I take a Quality Street tin off the bottom shelf. This is mine. I take off the tin’s rusty lid and sift through the old photographs inside. There’s me winning the long jump at school; me dressed as Fred Flintstone for Halloween; me and Dad on a canal boat, both gripping enamel mugs. I can’t remember the days these pictures were taken, but I know the photographs so well that they feel like memories. When I see the canal boat photo, for instance, I think about the taste of hot cocoa. It’s possible that we were actually drinking tea.
At the bottom of the pile, there are six pictures that I know even better than any of the others:
1. Mum is a baby, trying to eat her christening gown.
2. Mum is a teenager, sitting on a bed with two girls and a boy, wearing bell-bottoms, laughing.
3. Mum is lying on a sun lounger next to a swimming pool, wearing a bikini. The photograph is taken from above, presumably from a hotel balcony. My mum looks as though she’s sleeping peacefully.
4. Mum is blinking, holding hands with my dad in front of a sparsely decorated Christmas tree. Mum is at least six centimetres taller than Dad. Dad’s pupils are glowing red.
5. Mum is in the house my dad still lives in, lying on the sofa he still sits on. I am on the sofa too. We are staring at something off-camera, probably the television. There are two cans of beer on the coffee table.
6. Mum is sitting in front of an IBM computer, wearing a brown smock. I, the photographer, am looking up at Mum at a wonky angle, cutting her head out of the picture. There’s a bottle of Smirnoff on her desk.
I know my mother was a genius because of the things my dad has told me. About how she used to spend fifteen hours a day at her desk, and even then, she would wake up three or four times a night, scribbling notes on a pad beside the bed. I wonder how someone so focused on her high-flying career in IT felt about having me. Is it a coincidence that the photographs I’m in also have alcohol in them? Or was her heavy drinking by the end a way of trying to calm her busy mind?
I share Mum’s passion for work. And being a saturation diver doesn’t exactly mesh with motherhood. Working away from home for big chunks of time. Risking my health—my life, even. Also, I’m self-employed. That means no maternity leave. No contract. If I choose to have a baby, I need to prepare myself for the possibility that I may never do the job I love again.
My best friend, Anouk, is a practising physiotherapist. We haven’t discussed how she feels about her work-life balance since she adopted Nike. She’s never complained, so I’ve always assumed it’s going just fine.
I send a text message asking if I can come over. By the time I’ve put the pictures of my mother back in the tin, I’ve had a reply. She says: Yes. Please. Now.
I’m off to see my Mum Friend, I think experimentally, as I pull on a pair of tracksuit bottoms. She’s a mum, I’m a mum, we’re Mum Friends. I put on a faded mauve sweatshirt I’ve had for years. The kind of thing a mum would wear.
“Where’s my baby?” I call in a silly voice as I walk downstairs. My seven-year-old Irish wolfhound, Cola, hobbles into the hallway. In human years, he is roughly the same age as Jeremy Irons.
“Fancy a peregrination, old man?” I give his grey muzzle a stroke.
Two years ago, when we got Cola from the shelter, he would get so excited at the word “walk” that he’d wee on the carpet. We started saying “stroll” instead, but he quickly cottoned on, so now I make full use of the thesaurus.
I attach Cola’s lead to his collar and put on my parka, and we leave the house.
As we walk, I look across Penryn River. The boats are pointing north today, towards Flushing. I love the way they line up depending on the swell of the tide. There isn’t a day goes by that I don’t feel glad to live here.
I take a right up Symons Hill, which I remind myself to go up extra slowly. Cola stops occasionally and looks up at me with doleful eyes, then shuffles on.
“Good boy, Cola.”
Some people have already put their bins out ready for tomorrow. The most conscientious have blankets and ropes keeping their rubbish out of reach of greedy birds. The seagulls here are fat and ferocious. It doesn’t matter how posh your house is, or how delightful its shade of coastal blue, every exterior is splattered with guano.
“Soffig!” a little voice cries out, accompanied by some enthusiastic waving. Farther up the hill, on Jubilee Road, is Nike. It must be at least six weeks since I was last at Anouk’s. I feel honoured that he remembers me.
“Hoy there,” calls Anouk, letting go of Nike’s hand.
“Look what I made, Soffig!” Nike runs towards me. He’s wearing a navy sweatshirt with a red collar poking out, and he’s carrying an A3 poster with black and green clumps stuck all over it. He pants exaggeratedly, hands me the poster, and then bends down and almost pokes Cola in the eye. “Hello, Mr. Coca-Cola.”
I study Nike’s poster, trying to identify the blobs. “It’s lovely.”
“His class went beachcombing,” Anouk explains, a few steps away from me now. “Nike’s picture is called Stupid Fish, isn’t it, doodle?”
Nike is too busy stroking Cola to respond. I hand him Cola’s lead. “Remember how I showed you to do it last time? That’s it, let him lead you.”
Nike nods solemnly, as if he’s been given the most important job in the world. As we walk up Beacon Road, Anouk and I hang back a little.
“How’s he settling in?” I ask quietly.
Anouk hasn’t told me why Nike was placed for adoption, and I’ve never asked, even though I’m dying to know. Would knowing help me understand Nike or Anouk better? I doubt it. It’s voyeurism, plain and simple.
“Pretty good,” she says. “They’ve only been back at school for a week, but he seems much happier this term.”
Nike is five. He’s been living with Anouk for almost a year, but she only officially adopted him in August. His foster family was in Plymouth, and relocating was tough on him. The adoption agency thought the quietness of Falmouth would do him good.
Nike has definitely come out of his shell since he first came to Anouk. I remember that first week, when Nike hid behind the sofa, swearing. Anouk texted me every day with messages full of capital letters. Gradually, the messages subsided, and I presumed, perhaps incorrectly, that she wanted some space.
“And how about you?” I ask. “How are you getting on?” I try not to ask this in a way that sounds like I’m testing her. Really, though, I am. Anouk is my litmus test. If she’s struggling with motherhood, then I’ve got no chance.
Anouk laughs, patting me on the shoulder. “I’m fine. Frazzled. Discombobulated. But fine.”
I know appearances can be deceiving, but Anouk doesn’t seem frazzled. She’s dressed in dungarees and a mustard chenille jumper. She has a polka-dot scarf wrapped around her head, red lipstick on, and looks about a hundred times as cool as I’ve ever done.
I want to ask her if having a kid is worth it. Does she feel sure that she made the right decision? Instead, I say: “You’re doing great.”
Anouk laughs again, then narrows her eyes. “You’re off tomorrow, aren’t you? Don’t worry, I’m not going through another psychic phase. James mentioned it.” Anouk has known James for longer than she’s known me. Sometimes I forget that they’re friends too, that they talk to each other when I’m not there.