The Storyteller's Daughter Page 3

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I snapped at her. ‘This has nothing to do with a Victoria sponge! Why is everything always about cakes with you? Was my father even French? Was he even a chef?’

  I remember my mother standing there in our tiny cramped kitchen with plaster peeling off the ceiling and condensation misting the windows, she had her hands placed on her hips like she always did when she was angry.

  ‘I don’t know what has got into you, young lady. Just because you’re at big school now, doesn’t mean you have to be so quarrel-some. I will not have you insulting your poor dead father’s name by asking such silly questions. Your father would have loved you very much, you know. He was a talented and courageous man who met an untimely death in his quest for perfection in the pastry industry, and you constantly question – ’

  ‘All right, all right!’ I shouted, ‘just… just don’t talk to me about him again!’

  I ran to my room and slammed the door shut, throwing myself onto my bed and bursting into tears. I didn’t want to insult my dead father’s name. Is that what I was doing? I just wanted to know the truth, that was all. Not only was I angry and confused, but now I was overwhelmed with guilt. I was a terrible daughter. If my father was always with me then he must have heard me questioning his very existence. How hurt he must have felt! But my mother had clearly lied to me about their meeting, so how was I to know what other lies she had told me about him? Thinking about it logically, which was the way I tried to think about everything nowadays, was it likely that my mother had free-wheeled on her bicycle into Cambridge city centre one magical evening, and that the scent of my father had carried on the breeze, and that… oh, of course it wasn’t! Nothing about it seemed likely. I couldn’t believe that having so scrupulously monitored my habits, my words, and my very thoughts over the last couple of years, I had let the fantasy of my own father slip through the net. I had failed in my mission to rid myself of all non-sensible thoughts, and look what had happened. I had made myself a laughing stock once more. With tears streaming down my face I ripped the map of France from my wall and tore it to pieces. It was all a lie. There was no-one watching over me, and there never had been. The features that I saw reflected in the mirror could have been anybody’s. But even as I stamped on the shredded map and pinched myself for having been so deluded, I sobbed for the loss of my father like I had never sobbed before.

  ‘Why don’t you ever bring your friends home for tea?’ my mother would ask me. ‘I’d love to meet them. I could make some lovely muffins. Or some little fairy cakes.’

  ‘I don’t have any friends,’ I would tell her, grumpily, which wasn’t entirely true. I had Gary, Peter, and Sarah from the lunchtime science club, but they were all united in their love of Star Trek, and insisted in communicating in some made-up language they called Cling-On, which not only made me feel excluded, but also resulted in a lot of misunderstandings, making our lunchtime science experiments extremely hazardous. When they did speak English we often argued about the dangers of science fiction, but three against one made it a very uneven debate. I couldn’t understand how such sensible, intelligent and rational people could allow themselves to be corrupted by a fantasy world full of flying saucers and alien beings. The very fact that they insisted in speaking in a made-up language and appeared to worship someone called Dr Spot was evidence of their corruption. Their fictional world was destroying them day by day, like a maggot eating away at their brains.

  But the truth is that even if I had wanted to invite them home, I never would have dared. I had already made the mistake of inviting Lucy Higgins home after a few weeks at secondary school, and my mother had completely confused her.

  ‘Those wretched hot dogs have been barking in the cupboard all afternoon,’ she told Lucy, placing our tea down on the table in front of us. ‘I expect they wanted to go out for a walk, but I’ve tried walking a hot dog before and it’s very difficult to get a collar that fits. Usually they slip off the lead and jump into a muddy puddle to cool themselves down. I’m sure your mother must have the same problem.’

  When Lucy asked me if my mother was ‘mental’ I decided that it was probably better not to invite people home again.

  Embarrassment, anger and guilt are the main feelings I recall from adolescence, but perhaps that isn’t so unusual. Parents’ evenings, particularly, were anticipated with dread. I still remember the time my mother told Mr Lees – the trainee biology teacher and object of my affection – that eating chilli con carne during her pregnancy was certainly the cause of my occasional temper tantrums.

