Clare Shaw - The Mother And Daughter Diaries

The spectrum of colours to choose from was overwhelming, not helped by my difficulty in visualising these tiny squares as complete walls in Jo’s bedroom. It was like being given a daisy and expecting to know what Kew gardens looked like. I stared at the colour charts as if in a hypnotic trance until one square seemed to merge into the next so that all I saw was a swirl of pinks, purples and greens, like melted flavours of ice cream slowly mixing to one murky hue.

‘Too many choices,’ muttered a bewildered-looking man next to me.

‘Like life really,’ I answered philosophically. ‘Easier when the decisions are made for you.’

‘It’s the names that put me off—Cornish Cream, Avocado Mousse, Blueberry Pie. It’s more like a cookery book.’

‘Or a holiday brochure. Look—Blue Lagoon, Californian Sunset, Icelandic River. They’re not even accurate, I’d call that one Polluted Canal and that one Gangrenous Wound. Oh, look, here’s Fungal Foot Infection.’

The man laughed and reached for two large tins.

‘Well, I’m too set in my ways,’ he sighed. ‘It’s Boring Old Fart for me, or Magnolia as it’s known in the trade.’

Jo was not set in her ways, I decided. Surely there was a rebellious side to her that would respond to a black ceiling and purple walls, or clashing colours of orange or mauve. But I knew Jo was practical and sensible for one so young and would immediately see that such dark colours wouldn’t reflect any natural light and would certainly not be conducive to studying. She would want something different, novel and young, but light, subtle and individual. I tried to recall the tone of her car-pet and the shades of her bedroom furniture, but everything I visualised seemed greyer than it should be. I kept returning to the squares of green, one of Jo’s favourite colours. There was a shade called Mint which almost tasted of those squares of mint chocolate. This, I felt sure, would be Jo’s choice.

I put the tins into my trolley and headed for the checkout. Then I heard a familiar voice. I looked up and saw Alice in a grey trouser suit and chiffon scarf helping an elderly lady who was waving a stick and hobbling up the aisle.

‘Come on, Mother,’ she was saying, ‘Let’s get some nice new paint and then I can make a start on your bathroom. I SAID, “LET’S GET SOME NICE NEW PAINT, MOTHER.” Oh, never mind.’

I swivelled my trolley round quickly to escape in another direction. If only the front wheel hadn’t caught the edge of the paint tin at the bottom of the pyramid, I might have made it.

‘Lizzie…Oh, dear. We can’t just leave these here. I’ll go and get someone.’

I couldn’t really leave her deaf, disabled mother unattended so I just stood there awkwardly.

‘Who are you?’ she barked.

‘LIZZIE, ROGER’S WIFE. Ex, I mean.’

‘There’s no need to shout. I’m not deaf. My daughter’s staying for a few days. Pain in the arse. Wants to paint my bathroom. I bet she makes me have it done in pink.’

‘You can choose what colour you want. It’s your bathroom.’

‘With Alice in charge? You’re joking. Help me along to the paint area, then we can choose.’

With that, she sprinted down the aisle, holding her stick out in front of her, and was stretching up towards the tins of black and purple paint before I caught up with her.

‘Take me to the checkout,’she said, linking her arm in mine.

Alice eventually caught up with us after her mother had bought the purple and black paint.

‘Mother, my goodness. I see you’ve already purchased your paint. Marvellous.’

Alice’s mother winked at me.

‘Thank you, Lizzie,’ Alice said. ‘I had a feeling you and I would end up very good friends.’

I stopped myself from wincing and made a dash for the car before Alice noticed her mother’s choice of paint and blamed me. With the paint in the boot, I just made it to the rehearsal rooms in time to pick up Eliza, congratulating myself on coordinating my afternoon so successfully. But as we approached the driveway, Eliza asked, ‘What’s for supper, Mum?’

…So I prepared her a farmhouse stew full of goodness and vitamins, went out into the yard to milk the cow and prepared to invite the neighbours round for a game of charades…

Actually, I’d somehow forgotten about the small matter of eating, and Eliza deserved a treat, I told myself. So we phoned for a takeaway pizza, slumped onto the settee and glued ourselves to her favourite film, Chicago . It should have been boring by this, our twentieth viewing, but I never tired of taking sideways glances to watch Eliza watch her two heroines.

If I looked right into Eliza’s eyes, I could almost see her mind turning herself into Catherine Zeta Jones or Renee Zellweger. This time her focus was on Zeta Jones and Eliza was there in the film, tapping out every dance step in her mind, reaching for every note, feeling every emotion. Melted cheese and tomato dripped down her chin as she fed herself by touch, her eyes fixed firmly on the oblong screen in front of her. My vision as a perfect mother did not include slobbing in front of the telly with a pizza. Still, I told myself, it was a special occasion. Was that what it was? A special occasion because we did not have the adolescent tension of Jo in the air? I felt I had failed in some way but I quickly replaced that thought with a vision of Eliza and me singing a duet in a Hollywood musical. In Eliza’s world, everyone would create a song and dance about everything.

Monday morning came and I had to put Jo’s room on hold while I went to work.

I put on my black executive suit, threw some extremely important papers into my executive briefcase and made a quick phone call to ensure my executive car was on its way to pick me up and take me to the city where I would be handling investments of millions of pounds.

I arrived at the sandwich bar and put my vision on hold for later—I did still have that idea of running my own café. I rushed in, late as usual, washed my hands and got stuck into scraping butter across bread and spooning in the fillings for workers picking up their lunch sandwiches on the way in. Trish busied herself by dispensing caffeine to a hundred lethargic businessmen and we kept up this frantic pace for nearly an hour.

It was only later, when Trish went out in the delivery van, that I could no longer ignore my screaming thoughts about what Roger had said. Of course I had noticed that Jo was looking a bit thinner and of course I had been a bit worried. But Jo losing weight? That didn’t fit. She had always been active and healthy, not one of those children who pick up every little cough and cold going round, always with a runny nose and alarmingly pale skin. In fact, I had rarely been to the doctor with Jo, for she had never suffered from anything more than the usual childhood ailments, which she always shook off very quickly, and she had barely missed a day of school. As I chopped up tomatoes and cucumbers, the word ‘cancer’ floated into my mind uninvited, but I soon pushed it out again. I clung to more logical explanations and somehow managed to keep my anxiety in check.

I reminded myself that Jo was pretty good for a teenager. She had largely conformed, and had kept her mood swings firmly locked in her bedroom, never opting for the throwing-crockery-at-your-mother option. I had had many a long chat with Scarlet’s mother, who had torn clumps of her own hair out in the frustration of trying to control her daughter.

‘If I tell Scarlet to be home by half past eleven, she’ll turn up at a quarter to twelve just to prove a point. If I ask her to clear the coffee-cups out of her bedroom, she’ll bring down just the one and then take up a new cup of coffee and a plate.’

Not much to complain about but I had noticed that Scarlet’s mother had started to chew her fingernails lately. Scarlet had a belly piercing, one dolphin tattoo on her shoulder and another on her arm which nobody has dared ask the meaning of, and she had brought home at least three inarticulate, nicotine-stained boyfriends. A tame rebellion compared with many, but more than Jo had succumbed to. Jo didn’t seem to have this drive to battle with authority, she had other priorities. It was much later that I realised she was rebelling in her own way, and I would gladly have swapped what happened next with any number of body piercings.