‘You stupid girl. You stupid, stupid girl.’
Helen’s sitting on her bed with a purple shawl wrapped around her. She’s been crying. Now she’s stopped. Evidently, Charlotte’s told her about the A levels, and Luke’s told her about Barcelona, and between them they’ve told her about Julie’s fears. Julie’s not sure what else has happened or why her mother would have been crying.
‘It doesn’t matter now, does it?’ Julie says. She’s standing limply by the door. She doesn’t know what to do; whether to come further into the room or run out screaming. She didn’t want to have this conversation.
‘I suppose you can do them again. But you’re twenty-five, for God’s sake. What a waste of seven years – well, nine, when you count the two years of studying you threw away. What a waste. And you did all of this to get my attention. Why didn’t you just pick up the phone?’
Julie looks at the floor. ‘I did it because of Luke,’ she says. ‘Not because of you.’
‘That’s not what your friend said. Charlotte said that . . .’
‘Look, Mum, I didn’t do it consciously because of any one thing. Yes, I failed on purpose. I didn’t want to go to university and I didn’t want to leave Luke. I didn’t want my life to change . . . And I guess I wanted to hurt you as well, because I knew how much you wanted me to do well. But also, I didn’t know what I was doing. I just wanted to do something dramatic because my life felt so horrible. But it didn’t work, so I moved on. I know it was childish but I was just a kid at the time.’ She looks at her mother, small and sad on her purple bed. ‘I’m sorry,’ Julie says.
But why is she apologising? This is confusing. Julie remembers that the one thing about her mother was that she always felt like apologising to her – for who she was, for being less cool than other kids they knew, for liking maths more than reading, for preferring Pepsi to carrot juice. But she remembers a time before that, when she just loved her mother so much, when Julie used to automatically cry when Helen did, when they used to bake cakes together and have flour fights, when if anyone said anything bad about her mother, Julie would cry for the whole day. Then Helen gave up baking cakes, because, as she explained to Julie when she was about eleven, ‘Real women don’t bake cakes. They change the world.’ Julie bets that her mother bakes cakes now, though. And she hasn’t changed the world – well, not much.
‘It’s all because we moved there, to that horrible place,’ Helen says.
‘Why? What do you mean?’
‘If you’d never met Luke . . . I like him but, boy, he messed your life up.’
‘Please don’t say that, Mum. He didn’t mess my life up.’
‘And those people, those Essex people . . .’
Julie thinks of Chantel, and David, and Leanne. ‘I like Essex people,’ she says.
Neither of them says anything for a minute or so. Julie walks a couple more steps into the room, then stops.
‘Oh, God,’ Helen says eventually. ‘This is all my fault, isn’t it? I’ve been a crap mother. I’ve been a crap mother and I’ve screwed you up, and I ruined Doug’s life – as he’s always telling me . . .’
‘It’s not your fault,’ Julie says quietly. ‘It’s no one’s fault.’
‘But I’m a terrible mother.’
‘No you’re not, Mum.’
Julie walks over to the bed and perches on the edge of it. She notices that there is only one bedside table in the room. On it there’s a lamp and several books stacked haphazardly. One of them is called You Are a Good Person. There’s a small chest of drawers facing the bed. There’s a vase of fresh flowers on it and several new-looking candles. Is Helen lonely in here? Or happy on her own? Julie wouldn’t have a clue.
Helen’s voice drops almost to a whisper. ‘You would have been OK if you’d had a different mother,’ she says.
‘No! Mum, stop this. I loved having you as a mother. I thought you were cool. When you were on TV that time at Greenham I was so proud I almost cried. I thought everything you did was brilliant. I didn’t want a mother who’d stay at home cooking and know how to do laundry properly and stuff. I wouldn’t have wanted Luke’s mum, or Leanne’s, or anyone’s. I thought you were great. The only thing is that I didn’t think you liked me very much and I wanted to try to impress you so you’d like me but you never did.’
Helen looks down. ‘But that’s ridiculous,’ she says quietly.
‘You never asked me to go anywhere with you.’
Helen looks at Julie. ‘You never wanted to come!’
‘I was shy, Mum.’
‘Oh . . . But you could talk to me, couldn’t you?’
‘Until you left. When you left, I just thought you really hated me.’
‘See, I am a crap mother. I didn’t even know that.’
Julie looks at the way her mother is clutching her shawl with both hands, as if she’d die if she didn’t have it. ‘Dad was there. He could have told you what was happening.’
