The Mum Who Got Her Life Back Read online

  It’s slightly disappointing, and I’m worried that Lori will be lonely or bored, trapped with me for a week, even though Shannon came armed with so many bottles and potions last year that we had to check in her case to the plane’s hold. She’d brought fake tan, for goodness’ sake – at thirteen years old! Over the following week I’d kept spotting evidence of her presence around the apartment: some kind of sparkly brown powder scattered all over the beige rug, and what looked like a spider sitting on the side of the washbasin, but which turned out to be a strip of false eyelashes. But then, Lori and Shannon had fun, giggling away on the beach and in their shared room, while I hung back, trying to give them their space.

  ‘Dad, can I ask you something?’ Lori sits up straight and turns to me, with the poise of an interviewer.

  ‘Yes, what is it, love?’ I ask lightly.

  ‘Um … after your holiday … I mean the one with Nadia, not our one …’ Christ, she’s making it sound as if I have about fifteen holidays a year … ‘D’you think you might move in with her?’ she blurts out quickly.

  I stare at my daughter. ‘Is that what you’re thinking? That me and Nadia are planning to live together?’

  ‘Well, I just wondered if you might be.’ She shrugs dramatically, affecting casualness as she gets up.

  ‘Oh, darling – no,’ I say firmly. ‘There are no plans for that at all. We haven’t even mentioned it as a possibility …’ I stand up and place my hands on her shoulders. ‘Lor, I knew something was bothering you. I could just tell—’

  ‘It’s just, if you do move in with Nadia,’ she cuts in, refusing to meet my gaze now, ‘I guess you’ll sell this place and I’ll have to stay with Mum the whole time, won’t I?’ It all tumbles out in a rush.

  ‘No, love! I’m not selling this place. It couldn’t be further from my mind. It’s your home as much as it is mine. But what’s this about? Is it Mum? Is there something—’

  ‘No!’ she snaps.

  I pause as she lowers her gaze. ‘Look, honey – Nadia and I are having a good time together, and who knows where it’s going to lead? I have no idea at the moment. It’s still quite early days and we’ll just have to see …’

  ‘Yeah, I know that.’

  ‘And anyway, I have you, and she has Alfie and Molly, and you’re always going to take priority for us …’

  ‘That’s not fair, though, is it?’ she asks, frowning.

  I step back and study her face. ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Well,’ she says, assuming an airy tone now, ‘I’m practically an adult, and they actually are adults. They don’t even live with her.’

  ‘It looks like Alfie does for the time being,’ I remark.

  ‘Yeah, but what about you and your life? You’re getting older, Dad, and—’

  ‘Cheers, love,’ I say, attempting a joke. ‘Are you suggesting I should settle down properly before I croak it?’

  She tries, feebly, for a smile. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Oh, Lori, sweetheart. I wish you’d said you were worried …’

  ‘I’m not worried.’

  ‘You are, I can tell.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Because I’m your dad,’ I say, ‘and I know when you’re upset …’

  ‘I’m not upset!’ We look at each other, and I squeeze her hand. It’s a wobbly smile that flickers across her lips, but at least it’s there now, and she lets me hug her.

  ‘Darling, look,’ I say firmly, ‘I can promise you, things aren’t going to change, okay? I mean, there are no plans that you don’t know about, none at all.’

  She nods.

  ‘You would tell me, wouldn’t you, if something was happening with Mum?’ I add. ‘I mean, you’ve been spending more time here, and that’s great. You know it’s always fine with me. But you really must tell me if something’s worrying you or stressing you out—’

  ‘Of course I would,’ she says quickly, turning away to slurp the cold dregs of tea from her mug, then she saunters off towards her room to signal that there’s nothing more to say on the matter.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  ‘Bloody teenagers,’ Nadia murmurs, late the following night, when we are lying together in the semi-darkness. Yes, we are actually in bed, at her place. Molly greeted me with a grin and a brief hug, and Alfie managed a restrained sort of half-smile – at least I think it was a smile. Maybe he was trying to suppress a sneeze, with him just having got over his cold and everything.

  Anyway, it was certainly better than a sneer or a blank stare. The four of us sat around and chatted for a while – well, for about three and a half minutes – and I managed not to mention the weather or university or which Scottish city might be the wettest/most northerly. Basically, I just came out with a lots of ‘Phew, that was a busy week’-type stuff. Then Molly went out, perhaps to anaesthetise herself with booze after being subjected to my prattlings, and Alfie drifted off to his room.

