RUTH

Ruth was my only daughter. My only child.

Once, not very long ago, I watched her walk slowly towards me along the street, tall and slim, very slim.  Her dark hair swung backwards and forwards as she moved. A little too long, it obscured her face momentarily, casting a shadow.  But her hair shone in the sun. I saw her cheekbones, her long slender legs. She wore a belly top and a short skirt. It was summer and her body and her legs were tanned.  She looked as though she needed no help from any one; she was everything one would wish for in a child.  I was so proud of her.

I saw heads turning as she came closer. Young men were caught by her presence like moths by the light of a candle. She barely glanced at them. She seemed completely unaware of them but I'm sure she wasn't. How could she have been? She wasn't made of ice. She greeted me with a wry smile, and she sat down slowly on a chair in front of me. We were sitting at a table outside on the edge of the pavement. There were people passing us all the time. Busy, preoccupied, they took no notice of us.

 "What're you eating?" She asked. She looked at my plate inquisitively.

            " A salad," I answered.  A cold, unreasonable dread gripped me. I felt the familiar tension in my shoulders and in my back. I moved and stretched and tried to dissipate it.

            "Looks good. Shall I have the same?"

             She could do everything, everything but eat. If I hadn't known her better I would have believed that she was going to order, going to eat, going to stay talking to me for more than a moment.

            She picked up the menu, glanced at it, and put it down again. I think if it had been upside down she wouldn't have noticed.

            "I've got an interview," she said breathlessly. "This afternoon."

 I didn't believe her. This was designed to distract me. I was used to this. I heard the excitement in her voice, its tone a note higher than it had been, the syllables running one into the other. Was she fooling me, I wondered, or fooling herself? Was I willing to be fooled? I watched her as she moved the salt across the table, and then the pepper and finally the sugar - in, out, in again, like a three card trick. It was yet another exercise in deception - and I wondered, not for the first time, if she even knew she was doing it - and then I wondered did I mean deceiving me? Or deceiving herself? Or merely moving the salt and the sugar and the pepper in meaningless random formations. I sighed, I remember, before I thought that maybe I was going mad. I remember every detail, even though I would prefer not to remember anything at all.

 Then I bought into the deception. It was easier.

            "That's good - where? When? What for?" I said.

            "That's way too many questions, Ma, I can't deal with all of that," she answered and then she clammed up as she always did.  I knew I'd have to wait until she was ready to give again, however long it took.

            When she was little we used to play this game - holding out on each other, whoever could last the longest. When she was little. When she was little and a picture came before me of the bright lively child she had been once, before something changed her, and me, irrevocably, irrecoverably. But what was it? What had it been? And when? She came wide-eyed to me, to us. Her gaze was clear and farseeing. Perhaps too clear? She was always her Daddy's darling until he left us. Wasn't she? Truly his darling. Or was there something I had missed? Something before he left us? When he left us?

            There were no tears. Not  then. Not later. There were never any tears.  She never cried. We'd done our best, both of us. We could dissemble with the best. We were proficient at hiding, masking, and deception. We could be trusted to prevaricate. We wore smart clothes; held our heads high, we practiced social graces. We could even be charming when required. But underneath? Oh, I knew well what lay underneath my exterior - but under Ruth's? What monsters tormented her there? There was only one certainty. She would never have told me, would never have let me inside, never ever have trusted me.

            "I bought this," she said in a bright fun voice, and she opened up a big carrier bag, the brand name embossed in stark aggressive letters on the outside. I looked inside, anything to appear normal, to show that I cared. Appearances were everything, are everything. Who cared that she might never wear the small flimsy garment that she drew out of the bag? The tissue paper rustled as she unfolded it. Who saw it later tossed in a corner of her room, on the floor, under the bed, labels still attached, receipt fluttering in the draught every time the door was opened? Who but me and what did I matter?  I was only the means by which she survived each day. Without me what would have become of her? would she have been better? Or worse? Would she have survived as she should, or would she have failed? How much did she have need of me, or I of her?

