Twenty-eight

Natalie had started so early that morning on her expedition to find Jack that it seemed to her as if it should be about midnight by now. But it was barely two in the afternoon by the time she got home.

Her visit to the office had been heartening. Everybody was pleased to see her and thrilled to meet Freddie. She had arrived just in time to see a walk-through of the collection they were presenting to buyers in a few days’ time, and it had made Natalie so proud that she cried.

“It’s the hormones,” she said, flapping her hands in front of her eyes before she erupted into full-blown wailing. “I’m fine, really,” she sobbed. “Pay no attention to me, you’ve all just done such a wonderful job—and without me. I’m gutted!”

Alice hugged her tightly.

“Let’s leave Freddie in the capable hands of ten or so clucky women and go and talk about why you’re looking so sad,” she said.

“You should feel proud,” Alice said, as Natalie finished telling her what had happened between her and Jack.

“Proud?” Natalie asked. “But why?”

“Because you made up your mind, on your own, without any nagging from me to go and see him again. And it must have been so hard for you to put your feelings on the line for your sake and Freddie’s. The sort of grown-up, mature thing you’d normally run a mile from if it meant you got to avoid a bit of awkwardness. And it’s paid off—not exactly the way you wanted it to work, I know. But you’ve got Jack in Freddie’s life now. Did you ever think a few weeks ago that would be possible? It wouldn’t have been, if you hadn’t done the right thing.”

“The thing is”—Natalie said carefully—“the thing is that I didn’t truly realize until today that I have been waiting for him, for Jack. For all these months I’ve had this half-assed but heartfelt belief that he would come back for me and Freddie, and that we were meant to be together. But when he did come back, it was by accident and not for me at all. And now there’s this big hole inside me where the waiting and the hoping used to be and I don’t know how to fill it—perhaps with misery and despair. What do you think?” She smiled weakly at her friend.

Alice looked thoughtful. “Do you still, even after everything that’s happened, have real feelings for this man? Do you love him?”

“I think I do,” Natalie said, her voice almost a whisper. “Look, I don’t know, I can’t say for sure because I feel like I’ve only really started to get to know him now, long after the affair is over. But I know it’s something serious and something strong because it lasted through a lot of knockbacks. Whenever I look at him, whenever he touches me, when I think about all he’s been through, or when I see him smiling at Freddie, my heart beats faster and I can feel the blood in my veins, and every part of me wants to be with every part of him, whatever happens.” Natalie’s shoulders dropped as a feeling of exhaustion washed over her. “I expect that makes me insane.”

Alice laid a comforting palm on her hand. “Maybe it’s the pregnancy hormones again,” she suggested gently.

“No,” Natalie said with complete certainty. “This time it isn’t the hormones.”

“Then, if it’s the real thing, if you really think that you love him, you have to tell him, for your, Freddie’s, and his sake,” Alice said.

“How can I?” Natalie asked her. She held up her hand when Alice opened her mouth. “No, Alice, this is not the time for one of your lectures, useful as they often are. His relationship with Freddie is very fragile. It can’t take any external pressure, and me throwing myself at him is just that. I can’t do anything about it, not now.”

“But what if you miss your chance again?” Alice asked.

“I’ll learn to live with it,” Natalie replied.

“You’ve changed these last few weeks,” Alice told her.

“Maybe I have changed,” Natalie said. “Maybe Freddie has changed me for the better.”

“Just as long as you remember that the old you wasn’t all bad.” Alice put an arm around her shoulder. “Hey, you know what this means. Now that you’re going to have a regular babysitter, you and I can go out on the town.”

“Mmmm,” Natalie said without enthusiasm. “Nice idea, but I don’t think I’ll be ready to do that for quite some time yet.”

“Who was talking about you?” Alice said.

When Natalie got home, not only was Sandy awake and sober, but she had cleaned the house as well.

Natalie found her in the kitchen, washed and dressed and cooking. She looked up and smiled at Natalie as she entered the room.

“Hello, dear,” she said.

“What have you done with my real mother?” Natalie asked warily.

