My Mother My Mirror Read online

  The first thing I did was to tell Peter that I didn’t want to be his girlfriend any more. We had got as far as looking at houses to buy together, but I had been feeling increasingly uncomfortable. I felt as if I was going along with it because it was sensible and it ought to be right, rather than because my heart was completely in it. He was a little keener on me than I was on him. He was a lovely friend, but he no longer made my bunny jump, as they say. In other words, I wasn’t really in love with him. My new confidence had allowed me to be more true to myself. It was sad, but it felt like the right decision.

  Next I got in touch with Kharis, who had been trying to persuade me to visit her in New Zealand, all expenses paid. I had told her I didn’t want to be apart from the children for a whole fortnight, as they were still only five and six, but another reason was that I tried to keep a safe distance from my family because there was a danger of being dragged back into a sort of depression. I knew I couldn’t afford to spend too much time away from my home, where I felt in control and had cultivated a sense of purpose. My sense of self was still so fragile that time in a strange country could easily make me feel unreal and upset.

  But feeling that extra sense of nourishment from the group, I was now able to appreciate how kind Kharis’s offer was: perhaps I could afford to open up a little more to my real sisters without the fear of annihilation that came from feeling they were a part of Carmen. So I accepted her offer and began to make plans to go.

  I even noticed a change in the way I was with the other mothers in the playground when I picked up the children from school. I began to feel more as if I was one of them, chatting about this and that in a natural way instead of hiding in silence.

  32

  Jamie & New Zealand

  Looking back on my relationship with Peter, I wondered why it had become so serious so quickly. Was it just habit that made me look for a long-term, one-and-only soul mate? I already had my children, I had done the marriage thing: surely it was much more appropriate now to just have some light-hearted fun.

  One week after we parted, I went along to a gig with an old premie friend of Sam’s who was playing his guitar for part of the evening. I danced for a while on my own, then someone beckoned me over from one of the tables in the audience area. He had wavy black hair down to his shoulders, a slightly Jewish look, and he laughed a lot. He was sitting with a friend of his, whom I can’t remember. We chatted for a while and, slightly hesitantly, I gave him my phone number. He might not call anyway – or if he did, I might go out for a drink with him; he seemed harmless enough.

  He did call, and we did go out for a drink, and more drinks in the next few weeks, though he was always cautious, said he wanted to take things slowly, and above all told me it was terribly important that I didn’t get attached to him: he wasn’t looking for a serious relationship at the moment, and he knew how easy it was to get entangled. This was fine by me, in fact the very thing I had been looking for. After our first date I decided he was a nice man, and quite attractive; and for the time being I was happy to see him on his terms.

  Jamie was a musician. He rented a spacious 16th century flat above the bakers in Totnes High Street, and on the top floor was his music studio. I was immediately fascinated by this and hoped that in time I could become involved. A few months earlier I had been to Kristin’s new husband’s birthday party, up on the moors where she now lived. He had a music studio, and towards the end of the evening the guests were free to jam, playing instruments and singing into the top-quality microphones. This had given me a strong taste for amplified music and rattled the cage of my closet performer.

  But the first time Jamie took me up to his studio it was just to show me what he did, and I was impressed. He sang me a couple of songs he had written; they were beautiful. One in particular seemed to come straight from the heart. Then he showed me his keyboard and guitar and recording equipment, and explained how he put it all together to make a CD. He gave me one, with his handwriting on the outside. It was the first of many, including some with just the backing tracks so I could fill in the words and tune with my own voice.

  I think I fell in love with his music as much as I fell in love with him: this was where he expressed all his deepest feelings, and I found it very moving. Jamie’s mother was schizophrenic. After early years of instability and inadequate mothering, a day came when she chased her two boys with a carving knife; they barricaded themselves in the bedroom and screamed out of the window for help. Before long they were being whisked away by Social Services to somewhere called ‘The Beech’; but when they arrived there was no beach, just a large house full of other parent-less children. He spent the rest of his childhood in Care. Feeling a little bit like an orphan myself, I related to all this and was touched by the pain, the longing and the tenderness in his songs.

  Back with Jamie the body, I began to get a little frustrated. I mean, there was taking it slowly and there was taking it slowly: I wanted to get my hands on him! He would be a little bit affectionate, but rightly said that too much cuddling would lead to sex; and he wanted to leave that a bit longer, just to make sure I knew what I was letting myself in for: that I was sure I wasn’t looking for a more committed situation. Who was he kidding? Who was I kidding?? His reticence was only making him more and more attractive, and I was already well on the way to falling head-over-heels.

  My trip to New Zealand was coming up, so in the end it was agreed we would get that out of the way and then sleep with one another when I got back. As I flew round the globe, watching Europe, India and Australia pass beneath me, my headphones were in my ears and my heart was soaring with Jamie’s gloriously seductive voice.

  But even apart from that, it was an amazing journey. There was something so special about watching the whole planet pass by 6 miles below: the folded-up mountains of Southern Europe and the Middle East, India at night with hundreds of small fires burning, then a brief stop at Singapore and up again over a sleeping Australia... I couldn’t believe how long it took to get across this vast continent; but fortunately at this point I had managed to find a row of seats on which to stretch out and get a few hours’ sleep.

