The Mum Who Got Her Life Back Read online

  ‘It’s his electric toothbrush.’

  ‘Are they usually that loud?’

  ‘His is,’ she whispers, grimacing.

  ‘He cleans his teeth in the hallway?’

  Nadia nods, clearly finding the situation hysterical. ‘He likes to pace about.’

  ‘But … why?’

  She shrugs. ‘Exercise?’

  I splutter, and we hold each other, trying not to laugh and gradually building to silent hysteria – she is actually crying with laughter – at the sound of the whirring and pacing. God, l love this woman. But needless to say, neither of us gets any more exercise that night. And next morning, when I find her son clad in a fleecy onesie, guarding the kitchen like a malevolent bear, the whole Alfie-back-home issue doesn’t feel quite so funny after all.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Nadia

  There’s nothing like a homecoming adult child to throw a spanner into the workings of your love life – but what can I do? Of course Alfie doesn’t require me to be here constantly, tending to his needs. However, I also know that Lori is at Jack’s from this evening – Wednesday – probably until the end of the weekend. I could stay at his place when she’s there; Jack has always said there’s no reason why I can’t. But so far I haven’t, as I know he values their time together. I’m also aware that he’s concerned about his ex’s situation (specifically, Elaine’s tendency to sound as if she’s had a few whenever they speak on the phone), and apparently she has a new man on the scene. So perhaps a few days apart will give us the chance to focus on our own lives?

  Anyway, I’m due to pick up Molly from Edinburgh on Friday, and once she’s home, I’m hopeful that her presence will defuse things. Naturally, I have tried to talk to Alfie some more, and reassure him that his dad and I will support him whatever he decides to do. But still, he has to make the right decision (i.e. the one I want him to make!). He’s a bright boy, and he really wanted to go to uni; I hate to see him wasting an opportunity like this.

  Eventually, I’ve had to leave Alfie alone to his moochings, and focus on my work. I’ve managed to finish the woodland illustrations, plus an illustrated menu for an upmarket burger chain. It’s a well-liked company, with admirable ethics – the Lush of the burger world, all smiley and grass-fed – and I was delighted to be commissioned. Although work’s going well, it can be a precarious business sometimes.

  Danny contributes to the kids’ living expenses, of course. He’s not tight where they’re concerned, but he doesn’t believe in showering them with cash (quite rightly). Plus, he’s not crazily rich; at least, not nearly as much as some might imagine. As for me, he would help me out, if I asked him to, but I never would. We agreed that, once Molly and Alfie had turned eighteen last year, he’d funnel his contributions straight into their bank accounts instead of mine. Luckily, we’ve never needed any lawyer-type shenanigans to sort this stuff out. However, on the emotional support front, he still doesn’t get it sometimes.

  ‘What are we going to do about Alfie?’ I ask, grabbing the chance to call Danny as soon as Alfie has gone out to meet up with a couple of old friends.

  ‘Can I call you back?’ Danny asks. ‘We’re checking out locations …’

  ‘At this time?’ It’s just gone nine p.m.

  ‘Yeah. Bit of a mad day.’ I should know by now that Danny doesn’t adhere to anything resembling working hours, so I call Molly – not to offload, but to check that everything is at least all fine in her world, and that there won’t be any shock announcements when I see her on Friday.

  ‘I know about Alf,’ she says, in her usual breezy way. ‘I called him. He’s mad. I can’t believe he’s doing this, because of her!’

  ‘Because of … Camilla?’ I venture, wary of fishing for info.

  ‘Um, yeah.’ I sense her guard going up.

  ‘Molls … what’s actually happened with Alfie and her?’

  She hesitates. ‘Oh, Mum. You’ll have to ask him. Anyway, about Friday—’

  ‘Yes, please be all packed up and ready, darling. I’ll be with you by about ten. I meant to tell you, I’ve booked a week away in Barcelona. I hope you’re okay with that. I’m going with Jack …’

  ‘That’s great,’ she enthuses. ‘Yeah, ’course it’s okay.’ She pauses. ‘Could you bring boxes and some really strong bin bags?’

  ‘To Barcelona?’ I ask, baffled.

  ‘No, on Friday, to help me move out—’

  ‘Molly, how can you be packed if you don’t have anything to put your stuff in?’

