’m going to have to sit down. If I make a scene, it will rupture this uneasy pretense at peace, and it’s too soon for that. I inch into the room and perch on the very edge of the laminated wooden chair, watching her. The tap splutters with limescale, and I close my eyes and say a silent prayer to a God I don’t believe in.
“So tell me how you’re feeling about Frank,” she says, flicking on the kettle and lowering her voice conspiratorially. I’ll give it to her: She’s committed to the act.
“Frank?”
“Frank.” She nods decisively to herself as she reaches for the mugs above the sink. “Or Freddie, that’s it.”
I am so not in the mood to talk about Freddie with Mum. Don’t get me wrong, he’s my favorite subject when I feel strong enough, but not with her. Never with her. She wouldn’t understand how it felt when he kissed me, how I came to rely on him with an intensity I didn’t think possible. I wish I’d never told her about him. I pick at an old chip on the table. It’s been there since I was a child. I used to dig at it at teatime, try to widen it with my thumbnail. “What do you want to know?”
This is entirely my fault. For the last six years, Mum and I have met for coffee every three months. I choose the place. Somewhere local, neutral, with at least two exits. Never, ever here. I’m not sure who decided that these rendezvous were a good idea considering we both usually leave in a mood that’s worse than the one we arrived in, but she gets what she comes for (news on Dad) and I can pretend that someone in my family still cares about me. I told her about Freddie when our relationship was still budding, hardly able to keep the excitement from leaking into my tone. I am aware Mum thinks of me not unlike my university cohort did: that I’m odd. Fundamentally flawed. A natural loner. I’d thought—misguidedly—that mentioning a boyfriend might dispel some of these preconceived ideas.
“A boyfriend?” Her nostrils had flared. I’d thought she was going to laugh, and it made me want to claw at her face.
“Are you coping?” she asks now. She doesn’t care, but, since we’re doubling down on the charade, she might as well float the question. Usually, I love questions like these. Usually, I’d curl my hands into fists and press them hard into my eyes, as though I were stifling tears. I don’t bother this time. Those sorts of displays never seem to work with her.
Freddie always thought I was too harsh on her. In my first week onthe job, he sought me out in the small kitchen, ostensibly to check how I was settling in, but there was a charged undercurrent to the meeting. A slightly unprofessional eagerness about him. In how close he stood to me, in the way our hands brushed as we both reached for a mug at the same time. The slight flush that rose in his cheeks at the accidental contact. I was very aware of our sudden proximity, and I loved every moment of it.
He gathered himself, leaned against the counter, seemed to shake off the brief moment of electric awkwardness. “And what’s Iris’s story, then? The unofficial version—not the one you gave in the interview.”
I loved that he was showing an interest in my life. He had a way of focusing totally on whomever he was speaking to. Of making you feel like you were the only person with a story worth hearing.
I wanted—no, Ineeded—to impress him. To be worthy of the way he was looking at me: like I was someone worth listening to. There was only one person I could think of who commanded respect like that. So I borrowed one of her favorite tactics as I told my story. A slightly self-deprecating retelling, peppering the darker moments with light, so they bordered on amusing. I told him about my run-down flat and Barry, Dad leaving, and Mum’s alcoholism. Our strained relationship.
“She sounds like a real character,” he’d replied.
“That’s one word for it,” I said.
He passed a hand across his face, suddenly serious. “Ah, but family’s important, though. They’re all we’ve got, in the end.”
I sensed that there was something deeper layered beneath this statement, so I asked about his own family.
“It’s just me and my parents. I had—” He broke off, took a breath. “I had a brother. He died when we were small.”
I recalled the sadness that I’d seen in his eyes that day in the café and wondered if he’d seen the same reflected in mine. If he’d sensed that common grief, binding us together even then. It made me evensurer of our connection. And so I told him about Marcie, pulse thudding in my neck.
“God, Iris. I’m so sorry. No one really understands, do they? What it’s like. Not unless they’ve been through it.”
He reached out, touched me gently on the arm, and I wondered if he knew how alone I sometimes felt. If he felt the same. And I think he recognized, in that moment, that he’d found someone who just might be able to change that for us both.
Now, as Mum bustles around, I shrug. “Mostly I just try not to think of it.”
She places a mug of watery tea down in front of me. I thank her, but I won’t drink it. I can’t even bring myself to touch the mug.
