‘Ann, are you listening to yourself? You have a child. There she is. It might be the opportunity of a lifetime, but you can’t just go to America and leave your child.’
‘But, Mum. This is what I’ve always wanted. You know it is. I haven’t been slogging my guts out on the local paper all this time just to pass up the job of a lifetime. I’ve been head-hunted by TheNew York Times Mum, for goodness sake.’
The argument is in full swing, like the third movement of a symphony. My mother (I know it is her) is flushed and excited, angry and determined. She is clenching and unclenching her hands, as if she is only just restraining herself from throwing a punch at my gran.
‘I know. I know what you’ve said. You’ve been saying it all week. It doesn’t change the fact that you’ve got a child. Ron, can’t you talk some sense into your daughter?’
‘Oh love. What can I say that you haven’t said?’
‘You could at least try to back me up! Ann, you have a responsibility to your daughter. Why can’t you take Sarah with you?’
The sound of my name startles me, as if I had been in a trance. How did I get downstairs and into the kitchen? I don’t remember moving from Gran’s bedroom. Bizarrely, I appear to be sitting in a high chair, strapped in around my waist. I feel constrained in this chair, in this body, displaced. I tug at the strap with a small, pudgy hand that is covered in half-eaten food. Before I can stop myself, I suck at the hand.
‘Mum, I told you. I can’t take her with me. I’ll be working crazy hours. We’ve been through all this. I don’t really have time for her now. Besides, I’m a useless mum. You know I am. She’ll be better with you, not me.’
She sighs, sagging as if suddenly deflated, whereas moments ago she had looked much more like she would burst.
I try to speak, to say what I think. What comes out sounds like ‘Nan, Nan, Nan’. I burble and giggle and dribble out food.
‘Did she say Nan? You see! I’m right and you know it! Am I to be punished forever for making a silly mistake?’
‘Don’t say that! Don’t say it! Never say that! How can you say it?’ Gran turns to me with a smile and kisses my cheek and coos, ‘You’re a good, clever girl!’
‘Look I’ve tried. I know you think I haven’t tried hard enough, but please try to see it my way. I could have had an abortion. I thought about it.’ She stops as if considering it afresh. The silence is awful. ‘I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d hit the roof. You talked me out of putting her up for adoption. You said you’d help.’
‘Help yes. But raising your child for you is an entirely different thing. A girl needs her mum. Well most of them do. As she gets older you’ll probably find it easier. Not that I did with you.’
‘Well, maybe one day when’s she older and I’m settled, if she wants to she can come…’
‘Maybe she’s right, Vera. Maybe she’s right. We’ve only got the one life and she’ll do the child no good if she’s miserable as sin the whole time.’
‘Oh Ron! You’ve always been far too soft on Ann. Is it any wonder she has no sense of responsibility?’
Gran turns my chair round to the table, sits down and leans her head in her hands. I see in her lines the inexorable future, the ageing that surely will come. Younger than I remember her, she will lose both her daughter and her husband within a few years, will have only me. Although there can have been no possible reason back then and there, sitting replete in the high chair, I start to wail and cry, though I couldn’t know why, till my gran unclips the straps, lifts me out, joggles me up and down reassuringly on her comfortable lap.
‘The job starts on Monday,’ my mother mutters at the floor like a sullen teenager. ‘My flight is the day after tomorrow.’
I am silent as if her presumption, her defiant desertion has somehow registered in my infant brain.
‘Nan, Nan, Nan?’ I say eventually, patting her wet cheeks with my small chubby hands.
‘Nanny’s here,’ she replies and I gurgle, contented once more.
My mother has turned away. Already, I have forgotten her face.
‘Put Sarah to bed, Vera,’ suggests my grandfather in that slow, gentle voice, ‘then we’ll talk some more.’
‘What’s to talk about?’ Gran sighs. ‘Ann’s already made up her mind.’
She carries me up the stairs to the nursery, places me down in my cot.
‘Never could tell your mother anything,’ she mutters. ‘She’s always been difficult. She was an awkward, uncomfortable sort of child, and an anti-social, sullen teenager. Now she’s a workaholic. Who knows where she gets it from? Not from me or your grandfather, that’s for sure. Her pregnancy was a real surprise. Just a fling, she said, on a work trip, of course, wouldn’t even tell us his name. We don’t know who your father is.’
She reaches for something that’s wooden and small and her hand winds the key and Brahms’ Lullaby tinkles and chimes. She places the music box up on the shelf and as she strokes my arm tenderly I grab at her hand, hold it tight…
Precious Stones 
Interesting but very sad.