  She sniffs. ‘I thought it’d be easier if you could get some …’

  ‘Whenever I moved, I’d go around all the local shops, asking if they had any old boxes kicking about …’ I tail off. Molly is laughing.

  ‘You want me to go around begging for boxes?’ she snorts.

  ‘It’s not begging exactly,’ I insist, realising there was no point in going on as we finish the call. Ruddy millennials, is one of Danny’s favourite retorts, with their sense of entitlement; falling apart if the Wi-Fi goes down. What they need is a bloody war!

  A joke, of course, and he’s hardly been Tough Dad over the years. We’ve just muddled along, in our terribly modern way, constantly wondering whether we’ve been too stingy or generous, with fingers firmly crossed that everything would turn out okay. With my own parents, things were more cut-and-dried, with firmer boundaries. Mum, a primary school teacher, was kind but rather distant (she ‘suffered with her nerves’, as she put it). Dad grafted long and hard as a welder, but always had time for Sarah and me; we were very much ‘his’ girls, delighting in the stories he read us, and the long summer days when we hung out at his allotment. But there were rules, certainly, and a firm structure frameworked our young lives: dinner at six, a ten p.m. curfew once we’d reached our teens, chores allocated between us. I’d never so much as heat up soup without thoroughly deep-cleaning the kitchen afterwards. Mum would have had a meltdown if I’d attempted to make that Lebanese dish of Alfie’s.

  Dad died of a heart attack at seventy, and Mum had a stroke shortly afterwards, from which she never recovered. Admittedly, Danny was a rock during this time, even though we were no longer together. Along with Sarah and Vic, he helped us to clear out their home, a shadowy Victorian terrace still swathed in the patterned net curtains and ornament-laden sideboards of a previous era. But he had time back then; his career hadn’t quite reached the level it has now.

  When Danny finally calls back, just as I am about to go to bed, he sounds weary. ‘Nads, you worry too much about Alfie,’ he tells me.

  ‘You always say that. There’s usually been a justifiable reason …’

  ‘Like what?’ he asks.

  ‘Well, the bullying, for one thing. That time he was attacked by those boys. Didn’t you see how that knocked his confidence—’

  ‘Yes, but that was years ago, and it’s always been your default response,’ he insists. ‘You worried whenever the kids fell out with a friend, if they got a bad school report, a wonky haircut, when Alfie wouldn’t practise the tuba—’

  ‘This isn’t about the tuba now,’ I retort.

  ‘No, thank Christ. What a god-awful racket that made – those blasts and honks, like warnings of impending nuclear attack …’

  ‘I think the way they teach music in schools is all wrong,’ announces Kiki in the background. Christ, he must have us on speakerphone.

  ‘Sorry?’ I manage to choke out.

  ‘All those scales and exams and classical pieces,’ she says shrilly. ‘Shall I tell you what it does?’

  I frown, momentarily lost for words.

  ‘It takes all the fucking joy out of it,’ Danny agrees. ‘That’s what it does. But Nadia was adamant because he’d signed up for lessons and we’d bought him the goddam instrument …’

  ‘Who are you talking to here?’ I bark.

  ‘Er, you,’ he says sheepishly.

  ‘Well, the tuba was on loan from school,’ I mutter, frustration bubbling up in
me now. ‘We didn’t buy it.’ This is what drove me mad when we were together; not a single incident, like the Reservoir Dogs suit, but constantly being forced into a position where I was regarded as the joyless parent, while Danny was the fun, spontaneous one. It was me who insisted on proper dinners, with vegetables, eaten at a reasonable and regular time of day; routines, homework, the writing of thank-you letters, the practising of musical pieces.

  But actually, I didn’t give a shit about the tuba! Alfie had wanted to learn, just as he’d wanted to study English Lit at Aberdeen University. He could have picked the guitar or piano or a tinny plastic keyboard, for all I cared, but no: he went for the biggest, brassiest instrument that would be a fucker to transport back and forth from school. And now his dad is inferring that I loomed over him, with a whip, while he struggled through Bach.

  ‘Kiki’s only trying to help,’ Danny adds.

  Well, just bloody don’t, I want to snap. Instead, I inhale deeply. ‘Okay. So, can you suggest anything helpful, Danny? Like, how Alfie might think about filling the summer, for instance?’