  All of that might sound unremarkable, but I am regarding it as a huge step forward, in terms of being able to see Nadia with her family around. When Nadia suggested we come to bed, Alfie didn’t leap from his room and try to stop us. No one has claimed to be ill, or switched on a deafening electric toothbrush or shoved a chilli in their eye.

  The ‘bloody teenagers’ reference was made because Molly apparently nicked Nadia’s £40 bottle of gin a couple of nights ago, to take to a gathering, blithely saying that she would replace it when her mother ‘needed’ it. ‘What she actually said,’ Nadia says, ‘is, “Tell me when you really need gin and I’ll go out and get some for you.” Like I have a drink problem and she – the martyr – will supply me with booze if I’m absolutely desperate. When in fact she stole my special gin with the Orkney botanicals!’

  ‘And she’ll replace it with Gordon’s – if you’re lucky,’ I suggest with a smile.

  ‘More like supermarket own brand. And a half bottle at that,’ she says, and I smile and stroke her hair, realising what an idiot teenager I’ve been myself lately, with all my Danny Raven googling, huffing over them all going out for some bog-standard noodles and even slightly resenting the fact that she has been busy looking after her ill son.

  ‘I’ve been so short with Alfie too,’ she continues in a hushed voice. ‘It sounds awful but I have this finite amount of patience with all the moaning and sodden tissues dropped everywhere, and once that’s run out …’

  Personally, I’d say she’s been beyond patient. ‘Does anyone actually not mind looking after sick people,’ I remark, ‘apart from nurses?’

  She laughs. ‘But we’re not allowed to admit that, are we? As parents, I mean. We’re supposed to tend them without complaint or resentment. Oh, and weirdly, he relaxed his “no honey” rule …’

  ‘Do vegans avoid honey?’

  ‘I think it’s a shady area,’ she says, ‘but he decided it was okay to have it in a hot toddy with lemon juice, hot water and a big glug of whisky.’

  ‘Sounds like it did the trick, the honey-with-alcohol method.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She smiles, her wonderful, expressive face illuminated on one side by the street light eking in through her cream curtains. Although I’m pretty sure nothing will ‘happen’ tonight, it’s lovely just being in bed together, even if we are just catching up on each other’s lives. No one could ever accuse me of being too sex-focused when I am perfectly happy to lie here and update her on my party preparations; specifically, that my freezer currently houses one hundred and forty sausage rolls and, yes, several quiches. Seems like I am Quiche Man again.

  She rests her head on my chest as I update her on the Pancake situation (he’s still missing), and give her a thrilling, doubtlessly libido-stirring account of how I raked through the hoover bag’s contents with my bare fingers in an attempt to find Jean Cuthbertson’s wedding ring. I also mention that Mags left me a box of Black Magic in the back room. However, I don’t tell her what Sally said about Mags’s alleged crush on me (or whatever it is), as you can’t say, ‘One of the v
olunteers is apparently in love with me,’ without sounding ridiculous. Nor do I mention Lori bringing up the totally hypothetical issue of Nadia and I moving in together, because how would I do that without it becoming an actual thing, to be discussed as a possibility ‘one day’?

  Instead, I bask in pleasure as she tells me that her night out with Danny, his girlfriend and the kids was ‘a bit shit actually. Kiki’s convinced I need some kind of deep treatment to prop up my face before everything subsides …’

  ‘What?’ I exclaim.

  ‘And Danny moaned about the price of the green juice Molly ordered …’ I listen sympathetically, trying to hide my delight. ‘He thinks the juice thing’s ridiculous,’ she adds, ‘when it’s just some pulverised veg.’

  ‘I suppose he has a point,’ I say, magnanimously.

  ‘Or is it centrifuged?’ she asks, and I agree that that’s probably the correct term, although my attention is wavering now as she is caressing my inner thigh. On and on, her fingers go, whirling and stroking in that lovely slow and sensitive way she has, rendering me incapable of continuing our conversation about juice-pricing policies. And then, my God, we are kissing and then actually doing it, with a young, impressionable person under the same roof, capable of crashing through her bedroom door with an axe, or at least filing an official complaint to some official body or other for impacting negatively upon his mental health. And although we are quieter than mice – or maybe because of that, and the way the sound limitations seem to heighten our every breath – it is possibly one of the most thrilling experiences I can ever remember.

