On the landing was my favourite picture. Mum and Dad in paper Christmas crowns, raising glasses of bubbly, and sitting on the floor in front of them, was me with Aunt Lou, both of us smiling as she showed me how to crochet a big granny square with my new plastic hook. Even with the distance of time, I could remember the sheer unbridled joy of being good at something. Of not having to struggle or get frustrated as I had on Christmases past. Mum had picked out presents she would have probably loved as a kid, but which only brought me fresh disappointment in her eyes. Days spent failing to master roller blades, a twirling baton, a make-up set and myriad hair-styling tools. The less said of the ‘teach yourself Spanish’ DVDs the better. To be fair, I think those were because she wanted a translator on holiday.
Crochet made sense to me, right from the start. It was one of the only things in life that always made sense. I smiled at the faded photo and pushed open the door beside it, into my bedroom.
‘Jesus Christ…’
I inched around the half-open door – because it wouldn’t open further, and found myself looking at a mishmash of gym equipment and what looked like half a Clintons card shop. My room had gone through different life cycles since I moved out. First, it had stayed as a sort of shrine to my pre-university self. Then Mum had turned it into a guest room in shades of sugared lilac. Last time I’d visited, it had been part guest room, part craft space, with a futon and a lot of beading equipment. Now there was hardly room to move.
‘Oh, there you are, love.’ Mum appeared behind me and stuck her head around the door. ‘What are you doing up here?’
‘Just… looking around,’ I said weakly. ‘What’s um… with all the stuff?’
She pulled a face. ‘Your dad got really into home workouts during the pandemic. Jerry at the health club was retiring and he let him have this lot for cheap. He hasn’t really used it much so if you’re in the market for a treadmill…’
‘No, I mean the other stuff.’ I indicated the piles of wrapped presents, studded with bows. The stacks of floristry foam and wire, bushels of faux flowers, multi-packs of candles and sacks of plastic crystals. I was desperately hoping this was all some new hobby of hers, but the look on Mum’s face put paid to that. She lit up like one of the forty magic lanterns stacked on top of a crate of disposable cameras.
She slid around the door into the room. ‘That’s just overflow from the garage. Some wedding stuff I picked up – just in case. You know, it was awful when all the venues closed down before and, if we end up having to do the whole thing ourselves, I didn’t want us to be stuck with no supplies. People were panic buying like crazy last time.’
‘Yeah, beans and toilet paper, not streamers and personalised champagne.’ I tilted my head to read the labels. ‘Who are Greg and Silvia?’
‘No idea – but they never picked up their order, so it was a steal,’ Mum beamed at me. ‘We can just make new labels. I’ve got a machine for that somewhere. Found it on Marketplace.’
My stomach was screwed up into a tight, miserable little ball. It was like walking in on a shrine to Richard – to our future, our marriage and children. A whole network of events that were now never going to happen. I could hear Mum in my head, handing over carrier bags of candles and wedding favours to some Marketplace buyer, ‘These were for my daughter’s wedding but she was so obsessed with her little shop that she drove her boyfriend into another woman’s arms… yes, yes, I did tell her, but she never listens to me, you see.’
I moistened my lips. ‘Mum… I need to tell you something…’
‘Have you and Richard finally discussed when he’s going to propose?’ Mum asked, clasping her hands together. ‘Your dad will be so pleased if it’s soon – if you have the engagement party before the end of November, we’ll be able to free up some space for the barbecue in the garage.’
What in God’s name was waiting in the garage? A self-assembly chapel complete with a flat-pack vicar? Or was she raising doves? This was insane. I had to stop it now, before she started filling the deep freeze with DIY wedding cakes.
I took a breath, my heart jumping up and down inside me with panic. She was going to be crushed. At her own party, no less. Why hadn’t I done this sooner? Why hadn’t I called her as soon as it happened? I suppose for the same reason I was currently struggling – I knew it would hurt her almost as much as it had hurt me. And she would hurt me, all over again, without meaning to. My eyes prickled, but I couldn’t let this go on. I braced myself.
‘Mum, Richard and I aren’t getting engaged,’ I said, then ploughed on before her face could register anything other than confusion, my heart in my throat. ‘We’re not together any more. We broke up.’
Her fingers found mine. The silence was sharper than her nails on my skin as she gripped my hand. As if she was worried I was about to run away. I wanted to, bizarrely. Wanted to escape from this moment, this house, from the lecture I knew was coming. From the look on her face that said I’d ruined everything.
I felt like I was about to be sick all over the dated treadmill.
Somewhere down below, there came a loud bang, followed by barking and yelling.
‘Mum?’ I said, when she didn’t react to what had to have been the death blow to one of her flamingos. The lack of reaction was making my stomach slither into knots. ‘Are you…?’
‘Why?’ she asked, at last. ‘You two were perfect together. I thought you were finally going to settle down and move on to the next phase of your life, together. What happened?’
There it was – the blame. Not ‘are you okay?’, butwhat happened?Her eyes narrowing a little, looking at me as if to say,what did you do?It had to be my fault. Richard was perfect. Richard brought Mum flowers every time he came over and helped Dad chop down the crab-apple tree in the front garden. He knew about wine and had advised them on planning permission for Dad’s shed. Richard had a good job and great teeth and he was polite, went golfing and laughed at Dad’s jokes. Even if I told Mum that Richard complained bitterly every time I ‘dragged him’ to one of their parties, she wouldn’t hear it. Not Richard – he was Mark Darcy, the estate agent. Heathcliff with a protein shake. He was a catch, and I was the terrible fisherman that had let him leap out of the net.
On the heels of her question, I couldn’t help but think about all the tiny ways in which Richard hadn’t fitted with me properly. The things I’d only allowed myself to start seeing recently. His lack of a sense of humour, how much he didn’t like my family, the sterile flat and his distaste for second-hand things, for bright colours and whimsical designs. His lectures on calories and how he never cleaned up after himself. Had Mum really thought we were ‘perfect together’? Had she not seen all the ways in which we didn’t match? Had she wanted to see? Or, like me, had she trained herself to ignore all of it, because any man was better than nothing? Was she not meant to look out for me when I couldn’t see stuff like that for myself?
‘He wasn’t “perfect”… I caught him cheating on me,’ I said, not wanting to give her the full technicolour mental image of what I’d walked in on but also not wanting to let this charade of ‘Richard, the ideal man’ continue. ‘So I ended it. I had to.’
Mum’s face did something complicated. Her eyes were sad, the well-sunned crinkles around them smoothed out and soft. But her mouth tightened into a little cerise bud, somehow both defiant and thoughtful.
‘Tabby,’ she said, softly. ‘Are you… sure?’
I just gaped at her. Sure? I’d been hoping for ‘all right’ or ‘okay’, even ‘going to want your room back for a bit?’. Once the shock and blame laying were over, I’d been hoping for some understanding. Just a shred.
‘Sure?’ I repeated, trying and failing to keep the hurt from my voice. ‘Mum, did you not hear what I said? Richard slept with someone else. What else could I do – ignore it?’
Mum opened her mouth as if to argue, but Dad’s voice interrupted, ringing out from the garden below.
