The Storyteller's Daughter Read online

  I smile meekly at Ewan, a peace offering, but he looks down at his feet, wriggling his toes in his threadbare green socks. My mother looks from me to Ewan and back again, trying to gauge the situation.

  “I should go,” he says. He stands and hoists up the waistband of his jeans.

  My mother smiles up at him. “Thank you for the tea.”

  He nods. “No problem. I’ll leave the garden this week, give you some peace and quiet. I’ll come back next Wednesday if you like. ”

  “Wonderful. Thank you.”

  He passes close to me at the foot of the bed but doesn’t look me in the eye.

  “I think this belongs to you,” he says quietly as he passes, holding out his clenched first. He pushes something against my palm: the twenty pound note I threw at him earlier.

  “Keep it,” he says, walking out of the room, “I don’t want it.”

  I feel tears of shame welling in my eyes. How could I have been so rude as to throw money at him? Who am I to treat him as if he is beneath me? What on earth is the matter with me?

  I swallow hard, listening to his steps disappearing down the staircase.

  “These are for you,” I say quickly, pushing the small bouquet of flowers into my mother’s hand, trying to prevent the tears from coming. For one horrible second I have an image of her handing them back to me. ‘Keep them,’ I imagine her saying, ‘I don’t want them.’ I’m sure it would be no more than I deserve.

  Instead she touches my hand and smiles. “Thank you,

  Sweetheart.”

  “Are you in love with Mark?” my mother asks me.

  It’s late now and I have drawn the curtains, switching on the little lamp which sheds a reddish glow over the room. I am sitting in a ball on the end of my mother’s bed, my feet entwined with hers underneath the covers. We have been chatting for almost an hour, discussing barometers and cheese and cats and glass blowing. We can talk for hours like this, my mother and I.

  “I think I am certainly learning to love Mark,” I say, earnestly. “I respect him. He’s kind to me. We get on well. We never argue. He’s very interesting and intelligent and handsome… ”

  My mother looks at me curiously, as if she asked me the capital of Spain and I told her it was Bermuda. I know this isn’t the answer she wants, but life is no fairytale.

  “I don’t believe in falling in love,” I tell her, “not in the fire-works and stars-in-your-eyes kind of way, in any case. It’s just not realistic.”

  She plays with a piece of her auburn hair, twisting it lazily around her finger, and gazes up at the ceiling from her pillow.

  “I saw stars in your father’s eyes the evening we met,” she says, “thousands of them, twinkling away. At first I wondered where they all came from, but when I looked up at the night sky – ”

  “ – it was empty,” I interrupt. “I know, you’ve told me a hundred times.”

  “I could hear his heart beating from three feet away, pounding like a kettle drum. And the moment he kissed me a bolt of lightening shot across the sky, leaving crackling electricity in its wake. A nightingale burst into song, and a glittering cloud of stardust engulfed us both. He tasted of cinnamon and strawberries, the most delicious taste you can imagine. And afterwards, when I licked my lips, I found they were – ”

  “ – covered in sugar, I know.”

  “They call it falling in love because that’s just what happens, you know; you fall slowly for a long, long way. I started falling the moment your father held me in his arms, and I carried on falling for days. I thought I’d never feel the ground beneath my feet again. You feel weightless and free, like you’re sailing through the sky, but it’s also frightening because you don’t know when it will end.”

  Her eyes are vacant, her voice dreamy. I have heard these stories so many times before, and every time my head fills with questions. In a bid to make the facts fit, I want to stop her and ask about dates, times and places. I want to point out all the inconsistencies. And yet, for some reason, I never do. Instead, I hug my legs to my body and lay my head on my knees, listening to her talk. I see my parents’ first evening together just as my mother describes it; the full moon shining overhead, a nightingale singing in the trees, the scent of apple blossom and ripe cherries lingering in the air.

