31

‘Jenny!’

Elaine’s smile gave away that she was delighted to find her daughter standing on the doorstep when she opened the door. Jen turning up midweek wasn’t a regular occurrence. In fact, she couldn’t remember ever having done it before. She had decided on a whim. Phoned her mother and suggested it before she could talk herself out of it. She had just wanted to do something nice for once, something extra-curricular.

Elaine’s house was at the end of a terrace on a small neat estate. It was the house Jen had grown up in, one of an optimistic 1970s collection of identical three-up two-downs, with weeping willows in the front gardens, in a quiet cul de sac where the local kids could ride their bikes safely. At least, that had been the idea when it had been built. None of the weeping willows had lived through the bike-riding children becoming rampaging adolescents with too much time on their hands, and nothing to do with it.

It had been designed with young families in mind. A kind of starter home, Jen imagined. Elaine had never left, had never had the wherewithal, once Rory and his sporadic income had gone. She had watched as a never-ending cycle of happy couples with tiny children had moved in for a few years, and then moved on to bigger houses or divorce. She didn’t know many of her neighbours now. It had started to become too hard, trying to forge new friendships as the invisible doors revolved, and so she had stuck to the few people who had stayed put as long as she had. There weren’t many of them left.

Elaine stood back to let her into the small hall. She was smartly dressed: A-line skirt, baby-blue blouse, outdoor shoes with clicky low heels. Jen noticed that her hair was neat and her make-up just so.

‘Have you been out?’

‘Oh, just the Co-op. I wanted to get a cake in.’

Jen bit her tongue. ‘Great.’

The idea of Elaine, dressed and made up with nowhere to go but the Co-op, struck a chord of guilt.

‘I’ll put the kettle on.’

‘So,’ Jen said purposefully, ‘I’ve brought a ton of bin bags. We can load up everything from the spare room and I’ll take whatever’s any good to Oxfam and the rest to the tip.’

‘Are you sure? I could easily do it myself.’

Jen put an arm around her mother. ‘And how would you take it anywhere? You don’t have a car.’

‘Well, it’s really kind of you, Jenny. It’ll be a great help.’

Jen experienced a righteous glow. The kind you get when you help a blind person across the road or give anything silver-coloured to a beggar. There was no such thing as altruism – it was all about how it made you feel, not them.

‘And I’ll go through the attic while I’m here. Might as well.’

She said this without really thinking. God only knew what was up there, and how long it would take to sort. Jen didn’t think anyone had climbed the rickety metal ladder in living memory. She had certainly never set foot up there, her childhood fear of spiders having given its dark corners a horror-film atmosphere she had been keen to avoid. Since she had become a mother herself, she’d forced herself to overcome that particular neurosis, unwilling to pass it on. She would still rather never encounter anything with more than six legs but, if she did, at least she no longer cried and screamed and ran out of the room.

‘I can’t have you doing that, it’s a terrible mess up there. Just helping me with the spare room is enough. I’m really terribly grateful.’

‘Don’t be silly. At least I can have a quick scout around and see if there’s anything obvious that can go –’

‘No, Jenny,’ Elaine said sharply.

Jen almost did a double take.

‘I … I just mean, we won’t have time to chat if you’re up in the attic … Why don’t you leave it for another time?’

‘That’s crazy. I’ve got the car here and the whole afternoon –’

‘I can do it myself,’ Elaine said, sounding slightly desperate now.

‘You can’t get up that ladder.’

‘Well, I’ll ask Dominic, from up the road, one of these days. His son would offer, I’m sure.’

Jen had no idea why her mother was being so adamant. Assumed that, unaccustomed as Elaine was to being offered any help from her daughter, she didn’t know how to accept it. She was probably afraid of putting her out too much. Scared that if today turned into a production number, then Jen wouldn’t offer to visit her again any time soon.

‘Tell you what. I’ll do half an hour up there, that’s all. You can time me. And then we can have tea and cake and do the spare room together.’

Elaine, she noticed, was looking anxious. Her patent happiness at seeing her daughter seemed to have waned.

Twenty-three minutes later, Jen understood why.

‘I was protecting you.’

Elaine looked at the fireplace, the carpet, anywhere but Jen.

‘From what? From my own father?’ Jen rifled through the battered cardboard box she had dumped on the table. ‘There are … what? Seven years’ worth in here?’

