hands down on the steering wheel. She knows I don’t want to hear about him; she knows that the thought of him, this person who has never been anything in my life, makes me pulsate with anger – all the more because I hate the fact that I care enough about the man who didn’t want me to even feel so much fury now. ‘Don’t tell me to go and see him. Don’t!’
‘Caitlin, you and me, we were always so close when it was just the two of us. Three, if you include Gran. And I always thought that was enough, and I would still think that if it weren’t for …’
‘No!’ I am adamant, the tears springing into my eyes. ‘No, this doesn’t make any difference.’
‘It does make a difference. The difference is that it’s made me see I was wrong to think you could do without knowing about him, and wrong to bring you up without your ever knowing, and … and, look, the thing is, I have to tell you something. Something you won’t like.’
Mum stops mid-sentence – not to think or to pause; she just stops – and after several moments, I realise that whatever she was going to say has been lost over the cliff edge. She sits there quietly, oblivious to the rage grasping at my chest, theanxiety and confusion; she smiles serenely, waiting patiently for something to happen. And then I just can’t hold it in any more, and the tears come, lots of them. I rest my head against the centre of the steering wheel, gripping on to it as tightly as I can. I feel my whole body shudder and shake, and I hear myself repeating, over and over again, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’
I cannot imagine a time when this sobbing will stop and I will be able to turn the engine on again. It feels like we might stay here for ever, just like this, and then I hear Mum release the seat belt and I feel her lean over, putting her arms around my neck.
‘It’s OK,’ she coos softly in my ear. ‘Who’s my big brave girl, hey? It was a shock, that’s all, but you’ll see in the morning that you’ll have a bruise to be proud of. My big brave girl. I love you, chicken.’
I fall into her arms and let her comfort me, because whatever day it is, whichever moment of our lives she is reliving right now, I just wish I could be there with her, back there in the time when a kiss and a hug made everything OK.
When I finally pull into the drive, and open the front door for Mum, I realise I still haven’t told her my secret. And there is something else: she still hasn’t told me hers.
Sunday, 10 March 1991
Claire
This is a letter from Caitlin’s father.
He wrote the date at the top of the letter, in his bold black spirally handwriting that soared and sloped across the page. His handwriting alone showed me that he was artistic, unconventional, dangerous and fascinating … and he had written me a letter.
Letters weren’t such a rarity then: I wrote to my mum from uni, and to my uni friends in the holidays. But I’d never had a letter from a boy before, and even if it isn’t exactly a love letter, that is why I kept it. I think I expected it to be the first of many, but there was only one.
I read it now, and I can see what I didn’t see then. It’s a snare, a trap. A carefully constructed ruse to lure me in – to make me feel clever, and as if I must be something special to be so worthy of his attention. This wasn’t in the words he wrote – it was the letter itself that was supposed to show me he was wooing me. The words were almost inconsequential.
It arrived at some point during the night. I slept on the ground floor, in what had once been a front room but was now an extra bedroom in our shared house. It was my damp little hovel, strewn with clothes, posters lining the walls. It smelled of washing that’s been left in the machine too long. Whenever I smell that, I’m right back there in that room, staring at the gas fire on the wall, waiting for life to really begin.
That morning, the morning the letter came, when I pulled back my curtains
‘Caitlin, you and me, we were always so close when it was just the two of us. Three, if you include Gran. And I always thought that was enough, and I would still think that if it weren’t for …’
‘No!’ I am adamant, the tears springing into my eyes. ‘No, this doesn’t make any difference.’
‘It does make a difference. The difference is that it’s made me see I was wrong to think you could do without knowing about him, and wrong to bring you up without your ever knowing, and … and, look, the thing is, I have to tell you something. Something you won’t like.’
Mum stops mid-sentence – not to think or to pause; she just stops – and after several moments, I realise that whatever she was going to say has been lost over the cliff edge. She sits there quietly, oblivious to the rage grasping at my chest, theanxiety and confusion; she smiles serenely, waiting patiently for something to happen. And then I just can’t hold it in any more, and the tears come, lots of them. I rest my head against the centre of the steering wheel, gripping on to it as tightly as I can. I feel my whole body shudder and shake, and I hear myself repeating, over and over again, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’
I cannot imagine a time when this sobbing will stop and I will be able to turn the engine on again. It feels like we might stay here for ever, just like this, and then I hear Mum release the seat belt and I feel her lean over, putting her arms around my neck.
‘It’s OK,’ she coos softly in my ear. ‘Who’s my big brave girl, hey? It was a shock, that’s all, but you’ll see in the morning that you’ll have a bruise to be proud of. My big brave girl. I love you, chicken.’
I fall into her arms and let her comfort me, because whatever day it is, whichever moment of our lives she is reliving right now, I just wish I could be there with her, back there in the time when a kiss and a hug made everything OK.
When I finally pull into the drive, and open the front door for Mum, I realise I still haven’t told her my secret. And there is something else: she still hasn’t told me hers.
Sunday, 10 March 1991
Claire
This is a letter from Caitlin’s father.
He wrote the date at the top of the letter, in his bold black spirally handwriting that soared and sloped across the page. His handwriting alone showed me that he was artistic, unconventional, dangerous and fascinating … and he had written me a letter.
Letters weren’t such a rarity then: I wrote to my mum from uni, and to my uni friends in the holidays. But I’d never had a letter from a boy before, and even if it isn’t exactly a love letter, that is why I kept it. I think I expected it to be the first of many, but there was only one.
I read it now, and I can see what I didn’t see then. It’s a snare, a trap. A carefully constructed ruse to lure me in – to make me feel clever, and as if I must be something special to be so worthy of his attention. This wasn’t in the words he wrote – it was the letter itself that was supposed to show me he was wooing me. The words were almost inconsequential.
It arrived at some point during the night. I slept on the ground floor, in what had once been a front room but was now an extra bedroom in our shared house. It was my damp little hovel, strewn with clothes, posters lining the walls. It smelled of washing that’s been left in the machine too long. Whenever I smell that, I’m right back there in that room, staring at the gas fire on the wall, waiting for life to really begin.
That morning, the morning the letter came, when I pulled back my curtains
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