I arrive at my mum’s hotel in Covent Garden just before twelve. Its exterior is white walls and sculpted hedges. At the hotel’s entrance are wide glass doors with gold trimmings. A man in a suit opens the door for me. ‘Welcome,’ he says.
At reception I tell the man behind the desk that I’m meeting Laura Winters. ‘One moment,’ he says, picking up the phone to call her room. ‘You can wait over there.’ He points to a lounge by a huge window that overlooks a courtyard with white-and-black-chequered tiles. Fairy lights nestled between foliage. A man and woman are sipping glasses of red at a nearby table. ‘Sparkling wine?’ offers a woman carrying a tray of champagne flutes.
‘I’m fine, thank you.’
A moment later, the lift doors open and my mother steps out. Her silk dress is the colour of pink pearls. Over it, she wears a long black coat. I stand to greet her. And as I put my arms around her, I feel the sharpness with which her spine protrudes. She’s the thinnest she’s ever been.
Still, her make-up is immaculate. Supple red lips. Dark lashes. Gold lids. And from her ears hang silver hoops so thick and heavy they make her earlobes sag. She looks like a painting. And then I realise that she looks like a painting not because of her perfectly applied make-up, but because of her eyes. There’s no light in them.
She looks past me, around the foyer, and then says, ‘So where is he?’
‘Who?’
‘Your boyfriend.’
‘What?’
‘Hugo.’
‘Oh, right, yeah,’ I mumble, remembering that the last time we spoke at any length was Christmas. ‘He’s not coming.’
‘Why not?’
‘We broke up.’
‘You what?’
‘We broke up, Mum. We’re not together anymore.’
‘But I came all this way to meet him,’ she says.
I pause. Then bite back. ‘And to see me.’
‘Oh, you know that’s not what I meant.’
And I think, That’s exactly what you meant, but I choose not to start a fight in the hotel lobby. ‘It’s fine,’ I say. ‘Where to for lunch?’
Mum tells me the restaurant she’s booked is a fifteen-minute walk and suggests we get a taxi. She has the man at reception order one, and soon we’re on our way. When we arrive, I’m taken aback by the restaurant’s humble exterior. ‘I think this is the address,’ she says, squinting at her phone. ‘Yes, it’s definitely here.’
Inside, Mum tells me she spent an hour researching which restaurant to bring me to, and I smile, sensing her genuine pride in having discovered this place on her own. ‘It’s all vegetarian,’ she says.
I look up from the menu. ‘So I’ve noticed. That’s really cool. Thank you.’
She grins.
The moment is short lived, though, because on her next breath, she says, ‘So tell me: what happened with Hugo?’
‘I don’t know, really.’
She frowns. ‘He must have given you a reason.’
‘I broke up with him, Mum.’
‘What?’ she says, not bothering to hide the shock in her voice. ‘Why?’
I shrug. ‘I told you: I don’t really know.’
‘Well, can you take it back?’ she asks. ‘I’m sure it’s not too late.’
‘I don’t want to take it back, okay?’
‘But he was so good for you,’ she says, and considering she’s never met him, I’m sure she means, He was safe. He was security. But there’s also a tinge of truth to it. He was good for me. He was everything. Like the ocean: open, generous and stretching.
Beautiful. Even as you’re drowning in it.
‘I just don’t understand,’ she says.
And I feel myself cast adrift in a sea of memory.
I just don’t understand. Over and over.
Talk to me, Oli. Please. Said Hugo. Said Maggie. Said Mac.
And I can’t.
Because this colour I see inside me doesn’t exist. There’s no language for it. No words to describe the shape of this pain. How it glints in the sun. How it overwhelms me so that, suddenly, it’s all I can see. Here. There. Everywhere.
Hugo comes into focus now. The marshy borders of memory solidifying so that I’m once more in my apartment, watching his body shudder. Watching him shrink away. Watching his heart rip. And I want to rush to him. To hold him.
But in the blink of an eye, the tide changes and the memory slips back into the deep. His face now watery and without detail. Time disintegrating his words. And into that unanswerable hole, that cavern of blue longing, I feel myself slipping.
‘Are you okay?’ my mother asks.
I realise tears have welled. ‘Yes,’ I say, wiping my eyes on the back of my sleeve.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘Let’s talk about something else.’
