Ever since I was a little girl, my parents would whisper that nobody needed me, that I was useless. It echoed like strange chimes through the endless corridors of my childhood home at the edge of the Cotswolds.
They say family are the closest thing to you, especially mothers, dont they? After all, shes the one who carried you about under her heart, gave birth, lost nights full of sleep, spent her very self so you might grow. Thats the tale they tell in English lullabies, through the rain-washed windows and under the pale London sky.
For some, maybe its true. But in my peculiar world, with its twisting staircases and shifting rooms, my mother and I never met in the middle. Our words never found translation; the bridge always vanished beneath us. She never stood behind me. Whenever a spark of excitement glimmered in me, she snuffed it out with her cloudy disapproval.
In my mothers eyes, I was the foolish girl, never clever enough, doomed to failure. The logic was as dreamlike as a June mistyoud think she wanted only silence and dust. Her sharp words hung above me, but curiously, when she needed anythingperhaps lifting some heavy box or making her a cup of teasuddenly, she remembered me. The daughter who could never do anything was very much required, after all. Luckily, Dad beamed a quiet sort of sunlight over my days; he always offered a hand, a smile, a wink.
So it was I decided to leave our little villageits crooked lanes, its red phone box laced with ivyand journey up to London, the city swirling with ambition and oddness, for a better life and whatever happiness lay among the chimneys. When my mother heard, she took to her fainting chair, sobbing and wringing her hands with a drama fit for the telly. Who would bring in groceries, who would do her bidding? Her main worry, it seemed, was losing her half-willing servant.
But I didnt dissolve under her wails. I packed my bags and left in the half-light of morning, cold toast in my pocket and hope, trembling, in my chest.
And here I am, as if in last nights impossible dream: living in London in a sprawling flat, running my own business, with two lively children and a husband who feels like midsummer. The old refrain still lingers: you cant do it. But I did, and so can anyone, if they turn off the worlds unkind whispers and let themselves believeeven if only the way you believe in things when youre fast asleep under the watchful gaze of the English moon.
