“She’s doing so well in Moscow, Vera’s pleased. I wish James could hear her. Next time she’s playing nearish I’d love us to go together. It’s quite hard to imagine at the moment but—anyway. Gwen made shortbread so I grabbed the last bits for us, it’s very good. She’s taken to baking for Nathan every Friday.” She was able to say this neutrally, though everything about it was irritating.
She sat down at the kitchen table, averting her gaze from Philip’s unsteady journey from kettle to sink to mug cupboard, and began to unwrap the foil parcel of biscuits. She had not known, on her way here, whether she wished to discuss Gwen and Nathan. It was all so sordid. Repellent. Worst of all was perhaps the small part of herself that found her daughter’s new disposition a welcome change. No more resentment or black moods. And, Gwen continued to make clear, no more interest in spending any time with her mother. Seeing them whispering, heads together exchanging confidences, stung like a deliberate, personal rejection. It made Julia feel excluded. It made her feel very, very old. But . . . Gwen seemed happier. “It’s all ongoing, you know,” she told Philip now, snapping a piece of shortbread in half and handing him the larger piece, “the romance of the century. She keeps telling me I just don’t understand. It’s true. I don’t. She was utterly incensed that I forbade them from carrying on with this relationship; she actually tried to lecture me on human rights, she gave me a horrid little speech that sounded precisely like Nathan. In any case I’ve stopped trying to forbid it because it wasn’t getting me anywhere. I just want her to think. I’ve never denied her anything I thought would make her happy, and you know I’ve always tried not to say no unnecessarily; all I want is for her to think through her decisions. What happens when they break up?”
Philip sat down heavily opposite her, the wicker kitchen chair creaking ominously beneath him. “And what does she say?”
“She’ll just say, ‘What happens if you and James break up?’ and then I may as well be talking to a wall because it’s the same conversation over and over; she just equates the two. It’s all about proving that they’re just like us. Just as important as we are, just as committed, just as much entitled to be together. She’s desperate to prove she doesn’t need parenting anymore. I’m apparently no longer required. I’ve been replaced.” She gave what she hoped would seem an easy, self-deprecatory laugh. “And now she’s taken to calling me Julia, the way Nathan and Saskia call their mother Pamela, which I’ve always found odd in any case, so now I’m not even her Mum anymore.”
“She was very cross about James.”
“So this is a revenge attack, you mean? I thought . . .” She trailed off. “It was so much pressure, always, all those years she felt responsible for me and I wanted her to just be a child now. Carefree, a little. I thought this would be a good thing for both of us, she was meant to feel liberated.”
“And part of her must, I’m sure. Your happiness is good for her.”
“I know, you and Iris both keep telling me but do you really think so?”
Philip considered. “Certainly your unhappiness wasn’t good for her. Or you. But you must remember, you’re in charge, not the children. You say you don’t feel you can stop them but—I suppose I don’t quite understand why not. I know you find it hard, but perhaps you might try putting your foot down harder, even so?”
“She can’t push me away forever.” This had begun as a question, but she tried to turn it into a statement of her own confidence.
“What does James say?”
Julia shrugged. She and James had not had very satisfactory discussions on the subject, lately. As long as Nathan’s schoolwork wasn’t compromised and the children obeyed his basic rules—no canoodling in front of the parents, no overnight room sharing or closed bedroom doors—James seemed willing to make the best of it. He was content to catch up on patient notes in the living room while in the kitchen his son and her daughter made dinner together, and giggled, loudly. He was happy to accept that for the moment, under admittedly peculiar circumstances, Gwen was being friendly to him. Valentina had been allowed to stay over, and the thought of his son as a sexually active being did not affront or appall him. Julia had wanted his outrage to endure as hers had, and felt let down that it hadn’t. He listened to her when she confided in him. He’d held her when, a few nights earlier, she’d succumbed to tears that she could not explain. She could not bring herself to admit to him that the intensity of her daughter’s need had been precious in those years alone, and that she ached for it now that it was over. But she had brought this rejection upon herself, for she had reached outward for James, shattering the covenant of their solitude. She could not regret it—James had brought her back to life. Gwen was only doing what Julia herself had already done.
“Nathan’s incredibly ambitious, and James is incredibly ambitious for him, which maybe explains it—he can actually put quite a lot of pressure on him I think, without meaning to. James was the first person in his family to go to university so he’s quite obsessed with it, and Pamela’s just as bad for all her hippy-dippy nonsense—but anyway Nathan studies very hard, and now Gwen’s started to work whenever he works. She just really wants to please him. Her teachers are certainly thrilled with her, and of course that’s good for her confidence, but it’s hard not to feel . . . I hate that she wouldn’t feel good enough as she is, for anyone. She ought not to have to contort herself to please him. I’m just holding my breath, waiting for it to implode.”
Philip said, after a moment’s thought, “Do you think it might implode imminently?”
“They’re very settled, not that that means much with teenagers. Gwen’s happy as a clam, and he was with the last one for two years. There’s not much we can do, in practice. We can’t lock them into their rooms after we’re asleep, so we’ve had to just settle for stating our position and—it’s nauseating, we’ve had to absolutely forbid them on the tacit understanding that they’ll—I can’t actually bear thinking about it. Don’t you think she’s far, far too young to be sexually active? Thank God he boards on school nights, I just wish I could convince James he should stay all term.”
“I don’t know, maidele, it does seem very young to me but a great deal has changed since my day.”
“I’m utterly exhausted. When he’s at home I find myself staying up later and later, as if I could somehow stay up late enough to make it impossible. I know Verbier is weeks away and it’s only two nights but I can’t bear the idea of leaving them. I’m longing to cancel.” Julia frowned. “I miss her like, like a limb. But all I’ve ever wanted was for her to be happy, and she keeps telling me how happy she is. Endlessly.”
22.