The garment was pretty, a soft pink, sheer, see-through top. I found it hard to know whether it was night wear or eveningwear, or even day wear, there didn't seem to be much difference any more. One day she would wear something like this, another day she wore long sleeves, a high neck, dark colours. I could tell her mood by the clothes she wore, by the way she spoke, the way she moved. I didn't want to be able to do this. I never asked to be able to read her so clearly. I would have preferred not to know when the crisis was on the way, was unavoidable. Each crisis brought her and me one step closer to the edge. I didn't believe any more that there was a solution for her. I lost that hope long ago. I tried not to know that she had lost it too. I trod warily around that knowledge, did not acknowledge what I knew, it would have been too much to bear.

            To my surprise she ordered some food. Light.  Small. Chicken soup and a soft roll. Today she would play the game, take it all the way to the wire.  It came, placed in front of her with a smile by a girl almost her own age, a student possibly, bright, alert and efficient.

"Enjoy, " she said in the American way. I nodded my acknowledgement. Ruth ignored her.

Where did I go wrong? If indeed I did go wrong? Was it wrong to wish to see my daughter beautiful? I dressed her in pretty clothes when her friends wore jeans. I braided her hair when her friends drew theirs roughly through bobbles back from their faces.  I put her tiny feet into patent shoes when they wore runners.  Was it wrong to chastise her for mud on her dresses when she played with her friends, for paint on her cardigan when she visited a friend's home? Was it wrong to praise her for her music, when her classmates went to Brownies, to keep her home when they went to Guide Camp? I always told her she was beautiful, always praised her for her neatness, always loved her. Her bedroom was a joy - clean and bright and full of fluffy toys. Then, she didn't like untidiness, or was it me? Later her room became knee deep in cast off clothes, and books and shoes, and I was not allowed to enter. I did once.  But I was afraid of what I might find there and so I kept away.

She toyed with the soup and the spoon and the roll. I watched her. She knew that I watched her. It was like a game of cat and mouse which I was powerless to stop. The spoon clinked against the bowl. The knife clattered down on the plate. Around us I could hear the buzz of conversation. Not one morsel of food went into her mouth.  I ached to spoon-feed her, as though she were a child again, here in the restaurant. Then I wondered why we met here at all, why we pretended, when we could just as easily have met in the Art Gallery, or a church, or on a good day, the park. Then there would have been no need of food .Why the pretence of normality? Why always the pretence?

We were not truly mother and daughter. We never could be. That much was obvious. My blood didn't run in her veins.  Her genes were not mine. She didn't look like my mother, her grandmother. She didn't have blue eyes like my sisters.  Her dark hair and dark eyes came from Eastern Europe. She could never be of me no matter how much I wanted it. Was it this that deep down I resented? Did I try to make her in my own mould? To shape her into something she wasn't? Did I hide from her and from myself the fact that she was not mine? Did I or didn't I?  Everything she tried to do was a disappointment to me, though I tried to hide it. I was sure that I had hidden it successfully. She never excelled at school; she wanted to dance, to run, and to sing. She didn't want to sit still and study. I stopped her at every turn. I needed her to pass exams, to be correct, to shine above the other girls, to achieve. I forgot that she might have had parents who loved music, who were athletes or dancers, who found joy in movement or song. I wanted her to be me.

And she became me. She forgot how to be herself. She wore the clothes I chose for her and never objected. Walked as I taught her to walk, sat up straight, spoke slowly and clearly.  Ultimately she would be fed by tube, its plastic length invading her body like an instrument of torture. I knew that then, but I chose to remain in denial.  I saw the sharp angles of her cheekbones when she turned her head. I knew her legs were stick thin underneath the table.  I knew her teeth were permanently damaged. Didn't I?   The heads that turned after her turned in horror or sometimes, more kindly, in sympathy. I knew she would be hospitalised one day soon. I didn't know   if she would ever be discharged.

Ruth was my daughter, my only child. My hope, my life, my joy. And I was her mother.