How Hard Can Love Be? Read online

  I had six weeks. Six weeks to undo all the damage he’d caused and make her mine again. Six weeks to figure out what had happened, what I’d done to make her go.

  By the time I’d pulled myself together enough to go back to my seat, it was too late to start a movie. I dug in my bag and pulled out my sketchpad instead. The photograph of my mother and me floated out from the pages onto my lap. I’d been copying it over the last week. I picked it up and really stared at it, the sight of her face making my intestines twist like they were playing cat’s cradle. Dad had taken the photo the last time she’d come to visit me at Dad’s house. We were in the garden; I recognized the rosebush in the background, and remembered the fit Penny had thrown when she’d arrived (“I don’t know why I have to have THAT woman in MY house”). We were both smiling into the lens, but I remembered how miserable I’d been that day. How I’d sobbed uncontrollably when she said “goodbye”. It was the day she’d told me she was flying to California. The day when any hope Bumface Kevin wouldn’t take her away from me died a gasping, desperate death.

  But it’s okay, she’d said. I’ll come and visit loads.

  And now two years had passed, and it was me visiting her…

  … With a suitcase stuffed with factor 50 suncream, summer-camp clothes and unanswered questions.

  I got out my favourite 2B pencil and did what I always did to make the thoughts go away – I drew.

  The landing was bumpy. I’m usually an okay flier, but as the plane dived and jolted and essentially bellyflopped onto the runway, I found myself grabbing onto pieces of Tall Man and apologizing profusely.

  “Are we dying?” I asked him, clutching spare flesh on his arm. “Why is the plane killing us?”

  “It’s the fog,” he said, in a calm American drawl. “San Francisco is always covered in the stuff, and airplanes don’t like it.”

  When we were safely on the tarmac, I looked out the small porthole. The weather was welcoming at least. Grey greyness was everywhere, with drizzle speckling the glass.

  I turned to him. “I thought this was California!! The weather is worse here than it was in England.”

  He laughed. In an American accent, if that was possible. Or maybe now it was me who had the accent. That’s the weird thing about flying, in eleven hours it reverses who has the accent.

  “Haven’t you heard the phrase: ‘I never spent a worse winter than the summer I spent in San Francisco’?” he asked.

  I didn’t really understand what he’d said, but laughed politely and looked back out the window.

  “At least my freckles won’t erupt in this,” I muttered.

  Gradually the plane emptied. I said goodbye to Tall Man, thanking him for his moral support, and walked the longest way ever to baggage reclaim. Dad had warned me about the scariness of American border security so I popped into one of the hundreds of available “restrooms” to wash off any remaining trace of hangover.

  Security – as predicted – was terrifying. The guy had a gun, AN ACTUAL GUN and noticed my shaking fingers as I handed over my passport. He flicked it open aggressively, like the passport had bad-mouthed his mother or something. He studied my photo and I blushed. It was SUCH a bad one. I’d taken it last year during a heatwave and my hair took up most of the frame.

  “How long you staying for?” he barked.

  “Er…six weeks?”

  He looked up at me, his eyes angry. I actually took a step backwards.

  “Why so long?”

  I was too scared to be sarky and say something like, “Well, I’ve heard you’re a real friendly country. Musta got that wrong.” I looked down at his gun. Scrap that: GUNS plural. “Umm, I’m working in a summer camp?”

  He narrowed his dark eyes. “Have you got your work visa?”

  “No…” I said, and he went to push a red button. “Wait! I mean yes. Well, no too. I’m not working there officially, because I’m only seventeen anyway. My mum, she’s married to this American guy who owns a summer camp. I’m staying with them, to visit my mum… And I’ll be helping out at the camp, but not officially or anything… I’ve got a ninety-day visa waiver thingy. Here.” I pulled out the photocopy Dad had insisted I needed.

  He didn’t reply, just jabbed his keyboard. Had I screwed it up? Were they going to send me back? Did I still smell of sambuca?

  “Look here please.” He shoved me in front of this little black thing. It glowed red against my eyeball and made a clicking sound.

