The Last Dress from Paris(84)
Mum’s recollections of Granny are so hard to equate with the woman who has never shown me anything but love—or the recklessly romantic one who opened her heart in Paris, seemingly unafraid of the consequences. But I can’t share any of it, not until I know the ending.
“I grew up feeling almost that she didn’t want me. I would struggle to recall one special moment we shared. She was always very preoccupied.”
“With what?” I lean in across the table, closing the physical distance between the two of us, completely opening myself up to the possibility of answers.
“I don’t know”—she shakes her head sadly—“but I do remember her moods shifting dramatically with the arrival of letters she used to receive from a friend in Paris. Daddy always warned me never to interrupt her when she was reading or writing one of her letters. He said it was her special alone time. They seemed more important to her than anything else. They could alter the entire mood of the day. Sometimes one would arrive, and she would disappear to her room to read it. For a couple of hours afterward she would be so happy.”
Her face breaks into a half smile and I can tell she is back there, seeing it as if the scene is unfolding in front of us both. “Suddenly we’d be baking together, or she’d want to take me for a walk or to the park. I’d feel as though I had my mummy back.”
Then just as quickly it’s gone. “But the joy never lasted, and by teatime she would be sad again, disappearing to her bedroom, locking the door, and ignoring all my pleas to be let in.”
“Oh, Mum. Why haven’t you shared any of this with me before?” I instinctively reach a hand across the table to her, and she clings to it like it’s her only lifeline.
“These things are best forgotten. They weren’t happy times. I didn’t see the point in resurfacing it all.” I understand her wanting to avoid the subject and leave painful memories in the past. But to ignore it for all these years also seems so cowardly. Didn’t she ever feel like she deserved some answers too?
“And you’ve never asked her about it?”
“We don’t have that sort of relationship. We weren’t close then and we aren’t close now. She’s very old, Lucille. Despite how distant she was as a mother, I don’t hate her for it. I’ve learned to live with it, and I certainly don’t want to make the final years of her life any more painful than they might already be.”
“And there were no other clues as to what was causing her so much upset?”
“Your grandfather told me once that there was a great sadness to my mother that she would never lose and that I shouldn’t try to understand it. I grew up thinking she was ill, terrified that I would wake up one morning and find her gone. I used to picture myself standing at her graveside, unable to cry because she would never let me love her. I thought everyone would look at me and see what a terrible daughter I was, incapable of shedding tears at her own mother’s funeral. Can you even begin to imagine what that felt like, Lucille?”
“I can’t, no. I’m so sorry, Mum. But didn’t Granddad ever tell you anything more as you got older?”
“Never. Whatever it was, Lucille, she never wanted it known. She obviously wasn’t ill, so in later years I assumed it was in some way connected to the fact that her parents were never part of her life or mine.”
“What about Paris? Did she ever talk about the city or anything that might have happened there? If it was where she met Granddad, then it must have been important to her.” There is so much more I could say, but now is not the time.
She thinks for a minute.
“Yes, actually, there was one trip I remember her taking to Paris when I was about three or four years old. I think it must be one of my earliest memories of her.”
“You went with her?”
“No, she went alone. It wasn’t the trip itself that I remember, she never spoke about it. But after she returned home, it was like a huge dark cloud settled above the house and nothing could shift it. She would spend day after day in bed crying, curtains closed, refusing to see me. She got painfully thin. Daddy called the doctor out to her, and I remember after that how a row of little brown pill bottles appeared on her bedside table. So many pills. I thought they were to help her love me. But they never worked.”
“She does love you, I know she does! She always asks after you when I’m with her.” It sounds like a horribly weak defense, I know.
“Like you ask the postman if he had a nice weekend or the woman at the corner shop if her sick dog is better. Polite inquiries don’t constitute love, Lucille. I bet you’ve never heard her speak about me fondly. Or heard her express genuine love or affection for me. Have you ever felt that she misses me? Or is proud of me and everything I’ve achieved?” Despite the confidence with which she says all this, I can see there is a glimmer of hope in my mother’s face. She studies my features across the table; she wants me to contradict her.
And my mouth opens to tell her how wrong she is, and the words should be tumbling out of me, but they’re not, and the pause sits sadly between us. I watch as she drops her head, knowing for sure now that she is right.
“She can be very vague some days,” I offer. “Some days she struggles to tell me what she ate two hours earlier.” But I know that the following day she might be incredibly lucid, recalling details and times with such clarity it’s like they happened that morning. I always put it down to selective memory. But Mum is right. None of Granny’s stories have ever made Mum the focus. Whenever we’ve spoken of Mum, it’s been largely me doing the talking and, more usually, moaning, Granny shaking her head and looking disappointed. I hope the guilt isn’t showing on my face.