I didn’t want to visit my parents. Is that a terrible thing to say?
‘Wash your hands before you do that, Sophie.’
The words grate against me badly, and I’m ten years old again. I keep my temper in check because this is just a visit.
I take a coffee cup down from the shelf and set it next to the kettle. Her brows dart up — frightened sparrows against a pale sky.
‘Sophie…’
‘I’m just making myself a coffee, Mum. My hands are clean. Do you want a cuppa?’
This is a thin attempt at re-shifting her focus, but she’s defensive now, angry. There’s a short burst of recriminatory words and I find myself in the bathroom, washing my hands and trying to banish old feelings that have risen to the surface.
Hamish, the Scottish terrier, follows me and tries to get into the bathtub. Apparently he has a thing for dripping taps; he’ll sit in the tub and lick the spout for hours if you let him. The bathroom door must always be shut and there’s a folded tea towel wrapped around the tap in the garden.
My dad assures me he’s wonderfully well-adjusted besides this one quirk.
Hamish is a new addition to my parent’s home since the last time I was here. I’m surprised she allowed a dog in the house, but the comical eyebrows and the upright tail that’s always in motion could melt anyone. He’s adorable, and he knows it. Whenever my mother goes into the kitchen he trots in after her and props himself up in a perfect begging pose, and she’ll laugh, softening, before giving him a treat from a jar tucked against the cookbooks.
This is the woman who once shouted at me because I’d sneaked a packet of chewing gum into the shopping trolley. Who refused to give me pocket money for school in case I bought chips or cola. The woman now dishing out little bone-shaped snacks from a tartan-patterned container.
I’m jealous of a small dog, I think, as I look at myself in the mirror and consciously smooth out the crease between my brows.
My parent’s house has changed very little since I left home, the bathroom least of all. The pink tiles are dreadfully outdated and comforting, the bathmat is an odd shade of green and the same kitschy curtains grace the window, letting in a splash of winter sunlight. There are at least six bars of Velvet soap lined up along the sink. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to use so I settle for the soap dispenser I suspect is my dad’s. The room holds the sharp tang of vinegar; there are bottles of the stuff tucked away under the sink. Vinegar is disinfecting. She uses is everywhere. She won’t let me help with meals because I refuse to rinse my hands in it.
I didn’t want to visit my parents. Is that a terrible thing to say? It’s a two-hour drive from the city, with the prickly maze of my mother’s disorder waiting at the end. Phone calls are easier. The thought of spending two days with them filled me with anxiety, and I tried to talk to Mel about it while I paced the kitchen and sipped wine. She stared at me from across the island bench, trying to force common sense into me with her own sheer will.
‘You’re not going to cure her. Don’t try. Just do all the little things she asks and don’t focus on it. You’re there to visit your mother, not her illness.’
When I come out of the bathroom she’s dishing up tea. My presence bothers her. The kitchen is a minefield of fears and she becomes so anxious her mouth draws into a tight bow, and she snaps at me.
‘Can’t you wait? Dinner’s almost ready.’
‘I’m just getting my coffee.’
My voice is sharper than I intended. She turns her back on me, sighing loudly for my benefit as she spoons vegetables onto the waiting plates. She’s an inch away from not eating, so I back down and leave the room.
I was always doing the wrong thing in that kitchen when I was younger. I’d help myself to a glass of orange juice and she’d appear, immediately angry. Maybe I’d unknowingly touched something in the fridge. Or perhaps my hand had hovered over the plates when I reached for the glass, which would inevitably be set down on the wrong counter.
‘I won’t be able to eat dinner now,’ she’d say bitterly, and over our meal she’d sit at the table, resentful and silently accusing while my dad and I ate. We pleaded with her, cracked jokes, anything to try and placate her. Nothing worked. She was as unwieldy as stone against the tepid water of our words, and eventually the table would lapse into strained silence. Now I sit stiffly at the same table and watch her move around, a small-boned woman whose anxiety emanates from her in palatable waves.
My dad appears from what he insists on calling his study; the spare room that’s now a mancave complete with teak furniture and a sagging orange armchair. I know he spends most of his day in there, avoiding conflict. When he does venture out she’s constantly watching, instructing, criticising.
‘Have you washed your hands? Why do I always have to ask?’