  The plane was staffed by the most exquisitely beautiful Malaysian girls, who floated around offering steaming white flannels for our refreshment at all sorts of odd moments. The food was decent, as plane food goes. And all this and more I put down in a long letter to the children, first of all describing the amazing feeling of racing faster and faster and then going “whoosh!” into the air with such incredible power, then the heavenly sight of the puffy white clouds underneath me, glistening and billowing and looking as if I could just step out and bounce on them. Then the funny business of the fact that we were given lunch followed by breakfast because we had flown right through supper time, and that when they got up the next morning my watch would be telling me to go to bed... and that there were so many people in the plane it was like everyone in their school ten times over.

  Kharis was right: the journey would have been too much for them. It went on and on. But finally I was on a small plane to Queenstown. When I arrived she was there to meet me and drive me to their house on Lake Wanaka in her luxurious 4x4.

  I had a few slightly wobbly moments, but Kharis was friendly and attentive, I was lavishly entertained, and all in all I was very glad I went. I knew my younger sisters admired me and felt warmly towards me, but I had often been inclined to slip away, either hiding in myself or avoiding being with them. It felt good not to hide for once: to begin to respond.

  We did paragliding over the lake, took a tiny plane across Mount Cook to Milford Sound and a ferryboat down the fjord, gazing down at the deep, still water and up at the steep cliffs with forests and waterfalls. One day I drove their car myself, parking in a wide river valley then hiking up a mile or so through silver beech woods to a magnificent glacier, gushing with melted ice, rainbows in the spray. I took photos and bought postcards and sent little packages back to the children: first some model planes th
at I found at Heathrow Airport, then a purse made of possum fur, a small woolly sheep, a tiny kiwi stuffed with granules and a little book. And always I wrote letters about my adventures, for Sam to read to them.

  Two weeks later I made the long journey home. It was wonderful to see Judy and Simon again and tell them all about it and give them the bigger presents I had in my suitcase. Then after a happy, cuddlesome week - with a few days extra to make up for my long absence – they went to stay with their dad again, and Jamie came to stay with me.

  We dragged the double mattress into my deep blue living-room, so as to be cosy by the gas fire. This was the night I had been waiting for! To be honest, I can’t remember any specifics; but it happened, and I melted, and my heart responded as any girl’s heart would. After that it became a regular once or twice a week routine: usually we would go to the pub, and then back to either his flat or my bungalow for the night. Sometimes if he was coming to me we would walk the mile down to the neighbouring hamlet of Torbryan, where the Church House Inn supplied comfy sofas and huge log fires, then take the shorter route back up through the woods with tiny glow-worms to light our way.

  Once or twice we went to a party together, and I felt proud to be with him and loved his social ease; but that was very rare. It was almost as if he was ashamed of me: he continued to remind me not to get too attached to him, even suggesting from time to time that I find someone else. I guess we were, as the Americans put it, ‘fuck buddies’ – and yet for me it wasn’t like that at all. I was crazy about him, and I’m sure his emotional distance was part of what made it so exciting. Oh, daughters of distant fathers beware! You are always going to be drawn to distant men, trying again and again to bridge the gap and heal the pain... Having said that, I don’t regret it ...

  Making love was fantastic. Jamie was gentle and experienced and wanted to give me pleasure, and he certainly succeeded. His mouth was particularly gifted: apart from singing so beautifully, he had no fillings in his perfect teeth, and his full lips shared kisses from heaven. I remember lying in his bed under the eaves, hearing the nearby church clock strike each quarter hour as I revelled in sensuousness, every now and then reaching a peak of ecstasy when I gasped and shouted and moaned and cried out from the depths of my womb. When he fell asleep I gazed at his face on the pillow, with his dark curls and lashes. He was so handsome – said he had gipsy blood, which I could believe. The next morning I staggered out of bed and downstairs, all woozy and satisfied, and walked out into the sunlit marketplace to buy a loaf of bread and some fruit and vegetables before driving home.

  Meanwhile, life with the children continued to be satisfying and rewarding: the regular routine of going to school, having friends to visit, making meals, playing games, going shopping or for walks, talking and learning about life together. Judy was generally in charge and by far the most demonstrative of the two, and sometimes I got frustrated because her incessant demands for my attention meant that I lost touch with Simon for days at a time. She walked the narrow path of keeping him subservient whilst trying to be the most important person in my eyes, because of course if she gave him too much of a hard time then all the attention could easily turn to him. But I was clear in my mind that the most important thing was for both the children to have a good connection to me, so I did my best to pull each one of them back if I felt we were losing touch.

  How interesting it is to know people right from the beginning: to watch the way their personalities develop, both the strong points and the insecurities. Sometimes it all felt completely inevitable, as if there was little I could do to change the way their lives unfolded; yet I was also aware that there was an enormous amount I could do: it was a wonderful opportunity for me to be as loving and supportive as I possibly could.