  And as we lie there afterwards, in a fuzz of amazement at having managed it at all, it strikes me – for perhaps the thousandth time – that I am extremely glad that I chose to buy Christmas presents in Lush during my lunch break on December 20.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Nadia

  What a relief it was to have Jack stay over on Thursday night, and for it to happen, to reassure us both that we can be together, and even get down to it when one or both of the kids are at home. However, I was slightly relieved that neither Molly nor Alfie had surfaced as Jack and I had coffee and bagels, before he shot off to work.

  Still, it feels as if we are over a slight hurdle, and over the next couple of days, I allow myself to feel cautiously optimistic about Jack’s gathering. Of course it’ll be fine, I tell myself, whilst trying to plough through my work. It’s a long time since I had to worry about how the kids would ‘behave’ whenever I took them along to something special.

  Sunday arrives, and after much deliberation I opt for a dress I bought in last year’s sales. It’s bias cut and loose-fitting, a beautiful cobalt blue with a tiny white flower print. I blow-dry my hair and apply light make-up, and decide on flat pumps. ‘Not too dowdy?’ I ask Molly, as I dither about in our hallway.

  ‘It’s so not dowdy,’ she enthuses. ‘You look lovely, Mum. Really pretty.’

  ‘Oh, thanks, darling. So do you.’

  She looks down, having swapped her usual jeans and baggy T-shirt for an actual dress – vintage red and black spot – without having even been asked to dress smartly. ‘Aw, this old thing,’ she says, laughing, tugging at the hem. Meanwhile Alfie has shaved and washed his abundant dark hair, and looks remarkably presentable in clean jeans and a black T-shirt, admittedly ironed by me – swiftly – in the hope that Molly wouldn’t see. She did, though.

  ‘Why d’you do Alfie’s ironing for him?’ she asked, rounding on me.

  ‘Because if I didn’t he’d go out in a crumpled one.’

  ‘Well, let him!’ She groaned in exasperation. Molly hasn’t let me iron anything of hers since she was about fifteen.

  And now, admittedly, I’m feeling rather edgy as we set off in my car, just after two p.m. Molly is in the passenger seat, Alfie in the back, along with a bunch of mixed flowers, a cheery combination of lilacs and lime greens wrapped in cellophane and secured with brightly coloured twine. I popped out and chose them this morning, taking care not to go for anything ostentatious. The last thing I want is for us to arrive, all three of us new to Jack’s family, with a whacking ta-daaaah! kind of bouquet.

  As we make our way across town on this blue-skied afternoon, I figure that it’s perhaps not ideal, meeting Jack’s parents for the first time at a family event. But then, he did say it was just a little gathering, a few drinks and snacks, nothing formal. I suppose I’m just horribly out of touch with the ‘meeting a boyfriend’s parents’-type scenario, because to get to that stage, you have to have reached proper relationship territory. I was hardly going to meet Ryan Tibbles’ mum and dad.

  As we arrive at Jack’s flat with our wine and our flowers, and Jack greets us at the door, I can tell immediately by all the chatter and laughter that chilly formality won’t be an issue today. Jack kisses and hugs me, and greets Molly and Alfie warmly. I glance at Alfie, delighted that he’s scrubbed up so well. Perhaps he’s on the way to getting himself back together, and recovering from the Camilla episode. Maybe he won’t notice if that blasted onesie ‘accidentally’ finds its way into Jack’s charity shop. He might even find a job to see him through the summer, and even agree to go back to uni …

  I’ve never been one of those smug mothers who brags about her children’s achievements. In fact, on occasion, I’ve probably focused too much on the stuff I’ve done wrong instead of allowing myself to think, ‘C’mon, Nadia – you haven’t cocked up too badly. Look at these lovely young people you helped to create.’

  Right now, though, I do feel proud of Molly and Alfie, just for being here really, all smiles and pleasantries as we step into Jack’s flat. ‘They’re all keen to meet you,’ he says with an apologetic grin as he leads us along the hallway, through the kitchen and out towards the block’s shared back garden, where everyone seems to have gathered.

  ‘Really?’ I ask.

