hagiography

It was fine, really it was, until she
turned twelve. Something happened, for the life of me I can't work
out what.

Right now, I'm sitting in my armchair,
absolutely fuming. It's not so much that I can't get through to her,
we communicate very well, more that she's in a foul mood and I'm
beginning to lose it with her.

So yes, obviously I remember her as a
baby, a pink, no a red, screaming thing. OK. As a young child she
was kind of nervous. I suppose we shouldn't have exposed her to it,
her brother, his illness, but we thought he might die and it seemed
inappropriate to lie about this. He didn't. We could have saved her
a lot of heartache. Ain't hindsight wonderful?

She struggled at school. Dyslexic.
They don't like to diagnose them formally, because then they have to
offer support, which is costly, so they skirt around the issue. We
tried at home, but no matter how much effort she put in she still
ended up failing. Great! Just what a kid needs. In an attempt to
encourage success in other fields we invested in ballet, drum
lessons, karate, rock school, endless family based activities,
afternoons at the beach, camping holidays, coffee and cake in
tea-shops, weekly movie nights …

All the time we were also preparing our
child for the world outside, and it's rubbish. There's drugs,
unsatisfying sexual relationships, people who will manipulate you to
within an inch of your life, the future, the past and everything in
between. She was innocent, long blonde hair, big green eyes, but
innocence doesn't cut it. No. Life gets cut with credit cards,
citric acid, knives.

The other day, I was walking in
Brighton, just home from town. There's a wide alley, between
Barclays Bank and Clarkes the stationers. I was with my girls and
their grandmother. A car pulled up and parked on double yellows.
Four men got out. As one pulled on his jacket I noticed a gun tucked
into the waistband of his trousers. I averted my gaze pretty quick,
hoping he hadn't seen what I'd seen. THERE'S A MAN WITH A GUN!

How are you meant to negotiate this
with your children? If you see a man with a gun, make sure he
doesn't see you seeing him with his gun? Don't hang around by the
back of Sainsburys at the Gyratory, because that's where the smack
heads are, waiting for a deal, and if they haven't scored recently,
or haven't got the money to score, then they might behave like total
nutters. Don't walk through the park in the wee small hours
Especially don't walk through the park in the wee small hours wearing
a short skirt because that's just asking for it. Asking for what
goddammit? I don't even subscribe to that sort of shit, but here I
am trotting out Daily Mail lines and then trying to qualify them.
Thank god she did karate. Maybe that's worse, because now she thinks
she can handle things.

So yeah, what's the issue tonight?
Well, firstly she's trying to tie up all her school work, get her
course stuff ready for submission. This has been going on for about
a month. She's tired. She's frustrated. And on top of that she
finishes school in about 10 days. End of an era. She's been part of
a community for five years and it's going to disappear overnight.
Understandably she's somewhat upset, a bit at sea. Alright, I can
deal with that. She's being vile at home. Often happens. You've
got to push at something, at least if it's your mother you know she's
going to be able to absorb the force. That's kind of my job. But
the cheek, the bad mouthing, the sulking, the complete disobedience,
it's beginning to wear me down.

She has two friends round. I agreed to
that. Apparently I also agreed to her going to the beach and to
buying them a bottle of Smirnoff Ice. I have no recollection of
this. She asked while I was driving home yesterday. Perhaps I was
concentrating on the road, listening to the radio, away in a world of
my own, no bloody idea, but I didn't hear her. Now I've let her
down. She's angry with me and talking to me like I'm dirt. I'm
trying not to be angry with her, but I am, I really really am. I
wash for her, cook for her, clean for her and it's still not enough.
You know, it's very strange, living with a young adult who still
behaves childishly. They want the privileges of one while demanding
the attention of the other. I have no idea how to mediate the issues
…

Once upon a time she was my little
wonder. Right after I had her I remember sitting, staring into her
plastic fish-tank, watching her little fists being all bunched up,
and thinking 'that's my daughter, she'll always be my daughter, I'm
her mum'. She doesn't, and never has, felt that way about me. I'm
part of the furniture. She takes me for granted, as she should, my
love is unconditional …

I'm thinking about my own mother now,
and crying – see, look, this is what happens when you strip all the
experimentation away, I hate this sort of nakedness. We had an
argument once. I asked her why she didn't love me and then went and
hid. She came and found me and told me that one day I'd understand.
I didn't want it to be 'one day', I wanted it to be that very day.
She looked so forlorn. Her eyes went all watery. My mum had very
blue eyes, the palest I've ever seen. I'm sitting here now, just
remembering, and thinking maybe I'm collecting footsteps, following
her, making the same mistakes, and I'm feeling sorry for all the
trouble I caused her, all the times I made her doubt herself,
everything we missed about each other. She's dead. I'll never be
able to sort it out. I'm still angry with her and I'm still angry
with myself.

Jesus god, what do you people do with
this stuff? Where do you put it? Is it that you can forget? Have
to forget? Maybe I should try that.

My youngest kid, she's just noticed the
tears rolling down my face.

'Are you crying? Are you reading a sad
story?'

'Yes,' I said. I didn't tell her it
was mine, her sister's, probably her own. I don't know what to say.
Tell me what to say.

Powered by ScribeFire.