I long for him to stand up to her, but he’s become mute in the face of her behaviour and prefers to comply in order to keep the peace. He joins me at the table and we talk about the long winter, the latest political chatter.
Dinner is roast chicken with rosemary stuffing and winter vegetables, an old family favourite. I know she bought the string beans for me. Her plate is lined with layers of greaseproof paper. She rinsed the plate in boiling water but didn’t dry it; she doesn’t want anything but her hands to touch it. Yet she still needs a barrier between the surface of the plate and her food, which is rye crackers and cheese and a small handful of almonds. The short list of things she will eat has become even shorter since she stopped using utensils.
Don’t say anything, I think.
‘Mum,’ I start.
Fuck. Don’t say anything!
‘Don’t you think it’s time you got some help?’
‘Help? For what?’ She looks at me blandly.
‘For this!’ I gesticulate at her plate with my fork, my tongue well and truly out of the gate. ‘Can’t you just try talking to a counsellor?
‘Let’s not fight,’ my dad says mildly, and I feel my spine grow spikes because they’re ganging up on me already, pushing me out of their insulated space.
‘You think this is normal? Someone needs to talk about it, even if you two won’t.’
Oh yes, the martyr has arrived.
‘This is our business, not yours,’ my dad replies shortly. He allows himself to be angry with me.
I was going to say so many things this time. I was going to be calm and reasonable. Dialogue would begin, things would be admitted. In my most extreme fantasy, apologies would eventually be made.
But as always, my voice is just … gone. Washed down inside of me, resting in a deep pool. I know if I say more it will be in the voice of a skinny, desperate teenage girl, full of helpless anger.
I push back my chair.
‘I’m going to take Hamish for a walk.’
#
I text Mel.
Its not going well.
She calls me back. ‘Come home,’ she says immediately. ‘If it’s going to drive you crazy, just come home.’
‘I can’t leave before tomorrow. Everyone will blame me for ruining the day if I’m not here. I’ll leave straight after.’
We have a strained conversation while I stand on the pavement with the leash wrapped around my legs because Hamish is overexcited in the crisp air and wants to run. My scarf is pulled up to my ears. I talk about what it was like when I was a kid, how she tried to convince me I was sick all the time, telling me I had allergies and some unspecified weakness of the chest. She wouldn’t let me use spray deodorant, conditioner or toothpaste with fluoride. I couldn’t have a bike. It sounds so childish when it’s said out loud. It doesn’t explain the hollowness that carved out my insides, leaving a space that slowly filled with hurt and confusion as I grew up in a house so full of small fears and rules and vigilance that it pushed out all the warmth
‘She’s obviously had problems for a long time. You can’t control it. Stop trying.’
‘So I’m jut supposed to ignore it, like everyone else in this fucking family?’
It’s a crappy thing to say, and we both know it. But she doesn’t allow herself to be drawn into playing devil’s advocate again.
‘Think of me waiting for you to get back, with a large bottle of wine and many things made of chocolate.’
We talk some more, and by the time I start to walk back in the lowering light with Hamish trotting at my side some of my frustration has escaped into the cold air.
The next day is her birthday. The sky lets in a little sun, enough to soften the chill. I offer to pick up the cake but my dad tells me he has to do it; there’s only one bakery he can go to. He has to get the right cake.
He doesn’t want to be alone with me. He knows I’ll try and talk about Mum, using him to burn off some of my frustration. Instead I tidy the guest room, my old bedroom, while she works in the garden. Hamish keeps me company. I smooth my hand over his soft ears and a pink tongue shoots out, swiping at the back of my hand.
‘Yuck!’ I wipe my hand on my sweater, but he just laughs at me, his face split into a grin.
When Paul and Rebecca arrive he bounds towards the sound of their car, barking possessively. I find Mum holding them in the front yard, showing off her garden, pointing out certain plants. She does the same with me whenever I visit. She’s always loved working in the garden. So many times I would come home from school and she’d be out in the front yard in her straw hat and yellow gloves.