I nod and she begins talking about my dad. ‘He’s in America right now. You know him—always off at some conference or another. Always chasing a new business opportunity … I keep telling him he needs to retire.’ And it strikes me for the first time how little detail she shares about my father’s doings. Perhaps it’s a sign of how little detail she actually knows.
I ask her what she’s been doing and she says, ‘Oh, you know, I keep myself busy. I’ve been playing tennis with Abigail. You remember Abigail, don’t you?’
‘I think so.’
‘And Fenella started a book club with another woman, Lily. We’re reading a book by Margaret Atwood—have you heard of her?’
I laugh.
‘What are you laughing at?’
‘Oh, nothing. Yes, I have heard of her. Is it The Handmaid’s Tale?’
Mum shakes her head. ‘No, it’s called Alias Grace.’
‘I think it’s great that you’re reading.’
Mum chuckles now. ‘I’m very slow. But I’m enjoying it.’ She takes a sip of her wine.
‘If you want, I could give you some recommendations.’
‘I would love that,’ she says, smiling.
When we’ve finished lunch, I suggest we walk back to the hotel but Mum, who is wearing heels says, ‘Let’s just get a taxi.’ But after we’ve waited fifteen minutes, I say, ‘Come on, it’s not far,’ and I set off. Reluctantly, she follows.
We pass boutiques and quaint cafes. A couple strolls by walking a dachshund. We round a corner, and just as I realise where we are I feel a drop of rain land in my hair. Then another. ‘Oli …’ Mum says, but before she has time to finish her sentence, the sky undoes and it begins to pour.
‘Quick,’ I say, grabbing her hand, ‘my gallery is just down the street. Run!’
By the time we reach the gallery, we are soaked. I fumble with the keys, rushing to unlock the door. Opening it, we hurry inside. I flick on the lights and look at my mum. Her hair is sleek and stuck to her face. Mascara is running down her cheeks in black streams. Her lipstick is smudged. She looks like a watercolour left out in the rain.
I’m about to apologise for making her walk when she bursts into laughter, the sound erupting from deep inside of her. And then I’m laughing too. In sprays of pink silver. Wholly and unapologetically. And it feels good. It feels wild and unruly.
Catching her breath, Mum opens her eyes. There’s light in them. A timid glow. Faint, but it’s there. Unflinching. It’s fucking magnificent.
We dry off in the bathroom under the hand dryer, giggling like children. Then we come out into the body of the gallery and I take Mum around to show her our current show. Drawings of clouds drift across the walls, changing shape in each frame.
‘You know, I used to draw when I was a girl,’ Mum says. ‘I loved it. In fact, for a long time, I wanted to be an artist.’
‘You’ve never told me that before.’
‘I’ve never told anyone that before,’ she says. And then she adds, ‘I think it’s amazing what you’re doing here,’ and I feel the years of distance and desire close up. Right now, in this moment, she’s here, with me.
The rain outside has eased. ‘Come on,’ I say, ‘I want to show you something.’
I lock the gallery and we walk down the street to a set of traffic lights. ‘Where are we going?’ she asks.
The pedestrian light flashes green and we cross the road. ‘Here,’ I say. We’re standing outside an art supply store.
Inside, Mum tells me she couldn’t possibly draw now. ‘Of course you can,’ I say, steering her towards the drawing section, where I pick out a set of pencils and a notepad.
‘You should get something too!’ she says.
‘You’re right,’ I say, picking up a set of pencils and a notepad for myself.
‘We’re matching,’ she says, and I laugh.
We pay for our purchases and, as we walk out, I see my mother clutching her bag of art supplies to her chest, beaming.
That evening, with Mum on her way to the airport, I take out my notepad and pencils from the brown paper bag. I sit in the middle of the lounge room floor and wonder what to draw. I look outside at the tree beyond the glass, branches without foliage. Naked and gnarled. I begin to draw them, branches twisting at dusk like dark rivers. And though spring is still weeks away, I adorn the tree’s arms with pink buds. Ready to bloom.
Hours later, I wake in the thick of the night to my phone vibrating on my bedside table. I look at the screen and see the Australian number. See that I’ve already missed five calls. I answer.
There is sobbing on the end of the line. He’s hysterical. The sound is like nothing I’ve ever heard in my life.
‘What?’ I say, frantic. ‘Mac? What’s wrong?’
But I already know.