“You’re home early,” Mum says to Dad, in an uncharacteristically non-accusatory way that makes me suspect she’s already assumed the worst.
“Yes,” he says.
She sits down still wearing her coat: I always hated this when I was a child, fearful she might take off again at any moment and never come back.
“What happened?” She closes her eyes. “Don’t tell me: McKinnon. You let him have it.”
“In a nutshell.”
“How bad?” she says, opening her eyes. “Wait, I think I need a drink first. ‘It looks like rain, dear.’ What’s this?” She’s picked up the small strip of paper from the kitchen table. Somehow it’s survived the clear-up.
“Christmas-cracker joke,” says Dad, mixing her a very potent-looking gin and tonic. “Not a good one, but there you are.”
“I have one,” I say, “I think. Hang on.” I straighten my crown while I settle on the wording. “Okay. ‘What…’ No, ‘How does an Inuit fix his broken roof?’ ”
“Don’t know,” says Dad.
“What’s an Inuit?” says Mum.
“Eskimo,” I say impatiently.
“Oh, an Eskimo,” echoes Mum, nodding. The ice cubes in her drink ring against the glass.
“But you know that’s not really PC? The right term is Eskimo.” I simply can’t resist the gift-wrapped opportunity for a little lesson in cultural sensitivity.
“You just said Eskimo was offensive.”
“It is. What? You’re confusing me. Inuit’s the correct term.” I’m drunk. “Do you want to hear the punch line?”
“I can’t remember the beginning now,” says Mum. “Remind me?” She closes her eyes and leans forward, cupping her ear.
“ ‘How does an Inuit fix his broken roof?’ ”
“Don’t know,” says Dad.
“Well, no, hang on,” says Mum, “we can work this out. It’ll be an igloo, won’t it, so it’s got to be something to do with ice…or snow…” Her eyes pop. “I bet I know!” She points at me. “He covers it snow-ver.”
“Nope,” I say, “that’s not it.”
Mum looks at Dad in disbelief. “Well, I can’t imagine what it is, then.”
I grin at one then the other in anticipation. “Shall I tell you?”
“Yes,” says Dad.
“No!” says Mum. She ponders for a few more seconds, moving her lips, though I think she’s just reciting ‘covers it snow-ver.’ “Okay, go on, then.”
“ ‘Igloos it back together!’ ”
“Huh,” says Dad, after a few seconds.
“Igloos. It back. Together.” Mum turns the words over stiltedly, completely destroying the cadence. “No”—she shakes her head—“I’m sorry, that doesn’t make sense.”
“Dad gets it.”
“Do you?” she says, turning to him, astonished.
Dad nods. “It’s fine. No worse than that other one. Oh, there’s a job for you, Claire: cracker-pack jokes. Someone must have to write them.”
“Igloos,” I say urgently to Mum, “like ‘he glues.’ Igloos it back together.”
“Oh,” says Mum. She pulls her coat tighter. “No. Preferred my one. He covers it snow-ver.” She laughs. “That’s much better. You should use my one next time you tell it.”
“Thanks,” I say, “but I’m going to stick with mine.”
Lost it
“Where’s the pepper?” I ask, fanning all the cabinet doors open and shut in turn. I’m helping to set the table for dinner, but my parents have reorganized the kitchen and nothing is where it should be. “And the napkins. Hang on, don’t you even keep placemats here anymore?”
“Did you want to borrow some proper pants or a skirt or something before we eat?” Mum asks, clearly still disturbed by my slouchy leisurewear. “I’ve got a nice blouse you could put on too. And you can try on that dress I told you about. Did you get my message? Come up and I’ll show you. Wait — first, let me lend you a brush. What way is your hair under that paper thing? Not at its best.” She starts to dig, elbow-deep, in her handbag.
“Well, Mum,” I say, thumping down a jug of water, “I’m not at my best. So thanks for pointing that out.”
“There’s no need to fly off at me. I just thought, you know—”
“A little bit of effort makes all the difference.” She flinches at the imitation, which isn’t even an imitation, really, more a sneery whine engineered to make her feel as small and ridiculous as possible. “I don’t care how I look right now, okay? I know I don’t always wear makeup and earrings and have my hair the way you think I should, and I’m sorry if that embarrasses you or upsets you to have to look at me not at my best”—that voice again—“even inside the privacy of your own home. I get it. Okay? I get that I’m not the daughter you wanted!”
“Now, Claire,” says Dad from the stove, red plastic spatula raised like a warning. “There’s no need for that. Why don’t you go sit down in the other room while we finish up here? Take a breather. Go on, I’ll call you in when things are ready.”
I turn back to Mum. Her hands are still inside her bag, but they have ceased moving. Her mouth is in a troubled pinch.
“Please! Can you stop! Looking at me!”
She lowers her eyelids with such swift sorrow I’m instantly overcome by shame, and slide down against the cabinet to the floor, my face heavy in my hands. “Oh God. Of course I didn’t mean that.” My head goes back, smashes against the cabinet door, but I’ve had too much alcohol for it to hurt, and in any case I’ve just been stricken, really, properly for the very first time, by the idea of me with them as a baby, completely revelatory through the exhausted red-wine fog. “You’re my mother! You made me! Of course you want to look at me. I can’t believe I’ve never once said thank you!”
“For what?” says Mum.
“Everything! You — you both did, everything for me. Fed me, clothed me, changed my shitty diapers and nursed me through, like, chicken pox. You didn’t even have the Internet to check you were doing it right! And I’ve never said thank you. How fucking disgraceful is that?” I swipe away hot tears with the cuffs of Luke’s jumper, livid and astonished at my thoughtlessness.
“Claire, please, it’s all right, shh. Just…try to calm down, love, shh,” says Mum, clutching her elbows and leaning down toward me, wanting to help, but perhaps a little afraid to come close. I can only imagine how dreadful things look in the face department — pink eyes, nose red and glistening, mouth a downward gash like a tragedy mask — but it feels good to give in to this sorrow, so bleak and fathomless it’s almost funny.
“It isn’t all right! I know you didn’t really plan to have children, and I just came along and gate-crashed your lives, and I was such a ni-hight-mare that you didn’t want to have more! And now I’m…I don’t even know what I am, and I don’t know what to do with myself, I’m such, such, such a fuh-failure, and I’m pushing Luke away to Amer-hic-a, he didn’t even tell me, he’s running away, I’ve ruined everything, by being such, such, such a complete disa-ha-ster!” The tears take over completely, a descending scale of high-pitched sobs, uh-huh, huh, huh, so pitiful and childlike they sound put on. Mum — impelled maybe by some Neanderthal impulse — rushes to hold me and I cry into her coat, soaking the scratchy-soft fabric; then a moment later I feel the embrace intensify, as Dad, who might have just lost the job he’s had for forty years, moves in to complete our little tableau.