  “At night, I used to stand just there,” she says, pointing at the window, “and wait for him to appear on the lawn below. If the breeze was blowing in the right direction his scent reached me long before he did; honey and cinnamon, sugar and vanilla, toasted almonds and warm spiced wine. I would run downstairs and sneak out of the back door as my parents slept. He would take my hand, leading me into the fields at the end of the garden where we would lie amongst the wheat, feeding each other turkish delight.”

  She gazes at the narrow silver of white moonlight that is piercing through the curtains.

  “The day he returned to Paris, I cried tears as bitter as the juice of any lemon. I longed for his return, and yet I knew he had died before they even told me. Everything had already lost its taste, you see. I couldn’t tell sweet from bitter, or salty from sour. My taste buds never tingled and my mouth never watered. That’s when I knew he was gone.”

  She turns to me. “That’s what falling in love is like, and one day it will happen to you.”

  I try to imagine this feeling of weightlessness, of being outside of yourself, of seeing stars where there shouldn’t be any. But that’s just not how I’ve found meeting the man of my dreams to be.

  “When I first saw Mark,” I tell her, “he was giving a talk on developments in cryogenic technologies. I’d stumbled into the wrong lecture, of course, but by the time I realised I was already hooked. He talked with such absolute confidence and conviction, such clarity and understanding. Here he was talking about something so complex and potentially confusing, and yet he made it sound like it was the simplest thing in the world. He has this ability to make everything sound manageable, reducing it down to categories and rules and facts. Above all, I thought, here is someone who understands the way the world works.”

  I lean my head back against the wall, and study the shadows on the ceiling. “With Mark it’s not like falling, it’s the opposite in fact, like being picked up and set firmly back down on the ground. Everything is suddenly clear. Every why has a reason, and every mystery has an answer. It’s like being found when you’re lost, or given the solution to a puzzle that has baffled you for ages. The earth doesn’t spin, it stops spinning.”

  I look at my mother who is watching me intently, slightly sadly.

  “Maybe falling in love can be like that, too,” I say.

  Later, while my mother sleeps upstairs, I call Mark to tell him about my mother’s collapse.

  “The doctor agreed it was probably just too much sun. Although I’m starting to think he’ll agree with anything she says just to keep her quiet.”

  “You don’t think it was that?”

  “Well, she’s getting weaker. Maybe things like this are just part of the illness. I really don’t know.”

  I can hear the weariness in my voice. I feel absolutely drained. “And then there was the flier. I thought maybe it had upset her for some reason, but then I thought maybe that was just in my head… ”

  “The flier? The one from the suitcase?”

  I rub my eyes and try to suppress a yawn. “Yes. I showed it to her and she went quite weird. But then she is quite weird anyway so it’s hard to tell – ”

  “Weird how? What did she do? Do you mean she seemed defensive? Like she was disturbed by it?”

  My feeling of exhaustion doubles. Why on earth did I mention the flier? In all the stress and commotion of my mother collapsing I had actually forgotten all about it. I’m not sure I really want Mark setting me an agenda for how to harangue my mother into a confession right now.

  “I don’t know, Mark. It was probably all just a coincidence.”

  “You mean you showed it to her and about five minutes later she fainted
?”

  “Well, no, I showed it to her and she started to get dizzy. And very confused. And then she fainted.”

  “And you think that’s a coincidence? Meg, that’s not a coincidence. That’s evidence!”

  I really, really wish I hadn’t mentioned the flier.

  “That address clearly means something to her. It’s a clue, Meg. You need to find out what’s behind this. You need to get to the bottom of it.”

  “But it’s not that easy. I’ve told you before – ”

  “Nothing in life that’s worth having is easy, Meg. DNA wasn’t discovered by people just waiting for it to fall into their laps, was it? You have a clue here. It’s a starting point. You need to think methodically about how you’re going to pursue it. You’re meant to be a scientist.”

  “I am a scientist.”