Sandy put her wooden spoon down on the counter and took a breath.

“I’m so sorry about yesterday, Natalie,” she said. “I can’t believe what happened. I’m so embarrassed and ashamed of myself and I just want to say that I’m sorry.”

Natalie did not move.

“Seriously, where is she? Have you abducted her into outer space for extensive tests on her liver?” she said, straight-faced.

“Please, Natalie, I’m trying to be serious.”

Natalie sat down at the breakfast bar and looked at her mom.

“Good,” she said. “I’m glad you’re being serious. Because this is serious, Mother.” She steeled herself to say what she knew she must. It was a relatively new talent, being able to face up to reality, and she thought she was getting quite good at it. “Mom, you’re an alcoholic.”

“No, I’m not, dear,” her mom said, shaking her head.

Denial. Natalie had read on the Internet that denial was very common in alcoholics.

“That proves it,” she said. “You don’t think you’re an alcoholic when you drink at every single opportunity, to the point where you can’t move or speak. Mom?” Natalie exclaimed with frustration. “Come on, take a look at your life, take a look at what’s happening to you!”

“You don’t understand, I don’t drink like that…” Sandy began.

“Um, excuse me,” Natalie cut in emphatically, “I know what I see with my own eyes. Like you passed out with your head practically in the toilet.”

“I don’t drink like that normally,” Sandy continued. “I mean, back in Spain I have a glass or two in the evening, like I always have. I like a drink now and then. But I don’t normally drink so much that I’m ill. It was just when I got here that I started.” Sandy finished speaking with a little shrug and a shake of her head as if she didn’t really understand it herself, let alone expect anyone else to.

“Pardon?” Natalie asked, unable to comprehend what her mother was telling her. “Are you saying that once you arrived in the home of your daughter, supposedly to help with the care of your grandson, you thought you’d just drink yourself to death instead?” She shook her head. “Obviously, what was I thinking? It all makes perfect sense to me now.”

Sandy took the lid off of the pan she was standing over and a waft of coq au vin lifted into the room.

“Did you find my wine?” Natalie asked her, frowning deeply. “Because breaking and entering is a serious offense and the sort of thing an alcoholic does.”

“No, don’t worry,” Sandy said with a sigh. “I didn’t break into the coal shed and steal your best Bordeaux. I bought some cheap stuff at the corner shop.” She held up the still half-full bottle and shook it. “See, I haven’t drunk any. I am not an alcoholic.”

“That proves nothing,” Natalie said, slightly peeved that her plan to prevent Sandy from drinking had such a large and clearly visible hole in it as the corner shop.

Sandy stirred the stew and returned its lid before turning down the heat and sitting next to Natalie.

“I don’t like living in Spain,” she told her.

Natalie huffed out a sigh and rolled her eyes at this irrelevance, like a teenager who was desperate to be anywhere else but there.

“I mean, I like the warmth and the people, and my neighbors are good fun. There’s this chap over the way, Keith Macbride, a Scottish fellow. Widower. Sometimes we have a drink together and do the Latin American dance class on a Thursday evening. He’s the one that’s been watering my plants,” she added tentatively.

“You said it was a woman!” Natalie exclaimed.

“No, I said it was a neighbor, and anyway I didn’t want you to think that I’d lined you up with another uncle. I know how much you hate uncles. Keith is…he’s a comfort and I care about him.”

“So why haven’t you pounced and drained him of his life force?” Natalie asked her mildly.

“I told him I couldn’t be happy there with him, not the way things are with you so far away.”

“Oh God, you want to come and live here, don’t you?” Natalie said, her voice heavy with dread.

Sandy shook her head. “I’d like living in Spain, entering the ladies’ golf drive and things like that, and I even think I could be happy with Keith if I could only know that things were right between you and me.”

Natalie was stunned. It hadn’t occurred to her that the state of their relationship might trouble Sandy as much as it did her.

“A year I waited to hear from you, Natalie, a whole year without even a phone call.”

“You have fingers too, you know,” Natalie said defensively. “Very useful for dialing telephone numbers. I might have been waiting for a year for you to phone me. Did you ever think of that?”

