The morning cloud had mostly cleared and it was turning out to be a pleasant early summer afternoon but the weather did not match her troubled mood. She looked back at the building and tried to suppress a weird feeling that she would not be permitted to enter it again. Then her mobile phone bleeped and she read a text message reminding her that she had an appointment for a scan in two hours. ‘I thought that was on Wednesday,’ she muttered, then she realised that of course it was Wednesday. She shoved her phone back in her bag and began to walk to her car but then it rang again. ‘Bloody hell what now!’ she snapped, and decided to let the recording system take it, but then felt guilty when a few minutes later she sat in her car and played the message.
‘Gerry, it’s your mother here. You said you were coming to see me this weekend, and I haven’t heard a word from you for a week, so if you could kindly let me know… thank you.’
The obstetrician explained that she was the expectant mother of a perfectly healthy looking daughter and presented her with a grainy black and white photograph. She was somewhat disconcerted when Gerry inspected the picture for no more than a few seconds and said, ‘A girl is it? Well thank you very much doctor,’ before tucking the picture in her handbag.
As she walked back to her black Volkswagen Golf GTI, Gerry pulled out her mobile phone; scrolled to ‘Anne Tate’ and dialled her mother’s home.
‘Hi mum, it’s me.’
‘Gerry, dear. How are you?’
‘I’m fine. Look I’m sorry I haven’t called, but I did send you an e-mail.’
‘Oh! Did you? I’m having trouble with the computer again, so I didn’t get that. Never mind. How did the scan go?’
‘Everything’s fine. I’ll tell you all about it when I see you…ok?’
‘Did they let you have one of those pictures?’
‘Yes they gave me one. Now I really have to be getting on. I’ll show you the picture when I come to see you.’
‘Well don’t forget to bring it… your memory sometimes.’
‘I know mum… sorry. Look I’ll call you this evening… bye.’
Gerry’s memory was prodigious, but for years she had used the excuse of a poor memory to explain away the various inconsistencies that resulted from her job and concealed from her mother the fact that she was a member of the security services. She walked to her car, climbed in then she opened her bag and took out the grainy photograph, stared at it for a few seconds, put it away and started the engine, blinking away incipient tears. She pulled out her mobile and telephoned her mother.
‘Hello mum, it’s me again.’
‘Let me guess; something’s cropped up at work and you won’t be able to come.’
‘No mum, not at all,’ she replied trying not to be affected by her mother’s weary cynicism. ‘I’ve been given some days off and if it’s ok with you I’ll drive up this evening. I should be there by oh… eight o’clock.’
‘That’s lovely Gerry. Dinner will be waiting for when you arrive.’
‘Thanks mum, see you later.’
She managed to beat the afternoon rush hour traffic out of London and settled down to cruise at 80mph along the M40. She spent the journey in quiet contemplation of her immediate future. By the time she reached her mother’s house in the village near Stratford she had recovered much of her equanimity and as usual she begun to hum ‘The Archers’ theme tune as she drove through farmland, past the pub and then turned up the lane that lead to her cottage. In a more light-hearted frame of mind she pulled her case from the boot and a bunch of flowers from off the rear shelf and walked up to the front door with a fairly cheerful smile in place.
Gerry stared down at the trousers she had brought with her. She had forgotten that her expanding waist would not allow her to wear them. She pulled a safety pin from the sewing kit she had taken some months back from the Sheraton Hotel in Brussels and tried to fasten the waist with them, but it wasn’t long enough. She put her skirt back on and went downstairs to join her mother in the kitchen.
‘Hello, I thought you were changing?’ Anne remarked.
‘I was, but the clothes I brought don’t fit me anymore.’
‘Have you bought any maternity wear yet?’ Anne asked.
‘No, I haven’t; I haven’t had time,’ Gerry replied, trying not to sound like the sulky teenage daughter she used to be.
‘You can’t stay in denial about your changing shape, you know.’ Anne eyed her daughter’s tall frame, inherited from her late husband. ‘Though knowing you, you’ll exercise back to your original shape about a fortnight after having your baby. Do you know when you’re going to stop work yet?
‘Well actually I have stopped work… and,’ she hesitated. ‘If possible I would like to stay an extra night… then we can do some shopping, and I’ll have time to fix your computer as well.’ She saw Anne’s face light up.
‘Well that would be lovely Gerry; I’m not working at the shop this weekend. It will be nice to spend a bit more time together.’
Gerry immediately felt guilty that she had not spent more time with her mother in the two years since her father had died. Her brother and his family lived in Seattle so her mother did not see them very often. She suddenly felt even more guilty as it occurred to her that she might need her mother’s help with childcare and perhaps she should try and persuade her to move in with her for a while when the baby was born. Anne managed a charity shop and perhaps she would be unhappy to be away from it for too long. Gerry was hit by the realisation that she was likely to be dependent on other people for the first time in years, and with a strange sense of bewilderment she announced ‘I’m going to need you, Mum!’
Mother and daughter spent Friday shopping in Stratford, and despite having to compete with crowds of summer tourists Gerry felt a little better despite the dull ache in her mind. In the evening Anne began to cook, but when Gerry suggested that she should help, she was banished from the kitchen and told to relax. After watching the news and weather forecast Gerry wandered into the study and gazed at the family photos in their silver frames. She picked up the picture of her and Philip sitting in the garden. It showed the two of them seated side by side on the bench. They were both reading sections of the Sunday newspaper clad in shorts and tee shirts in the afternoon summer sunshine; she sat with her right leg crossed over his left knee and they had put the pages down and smiled at the camera. He was good at smiling for the camera, she decided for the hundredth time; she wore a bit of an idiotic grin.
She replaced the picture and sat down in front of the malfunctioning computer. It was an old one that she had passed on to her mother after she upgraded her own when Windows XP was released. Anne had learnt to use the internet and e-mail capably enough but on the occasions that something went wrong that she did not understand, she would shut down the computer and wait for her daughter to fix it for her.
Gerry switched it on and waited for the Windows 98 operating system to go through its start-up procedure. She entered her mother’s password and the computer desktop appeared. When she tried to open Outlook Express, a small window came up requesting a password. She frowned; that was unexpected. She entered her mother’s password again but the computer immediately shutdown. She mumbled a curse and walked into the kitchen and asked her mother if she had changed her password.
‘No, I’ve no idea how to do that.’
‘Well what were you doing when the system crashed? It seems to have picked up a virus.’
Her mother looked very uncomfortable; she put down the chopping knife and sat down on the stool. ‘I had just opened an e-mail.’ She paused, and then with a rush said ‘It was from Philip. It just said that he hoped I was alright and that he should be coming home in a couple of days and the two of you would be up to see me soon. Then he mentioned it was your birthday and he had a big birthday surprise that he was going to keep a secret from you and the details were in an attachment. I clicked on it but there was a password needed and then it shut down. I haven’t been able to start it since.’