Until this past week, I have always worked hard at minimizing the time I spend thinking about my situation and I’ve made sure I never talk about it, not so much as a whisper. However, while I was locked up, memories, thoughts, causes for my choices clambered into my head—elbows out, demanding to be noticed. All that time alone and nothing to do, it was impossible not to feel the jabs at my conscience and reason. At my heart. I think I do want to talk about it. I want Fiona to understand me as much as it is possible to do so.
“You know as a child I lived half a week with my mother, half a week with my father.”
“Yes.”
“Their divorce meant I became a baton stick, hurriedly handed over on doorsteps—that is until I was old enough to take myself to and fro on trains and buses. You know, no one ever asked me if I liked living divided between them.”
“Well, I suppose you were lucky that both parents wanted you.”
“The thing is, I don’t think both parents did want me,” I admit. “I think they just wanted the other not to have me. A very different thing.” My childhood was complex. Pitted and pocked with pain. Marred by a sense of anxiety about the future and regret about my short past that seemed to already be so solidly wrong that I doubted I could ever fix it. Fiona gently dips the sponge and then squeezes the water out on my shoulders. The rhythmic action is comforting.
“As I lived between my mother and father, even the simple task of getting ready for school was challenging. I often struggled to find a clean uniform, the thing that signals to a child that she belongs, fits in. Invariably, inevitably, the piece of kit or bit of homework I needed was in the wrong house.”
“That’s tough on a kid. Awkward,” Fiona murmurs sympathetically.
It was more than awkward. I’m not explaining it well enough. I push on. “Neither of my parents bothered to develop routines or take ownership of me and my needs. It was a good day if I found food in the fridge. I was often hungry. I didn’t have my own room at my father’s. I used the guest room and was forbidden to put up posters or customize it in any way. I was allowed to leave one bag of personal belongings there, but I had to stash that under the bed in case the room was needed.”
“But you had a room at your mother’s, right?”
“No. We shared a room. In some rentals, we shared a bed. She was always telling me my father didn’t give her enough money to ‘live properly.’ Although, she was never hungry enough to look for a job.”
“Your mum has always been a piece of work,” Fiona comments.
It’s confusing that I feel the stab of disloyalty as always when I allow anyone else to criticize my mother, however mildly. Despite everything, she is my mother. I carry on, though, because it’s a relief to finally be talking about this to someone. To Fiona. “The worst thing of all was the way they each questioned me about the other. My father always wanted to know if my mother was up to scratch. He wanted to catch her out. Find fault. Even if that meant I was hurt or neglected in some way, he didn’t seem to mind the cost as long as he could say, ‘Ha! I said she was unfit!’ Something he yelled if I missed a dentist appointment or when I scalded myself preparing supper. In the hope of finding and exposing my mother’s lack, my father often asked questions. ‘How many meals has your mother cooked this week?’
“‘When did you last eat a fresh vegetable?’ The truth caused trouble for my mum. Admitting she was in bed, lying in the dark and in her depression when I scalded myself was snitching, as was admitting we ate tinned carrots and sweet corn.”
“It can’t have been easy,” Fiona says.
“My mother’s questioning was more like an interrogation. When I returned home from my father’s house, she would be waiting for me at the door. Breathlessly keen. She wanted me to recount every moment I spent there. Who said what to whom? Who wore what? Did they look happy? Were my brothers well-behaved? Had my father and Ellie bought anything new in the past week? What did they eat? Drink? What music did they listen to? Sometimes she would hiss angrily, roll her eyes and comment, ‘All right for some. Tuna steaks? They cost a fortune.’ She would get me to describe or even sketch what Ellie was wearing and then manically scour shops to find a similar outfit. Other times she would silently turn back to her bedroom. Defeated, distant, distraught.”
The water in the bath is getting cool now. I stand up and reach for a big towel that Fiona has had warming on the radiator. I climb out of the bath and wrap it around me as I carry on talking.
“Over time, I learned that it was easier not to feed either of them the answers they hungered after. When my father asked about my life with my mother, I simply said, ‘It’s boring, I don’t want to talk about it.’ I said that over and over again until he eventually stopped asking. After that, he barely spoke to me at all.” Fiona tuts. “With my mother I insisted, ‘I don’t remember.’
“‘But you must!’ she would yell, irritated. I’d shake my head. ‘Nope. Nothing, I remember nothing.’ I stayed stubbornly silent until she declared me useless. I learned to lock up both lives, build a wall between them.”
I finally dare look at Fiona. I stand dripping on the bathroom floor and hoping for some understanding, some forgiveness. She looks pale. She is biting her bottom lip. Her stress tell.
“So this is why living two separate lives as an adult hasn’t been as weird for you as it would be for others,” she comments. “Not as weird as it should have been.”
“I guess,” I admit with a shrug.
45
DC Clements
It is Tanner who draws her attention to the plasterboard on the ground. He impatiently kicks it as he strides toward the luxury building. “Bloody litter louts. I hate them. They have the right idea in Singapore. Two-hundred-and-fifty-quid fine for dropping a fag end or sweet wrapper. Crap like this would get a court appearance. Stringent enforcement.”
Clements looks up. She can see light bouncing and glinting on most of the windows above. But one, on the fourteenth floor, is opaque because it is open, and the light is being swallowed. It’s a possibility. She grasps at that because sometimes, a possibility is enough. “We need to get up to that floor,” she says.
The place is deserted, no sign of the concierge but they find his number, pinned behind the desk, conscientiously left for residents who might need his help. Within twenty minutes Alfonso is at the building and he is happy to let them in. He seems pleased to be needed. Irritated that the residents have sent him home.
“I saw that mess, wanted to sort it out, but they wouldn’t give me the time. Mr. Janssen said I had to get on my way ASAP.”
“Everyone is being asked to work from home now. I’m jealous,” says Tanner. “Don’t worry about it.”
“We’re glad you are here, though. Very grateful,” adds Clements.
The man straightens his shoulders, purposeful. “Well, the apartment with the open window belongs to the Federovas. Russian couple. Rarely here. Haven’t seen them for months. They have workmen in and out now and again. Doing it up. Haven’t seen many of those for a while, though, either. Normally Mrs. Federova emails me in advance because I sort out access. Can’t think why a window might be open. They may have loaned the place out to a friend, I suppose.”