dialled 999.
One month ago
Kate sat at the breakfast table filling out more dreaded forms. Tanya had been back at Prospect House for three weeks now, and Kate had only just got round to doing the requisite paperwork. The girl had walked in as though she had never been away, turning up one Wednesday morning with her holdall and asking Tom what was for lunch. It was a relief to have her back.
‘Who’s Lydia?’
Kate turned round in surprise. She hadn’t heard Tanya come into the kitchen.
‘Sorry?’ The question had caught her off-guard.
‘Who is Lydia? You were shouting her name out last night. I thought about waking you and packing you off to bed, but you looked so snug on the sofa.’
‘Oh, well, thank you for not waking me, Tanya, that was very sweet. I must have dozed off while watching some rubbish on the telly.’
‘So?’
‘So what?’
‘Who is Lydia? You never said.’
Kate inhaled sharply.
‘Lydia is my daughter.’
‘Your daughter? I never knew you had one. Where is she?’
Kate swallowed the hard ball of tears that sat at the base of her throat. Imagine that. Tanya did not know that she was a mother to the most beautiful girl and boy on the planet, did not know that every time her hand touched the stretch marks on her lower abdomen, she was reminded of the joy of having carried another human. They were her greatest achievement and Tanya, who lived under her roof, did not know that she was someone’s mum.
‘I… well… she lives in Hallton in North Yorkshire, near her aunt, my sister.’
‘Do you ever see her?’
Tanya’s questioning was typically frank. Nothing was taboo in her world, no feelings too precious to trample on. ‘Are you using? Pregnant? Infected? Where is the bitch?’ For her this type of talk was just routine.
‘Not really. In fact, no, not at all, not for a while.’
‘It’s weird isn’t it.’
‘Yes. Yes, it is weird.’
Kate could only concur. But Tanya was not finished.
‘I mean, here’s you, being a mum to me and anyone else that needs one and yet you don’t see your own daughter!’
‘Oh my goodness, Tanya – if words were daggers…’
Kate put her hands over her eyes; she wanted to hide from the world.
‘Oh God, Kate! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. God, I keep doing that, don’t I? It’s just that I sometimes say what I think without checking with myself first.’
‘Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault. It’s just how it is – a horrible situation that haunts me every minute of every day. I miss her, Tanya, and my son, Dominic. I miss them both dreadfully.
‘I can’t understand it. My mum is totally rubbish and I can see her whenever I want, which I don’t. But you’re completely brilliant. If you were my mum, I’d want to see you all the time!’
‘Maybe your mum feels like me, did you ever think of that? Perhaps your mum would love to see you. You can call her any time you want, Tanya, you know that. Or you could write to her? She’s more than welcome to visit; we’ve got plenty of room.’
Tanya’s gaze was steady and the seconds ticked by in silence.
‘The last time I saw my mum was the night I got arrested. The police knocked on the door and she screamed at me cos she’d been woken up. I went into her bedroom; it stank and this filthy, hairy pig was starkers and out for the count in the middle of her bed. They’d both been using and he was out of it. I noticed the ashtray on the floor had a long sausage of ash that was still attached to the fag; you know, where it’s just been left to burn and gone out because you forget about it. This bothered me because I could see her burning the bloody place down; she’s not careful with stuff like that. I don’t know what I expected from her, but I knew I was in serious shit. I’d got away with stuff before, but I knew this time I was going down and to be honest, Kate, I was scared. I said to her “Help me, Mum” and do you know what she said? She lit a new fag and she said, “Shut the fucking door on your way out!” I haven’t spoken to her or seen her since. She has never been there for me or helped me and I’m really pissed off with myself for asking for her help on