Clare Shaw - The Mother And Daughter Diaries

I stared out of the window at the overgrown garden. It had begun to rain heavily so I put off my idea of going out and chatting to my neglected plants. I wondered if it would be all right to just shout out a few words of encouragement through the window, and immediately wondered what Roger would think. What he would think of my piles of stuff scattered across the floor like lilies; what he would make of me shouting out of the window at the plants…Would he despair of me phoning up the emergency gas line because I couldn’t work the timer on the central-heating system? I could taste his disapproval as if he were there in the room with me, and yet I knew that if only I let it, that very thought could set me free because I no longer needed anyone’s approval, except my own. But that was the most difficult approval to get.

I opened the window.

‘Hi, plants, how are you doing?’ I almost whispered—I wasn’t quite ready for this.

‘Hello, plants and trees.’A loud voice from behind me shouted over my shoulder. It was Eliza. We fell about like drunk chimpanzees and then I realised that the rain was slanting in and I shut the window. There was never any need to explain with Eliza.

‘Just getting a yoghurt,’ she said, and skipped out of the kitchen again.

My mind turned back to Jo as I tried to remember her preadolescent years. It had all been so different then. She had spent so many hours with Roger, talking about exams and how to invest her pocket money and planning her future. Now she was changed, and by more than adolescence. I knew then that I had to talk to someone about her, about me even, before we drowned in the sea of silence we found ourselves in. I picked up the phone and pressed out a number.

‘Hi, Trish. Just called to say thanks for doing my shift tomorrow. Gina should be there about nine.’

‘That’s great. You have a wonderful day, Lizzie. Enjoy the wedding.’

‘We certainly will. It’ll seem funny without…on my own.’

‘You won’t be on your own. You’ll have the girls with you.’

‘Of course I will. They’re really looking forward to it.’ ‘I bet they are.’

‘Trish?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’ll bring you back a piece of cake.’

So, I’d got it all off my chest, then. For someone who found it so easy to talk, the words crashing out of my mouth like coins from a slot machine, I found it very difficult to actually say anything. Later I learnt that there are other powerful ways to communicate, but back then, on the eve of my niece’s wedding, I did at least manage to laugh at myself. You have to laugh, otherwise you end up crying, I thought. It was only after Lily came into our lives that I realised you sometimes have to cry as well. It took an enigmatic, mysterious stranger to teach me that, a stranger called Lily Finnegan.

BEFORE I started to write it all down, I wrote ‘Lily Finnegan’ at the top of the page. Then I found out Mum had done the same thing. Like this is all about Lily or something. Well, maybe it is. I’m not writing my life story—nothing like that. How can I? I’m still a teenager and everything stretches out before me. But I had to write about this slice of my life be-cause Lily told me to. And because it changed things. For ever.

Did I have a happy childhood? Kind of. My parents divorced. Shit time but a lot of kids go through it. It was easier for my sister, Eliza. She thinks she’s in a play or a film. That’s why she’s happier than me.

I was happy being me once. It was when I stopped being me that it went wrong. I couldn’t put a date on it—‘I got screwed up on 20th April 2001’—nothing like that. I just remember that I had to perform, so I started to pretend. And I guess the performance gradually took over from reality. I knew how to make other people happy—you just pretend to be who they want you to be. Act your knickers off. Smile on top, cry underneath. I can see all that now, but there was no set plan at the time. It just happened. I totally lost control of me.

One of my biggest performances was at my cousin Victoria’s wedding when I played the part of the perfect daughter. Oscar-winning stuff, but my mask slipped off. I went out of character. I let the real me show through, and raw emotions frighten people. I wasn’t the only one playing a part. I had a talented supporting cast. Mum was acting out the role of the perfect mother of a jolly happy Sunday roast family. Me? I was eager to please, but at that time I didn’t understand why.

When I got up that day and saw the dress hanging there, it looked boring and ordinary. It was suitable—for the weather, for the occasion, for someone who was frightened of standing out in the crowd yet who wanted to. The part of me that wanted to stand out felt a sort of regret. I draped the dress onto me and looked in the mirror. It looked better than it had in the shop. There would be boys at the wedding and I looked good. I had lost some weight for the event and the dress hung off me as if it were on a coat hanger. Perfect. Victoria would be the one in the wedding dress. I knew I would be envious. She was the one with the boyfriend, soon to be husband, but I was slim and very nearly elegant. And he might go off her.

Sixteen and no boyfriend. Sad or what?

Eliza came in.

‘Where’s your dress?’ I asked.

‘Oh, I’m wearing this,’ she explained casually, fiddling with the make-up on my table.

I was stunned. It hadn’t occurred to me that you could do that. Ignore the dress put out by your mother.

Eliza started to sing.

‘Get out, Eliza, there’s no singing in here.’

Eliza made me feel like a blob.

‘Hello, I’m Jo, Lizzie’s eldest daughter,’ I practised.

Mum came in and sighed. She was relieved to see the version of the daughter she wanted.

‘Do I look fat in this?’ I asked.

She laughed. People don’t always pick up their cues in this pantomime we call life. I told Mum I was excited about the wedding. I told Eliza it would be fun. Sometimes saying it can even make it happen and I think I was excited, but my feelings were damp that day. Ever since getting my GCSE results, it felt as if the only emotion that dared speak its mind was anger.

I remember sitting upright in the car when we drove up to the school on results day.

‘You’ll be fine,’ Mum had said. It was expected. By the school, by Mum, by me. Expectation had its own pressure. Failure would be a steep fall, and I was nervous when I glanced at the piece of paper in my sweaty palm. Eight A* grades, four A grades. Best results in the school. Nearly perfect. I felt relief and pride and ecstatic joy. For about four minutes, before a feeling of disappointment and then indifference misted up my mind and dampened the positive stuff. I felt like screaming out, ‘So what!’ I phoned up friends and relatives, hoping their pleasure and excitement would transfer to me. Like catching chickenpox. But I was immune. A blob.

Still, I think I really did feel excited about the wedding. Underneath. Perhaps I had just forgotten how to let my emotions show, like a Coke bottle with the cap stuck on. Even shaking it up wouldn’t help get the fizz out.

Mum sorted out the seating arrangements in the car. She organised who could choose the radio stations. She controlled the steering-wheel and the conversation. We sang and laughed and it sounded like happiness. Or something…We had to drive all the way to the end of Norfolk, miles and miles and miles. The end of the world.

Mum drove in trainers. She had gone on and on about her new shoes. Mostly she goes on and on about my exams, on and on about Eliza’s talents, on and on about the food she sells at work and on and on about how you have to laugh. No option—you have to laugh. These are permanent ramblings, they never change and she recycles them on a daily basis, like the repeats on TV—you know what’s coming but there’s nothing else to tune in to. Then there are the new episodes. Like the shoes.