“Yes I did, and I did phone, but you were very hard to get hold of, especially during your trip to China! Be honest, Natalie, you didn’t want to speak to me at all, did you?”

“No, Mom.” Natalie’s snap back was reflexive. “I was a bit busy being pregnant by a man I’ve managed to fall in love with without ever really knowing him who I didn’t see again after he impregnated me until a few days ago when I discovered he’d had testicular cancer. I have been a tad preoccupied with my own life. I do apologize.”

“The night you came back and Freddie peed in my face,” Sandy confirmed with a nod of her head.

“Yes, that night,” Natalie replied wearily, the fatigue of the day threatening to overcome her at any minute.

“And you don’t want to talk about it to me, I suppose?”

Natalie’s shoulders slumped and she dropped her forehead into her hands. “What’s the point of talking about it to anyone? I could talk about it for hours and hours and nothing would change. He wants to know Freddie and be his dad. That’s the main thing,” she said, hoping she had made it clear that she just couldn’t discuss it any further.

Sandy reached out a hand and rubbed Natalie’s forearm a couple of times.

“Okay, then, I’ll talk to you,” she said.

“Mom…” Natalie began to protest.

“No, just listen,” Sandy said. “Just listen.” She paused and moistened her lips before beginning to talk. “You have this memory of a childhood and somehow it’s completely different to the one that I have. And I wonder how can that possibly be? We used to be best friends, Natalie, right from when you were a little girl. We’d make each other laugh so much, every day. Every place we went to was a new adventure. I was so proud of you, my curly-headed little girl, always so clever and full of smiles. ‘Moonbeam,’ that’s what I called you. And you always told me I was the best and most beautiful mother in all the world, every single day.” Sandy paused again, the smile of recollection fading on her lips. “Then you got older and you got angry with me and you’ve never stopped being angry with me. And I don’t know why, I don’t know what changed except that I find myself feeling angry with you. When I’m around you I become this woman that you think I am, the woman I sometimes am—this loud, obnoxious drunk, selfish and self-centered. Because when you hate me, when you’re cross with me, then at least you are looking at me. At least then I have your attention.”

Natalie lifted her head from her hands and looked at Sandy.

“Are you saying that you started drinking when you got here to get my attention?” she asked her mother incredulously.

Sandy shrugged. “I’m trying to understand the way things are between us. I’m trying to work out why we make it so difficult to get on with each other. Look, I like a drink, Natalie, probably one too many here and there. And when I got here and saw you, it slipped out of control, but I didn’t plan it. It just happened.”

“Like throwing yourself at Gary, or was that attention-seeking too? Because you didn’t seem to be thinking about Keith Macthingy very much then.”

“I was just having a bit of fun,” Sandy said. “And anyway you threw yourself at him too; you have to admit he is pretty dishy.”

“Dishy,” Natalie said sharply. “Dishy. That’s sums it up, Mom. You’re stuck in a time warp that is twenty years old. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe that my own mother pulled the tactics of a teenager on me to get me to notice her.”

“Didn’t you hear me?” Sandy’s voice rose as she tried to explain. “I didn’t plan it. On my way here I couldn’t wait to see you, I couldn’t wait for you to need me. I thought you’d want my help and advice. I thought we’d talk and get closer again. Like we used to. But you didn’t need me, you only seemed put out that I was here at all.”

“And what about you?” Natalie replied. “When I came in with Freddie, you barely glanced at us because you were too busy having ‘a bit of fun’ with Gary. I was hopeful, too. Hopeful that the woman coming to stay was my mom, a mother who might make me feel safe and loved for once.” Natalie stopped herself. She had expressed out loud feelings that she hadn’t truly admitted even to herself. She still felt the need—grown-up woman and parent that she was—to have her mother’s reassurance that everything would be all right. And she still longed to believe her unquestioningly, just as she had when she was a little girl.

