His & Hers

The cottage used to be beautiful, but, a bit like the woman inside, it has not aged well. Anna’s mother was a woman who knew how to make a house a home, and it was always by far the nicest cottage on the lane. Picture perfect. At least on the outside. People used to actually stop and take photos because it looked like a doll’s house with its pretty little garden, window boxes and white picket fence. Nobody stops to take photos of it anymore.

But, back then, she was so good at cleaning, tidying and making a place feel cosy, that she did it for a living. Anna’s mum cleaned for half the village for over twenty years – including the house where I live now – and she didn’t just clean. She’d buy scented candles and flowers and leave them in people’s homes. Occasionally she’d bake a batch of brownies and leave them on the kitchen table. She even babysat my sister from time to time too. Sometimes, it was just the way she made the bed, or plumped the pillows, but you always knew when Mrs Andrews had paid a visit. She was never short of work or references.

I wait in the car. When nothing happens, I wait a little longer, but then the familiar mix of boredom and anticipation distracts me, and I get out to stretch my legs. I walk along the street, keeping an eye on the house, then stop to examine Anna’s Mini. There is nothing out of the ordinary about it – aside from the garish red colour – there are no dents, no marks, no scratches. I don’t even know why I’m doing this. I guess sometimes in my line of work – as well as in life – you don’t always know what you’re looking for until you find it.

And then I do.

I see a pay-and-display car park ticket with a familiar National Trust logo on the floor of the passenger seat. Discarded and slightly crumpled, the small square of printed white paper doesn’t seem like anything of significance at first. I know she parked outside the woods this morning – I was there, I saw her. But I’m surprised that anyone in the media would have paid any attention to the parking meter, given the circumstances. I’m sure the National Trust was far more concerned with a body being found on its property, than a few people forgetting to pay and display.

I stare at it a while longer, without knowing why, as though my eyes are patiently waiting for my brain to catch up with what they have seen. Then I check my watch before looking back at the ticket one last time. The date. It isn’t today’s. I push my face right up against the car window, squinting inside until I am absolutely sure of what I see. According to that little square of black-and-white paper, Anna visited the car park where the body was found yesterday.

I look up and down the street as though wanting to share this information with another human being, to have them verify that it is real.

Then I hear a woman scream.

Her

Tuesday 10:15

I stop screaming when my mother opens her eyes.

She looks as terrified as I feel at first, but then the creases in the skin around her mouth stretch into a smile, her face lights up in recognition, and she starts to laugh.

‘Anna? You scared me!’

Her voice is the same as it always was, as though she is still the middle-aged mum I remember, not the old woman sitting in front of me now. I find it disorientating, how what I see and what I hear don’t match. My mother is only seventy, but life ages some people more quickly than others, and she was on a fast track for a long time, fuelled by drink and long periods of depression I never acknowledged or understood. There are things children choose not to see in their parents; sometimes it is best to walk past a mirror without stopping to look at your reflection.

She continues to laugh, but I don’t. I feel like a child again and can’t seem to find any words to fit the scenario. I am shocked by the state of her and the house, and have a terrible urge to turn around, walk out, and leave this place for ever. And not for the first time.

‘Did you think I was dead?’

She smiles and pulls herself up and out of the chair. It looks as though it requires considerable effort.

I let her hug me. I’m a little out of practice when it comes to affection – I can’t remember the last time someone held me – but I try not to cry and eventually remember to respond. It is a long time before either of us lets go. Despite the general chaos, there are still photos of me as a child dotted everywhere around the house. I feel them looking down at us, from the walls and dusty shelves, and I know all those earlier versions of myself would not approve of the me I am now. Every single picture that she ever framed is of me aged fifteen or younger. As though I stopped ageing in my mother’s head after that.

‘Let me look at you,’ she says, though I doubt her misty eyes can see me like they used to. We share an unspoken conversation about the number of months it has been since we last saw each other. All families have their own version of normal, and long periods of absence without explanation are ours. We both know why.

‘Mum, the house… the mess… the boxes. What is going on?’

‘I’m moving out. It’s time. Would you like some tea?’

She shuffles past me, out of the conservatory and into the kitchen, somehow finding the kettle among all the dirty cups and plates. She turns on the tap to fill it, and the elderly pipes rattle in protest. They make a strained noise, as though they are as tired and broken as she looks to me now. She places the kettle on the hob, because she thinks gas is cheaper than electricity.

‘Take care of the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves,’ she says with a smile, as though reading my mind.

I instantly think of myself as the bad penny who just turned up, and wonder if she is thinking the same. The silence is stretched and awkward while we wait for the kettle to boil.

My mother wasn’t always a cleaner, but everything about her and our home was always neat and tidy, spick and span, clean. It was as though she was allergic to dirt, and I think I may have inherited her OCD approach to hygiene. Though looking around now, that has clearly changed.

My parents bought this house so that we would be in the right catchment area for a good school. When I still didn’t get a place at a decent public one, they decided to pay for a private education, even though we couldn’t really afford it. My dad was away for work even more than before after that, but it was what they both wanted: to give me the start in life that neither of them had. For me, it was the start of a lifetime of not fitting in.

I was fifteen when he disappeared for good. That’s more than old enough to walk home alone from school, but Mum said she would pick me up that day. When she wasn’t there, I was furious. I thought she had just forgotten about me. Other people’s parents didn’t forget. Other people’s parents turned up on time, in their fancy cars, wearing their fancy clothes, ready and waiting to take their offspring back to their fancy houses to eat their fancy dinners. I seemed to have little in common with the other children at my school.

I walked home in the rain that day, with my backpack, gym kit, and art portfolio. It was all so heavy that I had to keep swapping which hand carried what. There was no hood on my coat, and it wasn’t possible to carry an umbrella as well as everything else, so I was completely drenched before I was even halfway. I remember the rain trickling down the back of my neck, and the tears running down my cheeks. Not because of the bags, or the rain, but because earlier that day Sarah Healey had said, in front of the whole class, that I had a Jewish nose. I didn’t know what that meant or why it was a bad thing, but everyone had laughed at me. I planned to ask my mother about it as soon as I got home.