Postcards From Berlin (28 page)

“Yes?”

“Is Daisy going to school?”

“No.”

“Well, you wouldn’t take me in, would you?” She puts in the final scrunchie and looks at herself appraisingly in the mirror.
“I’m so-o-o late, and we’ve got a maths test. And I’ve got my bags.”

“I can’t, Sinead, I’m sorry. Not today.”

“Oh,” she says. She’s surprised: I usually do what she asks. She waits a moment, hoping I’ll change my mind, then shrugs,
puts on her jacket. “OK. Is everything all right?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Your voice sounds kind of weird.” She hauls her bags up, one over each shoulder. “Bye, then.”

I reach out and wrap my arms around her; it’s awkward because of the bags, She hugs me back briefly, coloring a little.

“I hope today goes really, really well,” I tell her.

“Cat, don’t overdo it,” she says. “It’s only an algebra test. I’m not, like, having major surgery.”

She slips away from me.

Once the door closes behind her, I go straight to her room, feeling strangely weightless, as if gravity doesn’t pull on me.
I rifle around on her desk, through all the rainbow clutter — pages about pop stars, a scrumpled Julius Caesar essay, Korean
notepaper, astrological supplements. The Weimar Republic project is hidden inside a copy of
Heat
. the postcard showing the Schiller monument has been stuck to the cover with Pritt Stick. I ease up one corner of the postcard.
I can see all the digits of the number except one. I try to lift it off the page, but it’s comprehensively stuck; I have to
tear it. A bit of paper is still stuck down, obscuring the number; it flakes off when I scratch at it.

I use the phone in the living room, shutting the door so Daisy won’t be able to hear. I put the postcard down on the phone
table, where there’s a vase of peonies. I sit there for a moment, tracing a path with my finger though the fallen peony petals.
I feel quite cool as I dial, but I see that my hand is shaking. It seems to ring for ages. I hear the thud of my heart and
the sound of the phone at the other end of the line.

She gives the number in German, but I know her voice the way I know my own.

“It’s me.” It’s hard to form the words: My mouth is stiff and dry. “It’s Catriona. I’m ringing from London.”

There’s a pause.

“Who is this?” she asks.

“Catriona.”

“Catriona?” Her voice is tight with suspicion.

“It’s
me
,” I say again. “I want to come and see you like you said.”

“Oh,” she says. “Oh.
Trina
. Oh, I’m sorry, darling — it’s just that I wasn’t expecting this. Darling, that’s wonderful.” The words tumbling out now.
“You don’t sound like you used to — well, of course you wouldn’t, how silly of me, you’ll be much bigger now. I don’t know
what to say. It’s just so sudden. And when were you thinking of?”

“I want to come today.”

Another little silence, like an intake of breath.

“Today?”

I sense her hesitation, feel a quick flicker of anger: that she’s pleaded with me to visit her, and now I’ve said I’m coming,
and suddenly it’s all too much and yet again she’s pushing me away.

“Yes. Today. It has to be today.”

Another pause.

“That will be wonderful, darling,” she says then. “Wonderful.”

“It’ll probably be late afternoon. I don’t know when exactly. I’ve got to book the flight. You’ll just have to expect us when
you see us.”

“
Us
, darling?”

“I’m bringing my little girl. Daisy.”

“Daisy,” she repeats. “How wonderful to see her. Tell me, how old is Daisy?”

“She’s eight.”

“How lovely. Eight. It’s such a lovely age. And you’ll be staying over?”

“If we may.”

“Karl’s away,” she says. “A business trip. So that’s really very convenient. Sometimes you feel that things are just meant
to happen.” As though her moment of reluctance had never been. “The only thing is, darling, there are just two bedrooms.…”

“D’you have a sofa? Daisy could sleep on a sofa.”

“Well, if you’re sure,” she says. “I’ll make her nice and comfortable. Don’t you worry, Trina, I’ll get something sorted.
You’ve got my address, have you, darling? You got my postcards?”

“Yes.”

“Now, listen carefully, darling. You need to get the bus to Charlottenburg. They might try to tell you Zoo, but Zoo station
isn’t very nice, darling, there are lots of drug pushers there. Go to Charlottenburg, and take the S-Bahn to Hackescher Markt
— and then you take the tram up Prenzlauer Allee…”

I write it down.

