Page 111 of Where Do We Go From Here?
W: D’you remember when we used to do that for hours?
H: I do. You were a student nurse sleeping on a gurney.
W: When I was a student, still, that’s right. That was alongtime ago.
H: Decades.
W: Goodnight, Haz.
H: Night night.
FOURTEEN
CONVERSATIONS AT HOME
Fiona
‘I can’t believe you came home early.’
Wendy turns to see her daughter, still in pyjamas, standing in the doorway to the kitchen.
‘Hello, you!’ she says, standing and crossing the room to hug her. Her daughter smells of sleep. She smells the same way she has smelt for eighteen years. It’s wonderful.
‘Stop! Stop it!’ Fiona says, laughingly pushing her mother away. ‘I can’t stand it when you snuffle me like that.’
‘Apologies, I’m sure,’ Wendy replies, smiling wryly as she returns to her seat at the table. She resumes reading the news while her daughter pours a bowl of cereal. She knows better than to initiate conversation in those first few minutes. And yet once Fiona has made tea and sat down she finds herself saying, ‘You know that’s not a proper breakfast, right?’ Mothering. It’s impossible to resist.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You do realise that chocolate’s not a reasonable breakfast staple.’
Fiona leans back in her chair, almost falling over in the process, and swipes the cereal box from the counter. ‘Choco Crispies – breakfast cereal,’ she mumbles, running her finger across the words on front of the box.
‘Fine, whatever,’ Wendy says. She’ll have this battle another day.
‘Anyway, I didn’t buy it, Dad did,’ Fiona says. ‘So have it out with him.’
‘I will.’
‘I know you will. And then we can all eat gruel every day and be thrilled that you came home to save us.’
‘Gruel would probably be healthier,’ Wendy says, trying to turn the almost-spat into banter.
‘Anyway, why did you come home early? I mean, look at it,’ Fiona says through a mouthful of Choco Crispies. She nods at the kitchen window, beyond which sheet rain is plummeting from a slate-grey sky onto their extremely muddy lawn.
‘Well, not for the weather, that’s for sure.’
‘But seriously. I thought you were staying there till April.’
‘Maybe I missed you too much,’ Wendy says, then, ‘Actually I did. I missed all of you.’
‘I can almost believe that,’ Fiona says. ‘Almost. Are you and Dad tight now, too, then?’
Wendy frowns at her daughter as she thinks about this.
‘Are you two getting on?’ Fiona rephrases.
‘I do know what tight means,’ Wendy says. ‘I’m not that much of a fuddy-duddy.’
