I get on the train to Canterbury. Not sure why it feels like the right thing to do, but it’s been nagging at me. I dunno, maybe I’m reading too much into it, but the last couple of times we’ve spoken on the phone Mum’s sounded a bit fragile: keen to tell me how busy she is, and how much she’s got on.
I stare out of the window as the train pulls away, watching the familiar landmarks. I’ve sat on this same train countless times. An older man in an expensive-looking suit clears his throat in the chair opposite and spreads his newspaper over the table, and I feel a stab of grief. Weird how it hits you. It’s not the anniversaries or the birthdays, it’s the way a stranger shakes their newspaper open, or a song on the radio at the nurses’ station, that reminds you of what you’ve lost. I rub my face with both hands, screwing up my eyes and then opening them wide. I can’t remember not being tired. Everything’s just a blur of—
I wake up as we pull into the station at Canterbury, because someone knocks me on the shoulder with their bag as they’re pulling it down from the racks overhead.
‘Sorry, mate.’
‘You’ve done me a favour,’ I say gratefully. I stand up, blearily, and pull my ticket out of my pocket as I get off the train.
I see my mother before she sees me – she’s sitting in the car, waiting in the pick-up area beside the car park.
‘Hello, darling,’ she says, and gives me a kiss on the cheek.
‘Mum.’
‘I thought we could get a bit of lunch before we head home – go to the Red Lion?’ she says, and we pull out of the car park.
The pub’s busy, despite it being a weekday. We squeeze into a table in the corner and scan the menus.
‘I spoke to Gwen the other day,’ my mum says, casually.
I sit up and put the menu down. Mum carries on looking through the lunch options, as if we didn’t both know that she was going to have the same thing she always has when she comes here – ploughman’s lunch, no pickled onion, and half a pint of shandy.
‘What for?’ I ask.
I feel weirdly uncomfortable about that. Alice’s mum was nice enough, but the idea of her ringing is … weird. Is it weird? Maybe it’s perfectly normal for them to stay in touch.
‘You were going to marry her,’ Mum says, clearly reading my thoughts. ‘They would have been family. I thought it was nice.’
I make a vague noise of agreement. The last time I’d seen Alice had been anything but nice; we’d had a massive argument, where she’d made it more than clear that I was throwing my life away, ruining hers, and giving up a good career to (and I quote) piss about wiping people’s backsides for the rest of my life.
I go up to the bar and place our order. We chat about mundane things for a while, then when our food arrives, Mum launches into a long list of all the things she’s doing to keep herself busy. She’s got a pretty full-on job as a social worker for the local council, so I’m a bit worried she’s filling every second with things to avoid dealing with how she’s feeling.
‘I’m not overstretching myself, darling,’ she says, when I suggest she might need a bit more down time. She looks at me for a moment. ‘Have you just done a module on grief, or something like that?’
My mouth twists into a smile despite myself. ‘Yes, I might have – but that doesn’t mean I’m not right.’
‘Your dad’s health took up a lot of my time for the two years before he died. I had to give up pretty much everything apart from work and hospital visits, and then caring for him, and taking him to and from the hospice …’
‘I know.’
‘I still don’t see how all of that – that dreadful time – made you want to give up a perfectly good career.’
‘You know this.’ I try and keep my voice level. I feel like I’ve had this conversation a million times over and it’s like every time I see her – or anyone else in the family – they listen, then hit the reset button in their minds as soon as they walk away. The only person who actually gets it is Mel, my sister, but she’s in New York, working her arse off on a secondment. Which reminds me, I must give her a call. WhatsApp is all very well, but it’d be nice to get a shot of her calm, measured approach to life, just to remind me I’m not insane.
‘You’re a social worker,’ I say as I butter a bread roll, then look at her. ‘You chose a job where you see some of the worst things in our community and deal with them on a daily basis.’
‘Yes, but I’m making a difference,’ she says.
I push my chair back in surprise and look at her, both hands pressed against the edge of the table. ‘And I’m not?’
‘Dad still died, didn’t he?’
‘Not because of nurses. He didn’t die because the nurses did something wrong.’
