Mum has insisted I bring her to Beached Heads. Since we met my other family I am her new special project. She has been carving out time for us to spend together, and she wants to know about my life.
She lurks outside my room, probably listening to my phone calls, she comes into whichever room I am in in the house to see what I’m up to and so we can spend some time together. With Nancy and Sienna here, I’m amazed she is bothering so much with me. But they’re hers, I suppose, already permanently bonded by blood. I am now an unknown quantity. Which is nonsense because Mum does know me. Every time she successfully guilt-trips me proves she knows me, every time I bite back at one of her ridiculous statements proves she knows me, every day that I am on this Earth and she is too proves she knows me. She’s my ‘Mum’ but it seems she’s the only person who needs convincing of that.
Mum, though, doesn’t feel like my ‘Mum’, the entity who I love more than most people on Earth, and is on a mission to reassert herself. Part of that involves invading my space here at Beached Heads.
Tyler is working. He moves easily behind the counter, smiling, humming quietly, generally infusing the place with the kind of joy you don’t often find in places where you spend money. My crush on him is slowly becoming out of control. Ever since he taught me to make coffee, gave me a place to forget who I am for a little bit, I have managed to become as giddy and fizzy as a teenager around him. Instead of being imbued with the feelings for another that a thirty-seven-year-old would have, emotions that can be analysed and categorised, written about and discussed, whenever I step in the glass doors of this café on the beach, all my other worries fall away and I am plunged into a vat of raw, unfathomable, delightful nonsenseness. I am too old to be feeling this and that’s wonderful.
Mum and I sit in one of the sofas by the window. ‘This is a lovely place, Clemency. I can see why you like it here.’
‘Hmmmm …’ I reply. Tyler wipes the spout of the milk steamer and frother with his ubiquitous white cloth and it’s suddenly, irrationally, the most erotic thing I’ve seen in weeks.
‘Welcome, welcome, faces old and new,’ Tyler says. He stands in front of our table like a tall sentinel – ready and waiting to do our bidding.
‘Interesting choice of words there, Tyler. Care to elaborate which one of us is which?’
He claps his hands quietly together then hangs his head with his hands still clasped. ‘And there we have it, my foot firmly in my mouth with no chance of getting it out without causing too much damage.’ He rotates rapidly and marches away, back behind his counter. A few seconds later, he returns. With a flourish, he says, ‘Hello, Clemency. Or would you prefer I call you Smitty today?’
‘Either is fine with me.’
His apron is well-starched, navy blue with an elaborate BH embroidered on the front in gold thread, like the one he put on me when we made coffee. ‘Well, it is lovely to see you again.’ He turns his attentions to Mum. ‘Hello, it’s fantastic to meet you, too.’
I have to introduce them and I’m going to have to suffer the silence, the stare, the sudden need Mum will develop to root through her bag for something important while the awkward moment passes. This is why I keep my worlds apart. When you separate pieces of yourself like the sections in a cutlery drawer, things don’t bleed and merge into each other, things don’t need complicated explanations.
‘Tyler, this is my mother, Heather. Mum, this is Tyler, he owns Beached Heads and makes the best coffee ever.’
‘You’re too kind,’ Tyler says, and extends his hand to my mother. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mrs Smittson.’ Mum will like that: introduced by her first name but he instantly defers to the formal and altogether more respectful way of addressing her.
Mum takes his hand. ‘How do you do?’ she says. I’ve never heard her say that, ever. She sounds like she’s the Queen meeting a lowly subject.
‘Do you share your daughter’s obsession with coffee, or are you more of a tea drinker?’ Tyler asks. He hasn’t missed a beat, hasn’t thrown one questioning or incredulous look our way. ‘If I may be so bold as to suggest my special, loose-leaf tea blend? If you don’t like it I’ll happily serve you any other beverage and a piece of cake free of charge. Not that I was going to charge you for the drink anyway. Your daughter holds some influence round these parts.’
I almost giggle. Giggle! I am an out-of-control teenager. ‘That’s very kind of you,’ I say when Mum does not speak. ‘Do you want the tea, Mum? Or a normal cuppa?’