  ‘I didn’t realise I was pregnant at that point, obviously,’ my mother said, quickly, as if she thought Mr Lees would be outraged that she had acted so irresponsibly. Mr Lees, though, clearly did not understand the implication of eating Mexican food whilst carrying a baby, and just looked rather baffled.

  ‘Chillies lead to a fiery temperament,’ my mother clarified in quite a patronising tone, as if a biology teacher really should know this. ‘Once I realised I was pregnant I tried to balance out the heat of the chillies by eating several bowls of guacamole, but obviously it was too late. The damage had already been done.’

  She looked at me sitting slumped on the chair next to her and shook her head sadly, as if I had some sort of defect. Poor Mr Lees looked at me for guidance but I just blushed a deep shade of crimson and stared at my feet. I felt acutely embarrassed, but not surprised. This was bound to happen. At least it helped explain why, whenever I had a fit of teenage angst, my mother would tell me to eat a tub of yoghurt. She obviously thought the chilli I was subjected to in the womb was repeating on me.

  I learnt to live with the embarrassment. I even learnt to live with the anger. But what I have always struggled to live with is the guilt.

  ‘I am just so proud of you, Meggy!’ my mother cried, excitedly, as we walked home from that very same parents’ evening. ‘You’re doing so well. You’re going to do so many exciting things with your life. I just want the best for you, Sweetheart, you know that don’t you? And I’ll be here for you all the way. I’ve always believed in you… ’

  I had already tuned out by the time she said the word ‘proud’, overcome by feelings of guilt and self-reprobation. Why did I have to get so angry with her? Why did I have to care what other people thought? She loved me so much. Listening to her babbling excitedly about all my achievements, so enthusiastic about everything I did, I thought about Louise Warbuck’s mother who never even washed her PE kit, and Gary’s mother who was always half-drunk. I felt angry and ashamed at myself for being so ungrateful. The truth was I couldn’t have asked for a more loving and supportive mother. I just wished she could be a little more... well... normal.

  My idea of heaven was a place where nobody knew me. Where nobody knew about all the silly things I had said and done, the stories I had accidentally rattled off, the ways I had humiliated myself. Heaven was being surrounded by people who saw the world in black and white, who spoke the truth, who stated the facts. People who didn’t confuse me, or leave me struggling with conflicting thoughts and feelings. It was a place where things were simple and straight-forward.

  Heaven was the Faculty of Science at Leeds University.

  I fitted in perfectly from the day I arrived. Finally, I was surrounded by people whose aims were the same as mine: to understand, to make sense of, to categorise, to fact find, and to get to the bottom of things. I sought out the companionship of the most serious and dedicated students, so that even socially our conversation rarely deviated from our shared scientific interests. It meant that I rarely had the chance to slip up by talking about how I had once blown up like a beach ball after drinking too much fizzy lemonade, or how my mother once bought a bag of onions that were so strong they even made themselves cry and ended up flooding our kitchen floor. My interest in scientific study was a bonus, rather than just another thing that made me an easy target. Finally, it was making me friends and earning me respect. And in my final year life got even bet
ter.

  ‘Meg May, it’s a pleasure to meet you. My name’s – ’

  ‘Mark Daly. I know.’

  Our eyes met over a Bunsen burner. Perhaps, had it been on, I would have seen fire in Mark’s eyes, just like my mother saw fire in my father’s eyes the first time they met. Unfortunately, the gas supply had been cut off while they prepared to close the lab due to a bat infestation. Still, the very fact that Mark Daly knew my name was enough to set me trembling. He was a doctoral student and lecturer, extremely well regarded in the faculty, especially by the female students. And he was flawlessly handsome.

  ‘I was wondering whether I could ask you… ’

  He paused dramatically, and leant confidently on the work bench, looking me straight in the eye.

  ‘Yes?’ I prompted, my heart fluttering with anticipation.

  ‘I was wondering if I could ask you, could I borrow those safety goggles?’

