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‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I don’t know, I just found it really interesting. Cool. I kind of like learning new stuff. Seeing new things. Giving your brain something totally new to chew on, likevoila, not seen this before, have you?’ And it feels –nice, just saying it, throwing it out there, something Owen used to find a bit ‘sad’, like he often did with recipes I’d bookmark or hobbies I’d want to try, taster courses on Groupon I’d share with him as he’d screw his face up. There was always this sense I should want something bigger. But Jack. He just listens. Accepts it.
‘Iceland’s one of my places, too, where I’ve always wanted to go,’ says Jack, thoughtfully.
‘Slovenia, for me,’ I remark. ‘Oh, and Brazil. I’ve always really wanted to go to Brazil. I reckon you can start again in Brazil. I could have a totally new beginning and change my name there, and everyone is far too romantic and cool to care enough to ask questions.’
Jack chuckles, huskily. ‘And why would you have to change your name exactly?’
‘Well, what feels like the entireworldhas been contacted by Millie dot Chandler so .?.?.’
‘Well, maybe you just need a new email address,’ suggests Jack.
‘ChandlerdotMillie,’ I say, and I full-on blush then, remembering that email I sent to Jack before he was a ShurlockdotJack. God, can you imagine if he’d got it?Awful.I cannot bear even the thought of it. I’d have just had to throw myself into the sea, then, two emblematic computer chairs strapped to my feet.
‘Two cheeseburgers.’ A chef in whites and grey tracksuit bottoms places down our food, with a sing-songy voice. Oh, it smellsamazing.Of chip fat, and caramelised, charred meat. Oh my goodness, how will I eat this without looking like a barbarian in wide-legged trousers?
‘This looksincredible,’ I say. ‘And I have’ – I glance up at the yolk-yellow Wes Anderson clock on the wall – ‘precisely seven minutes to eat it.’
‘No,’ replies Jack gruffly. ‘We’re having a made-up meeting, Millie. Remember?’
‘Oh, yes, that’s right. A made-up meeting, with a made-up meal, before we all go back to the made-up constructs of a made-upoffice.?.?.’
‘Correct,’ Jack says, as I bite into– oh my God– the best burger I have ever tasted. ‘Our place of work: the proverbial bin.’
Chapter Eleven
Text message from Owen:At the Peterboat. Bit drunk. But do you remember we came here and that bloke fell off the ledge into the sea and you gave him your cardigan to keep warm and he left with it? You were gutted. Ha ha. So many memories, Mills. X
*
Text message from Mum:Hello Millie. Cousin Rhiannon said you emailed her a lot of strange letters? Is there something going on with your internet perhaps? I also wondered, has Dad been asking after me? No need to mention it to him, I just thought I’d ask. He does worry. Hope we can see you soon? Lunch, perhaps. Mum x
*
The following weekend, Ralph has a karate class and then work, like he does most Saturdays, and Cate has organised going to a barbecue at Nicholas’s sister, Daniella’s, who wants to see Cate, show her there are no hard feelings, and that she will ‘always be family’. Reluctantly, Cate has agreed to go, although both of us did worry for a fleeting dark moment this morning, over scrambled eggs in our pyjamas, if it might be a ploy to push them back together. Have Nicholas’s head pop up from a bowl of hot-dog rolls, or something. ‘Marry me?’ spelled out in chipolata sausages. Because people do strange things when they’re desperate, or sad, don’t they? Plus, families are often the forgotten collateral during break-ups. When Owen broke up with me, my mum and Owen’s mum, Athena, actually met up, to discuss it, as if they couldfix it –stitch us back together as easily as they hem trousers.
And it was thinking about Mum that made me decide only half an hour ago, as Cate left and the flat fell silent, to jump in my car and see her today; spend some time with her while Dad’s on shift on an oil rig somewhere in the Atlantic. There’s something about this uneasy, messy life A. E. (After Emails) that makes me crave the safety of dependable things. That intangible soothing anchoring that can only be felt by seeing your parents, even if you are the chaotic black sheep, or the defect Dolly of the brood. Plus, Mum might be pretending it never happened, but as per my Millie Chandler is not a Monster to-do list, I need to apologise for the ‘do you love me despite having nothing to share about me at brunch’ email I sent her too.