‘Go get something to eat and come sit with me,’ she’d say, and I’d make myself a sandwich and settle on the top step while she talked about the bulbs coming up, the Japanese maple she was nursing through its first few years. She never asked me about my day at school. She was too wrapped up in her world of dark soil and flowers and garden birds. Now she points out the clusters of hellebores and paper daisies that splash colour across the dense green winter bed. She’s wearing plastic bags over her hands. She won’t go outside without them. No-one says anything, focusing instead on Hamish, who’s strutting around proudly with a ball in his mouth. When he tries to tug off the home-made guard around the garden tap Paul scoops him up, laughing. My brother is big and bear-like, easy-going to a fault. He’s never concerned about anything. At least not outwardly. I don’t talk to him about the problems with our parents because his response — ‘That’s just the way Mum is’ — is said with bland regularity before changing the subject.
He greets me with a bright but casual ‘Hey, sis!’ As if we see each other every other day. Instead of catching up he assumes I’d rather talk to Rebecca, who’s hugely pregnant and looks uncomfortable. She keeps rubbing her hand across her stomach, her face tired.
‘I’m two days overdue now. My back hurts like hell,’ she says, and glares down at her belly. ‘Get out, you loiterer!’
I tell her about my friend Emma, who went out for spicy food and promptly went into labour at the restaurant. She perks up a little and tells me she’s going to try it.
We’re still in the garden when my uncle arrives, and he walks up the path a little too ponderously. He gives me a one-armed hug and asks me jovially if I’ve ‘made a honest woman of Mel yet,’ because it’s a regular joke between us.
‘The question is, have you found a gym instructor.’ I poke him in the ribs. His scent is warm and spicy. Dad isn’t allowed to wear aftershave anymore and I have a childish urge to stay snugged against my uncle and draw in the comforting scent from my past. I settle for sitting next to him at lunch and listen to his laments on retirement. He’s bored, he says. I suspect he’s lonely because he’s been a widower for six years now. I talk about dating sites and he laughs.
‘Who’d want an old warhorse like me?’
‘You’re not bad looking. Give up smoking and update your wardrobe.’
‘I’d prefer someone who’s interested in the original version.’
I eye his worn zip-up jumper pointedly. He pretends to look hurt. ‘I thought I was your favourite uncle?’
‘You’re my only uncle.’
It’s all old jokes with him. He likes things that are comfortable, worn deep with time.
Mum eats her crackers and cheese and there’s the obligatory coaxing.
‘The curry’s lovely, Mum. Don’t you want to try it?’ and ‘You’re so thin! Can’t you eat just a little bit?’ They want years of habit to simply fall away so it can be a less awkward occasion.
When the cake’s produced we sing Happy Birthday, and Hamish cocks his head, surprised at the sudden burst of noise. She cuts the cake and hands out slices.
‘Aren’t you having any?’ I ask, looking at her empty plate.
‘I’m not hungry.’
This time even Dad is roused into speaking.
‘You don’t want any of your own cake?’
‘No. It’s been a little disorganised here today. I’ll have some later.’
She means me, my visit. There’s a brief, uncomfortable pause. Paul makes small talk about his job and the subject is eagerly seized on. Mum focuses on Rebecca and her overdue baby. Her face is animated, and she laughs and tells her about being in labour with Paul, which took two days.
‘And he was a big baby,’ she says.
‘Oh, he’s still a big baby,’ says Rebecca, rolling her eyes. The table warms a little. But when I get up to make coffee for everyone I catch her in an unguarded moment, silent amongst the light chatter. She looks sad and drawn, her face pale. It pulls at me hard. I want to comfort her, wipe away her worry like you would mop the tears from a child’s face. But there’s nothing I can do. I’m too defensive now, all my softness for her scrubbed away with Velvet soap and hot water.
Its late when everyone leaves. I wait until Dad is ensconced in front of the evening news before trying to slip out as quietly as possible.
‘We never see you,’ says Mum, walking to the car with me.
‘You could always come and see us,’ I point out.
‘You know I don’t like going into the city. There’s too much pollution.’
In the last two minutes, while I’m climbing into the car and buckling my seatbelt, she wants to know everything. How have I been? How’s Mel? How’s my job? Everything is condensed. I’m frustrated at her scant parcelling of affection and drive away, her diminutive figure framed in the rear-view mirror, a lost woman who never really grew up. I’m not strong enough to sweep her up and protect her. She tried to break me down with her. I do the only thing I can; I fly back to the city, away from her.