“We live on the fifth floor,” she says. “The name is Mueller. You have to ring the bell and there’s an intercom thing.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll manage.”

“Now, the airport’s very busy, Trina. Keep an eye on your bags. You can’t trust anyone nowadays.”

“We’ll be all right.”

“And Trina, look, where I live, it used to be the East, of course, but you mustn’t let that worry you. We’re really coming
up in the world here now. It’s not at all like you’d think. This afternoon, then?”

“Yes. This afternoon.”

I put down the phone. My whole body is trembling.

I get my credit card and ring Heathrow, I’ve never done this before: Richard’s always made our travel arrangements; I’ve never
flown without him. But it’s all so easy. Yes, there are seats on the afternoon flight to Berlin. It lands at Tegel Airport.
I can pick the tickets up from the kiosk at the airport entrance. Check-in is one hour before departure.

I get the Yellow Pages and look for a taxi firm. There’s a name I recognize, from when we last went to Tuscany. I ring: This
too is easy. I have an hour and a half before the taxi comes.

I have a sense of triumph: I am high, pure, clear; I can do anything. I pack my hand luggage first: credit card, money, passports.
I take some phone numbers — Nicky, Fergal. Then I find a bag, start flinging things in. I don’t know what to expect, how hot
it will be or whether it might rain. I just throw in whatever comes to hand — two skirts of mine, not bothering to fold them,
some T-shirts of Daisy’s from the tumble dryer. I put on a brown silk dress that works for any occasion.

And then I can’t postpone it any longer — the thing that I am dreading. I go to Daisy’s bedroom.

She’s slumped in her bed.
Kilroy
is on, but she’s playing with her Game Boy. I take her cut-off jeans and a polo shirt from her wardrobe and put them out
on her bed. Her eyes are on me, dull, a little suspicious. Suddenly, I can’t believe what I’m doing: It seems delinquent,
wild.

“Why am I getting dressed?” she asks.

“Because you and I are going on a trip.”

She frowns. “What sort of a trip?” She’s wary. I know she thinks this is cheery adult-speak for something unpleasant — a doctor,
clinic, blood test.

“Not what you think. We’re going to the airport.”

At once she sits upright. Her eyes are wide.

“We’re going to fly to Berlin,” I tell her. “D’you think you can manage that?”

Her eyes hold me; her whole face gleams.

“Berlin,” she says. The word is like a sweet she’s rolling round her mouth.

For a moment I think that she will accept it and I won’t have to explain. But then a shadow moves across her face.

“Why are we going now?” she asks. “Is it because I’m ill?”

“Kind of. Dr. McGuire and Dr. Watson want you to go into a hospital.”

“To stay?” she asks.

I nod. “It’s a place for children with psychological problems.”

“I’m not making it up, Mum,” she says.

“Of course you’re not. But anyway, I don’t think that place is right for you. I don’t want you to go there.”

She looks at me accusingly. “So are we running away?”

“No. We’re going to see your grandmother.”

A stern frown creases her forehead.

“But she was horrid to you. You keep on telling me.”

“Yes. But people change. Maybe we’ll find we get on better now. And she really wants to see you. I rang her just now and she
said how very much she wants to see you.”

There’s light in her eyes: this pleases her. “Really?”

“Really.”

“D’you think she’d like it if I wore my red denim jacket?”

“I’m sure she would,” I tell her.

Her schoolbag is on the floor by her bed. I tip everything out of it.

“You can take this bag to keep with you on the plane: for Hannibal and some books. D’you want to pack it yourself?”

She nods, gets out of bed. She starts to choose books from her bookshelves, her book of Celtic tales, two books about cats.
The bag will be heavy, but I just let her take them; I can carry it for her. Hannibal goes on top.

Then she turns to me; her face is dark with worry.

“But what about Sinead?”

“Sinead will be at Sara’s.”

She zips up her bag. “I wish Sinead was coming,” she says. “And Dad. I wish they were coming with us. It won’t be fun without
them.”

Guilt floods me.

“I know, sweetheart. But if we’re going to go, we have to go today.”

“Dad and Sinead will miss us, won’t they?”

“Yes, they probably will.”

She looks at me for a moment, an intent, questioning look. Then she shrugs a little.

“OK,” she says. “Well, don’t just stand there, Mum. I’m going to get dressed.”

