Clare Shaw - The Mother And Daughter Diaries

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ I acknowledged, After all, how could I possibly run a business when I was struggling to make sense of the electricity bill, the car insurance, tax credit and all the things Roger had dealt with until six months earlier when everything, just everything, had been turned upside down and given a shake I could measure on the Richter scale. Of course, I thought, Roger’s new partner Alice could probably quote her National Insurance number at will, juggle bank accounts around like oranges and get a tax rebate on…well, whatever people got tax rebates for. I still cringe when I think of the first time I met her and described myself as a sandwich designer and beverage entrepreneur. And I’m still trying to convince myself that her stiff smile was one of admiration.

As Trish and I started to prepare a fresh supply of sandwiches for the lunch trade, I realised that my job was the one constant, unchanging, predictable event in my shaken-up life and I needed to keep it exactly as it was. So I set about losing myself in the routine of the day and shoved everything else to the back of my mind.

I got home from work that day feeling exhausted. Exhausted by responsibility, regret, bitterness and the intense love I had for the children I thought I’d let down. It was as if I had been pulling everything together so hard that my limbs were aching and my resolve slowly breaking down. My neighbour waved at me, and then stared at my overgrown lawn and the triffid-like borders of nettles and determined weeds. I waved back and shrugged my shoulders. It had hardly been an accusation from her and it wasn’t much of an explanation from me, but I sensed we understood each other. I would deal with the front garden when I could, but as yet I had no idea when that would be.

When I got to the front door, I turned round to look at the small wilderness behind me. There was something rather pleasing about the wild garden which somehow distracted from the predictable box of a house which stood symmetrically between two identical boxes. I liked it, and decided to put a bird table and sundial somewhere among the long grasses. It seemed rebellious and slightly daring, and I went into the house feeling a little better about myself.

I put the Chinese takeaway I had collected on the way home on the table and called the girls. Eliza danced in and gave me a hug.

‘Chinese—great,’ she enthused, and started pulling the lids off the cartons.

The dishwasher was packed full and I had forgotten to switch it on before work. I rummaged around in the cupboard and found some paper plates left over from Eliza’s birthday tea some months earlier.

‘Great, like a party,’ Eliza said, and as I waited for Jo to make an appearance, I reminded myself never to compare the two of them.

‘Shout up for Jo, would you, darling?’ I asked Eliza.

Eliza and I were halfway through our meal by the time Jo drooped in, wearing pyjama trousers and a baggy jumper which looked like an old one of Roger’s. She hung her head like a soft toy with no stuffing.

‘Not another bloody takeaway,’ she muttered. ‘I’ll get something later.’

‘I’m sorry, it’s just…’ But Jo was gone, leaving behind a large helping of guilt for me to digest with my dinner.

‘I can’t wait for the wedding tomorrow,’ Eliza said, helping herself to more spare ribs.

‘Yes, it should be fun,’ I tried to enthuse, but my voice sounded like a nervous children’s TV presenter.

My niece was getting married the next day and it would be our first big occasion as an incomplete family. Part of me was looking forward to it, part of me dreaded it. I knew I would be dying to announce to everyone that the breakdown of my marriage had not been my fault, that Roger had gone off with a younger woman as part of his mid-life crisis. I wanted to be able to laugh about it, to show the world that I was carefree, happy and in control. But was I? And had it in some way been my fault?

As Eliza ran out urgently to phone one of her friends, I looked around the kitchen. Roger had planned to decorate the whole house the previous year and had scheduled it into his diary as he scheduled everything in—meetings, DIY projects, liaison time with the girls, sex probably. Yet it had never happened, presumably because of his well-scheduled plans to leave me, so the house was beginning to look a little frayed: nothing extreme, just the odd scuff mark here and there, the occasional patch of peeling paint or faded curtain. But there was something more, something that had changed the feel of the entire kitchen, and I realised that it was my piles of, well, stuff. With Roger, there had been a place for everything. Anything that could be filed was filed, anything that could be put on a shelf was put on one and extra shelves had been continuously added to accommodate any item inadvertently left lying about.

Now I indulged myself in allowing things to be left lying about, and I specialised in piling up books and photos, magazines and CDs, letters and odd pieces of clothing. Every room in the house was littered with piles of miscellaneous objects so that the lounge carpet looked like a lake with stepping stones across the middle and my bedroom an entry for the Turner prize. Yet it was not chaotic, I knew where everything was and the piles were somehow neatly piled. And I had every intention of sorting them into something else—well-ordered piles maybe.

The truth was I missed Roger, not as a partner but as someone who had sorted out the bills, put things away and knew where the stopcock was. Now I had to do everything and there never seemed to be the time. I wasted so many hours just sitting in the cluttered kitchen wondering where it had all gone wrong, how I had ended up in this characterless house doing an unchallenging job, a divorce statistic with a stroppy teenager who could tear my self-worth apart just by walking into the kitchen and looking around at what it had become.

Still, I loved Jo more than anything and went upstairs to talk to her about the wedding the next day.

‘Hi, Jo, are you looking forward to tomorrow?’

‘Suppose.’

‘Looks like the weather’s going to be good.’

‘Yeah.’

‘It’s a bit of a long trek so we’ll have to set off about eight. Is that OK?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Sorry about the takeaway. We’ll have a roast on Sunday, shall we? Like old times.’

‘Except it won’t be like old times, will it?’

‘No, of course. Still, you like a roast. What about now? Shall I make you an omelette?’

‘I’m all right.’

‘Right, well, I’d better go and iron my dress for tomorrow. I don’t want to look like a wrung-out dishcloth.’

I laughed, I winked, I smiled, I patted Jo maternally.

I decided to go out into the garden and talk to the plants, reassure them that I cared and would soon be pulling out all those intrusive weeds which were strangling them and blocking the light. But perhaps I should have been saying the same things to Jo.

I listened at the lounge door but heard Eliza still chatting excitedly on the phone, underlining key words as she spoke.

‘It’s going to be wicked. You should see what I’m wearing. I’m on the stage practically all the time. And right at the front.’

Back in the kitchen, I thought about Jo again, although, looking back, I never stopped thinking about Jo. It was continuous. She had her own place in the worry zone of my brain, and I knew with intuitive certainty that there was something wrong, very wrong, with her. Of course she didn’t tell me everything, she was a teenager and was still adjusting to her parents’ separation, that was normal. But it was more than that. There was something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Out in the world she was often so different, speaking out eloquently, standing tall and proud and looking at her life ahead with some optimism. Was it this house that was stifling her, gagging her so that only a few words could be spluttered out of her mouth at one time? Or was it me?