Elaine eased herself down on to the sofa. She looked like she might have fallen over if she hadn’t.

Jen picked up one of the still-wrapped gifts. ‘To Jenny, love Dad’ written on the label. She tore it open. Bouncy deely-boppers wobbled about on a purple headband.

She reached for another in gaudy Christmas paper, ripped into it. A Now That’s What I Call Music CD: ‘Kayleigh’, ‘West End Girls’ and ‘Alive And Kicking’. Some of her favourite songs when she was thirteen.

‘How could you?’

‘I thought I was doing the right thing.’

‘You let me think he just didn’t care about me. That he’d forgotten me the minute he walked out of the door. And he sent me presents till I was … what … fifteen?’

Elaine was studying her hands. ‘I’m sorry, Jenny.’

‘No wonder you didn’t want me to go up there. What else might I find? Letters? Did he write me letters?’

‘Sometimes.’

Jen stood up, made to go towards the ladder again.

‘I burned them all.’

‘You …?’

‘Jenny, love, you have to understand. I had to make a decision. He was so unreliable.’

‘Did he ever try to see me?’ Jen could hear how cold her voice sounded, couldn’t do anything about it.

Elaine’s voice was getting smaller and smaller. ‘I couldn’t have him take you out when he’d been drinking, could I?’

‘It’s not as if he ever hurt me, or took me down the pub and then came home without me.’

‘Of course not.’

‘Then I don’t understand.’

‘All those times he was supposed to pick you up, and then he didn’t come –’

‘What? So because he was a bit flaky, you thought it would be better if I never had any contact with him again?’

‘I thought it would be better for you. I thought if he kept letting you down, it would break your heart.’

‘And losing touch with him altogether wouldn’t?

‘I’m sorry, Jenny –’

‘Jen!’ Jen raised her voice. ‘It’s Jen, for God’s sake. How hard is that to remember?’

‘I’m sorry. You’re making me nervous.’

‘I need to understand why, that’s all.’

‘I just wanted you to be happy.’

‘And it never occurred to you to let me decide what that would take? For Christ’s sake, Mum.’

Elaine made as if to stand up. ‘I’ll make us some tea.’

‘No. I have to go. I need to get back home.’

She grabbed up the box and left before her mother had a chance to protest.

When she got to the house, she left the presents in the boot of the car and told Jason she had worked a few extra hours. She knew if she filled him in on what had really happened, he would talk her out of what she had decided to do next.

‘Judy’s still sick,’ she said, wrinkling up her face.

She hoped he couldn’t see she’d been crying again.

Another Sunday, another painful afternoon sitting in Charles and Amelia’s front room. Jen had thought about trying to get out of it, knew she wouldn’t be able to pull off another migraine, couldn’t face the argument with Jason that would inevitably follow.

So she sat at the table, monosyllabic, as closed in and uncommunicative as a teenage girl. Picked at her food. Spoke only when spoken to. Sulked.

‘Are you unwell, sweetheart?’ Amelia said, laying a gentle hand on her arm. ‘You do look a bit peaky.’

Jen looked up, became aware that her mother-in-law was looking at her, concerned.

She forced a smile. ‘No, just a bit knackered. Hard week at work.’

‘Still doing extra hours?’

Jen nodded weakly.

‘So have you heard Martin got a new car?’ Charles looked at Jason as he said this so, thankfully, Jen didn’t feel she was expected to answer.

‘Another one? Do you think maybe he’d give me one of the old ones? Charitable donation.’

She let them chatter on, barely tuning in to what they were saying, nodding and smiling here and there when she thought she should.

That morning neither she nor Jason had leapt out of bed in order to make the other tea so they could have their usual Sunday morning catch-up. They had both just lain there, feigning sleep, until it had felt like a decent hour to get up.

By the time they left to go home, Jen felt as if she had barely strung two words together all afternoon. She longed to confide in someone about what had happened at her mother’s house but she had forgotten how to talk to her mother-in-law.

She hated knowing that Amelia was concerned about her but, at the moment, it didn’t feel like there was anything she could do about it. She was just grateful it was all over for another week. That was all she could do now – take her life one step at a time, and try to fight fires along the way. It was exhausting, but there didn’t seem to be another way. She had no idea how long she could go on like this, but trying to think of a solution was like trying to unravel the mysteries of the universe. She didn’t even know where to start.