you learn to live on the surface, it’s safer.
‘Did you sign up for that additional course for next term?’ asked Roger.
‘Yes,’ muttered Jo, glancing at me.
‘What additional course?’ I almost whispered, hoarsely. I cleared my throat.
‘She’s doing an additional course in IT,’ explained Roger. He had clearly already done his additional course—in smugness.
After lunch, Roger sent the girls upstairs so that he and I could spend some quality time together. Maybe.
‘What’s happened to Jo?’ he asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘She looks like a hat stand, and she hasn’t eaten any lunch.’
‘For God’s sake, Roger, she’s a teenager—that’s what they do.’
‘Only Alice thought…’
‘What the hell does Alice know about having children? She probably thinks ovaries, uterus and fertility are a firm of solicitors.’
‘She’s my daughter, too.’
It is always tempting at such times to launch into the ‘I’m the one bringing them up and you’re the one who walked out’ speech, but I decided against it. Instead, I said nothing.
‘Haven’t you got anything to say on the subject?’ Roger asked, eventually.
‘Not really. I mean, I’m the one bringing them up and you, for whatever reason, decided to leave me to it.’
‘Lizzie, let’s not go over all that again.’
‘No, you’re right. Look, all her friends are the same, it’s nothing to worry about, but if you like I’ll talk to her when she gets back. Don’t make a thing of it.’
‘Fair enough. Does she eat at all?’
‘Of course she does. She had spaghetti Bolognese only yesterday.’
‘I thought she was a vegetarian.’
‘Only a part-time one.’
On the way home, I wanted to think about what Roger had just said, make sense of what he seemed to be implying, but I pushed the thought from my mind as if thinking about it would give it some truth. I screeched to a halt at traffic lights I hadn’t even noticed and banged hard on the steering-wheel, angry with myself for being so distracted, distracted by mere possibilities for nothing had actually happened. I started to sing, and right on cue Eliza joined in. There was a quiver in my voice, a quiver of fear, but I wasn’t even sure what I was frightened of. I slapped my thigh like a pantomime character, grinned and sang louder until everything seemed all right again.
We got home at two-thirty and Eliza had to rush to get ready for her first rehearsal. There was a buzz and excitement about her which rubbed off on me like chalk dust. We sang songs from Chicago all the way to the rehearsal rooms with the car windows open, oblivious to the reactions of passersby. This was what being a good mother was all about and I mentally awarded myself a gold star. I drove back home still feeling exhilarated by Eliza’s buoyant mood, as well as by a sense of freedom as if I had finally deposited my luggage with an airline and could wander around quite unencumbered. What Jo did or did not do for the next six days was not my problem. Or so I wanted to believe.
With both girls occupied elsewhere, I had the house to myself and three hours to do exactly what I wanted. So I chose a particular CD which normally caused groans of complaint, stripped off all my clothes and danced around in the lounge to the thump and grind of Queen. As an afterthought, I quickly closed the curtains then turned the heating up and let myself go.
When I had exhausted myself, I simply wandered aimlessly around the house, looking at the photos on the wall and fingering ornaments as if I were a tourist looking around a stately home.
I found myself in the chaos of Eliza’s room, clothes strewn across the floor like the last day of the January sales, half-finished homework scattered across her desk, an old banana skin on the window-sill. Then I wandered into Jo’s room with its tidy, ordered rows of books and files. An island in our chaotic household. Lists and reminders were drawing-pinned to her notice-board with symmetrical neatness and dated in the righthand corners. The bin had been emptied, clothes folded away, and her dressing-gown hung where it should be, on the back of her door. The walls had been painted magnolia when we had bought the house but the paintwork had become chipped and scuffed in places with the passing of time. Jo deserved some fresh gloss, some new colour and brightness as a fitting background to her tidiness.
I decided to go to the DIY store. Jo would have a surprise waiting for her when she returned from her father’s and I would show her what a supportive, caring mother I really was.
Once at the store, I found myself staring helplessly at row upon row of paint tins, stacked like a child’s cylindrical building blocks, reaching to the ceiling. A small shelf, angled like a lectern, sliced through the endless continuity of tins. On this shelf lay books and leaflets containing square upon square, each labelled with a reference number and name. It was like a colour-coded plan of a cemetery.
The spectrum of colours to choose from was overwhelming, not helped by my difficulty in visualising these tiny squares as complete walls in Jo’s bedroom. It was like being given a daisy and expecting to know what Kew gardens looked like. I stared at the colour charts as if in a hypnotic trance until one square seemed to merge into the next so that all I saw was a swirl of pinks, purples and greens, like melted flavours of ice cream slowly mixing to one murky hue.
‘Too many choices,’ muttered a bewildered-looking man next to me.
‘Like life really,’ I answered philosophically. ‘Easier when the decisions are made for you.’
‘It’s the names that put me off—Cornish Cream, Avocado Mousse, Blueberry Pie. It’s more like a cookery book.’
‘Or a holiday brochure. Look—Blue Lagoon, Californian Sunset, Icelandic River. They’re not even accurate, I’d call that one Polluted Canal and that one Gangrenous Wound. Oh, look, here’s Fungal Foot Infection.’
The man laughed and reached for two large tins.
‘Well, I’m too set in my ways,’ he sighed. ‘It’s Boring Old Fart for me, or Magnolia as it’s known in the trade.’
Jo was not set in her ways, I decided. Surely there was a rebellious side to her that would respond to a black ceiling and purple walls, or clashing colours of orange or mauve. But I knew Jo was practical and sensible for one so young and would immediately see that such dark colours wouldn’t reflect any natural light and would certainly not be conducive to studying. She would want something different, novel and young, but light, subtle and individual. I tried to recall the tone of her car-pet and the shades of her bedroom furniture, but everything I visualised seemed greyer than it should be. I kept returning to the squares of green, one of Jo’s favourite colours. There was a shade called Mint which almost tasted of those squares of mint chocolate. This, I felt sure, would be Jo’s choice.
I put the tins into my trolley and headed for the checkout. Then I heard a familiar voice. I looked up and saw Alice in a grey trouser suit and chiffon scarf helping an elderly lady who was waving a stick and hobbling up the aisle.
‘Come on, Mother,’ she was saying, ‘Let’s get some nice new paint and then I can make a start on your bathroom. I SAID, “LET’S GET SOME NICE NEW PAINT, MOTHER.” Oh, never mind.’
I swivelled my trolley round quickly to escape in another direction. If only the front wheel hadn’t caught the edge of the paint tin at the bottom of the pyramid, I might have made it.
‘Lizzie…Oh, dear. We can’t just leave these here. I’ll go and get someone.’
I couldn’t really leave her deaf, disabled mother unattended so I just stood there awkwardly.
‘Who are you?’ she