  Hang on. Had they just taken a retina scan? Was that allowed? Was I in that much trouble? My heart thumped really fast. I looked around to see if everyone else was getting their eyeballs photographed. Apart from an alarming display of bumbags on show, it all seemed normal.

  Just as I started freaking out, the security guy burst into a wide grin and handed over my passport.

  “Welcome to America,” he beamed. “I hope y’all enjoy your stay.”

  I wandered out into the arrivals hall, still dazed. Why did they take a photo of my eyeball? Was that a breach of my civil liberty? What were they going to do with the eyeball photo? Keep it in some database? Lottie would go mental when I told her. She was always going on about our Big Brother society and Orwell and 1984.

  “Amber? Amber!”

  And then, there was Mum. Running towards me. Her hair, the exact same ginger as mine, streaming behind her. And my heart, it just kind of inflated with all this air I hadn’t had in me for two years.

  She reached me.

  “Amber,” she whispered and grasped me into a hug. And I started crying. I hugged her back so hard, and smelled her smell, like roses. She still wore the same perfume. My bag was on the floor and we’d created an arrivals bottleneck but I didn’t care.

  Eventually we broke apart.

  “Come on.” Mum picked up my suitcase for me. Just seeing her walk away made my chest go all tight, even though I could follow her. Then I realized that she hadn’t said, “I missed you…”

  She turned back to me. “You must be knackered. I’ve booked us into a motel so we can have some time together before we drive up to camp. How does sightseeing in San Francisco sound?”

  “It sounds…fab.”

  We wheeled our way to a tram that whizzed us along to a multistorey car park. The expanses of space between each thing we needed to get to were massive, especially compared to the on-top-of-each-other-ness of Heathrow airport. Mum was parked on the top floor of the car park, and I shivered in the mist when we got off the tram.

  “I thought California was supposed to be, like, hot,” I joked, doing up the zip of my hoody.

  My mum smiled. My smile. We had the same smile. I’d forgotten. Seeing her again felt odd; I couldn’t get used to her face. It jarred. Like she was a stranger. But she wasn’t a stranger – she was my mum.

  “It is, just not in San Fran. Wait till I get you into my mountains. It’s so hot there, you’ll be praying for a cold fog.”

  We walked between rows of cars and stopped unexpectedly outside a huge red monster truck, with giant wheels and blacked-out windows.

  Why was Mum calling it San Fran? Whoever calls it San Fran? Why was she so calm? All my intestines were knotted up with repressed emotion.

  “This is us.” She unlocked the doors with her beeper.

  Her beeper?! In England she’d driven a beat-up Mini with a broken passenger door. When it had been her weekends to take me – the ones when she remembered and actually turned up anyway – she’d announce her arrival by honking its dilapidated horn outside Dad’s house to piss off Penny. I’d had to clamber over her whenever I wanted to get in or out.

  “I need a stepladder to get into this thing,” I joked, hoping Mum would notice the undercurrents of judgement in my “funniness”.

  She didn’t.

  “Hey, you’re as tall as me. You can hop in there just fine.”

  I heaved myself up into the front seat as Mum flung my stuff into the back. I dug around in my bag for the present I’d got her, and had it i
n my hand when she got in next to me.

  She spied the gift-wrapped box.

  “Is that for me?” she asked, as I held it out tentatively.

  I nodded. Really nervous all of a sudden, hoping she liked it…that she understood it.

  “Aww, bless you, you didn’t have to get me a present.”

  She took it and unwrapped it carefully, not ripping any of the paper but lifting the Sellotape up delicately. She pulled out the small jewellery box, and popped the lid. My heart thud thudded.

  “Oh, wow, Amber, it’s beautiful.”

  “It’s the Deathly Hallows!” I said, unable to contain myself.

  “Oh, yes, of course.” She pulled the shining silver chain out and wrapped it up with her fingers to see the triangular charm. I felt so chuffed with myself – and also a little jealous I didn’t have one too. I’d used all my money buying this one for her.

  “I went on the Harry Potter studio tour,” I explained. “It’s so incredible there, I wish you could see it. Anyway, I got this in the gift shop. It’s proper official. JK approved. Do you love it? Do you?”

