Queenie(89)

“You don’t need to do this,” I said, walking into the kitchen and putting the check on the table. “You actually need the money. You’re the one living in a hovel.”

“The hostel is not a hovel, Queenie. It’s actually quite nice, you should come and see it. I’ve got friends there, and I feel safe. It was my little port in the storm.” She put her fork down and sat on her hands.

“Why don’t you eat your dinner, Mum?” I said, sitting opposite her. I watched my grandmother unload the washing machine and slink into the garden to shake each item three hundred times before she hung it out.

“Sorry that I never ask how you are,” I said, angry with myself for not being a better daughter. “I think children forget that their parents are people too.”

“I’ll be okay. Once I get this eating sorted,” she said, moving chicken around the plate. “It’s horrible, I get this lump in my throat whenever I put anything to my lips. Then I have to concentrate on forcing it down. It’s just not worth it. And these last few months, having to see Roy throughout this whole thing, it’s been so drawn out. . . . Well, I haven’t bothered to even try eating. I’ve been living on tea.”

“Maybe you can try what I do,” I started. “When it’s really bad, I imagine that there’s a bird in my stomach, and that the butterflies and the churning is the bird flapping, asking for food. And when I eat, and feed the bird, the flapping will stop.”

“I don’t like birds, Queenie,” my mum said fearfully. “Especially pigeons, they’re horrible.”

“I don’t like birds either, but you know what I mean, Mum.”

She put a forkful of food into her mouth and chewed slowly. “Feed the bird,” I encouraged her. She swallowed, her face contorting with discomfort. I poured her a glass of water.

“Thank you. You’re so caring, you know. I don’t know where you got that from.” She took a sip of water and ate another forkful.

“You’re caring, Mum,” I said. “I must get it from you.”

She smiled and loaded more food onto her fork than before. “Do you think you’ll go back to work?” she asked. I shrugged in response, really not wanting to go into it.

We sat quietly together until she finished chewing. She put down her fork and looked at me. “Do you know what?” my mum said. “I think you’ve changed history in this family. You’re the first person to go to counseling and not get disowned by Mum and Dad. That’s bigger than being the first Jenkins to go to university.”

“But I also might be the first person in the family to be fired.”

“Queenie, we’ve all been fired from every job we’ve ever had. Have you ever spoken to your grandmother about her career history? And you should definitely talk to Maggie about the time she got fired from Blockbuster for recording over the videos. Ask her what she did to the manager to get revenge.” My mum picked up her fork and took another bite of dinner. “What happened at work?”

“It’s a long story that I’m not going to go into,” I said, “but what I will tell you is that I had a great job and I’m pretty sure I’ve thrown it, and my whole life, away.”

“No such thing,” my mum said. “You’ve just turned twenty-six, your life hasn’t even begun. I had you just after I turned twenty-six. Best year of my life.” She chewed another forkful of food, smiling.



* * *



“It’s nearly my last session, Granddad. Only one left.” I couldn’t think what else I could say to break the silence in the dining room, so took a chance on engaging in some therapy chat.

“That’s good,” he said sternly. “And wha’ yuh going to learn today?”

“Well,” I began, bewildered that he’d asked me a question about it, “I’m not sure. One of the most helpful techniques I had to learn was safe spaces, so maybe we’ll revisit tha—”

“Wha’ dat?”

“A safe space is sort of like a mental place you go to cope with things,” I explained. “It’s all in the mind.”

“Mi’ shed used to be mi’ safe space until you put all of yuh tings in deh,” he said, getting up from the table.

“Queenie, your phone is going off!” my grandmother shouted from the kitchen. I followed the sound of my phone, but by the time I located it, it had rung off. I had a voice mail, annoyingly.

“Queenie, hi, it’s Gina. I hope things are better. Right, I’ll make this quick because I know that voice mails are awful and that everybody hates them. Take some time to think about this, but not too much time, obviously. The investigation fell apart when one of the security guards said that he’d seen Ted leading you into the disabled loos—I don’t want or need to know what you did in there, but ultimately his actions don’t seem like those of a person being coerced, so everyone thinks it’s best that we drop it. Nobody wants a scandal, let alone a newspaper. You’ll have to sign a weekly timesheet for the first month or whatever because you’ll be back on a trial basis but don’t be too scared of that, it’s just protocol. Give me a call by the end of the week. In fact, can you just give me a call in the next hour so that we can just wrap this all up and move on, thanks.”