Page 57 of Statistically Speaking
I let my GPS guide me to her address, which is in a town called Hanley. Home of the Potteries Shopping Centre and the Potteries Museum and my long-lost mother.
I drive into a neighborhood that is similar to and yet distinct from the one where I grew up in London. There are tower blocks and maisonettes and flats and bungalows, but also a lot of green space and views of distant countryside roads. Kids are playing football, and older people are standing on corners, chatting, leaning on walking sticks.
It is, without doubt, a housing project—but it is a pleasant one.
I have done my very best not to think too hard about all this on my way here. I pondered buying flowers or chocolatesat the service station, decided it wouldn’t feel right. That it would add an extra sense of occasion to one that is already heavily laden.
Now, as I sit here in my parked car outside a three-story block of flats built in a squat rectangle, I feel nervous. It reminds me of all those times I avoided going home as a kid, hanging around in the shop or in the dark spaces beneath stairwells. Uncertain of what I was going to find when I opened the door, but never expecting it to be anything good.
Part of me still wants to leave. To drive away. Past Alton Towers. Past Birmingham. On and on to who knows where—a place where nobody knows me and nobody judges me and nobody wants anything from me at all. My hands are still on the steering wheel, as though they might still decide to make a run for it, no matter what I decide.
I breathe deeply and pull down the mirror to check my hair. Heaven forbid I should have one out of place.
It had been a strange meeting to dress for, this—not exactly formal, but hardly the kind of relaxed reunion Karim is heading toward either. In the end I went with my smart skinny jeans and a silky black blouse with floppy sleeves that always makes me feel a bit like a pirate.
As I force myself to finally get out of the car, a woman approaches. I’d noticed her from the corner of my eye, quietly standing in the doorway to the flats, watching me. It wasn’t a surprise—I was a stranger, after all, and strangers are always worth keeping an eye on. Maybe especially me, because I look a bit like a pirate.
She is in her fifties, short but solidly built, the kind of woman who looks like she takes no nonsense and gives none in return. Her hair is dyed dark pink at the ends, and she iswearing a top that proudly displays her allegiance to Stoke City Football Club to the world.
“Are you Gemma, duck?” she asks as I lock up the car. I am taken aback and stare at her more closely. I know a lot of time has passed, but there is no way this could be my mother. Also, why is she calling me a duck?
I simply nod, waiting to see what she wants. Maybe, I think, my mum has changed her mind. Maybe she has done her own version of a runner and has sent this person to intercept me, to repel me, to send the pirates packing. Maybe I’d be quite relieved if she had.
The sense of warmth and homecoming I’d felt after that first conversation with my mother has faded in the harsh glare of reality, assaulted by a backlog of feelings that aren’t quite as optimistic.
“Right. I’m Sam. Nice to finally meet you. You need to put this in your car.” She passes me a small plastic-coated card, and I see that it is to grant me resident parking privileges. I feel very special.
I insert it in the windscreen and turn back to Sam.
“Your mum’s waiting for you upstairs,” she says. “I’m off to get us some oatcakes. I’ll be gone awhile, don’t worry.”
I thank her and walk toward the doorway. I have no idea who Sam is, or what role she plays in my mother’s life, or even what oatcakes are. I am out of my depth here, in so many ways.
I tap in the entry code my mum has given me and enter a concrete lobby with four doors leading off it. Each door is painted the same green, and as I walk up the stairs to the top floor, I know that all the levels will look exactly the same. It is clean, though, and some people have put fake plants outside,or added brass horseshoes to the doors. Taking pride, trying to carve out some individuality amid the uniform face of social housing.
I reach the top floor and see her door. It has been left open, but I linger outside. I feel like I should announce myself somehow, so I rap on the green wood with my knuckles and shout a tentative “Hello!” as I make my way inside.
“Down here, Gems,” comes the reply, and I walk on thick carpet down a narrow hallway. There are doors off it, presumably a bedroom, a bathroom, all kinds of rooms. I am tempted to look inside them, but that would be purely to put off the inevitable. Also, weird.
I emerge into a large lounge decorated with chintz-patterned wallpaper. There are pottery ornaments all over the place, on shelves and window ledges and in glass-fronted cabinets. The familiar blue and white of Wedgwood plates, proudly displayed on the walls. Two comfortable-looking sofas, a large-screen TV, an upright unit holding CDs, large windows that give views over the buildings to the hills beyond.
All of this, and her.
My mum, standing in the middle of the room. She is still tiny, still thin, still looks as though an especially sharp wind could sweep her up, up, and away like a plastic bag caught on a current.
She is only in her fifties but could be two decades older. Her cheekbones are raw, her face sunken, as though her demons have eaten her from the inside out. Her skin is pale and tinged with yellow, and her red hair is awash with gray, hanging around frail shoulders.
She stands there holding two steaming mugs of tea, staring at me in the same way that I am staring at her. A squawkinterrupts us, and I see a parakeet in a large cage, preening and shaking his tail feathers.
“That’s Monty,” she says by way of introduction. “I’ve made you some tea. Lots of milk and sugar, how you like it.”
Inside, I grimace, but outside I try to look appreciative. It is how I liked to drink tea when I was seven, but it seems harsh to point that out to her right now.
She puts the mugs down, and we both stand awkwardly, not knowing what to do next. It feels too soon to hug, to chase that distant memory of her embrace. I’m not sure it even really existed.
“You look great, love,” she says, reaching out and briefly touching my hair. She snaps her hand back as though she’s been shocked, and I know this is as hard for her as it is for me. I was her baby once, and now I am practically a stranger.
“You too, Mum,” I lie. In truth she doesn’t look well, and it is obvious from the wheeze in her breath that a lifetime of abuse is catching up with her.