‘I do not know where you have conjured up the idea that I drink “cuppas”,’ Mum says. ‘However, yes, the blend sounds promising. I will indeed sample a drop.’
‘Hello, Mum, Queen Elizabeth called – she wants her accent back,’ I say to her in my head.
‘Excellent choice,’ Tyler says. He grins at me. ‘And you, Clemency?’
‘A double mocha, easy on the cream, heavy on the cocoa.’
‘Another excellent choice.’
Mum doesn’t speak until he is safely behind his counter. Her gaze constantly strays in his direction, checking, I think, whether he is close enough to hear her when she leans towards me, lowers her voice and says, ‘Is he always that forward?’ Her ultra-posh accent has gone. ‘It’s most inappropriate.’
‘Yes, he’s always like that. And, as you can see by how popular this place is, it generally works. People keep coming back for the friendly, personal service.’
‘I’m sure the café’s location has a lot to do with that,’ she replies.
‘Wild horses and no amount of sea views would keep me coming back to a place if the person in charge was rude and dismissive.’
‘I agree, it’s all fakery to drum up business. I can’t abide false people.’
‘I didn’t say that, Mum. I said he was always like that.’
‘And you went on to say that it was a way for him to drum up trade.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘You did. You said he was like that to keep people coming back.’
‘I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘But that is what you said.’
I have forgotten my golden rule: there is no point arguing with my mother. Even if she is wrong and I am right, there really is no point arguing with my mother. And just in case I’ve forgotten the first part of the rule it is this: there is NO POINT arguing with my mother.
‘What. And. Ever,’ I say to Mum in my head.
‘Pardon me?’ Mum says, her face stern and shocked at the same time.
There is a chance – a rather large chance – that I said that out loud.
‘Is that what you’re learning now? How to speak to me like that?’ Is that what your new family is teaching you? She adds silently.
‘No,’ I say remorsefully. ‘I’m sorry. You were deliberately misunderstanding and then misinterpreting what I was saying, though.’
‘That is not my idea of an apology, Clemency Smittson.’
‘I’m sorry, Mum. I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.’
‘Thank you for your apology,’ she says with good grace. It’s easy to show such grace when you’re technically in the wrong and you’ve managed to get someone to apologise to you TWICE in under thirty seconds. If that happened to me, I’d have all the grace in the world, I’m sure. I wonder why Mum thinks she isn’t my mother when our relationship is full of moments like this. These are the moments you only share with your truly beloved ones.
‘One pot of my special blend, and one double mocha, easy on the milk, heavy on the cocoa.’ He’s used my favourite daisy cup and for Mum he has selected a lilac cup that matches the scarf she has draped around her neck. With me, in jewellery making, the perfect finish is everything; with Tyler and his café service, the detail is everything. I’m embarrassed at myself for how desperate I am to find any sort of connection between us no matter how tenuous. It’s all kinds of pathetic. And fun.
‘Thank you, Tyler. I’m sure it will be delightful,’ says my mother, the Queen.
I decide to ignore her and concentrate, instead, on my crush on the man walking away from me.
I have been expecting Mum to ask me if I have heard from the Zebilas, and if we have a time to see them again. When she asks, I will tell her everything, but she hasn’t asked because I suspect she thinks she knows everything since she has gone back to doing what she did whenever I lived at home: listening in on my phone calls by lurking around my door. (Whenever I catch her at it she does a good job of looking as if she was innocently passing.) I leave this moment between us silent, give her the opportunity to ask and be answered. I will be relieved that I can talk about who I have seen and why. The moment passes, undisturbed and unruffled.
‘Mum, did you and Dad ever talk about how he felt towards the end?’ I ask, as a roundabout way of starting the conversation I probably should have with her.
‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ she replies.
‘I mean, did he worry about being a burden on us? You, mainly, obviously?’
Mum’s eyes glaze over; she gazes into the recent past, suddenly lost and floating in the sea of yesterday. ‘Yes,’ she says quietly. ‘It was his biggest worry. Which upset me more than a lot of the other things that happened. He shouldn’t have worried about that. It wasn’t important.’
‘But to him it was, I suppose?’ I say.
