We were almost a family again, Mum, Dad, me, you and Harriet. Once the adoption had gone through, Dad no longer collected useless things quite so obsessively. There were still a few unsteady piles of rubbish dotted about, but it was nothing like it had been before. He even went back to work – not the buses, too much time had passed and he felt the stigma of chronic depression too acutely for that – ‘I wouldn’t fit in there anymore,’ he said. Instead, he worked in one of the local parks, as a keeper. Ironically, he was in charge of maintenance, keeping everything clean and tidy, all in order, nothing out of place. We laughed about that – Dad laughing loudest – as we sat at the dinner table, eating Sunday lunch, which had become a tradition again.
Mum had cooked chicken, with roast potatoes, plantain, rice and peas. She was less tired now that she no longer had to do two jobs. ‘I don’t know how on earth I found the time to do so much,’ she said.
There was still a touch of sadness at the table, felt most sharply, perhaps, when Mum brought the crumble out of the oven and the grown-ups remembered that last night with Cal. But his daughter was with us now, a part of him.
‘That’s my father, isn’t it?’ said Harriet, pointing to the framed photo hanging on the wall to the side of her. It had been put up since our last visit. Cal was looking shy but pleased with himself. He was holding a certificate.
There was silence for a moment, as if no one was quite sure how to remember Cal without pain they didn’t want to have to feel. Then you said, ‘Yes, that’s your dad. I took it when he got his A-level results.’
‘I had it enlarged and framed,’ added Dad. He looked as if he might cry but instead he forced a smile. Harriet took his arm and stroked it gently. ‘What kind of things did my dad like doing?’ she asked, refusing to heed the adults’ unspoken wish for her to drop the conversation.
‘He liked watching wrestling on television,’ said Dad after a pause.
Harriet wrinkled her nose. ‘I’d rather watch Starsky and Hutch. Or The Fosters. I like Lenny Henry.’
‘Wrestling was fun when we were growing up,’ I added. ‘The wrestlers took on personas – characters. It was a bit like pantomime.’
‘What other things did my dad like?’
‘Your dad liked building things,’ you said. ‘He made a little bookshelf for me once in his woodwork class at school.’
He made it just for you; it wasn’t shared. I felt hurt, left out.
‘We were only allowed to make one,’ Cal told me.
‘Then why did you give it to her?’ I knew I sounded jealous, but I couldn’t help it.
‘I didn’t do it to upset you,’ Cal replied, looking worried. ‘Don’t get upset about it.’
‘We could have shared it.’
‘Maybe. It’s just that when you’re both supposed to share, you end up taking over.’
‘That’s not true!’ I said, feeling even more hurt by this judgement of me.
‘It is true,’ Cal answered mildly. ‘It was fairer to give it to Selina, just for once. I’ll make something just for you next time, promise.’
But he never did.
You treasured that bookshelf for years; you even managed to have it sent to halls when you went to college. But it got lost in the move when we bought our house. You were distraught when you realised it had gone.
‘Cal believed in fairness,’ I said to Harriet. ‘He stood up for the things he believed in. He used to go on demos.’
‘What did he demonstrate about?’
‘He was anti-war. It was the Vietnam war then, in America. He protested about apartheid too. I think he also protested when they banned pirate radio.’
‘What’s pirate radio?’ asked Harriet.
She was disappointed by the explanation. She’d been hoping for galleons or, at the very least, a parrot.
‘You look a lot like Cal,’ Mum said to her.
‘You do,’ added Dad.
I looked at them to see if the likeness was causing them distress, but they just seemed pleased.
Mum dished up the crumble.
‘That was gorgeous,’ said Harriet as she finished the last mouthful.
‘It was Cal’s favourite too,’ said Mum, basking in the compliment.
‘Can I have some more?’ Not waiting for an answer, Harriet started helping herself.
‘Just wait,’ I said. ‘Other people might want some more of that.’
‘No one’s going to want it,’ Harriet replied. ‘Selina and Gran are on a diet. You keep saying you want to eat more healthily and Granddad’s left most of his.’
‘You could at least have asked. It’s rude.’
‘I did ask. I said, “Can I have some more?” Everyone heard me ask.’
‘It’s customary to wait for a reply.’
‘I haven’t done anything wrong. This isn’t fair.’
‘Leave her be, Zora,’ said Mum quickly. ‘She’s a growing girl, she’s got an appetite. No harm in that.’
