The Mother And Daughter Diaries. Clare Shaw

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       TWO

      BEFORE I started to write it all down, I wrote ‘Lily Finnegan’ at the top of the page. Then I found out Mum had done the same thing. Like this is all about Lily or something. Well, maybe it is. I’m not writing my life story—nothing like that. How can I? I’m still a teenager and everything stretches out before me. But I had to write about this slice of my life be-cause Lily told me to. And because it changed things. For ever.

      Did I have a happy childhood? Kind of. My parents divorced. Shit time but a lot of kids go through it. It was easier for my sister, Eliza. She thinks she’s in a play or a film. That’s why she’s happier than me.

      I was happy being me once. It was when I stopped being me that it went wrong. I couldn’t put a date on it—‘I got screwed up on 20th April 2001’—nothing like that. I just remember that I had to perform, so I started to pretend. And I guess the performance gradually took over from reality. I knew how to make other people happy—you just pretend to be who they want you to be. Act your knickers off. Smile on top, cry underneath. I can see all that now, but there was no set plan at the time. It just happened. I totally lost control of me.

      One of my biggest performances was at my cousin Victoria’s wedding when I played the part of the perfect daughter. Oscar-winning stuff, but my mask slipped off. I went out of character. I let the real me show through, and raw emotions frighten people. I wasn’t the only one playing a part. I had a talented supporting cast. Mum was acting out the role of the perfect mother of a jolly happy Sunday roast family. Me? I was eager to please, but at that time I didn’t understand why.

      When I got up that day and saw the dress hanging there, it looked boring and ordinary. It was suitable—for the weather, for the occasion, for someone who was frightened of standing out in the crowd yet who wanted to. The part of me that wanted to stand out felt a sort of regret. I draped the dress onto me and looked in the mirror. It looked better than it had in the shop. There would be boys at the wedding and I looked good. I had lost some weight for the event and the dress hung off me as if it were on a coat hanger. Perfect. Victoria would be the one in the wedding dress. I knew I would be envious. She was the one with the boyfriend, soon to be husband, but I was slim and very nearly elegant. And he might go off her.

      Sixteen and no boyfriend. Sad or what?

      Eliza came in.

      ‘Where’s your dress?’ I asked.

      ‘Oh, I’m wearing this,’ she explained casually, fiddling with the make-up on my table.

      I was stunned. It hadn’t occurred to me that you could do that. Ignore the dress put out by your mother.

      Eliza started to sing.

      ‘Get out, Eliza, there’s no singing in here.’

      Eliza made me feel like a blob.

      ‘Hello, I’m Jo, Lizzie’s eldest daughter,’ I practised.

      Mum came in and sighed. She was relieved to see the version of the daughter she wanted.

      ‘Do I look fat in this?’ I asked.

      She laughed. People don’t always pick up their cues in this pantomime we call life. I told Mum I was excited about the wedding. I told Eliza it would be fun. Sometimes saying it can even make it happen and I think I was excited, but my feelings were damp that day. Ever since getting my GCSE results, it felt as if the only emotion that dared speak its mind was anger.

      I remember sitting upright in the car when we drove up to the school on results day.

      ‘You’ll be fine,’ Mum had said. It was expected. By the school, by Mum, by me. Expectation had its own pressure. Failure would be a steep fall, and I was nervous when I glanced at the piece of paper in my sweaty palm. Eight A* grades, four A grades. Best results in the school. Nearly perfect. I felt relief and pride and ecstatic joy. For about four minutes, before a feeling of disappointment and then indifference misted up my mind and dampened the positive stuff. I felt like screaming out, ‘So what!’ I phoned up friends and relatives, hoping their pleasure and excitement would transfer to me. Like catching chickenpox. But I was immune. A blob.

      Still, I think I really did feel excited about the wedding. Underneath. Perhaps I had just forgotten how to let my emotions show, like a Coke bottle with the cap stuck on. Even shaking it up wouldn’t help get the fizz out.

      Mum sorted out the seating arrangements in the car. She organised who could choose the radio stations. She controlled the steering-wheel and the conversation. We sang and laughed and it sounded like happiness. Or something…We had to drive all the way to the end of Norfolk, miles and miles and miles. The end of the world.

      Mum drove in trainers. She had gone on and on about her new shoes. Mostly she goes on and on about my exams, on and on about Eliza’s talents, on and on about the food she sells at work and on and on about how you have to laugh. No option—you have to laugh. These are permanent ramblings, they never change and she recycles them on a daily basis, like the repeats on TV—you know what’s coming but there’s nothing else to tune in to. Then there are the new episodes. Like the shoes.

      When we arrived, Eliza leant over the back of the seat and retrieved the shoes. Giggling, we hid them behind our backs and waited for Mum to open the boot and think she’d forgotten them.

      We often played jokes on Mum. And on Dad. Mum and I often played jokes on Eliza. But nobody ever played a joke on me. People were too careful with me. As if I had a ‘Handle with Care’ sticker across my soul. Was I really that fragile, even then?

      The church was beautiful, with flowers and everyone dressed up and the choir and the organ. It was so traditional and sort of old-fashioned. And everyone was looking warmly at Victoria, pleased she was so happy. I wanted to be pleased for her, but jealousy is in my blood. I could feel it then, pumping around my arteries, and nothing could stop the flow. Jealousy is hot. It makes blood simmer, gently at first, then violently. You cannot see, hear, feel, taste or touch anything. Not in your own skin. Not if you want to be in someone else’s skin. Feel what they’re feeling, see what they’re seeing.

      ‘Very young, but in the circumstances…’

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