  “Then think like one. Think about how you’re going to use this – ”

  “But Mark,” I interrupt, wondering why on earth I brought this up, “she’s ill right now. If her fainting was something to do with the piece of paper I showed her then the last thing I want to do right now is – ”

  “What do you mean if it was? It clearly was. In fact, she was probably just faking. She probably pretended to feel dizzy just so she wouldn’t have to discuss it any further with you.”

  “Oh no, I don’t think – ”

  “This is a woman who is capable of lying to her daughter day in day out and you don’t think she’s capable of feigning a fainting fit?”

  “But she was unconscious. And the ambulance came. And even Dr Bloomberg said – ”

  Mark sighs as if I am completely missing the point.

  “She caused a commotion in other words. And what happens when there’s a commotion? People get distracted. I bet you forgot all about the flier, didn’t you?”

  I don’t answer him, but my silence clearly says it all.

  “Exactly. She’s the greatest liar who ever lived. There are trained spies who have given more secrets away than your mother. She’s cunning, Meg. Very cunning.”

  Cunning? My mother’s not cunning. She’s strange and confusing and exasperating, but she’s not cunning. And she couldn’t have feigned being ill. Could she? No. Absolutely not. But I suppose Mark’s right, I did forget about the flier. I rub my tired eyes, feeling confused, and do what I often seem to do these days when my head is in a muddle.

  “What should I do then?” I ask Mark.

  “Cut to the chase, Meg. If she’s not going to talk, then go to that address. Find out who lives there. Who lived there at the time. Find out whatever you can.”

  “Do you think so? But it feels so deceitful. I’d rather she just told me – ”

  “Deceitful! You think you’re the one being deceitful?”

  I can see his point. “Maybe I should try talking to her again. Maybe this time… ”

  I leave my own sentence unfinished, knowing that I am only fooling myself.

  “You need to do something – anything – to bring this ridiculous situation to an end, Meg. And you need to do it now. Because soon – ”

  “I know,” I interrupt him.

  I can’t stand for him to say the words. But Mark doesn’t avoid the truth. He doesn’t allow for excuses, or evasion, or shying away from the facts.

  “Because soon it’s going to be too late.”

  Chapter 8

  There are carrots as pallbearers and courgettes as choirboys. The vicar is an aubergine, complete with dog collar and an ill-fitting toupee. I watch from the pews as the carrots, their green hair neatly slicked back, carry the coffin down the aisle of the church and lay it gently on the altar. In front of me a piece of asparagus reaches beneath her black veil and wipes her eyes with an embroidered handkerchief. The little courgettes stop singing and stand solemnly, heads respectfully lowered, in a huddle at the front of the church. They look beautifully neat in their pressed, white gowns and I can’t help thinking their parents would be proud.

  The vicar begins to speak but I can’t understand what he is saying. All the other members of the congregation are listening intently, nodding in agreement, wiping at their eyes. I strain to understand the vicar, but the words all blur into one long, monotone sound. I turn to the figure next to me, a fat potato in a black jacket, and ask him, ‘What is he saying?’

  The potato whispers something to me but I can’t understand him. Before I can ask him to repeat himself, he pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket and blows his nose loudly.

  Then there is a mass movement towards the front of the church. The coffin lid is open and everyone wants to pay their last respects.

  ‘I should be first,’ I say out loud, but nobody listens.

  I try and work my way towards the front, becoming increasingly desperate to have a glimpse inside the coffin, to lay down the flowers that I now seem to be carrying, but suddenly I am engulfed by a wave of vegetables. They are all clamouring to reach the front, shoving me out of the way. A turnip elbows me in the ribs, and a stick of celery wearing high heels steps on my foot. Neither of them even bothers to apologise. I am almost crushed between an inconsolable cauliflower and a sobbing cucumber, before being tossed around amongst a group of hysterical mushrooms. Suddenly the noise is unbearable. There are hundreds of them, all wailing and crying, pulling at each other’s stems in an attempt to reach the coffin while I seem to be getting pushed further and further back.

  ‘I should be first!’ I cry.