Sandy leaned closer to Natalie, her tone urgent as she tried to make her daughter understand. “Darling, I wanted to be like that with you. I wanted to rush up to you and hug you—but there always seems to be this wall. Except for that night, the night that Freddie got me in the eye. I thought that maybe there was a moment then when the barrier was down and you were going to tell me what was happening to you. Just for a second it felt like you wanted me. Look, I know you’ve got all sorts of things to worry about, Natalie, I’m not blind—I just wish you felt that you could share them with me. But you didn’t. I felt so hurt and angry that I had a drink and then another and another. Not a motherly thing to do, I know, but a human one.” Sandy paused. “The funny thing is that I don’t think I’ll ever stop learning to be a mother. There’ll never be a cutoff point when I’ll suddenly understand everything and know how to make it all right between us. But I do want to try. I do want things to change. I want you to be my Moonbeam again. My precious girl.”

Natalie opened her mouth but Sandy went on, holding up her hand. “Look, I’ve been stupid and selfish and I am ashamed of it. Especially letting you find me so drunk. I’m sorry, Natalie. I truly am.”

Natalie looked down at the countertop. She couldn’t think of anything to say. She couldn’t think of anything to think. Her brain was numb trying to take in what her mother was telling her.

“You had a difficult childhood,” Sandy went on. “You probably went to too many schools, and I probably had too many boyfriends. Perhaps you never had a chance to feel settled and secure in one place. And you never knew your father, that’s a hard thing to deal with. I know that sometimes you can miss something you’ve never really had just as much as something you’ve lost. But you have to understand, I didn’t do it to hurt you, I did it because I was trying my best for you.” She smiled weakly. “And look at you, you’ve turned into a very wonderful woman, which I know you think is all down to yourself but which I hope has a little bit to with me as well.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Natalie said quietly. “I don’t know, maybe it’s since I had Freddie—but I’ve started to remember things, nice things that I hadn’t thought about in years.”

“Really?” Sandy asked hopefully. “Do you remember how we used to walk along the beach for hours, collecting pink stones? Because you only liked the pink ones.” Natalie nodded slowly. “Or when I made you that play costume out of one of my old frocks, all purple and sparkles, it was—do you remember how you loved it? And how every year until you were about fourteen I made you a birthday cake, always bigger and better and stranger than the last. Do you remember that castle cake? I made it with ice cream and it melted all over the place before we could eat it?”

Natalie kept her gaze steady on the worktop, seeing that day over again in her head. She smiled when she thought about the two of them covered in melted ice cream.

“And I was always there to put you to bed,” Sandy told her. “I was there to make you breakfast, and when you got back from school. I did my best for you, Natalie. And maybe my best wasn’t good enough for you, but it was all I had to give. That and the fact that I love you, so much. So I’m asking you, now you’re a grown woman and a mother yourself, to try to understand that I miss you, darling, I miss my little girl.”

Natalie looked sideways at her. Sandy had said all the things that she wanted to hear, all the things that she had longed to hear for many years. But she felt so sapped of energy that it was a struggle to respond the way she felt she should, the way she wanted to. If there was one thing she had learned recently, though, it was not to let any opportunity, however slight it might seem, slip by untaken.

“It’s been a long day, Mom,” she said slowly. “I’m so tired. I saw Freddie’s dad this morning, arranged contact for Freddie. It’s taken everything out of me. I feel weary all over. My head hurts, my body hurts, and my heart hurts.”

Sandy nodded. “I can see that in your face,” she said gently. “If you wanted to tell me about it…”

Natalie shook her head. “I’ve heard everything you said and I’m glad you’ve said it. And I know that it’s not all you, I know it’s me, too. For some reason, when I’m around you I become a person that I don’t like very much. And I don’t want to do that anymore…” She looked at her mother, and she knew there was one last thing she had to tell her now, while she had the chance.

