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She shivered, suddenly icy cold and aware of a frightening and unfamiliar vulnerability, a fear almost.
Was it really only such a very short time ago that she had been so laughingly confident, secure in the belief that she was the central focus in the lives of those she loved: her parents, Ben… ? She loved them, of course, but they needed her, while she had always been free of such a restrictive and hampering vulnerability.
Fear and panic, both totally alien emotions to her, seemed to have taken over her life. Since she had discovered that she was pregnant she had felt as though she had somehow become trapped in an unknown and frightening world where no one seemed to recognise her terror and anxiety.
She could not have this baby, it was impossible, and yet, for some reason she could not even begin to understand, despite the anger that made her feel trapped like an animal in a cage, half demented by her own inability to do what she most wanted to do—which was to turn the clock back before that fatal conception, to wipe out that split-second of time which had resulted in the creation of the life which was now threatening her own—she could also feel within her an awareness, a shadow of a pain so intense and unbearable that it made her want to turn and run in fear, to be saved and protected from the enormity of it. And yet who was there in her life who could protect her?
Not Ben, whose attitude towards his sister’s pregnancy had only underlined what she already knew about his rejection of the very concept of his own fatherhood. Not her parents, who had problems of their own she had never even guessed at.
Was it true that her mother, who had always seemed so content with her life, had secretly hankered after something else, resented her perhaps as she was already resenting her own child? Zoe wondered in sick panic.
She remembered how secretly a part of her had semi-despised her mother for her lack of ambition even while she had loved her.
* * *
At work several people commented on how pale she was looking; her job was demanding in both the physical and mental sense but today the pressure and competition which she normally found so challenging left her feeling drained and helpless.
At lunchtime, when she went to meet her mother, she had still not rung the clinic.
If her mother had been upset by the quarrel Zoe had overheard last night it did not show in her face, her daughter recognised. On the contrary, she looked younger, happier, more vibrant than Zoe could ever remember her looking before.
She was dressed differently as well, Zoe noticed, the elegant silk separates exchanged for a pair of soft, well-fitting jeans that showed off her slim figure, her hair carelessly tousled, a white T-shirt tucked into her jeans, the blazer she had been wearing over it casually discarded.
It was her mother and not she who was drawing the discreetly admiring glances not just of the waiters but of the male lunchers as well, Zoe saw as they sat down.
‘Zoe, I’m so excited,’ she announced as soon as they had ordered. ‘I heard yesterday that I’ve been accepted. On that course I applied for! I tried to ring you to tell you but you weren’t in…’
No, she had probably been on her way home, Zoe recognised, but she said nothing, trying to smile and share her mother’s enthusiastic excitement, all the time a small inner voice asking why it was that her mother had not noticed how subdued she was, how pale… how different from her normal ebullient self.
‘I’m afraid your father doesn’t really approve.’ Zoe watched as her mother made a slight face. ‘But it’s as I told him: I need to do something for myself… to achieve something for myself. I thought he’d understand that. After all, I’ve always understood how important his career is to him. I know you’ll understand, of course. I’ve felt so envious of you these last few years, Zoe… you’ve made me aware of how little I’ve achieved in life.’
How little? Didn’t her mother consider her to be an achievement, then? Didn’t she matter? Wasn’t she important?
‘I had you, of course,’ she heard her saying almost as though she had read her mind, ‘but you’re independent now. You don’t need me any more.’
Yes, I do, Zoe wanted to protest, I need you more now than I’ve ever done, but the words refused to be spoken; how could she say them after all and betray her selfishness; her self-pity almost?
It was like being sucked down into a thick bog of cloying, destructive mud from which she couldn’t fight free.
As she sat silently listening to her mother’s excited chatter, witnessing the quick, almost girlish movements of her body, the interest she was attracting from people around them, Zoe was aware of feeling, not only fear, but anger as well, as though somehow her mother had stolen her role from her while committing her to the unfamiliar and unwanted passivity of merely being an onlooker on life.
Why had she felt that her mother, both her parents, were people who somehow had to be protected and indulged, people who lived only on the periphery of the real vitality of life that was hers?
This woman facing her now was not someone who needed to be protected from the fact that her daughter was pregnant and needed her help, her support; this woman did not need to lean on her, Zoe recognised, and with that knowledge came a small, slight lightening of her burden, a sharp, resuscitating sense of relief and hope.
She leaned forward across the table.
‘Ma, there’s something—’
‘I can’t tell you how much this means to me, Zoe,’ her mother continued, not hearing her. ‘I’d forgotten how good it feels to be valued as an independent person, to be able to make my own decisions, to be judged as a person, not someone’s wife or mother. It will mean time spent away on various courses, of course, which your father won’t like, but it will put something back into our marriage which I had begun to think was lost. Your father says he loves me, but he also takes me for granted; sometimes when he talks to me these days it’s as though he feels he’s talking to a child, not an adult.
‘You’ve made your own life, which is just the way it should be; you’re independent of us, of me, and, although I’ve only begun to realise and accept it very recently, selfishly I’m glad. If your life were still at the unsettled stage I’d be worrying too much about you to give the commitment I need to this course.
‘I love you, Zoe, and although I never thought I’d say it I love you far more as an independent woman than I did as a dependent child…’
She was still smiling as she stood up, glowingly aware of the admiration she was attracting, a poised, self-confident, happy woman looking outwards towards life, and excited by the challenges it promised her.
Silently Zoe stood up as well. How could she tell her now? How could she claim her concern and support after what she had just heard?
