Читать книгу The Mum Who Got Her Life Back - Fiona Gibson - Страница 8

Since my children left home, nothing terrible seems to have happened. There has been no evidence of malnutrition or the taking of shedloads of drugs. No one has phoned me, crying, because they couldn’t get a crumpet out of the toaster. At eighteen years old, my twins Alfie and Molly seem to have coped perfectly well during their first semester at university … which means I’ve done a decent job as a parent, right?

Naturally, their father, Danny, should take some of the credit. But the moving-out part was down to me. Danny is an independent film-maker and he was away shooting down south when I took Molly to her student halls. In the seven years since we split, his career has blossomed; he is pretty famous in film circles, and incredibly busy. At least, too busy/famous to drive Molly from our home in Glasgow to her university halls in Edinburgh.

‘Well, this is it,’ I remarked with fake jollity as we lugged her possessions into her stark little room.

‘Yeah,’ she said casually, tossing back her long dark hair.

‘You will be all right, won’t you?’

‘’Course I will!’

I cleared my throat. ‘Any time you need me, I mean if you need anything, I’ll come straight over.’

‘Mum, I won’t need—’

‘No, I know, but …’ I stopped. My daughter has always given the impression that she rarely needs anything, from anyone.

‘I’m not dying,’ she said, smiling. We hugged tightly, and I was immensely proud of myself as I hurtled out of the block, shoving my way past more new arrivals with their stoical parents and desk lamps and mini fridges and, in one instance, a gerbil in a cage, which I was pretty sure wasn’t allowed in halls. Only when I was safely back in my car did I allow the tears to spill out, and had to mop my face on a waterproof umbrella sleeve.

Two days later, I drove Alfie to his own halls further north, in Aberdeen. The city felt chillier and greyer than it had when we’d come up for the open day (his father had been too busy/famous to go to that too), and I reminded my son several times that he might start wearing a vest.

‘You can just leave my stuff here, Mum,’ he said, indicating the floor on the landing.

‘Really? Can’t I come in?’ But he’d already scooted into the flat to find his room, and so I stood there, waiting, like a FedEx delivery person.

Moments later Alfie reappeared, and we fell into a pattern of me fetching stuff in from the car, lugging it up three flights of stairs and handing it over at the designated spot on the landing. He grabbed the final box in which I’d assembled an emergency rations pack of tinned soups, pastas and – rather optimistically – fruit. ‘See you then,’ he mumbled, gazing down at his feet.

‘Er … okay, love. Look after yourself, won’t you?’ In truth, I was more worried about him than Molly. He’d always been rather shy and disorganised, and a klutz when it came to practical matters. I wasn’t convinced he’d be up to boiling spaghetti without somehow setting it on fire.

‘Of course I will,’ he insisted. I forced a hug on him and left the building, passing a woman carrying an enormous tropical plant (does anyone really need a tree in their uni halls?), and wishing that Danny was here too, but that night he was in London at his wrap party.

Good for him, I thought. Good for my ex and his girlfriend and those miles of canapés and champagne sloshing everywhere. No, this was all great, I told myself as I drove back to Glasgow, then stepped back into my second-floor flat. Danny is a caring dad – I’ve never disputed that. However, he’s never been too hot on the practical matters of parenting.

We were thrilled when we found out we were having twins, but from the word go we fell into pretty traditional roles. While Danny toiled all hours to get his career off the ground, I threw myself into the hurly-burly of toddler groups. We’ve been lucky to have always lived in a decent area of Glasgow: a little shabby, but friendly and safe. We stretched ourselves to upgrade to a four-bedroomed flat so the kids could each have their own rooms, and Danny could have a much-needed study.

For a few years I worked from a desk in our bedroom. I am a freelance illustrator, and had accumulated a small roster of clients before the twins came along. During my early years of motherhood, I’d tackle any commissions after the kids had gone to bed. I also did some occasional life modelling – i.e. with my clothes off – for local art classes, to bring in extra cash. In a weird sort of way, they offered a bit of respite from family life. Reclining nakedly on a sofa was pretty soothing compared to chipping hardened Weetabix off the floorboards – and I assumed the kids would never find out what it really involved. Anyway, I was around so much after nursery and school that Alfie and Molly didn’t actually believe I worked at all. Their primary school teacher laughingly told me that, when she’d asked Molly what her mum did for a living, she’d replied, ‘She colours in.’

