I felt sorry for Janet Janet back there, but it also hit me so hard that she could changeher life if she wanted. She’s put up all these barriers in her mind. She’s convinced herself there is no escape from her lovely prison, but of course there is. She has so many choices and options if she took a step back and actually looked at her life, instead of just focusing on feeling sorry for herself. And maybe she will change things, but I suspect not.
It’s like me. For years I’ve beenso sure ignoring my mum – pretending she didn’t exist – was the only right way, the only answer. I’ve felt so very sorry for myself. I have comforted myself by pretending I am the only sad one in this situation. I told myself that I was the only one brave enough to take the right and only path. But of course there are so many answers – so many right and wrong paths. Everything is right and everythingis wrong.
And now I want to try making things better. Which also might be the wrong thing! Maybe I won’t ever be able to truly forgive my mum – maybe she won’t ever be able to truly forgive me – but I want to try.
It was Hannah who answered the door when I finally knocked, and I have never seen her soslack-jawed.
‘Alice ...’ she said, utterly bewildered. ‘What are you ... are you really here?’
I smiled,tight-lipped, trying not to cry. ‘I’m really here, Hannah.’
Still she didn’t move. ‘But how ... when ...?’ she trailed off and then she suddenly leaned forward out of the door, looking around me suspiciously. ‘Aretheyforcing you to come here?’ she said in an urgent whisper. ‘Are you being held hostage, Alice? Blink twice if you need help.’
I blinked once, inslow-motion, before I burst out laughing, pushing past her. ‘Hannah you dick, stop reading Reddit.’
Mum looked up as I came through theliving-room door, and promptly dropped her full cup of tea all over the carpet. The ensuing running about for a ‘blue cloth’ rather distracted from the moment, but Hannah – who had followed me in – quickly took control of the situation.
‘Mum, stop,’ Hannah said simply, and she did. Freezing in place on her knees,mid-mopping at the huge stain across the thick beige carpeting, Mum sat back on her heels, down there on the floor, and looked at me, properly this time.
And then she doubled over and cried.
For a moment, I didn’t know what to do. And then of course I knew what to do. I took three steps across the carpet tomy mum, knelt on the floor beside her – next to the giant tea stain – and I cried too.
We knelt there for ages, side by side, holding each other, clinging on, and crying so hard. We didn’t say anything, because what do you say in situations like that? Sorry? That’s not the right word. Of course I know we are both sorry, but we are also both not sorry. We both did what we needed to do, whatwe had to do, and it tore us apart. But we still love each other. That wasn’t in doubt.
After a few minutes I was vaguely aware of Hannah near us, silently clearing up the mess, while Mum and I cried it all out. The years of sadness and distance took a while to drain away.
I was the first to stop, my head aching fiercely. I was already dehydrated from the flight’sair-con and, after cryingharder than I had in years, I’m pretty sure there was no liquid left in me.
Mum reached for my hand, simultaneously wiping her face with her blouse. We studied each other intensely then, for the first time in years.
She looked the same, but also different. A little older, of course, but also plumper. It suits her. She was always so thin – so thin with the stress of Steven. I don’t knowwhat has gone on these last few months – or last few years – but she has found a way to eat. Maybe him being incapacitated has freed her at last. Maybe she has finally felt able to eat more Christmas crisps.
‘Hello,’ I said shakily, half laughing with the strangeness of the word.
‘Hello Alice,’ she said, and her eyes welled up again.
‘Don’t,’ I said with a wobble. ‘You’ll set me offagain.’
‘I can’t believe you’re here,’ she breathed and squeezed my hand so hard.
We stared at each other for another long second and then I looked down.
‘I’m sorry about Steven,’ I said at last, and I meant it.
Because Steven wasn’t – isn’t – a bad man. Not really. That’s what I have realised in the last couple of months. People aren’t bad or good, everyone is both, and everyoneis trying to do what they think is right in their own small, selfish way. Steven didn’t want his life to go the way it did, of course he didn’t. Nobody would want that. He was powerless, just like the rest of us.
I’ve spent a long time sneering at the idea that alcoholics have an ‘illness’. When you’re up close and personal with something like that for a long time, it feels so much like thatperson is choosing the bottle over you, but it’s never that simple. I know Steven didn’t want this to happen, just like I didn’t want it to happen. Sure, he was weak, and so was Mum, but weakness is something I understand. I understand it all too well. It is so hard, so tiring, to be strong. We have to be strong through so much of our lives. Being strong all the time is so much, too much, to askof human beings.
She nodded. ‘I’m sorry about Steven, too,’ she said in a quiet voice and she didn’t mean his stroke.
I helped her up on her feet, and we laughed as we shook off the pins and needles in our legs.
‘Let me get some snacks,’ she said, dabbing her eyes again and shaking off the hysteria that had threatened to overwhelm the both of us. ‘You must be hungry.’
That’s whenshe went to get the crisps because she is a mum, and mums know snacks can heal everything.
‘How is he?’ I say slowly, munching on aready-salted own brand as we finally sit down together on the sofa a few minutes later. It still has the same old familiar blanket thrown over the back, and it still smells the same.
