Читать книгу The Woman Who Upped and Left: A laugh-out-loud read that will put a spring in your step! - Fiona Gibson, Fiona Gibson - Страница 10

In fact it does, next day, in the Hare and Hounds’ sun-dappled beer garden. I’ve been festooned with gifts from my three favourite friends and I’m feeling extremely treated. ‘So what did Morgan give you?’ Ellie wants to know.

‘Nothing yet,’ I say, ‘but he’s out shopping in York with Jenna so he’s probably choosing me something.’ I pause. ‘I mean, I don’t expect much. He’s not earning at the moment—’

‘At the moment,’ Kim adds with an eye roll.

‘I know, it’s ridiculous really. He needs to find something so he can think about getting his own place, especially now Jenna’s virtually living with us …’

‘Still picking up her pants?’ Cheryl asks with a wry smile.

‘Well, sort of subtly kicking them to one side.’

Kim grins, tucking her sharp auburn bob behind her ears. ‘You don’t actually want him to move out, do you? You’ll be clutching at his ankles, pleading with him to stay …’

‘No I won’t,’ I exclaim. ‘I’ll be back in my old room, playing the music he hates, guzzling champagne …’

‘Nah, you’ll never get rid of him,’ she sniggers. ‘The years’ll scoot by and before you know it, you’ll be like an old married couple …’

‘Jesus.’ I shudder and gulp my prosecco.

‘… going on day trips to Scarborough,’ she continues, clearly warming to her theme, ‘with little greaseproof-wrapped packets of cheese sandwiches and saying “we” all the time, like, “We might try Bridlington next summer …”’

‘Stop it!’ I’m aware of a niggle of unease as we all peal with laughter. While Cheryl and Ellie are friends from the school gate years, Kim and I go way back to secondary school. We were united in being shunned by the bright, shiny netball team pickers who excelled at everything. I’ve seen her slogging away at dead-end jobs until she kick-started her make-up artistry business and bought a natty little mint green Fiat 500 and had Bridal Make-up by Kim painted on the side. She now leads a whizzy single, child-free life with a gorgeous flat (two roof terraces) and more holidays than I can keep tabs on.

Cheryl sips her drink. ‘For God’s sake, Kim. He’s only eighteen. Still a kid really. There’s so much pressure these days to have your whole future sorted, some grand career plan all mapped out …’

‘Like you, Aud,’ Ellie points out. ‘I mean, being a dinner lady wasn’t what you planned to do, but look at you now! You’re the best one in Britain …’

‘… by some kind of fluke …’ I cut in.

‘So what did Morgan think of you winning?’ Cheryl asks.

‘Um, he seemed pleased. I mean, he glanced up from his phone for about a second, although that might’ve just been a tic.’ I shrug. In fact, I had expected a slightly more enthusiastic response and sloped off, dejected, like a scolded puppy. How pathetic, I mused, to expect rapturous applause – or even a ‘well done, Mum’ – from a teenage boy. ‘It’s no big deal,’ I add. ‘All it means is that I’m good at being pleasant to five-year-olds …’

‘Stop putting yourself down,’ Kim scolds me. ‘You always do this, you’ve got to stop—’

‘Oh, imagine the kids writing those lovely things about you,’ Ellie exclaims. ‘You were made to work with children, it’s obvious …’

‘Maybe,’ I say, heading into the pub to buy a round, despite their protests that I mustn’t, and that today’s their treat. In fact, I did have a plan, as a little girl. At nine years old, just after Mum had left us, I got the chance to borrow a clarinet from school. By some mistake or mix-up – or, I suspect now, an act of kindness on the part of Mrs Sherridan, the music teacher – no one ever asked for it back. I took to it easily and played in my bedroom with the door firmly shut, so I wouldn’t be distracted by Dad bashing around in the kitchen.