‘It’s rude and it’s inconsiderate,’ I answered.
My mood had changed. I’d been enjoying the afternoon but suddenly I just wanted it to come to an end. I’d stopped seeing Cal in Harriet and I was now seeing Lydia. There had been so much talk of family likeness round the table, but whereas Cal had been thoughtful, Harriet was often thoughtless. Wilful. Prone to asking why a lot, instead of just doing whatever we asked her to do. It irritated the hell out of me, even though I tried not to let it.
‘Does she remind you of anyone?’ you asked me a few days later, after a particularly prolonged bout of whys? from Harriet, followed by an iteration of all the wherefores from me.
‘She’s so like Lydia sometimes,’ I answered.
You laughed. ‘No, Zora, she’s just like you.’
I didn’t see it but it did make me realise something. We all wanted Harriet to resemble us, our side of the family – to be our likeness. We’d been so keen for her to save us, to make us whole again after Cal. You and I had come together once more in order to raise her. Perhaps she had saved our relationship, preserving our joined-ness – you loved her for that. Harriet’s presence as our adopted daughter had also been the catalyst for our parents’ return to some kind of normality. They were living again now, whereas before they had just trudged through life joylessly. We hadn’t meant to burden Harriet with our needs, but we were all doing so, one way or another. Sometimes I worried about where this would lead. As an adult, would she spend years in therapy, blaming all of us for our dependence on her, our need for her to be like us, and our fear that she was the only thing that kept us all going? Would she manage to be happy, despite all our demands?
I felt odd moments of happiness, at home and when I was immersed in my work. But I still missed the brief spell of freedom I’d had in Manchester, even after so many years. I loved you and Harriet, but I wanted to be independent, I wanted that so much. Harriet’s adoption had meant everything to me but it had also felt like a prison door had clanged shut. We belonged to one another even more now, you, me and Harriet. Being Harriet’s mothers wasn’t a voluntary thing anymore, it was our legal duty, and illogically, perhaps, it seemed to carry more responsibility and obligation than a biological parent would ever have to deal with.
Harriet liked school. She never feigned illness to avoid a teacher or a lesson she thought she wouldn’t understand. She had friends and was invited to parties at ice rinks and bowling alleys. I remembered how popular Lydia had been.
On parents’ evenings, the teachers were full of praise. You and I attended together, ignoring the questioning looks, the raised-eyebrow-invitations to explain our relationship to her; why there were two of us, why there was so little familial resemblance – in their minds we were too dark to be close relatives – and why her birth parents were never present. ‘She’s a very clever child, but she can be impertinent – flippant, if not downright rude,’ they said. ‘She needs to curb that tendency.’
On the way home in the car, you blamed me for this. ‘She’s learnt to be flippant from you, it’s how you manage things and you know how she looks up to you. She copies you. Can’t you at least rein it in when you’re around her?’
‘When am I flippant?’ I was both angry and surprised.
‘All the time, Zora. Just rein it in. When I dropped a dish the other day, you made a joke about how clumsy I was. Now Harriet’s repeating what you said as if it’s gospel truth, denigrating me, like that’s okay. I’m fed up with it.’
You were driving. You pulled up behind a Viva. You were far more patient than I was in every area, except on the road. Now you were tapping the steering wheel impatiently as the driver stalled. ‘Idiot,’ you muttered. I’m sure that, in the car, even Harriet mistook you for me.
‘You don’t think Harriet’s flippancy is an inherited characteristic we should blame on Lydia?’
‘That’s exactly the kind of comment I’m talking about. I’m only asking you to rein it in around Harriet,’ you said as you pulled away from the traffic lights.
We used to share a Mini, but we’d just got a blue Beetle, at your insistence. You’d done it mainly for Harriet, who found rusty, old, orange cars an embarrassment.
‘I suppose we could be in danger of spoiling her,’ I said. ‘She plays us off against each other and we let her. Seriously, we don’t want another Lydia on our hands. We need to be more strict with her, both of us. I don’t care if she’s flippant with teachers, they probably deserve it, but if she gets away with too much at home, she’ll end up a spoilt brat.’
We were in agreement now, something that was increasingly rare.
‘We’re compensating for Cal not being here,’ you said.
‘Exactly,’ I replied.
‘We need to be more consistent.’ We pulled up outside the house. You turned the engine off. ‘And that means you have to control your temper, Zora.’
