I’ll let Jo tell you all about it.’
‘I think that’s a good idea, Mrs. Trounce. Perhaps you would like to wait outside. Is that all right with you, Joanna?’
I looked at Jo as if she were at school, choosing who she wanted to be her partner.
‘That’s fine,’ she said eventually.
‘I don’t usually wait outside,’ I objected. ‘I mean, she is my daughter.’
‘Mum…’
So I left the room like someone who has just failed a job interview and been eliminated for saying the wrong thing, only to sit in the waiting room and wonder what was being said about me. At least, I thought, the day couldn’t get any worse. It could.
‘Hello, Lizzie, I’m glad I ran into you.’
There stood the wonderful Alice, not looking the slightest bit ill. Still, it’s hard to look sick in an Armani suit. I wondered what to say about Jo and thought about hinting at head lice, but Alice had other things on her mind.
‘Have you been painting Jo’s room?’ she asked.
‘Yes, it was a surprise.’
‘Only I think we’ve ended up with your paint. Of course Mother’s got very muddled about it. I think you must have our tins of pink.’
‘No, I’ve got the right paint, thanks. Maybe your mother wanted a black and purple bathroom.’
‘How did you know she had black and purple paint?’
‘Just a guess.’
‘Are you here with Jo?’ Alice asked—rather nosily, I thought.
For one second, I wanted to tell her the truth, to take the forced smile off my face and explain how bad everything was.
‘It’s that time of year,’ I said instead, the smile remaining rigidly in place.
Just then the door to Dr Robinson’s surgery opened and out came Jo.
‘Hi, Alice,’ Jo muttered.
‘Hello, Jo, it’s good to see you.’
I bundled Jo out of the surgery as quickly as I could before Alice asked any of her awkward questions. I thought I was protecting my daughter but perhaps I was trying to protect myself. I didn’t stop to think seriously as to why Alice was visiting the doctor, my mind was too full of Jo.
‘All right?’ I asked as we got into the car. But what exactly was I asking?
‘Yeah.’
‘Do you need to make another appointment?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Let’s do it now, then.’
‘No. I meant not another appointment.’
‘What do you mean? Do you or do you not need another appointment?’
Maybe it’s all right to use a sharp, brittle, bad-mother’s voice if you say sorry afterwards. Sorry is the magic word your own mother told you about. It turns you into Saint Mary.
‘Sorry,’ I muttered. ‘It’s just…’
‘I know.’
We looked at each other. For just a moment there seemed to be some joint understanding, some mutual emotion be-tween us as if we were in it together, like musicians playing the same tune. But anxiety separates us from others. Laughter is a joint, shared display of emotion. You do anxiety on your own, even if it is in parallel.
We were silent on the way home and then I insisted on conversation, a sharing of information, my right to know. I stood firm. Jo tried to push me away, exclude me, fly solo, but I persuaded her I was there for her. This was not intrusion, this was loving care, wasn’t it? They should extend those nanny-knows-best programmes to include stuff like this.
When in doubt, put the kettle on. Jo drank her coffee black. I sloshed some milk into mine and dunked a digestive into the hot liquid. We needed our drinks to focus on, to keep our hands busy, avert our eyes, give us something to do, a reason for sitting across from one another at the kitchen table. This was a chat over coffee, not an interrogation. Pauses were necessary to sip our drinks, not as a withholding of information or feelings.
‘I’ve been referred to the eating disorders clinic.’
I felt the hot coffee drip down the back of my throat and warm my oesophagus. I could almost sense it arriving in my stomach. Its warmth was in welcome contrast to the cold, stark message from Jo. Yet still my fingernails clung onto a cliff edge that was not really there.
That’s good. At least we know what’s wrong now. I feel so much happier and calmer now I know. I could walk on air, skip through daisies, holding your hand as I guide you though this difficult time…
But those words were erased by fear and anger before they reached my lips.
‘How does that bloody doctor know anything? Is he going to carry out any tests? Is he an expert on eating disorders or does he spend all day looking at gout, verrucas and snot? I think we should try another doctor.’
‘I knew this would happen,’ Jo snapped.
‘Knew what would happen?’
‘You’d go all hysterical.’
‘I’m not hysterical.’
‘I’ve seen the bloody doctor, I’m going to the bloody clinic. What more do you want? Sorry I’m not the perfect daughter.’
That sounded ridiculous to me. Why would I want a perfect daughter? I just wanted Jo, Jo as she was, with all her ups and downs, faults and blemishes, the whole package. But the eating disorder was wrong, it just didn’t fit, it wasn’t part of Jo. It was like one of those modern conservatories tacked onto the front of a beautiful, old, beamed Tudor house. Like a down-and-out with a bottle of meths and a Gucci handbag. I tried to change my anger into gentle understanding.
‘All I’m doing is giving you some support. Perhaps I should have just let you walk to the doctor’s.’
Oops, I had played my joker—the guilt card.
Guilt goes with motherhood. Guilt because we dare to go out to work, guilt because we failed to buy Barbie’s health spa, jacuzzi and leg-waxing centre three Christmases ago, guilt be-cause we sometimes buy pre-packed, e-numbered, shove-in-the-microwave suppers. And every now and then we try to disperse all that guilt in another direction.
Jo raged upstairs, stamping her feet on every step and leaving me sitting there like a damp firework. I knew I wasn’t handling this very well but I felt out of control. Something was happening that I couldn’t keep tabs on, it was running away with me, spinning out of my hands. I felt frustrated, inadequate, out of my depth. I just sat there, staring into my coffee-mug, weighed down by thoughts and emotions. I don’t know how long I remained in that position, but when Jo appeared in the kitchen
