I was enough of a disappointment to my father. I didn’t need to give him yet another excuse to help me understand I was not the daughter he wanted.
My mother had left her native America when she fell in love with my dad while working for a year as an au pair in Gerrards Cross. She seemed happy when I was very young, then spent most of my teenage years in what I have always thought must have been a deep, albeit undiagnosed, and possibly clinical, depression.
I can understand why.
What I couldn’t understand is how she ever ended up with my father in the first place. He was handsome, and I suppose he must have been charming when they were young, but he was so damned difficult, I used to think, even when I was young, that we’d all be much happier if they got a divorce.
I would sit with friends who would be in floods of tears because their mother had just found out their father had been having an affair, or their parents had decided they hated each other, or whatever myriad reasons drive people apart. And these friends would be crying at the terrible fear of their families breaking up, and all I could think was: I wish my parents would get divorced.
It seemed to me that if ever there were two people on the planet who should not have been together, it was my parents. My mother is laid-back, funny, kind. She’s comfortable in her skin and has the easy laugh you expect from all Americans. She was brought up in New York, but her parents died very young, after which she went to live with her Aunt Judith. I never knew Aunt Judith, but everything about those days sounds idyllic, especially her summers in Nantucket. You look at pictures of my mum from those days and she was in flowing, hippie-ish clothes, always smiling. She had long, silky hair, and looked happy and free.
In sharp contrast to the pictures of her with my dad, even in those early days, when they were newlyweds, supposedly the happiest time of a relationship. He insisted she wear buttoned-up suits, or twinsets and pearls. Her hair was elaborately coiffed. I remember the heated rollers she kept in the bathroom, twisting her hair up every morning, spraying it into tight submission, slicking lipstick on her lips, her feet sliding into Roger Vivier pumps.
If my father was away, she left her hair long and loose, wrapping a scarf around her head. She’d wear long gypsy skirts with espadrilles or sandals. I loved her like that most of all. I used to think it was her clothing that changed her personality, that in the gypsy skirts she’d be young and fun, dancing around the kitchen with me, singing the Carole King songs she loved at the top of her voice. But of course it wasn’t the clothes, it was my father’s absence. When he was away, she could be herself, not having to worry about pleasing anyone.
I like to think that my mother had no idea what she was letting herself in for when she married my father. We never talked about it until after he died. My mother prizes loyalty above all else. I didn’t know that, of course, during all those childhood years I spent praying for their divorce, but now I realize she would never have left him, however unhappy she might have been, however many days the depression was so dark, so debilitating, she didn’t get out of bed.
There was nothing I loved more than going to a friend’s house, because their mothers were around. I loved my mother more than anything, but the house would be empty and quiet when I got home. I would help myself to something from the fridge before traipsing up the stairs to my parents’ master bedroom, pushing the door open to find my mother lying propped up on pillows. On a really bad day, the curtains would be drawn, the room in darkness. Often she’d be asleep, and I’d pad over to her side of the bed and stroke her arm. She’d rouse, giving me a sleepy smile, pulling me down for a kiss and a hug, wanting to hear all about my day, her only access to the outside world. I couldn’t stay long, though. She didn’t have the capacity for too much stimulation, and on those days, the bad days, I always saw the relief in her eyes