She perched on the arm of the sofa.
‘Here. Snuggle up.’
She dropped down reluctantly. He folded the paper and chucked it on to the coffee table before putting his arm around her. He ran his fingers through her hair then pressed a strand against his nose and breathed in.
‘What did you say to her?’ His voice was very quiet, very measured.
She pulled her hair out of his hand and pushed it behind her ear. This was how it always started, with the air twanging with tension. ‘Nothing.’
‘Then why do you look guilty? Did you say something about me?’
‘No I didn’t. I wouldn’t.’ She tried to extract herself but his arm was like steel.
‘That’s my girl.’
11
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
THERE IS SOMETHING about Bognor Regis in the winter time, perhaps about any British seaside town, that reminds me of abandoned pets. Something forlorn and needy. Without the holidaymakers, it’s a deserted and lonely place and the rain that drives in off the sea seeps into every nook and cranny. Yet, it has a certain rundown charm, a desperation to be of use, to please. People live here. My mum does. She still lives in the house she bought when I was eleven; a ramshackle late-eighteenth-century affair across the road from the seafront. It’s white and has a wrought-iron balcony, which once would have been elegant but is now enclosed by salt-blurred glass. Despite living here for ten years I never really had my own space; where I slept depended on demand. In busy periods, that often meant a Z-bed in the front room and occasionally a mattress on the floor of my mother’s bathroom.
Mum bought in Bognor because she had fond memories of holidays spent there with her grandmother. That was her excuse, anyway, but it helped that the house was dirt cheap at auction and had vacant possession. She was in a hurry and didn’t care where we ended up so long as it gave us a roof and a living. The town never changes, has barely dipped a toe into the water of the twenty-first century, and mobile phone outlets are the only reminder that I haven’t stepped back in time. Many of the shops that lined the high street when I was a child have survived. The arcade is drab, the pier uninviting, but there are positives. The model shop is still trading; the displays of Hornby train sets still drawing children and men. The cafés with their steamed-up windows thrive, providing a meeting place and a social scene for an elderly population. The smell of vinegary fish and chips pervades.
When I was a teenager we used to find our fun in Littlehampton, one stop down the train line. There was a semi-decent nightlife there. I had friends who lived out in Pagham, in pretty flint-stone houses with enormous gardens, but it was my house we descended on if we wanted to chill out, which says a lot for Mum. No matter how many of us rolled in past our curfew or what sort of state we were in, she never minded. She didn’t care if the sofas were occupied by comatose teenagers either. She would start frying bacon, knowing the smell would get us up faster than any attempts at persuasion. The flip side was that my male friends all fancied her. That was embarrassing.
I often hated her and was frequently embarrassed by her. Other girls’ mothers were perfectly happy to have one husband or partner, so why couldn’t she? Why did she have to keep being dumped and then get all excited about the next one? It was only later that I came to understand her. My grandmother, her mother, had criticized her constantly. Her self-esteem plummeted, leading her to look for ways to make herself feel better, feel attractive, feel wanted. So she slept around. She was easy and she got herself a reputation. The poor kid who made her pregnant was only fifteen at the time, and she refused to name him. She only told me after I had Emily. I met him but I didn’t feel anything; no connection, no skip of the heart as we shook hands. He is a perfectly good bloke who lives in Dorking with his family and works for a computer parts company. He was extremely relieved when I told him I wasn’t interested in a relationship, but that it was nice to have met him at last.
When we had to leave Streatham we spent several weeks in my grandparents’ 1930s semi. It wasn’t the best time, what with Mum jobless at twenty-seven and still reeling from whatever had happened to her, and my grandmother making cutting remarks over the Sunday roast. ‘I hope you’re teaching Vicky to value herself. We don’t want her going down the same road.’ And my grandfather making unhelpful allusions to wasted potential. ‘You were such a clever kid.’
As I carry Josh in, a man walks out, giving me a small bow as he stands politely to one side. He’s tall and in his mid-fifties with leonine white hair and a prominent nose. I raise my eyebrows at Mum.
‘Don’t be silly, he’s stupendously gay. He’s in Lady Windermere’s Fan.’
‘Oh. Sorry.’
Max, her miniature Schnauzer, greets me with touching enthusiasm, jumping up and resting his paws on my knees. I give his bearded chin a friendly scratch.
‘So,’ Mum says, taking my coat and hanging it over the back of a chair. She tries not to overdo the physical affection when I give her a kiss, but she can’t resist and practically smothers me. ‘How are you?’ She starts to smooth my windblown hair and I brush her off.
‘Mum! I’m not ten years old.’
Her kitchen is small, chilly and impractical. There’s enough room for a sixties Formica table and chairs and there is a Mickey Mouse clock on the wall above the fridge. She has a larder, and a door leads to an outside space that’s more a corridor between this house and the one behind than a patio. Fortunately, she’s never been interested in gardening. There’s the green opposite, with a handy playground, and the beach twenty yards away; more than enough to cater for the needs of Max and her grandchildren.
I rub at a tea stain on the table while she drops two slices of bread into the toaster. The thing I used to love about the B & B was toast made from Mother’s Pride, left to grow cold and rubbery, spread with butter and Robertson’s marmalade and washed down with strong tea. The toast she gives me now has been cut from a fresh, wholegrain loaf.
‘It’s from the coffee shop on the corner,’ she says as she sketches a new moon surrounded by stars on Josh’s cast. ‘We’re very up to date here.’ She picks him up and lets him play with her beaded necklace. ‘I’ve taken three bookings for next week. They’re all from the Chichester Touring Company. Oscar Wilde season. I’m going tomorrow night. You just met the leading man.’
I smile, trying to take all this information in. I’m going to have to talk to her soon, but not yet; not till we’ve caught up with her news. ‘Have you heard from Peter?’
She shrugs and pulls the other chair out. ‘He rang last night, but it was only about picking up his things.’
‘He’ll be back within three months. You’ll see.’