  “Oh yes. It’s beautiful. I’ll put it on straight away.”

  Which she did – but I couldn’t help feeling like she wasn’t excited enough… I’d literally squealed when I found it in the shop. I’d literally squealed the whole time on the tour. Mum was the one who read the books to me growing up. She’d curl up next to me in my bed, and keep me up past my bedtime, discussing all our favourite characters. Why wasn’t she squealing? Why was she just starting the engine?

  With a grin still plastered over my face, I tried again. “Do you remember that time you face-painted Dark Marks onto all our arms at my birthday party? And then what’s-her-name’s mum, Keira’s mum, she went totally nuts?”

  A small smile eked its way onto Mum’s face, but it wasn’t enough of one. Or maybe I was reading too much into it.

  “I remember,” she said, but she didn’t add anything to the story. Just indicated left, to steer our way out of the car park. Maybe she was just tired…that was probably it.

  Soon we were cruising towards the city, on a motorway full of cars just as gigantic as ours. Mum babbled as she drove.

  “I’m so excited about you coming to camp, Amber. Everyone is going to love you so much! It’s all Kevin’s been talking about. I can’t wait for you to get to know him properly. We’ve got a few days before the kids arrive, and then it will be all go-go-go…”

  “Mum?”

  “Yes, sweetie?” She turned from the windscreen to glance at me.

  “You’ve got an…American accent.”

  She touched her throat absent-mindedly. “I do?”

  “You really do.”

  “That’s weird. Everyone here always notices I’m British, right away.”

  “That would be the paler than pale skin and freckles, like mine.” I smiled.

  “No.” She turned back to concentrate on her driving. “They always say ‘I love your accent’.”

  I didn’t love her accent.

  The city stretched under us, bits of it piercing through the thick layer of fog. I didn’t feel sleepy or jet-lagged at all, despite it being about three in the morning my time. The nap on the plane was seeing me through. I sat up in my seat, hoping to catch a glimpse of the famous Golden Gate Bridge. But there was just the fog, and an occasional flash of orange.

  “I can’t see anything,” I grumbled.

  “That’s San Fran for you.”

  She’d called it San Fran again.

  We got into the heart of the city and stopped chatting so Mum could focus on her driving. We rumbled over steep hills at ridiculous angles and bumped over the metal tramline tracks. I stared out the window, trying to take it all in, feeling like a complete alien. The houses were all painted the sort of colours you could order scooped up in a cone…Pistachio, cherry sorbet, lemon…

  Mum pointed down a dark road to our left, all tall houses together.

  “That’s where I volunteer at the centre,” she said. “Remember I told you?”

  “Yep, I remember.” It was at a centre like that she’d met the dreaded bumchin. An English branch. I wasn’t likely to forget.

  “We’re almost there.”

  She indicated right and swooped down into an underground car park. Mum turned off the engine and pulled up the handbrake.

  “Here!” she said, smiling brightly. “Let’s get your bags into the room and go out for dinner. You must be starving after all that gross airplane food.”

  We rolled my stuff into the motel reception and Mum told them our names. My heart hurt a little (a lot) when she used her new surname that wasn’t mine.

  “Welcome to the Cow Hollow,” the receptionist beamed, like she was honestly delighted we were there. “Wow, I love your accent. Are you guys from England?”

  We nodded and got our keys.

  Maybe jet lag was starting to creep in, because none of it felt real as we twisted through endless corridors to find our room, or when we opened the door into the biggest hotel room I’d ever seen, with beds the size of countries. I dropped myself onto one, my long body not even beginning to cover its vast expanse. Mum sat at the writing desk and smiled at me.

  “You tired, hon?”

  She never used to call me hon… More America.

  I turned onto my stomach, sinking into the soft mattress. I suddenly felt really, really homesick. The euphoria of seeing her had peaked, and been replaced with a simmering confusion and sense of just feeling…lost.

  I didn’t know this woman in front of me. Not really. I didn’t know this city. This country my mother had chosen over me.