I felt myself tense up. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re angry so much of the time. You snap at me and you snap at her for no good reason. Harriet is really aware of it and it scares her.’
I turned to face you. ‘That’s a horrible thing to say. I’m not angry about anything. And I never, ever snap at Harriet. I wouldn’t, I just wouldn’t. It’s ridiculous to say that she’s scared of me. If she was scared, she wouldn’t answer back all the time, would she? If anything it’s the opposite – she prefers being with me to being with you.’ I unbuckled my seat belt but I couldn’t quite manage to get out of the car – my foot was entangled in part of it.
‘Most of the time, you’re not around,’ you said, reaching across to release me. ‘You’ve always got some excuse. You’re preparing your teaching. You’re doing your marking. You’re working on your doctorate. You need to spend time with colleagues because departmental decisions are made over beer in the pub. We both walk on eggshells all the time. Don’t upset Zora, she’s had a difficult day. Be quiet, Zora’s trying to get some work done. I’m sick of it, to be honest.’ You sat on your hands to try to disguise the fact that you were trembling – with anger? In fear of my response?
Free of the seat belt, I got out of the car, my own anger making me speak louder than was necessary. We both stood on the pavement. ‘It’s very convenient to blame all your anxieties on me. You can’t even talk without shaking, but instead of admitting you’re not coping, you dump it all on me, make it all my fault.’
‘I knew you wouldn’t listen. You never listen,’ you said, your voice strained.
‘That’s because you never say anything worth listening to.’ I ran to the front door and let myself into the house.
I was halfway up the stairs when you came in behind me and said, ‘So now you’re going to run away from this conversation instead of listening and trying to put things right.’
Full of fury at your assumptions, I continued up the stairs. I went into my room, but before I could close the door, you were beside me. The house was quiet except for our voices, both of us loud and insistent. We knew we could argue as much as we liked; Harriet was stopping over with a friend for the night. I needed to be away from you so much. At that moment I wanted to be anywhere but in the house. You were standing in the way of that, literally. I shoved you through the door and onto the landing but you sprang back in like a toy that was impossible to stop once it had been wound up.
‘I just want to talk to you,’ you said.
‘Well, I don’t want to talk to you.’
‘Please, Zora.’ The usual pleading. I’d had enough of it.
You stood in the corner of the room, your arms folded. I kicked off my work shoes, the uncomfortable black ones with the pointed toes that I wore in order to feel in charge. A black pencil skirt, a white blouse and a grey, tailored jacket completed the outfit. I pulled these off too and started to get into my pyjamas. If we were going to fight, I wanted to be comfortable, at least. You were also in black and grey, but your clothes were casual, designed for child-wrangling – you were already equipped for combat. And yet, as I looked at you, I knew a fight wasn’t on the agenda. Neither of us had the heart for one. We were both tired, and whenever something like parents’ evening occurred, we were reminded of our responsibilities to Harriet, and our fear that we wouldn’t live up to them.
Was Harriet really scared of me? An image of her, shrinking from me slightly as I complained about the noise from her beatbox while I was trying to get my marking done, barely able to concentrate, sleepy, irritable and agitated from a demanding day at work – trying to do too many things at once – came into my head. Perhaps I wasn’t very easy to live with.
I’m not sure what happened next. We probably shouted at one another. You probably accused me of leaving all the work of raising Harriet to you and only taking the good parts, the fun parts of being her parents, as if I was an errant father, a neatly stereotypical view that fitted your perception of lesbians, no doubt. I know I slept badly that night, resenting you, resenting the life I now had – or the life that had been denied to me the day you had allowed Harriet to land on your doorstep.
By morning, I was back in a smart skirt and jacket and ready for work again, as if I hadn’t slept on top of the bed and awoken with a splitting headache. As I left for the daily commute, early enough to avoid you, I wondered if some of the things you’d said last night were true. I could be irritable at times. Sometimes, through exhaustion and the demands of work and the sense that the prison door had clanked shut, I would withdraw for days at a time, not even getting out of bed. I knew that you and Harriet tiptoed around me then, quite literally. And Harriet was sometimes scared of me – deep down I knew that too – and I didn’t want that for her, I really didn’t. I didn’t want it for myself either.
So I tried, for a while, to do things differently. I sat on my resentment and I tried my hardest not to let it surface.