The Child(14)

The terrible teens. Jude leaned her forehead on the cool windowpane as her mind filled with the vision of Emma screaming and slamming doors. And the silence as she’d trudged away from her, up Howard Street, two bulging carrier bags pulling her shoulders down. Her own shoulders drooped and she closed her eyes. She could still taste the dry, sour fear she’d felt as she watched her child disappear.

She’d had to throw her out. Well, hadn’t she? “The monster in our midst,” her boyfriend Will had said.

But, that was then, she told herself firmly as the doubts threatened to overwhelm her again. Emma’s an adult now. We have both moved on.

She focused on the lovely time they were going to have and put on a Leonard Cohen CD to give herself something to do, singing along with the well-worn lyrics and pushing books and papers into more pleasing piles.

But five minutes later, she was back at the window to watch the street for her child.

“I wish she’d just get here,” Jude suddenly said out loud. She was talking to herself more and more lately. An unattractive habit, she felt. It made her sound a bit mad and old, but the words just spilled out of her before she could stop them.

Funny how things change, she thought.

There’d been a time when she would have paid money to get rid of Emma for an afternoon. She was a little chatterbox, going on and on about things until Jude’s head hurt.

And she never stopped talking about her father. Her bastard father. Ironic how absence makes the heart grow fonder, Jude thought. The unknowing heart.

She remembered how Emma used to invent stories about him. He was always the hero, of course. Brave, kind to animals, handsome, and once, at the age of eight, in a piece of homework titled “My Family,” even a member of royalty.

Jude had been called in by the teacher to be told her daughter had an impressive imagination, but they needed to be careful this imagination didn’t spill over into telling lies. The teacher had called her Mrs. Massingham even though she knew Jude was unmarried.

Her face darkened at the memory of how she’d slunk away, admonished. She’d wanted to tear the teacher’s head off, but she didn’t want to draw more attention to herself. Or to Emma. But she remembered very clearly her anger when she got home. Emma was down the street at Mrs. Speering’s, doing her homework.

She’d snapped at her child about calling her father a prince and Mrs. Speering had laughed, thinking it was a joke, but she’d shut up when she realized it was serious.

Emma had looked up—cool as a cucumber, Jude recalled—and said: “I heard you say he was called Charlie. That’s the name of a prince.”

Jude had wanted to shake her. Instead she’d told Emma her father wasn’t a prince. He was nothing.

Her child had looked devastated and Jude always suspected that it was at that moment that her daughter became determined to find out the truth.

As far as Jude was concerned, the Truth was greatly overrated. It could be so many things to different people.

But she’d ended up fueling her daughter’s mission. Her obsession.

Jude hadn’t wanted her to even think about her father. He had done nothing for her, literally nothing. He’d left as soon as he could.

But, as Emma got older, she’d latched onto any male figure in their lives—the man at the corner shop, one of her teachers at school, her best friend Harry’s dad. And Jude’s boyfriends. She invented stories about them, fantasizing about them being her father, and Jude had had to stamp on that and later silly lies.

? ? ?

The fierce buzz of the doorbell made the cat run under the sofa. Jude pushed the button to release the front door for Emma and felt a clutch of nerves as she waited for her to appear.

“Hello, Jude,” Emma said loudly, trying to be heard above Leonard Cohen’s mournful growl, and kissed her cheek.

“Sorry, I’ll turn it down,” Jude said. “I was listening to it while I waited. You took your time.”

“It’s only ten past twelve,” Emma said quietly.

“Oh right, I thought it was later,” Jude said.

She could hear the irritation in her voice and tried to stop herself. This wasn’t how she’d planned it. She’d imagined them sitting and chatting over a glass of wine, laughing, even, about some silly shared joke. Like friends. But here she was, snapping at Emma straightaway, as usual. Their dialogue seemed to run along well-worn grooves with a gaping hole between them.

Her frustration exhausted her and, for a moment, she wished Emma hadn’t come. But she handed her daughter her present. It was a biography of David Bowie that she’d chosen specially.

“This is lovely. Thank you,” Emma said and hugged her. Jude held on for a second too long and felt her child let go first.

“Thought you’d like it. Do you remember that poster in your room? You used to kiss him good night. Do you remember?”

“Yes,” Emma said and laughed. “My first love. I’ve still got that poster.”

“No! It must be in shreds by now,” Jude said.

“There is a bit of sticky tape involved,” Emma said.

This is lovely, Jude thought, hoisting herself out of her seat to pour the wine chilling in the fridge.

“Shall I put lunch on the table while I’m up?” she asked, and Emma nodded as she looked at the photographs in the book. In the kitchen, Jude heated up the food and dished it out onto two plates.