  “I’m okay.” I reached out to pull back the curtain. The fog still lazed heavily outside, making the cars on the main road look all hazy. I couldn’t hear them though, the place must have good double-glazing. “I slept on the plane.”

  “You hungry? I know a great place over the road. It’s about as American as you can get.”

  I was actually more gagging for a cup of tea and some Marmite on toast, rather than a USA feast, but I didn’t want to ruin our reunion by being unenthusiastic.

  So I dropped the curtain, looked at the stranger’s face that was half my face and forced myself to smile.

  “Yummy. Sounds great.”

  SITUATIONS THAT ARE DESTINED TO FAIL:

  Small talk

  +

  The biggest lump of meat the world has ever known

  Three

  “Mum, it’s like someone puked up America in here.”

  I stepped past a glowing jukebox. The “diner” looked like the womb in which Grease had been incubated. The waitresses wore faux fifties hair with cute little aprons, and, wherever I looked, a framed photo of Elvis Presley stared back. Customers sat at a high white countertop, perching on shiny stools and slurping tall milkshakes adorned with glacé cherries.

  Mum laughed for the first time since I’d arrived, and asked for a table for two. Our waitress led us to an actual booth and gave us menus so big they obscured both my face and my hair.

  I couldn’t stop sneaking glances at Mum, like she was my school crush or something. I peered over the top of my menu, while pretending to scan it. Her hair was swept nicely to one side as she considered the menu serenely, apparently not repressing a gaping well of emotion like I was. She looked so healthy. Thinner, less puff about her. Her clothes looked clean and new, which shouldn’t be notable, but is when you have a mum like mine. She was even wearing a thin belt, cinching her long white shirt in… Gone were the grimy jogging bottoms she’d come and pick me up in, the stale smell hidden by cheap perfume…

  “What you having, hon?”

  I managed to look at the menu. “I dunno. The Pink Lady burger maybe?”

  “Mmmm. Yum. You’re in America now.”

  The waitress clopped over, like she knew we were ready to order.

  “What can I get y’all?” She held up her notepad.

  “We’ll have
a Pink Lady burger,” Mum said. “And a milkshake – Amber, do you want a milkshake? The strawberry flavour is good.”

  I nodded dumbly.

  “And I’ll have the fruit salad…” She handed the menus over.

  “You’re only getting a fruit salad?” I asked. “I just ordered basically half a cow, and you’re nibbling watermelon?”

  “Oh, I don’t really eat meat now. But you enjoy your food.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t eat meat? You’ve always eaten meat.”

  Mum gave me a thin smile I didn’t like.

  “Well, I don’t any more. Not many people do in San Fran. I wanted to take you to this raw food restaurant, but I didn’t know how into it you’d be…”

  She trailed off as the jukebox changed song, to that one John Travolta and Uma Thurman dance to in Pulp Fiction. Evie’d made us watch it for “educational purposes”.

  I couldn’t believe Mum was a VEGETARIAN. Since when? She used to make the most amazing roast every Sunday – lamb with her special mint sauce. Well, not every Sunday. Especially not the Sundays after that day she came home from the hospital.

  The food arrived and the joke I’d made about half a cow became an accurate observation. The burger towered on the plate, almost reaching my chin and swimming in an ocean of skinny fries. I took a large bite, but barely dented the meat. Mum daintily jabbed a grape with her fork, and I almost flinched. Everything was different. I hadn’t been planning on everything being different.

  “So you looking forward to teaching the kids art this summer?”

  I nodded – because I knew she wanted me to – though I hadn’t thought about it much. Bumface Kevin had said a condition of me coming to stay was to “pull my weight” and help out at the happy-clappy summer camp he’d bought right after the wedding, and art had seemed the obvious thing for me to teach. Mum had initially got me into art when I was pretty much still a toddler, and I’d clung to it like a drug, when she’d clung to…well…other things…

  “Yes. Well, the children aren’t like Craig, are they?”

  Mum laughed sharply, and almost dropped her fork.

  “No. God, no… Sorry, I shouldn’t have laughed at that.” We smiled at each other conspiratorially. “Is he still…bad?” she asked.