The Watcher Read Free Page B

daughter wasn’t going to school.
    ‘But I did find out something interesting,’ said Gillian. ‘You’ve got a maths test today!’
    ‘Maybe.’
    ‘No, not maybe, you have! You’ve got a test and I had no idea.’
    Becky shrugged. She had a moustache of hot chocolate on her upper lip. She was wearing black jeans that were so tight Gillian wondered how she had managed to put them on. Her black jumper was just as skin-tight and she had a black scarf wrapped several times around her neck. She was trying to look cool, but with the chocolate on her lip she just looked like a little girl in a strange costume. Of course Gillian refrained from telling her that.
    ‘Why didn’t you mention it? I’ve asked you every day if you had a test coming up. You said you didn’t. Why?’
    Becky shrugged again.
    ‘Can you please give me an answer?’ asked Gillian sharply.
    ‘Don’t know,’ mumbled Becky.
    ‘What don’t you know?’
    ‘Why I didn’t say.’
    ‘I expect you didn’t fancy revising,’ said Gillian wearily.
    Becky looked at her angrily.
    What am I doing wrong, Gillian asked herself, to make her look at me with so much hate? Why did Darcy’s mother know? Why, probably, did everyone’s mother know except me?
    ‘Brush your teeth,’ she said, ‘and then we have to go.’
    On the way to school, Becky did not say a word. She just looked out of the window. Gillian wanted to ask if she felt confident about the test, if she knew the material, but she didn’t dare. She was afraid of a snotty answer; she had the nasty feeling that it might make her burst into tears. That happened more and more often nowadays, and she found she had no way of defending herself. She was unhappy with her life and afraid of her twelve-year-old daughter’s provocative behaviour. How could a forty-two-year-old woman be so unsure of herself?
    Becky said goodbye in front of the school with a few terse words and then loped off across the road on her skinny legs. Her long hair floated behind her. Her rucksack bounced about on her back. She did not turn around to wave goodbye to her mother. In primary school she had always blown kisses and beamed. How was it possible that she had changed so completely within just a couple of years? Of course she felt defensive this morning. She knew that the maths test would be a disaster and that it had been a mistake to avoid revision. She had to vent her annoyance at herself somehow.
    Gillian asked herself if they were all like that. So aggressive. So unreasonable and lacking in empathy.
    She started the engine, but just drove to the next street, where she parked up again. She opened the window a bit and lit a cigarette. In the gardens all around a frost lay on the grass. In the distance she saw the river flowing along like a lead ribbon. The Thames was already wide here, obeying the rhythms of the tides as it pushed towards the sea. The wind smelt of seaweed and the seagulls screamed. It was cold. An inhospitable, grey winter’s morning.
    She had once talked about it with Tom. Almost two years ago now. Or rather, she had tried to talk about it with him. About whether she as a mother was doing something wrong. Or whether all children were like that. He had not known what to say.
    In the end he said, ‘If you were more in touch with other mothers, you might know. You would know if you were doing something wrong. You might even know how to do it right. But for some reason you refuse to build up a network.’
    ‘I’m refusing nothing. I just don’t get on well with the other mothers.’
    ‘They’re normal women. They won’t hurt you!’
    Of course he was right. That was not the point. ‘But they don’t accept me. It’s always as if . . . I was somehow speaking a different language. Everything I say seems to come out wrong. It doesn’t fit in with what they’re saying . . .’ She knew how that must sound to Tom, who saw everything rationally. Like nonsense. Complete and utter