Page 44 of Statistically Speaking
“More like the Three Terrors Tena-Ladies!” Margie cracks, then descends into a throaty cackle. It lightens the mood, and Erin seems to perk up. Or maybe she’s just drunk.
“What about you, Gemma? How are you doing? Any... news?” she asks.
I shake my head, and realize that I am possibly a little drunk as well.
“No. I’m trying to be reasonable about it all. I’ve set myself a phone-checking limit. Five times before midnight.”
“Wow,” she replies, “that’s brilliant. That level of self-discipline is amazing.”
“Thank you. So far I’ve checked it sixty-eight times.”
We all laugh at that one, and I start to wonder if Three Witches might actually be more appropriate than Three Tenors. None of this is amusing—loneliness, grief, regret—and yet somehow, together, we seem to be managing to see the funny side of life. Maybe this is what I should have been picturing all these years when I told myself there was safety in numbers.
“You know, it might not be that simple at her end,” says Erin, leaning forward and sniffing the tiramisu. “Apart from the emotional stuff and whether she wants to meet you or not, it might not be easy logistically—she’s only allowed to register when she’s eighteen, which I know, technically, was midnight, but probably she wasn’t up late filling out forms. Plus, it depends on how much information she has, whether she has her original birth certificate or has to apply for one, all that kind of stuff...”
I do, of course, know all of this. I have just allowed myself to ignore it—to build this day into something it was never going to be. It was a mistake, but I seem to have no control over myself when it comes to this particular subject. It’s like all of the order and perfection I see in the rest of my life counts for nothing, and all of the chaos and mess and craziness gets channeled into this one thing.
“Yeah. You speak sense, Erin, I know... I’m just not feeling very sensible.”
“That’s not like you!”
“I know, right? What’s a girl to do? I’ll feel calmer tomorrow, I’m sure.”
We all sit with this last sentence, and I suspect we all recognize it for the benign lie it is.
“I was thinking,” says Margie eventually, in a slow, hear-me-out tone, “about all of this today. About your baby, Gemma. And yours, Erin. About families, I suppose. None of us know what’s around the corner, do we? She might get in touch, Gem, she might not—either way, she’ll have her reasons. But I was also thinking about your mother.”
That catches me unawares, and I reply, “My mother?”
“Yeah. Your mum. I know you said she had lots of issues, and I know you were in and out of care, but I know you also said she did her best with a bad lot, and I was thinking... in the same way you miss your daughter being in your life, maybe she does too? Maybe you’re not the only one who wishes things had been different with their child? Just saying. Don’t be offended.”
I’m not sure how I feel, but offended isn’t it. Confused, maybe. Mentally jarred. A little dizzy from Margie phrasingher question in a way that forces me to see things from a different perspective.
My mother moved on, it always felt like. Nothing says “thanks but no thanks” like changing your phone number without telling someone. She moved on, and so did I. But I never really made the effort to find her, to stay in her life, to build a proper adult relationship with her. I never thought of her missing me, feeling sad at not being able to give me what I needed.
Why is that?I wonder now. Was I too selfish? Too angry? Was I too damaged by my childhood and incapable of separating her from that trauma? Was I scared that if I stayed in her orbit, she’d pull me into her own whirlwind of instability? I can’t pinpoint one exact reason—and perhaps I don’t have to. Perhaps it is allowed to be a mess.
“It’s complicated,” I say to Margie and Erin, which I think sums it up.
“It’s complicated!” says Margie with a snort. “I’ve heard that from you so often, girl, I think you should have it on your gravestone!”
She is joking. It is funny. We laugh. But somewhere deep inside, she has planted an image: a cemetery full of headstones, dedicated to loved ones. Engraved words to much-missed mothers and the best dads in the world and wives who were soulmates and children whose smiles lit up a room. And mine, all alone, and none of those things—not important enough for anyone to miss. Here Lies Gemma Jones: She Was Complicated.
Being complicated is overrated, I think. All the happiest people I know are also the most straightforward. Hidden depths just give you farther to fall; still waters can drownyou, and too many layers can be suffocating. I don’t want to be complicated. I want to be simple.
I want to love and laugh and live. I want to find my little girl, my baby who is now a young woman—but perhaps I also need to find the little girl that I once was as well.
Perhaps, right now, I can’t be in my daughter’s life—but maybe I can be in my mum’s.
Chapter 18
221 Miles into the Past
The bus is full and awash with noise.
There are forty-nine seats, and all of them are filled with either students or staff. Two other buses are with us, and we have driven in convoy to London.
It is the annual field trip to end them all—science students will be going to the Science Museum and to Imperial College; English students will be touring Dickens’s London and seeing a play at the Globe; PE kids will be taken to Wembley and Lord’s; historians to the Tudor buildings on High Holborn and around St. Paul’s. There is something for everyone.