  There were times when the answer was to give Judy extra big doses of ‘quality time’, and it was with this in mind that I decided to take her away for a week. Although her personality seemed to fill the house, I was at the same time feeling a little distant from her, so I thought a break from Simon would do us good. She was adventurous and loved new experiences, provided I was close enough to make her feel safe, and she was old enough now to enjoy going a bit further afield. We’d never done a package holiday before – my family had always been rather snobbish about them; but reading the brochures it seemed as if it would suit us very well.

  So we set off to the Canary Island of Fuerteventura for a week, leaving Simon with his dad. Just going on a plane was a huge adventure, and I loved seeing the world through Judy’s eyes and sharing in the excitement of new places and things. We had our own little apartment, in a complex with a swimming pool, which Judy particularly enjoyed. There were also a couple of bars that pumped out loud, inviting dance music, though when we went inside were nearly always empty. But we did go one evening to a bar a little further away and find there was a karaoke session happening. I had always wanted to do this, so we sat around for a while waiting for my turn, then I got up and tried to sing ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water.’ I wished I had chosen a different song: this one was surprisingly difficult. But I was pleased with myself for daring to have a go.

  The big, golden beach in the brochure involved getting buses to the other side of the island, so we only went there once, but there were beaches nearby with grey volcanic sand, and behind where we were staying there was a hill to climb and look out over the island, which was pretty bleak: all black, volcanic and dusty. On the hill there were tame chipmunks to feed, and goats, and some interesting fly-catching plants with shiny globules on them like solid dew.

  One day we treated ourselves to one of their organized tours. We were taken by coach to the very south of the island, where we went on a camel ride, held big, colourful parrots on our shoulders and shared in a sumptuous meal, which made a change from the little collections of bread, cheese and salad from the local shop that we had mainly been living on. Above all, getting by together in a strange place made us friends with each other again, so that by the time we went home and told everyone about our adventures, we were feeling very close.

  33

  Adam & Anger

  From time to time Jamie would end it with me, then I would meet up with him as a friend, and then it would start all over again. In some of the gaps in our relationship I met other men, and sometimes fell for them... Obviously if Jamie wasn’t in my life then I was free to do as I wished. But when we were together again the rules were a little less clear. I wasn’t quite sure whether there was an unspoken agreement that it was OK to sleep with someone else, because our relationship was only ‘casual’, or if being with someone else would mean he wouldn’t want me back. I remember discussing it with him, and him implying that it would probably be OK seeing as we had no long-term commitment... But when I tested it out, it wasn’t really OK at all.

  Since the start of the counselling course I had had a bit of a thing about a fellow student named Adam. He was another emotionally distant character: very good at extracting personal information from other people, but a bit cagey about his own feelings. But there was something about his cool demeanour, his strong body and warm flirtatiousness that was very attractive. I wasn’t the only one: he had been going out with a friend of mine called Emma for a year or two, whilst also having an increasingly un-secret affair with sexy Annabel on the course, and at the same time being a general babe-magnet who couldn’t be trusted to keep his trousers on in any situation. Terribly bad news - a classic heart-breaker – and I got hooked like everyone else.

  Adam specialized in a form of body-orientated psychotherapy called Hakomi, and seeing the importance of integrating the body into any emotional healing, I decided to go along to an introductory weekend in a local rural community centre. It was inspiring and informative, but it seems in this life I have chosen to learn my biggest lessons through relationship, because what dominated the days for me was the fact that Adam was there, and I spent Saturday morning in an internal turmoil of suppressed adoration. A little bit leaked out during
an exercise when we had to share our feelings with the group, but mainly I was in a painfully familiar place of bottling it all up.

  At lunchtime I plucked up the courage to ask if I could speak with him. He suggested we go for a walk, and all my feelings came tumbling out. I remember how he completely diffused my pent-up emotions by saying, “Of course we can be friends – or maybe more – who knows? There’s no problem...” and it made me wonder why I always infused these situations with such enormous emotion: as if fancying someone was life-shatteringly meaningful and implied that I must pick up my mind, body, soul and all my historic chattels and lay them at his feet, quite probably get married and live happily ever after.... Ah, there’s the clue: the mythical prince again. I was still searching for the mythical prince. But for the time being, Adam laid my fears to rest in the charming way that only he knew how, and I invited him round for tea.

  In the weeks that followed we revelled in the dance of flirtation. I spent a night at his flat, taking mushrooms that made me feel as if my back was as long as a road and as lithe as a snake; wrapped around each other, laughing – but still not making love. I spoke at length to Annabel and Emma, who both warned me about his total lack of commitment where women were concerned. Then one lunchtime months later at the counselling course I decided I was ready to take the plunge.

  We went for a walk in Dartington Gardens and I told him I would like to go to bed with him. His response was overwhelming: I think he wanted to drag me under a bush there and then. That being impractical, we made plans. He was about to go away for five days, but we would meet up afterwards. That night I dreamt about a tiger in a cage: a woman was sticking her fingers in, enjoying them being licked, then suddenly the tiger was out of the cage and after me. The only way I could stop it from eating me was to stroke it gently on top of its head, but I knew it was only a matter of time and it would turn round and bite.... I woke up in a hot sweat, wondering if it had been such a good idea to let Adam out of his cage.