  ‘Yeah. Mum’s taken up painting, and I made the mistake of telling her you’re an illustrator. Sorry if she foists her sketchbooks on you …’

  ‘Oh, that’s okay,’ I say quickly as we step outside. ‘I’d love to see them.’ I pause. ‘Is Iain here?’

  ‘Nope, he called off,’ Jack says. ‘Reckons he’s coming down with something. I think he liked the idea of coming, but when it came down to it, nerves got the better of him.’

  I nod. ‘Well, at least he knows he was invited.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Jack smiles. ‘Anyway, let me get you some drinks … Lori, could you help, please?’

  ‘Sure,’ she says, all smiles when she sees Molly.

  ‘I love your top,’ Molly says, and Lori looks down.

  ‘Aw, thanks. Got it from Dad’s shop.’

  ‘You’re so lucky that he runs a charity shop!’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ Lori beams.

  ‘I told you, I’m coming over as soon as I get a day off. Get all the best stuff.’ Lori laughs, and I sense how much she has warmed to Molly already: this cool older girl, wearing not a scrap of make-up, hair worn loose and tumbling casually around her face. Alfie is holding back a little, but I’d expected this. At least he’s come, I reflect; the way things have been recently, that’s a breakthrough.

  As Lori and her startlingly tanned friend go off to fetch everyone drinks, Jack introduces us to his mother, Pauline, his father, Brendan, and an assortment of aunts, uncles and family friends, whose names I try to remember as we are greeted warmly.

  ‘Lovely to meet you. Jack’s been telling us all about you …’ This is Brendan, who Jack has told me is sixty-nine years old. Tall and rangy, with a light tan and sparkling pale blue eyes, he looks at least a decade younger.

  ‘Good things, I hope,’ I say with a smile, liking him immediately.

  ‘Oh, yes, of course, love. Nothing but good stuff!’ He beams at Alfie, Molly and me. ‘You’re like peas in a pod, you three …’

  Alfie smiles politely.

  ‘Oh, what a handsome boy you are,’ Pauline enthuses, when she’s been introduced.


  ‘Mum,’ Jack scolds her good-naturedly as my son shuffles uneasily, unsure of what to do with the compliment.

  Pauline laughs. As a farmer’s wife, I’d imagined her to be the homely, scrubbed-cheeked sort, but in reality she is startlingly elegant with enviable cheekbones, expertly applied subtle make-up, and a chic silvery bob. ‘So, you’re at university, Alfie?’ she asks as Lori returns with our drinks, and Jack wanders off to greet a cluster of new arrivals.

  ‘Well, er, I’ve just sort of—’

  ‘Alfie’s just finished his first year,’ I cut in, knowing it’s wrong to answer for him, but I’m less than keen to discuss the whole dropping-out issue right now.

  ‘How about you, Molly?’ Pauline asks.

  ‘I’m at Edinburgh uni,’ my daughter replies.

  ‘What’re you studying, love?’

  ‘Neuroscience.’

  ‘Oh, my goodness! You’ve got it all going on, girl. Good for you …’ She grins and pats Molly’s arm, and I glance at Alfie and want to hug him. ‘So, Nadia,’ Pauline adds, ‘I hear you’re an artist …’

  ‘Yes, well, an illustrator really …’

  ‘Jack says you’ve worked for John Lewis!’

  ‘Oh, yes, I did a stationery range for them …’ I can’t help feeling flattered that Jack has mentioned this to his mum.

  ‘Mum worships at the altar of John Lewis,’ Jack remarks with a smile as he passes with a plate of sandwiches.

  And now one of Jack’s aunts – Hilary, I think, I’m hopeless at remembering a whole raft of names – has beetled over to ask, ‘You work for John Lewis, Nadia? Lucky you! I hear they offer a brilliant discount …’

  ‘Oh, I’m just a freelancer,’ I start to explain, but she isn’t having any of it as a tall, ginger-haired man joins us. The aunt introduces us: ‘This is Drew, my husband. Drew, this is Nadia. You know – the one who works for John Lewis?’

  ‘Lovely to meet you,’ he says, shaking my hand warmly. ‘See that cake over there?’ He indicates an impressive creation that has appeared amongst the sandwich and sausage roll platters on the table. Shaped like a ship, it’s smothered in white fondant icing with numerous windows painted on.