Things I Want My Daughters to Know_ A Novel - Elizabeth Noble [43]
On the second morning, the milk, a relic from before Christmas, smelled bad, and the bread had a pale green hue that was distinctly unappetizing. Ed went out for supplies. He banned her from dressing, saying he would be back in ten minutes and he wanted to find her naked and warm under his quilt. She lay back, her arms and legs splayed like a child’s, and made a bed angel of happiness, the duvet tucked obediently in her armpits. Everything about this, right now, felt right. That didn’t happen every day. It felt like the start of something. The fact that she’d gone from zero to sixty even felt right—strange but right. But if he thought she was going to miss the opportunity to tart herself up while he was gone, he didn’t know women as well as he thought he did. She went to the bathroom and looked at her wanton self in the mirror. Her bed head of shag tangles was a fright. She brushed her teeth and showered quickly, wondering whether you could borrow the razor of a man you’d only just met, and deciding that if you’d let him do some of the things she’d let Ed do to her last night, the razor seemed a strange place to draw the line.
Clean again, wrapped in a towel, she pulled her handbag onto the bed, into her lap. She’d been incommunicado for thirty-six hours now, and she should check her phone. She switched it on and waited to see who might want her. No messages. Charming. But no more than nomads could expect. She put the phone back into the bag and was about to put it back down onto the floor so she could lie back and luxuriate in imagining Ed’s hands moving all over her, which, if she was lucky, they were about to do all over again, when she saw her diary. She pulled it out, her fingers stroking the worn brown leather, pale now in places. She opened it and took out her mum’s letter, her own name written in a familiar round hand, in Barbara’s trademark turquoise ink. Amanda.
SHE WAS SITTING UP IN BED, HUGGING HER KNEES, WITH THE letter balanced on top of them, when Ed got back.
“What you got?”
“My mum’s letter.”
“You going to read it?”
“Thinking about it.”
“Do you want me to get lost for a bit.”
“I’d rather you stayed with me.”
Ed didn’t answer. Amanda surfaced from her reverie and peered at his face. Had she frightened him? Was this all a bit much?
He nodded slowly. “Right.”
“Right.”
“I’m going to get into bed, next to you, and just lie here and not say anything for a while. Does that seem right?”
She smiled weakly. “That seems right.”
He lay down beside her, with one arm around her back, resting on the mattress, gently stroking her hip. She took a deep breath and opened the letter.
Darling Amanda,
So brave, so fearless. My adventurer. You’ve given me more sleepless nights than all the others, you know that? One day, you’ll know the worry of a mum waiting for a fortnightly call from somewhere, wanting to know that your baby is okay and safe and happy. I wouldn’t have stopped you, even if I could. I envy you your spirit.
Blimey—this letter’s the toughest. So I’ve put it off until the last, and now I’m tired, so tired you can’t imagine. And just the tiniest bit afraid that I’m not making complete sense anymore—you take enough pills and you start to question everything.
I remember the day you were born. When Lisa came, I was young, and ridiculously overexcited, and she was the baby I had for Donald, and for the family, and for everyone else. I was still in the baby fog when Jennifer came, bless her, and whole months passed in a blur. And still, there were people around all the time—Donald, his mum—other mums with babies and toddlers the same age. But it was different with you. It was just us. The two of us. Your sisters had gone to stay with their cousins in Yorkshire for the week; I was supposed to be getting a room ready for you. I’d painted the walls, and I was just about to get up a ladder and start hanging this frieze—Winnie the Pooh and friends—when my water broke