“Your mother’s not well,” he’d say. Those mornings he’d put out our
breakfast cereal himself. It would be quiet in the house, a flat, dull feeling, as if the tension had been drained away. I
would creep into their bedroom before I went to school, needing to be sure she was alive: She’d be asleep, or pretending to
sleep, her back toward the doorway, but I’d be able to see the blankets moving with her breathing.
Afterward, he’d buy her flowers. Once I came back from school earlier than Ursula—we normally walked home together, but she
must have stayed for art club—and there were flowers, great blowsy bouquets, roses, arum lilies, too many for the room: She’d
put them in two vases, and she was sitting there between them, surrounded by all these heavy, polleny blossoms, her face swollen,
the bruises bright as the toxic stream in our garden. She held her head very still, as though it was breakable, moving her
whole body when she turned as I came in. Her bruised face frightened me, the fragile skin shiny, ugly, the paint box of bruising.
I hated the way the bloating distorted her face, as if she wasn’t the mother I knew anymore. I wished that Ursula were there.
The room was full of the sore-throat smell of Dettol and the clingy sweetness of roses.
“He’s very sorry, Ginnie,” she said. “You mustn’t think too badly of him. He doesn’t know what got into him.”
I didn’t say anything. I should have gone and held her, but I hated her being so ugly and weak, so broken. I left her and
went upstairs. I tidied my bedroom and got on with my homework. Doing it immaculately, all so neat and fastidious, measuring
out the margin with absolute precision.
I think they tried to get help once. I was about thirteen. It was an odd day, everything out of shape, both of them wearing
their Sunday-best clothes on a Wednesday, our father in his churchwarden suit, our mother wearing her best Ponds coral lipstick
and a blouse in oyster silk with buttons that looked like pearls. She kissed me when we said good-bye, holding my face in
her hands to be sure she had my attention. Her voice was hushed and secret.
“It’s going to be all right now,” she said. “We’re seeing a special doctor. We’re going to get things sorted out.” Whispering
to me: It made me feel so special. “D’you mind not telling Ursula? I don’t want her getting all worried.”
Auntie Carol picked us up from school. We had our tea in her kitchen. For dessert, there were tinned peach halves, rounded
side up, in a pool of Carnation milk—she said they looked like poached eggs. She seemed very pleased with herself; she thought
this might amuse us. Ursula and I ate diligently, though we’d never had Carnation before, and its sweetness made my teeth
hurt. I was longing to be back home, for our happy new life to begin.
But that night our mother was quiet, with a gray look in spite of the cheerful coral lipstick. She didn’t tell me anything.
A few weeks later, it all began again.
I don’t think people did talk about us; I don’t think anyone knew. I once heard Mary Grayson of the lesbian daughter say to
my mother, “I saw your Brian in the flower shop. Those were lovely flowers he got you. He’s so romantic, your Brian. You’re
lucky to have found yourself a man who’s so romantic.”
We grew up and went our separate ways, Ursula and I—we’re very different people—yet each of us perhaps seeking to heal what
happened, to re-create childhood as a gentle place: me within the containing walls of my clinic, Ursula between the covers
of her fairy-tale books. I can see this clearly now, though at the time it was quite unconscious and our choices seemed to
follow from other imperatives—Ursula’s very evident talent, and my sudden infatuation with psychology, at the age of fifteen,
after finding a tattered paperback on Jung’s archetypes in the secondhand book stall at the church
breakfast cereal himself. It would be quiet in the house, a flat, dull feeling, as if the tension had been drained away. I
would creep into their bedroom before I went to school, needing to be sure she was alive: She’d be asleep, or pretending to
sleep, her back toward the doorway, but I’d be able to see the blankets moving with her breathing.
Afterward, he’d buy her flowers. Once I came back from school earlier than Ursula—we normally walked home together, but she
must have stayed for art club—and there were flowers, great blowsy bouquets, roses, arum lilies, too many for the room: She’d
put them in two vases, and she was sitting there between them, surrounded by all these heavy, polleny blossoms, her face swollen,
the bruises bright as the toxic stream in our garden. She held her head very still, as though it was breakable, moving her
whole body when she turned as I came in. Her bruised face frightened me, the fragile skin shiny, ugly, the paint box of bruising.
I hated the way the bloating distorted her face, as if she wasn’t the mother I knew anymore. I wished that Ursula were there.
The room was full of the sore-throat smell of Dettol and the clingy sweetness of roses.
“He’s very sorry, Ginnie,” she said. “You mustn’t think too badly of him. He doesn’t know what got into him.”
I didn’t say anything. I should have gone and held her, but I hated her being so ugly and weak, so broken. I left her and
went upstairs. I tidied my bedroom and got on with my homework. Doing it immaculately, all so neat and fastidious, measuring
out the margin with absolute precision.
I think they tried to get help once. I was about thirteen. It was an odd day, everything out of shape, both of them wearing
their Sunday-best clothes on a Wednesday, our father in his churchwarden suit, our mother wearing her best Ponds coral lipstick
and a blouse in oyster silk with buttons that looked like pearls. She kissed me when we said good-bye, holding my face in
her hands to be sure she had my attention. Her voice was hushed and secret.
“It’s going to be all right now,” she said. “We’re seeing a special doctor. We’re going to get things sorted out.” Whispering
to me: It made me feel so special. “D’you mind not telling Ursula? I don’t want her getting all worried.”
Auntie Carol picked us up from school. We had our tea in her kitchen. For dessert, there were tinned peach halves, rounded
side up, in a pool of Carnation milk—she said they looked like poached eggs. She seemed very pleased with herself; she thought
this might amuse us. Ursula and I ate diligently, though we’d never had Carnation before, and its sweetness made my teeth
hurt. I was longing to be back home, for our happy new life to begin.
But that night our mother was quiet, with a gray look in spite of the cheerful coral lipstick. She didn’t tell me anything.
A few weeks later, it all began again.
I don’t think people did talk about us; I don’t think anyone knew. I once heard Mary Grayson of the lesbian daughter say to
my mother, “I saw your Brian in the flower shop. Those were lovely flowers he got you. He’s so romantic, your Brian. You’re
lucky to have found yourself a man who’s so romantic.”
We grew up and went our separate ways, Ursula and I—we’re very different people—yet each of us perhaps seeking to heal what
happened, to re-create childhood as a gentle place: me within the containing walls of my clinic, Ursula between the covers
of her fairy-tale books. I can see this clearly now, though at the time it was quite unconscious and our choices seemed to
follow from other imperatives—Ursula’s very evident talent, and my sudden infatuation with psychology, at the age of fifteen,
after finding a tattered paperback on Jung’s archetypes in the secondhand book stall at the church
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