Free Nothing is Black by Deirdre Madden Page B

She’d been successful in her career as an interior designer and she’d enjoyed it. At least that had worked out. It was some compensation for all the personal unhappiness. Her marriage, her relationship with Lili: sometimes she could be philosophic about this side of her life, shrug, reason that she knew more people whose marriages had failed than had made a success of it. The hidden miseries her Irish neighbours told her were further proof that she was not alone in her unhappiness. But tonight those regrets had the upper hand, and she could do nothing to get them into perspective.
    It was three years now since she’d even seen Lili, andyears again since the meeting before that. She’d looked quite different to how Anna had remembered her, looked older than she’d expected, with her hair cropped short in a style that didn’t suit her. It was a mild shock to see how much she’d changed, for it brought home to Anna how much of Lili’s life had passed in which she had had no part. Not that she wanted to interfere, as Lili claimed, no. She didn’t think she had a right to know everything that went on in her daughter’s life, but it did hurt to be so completely excluded from it. It wasn’t fair for Lili to blame Anna for every failure and lack in her life. It certainly wasn’t fair either to hold Anna exclusively responsible for the break up of her marriage to Pieter. That was the heart of the quarrel between Lili and Anna. She wanted to avoid talking about it on this visit, but feared that they would degenerate into wrangling about that very subject.
    ‘I’m so glad to see you again, it’s been too long, Lili. You look well,’ she lied. ‘How do you find me? I must look much older to you.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Lili, ‘you do.’
    ‘I won’t always be here,’ Anna said evenly. Pieter had died so suddenly. She wanted to mend fences with her daughter if only to spare her the bitter, unresolved emotions she had experienced then. She still loved Lili enough to want her not to have to go through that; no, she’d not have wished such pain upon anyone, least of all her only daughter. But Lili had fixed ideas about her parents’ marriage.
    ‘Are you happy?’ Anna asked timidly.
    ‘Of course not,’ was the reply. ‘How can I be? Haven’t I told you time and again the upbringing you gave meleft me so lacking in confidence and self-esteem that I don’t expect to ever find what you call happiness.’
    Anna knew she would have to reply carefully to this. What she wanted to say was that Lili was being ridiculous , she was a woman in her thirties, her destiny was in her own hands. No one was dealt the hand they thought they deserved in life, you just had to make the best of it. To blame your mother for your misery at Lili’s age was just wallowing in self-pity, as far as Anna was concerned . She had been a good enough mother, of that Anna was convinced. She had always given Lili her freedom and respected her independence. What did Lili want? That her mother live her life for her? Only by completely abdicating responsibility for her own life could Lili hold Anna to account. She didn’t say any of this aloud. Instead, she took a deep breath and said quietly. ‘One thing which you should always remember, and yet one which you always choose to overlook, is that I didn’t leave your father. He left me.’
    ‘But then he came back and you wouldn’t take him in.’
    ‘Why should I have done so?’ Anna was dismayed to see how quickly she was losing her temper, when she had wanted so much to stay calm. ‘Have you any idea what it’s like to have a man walk out on you like that? The man to whom you promised and devoted your whole life? Do you know what it’s like to have a child with a man, and then to have him humiliate you in the worst possible way, in front of all your family and friends?’
    When Lili was ten, Pieter had left Anna for his secretary. He was forty, Anna two years younger, and the secretary was