‘Maybe not, but you need it.’
‘How does your wife feel about you taking time off to rescue the woman next door?’
He looked away, rubbing one hand across the back of his neck. Then I realised.
‘You’re doing this so you can sell the house! Did she send you round?’
‘No.’ He swallowed, uncrossed his arms, took a sip of tea and put it down again. ‘Yes, it will help sell the house if the garden’s cleared. But that’s not the only reason. Not even the main reason. I would hope, after the past few months, you wouldn’t find it too hard to believe that.’
‘Thanks for the offer. I’ll think about it.’
I didn’t want Mack’s help. I didn’t want him scrubbing mould or catching mice or replacing rusty pipes. I didn’t want him here, using his rumpled T-shirt to wipe the sweat off his brow. Flexing and fixing and making things beautiful. Being generous and capable and kind.
I didn’t want to need Mack.
New Jenny didn’t need anyone.
New Jenny was an idiot.
* * *
Feeling overwhelmed by the day’s events, lost and more than a little forlorn, instead of getting stuck into sorting or tidying or photographing for eBay, spurning the idea of investigating skip hire, I chose a mug of hot chocolate and my grandmother’s diary.
Picking up where I’d left off, a few pages into the third journal, I continued to read the stark notes that followed the birth of my mother, and the loss of her brother.
Feeding – how often, how long for. Nappies. Sleeps. A few acquaintances brought round meals, or helped with laundry. On one date the simple line:
Funeral, 2 p.m.
But within days the entries became sparser, the handwriting more erratic, and the tone entirely different.
The girl won’t sleep. Cries. What can I do to make her sleep?
Mary Robson came today, pretending to drop off a meat pie. I know what she really wanted. She’s not taking the girl.
The girl wouldn’t stop crying and I know they’re listening and waiting for their chance. I won’t let them take my girl.
He’s at work again. Never here when they call. Does he want them to take her? Is he sending them?
I see him plotting with the doctor. I hear them whispering. I won’t let them take you.
Whew. It carried on. In amongst haphazard lists about eggs and washing and trips to market, my grandmother’s sickness and paranoia staggered through the pages. Her rants about her husband grew fiercer and more explicit. It sent chills down my spine.
And then, about eight months after her daughter was born:
He’s gone. It’s just me and the girl now. Good riddance to him.
As I read the remainder of the journals, it felt as though some of the fuzzy edges surrounding my mother came into focus. Remarks about how difficult things were without a husband’s income, the shame of being abandoned, combined with the continual struggle to keep their hardship secret, drove Charlotte into an increasingly isolated and obsessive existence. I couldn’t discern whether her belief that the villagers were judging, mocking and seeking her ruin was true, but either way her bitter response to it could not have made life easy for her daughter.
For the first time I began to feel sympathy for my mother, to understand something of why she’d left and couldn’t face going back. The journals were depressing enough to read, let alone actually living through it.
As I wrestled with the ghost of the little girl I now pictured in every room, as my imagination lingered on the woman she’d become, my own resentment began to waver. It didn’t undo the damage she’d inflicted. I still felt angry as I dwelt on how her strange childhood had affected mine. On the pain caused and love lost and how it was all so wretchedly unfair. But it made me realise that running away was not the answer. Not for her, and not for me.
And weirdly, this feeling began to grow that I’d not had in a long time. An ache inside that confused and scared me. I didn’t want to see or speak to her. I was anxious and filled with dread about what she might say. Yet, despite all this, I just really wanted to give my mum a hug.
* * *
Friday night, as I stuffed some very depressed soft toys into a bin bag, someone knocked on the door. Wiping my hands on my jeans, I opened it to find Ashley, wearing walking boots and carrying a dog lead.
