‘Would that be a bad thing?’ I ask lightly, trying to make it a bit of a joke, even though I mean it. Why is she standing there so still, as if I’ve just struck a death blow? Is my happiness that offensive to her?
‘No,’ she finally says, but she sounds unnervingly hesitant.
‘Mum, what is it? You don’t like him?’ Will has been impeccably polite and unwaveringly friendly since we arrived. He didn’t even bat an eyelid when one of her dogs humped his leg repeatedly.
‘This has nothing to do with Will.’
‘Then with me?’ I can’t keep the hurt from my voice. ‘Why don’t you want me to be happy?’
‘Oh, honestly, Anna, is that what you think?’ She is impatient now, shoving the bowls in the microwave, slamming the door.
‘Sometimes, yes.’
‘Well, this might amaze you, but not everything in my life is about you.’ This huffy accusation is so ridiculously unfair – nothing in her life is about me – that I open my mouth to refute it, but then I realise there is no point.
‘What is this about, then?’
She doesn’t reply and I watch her, taking in the tension that turns her body into hard angles, the way she won’t look at me. She’s not telling me something, but I have no idea what it is.
‘Mum, what’s going on?’
‘Not here, Anna, not now.’ Her voice wobbles and her hands tremble as she takes the bowls out of the microwave. ‘It’s Christmas.’
A ripple of genuine apprehension runs through me, a physical sensation that makes me want to shiver. ‘Not what?’ I ask in a low voice. ‘What is it you’re not saying, that you can’t say here, at Christmas?’ Because clearly it is something, for her to be affected like this.
Will appears in the doorway, the furrow between his brows making me wonder how much he heard. ‘May I help?’
My mum glares at me, her eyes narrowed to commanding slits. Drop it. I read her silent command loud and clear.
And so I do, because the last thing I want is an ugly confrontation with Will there. But throughout the mediocre meal, the requisite walk with the dogs and the stilted conversation and even more awkward pauses, I am wondering about that moment – and what my mother chose not to say.
A few days later, I find out. She calls me, asking me to visit her again, two times in one week, which is unprecedented, and makes me feel even more apprehensive. Whatever she needs to tell me, it sounds
important.
The day is damp and grey, the lowering clouds a dull reminder that Christmas is over. My mother greets me wearily, shuffling into her sitting room with little more than a mumbled hello. I smell brandy on her breath, and my apprehension turns to fear.
Although she drank heavily throughout my childhood, my mother sobered up through a combination of self-help books and yoga, and has only had the occasional tipple – as far as I know – for about twenty years. But right now she is drunk.
She slumps into her usual armchair, one hand twitching towards the remote control. Often the television is on while we talk, a constant low-level background noise, my mother’s gaze flicking to the moving screen every few seconds, but now she keeps it off.
She gazes at me, her face tired and worn, her hair, once a pristine highlighted blonde, now a dirty, dishwater grey. I feel a flicker of pity for her, but no more.
‘What is it, Mum? What is it you didn’t want to say at Christmas?’
‘I’m not sure it’s important now. Yet.’
Yet? ‘You called me out here, didn’t you? Why can’t you just say it?’
My mother leans forward, her dull eyes suddenly sparking with anger. ‘Maybe because it’s difficult, Anna. Have you thought of that? Maybe because it’s painful, and I don’t want to.’ I’m shocked into silence. ‘Did you never think that?’ she says more quietly. ‘Did you never think about me?’
‘I could ask you the same question,’ I retort before I think better of it. Briefly, I close my eyes. This conversation has not got off to a good start. ‘I’m sorry, Mum. I don’t want to argue. It’s just… concerning. Whatever you haven’t told me, it seems important.’
‘How serious are you about Will?’
I blink, jerking back a little in wary surprise. ‘What does that have to do with anything?’
‘I need to know if you might think of… of having children.’