‘Uhm, yeah, maybe. I don’t know about tomorrow. Ella was talking about trying to catch up with some of the others…’ She paused in the doorway. ‘Are you sure it’s okay, Mum?’
‘Yeeeesss!’ I said, breezy as a cloud. ‘Of course! Now, do you want to hop in the bath before you go out? I got the special Neom scented stuff. It’s on the shelf in the…’
‘Actually, I think it gave me a rash last time,’ she said. ‘But that’s a good idea. I’ve only been able to have showers while I’ve been away.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ I said, smiling to myself about the fact that I appeared to have got at least one thing right. It didn’t matter that Layla was out tonight or even most of tomorrow. She’d be here all week. We’d be able to do all the fun things I’d planned; I could take her shopping – even though money was tight – and we could eat at our usual pizza place afterwards. I’d booked us tickets to watch the sequel to one of our favourite films at the cinema mid-week, and there was the trip to the vets on Tuesday, which didn’t sound very exciting but the clinic wasnext to a huge animal sanctuary and we always enjoyed seeing the goats and donkeys, and stopping for a hot chocolate in their cafe afterwards.
I’d also booked her into the hair salon on Thursday for a trim followed by a manicure with the beautician who worked next door. It was going to be such a nice week – plenty of time for her to study but broken up with lovely treats we could do together. I was really looking forward to it.
November
Chapter Thirteen
So it seems I slightly misjudged the concept of reading week. Not much reading occurs for a start. And the time spent not reading wasn’t really ‘time spent doing fun things with your mother’ either. Don’t get me wrong. It was unbelievably lovely to have Layla home – she just wasn’thomeas much as I’d hoped she’d be. And when she was, she didn’t want me fussing about like a broody hen. Turns out, the booking for her haircut didn’t fit in with seeing her friends so we had to cancel that and the manicure. She did look very apologetic and said that maybe she could see if Lizzie would rearrange their trip into London, but it was obvious this would cause a few issues. And although we went to go and see the film as planned, the sequel was nowhere near as good as the original and Layla said she’d prefer to just mooch about at home and get a takeaway rather than go to the pizza place.
All my plans seemed to be the wrong ones. I tried to style it out and pretend that I wasn’t bothered either way but it stung a little bit, this rejection of the work I’d put in. I know this is one of those horrible facts of motherhood, that nobody ever really appreciates the amount of time and effort that you pack into every moment of your child’s itinerary – I knew this already. So why did it feel so painful? Perhaps it was partly having spent the last eighteen years knowing this little person inside out, being able to predict her moods and her behaviour through sunshine and showers. Suddenly I didn’t know what was going on in Layla’s head – and whilst that’s a normal part of growing up and growing apart, it’s still terrifying.
I guess my hovering over her didn’t help. In fact, at one point during the week I heard her tutting under her breath when Ioutlined our plans for the day, and when I asked her why, she just gave a little toss of her head. It was the same aggravated flicking of hair she used to do a few years ago when I had the temerity to ask something completely reasonable like what time she needed a lift to Ollie’s house, or hadn’t she better put a coat on seeing as it was January and she was wearing a vest top.
‘I just…’ She put her hands up defensively as if I was about to attack her with maternal love. ‘I just need a bit of space, Mum, okay?’
‘Of course,’ I said, backing away from her and trying not to show my disappointment. Naturally, it was me I was disappointed in for having completely misjudged the situation.
‘Don’t be too hard on yourself, darling,’ my own mother said now as she stretched her legs out on the lounger and admired her gel pedicure. We had made it to Mornington Grange for our spa day despite Robert’s discount no longer working apparently, and I’d given her a potted version of the past week’s events.
‘You wanted it to be perfect, and it sounds as though you tried your hardest to make everything lovely at home. But maybe Layla didn’t want to be the focus of attention, to feel like everyone’s timetable was dependent on her. Maybe she just wanted a bit of normality – a quiet few days at home catching up with friends and having her meals cooked and her laundry done.’
‘Or maybe she doesn’t really enjoy my company anymore,’ I said gloomily as I regarded my own bristly legs and chipped toenail varnish.
‘Don’t be so silly,’ she said imperiously. ‘Daughters never tire of their mothers’ company.’ We shared a smile. I couldn’t really tell whether she was joking. ‘But seriously,’ she said. ‘Yourrelationship will change. And that’s a good thing. You’re not supposed to be best friends. It’s terribly unhealthy.’
‘Isn’t that just what mothers who don’t get on well with their daughters say?’ I flicked listlessly through my magazine, wishing I’d brought a proper book with me.
‘No,’ she said, definitively. ‘It’s what people say when they’ve seen other mothers’ lives revolving around their offspring, to the detriment of both parent and child. Your mood should not be dependent on whether Layla is being kind to you or not – I thought this when she was sixteen and behaving like a little madam. You took it all so personally! All those endless worried conversations –why doesn’t she love me anymore, am I a terrible parent… In my day we gave clear boundaries, rules to follow and rebel against. We didn’t tie ourselves up in knots about whether our childrenliked usfor goodness’ sake.’
‘Evidently,’ I said and she pursed her lips at me.
‘Don’t be facetious, Harriet. All I meant is that I didn’t get myself in a state every time you took your father’s side in a discussion, or left me out of a conversation because I was the one who hadn’t been to university and therefore probably hadno opinion whatsoeveron the high-brow topics you were so invested in.’
I sipped on my kombucha to hide my surprise. That comment had come out of nowhere.
‘Of course, it’s all water under the bridge now,’ she said, in a tone suggesting it was not water under the bridge but in fact water dredged from very much further upstream just waiting to flood the bridge. ‘But at the time it had the potential to be quite hurtful. Or certainly patronising.’ She looked at me pointedly. ‘But I didn’t go around wailing about why my daughter didn’t value my contribution or why she wasn’t interested in my viewpoint. I just got on and cooked the dinner.’
We both watched as a young couple swam energetically past our loungers.
‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ I said eventually. ‘I had no idea you felt like that.’
‘Of course you didn’t darling!’ She turned to me in surprise. ‘Don’t worry. I’ve not been holding a grudge about it for all these years.’
‘Sounded a bit like you have,’ I muttered to myself, grateful that she wouldn’t be able to hear me over the noise of the nearby jacuzzi.
‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ she continued. ‘I didn’t take it personally because it wasn’t personal. Children grow and as they grow, you as their parent start to feature less in their lives. Your opinion matters less, your presence is no longer necessary for their security and sense of place in the world. They still love you, but they no longer need you. In fact, they often don’t consider you or your feelings at all. It’s just the way things are.’
‘Jesus, this is really not helping,’ I said, feeling like I had when Felicity at the golf club had launched into her story about her son. ‘And for your information, although my excessive planning may have been a bit much, when Layla was home and it was just the two of us, we had some good chats. I didn’t feel we were growing apart.’
‘Good,’ she said, with feeling. ‘I’m glad, Harriet. Truly I am. Because that little girl of yours is my pride and joy as well as yours. And I want you to maintain your closeness. I hope you do. I just don’t want to see you invest quite so much of yourself in another individual who needs her own independence.’ She leaned across and patted my hand. ‘Let’s go for a sauna,’ she said.
We didn’t speak in the sauna because there was a large sweaty man in there who harrumphed loudly any time someone made a noise, putting a stop to all conversation. It was a relief becauseI felt there had already been more than enough revelation and psychoanalysis for one spa day and it was still only eleven in the morning.