When the taxi comes, we’re waiting in the hall. The driver is a woman, scrubbed and genial.

“You’re certainly traveling light,” she says, as she carries our bags to the car. “I wish they were all like you, I must say.
So where are you going?”

“Berlin.”

“Oh. Berlin.” Suddenly, she is serious. “My cousin was there in the forces, before the Wat! came down. It freaked him out,
he said. If you went to the East in the train, they locked you in.”

“Yes, I’d heard that,” I tell her.

She checks we have fastened our seat belts.

“It must have been so weird,” she says. “Before the Wall came down.”

“Yes,” I say. “It must have been.”

“It’s the families I feel sorry for,” she says. “All the parents and children. All those poor people who lived there, who
couldn’t visit their families.”

“Yes,” I say. “That must have been hard for people.”

She starts up the engine.

Daisy loves the glamour of airports: the glittery shops selling suntan oil and sarongs that are patterned with pictures of
tropical islands, the computer screens with their lists of resonant destinations. We wander round the shops, and I buy her
a Pokémon magazine and a bottle of Evian with a sports cap, remembering that you can only ever get fizzy water on planes,
and we go to a café and toy with some tough chocolate croissants. People look at us benignly: anxious mother and pale, fragile
child. They don’t know about us.

As we go through passport control, I am seized by a sudden fear that I am being watched or followed, that somebody will stop
us, that this man will not let us through. I see it all so vividly — how he takes our passports away while the other passengers
stare at us, quite openly and curious, for now we are not like them, we have crossed to the other side. How he leads us off
to a small bleak room and asks me questions to which there are no good answers. But none of this happens. He grins at Daisy,
says how he likes her jacket, waves us cheerily through.

Daisy has a window seat. As the plane taxies, we watch the film about what to do in emergencies. Daisy is conscientious and
pulls out the card of instructions from the net pocket in front of her.

“Look,” she says, waving it at me, gleeful. “They made a mistake here, Mum.” She’s pleased with herself: She loves to come
across misprints in anything official. “It says that if there’s a person with a child, they need to fix their oxygen mask
before they fix the child’s.”

“That’s what they always say.”

“No, Mum. You should see to the child first,” she says sternly.

“But the mother has to look after both of them, and if the mother can’t breathe she isn’t much use to her child.”

This doesn’t satisfy her. “I think she should help the child.”

The plane speeds down the runway. She watches through the window, relishing the thrill of takeoff, as I used to do. I remember
the very first time I flew, when Richard and I went to Venice for our honeymoon, and how he loved my ignorance and my delight
in everything; and, when he saw how charmed I was by the in-flight meal with all its cups and packets, how he smiled and pulled
me to him and pressed his mouth to my hair.

The light through the window glosses over Daisy’s pallor, and her eyes shine with pleasure. She looks for a moment like a
healthy child. I peer across her as the land opens out beneath us, the patterning of fields, green and brown and bleached-blond,
the scribble of wood and hedge. The plane tilts and banks. Daisy grins, unafraid.

We cross the bright white line at the edge of the land, and the sea is spread below us, placid and gleaming. The waves near
the shore are white and still, as though sketched with chalk by a child, or as they might have been drawn on some faded sepia
map, fabulous with dragons, at the rim of the charted world. Through the window of the plane it is all blue and silver, and
suddenly my heart is light, as though we are set free.

T
EGEL AIRPORT SEEMS QUIET
after Heathrow. An official takes our passports and studies our faces to see if we match our photographs. I try to breathe
and look at ease. But then he waves us through.

We buy a travel card and take the bus to Charlottenburg Station, just as my mother told me. We are tired now: We stare silently
out of the window at the cobbled side streets, the canal, the hoardings; at Charlottenburg Castle, pale and splendid, which
I recognize from one of my mother’s postcards, Daisy is intrigued by the foreigness of everything: the street names and the
hoardings, and the German posters for
Blow
with Penelope Cruz.

At the station we take a train with red-and-yellow carriages that seems to have come straight out of an old spy movie. Through
the window we glimpse vast city vistas, building sites and distant opulent buildings and the shining glass on massive office
blocks, all the glamour and frenzy of the city. Alongside the track there are graffitied walls and flats with sun awnings,
and from a balcony at the top of a block of flats, someone has hung a sheet that says “Fuck Capitalist Overkill” in shaky
black letters.