  Of course he can’t, and as I climb into bed once we’ve ended the call, I send Jack a customary goodnight text, and sense a wave of nostalgia for the time Jack and I had together, before my son came home (crazy, I know, as it was only a week ago). Does this make me a bad mother, to find it hard to just slip back into Alfie and I coexisting in this flat? To miss the peace and space that I had, and be seized by an urge to bin that damned onesie? Jack responds to my text with a call; we commiserate with each other about our barely communicative teens, as Lori keeps on insisting that ‘everything’s fine’ with her mother, and all Alfie will offer is that ‘everything’ll work out, Mum. Stop going on about it.’

  ‘I’ve told Alfie and Molly about our Barcelona trip,’ I add.

  ‘Are they okay about it?’ Jack asks.

  ‘Of course,’ I say, my spirits rising now at the thought of it. ‘I’m sorry things have been a bit … different lately.’

  ‘Hey, that’s okay,’ he says quickly. ‘Things happen. Our lives are busy. Just know that I’m thinking of you all the time, and that I love you with all my heart, okay?’

  ‘Oh.’ I blink, overcome with a rush of love for him. We’ve said I-love-you before, many times. But his declaration was so spontaneous and heartfelt, it makes me think: everything will work out, like Alfie said. ‘I love you too,’ I murmur.

  I sense him smiling. ‘Well, we’re agreed on that, then.’ He pauses. ‘What’re you up to tomorrow?’

  ‘I’ll have to do a long day’s work, I think, and then Sarah’s staying over. She’s in a town for a training day, so we thought we’d get together.’

  ‘And Friday?’

  ‘I’m driving over to Edinburgh to move Molly out of her halls. She and her friends have found a flat but the tenancy doesn’t start until late August. So we need to bring her stuff here for the summer …’

  ‘I wish I could help you with that. If I wasn’t at the shop—’

  ‘We’ll be fine, honestly,’ I say firmly.

  ‘Couldn’t Danny do it?’

  ‘He’s working – and anyway, I really can handle it myself. If I needed an extra pair of hands I could’ve asked Alfie, but I’d rather have the space in the car …’

  ‘Yes, that’s probably more useful,’ Jack remarks.

  I frown, wondering what he meant by that. ‘You mean Alfie’s not useful?’

  ‘I didn’t say that—’

  ‘He would help, you know, if I asked him to.’ There’s an awkward pause, and I’m aware of over-reacting and how unreasonable that is; I’ve grumbled about Alfie’s laziness plenty of times, but then, I’m his mother. It’s allowed.

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ Jack says, with a trace of defensiveness. ‘I just meant—’

  ‘You can’t imagine Alfie lugging boxes?’ I ask, hating the coolness that’s crept into my voice.

  Jack sighs. ‘Well, perhaps not.’

  I prickle with irritation, even though Alfie has hardly demonstrated himself to be a handyman around the house in Jack’s presence – or anyone’s presence for that matter. ‘You haven’t seen much of him really,’ I mutter. ‘He’s not quite as helpless as he might seem.’

  ‘Yes, okay,’ he concedes.

  ‘He just needs time to get himself together,’ I add.

  ‘I realise that.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Another pause hangs between us.

  ‘Well, I’d better let you get some sleep,’ Jack adds.

  Something seems to twist inside me, and I wish I could rewind time and start this call all over again. ‘Look, Jack,’ I say, ‘I know I probably mollycoddle Alfie. His dad’s always telling me I do. Maybe I’m just a little sick of being criticised—’

  ‘I’m not criticising you,’ Jack exclaims.

  ‘No? Well, anyway, he’s going to start working. He just said this evening, “I’ll start earning as soon as I can. You won’t need to look after me …”’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah.’ I frown, waiting for a response, but none comes. ‘Jack,’ I start, ‘are you okay? Are we okay, I mean?’

  ‘Um, yes, of course we are.’ He sounds surprised. ‘Why d’you ask?’

  ‘It’s just … things seem different, don’t they? Just a little bit?’

  ‘A little, yes. But you have a lot on your plate,’ he says quickly, ‘and we’re fine, Nads. Look, I’d better let you get some sleep …’

  ‘Oh. Goodnight, then …’

  ‘Night,’ Jack says. I’m about to add, ‘sweet dreams,’ but he’s already finished the call.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jack

  You won’t need to look after me.

