Craving by Esther Gerritsen

Author:Esther Gerritsen [Gerritsen, Esther]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Psychological, Family Life, Fiction, Literary
ISBN: 9789462380080
Google: HuR4swEACAAJ
Amazon: 1642860026
Publisher: World Editions
Published: 2018-10-01T23:00:00+00:00

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Coco calls the hairdresser and asks him whether he wouldn’t mind coming to the house just this once. She knows how much her mother likes seeing him. It’s a gift.

She didn’t lie about her lodgings. She runs through all the words that have passed between her and her mother and is sure she hasn’t lied. Yet she still wants to give her mother a gift, like someone who wants to make up for something.

‘I don’t actually do that,’ the hairdresser says, ‘home cuts.’

‘She’s dying,’ Coco says. Everything to persuade the hairdresser. The hairdresser hesitates.

She says, ‘It might be the last time,’ and feels the warmth rising to her cheeks. Bloody hell, wash and set, she has her hair set these days and likes to go to the hairdresser’s once a week. No way that she’s going to die within the next seven days.

‘Fine,’ the hairdresser says.

After that she calls Martin and says that her mother can hardly be left alone anymore. She’s declining fast. The more she talks, the more it sounds like the truth and Coco begins to cry automatically and then she asks him, ‘It’s really true, isn’t it? She’s not doing well, is she?’

Then she calls Hans.

‘Mum’s not doing well.’

‘Poor sweetheart.’

‘It looks like I should stay here for the time being. No other option.’

‘Have you already spoken to her GP?’

‘He’s coming this week, I think.’

‘Then you’ll know more.’

‘When will I see you?’

He doesn’t reply at once. ‘Nothing has changed,’ he says.

‘I know.’

‘Yes?’

‘You’ve stopped believing in it.’

‘Yes.’

‘So you don’t want to see me anymore?’

‘Of course I want to see you.’

‘But?’

‘I just don’t think I can do that to you. I have to let you go.’

‘Do you want that?’

‘No, but …’

‘Let me decide. I’ll decide myself what you can do to me or not? OK? … Please?’

‘Yes.’

‘Fine.’

‘There’s an exhibition in Haarlem I’d like to see. Sculpture.’

‘Then we’ll go to the exhibition in Haarlem,’ Coco says. ‘Can you make tomorrow?’

When she hangs up, she’s delighted.

Coco sings a Russian song during the cooking. She stamps along, and when she is waiting for the water to boil for the rice she even claps her hands. Her good mood lasts for a long time, even as she eats with her mother. It isn’t until she’s lying in bed thinking about the next day that she realises that she doesn’t want to go to a sculpture exhibition at all and then falls asleep angry anyway, thinking: that’s clever, that I can do that, be angry and fall asleep.

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