‘He always said you were fine.’
‘That’s pretty typical,’ Julie says.
Helen manages a weak smile. Julie smiles back.
‘What happened to us, Julie?’ she says. ‘Why didn’t you just phone me? Just once? Some nights – like on your birthday, or around Christmas, or on my birthday – I just sat looking at the phone, convinced you’d call me. But you never did.’ She shakes her head. ‘You never, ever called me. I ended up telling my friends I didn’t have a daughter any more. I was so ashamed that I had a daughter who didn’t love me. How horrible do you have to be for your own daughter to stop loving you?’
‘I never stopped loving you. God, Mum. I just . . . I didn’t phone because I wanted to sort myself out first. I wanted to get rid of all this fear – I knew you wouldn’t like me like this. And I wanted to get Luke better. In my head I had this plan where I’d be able to travel again and I’d call you and ask if I could come and visit . . . Anyway, you never called me either. I used to watch the phone on those nights as well, in case you called. Eventually, I just thought I was right and you didn’t like me, and I didn’t blame you because I’m a bit messed up and I know you always wanted me to be strong . . .’
‘I was scared,’ Helen interrupts. ‘I was scared that, if I phoned you, you wouldn’t want to know me. That would hurt a lot more than you not phoning, so I just waited.’
‘Ditto,’ says Julie.
‘What a waste,’ Helen says. ‘What a stupid waste.’
‘I’m still not the daughter you wanted, though, am I?’ Julie says.
In her head she can see a well-proportioned girl with long black hair, eating rice and drinking wine and laughing over some politically correct joke. She can see rainbow rugs and organic food and a campsite with colourful tents and women with colourful hats. The girl with long black hair is reciting poetry now and everyone’s listening. Now she’s flying in a plane and it doesn’t scare her. In fact, now she’s parachuting and she’s an aid worker or a traveller or a CND ambassador, and she’s in Africa or Asia travelling with a threadbare rucksack and a big smile. And she’s not scared of anything.
‘And I’m not the mother you wanted, am I?’ Helen says. ‘You know, I only ever wanted you to be happy, Julie. I wanted you to be happier than me, happier than I ever could have been. I was so jealous of you, you know? You were born in the right generation and you genuinely had the chance to have a great life and make a difference. Me? I married the wrong man and got pregnant at nineteen and it felt like my life was over. When I started putting my life back together, I was doing it because I wanted you to see how your life could be better than mine. I was angry when you failed your exams. I thought you hadn’t worked hard enough or that you’d been wasting all your time with Luke and I thought that was so stupid because you had all these opportunities that I never had. I never even had the chance to take exams when I was at school. I was sent to the local technical college because I was a girl. I was pissed off because you could have been anything. You could have been a company director. All I was qualified to be was a secretary. You could have been a doctor. I could only ever have been a nurse.’
‘I’d rather be a secretary or a nurse, though,’ Julie says. Helen looks so horrified by this that she has to pause and think. ‘But I know what you’re saying. I’m glad we live in a world where I have that choice but it should still be a choice. I mean . . . well, it’s all down to your generation that we have a choice in the first place but . . . Anyway, I don’t think I’ll ever get married,’ Julie says, smiling. ‘If that makes you feel any better.’
‘Thank God for that.’ Helen shifts on the bed. She takes off the shawl and crosses her legs, leaving it draped loosely on her lap.
‘And I might change the world but in a way you might not notice.’
‘You don’t have to change the world, Julie.’
‘Good, because I probably won’t.’
They laugh awkwardly. ‘I’m glad you came,’ Helen says.
‘Me too, kind of.’
‘Will you come back? I’d like to introduce you to my friends and . . .’
‘What, you’re not embarrassed about me?’
‘Embarrassed? Don’t be so silly. Look, I know you’re on an important journey at the moment, but one day, just ring me up – or don’t even ring – and just come. We’ll get to know each other. If we hate each other, then fine – at least we tried. But we might not.’
Julie smiles. ‘No, we might not.’
Helen clutches Julie’s hand, then lets it go. Julie gets up from the bed.
‘So are you off to Wales now, then?’
‘Yeah. This seems like a good time to go.’
‘Will you say goodbye to Charlotte and Luke for me?’
‘Sure.’
‘And tell Luke I hope he finds what he’s looking for.’
‘I will. Bye, then.’
‘Bye, Julie.’