“Stressed!”
“Your mother’s very stressed,” confirmed Miriam, and began quietly to list all the many causes of my mother’s stress: the envelopes that had to be stuffed and the flyers yet to be posted, the closeness of the latest polling, the underhand tactics of the opposition, and the supposed double-dealing of the only other black woman in Parliament, an MP of twenty years’ standing, whom my mother considered, for no sensible reason, her bitter rival. I nodded in the right places and looked through the menu and managed to order some wine from a passing waiter, all without breaking the flow of Miriam’s talk, her numbers and percentages, the careful regurgitations of the various “brilliant” things my mother had said to so-and-so at this or that vital moment and how so-and-so had responded, poorly, to whatever brilliant thing it was my mother had said.
“But you’re going to win,” I said, with an intonation I realized, too late, was posed awkwardly between statement and question.
My mother looked stern, unfolded her napkin and lay it on her lap, like a queen who has been asked, impertinently, if her people still love her.
“If there’s any justice,” she said.
? ? ?
Our food arrived, my mother had ordered for me. Miriam set about squirreling hers away—she reminded me of a small mammal who expects to hibernate soon—but my mother let her knife and fork rest where they were and instead reached down to the empty chair beside her to bring up a copy of the Evening Standard, already open to a large picture of Aimee, on stage, juxtaposed with a stock photo of some destitute African children, from where exactly I couldn’t tell. I hadn’t seen the piece and it was held too far from me to read the text but I guessed the source: a recent press release, announcing Aimee’s commitment to “global poverty reduction.” My mother tapped a finger on Aimee’s abdomen.
“Is she serious about it?”
I considered the question. “She’s very passionate about it.”
My mother frowned and picked up her cutlery.
“‘Poverty reduction.’ Well, fine, but what’s the policy, specifically?”
“She’s not a politician, Mum. She doesn’t have policies. She has a foundation.”
“Well, what is it she wants to do?”
I poured some wine for my mother and made her pause for a moment and clink a glass with me.
“I think it’s really a school she wants to build. A girls’ school.”
“Because if she’s serious,” said my mother, over my reply, “you should advise her that she needs to talk to us, to be in partnership with government in one way or another . . . Obviously she has the financial means and the public’s attention—that’s all good—but without understanding the mechanics, it’s just a lot of good intention that goes nowhere. She needs to meet with the relevant authorities.”
I smiled to hear my mother referring to herself, already, as “government.”
The next thing I said so irritated her she turned and gave her answer to Miriam instead.
“Oh, please—I really wish you wouldn’t behave as if I’m asking for some great favor. I’ve no interest AT ALL in meeting that woman, none at all. Never have had. I was offering some advice. I thought it would be welcome.”
“And it’s welcome, Mum, thank you. I just—”
“I mean, really, you’d think this woman would want to talk to us! We gave her a British passport, after all. Well, never mind. It just seemed, from this”—she held up the paper again—“that she had serious intentions, but maybe that’s not right, maybe she just wants to embarrass herself, I wouldn’t know. ‘White woman saves Africa.’ Is that the idea? Very old idea. Well, it’s your world, not mine, thank God. But she should really speak with Miriam, at least, the fact is Miriam has a lot of useful contacts, rural contacts, educational contacts—she’s too modest to tell you. She was at Oxfam for a decade, for God’s sake. Poverty is not just a headline, my love, it’s a lived reality, on the ground—and education is at the heart of it.”
“I know what poverty is, Mum.”
My mother smiled sadly, and bit down on a forkful of food.
“No, dear, you don’t.”
? ? ?
My phone, which I had been trying, with all the will available to me, not to look at, buzzed again—it had buzzed a dozen times since I’d sat down—and now I took it out and tried to move quickly through the backlog, eating with my phone in one hand. Miriam brought up a dull administrative matter with my mother, often her way when she found herself caught up in some argument of ours, but in the middle of dealing with it my mother became visibly bored.
“You’re addicted to that phone. You do know that?”
I didn’t stop typing but made my face as calm as I could manage.
“It’s work, Mum. This is how people work now.”
“You mean: like slaves?”
She ripped a piece of bread in half and offered the smaller section to Miriam, something I’d seen her do before, it was her version of a diet.
“No, not like slaves. Mum, I have a nice life!”
She thought about this with her mouth full. She shook her head.
“No, that’s not right—you don’t have a life. She has a life. She has her men and her children and her career—she has the life. We read about it in the papers. You service her life. She’s a giant sucking thing, sucking your youth, taking up all your—”
To stop her talking I pushed my chair back and went to the bathroom, lingering at the mirrors for longer than I needed, sending more e-mails, but when I got back, the conversation continued uninterrupted, as if no time at all had passed. My mother was still complaining, but to Miriam: “—all your time. She distorts everything. She’s the reason I won’t be having any grandchildren.”
“Mum, my reproductive situation’s really got nothing—”
“You’re too close, you can’t see it. She’s made you suspicious of everybody.”
I denied it, but the arrow hit the target. Wasn’t I suspicious—always on guard? Primed for any sign of what Aimee and I called, between ourselves, “customers”? A customer: someone we judged to be using me in the hope of getting close to her. Sometimes, in the early years, if a relationship of mine did manage—despite all the obstacles of time and geography—to putter along for a few months, I would build up a bit of confidence and courage, and would introduce whoever it was to Aimee, and this was usually a bad idea. The moment he went to the bathroom or out for a cigarette, I’d ask Aimee the question: customer? And the answer would come: Oh, honey, I’m sorry, definitely a customer.
“Look at the way you treat old friends. Tracey. You two were practically sisters, grew up together—now you don’t even speak to her!”
“Mum, you always hated Tracey.”
“That’s not the point. People come from somewhere, they have roots—you’ve let this woman pull yours right out of the ground. You don’t live anywhere, you don’t have anything, you’re constantly on a plane. How long can you live like that? I don’t think she even wants you to be happy. Because then you might leave her. And then where would she be?”
I laughed, but the sound I made was ugly, even to me.
“She’d be fine! She’s Aimee! I’m only assistant number one, you know—there’re three others!”
“I see. So she can have any amount of people in her life but you can only have her.”
“No, you don’t see.” I looked up from my phone. “I’m actually going out with someone tonight? Who Aimee set me up with, so.”
“Well, that’s nice,” said Miriam. Her favorite thing in life was to see a conflict resolved, any conflict, and so my mother was a great resource for her: everywhere she went she made conflict, which Miriam then had to resolve.
My mother perked up: “Who is he?”
“You wouldn’t know him. He’s from New York.”
“Can’t I know his name? Is it a state secret?”
“Daniel Kramer. His name is Daniel Kramer.”
“Ah,” said my mother, smiling inscrutably at Miriam. An infuriating look of complicity passed between them. “Another nice Jewish boy.”