Cath Staincliffe - Trio

Nina

She couldn’t believe it. Even now. It was like some gross practical joke. Like God had looked down and seen what a mess she was in and how bloody fed-up she was. He knew how when she looked in the mirror this ugly, fat cow was there and when she looked inside herself there was just a black hole. Everyone hated her. And then God had looked at Stephen, last year of university, studying chemistry, lots of friends, popular and hardworking, even a steady girlfriend, attractive now he’d grown his blond hair longer. And God had decided to take Stephen. Not her. Or maybe he’d gone eenie-meenie-miney-mo. And Stephen was dead. When it should have been her. They all thought that. Even she did, for heaven’s sake. ’Course, no one said a word, but you’d have to be mental not to think it. And she’d been such a bitch to him. Teasing him for being boring and goody-goody when he was just a boy, just a nice boy who’d learnt his manners and didn’t have to put up with everyone hating him. He was dead and it was like they all were.

Her mother. The sound of her mother weeping was the loneliest sound in the universe. And Nina couldn’t help her, she didn’t know how. She felt responsible. It was her fault really. Her father cried too. She’d never seen him cry, but that first day he’d sat there, his red face all furrowed, eyes shut and these awful huffing sounds coming out of him. Her mother went and held him and Nina stole away. She shouldn’t be there. She went upstairs and listened to them cry. She felt the pressure inside, a lump in her chest, but she couldn’t cry. There was no release.

The weeks passed, Christmas and Easter came and went; their only significance was in marking Stephen’s absence.

She knew she should leave. Get away so her mother wouldn’t have to face her every day. See her and not Stephen, feed her and not Stephen.

Chloe invited her to move into a house she had found. It was a dump but they could sort it out a bit. Put some cotton throws over the furniture, get a couple of beanbags and some coloured light bulbs. She hadn’t seen much of Chloe, who’d started a nursing course and was going out with a Punk called Ali. She said yes. Spare her mother. And she’d be able to diet if she needed, without her mother watching her eat, forcing her to eat. Now she had to tell her parents.

She told them over tea.

‘Oh,’ her mother said softly and Nina glimpsed pain in her eyes.

Her father looked at her with incomprehension. Then he gave a short, humourless laugh and shook his head.

‘Robert…’ Marjorie said.

He held up his hands. ‘I won’t waste my breath.’ He stood up.

‘What?’ Nina said.

‘Never mind.’

‘No, what’s the matter?’

‘Nina, it’s all right.’ Her mother tried again.

‘You don’t get it, do you? You really don’t get it. You’re so bound up in your own selfish little world…’

‘No!’ she protested. The loathing in his voice taking her back to the beating, to the ferocity of his blows. ‘I thought it was the best thing to do.’

‘For who? For Nina?’

‘No.’

‘Robert.’

‘Your brother hasn’t been dead a year and you think it best to… to just walk out? Very thoughtful.’

She was horrified at how he twisted it all.

‘Mum,’ she turned, seeking her response, wanting her to say it wasn’t so, that she didn’t agree with him.

Marjorie prevaricated. ‘You have your own life to lead. It’s all right.’

But it wasn’t. She’d messed it all up again.

Marjorie

Stephen had gone. It was still too soon to know whether she could ever come to terms with it. How could you? It was something to be borne. She felt as though they had torn a piece from her. Each day was a struggle. She found some solace in prayer and she had begun to go to Church daily.

And she knew Nina would leave, they were losing her, one way or another. She’d either starve herself, or start taking drugs or simply move out and drift away. Robert had washed his hands of her. The two of them were strangers. He had no affection for her, no regard for her. He was unable to forgive, either Nina or himself. Most of the time the old aggression was replaced by a cold indifference. How Stephen would have hated it.

She knew Nina would pursue her natural family, with or without their approval. She suspected that had something to do with her problems now but she wouldn’t talk about it. They didn’t seem to know how to talk as a family any more.

Marjorie sighed. She hadn’t had children to lose them like this. It was different for Robert, he had his work; men weren’t involved in the same way. She loved Nina in spite of everything. She couldn’t help it. It wasn’t something you could choose. Nina might be exasperating and prickly and sullen but she loved her. She was so thin now, gaunt, very fashionable according to all the models in the magazines but not healthy. She had seen how easily she tired, how weak she was becoming. If she kept on…

Maybe they would never be as close as she had hoped for. Maybe Nina would always be hard work, veering from depressed to defiant, but Marjorie was sick of feeling that she was to blame somehow. Nina was Nina. If she just let her go she could imagine herself down the line somewhere regretting not having tried harder, resentful and lonely. She didn’t want that. She would keep trying. She was a mother, for God’s sake, infinitely giving. A doormat, some might say, or a martyr, but rather that than abandoning her daughter. She would not give up, ever. It was impossible to talk to her but she could write it down. Write to Nina, put it all on paper. How she loved her, how she had come into their lives, her hopes that Nina would find happiness, her complete acceptance that Nina might want to trace her birth family, wishing her well with it, her sorrow that she had been so unhappy. She would write it all down, in black and white. A love letter. Not for the daughter she had dreamt of but for the one she had. My dear daughter, Nina…

Nina

She walked past the house twice. Her bowels had turned to water and she was biting her teeth together, jaw rigid. She couldn’t see in. There were net curtains at the windows. A small front garden, little picket fence, for show more than anything. She’d used one like that in her spring fashion window, set off with green catkins and the season’s gauzy prints, a high-street version of the see-through styles that the more daring wore in London. She walked back more slowly. Number sixteen. Sweet sixteen. Megan had been sixteen when she had her. She came to a halt at their gate. She felt exposed, half the street could peer out and see her, spot a stranger prowling about. She bet people round here all knew each other, kept an eye out. The only privacy once your door was closed. It was quiet now, people out at work, but she could imagine it later, kids out on their bikes and roller blades, in and out of each other’s houses. Roaming in a big gang.

Not like her and Stephen. They’d never played out much where they lived. He was too fond of his books and she found herself falling out with the few children there were. Either bored with them and losing her temper or finding herself made into the victim. Carrot-head, Ginger.

She was startled by the clunk of the door opening. Saw the woman – red hair, long, green dressing gown – open the door to let a dog out. Red hair. Nina felt her limbs go heavy. Rooted. The woman looked out, straightened up, her hand moving to her throat, clutching at the collar of her dressing gown even though it was fastened.

Nina took a step, then another. Placed her hand on the gate, unsmiling, her eyes fixed on the woman. ‘Megan,’ she said.

The woman nodded, a fierce little movement and her mouth trembled.