I stop at M&S on the way – Mum’s favourite – and buy one of those warm, already cooked rotisserie chickens, and a selection of obscure antipastos that sound more like spells than food. I also pick up a bunch of sunflowers for her shed-office, and some fancy tea bags. Mum works as an illustrator – mostly children’s books. She’s mid project at the moment, which means her large, paint-sploshed desk will be littered with bunches of bright flowers for inspiration, and mugs of different fruit teas, all cold and half-drunk, like cups of beautiful dyes. Mum often has this effect on me. I think about what she’ll be impressed by more than what I want. ‘Millie dropped in with a delicious antipasti lunch and some sunflowers,’ I imagine her texting to her friends, or saying to Auntie Vye, in her huge conservatory. I’m not sure ‘Millie brought over two Burger King whopper meals and a crocheted coaster she made that looks a bit like a pig’s trotter’ would suit conservatory convos as much. And I wish I didn’t care so much. But The Chandlers are sort of .?.?. poster-like. Mum a successful, award-winning illustrator. Dad, an oil-rig drilling engineer who loves every second of his work. Kieran, a bio-scientist, living in Michigan with his doctor husband. Mum and Dad, perfect first loves and still so enamoured. Mum drummed it in us, when we were kids, to study hard, work hard,achievehard, so we’d never have to suffer like she did, growing up with ‘not a pot to piddle in’. And it sounds stupid, I know, but it’s like Burger Kings and fannying about with craft projects equals absence of respectable careers and fiancés and ambition and purpose, and therefore, failure. Hers, and mine. Milllie. The Failed Chandler.
I pull into Mum and Dad’s road, nostalgic and horse-chestnut-tree-lined, and –oh, Mum’s Ford Focus is pulling out of the cottage’s drive.
Ah, shit. I knew I should’ve called first. But Mum likes surprises. (And also, tiny pots of expensive picnic food.)
‘Mum!’ I call pointlessly. She’s probably going to the supermarket, or to the gym. I’ll call her. If she isn’t going far, I can wait at the house for her to get back, or at least tell her I’ve sorted out some lunch for us. (And maybe she’ll post a Facebook status – a chicken on a plate, amongst all her friend’s grandchildren’s birth announcements and lawyer children, a status update of, ‘my thoughtful daughter: absolutely not a disappointment’.)
I pull over, take out my ridiculous Nokia. The phone rings but she doesn’t pick up; she just keeps driving, and, well,fuck it: I pull off after her.
There are three cars between us now. The phone keeps ringing on loudspeaker, next to me, on the seat. It turns over to voicemail, again and again. And there’s something oddly thrilling about this. I often get the urge, when I drive, to just keep going, going, going, let the world open up, like pages of a book. No plans. Like Jack said, at lunch on Tuesday. WhatwouldJack Shurlock say about that, I wonder. I bet he’d say, next time you get the urge to keep going, do it. Keep driving; say, ‘So what? And don’t look back. None of it’s real anyway.’ But, well, maybe this is starting small. Very small. Following your own parent with nothing but antipasto and an apology to somewhere unknown on a Saturday at noon counts, right? Even if it’s just a little?
Mum drives, and I continue following, continue trying to call.
It isstrangeshe isn’t answering, though. Mum always has her phone connected to the in-car screen. Calls cutting through Joni Mitchell or her beloved Absolute Radio.
We pass her favourite little Sainsbury’s, then her gym, and then we’re into a country lane – one of those narrow, one-vehicle sorts that makes you hope beyond hope there isn’t another car – or please, God, not a van – coming in the opposite direction.Whereis she going? And I’m not sure why, but something lands now, in the pit of my stomach. Something hot and uneasy. Maybe it’s because of their ever-so slightly weird texts, enquiring about each other, the way Dad was asking me about Easter. But all parents are strange, off-beat texters, most of the time, right? Isn’t that just classic ‘parents’ for you?
Our row of traffic slows as a rusty, rumbling tractor indicates into a side road, and ah, fuck it – James Bond, I could never be. I beep the horn. She’d know my little red car anywhere. But all that happens is the man in front of me twists in his seat, bewildered. His lights? His doors? Corpse hanging off the bumper? (Hyper-vigilant twenty-nine-year-old in a car with an M&S rotisserie chicken melting into a bit of a panic because her mum is simply .?.?. driving somewhere she doesn’t recognise?)
And now, Mum is slowing, indicating into a .?.?. Is that acountry club?