‘Yes. I loved him. For better or worse.’
‘Did he ever feel it was too much and want it to end?’
‘Did he tell you that?’ Anger simmers beneath her words, in the way her face sits. ‘Did he say something about that to you?’
‘No,’ I reply. This wound has clearly not healed for Mum and I have unintentionally busted it open.
‘Don’t lie to me, Clemency. He asked you, too, didn’t he?’
‘No, Mum, I am not lying. The only thing he ever asked of me was to go to see that woman from Doncaster about her wedding jewellery. I didn’t want to go but he asked me to so I did.’
Mum’s eyes rake over me, scrutinising me for any hint that I am keeping things from her. ‘You’re sure?’
‘What is this? He didn’t … Why, what did he ask you?’
‘Only the most selfish thing a person could ask of another,’ she practically snarls. She’s never like that about Dad, not ever. Then she catches herself, realises who she’s talking to. She leans forward, grabs her teacup and sips at it.
‘Did Dad ask you to help him die?’ I ask Mum.
She sips her tea, ignores me. She is not going to discuss this with me, and me asking isn’t going to do any good. She is resolute, her face set and determined, then she changes her mind. She swivels in her seat until she is fully facing me. ‘Yes, he did. He asked me because he was in so much pain. He was in a type of agony I hope never to experience and he wanted it to be over. He’d had enough and I didn’t blame him. It was too much in that moment, but as soon as he asked he took it back. It was only at that moment. He knew how selfish it was.’
‘He didn’t ask me,’ I reassure Mum. ‘Like you say, it was a selfish thing to ask and Dad would never do that to me.’
‘Why are you asking?’
‘I’m missing him. Thinking about him. I didn’t want him to think we ever thought that about him. That he was a burden. Because he wasn’t.’
Mum places her cup back on its saucer, it rattles enough for her to need to steady it with her other hand. ‘I think it is time for me to go home. Nancy and Sienna will be back from exploring now. Are you coming?’ she asks. She doesn’t acknowledge what I have said, doesn’t even seem to notice that I have spoken. This is too much for her today. I didn’t realise it, but today is probably not a good day and she has been hiding that with her snippy attitude.
I shake my head. ‘I’m going to finish my coffee and then go on to work. I have some stuff to do before Monday.’
She looks across the busy room at Tyler and then back at me. ‘Fine,’ she says. ‘I’ll see you at home later.’
‘Bye, Mum,’ I say.
She nods at Tyler, a brief acknowledgement that he has served her well, and then leaves without looking back.
Mum had that face on her. Most of the time she looked like a normal woman with her blonde-brown, grey-streaked hair wound back into a bun, and soft features, and pink lips. Right now, though, she had that face on her.
‘It’s one song, Mum,’ I told her. ‘One song. He wanted it played.’
We were both wearing black, had done for the last week or so. It wasn’t intentional for me, simply what my hand went to whenever I opened the wardrobe or drawer. I felt like covering myself in black, it was comforting and gentle, the sombreness from inside me creeping outside. I closed my eyes and I saw Dad. If there was a lull in the day, a moment when I could be still, I would think I could sense him nearby. Mum was never still, calm, inert. She was always on her feet, cleaning, cooking, sorting. She wrote letters. She made arrangements. She had planned the funeral all by herself. She had done everything, organised everything, except for this one song.
‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s not right. Not decent.’
‘Mum, it’s what Dad wanted. He wrote it in his last letter. He told you about it more than once.’
‘He wasn’t himself towards … At that point he didn’t know what he was saying.’
‘He’s always said it. So many times. Even before he was ill. In fact, he said it right from when he first heard it with me.’
‘It’s not decent.’
‘You’ve said that, Mum, and saying the same thing over and over isn’t going to change the fact that it was what he wanted. You can have all of your other hymns and readings, but this is what Dad wanted. You have to honour that.’
Back to that face.
You can have that face all you want, but it’s still happening, I thought.
‘There’s no way the priest will allow it,’ Mum said.
‘We’ll see,’ I replied.
We had readings that brought tears and hymns that spread comfort. And as the chosen four rose to their feet, took their places to carry him out, the opening chords of the song he’d wanted since 1987 rose up from the speakers placed around the church.