  Suddenly my feet slip from under me and find myself lying on the cold, hard church floor surrounded by pulp. I look up and see that the vegetables are going soft, turning to mush, their squishy insides leaking out from their split skins, mixing with their tears and running through the metal grates in the aisle.

  I can only watch in horror as they wail and lament, gradually turning to soup.

  “Cut the celery into slices,” orders my mother, handing me a knife.

  I examine the celery stick closely and then viciously chop it in half, the knife slamming against the chopping board.

  “That’s for treading on my foot,” I snarl.

  “Sorry, darling?”

  “Nothing,” I mutter, “just a strange dream I had last night.”

  “And when you’ve done that, you can dice the lamb.”

  She slides a dish along the worktop to me, a cold, red, bloody shoulder of lamb inside it. I turn away and cover my mouth, almost retching.

  “You know I can’t stand raw meat,” I tell her. “I’m not touching it.”

  “Don’t be such a baby! How are you ever going to cook meat if you can’t even touch it? It’s no different to when it’s cooked. It’s the same meat.”

  “It’s the smell, you know that. It makes me nauseous.”

  I’ve never told my mother about my nightmares and how they smell of raw meat. She would only worry.

  My mother rolls her eyes impatiently and lifts the lamb out of the dish to dice it herself.

  “When you’ve chopped the celery,” she continues, “add it to the pan with the potato and mushrooms, then you pour on the stock. You bring that to the boil, add the bouquet-garnis and some seasoning… Meg, are you listening to me?”

  I rub my eyes sleepily. We have been at this for four hours now. Under my mother’s watchful eye and clear instruction I have made spinach and nutmeg soup, chocolate and blueberry flapjacks, gruyère cheese straws and now we are on to lamb stew. She apparently decided, during her short period of bed rest, that the time has come for me to learn her recipes, and she’s on a military-style mission to teach me.

  “I could put off teaching you for another year, and then another year, but what’s the point?” she said yesterday, “I don’t want to wait until I’m an old lady to teach you.”

  I came down this morning to find the work surfaces packed with ingredients, and a schedule of what we will be cooking over the coming week stuck to the refrigerator. She has literally crammed the next seven days full of cookery lessons. I’m not sure I understan
d the schedule correctly, but she doesn’t seem to have left us any time to eat or sleep.

  “I’m really tired, can we have a rest?”

  “We can rest once we’ve made the maple syrup and pecan muffins.”

  “But I don’t need to know all this stuff,” I say wearily.

  “Cookery is not a matter of need, Meg, it’s a matter of desire, of passion. You don’t just cook because you have to, you cook for the pure joy of it. Now, have you sliced the potatoes?”

  “But maybe we could just cook one thing a day.”

  “That’s not going to teach you anything. There are so many lovely recipes I want you to learn. We have so many to cover.”

  “Couldn’t you just write them down?”

  “That’s not the same! I need to show you personally. You need to know how to make the perfect passion fruit cheesecake and the sweetest grape and white wine jelly. It’s all in the mixing, it’s all in the blending. How can I write that down? I can’t. I need to pass it on properly. I need to show you myself!”

  My mother is scaring me. She seems frantic, crazed, grabbing the celery and the knife from me and chopping at a hundred miles an hour, sending pieces of celery flying through the air and scattering across the work top.

  “You need to listen to me, Meg. You need to watch and learn.”

  “But why do I?”

  “Because you need to, that’s why! You need to know how to do these things. You need to know all the things I have learnt. You need to remember!”

  She bangs the knife down on the chopping board, frustrated, suddenly looking close to tears.

  “Remember what?” I ask.

  She is breathing fast, her face flushed and full of distress. She stares at the tiny pieces of celery scattered across the chopping board as if she is trying to decipher some sort of pattern.

  I gently touch her shoulder. “I will remember,” I say softly.

  She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, the tension slowly leaving her body. Then she turns to me, searching my face as if she doesn’t understand what I have just said, as if she can’t remember what just happened.