Perfectly Ordinary People(113)

The cassettes had been like a neutron bomb, and they had ripped the heart out of our family. And it was all my fault, because, after all, I’d been the bomber pilot, hadn’t I? I had pressed the big red button that had released havoc on the whole family.

In a strange repetition of my father’s own history, where he’d turned his back on the confusing drama surrounding his parents’ divorce, each branch of the family span off to form their own independent satellite, turning inwards to concentrate on themselves while blanking out all those uncomfortable feelings provoked by everyone else. And it worked. It turned out, shockingly, that it was perfectly possible to slip on a pair of family blinkers. In fact, it was more than possible, it was easy.

To give you some idea of just how radical the change was, I’ll tell you some things that took place over the next few years:

Dad had a full-blown breakdown and took three months off work with depression, the first time he’d taken sick leave in his life. It took a combination of therapy and Prozac to enable him to even return to work.

Abby got pregnant, had a miscarriage, and got pregnant again, finally giving birth to baby Nathan on Boxing Day 2000.

Uncle Harry discovered a melanoma on his ear, but had it successfully removed before it could spread and so narrowly avoided chemotherapy.

Pippa set fire to her kitchen with a chip pan and a tea towel with the result that they had to move to a rental property until the entire house had been redecorated and refurnished.

And finally, Suzie caught daughter Alice smoking a joint in the garage and kicked her out of the house. As a result, Alice moved in with Mavaughn for six months. A more unlikely combination for a flat-share would be hard to imagine.

My point in telling you these things is not that they happened, though. It’s that I didn’t hear about any of them first-hand at the time. Information in our family had ceased to flow laterally from brother to brother, from cousin to cousin or even from family to family. Instead it trickled on a strict need-to-know basis vertically, resentfully, up and down the family tree via Mum. That’s how badly the lines of communication in our family had been disrupted.

As far as Dad’s breakdown was concerned, he was so embarrassed about it and so incapable of discussing the cause that my parents made sure no one knew anything at all.

Looking back, I wonder how I filled the void my absent family had left behind. But the answer, again, is that it just wasn’t as hard as one might think.

For one, Dan and I were busy buying the flat next door. We were getting builders’ quotes on knocking a door-shaped hole in the wall, a process during which we discovered we needed planning permission (something no one had ever mentioned to us). We requested said planning permission (twice), got refused (twice), and eventually Dan found a Polish builder who didn’t care about planning permission and discreetly knocked our door through anyway.

While we decorated our newly enlarged flat, I thought I was pregnant (three times) and found I wasn’t (twice), before giving birth to our daughter, Lauren, in June 2002.

With Lauren’s arrival there was finally a joyful reason to visit Mum and Dad, but even then, those visits were coloured by everything else that had taken place. They became defined not by the fact that we were seeing each other again, and not even by the fact that my parents were getting to spend time with their gorgeous baby granddaughter, but by everything that couldn’t be discussed. The interview could not be mentioned. My grandparents could not be mentioned – in fact, even the word ‘grandparent’ seemed dangerous and best avoided. France could not be referenced, and nor could the French language, gayness, Jewishness, Jake, Abby, baby Nathan, weddings, funerals, magazines, cassettes . . . the list went on and on.

So the things we could talk about ended up feeling like fillers for everything that was forbidden. Their enthusiasm about seeing Dan and me, or even Lauren, ended up feeling strangely fake.

The situation was unbearable, and I couldn’t see how it would ever end.

But then one summer day in 2003 Mum leaned in towards my ear and said, ‘He’s read it. I just want you to know that he’s finally read it.’

I was pre-washing dishes while she stacked them in her ancient, lazy dishwasher.

‘I’m sorry?’ I asked, pausing and turning to look at her.

‘He’s read it,’ she said again. ‘All of it.’

‘You mean . . . ?’ I asked. The subject had been taboo for so long I couldn’t even bring myself to say the words.

Mum nodded quickly. ‘And then he listened to it as well. To the original tapes. Just to make sure.’

‘To make sure it was really his mother’s voice?’

Mum nodded. ‘And to make sure the translation was right, I think.’

‘And what did he say?’

Mum raised her hand in a kind of half-hearted stop sign. ‘Just give him a bit more time,’ she said. ‘He’s digesting it all. He’s working through it all with that shrink of his.’

‘Shrink?’ I said. ‘Dad’s seeing a shrink?’

‘Yes,’ Mum said. ‘But don’t ever say that I told you so. Just give him some time and I’m sure he’ll talk to you about it eventually.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘OK. Sure.’ I resisted the desire to make a joke about more time. After all, it had only been five years.