  That’s what my little brother Sandy said when he’d asked if he could come down and stay with me for a few days in Glasgow.

  Of course Nadia doesn’t know this. She’s aware that something happened to Sandy but I haven’t gone into the details, because … well, I’m not sure what she’d think of me if I did. I told Elaine, at the festival, when it was all so recent and raw and it just tumbled out. But it’s not recent now. Over the years, I’ve decided it’s best left buried in the past.

  I reflect on the conversation Nadia and I just had, when she seemed to think I was criticising Alfie. I’d love to call her back, to explain that’s not what I mean to do at all; we were only discussing her helping to move Molly out of halls! But maybe she needs a little space. Obviously, she’s upset over Alfie wanting to drop out of uni. And his homecoming has changed things, certainly; her kids will always take priority, just as Lori does for me. That’s just a fact, when you fall in love at our sort of age, and you already have lives. You have to respect that the other person might have stuff going on, and that you might not be a part of it. Isn’t that in the job description of a bona fide adult – to put other people’s needs before your own?

  I think I was a decent brother to Sandy, when I still lived at home on the farm. He certainly loved being around me anyway. I suppose that’s a natural younger brother thing – to want a piece of the older ones’ lives. He liked being around our eldest brother, too, but Craig was already taking on more and more farm work and he didn’t have as much time, or patience, for Sandy as I had. Sandy wanted to play my records and hang out in my room, bringing the dogs in with him; they’d all lounge on my bed in a damp, dirty heap. And despite the thirteen-year age gap we were incredibly alike, even appearance-wise, with our blue eyes and dark hair and rangy builds.

  Admittedly, it did get on my nerves sometimes, Sandy always being around. Even when I’d left home, he’d still want to talk, calling from the landline in our parents’ kitchen; this was way before everyone had mobile phones, and my parents were of the belief that they ‘damaged your brain’. They refused to have a microwave for the same reason.

  When he was old enough to travel by himself, Sandy started to nag about coming to stay with me in Glasgow. I let him visit a couple of times, picking him up from Queen Str
eet train station and taking him for a huge bowl of spaghetti at the cheap Italian restaurant I liked with the red gingham tablecloths and an army of waiters who were curt and dismissive until you’d been about eight hundred times, and they’d finally decided you were okay.

  Of course, they’d thought Sandy was ‘okay’ the first time I took him there, the wee bugger. ‘Aw, treating your kid brother to the big city lights? Look after him, man! Don’t go corrupting him!’

  Then one time Sandy called asking to come and stay, and I wasn’t in the mood for ferrying him about, taking him for spaghetti and to the cinema and all the stuff he liked. ‘C’mon,’ he wheedled from the phone in our parents’ hall. ‘I’ll just do my own thing if you’re busy. I won’t get in the way.’

  ‘I’ve got too much on at the moment,’ I told him.

  ‘But I’m sixteen! I’m not a kid. I won’t be any bother. You won’t need to look after me.’

  I’d do anything to be able to look after him now. I mean anything. Stuff my weekend plans, my selfish twenty-something desire to go to a party because I’d heard some girl I liked was going to be there – a Spanish waitress I had a thing for, I can’t even remember her name now. Never mind the fact that Sandy might have cramped my style a bit, or that I’d have had to keep a bit of an eye on him.

  Selfish, selfish fuck.

  While Sandy had pleaded with me, I’d heard Mum in the background, asking if everything was okay.

  ‘I’m on the phone,’ Sandy shot back, irritably.

  ‘Say hi to Jack!’ she called out.

  ‘Mum says hi,’ he said curtly, then he put the phone down. I just assumed he was having a teenage strop, so I didn’t bother phoning back.

  You won’t have to look after me, my brother said.

  Those words are tattooed onto my brain.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Nadia

  Before the kids left home there were so many little annoyances – wet towels dropped on the floor, the freezer door left open with all the food defrosting – that I almost stopped noticing them. But now, I seem to be on high alert for every minor misdemeanour of Alfie’s. And that, coupled with that rather tetchy conversation with Jack last night, seems to be making me rattier than usual.