  Could I borrow those safety goggles? Now that was a phrase to start a relationship on. Safety goggles. Goggles for practical usage in keeping one safe whilst unlocking the truths of the universe. Had I believed in romance, that would surely have been the closest thing to it.

  The evening of the prize-giving should have been one of the best of my life, but instead, every time I remember it, I want to weep with guilt.

  ‘So, Miss May, where do your future interests lie?’

  ‘Yes, you must tell us so that we can battle it out to be your supervisor! I assume you will be pursuing a PhD?’

  Professor Philip Winter and Doctor Larry Coldman both clutched their glasses of wine and waited for me to answer.

  ‘Um, I hadn’t really thought… ’

  ‘Of course she will,’ said Mark, sweeping in at just the right moment with his incredible capacity for certainty and decisiveness. He looked dashing in his suit and tie, a paper plate of finger food balanced expertly on one hand. Thank goodness for Mark. I didn’t want Professor Winter, the Head of Faculty, to think I wasn’t a serious scientist. I told myself to get a grip and stop feeling so stupidly nervous. I had every right to be here. I was a prizewinner, after all, and this evening was for a handful of students like me, students who had gone the extra mile, put in the overtime, achieved the highest grades. But as I looked around at all the Doctors and Professors mingling so confidently in their smart suits and dresses, I couldn’t help but wonder how many of them had grown up in a tiny council flat in north London, or how many weren’t sure who their father was, or how many were caught in a frying pan…

  Doctor Coldman was speaking to Mark about a new state-of-the-art scanner he had ordered for one of the laboratories, but I wasn’t really listening. Instead, I was looking over his shoulder to where my mother was hovering awkwardly by one of the tables of food, looking nervous and out of her depth. It touched me deeply that she was suffering so much on my behalf. She would have nothing to talk to any of these people about. She hadn’t even passed her O-levels. But she had insisted on coming to see me awarded my ‘gift-token’ as she called it (which was actually a cheque for five hundred pounds), and was clearly determined to stick it out until the end. I was about to excuse myself to go and rescue her when Doctor McFee honed in on the buffet and struck up a conversation with my mother, whilst piling her plate with mushroom vol-au-vents.

  At first I thought everything might be fine. I could hear giggling and they seemed to have struck up quite a conversation. But I knew something wasn’t right when my mother pointed to one of the sausage rolls on Doctor McFee’s plate and started doing a pig impression. What on earth was she doing? What on earth was she saying? I tried to rack my brain for stories my mother liked to tell about sausage rolls. Was it something to do with pigs rolling in muddy puddles? No, no, that was hot dogs. Was it something to do with a sausage roll oinking at her once? No, that didn’t sound right either. But whatever she was saying, Doctor McFee wasn’t giggling anymore. Instead, she was touching her hair nervously and looking around for an escape, whilst my mother babbled on and on, clearly enjoying herself for the first time all evening, waving her arms around as she told some longwinded story about Doctor McFee’s choice of savoury snack, complete with pig-like sound effects.

  Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that Mark, too, kept glancing over at my mother, and he appeared to be getting edgy on my behalf. He had only met my mother once, but it was obviously enough for him to foresee a potentially embarrassing incident occurring. He had suggested not telling her about the prize-giving at all, or telling her that parents weren’t invited, or even that I just didn’t want her there.

  ‘You need to be careful, Meg,’ he had told me, ‘you don’t want to give the wrong impression. Not now. These people could hold the key to your future. They’re the ones who will support research applications, help get papers published, open doors for you. I can understand why you might not want your mother there – ’

  ‘But of course I want her there,’ I had told him, feeling slightly insulted. ‘I would never consider not inviting her.’

  And I did want her there. Desperately. Because for as far back as I could remember everything she had ever done she had done for me, and I knew that without her support I would never have even made it to university. She had worked tirelessly all her life so I wouldn’t go without. She had praised me for every achievement, and supported me in every choice. Even though she couldn’t understand what on earth I was studying, she thought it was wonderful that I was so interested in it. So there was no way I wouldn’t allow her to be here to share my special moment.