In contrast, Danny did go to work – not in a nine-to-five sense, but for weeks at a time if he was away filming, or to his study at home where he’d hide away to work on edits or scripts.

‘Nadia, the kids keep coming in!’ he’d yell.

‘They just need to see you for a minute, Danny. Alfie wants to show you something he made at school …’

‘Honey, please. Can’t you just keep them at bay?’ he’d say, as if they weren’t his six-year-old children, but wild bears. But then, Danny’s work was all-consuming, and it was my job to thwart the kids’ access to He Who Must Not Be Disturbed.

‘Daddy’s busy being Steven Spielberg,’ I’d explain, ushering them away.

‘Who’s Steven Spee—’ Alfie would start.

‘A very important film man like Dad,’ I’d say. Alfie always needed more reassurance than Molly, and I was conscious of over-compensating for Danny’s unavailability: painting with the kids whenever they demanded it, and indulging Alfie’s lengthy baking craze. The more cakes he made, the more I felt obliged to scoff (‘Sounds like a feeble excuse to me,’ Danny had sniggered), my once-slender body expanding and softening, my skimpy knickers making way for sturdy mummy-pants.

Meanwhile, Danny remained his gangly, raffishly handsome self, all messy dark hair and stubble. He seemed to experience no guilt whatsoever on turning down one of Alfie’s Krispie cakes: ‘They look great, Alf, but I’m not really into that breakfast-cereal-confectionery hybrid.’ He didn’t intend to be mean, and the kids still adored him. However, Danny had always done whatever he wanted and he didn’t really worry what anyone else thought.

I’d known, when I got together with a film-maker, that I might be signing up for an unconventional sort of life. However, I also knew that other film-makers – friends of Danny’s – managed to be reasonably functioning adults, able to maintain healthy, happy relationships. To my knowledge they never left their partners stranded in restaurants because they’d gone to a lecture on Hitchcock and the Art of Cinematic Tension instead (on aforementioned partner’s fortieth birthday). Nor had they blown a small inheritance from an uncle by drunkenly bidding on one of the actual suits worn in Reservoir Dogs. Of course it wasn’t just about the suit or the missed meals; it was loads of stuff, piled up year after year.

Although it was me who finally decided we should split – Danny and I had never married – he didn’t exactly beg me to reconsider. I think we both knew we’d reached the end of the line. And so he moved out, to a rented flat half a mile away, and we both did our best to present our break-up in a non-dramatic manner. ‘We’re still friends who care about each other,’ I told Molly and Alfie – which was actually true.

A year or so later, Danny started seeing a make-up artist ten years his junior. I was fine with that, truly; Danny and I were managing to get along pretty cordially, and I was enjoying teasing him about his new liaison. ‘So how are things with Kiki Badger?’ I asked during one of our regular chats on the phone.

I heard him exhale. ‘Nads, why d’you always do this?’

‘Do what?’

‘You know. Use both of her names.’

I smirked. ‘It’s one of those names you have to say in full …’

‘Why?’

‘Because it sounds like a sex toy. “The batteries in my Kiki Badger have gone flat!”’

‘You’re ridiculous,’ he exclaimed, laughing. Then, after a pause: ‘It’s nothing serious, y’know? We’re just … hanging out.’ Yeah, sure. ‘How about you?’ he asked. ‘Is there anyone …’

‘You know there isn’t,’ I said quickly.

‘No I don’t. You might have someone squirrelled away—’

‘Hidden in a cupboard?’

‘Maybe,’ he sniggered.

‘Chance’d be a fine thing,’ I retorted, but in truth I wasn’t too interested. It’s not that Alfie and Molly would have kicked off if I’d started seeing someone; at least, I don’t think they would have.

As it turned out, their dad and Kiki have stuck together over the years, and the kids have always seemed fine with that. However, they lived with me, and perhaps that made me more cautious. I wasn’t prepared to endure some teeth-gritting, ‘Alfie, Molly – this is Colin!’ kind of scenario at breakfast with some bloke I wasn’t particularly serious about. There were a couple of brief flings, conducted when Molly and Alfie were at their dad’s, and a significant one, eighteen months ago; well, it was significant to me. But since then? Precisely nothing.

It’s fine, honestly. It really is. It’s just slightly galling that the kids have left home and I’m free as a bird – yet I’ve found precisely no one to tempt into my nest.