“I went to see Dad once, you know,” she said. Sandy’s eyes widened but she didn’t speak. “I was fifteen, maybe sixteen. I’d been going through your stuff as usual, looking for makeup to steal, and I found my birth certificate. Place of birth, Brighton, and the name of my dad. I know you told everybody he’d died, but although you never actually said it to me we both knew that was just a story for your public. I used to dream about him—daydreams, imagining what he would be like. Tall, dark, and handsome, I suppose, all the clichés. Clever and kind and sad because he’d lost his daughter and didn’t know how to find her.” Natalie paused. “And when I saw his name, I thought that at last I had the chance to find him. So I got on the train and went to Brighton. I went to the first phone box I saw and looked in the book. There were three M. Davieses who could have been him. The first one was about ninety-two, the second one was very kind but said he’d never known you and that he lived with his mother, and the third one…” Natalie paused as she steeled herself to recollect. “Well, that was him. That was Daddy. His wife answered the door. I was a bit surprised, I didn’t expect him to have a wife, and I could see kids’ wellingtons in the hallway. I asked to speak to him, said I was the daughter of an old friend and…suddenly there he was. He wasn’t very handsome, Mom, I thought he would have been better-looking. He was a bit short, going bald on top. Portly, you know. I think he had my nose, or rather I had his, I suppose.

“‘Hello, Dad,’” I said, and I remember my voice was so tiny it was nearly lost in the rush of the traffic. “‘It’s me, Natalie. Sandy’s daughter.’ His face,” Natalie went on, staring into the middle distance as the memory replayed itself before her eyes. “I’ll never forget it. He just looked horrified. It was a cold day and wet and I didn’t have a proper coat or umbrella, of course, so I was soaking and shivering. But he just stood there, staring. All he said was, ‘Go away, I don’t want you round here. I have a wife, I have a daughter. Go away, you’re nothing to do with me.’ And he shut the door in my face.”

“Natalie,” Sandy said, her voice low, “I honestly didn’t know.”

“How would you know, I never told you, did I?” Natalie said. “The first man to ever reject me. I expected so much of him, Mom. I expected this amazing reunion, that he’d fling his arms around me and tell me how he’d hoped one day I would turn up. But he couldn’t wait to see the back of me. I was his child, part of him, and he wanted nothing to do with me. That hurt me. It made me furious with him, but mostly with you. I blamed you for choosing that man as my father. I still do, I suppose. It is still painful. I couldn’t help but think how different our lives could have been. Like the other kids at school with the normal mothers, and the brothers and sisters and—the dads. Our life stopped being an adventure for me on that day. All I could see were the things that I didn’t have. I blamed you. I didn’t have anyone else to blame.”

“I’m sorry, Natalie,” Sandy said, her voice wrought with emotion. “I’m sorry I got it so wrong for you.”

Natalie looked at her mother and attempted a smile.

“You didn’t though, did you? Like you said, you did your best. I suppose I’ve always known that, but it wasn’t enough to stop me from being angry. It’s hard to stop. It’s hard to let go of feelings I’ve had for so long, even if I know they don’t make any sense.” Hesitantly Natalie reached out and put her hand over her mother’s. “But I want to. I want to try to stop being angry with you. I want to be close to you, Mom. I want to tell you things. I want you to tell me about this Keith Macbride and what his intentions are. But I don’t think that you and I will change just like that. It will take time, and hard work probably, but we could try. We could try to start to be friends again.”

“I’d like that,” Sandy said simply.

“Mom,” Natalie said with sudden urgency, “I’m scared. I’m so caught up in everything that’s happening at the moment. I’m trying so hard to keep myself focused and hold it all together for Freddie, but sometimes I’m scared I won’t be able to. That I’ll go and do something really stupid and mess it all up again.”

“You’re saying that because you’re tired,” Sandy said, resting the back of her hand against Natalie’s cheek. “There’s a bottle of milk ready in the fridge, isn’t there?” Natalie nodded. “You go to bed, darling. That stew will simmer for hours yet, it should be perfect when you wake up. You sleep and I’ll watch Freddie.”

“Is it really just because I’m tired?” Natalie asked her. “Or because I’m rubbish?”

“Go to bed,” Sandy told her. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“Whoopee,” Natalie groaned, but as she trudged up the stairs and fell onto her bed, for the first time in a long time she was kind of glad to know that.