  But as I watched her excitedly enacting some fantastical story, completely oblivious to the fact that Doctor McFee was slowly backing away, a sense of panic rose in my chest. I recalled the sense of exclusion I had always felt at school, the whispers I overheard, the rumours that followed me around. I had worked so hard to fit in here. I was respected. I was liked. Finally I was taken seriously.

  ‘So, have any of your family come tonight, Meg?’ asked Professor Winter, looking around.

  I felt panic surging in my chest. I didn’t want to lose what I had built for myself. I didn’t want to be a laughing stock. Not again.

  I felt Mark’s hand squeezing my shoulder, willing me to make the right choice.

  ‘No,’ I said, quietly, swallowing down my guilt.

  I felt sick with shame.

  Mark’s grip loosened and he stroked my shoulder gently. I had done the right thing.

  ‘None of my family could make it.’

  Chapter 3

  I can’t hide my shock when my mother meets me off the train. She’s so thin and pale, a shadow of her former flame-haired, curvaceous self. She is wearing a jumper, even though it’s the height of Summer, and when we hug I can feel the sharp angles of her elbows and shoulder blades through the material. It makes me want to cry. Did she look anywhere near this bad last time I saw her? Could she have changed so much so quickly?

  “Meggy!” she squeals, ignoring the look of horror on my face. She doesn’t want me to say anything about her appearance, doesn’t even want me to acknowledge that she’s wasting away. But I’m not like my mother. I’m not a fantasist.

  “My God, you look dreadful!”

  She forces a little laugh and brushes some flour off her sleeve.

  “Oh, I know! I was baking a treacle tart and I suddenly realised what the time was.”

  “Mother, you should have stayed at home!” I snap, annoyed at her, “I could have got the bus.”

  “Don’t be silly, darling. Why would you do that?”

  “Because you look like you should be in bed!”

  “I’ve made lasagne for dinner. Is that all right?” she says, walking off towards the car park.

  I stay rooted to the spot, waiting for her to stop and turn around, waiting for her to acknowledge the unsaid, but when she doesn’t I pick up my bag and follow her.

  The little redbrick cottage where my mother was raised has a white front door and pink roses climbing around the win
dows. It is also where I spent the first six months of my life, growing up in the warm bosom of my extended family, being cared for by my teenage mother, my grandmother and my grandfather. They were happy times, apparently, with everybody doting on me. Of course I have no recollection of any of this, but the place felt oddly familiar when I helped my mother move in here three years ago.

  “Of course it feels familiar,” said my mother as we unpacked the van, “you were born here.”

  “Yes, but I don’t remember that, do I?”

  “It doesn’t matter whether you remember it or not. It’s still part of who you are. As far as your psyche is concerned this is where you belong. You’re like a salmon that’s instinctively found its way home.”

  “In that case I should be due to drop dead any minute now.”

  “I don’t think you’ll be the one doing that, Dear,” she muttered, struggling to unload a large pot plant.

  It was the one time I heard her make reference to her illness. I wanted to stop her, grab her by the shoulders, tell her it was okay to talk about it, that I wanted to talk about it, but I was so taken aback that I just stood there hugging a deep-fat fryer while she staggered up the path, swamped under the leaves of an enormous yucca plant.

  Inside the cottage is tight and low ceilinged, but extremely cosy. There’s an open fireplace in the lounge, original wooden beams and an Aga in the kitchen which my mother adores. The long garden is overflowing with leafy green vegetables, fruit trees and beanpoles. The patio is crammed with pots spilling over with berries and herbs. And past all this chaos, near the end of the garden, I can see the little orchard of apple trees with their fruit-laden boughs drooping to the ground. It’s like a jungle out there.

  “It’s looking a little overgrown,” my mother admits, as we stand on the patio in the early-evening sunshine, in between a ceramic pot growing rocket leaves and an old tin bucket that’s spouting green peppers. “I don’t know why but I just don’t seem to be able to keep up with it lately. I’ll get back out there tomorrow and give it a damn good tidy up.”