Finding Lucy: A suspenseful and moving novel that you won't be able to put down

Chapter Nineteen (#ulink_4542d47d-8998-5070-8c1d-c94054fa4140)

1993

Lucy

When I try to remember my childhood, a lot of it seems very hazy, as though I was viewing myself through a thick mist, or as though I existed within a dream, a vague, half-remembered dream. Perhaps that’s how it is for everyone. There were one or two difficult times, there was some confusion and some upsets, of course, but nothing out of the ordinary; on the whole I think I was fairly happy until I was about eleven years old.

Mummy was definitely not a funny, jolly sort of person, who played silly games and shrieked with laughter, like some of my friends’ mothers, but I didn’t mind that especially. She was quiet and a bit serious, but I suppose I was too, so maybe we got on well together because we were alike. She was OK with people one to one (some of them at least), but she didn’t much like people in groups, such as at parties or gatherings, and nor did I.

One good thing at least was she hardly ever shouted at me – so when she was cross, which wasn’t often, she just went sort of cold and distant and silent for a while. Actually, I hated her being like that, so it might have been better if she had shouted, and been done with it. When she was in her cool and distant mode, it felt like she was across a wide lake, and I couldn’t reach her. I would have to think of something good and kind I could do or say, to try to please her. Then maybe she’d stop being cross, and the great, frightening, silent expanse between us would evaporate. Sometimes that took a long time.

I guess every child thinks its own experience is normal, just takes its own situation for granted. I know I did, at least until I got older. Of course, I realised it was unusual not to have a father at all, but then quite a lot of my friends had parents who lived apart, so they didn’t all live with a father as an ever-present part of their lives. But when I thought about it, which was only occasionally, I was vaguely aware that there was something different about my family, perhaps because my daddy was so rarely mentioned. Mummy never mentioned him, and even as quite a small child I sensed that questions about him made her nervous.

At the time I just interpreted this as sadness – that she was upset thinking about him. From my earliest memories, she had told me he was dead. She said he was killed in a car crash. She didn’t elaborate. I didn’t feel questions were encouraged. So there was this huge father-shaped gap in my life.

Gradually, I came to realise that most other children had not only a father, but also at least one or two grandparents – many of my friends had a complete set of four. I didn’t have any. There was just me and Mummy. Her own mother had died when I was so little that I had no memories of her at all, though Mummy did often show me photos of her. There was a photo of her in a frame on the mantelpiece in the sitting room, and Mummy kept another one on her bedside table. My grandmother didn’t have a husband, and she’d adopted Mummy when she was a baby. So they were just a mother–daughter unit, like us. I know Mummy loved her very much. She sometimes talked about how much she missed her. She always called her “Mother”.

From what I saw of my friends’ families, grandparents seemed like a really good thing. They adored their grandchildren and indulged them. They often took care of them if they lived near and were always happy to take them on trips, read stories to them and play games with them. They were generally very proud of their grandchildren’s every little achievement, and often seemed to be generous with presents, treats and even money too. I thought how wonderful it would be to have grandparents – not for the money or presents, but just because sometimes I longed to have another grown-up in my life to talk to, someone who really loved me and was proud of me.