Mum, Beatrix says, in that warning tone. Don’t start. What, Millie says. I said nothing. They’re meeting for an early dinner. What with Beatrix’s schedule and her living on the other side of the city, it’s the only way Millie can see her. They’re never very successful dinner dates: Beatrix is tired and cranky, always looking at her watch. Millie asks question after question. The gap between them continues to feel far too wide.
But at least they have this. For over a year, after Millie left George, they rarely saw each other. Beatrix always had an excuse, something else that needed to be done. Millie would lie to her friends, telling them elaborate tales about weekly dinners and mother-daughter holidays. She would call, the phone ringing and ringing, Millie knowing that Beatrix was there, refusing to answer, even if it meant missing a call from a friend. All I’m saying, Millie says, straightening the silverware on the table, is that I don’t want you to miss out. Look at all your friends who are already married, who already have children. Millie takes a sip of wine and blots her lips with her napkin. She tries to cut back on the drinking when she’s with Beatrix. Just one glass of wine. She crosses her legs and replaces the napkin on her lap but still doesn’t look in Beatrix’s eyes. It’s just that Sam seemed as though he was one of the good ones. I don’t want you to wait too long. She raises her eyes then and sees what she knew she would see, Beatrix’s face dark and cold, closed off. That beautiful face. But she felt that she had to say something. She’s trying to be more up-front with her, to say what she thinks. Well, she’s always said what she thought. But she wants to have a more open relationship.
How difficult it is, though, with your own child. To change the patterns that have been set, to create a new way of being together. She thinks of the path that’s been cut through the park near her flat, the grass slowly disappearing. A bootleg trail, she’s heard it called. The best way of getting from here to there. Why can’t she figure this out with her own daughter? She thinks of Julia’s daughter, Louisa, now fourteen, and how much fun they have together. She loves taking Louisa shopping. Just last month Louisa had spent the weekend while Joe and Julia were out of town. How did she and Beatrix end up here, sitting across from each other, feeling worlds away? Strangers, almost. At least they’re seeing each other again. But somehow that’s made her feel even more desperate.
Millie leans across the table and grasps Beatrix’s hand. Sweetheart, she says. I missed so much of your childhood. I want to spend more time together. Can’t you include me in your life? Jesus, Mum, Beatrix says, pulling her hand away, running it through her hair. You pretend this is about me but it’s really all about you. As so much often is. She picks up her menu and studies it, and after a moment Millie does the same. She always seems to say the wrong thing, even when it’s what she most wants to say. They both study their menus for too long. The silence becomes unbearable.
So, tell me, Millie tries again. Tell me about how work is going. It’s fine, Beatrix says, still not looking up. Busy. We signed a deal to move into a new space, to have more room, to add another class. We’ll move in this summer. Oh, Millie says, nodding, that’s wonderful. Will you still have time for some vacation? She wants to go somewhere together, just the two of them.
Beatrix shrugs. Not sure. Maybe. She takes a sip of water. Millie doesn’t really know why Beatrix is so angry with her. She knows she was furious that she left George. She stayed with him longer than she had wanted to, hoping, perhaps, that she could convince herself he was fine, that the marriage was worth sticking around for. And he was, he is, a nice man. But she wanted to be alone. She wanted to be on her own. Not like after Reg, when it hadn’t been her choice. Never again, she told Beatrix when she helped her to move out. I’m not getting married again. Three times is the charm. The look on Beatrix’s face had been full of so many things—disappointment, anger, disbelief—but she hadn’t said a word.
Their dinners arrive. Millie pushes the food around her plate. Do you ever hear from the Gregorys? she asks when the silence has gone on for too long. Beatrix looks up from her food. Rarely, she says. Christmas cards, mostly. What did the one this year say, Millie asks. What is happening with all of them? There’s a bit of a pause and then Beatrix replies, still holding her fork in her hand. Mrs. Gregory is well, I think. Gerald’s been back east for a few years—he works at the school. And William, Millie says, as lightly as she can. She has not mentioned his name since he left the flat all those years ago. What has happened to him? Beatrix looks around the restaurant and then back at Millie, before looking away again. He’s married, has two children. Beatrix meets Millie’s eyes. What is it, Mummy? she asks. What’s brought on this great interest in the Gregorys all of a sudden?
Millie digs her nails into her palm. Just wondering, she says. I know how important they are to you. Beatrix shrugs. They were, she says. Not so much anymore. Silence falls again. Nancy never remarried, Millie says. After Ethan died? Beatrix shakes her head and almost smiles. I can’t imagine such a thing, she says. She would never. Isn’t she lonely, though, Millie asks, understanding as she does that loneliness is what has driven so many of the choices that she has made. Isn’t she terribly lonely? I don’t know, Beatrix says. She’s got Gerald close by, for company. And the grandchildren not far away.
Beatrix puts her fork down and pushes her plate away. She’s hardly eaten anything. You know, Mummy, she says. Mrs. G thought the world of you. Of me? Millie is genuinely surprised. She didn’t even know me. But she knew about you, Beatrix says. I talked to her about you all the time. I think she was even a little jealous of you. Of the way you held down a job, drove the ambulance, took care of Daddy. She felt horrible when Daddy died. For a whole month after, she brought cookies over to me at lunch. She’d come walking right into the lunchroom with these warm cookies, right out of the oven. Almost all the weekly allotment of sugar went into those cookies. I thought I might die of shame. I mean, everybody loved it, but, honestly, it made me feel like such a child.
Millie doesn’t know how to respond. This is more than Beatrix has said about the Gregorys in years. Well, that’s lovely, she says. I’m glad she took such good care of you. Millie knows she would have dismissed this if she’d heard it at the time. How ridiculous to bring cookies over to the lunchroom, she would have thought, what is this woman trying to prove? Now she’s able to see it for what it was: a genuine act of love. This woman loved her Beatrix as much as she does. She can see that now, in a way she never could before.
Beatrix is watching her closely. How about, Millie says, her head spinning with the idea, how about we go to America, you and I, this summer? We could go to New York and then up to Boston. We could visit with the Gregorys. I’ve saved up to go on a trip like this with you. Beatrix’s face closes again, in that familiar way. No, she says, her neck tight, and Millie feels as though the door, which had opened just a bit, has once again been slammed in her face. I mean, Beatrix says, a bit more softly. We can go to New York, Mum. I know you’ve never been. But I don’t want to go to Boston. That’s not my life anymore. My life is here. Millie nods. She gestures for the check, her hand signing the air, hope blooming in her chest.