She shakes her head. ‘I just don’t understand how you’d want to spend your life in one of those places.’ She shudders then, and her face drops. ‘Hospitals. They’re like a prison.’
‘It’s nothing like that. We make a difference. That’s why I do it – that’s why I’m doing it. I can’t believe you’d honestly think that.’
‘I’m sorry, Alex,’ she says. She dips her head for a moment and when she looks up at me there are tears shining in her eyes, threatening to spill over and trickle down her cheeks. ‘I just – I go cold thinking about Dad in there. And the doctor telling us there was nothing they could do. And …’
The threatened tears leak out and she dabs at them with a paper napkin, unrolling a knife and fork to get to it, and leaving them lying askew on the table.
‘It’s not a bad job. We’re not in the habit of killing people off.’
‘It just makes me so sad to think of you spending every day somewhere so depressing.’
‘It’s not depressing,’ I say.
I think of the orthopaedic ward where I’d been doing agency work the other day, where three elderly women – all broken hips – were exchanging stories on how they’d got their injuries. Margaret, aged ninety-one, had been halfway up a ladder redecorating her dining room when she’d lost her footing and fallen. They were full of life and laughter and they’d spent the entire day winding me up. I got the usual good-humoured male nurse jokes of course – if I had a tenner for every one of those, I’d be able to retire before I even graduated – but they were a lovely lot. And when a girl of about twenty had turned up – tearful and clearly in a lot of pain – with a badly broken leg from an ice-skating competition, they’d all cheered her up, making jokes across the little four-person side ward. That sort of thing – that’s what makes it worth it.
‘Well,’ says my mother, sounding a bit dubious. ‘As long as you’re happy.’
‘I am,’ I say.
She chats about her pottery class and the outdoor swimming club she’s joined, and I listen and make the right noises. I think if I told her about Margaret and the girls in the orthopaedic ward, she’d probably get it, but I can’t face it. I’m tired of trying to convince people that I’ve done the right thing when there are others out there who don’t need to be told. Look at Jess. She understands. She gave up a good job and stability and all the rest of it to follow her dream of working in publishing. I shake my head and bring my focus back to what my mother’s saying.
‘She’s okay then?’ Mel’s on the phone from New York as I’m sitting on the train back to London, later that evening. She’s about to go into a lunchtime meeting when she takes my call, and I’m trying to keep my voice down and not be one of those wankers making a call at the top of my voice.
‘Yeah, she’s good. I think you’d say she’s keeping busy.’
‘Sounded a bit manic to me.’
‘Nah,’ I say back, even though it’s exactly what I was worried about. ‘She’s fine. Just getting on with stuff.’
‘How about you?’ Mel asks.
‘All right. Tired. Always tired.’
‘Quit moaning,’ Mel says, laughing. ‘You chose this. You could’ve been sitting at a desk between meetings with your feet up, looking out over Manhattan like I am.’
‘No thanks,’ I say honestly. I picture it and can’t think of anything worse.
‘How’s the house working out? Still in the honeymoon period with your fellow residents?’
‘Pretty much. Everyone’s pretty easy-going so it’s no stress.’
‘And what’s the deal with Emma?’
Gah, I wish I’d never mentioned it to her. Every time I speak to Mel she winds me up about my ‘house romance’.
‘Nothing. I need to knock it on the head properly. I’ve got way too much on to be getting caught up in relationship stuff.’
‘I knew it,’ she crows. ‘You are so not the friends with benefits sort. You’ve always been way too straight.’
‘I am not,’ I protest, but I know she’s right.
‘You so are. That’s how you ended up with Alice. If you hadn’t taken an uncharacteristic left turn and given up your job you’d be well on the way to domestic bliss in Surrey.’
‘Shut up,’ I say, laughing.
‘Got to go,’ Mel says suddenly. ‘I can see them heading into the meeting room. Message me and let me know what happens with the whole Emma thing. She might go psycho on you and screw up your domestic bliss.’
I put the phone down on the table in front of me and close my eyes. I think Mel’s reading way too much into this.
I hope she is, anyway.