The priest had been no trouble – he wouldn’t deny a deceased man’s request.
I watched the people around me react: frowns of confusion and recognition, wondering if they were really hearing this tune filling the church. Seth, who stood at the front of Dad’s coffin, hitched an eyebrow at me. He couldn’t believe I’d managed it, that I’d got Mum to let me play Dad’s song.
When Dad took me to see Dirty Dancing because I had no friends to go with, he said he wanted that song played at his funeral. ‘The words are so true. You and your mother, this is what life is about. Promise me, quine, you’ll play it at my funeral.’
‘Promise,’ I said without a second thought. Because I was nine, and that day was never going to come. I never thought I’d have to convince Mum to let me play ‘I’ve Had the Time of My Life’ by Bill Medley at Dad’s funeral because Dad was a big man with a huge laugh and he was never going to have a funeral, so I could promise him anything he wanted.
Tyler leaves it at least ten minutes after my mother has gone before he comes near my table. ‘Now that I’ve met your mother,’ he says, ‘I think it’s fair to ask you what I’ve been wondering since you first walked into my café.’
‘What’s that then?’
‘I’ve been trying to work it out by very subtle means, and now I’m just going to ask you outright: are you seeing anyone?’
As if on cue, as if he knows that something has made me think of him, Seth’s text tone sounds in my pocket. It’ll be one of those texts where he simply asks how my day has been, how I’m feeling, reminding me he loves me. And it’ll make me question the wisdom of what I’ve done, whether I should have stayed with someone who lied to me more than once. Not even a lie of omission, an outright lie. He’s backed off recently, no asking me to talk to him, just asking how I am. An easy way to get me to think about him even if I won’t return his calls or texts.
‘No,’ I say to Tyler. Because I am not. No matter what his texts say, no matter how much I want to be, I am not with Seth any longer. We are over. We have to be over. ‘I’m not. I’m flattered that you’re interested, though.’
‘I’m flattered that you’re flattered. Does that mean if I ask you out sometime you’re likely to say “yes”?’
‘It does.’
‘Good to know,’ he says. He wanders off to the counter with his checked tea towel slung over his shoulder and my mother’s empty teacup and saucer in his hand.
Seconds later he returns without the tea towel, apron and sous-chef hat he wears. ‘ “Sometime” didn’t involve an apron, tea towel or hat,’ he says. Another grin. ‘Have you ever been roller-skating along the promenade?’ he asks.
I shake my head. I always wanted roller skates. Lots of the girls in my school had them. Hillary Senton had pink ones with pink wheels and she brought them in one time and all of us wanted to touch them, to have a go. But she wouldn’t even let us stand too close to them. I wanted pink ones like hers, but even if they weren’t pink I would have loved to have a pair, to be like the other girls. But we couldn’t afford them, Mum and Dad said. We could hardly ever afford things that other children had. I don’t remember feeling resentful about it, more sad. I used to stare at the ceiling at night dreaming that when I grew up I’d have a lot of money and I’d be able to buy whatever I wanted. Funny how as an adult that never translated into buying roller skates, a pink bike or the latest, most up-to-date Girl’s World.
‘Would you like to come roller-skating with me along the promenade? I can make us a bite to eat here after the café has closed and then we can head out on the skates. See how far we get.’
I am being asked out by the man I have a crush on. I am being remarkably calm about that. ‘Sounds good. When?’
‘This coming week I’ve got events here every night so the café’s going to be open later than usual. But next week, I’m all yours. Potentially.’ He scrunches up his face, closes his eyes in a grimace. One eye cracks open a fraction. ‘That sounded so wrong. Did you understand what I meant in the broader sense?’
I nod.
‘So, next week?’
Two buzzes and a bleep sound in my pocket, a reminder that my life isn’t uncomplicated. Not that I’d forgotten. About Seth. About my biological family. Nor about what my grandmother has asked me to do. Having something else to think about, to look forward to, feels like a chance to be an uncomplicated person for a few hours. I’ve forgotten what it’s actually like, to not have anything to worry about.
‘Next week, definitely.’