At first, playing those rudimentary pieces was just an avoidance tactic, in the way that I start busily tidying when Mrs B waggles the crossword at me. Back then, it was maths I was keen to avoid, as Dad – appalled by my shoddy numerical skills – had appointed himself as my unofficial tutor. ‘We’re doing some long division,’ he’d announce. We’d sit together at the kitchen table, with the numbers making no sense and Dad’s irritation rising because anyone can do this, what’s wrong with you, Audrey? What are you going to do with your life if you can’t even manage a simple sum? I’d be trapped there for an hour at least. It felt like months, as if the seasons were changing, the trees shedding their leaves and sprouting new ones as Dad scribbled angry numbers in a raggedy exercise book. While Mum had never been terribly involved with me, her presence had softened the atmosphere somewhat. She’d been kind enough in her own way, when she was still with us, showing a vague interest in my homework assignments and occasionally plaiting my hair. But after she left there was no softening. In fact, Dad’s moods grew darker, my very presence seeming to irritate him, as if the Brian Bazalgette thing had been all my fault. ‘I need to do some music practice now,’ I’d announce, once the whisky bottle had joined the jotter and angrily crumpled A4 paper on the kitchen table. ‘School concert’s coming up and we’re doing a full rehearsal tomorrow …’ As I lost myself in the music I’d stop wondering what Mum was doing, and whether Dad had poured another whisky, and whether I’d ever be a normal girl who could invite friends round after school, as everyone else seemed to do.

I started secondary school and was pinged straight into remedial maths. By now, Dad had given up on me, and himself, or so it seemed: while he’d once worked as a carpenter he rarely left the house these days. Mum’s letters had dwindled to one every few months, and in my replies I was careful to stress that everything was fine at home, that I was happy and doing well at school. I’d passed grade 6 with distinction on my clarinet – Mum sent a rather wonkily drawn congratulations card which I treasured for years – and spent every spare moment playing. See, Dad, I can concentrate. Give me a piece of sheet music that’s so crammed with notes it looks like a swarm of ants dancing all over it and I’m fine.

Better than fine, in fact. While practising really hard pieces I’d stop hearing him stomping about downstairs. I’d be utterly lost in a world of my own, where I didn’t need Mum, Dad or anyone. It was only hours later, when I ventured downstairs in the night, that I’d see the smashed cereal bowl (Dad and I consumed a lot of cereal), the soggy cornflakes scattered, the milk having already seeped into our matted brown rug. Sometimes I’d wake to hear our rusting old van revving furiously in front of our terraced house. Dad would drive off, fuelled by whisky and despair, and I’d creep down to deal with the mess, because one thing I knew was that milk smells disgusting – like sick – if no one mops it up.

So yes, Ellie was right when she said that being a dinner lady wasn’t part of the plan. The dream had been to work my way through the remaining grades and apply for music college, and maybe one day stand on a stage, playing Debussy’s Rapsodie, which I loved – it sounded like running water – in a chic little black dress. But by the evening of my fifteenth birthday I no longer had a clarinet, and by seventeenth I no longer had a father either as he died in a car accident whilst under the influence.

I had to leave school then, and Mum rushed up to see me: to ‘look after you’, she said, rather belatedly, even suggesting I move down to Wales with her as I wasn’t in a position to pay rent and cook my own dinners and take care of myself. I told her tersely that I’d been cooking my own dinners for years. Convincing her I’d be okay, I packed her off home and managed to nab a job as a live-in cleaner at Sunshine Valley holiday park near Morecambe Bay. And that’s when my glittering career began …

Whoa, daytime boozing! It’s sent my thoughts racing as I loiter at the bar while Janice gets our drinks. I need to slow down, drink some water, like everyone says. But then, it is my birthday, and I’ve arranged a day off from Mrs B. So why not? The next few hours pass extremely enjoyably, and by the time I return home at just gone five, I’m so buoyed up that I barely even register the scattering of Hula Hoop packets littering the kitchen.

Morgan and Jenna have returned from their trip and are watching something very shouty on TV. Like Hitler invading Poland, my son seems to have annexed our living room as his private snogging quarters while I beaver away in the kitchen. No mention of my birthday yet, but never mind. I poke my head round the living room door. ‘I’ll do pizzas later,’ I announce, at which the lovers spring apart.

‘Mum! D’you have to just barge in?’

‘I didn’t barge, Morgan. I’m just trying to cater to your needs. Anyway, what am I supposed to do? Wear a little bell around my neck, like a cow, to warn you that I’m approaching?’

‘No need to be like that …’

‘It’s just, it is my house too. I actually live here. I’m not just the maid …’

Jenna giggles and smooths her rumpled fair hair. Oh God, there’s what looks distinctly like a love bite planted on her slender neck. I thought they went out of fashion around 1979, like Clackers. What the heck will her mum say?

The landline trills in the hall beside me and I snatch it from the shelf. It’s Vince, my ex. ‘Happy birthday, Aud,’ he says jovially.

‘Thanks, Vince.’ It’s lovely to hear from him, actually. Once we’d recovered from the break-up, we’ve functioned pretty well as friends; better, in fact, than as partners. ‘All the fours, eh?’ he adds. ‘How does that feel?’

‘Ancient,’ I reply with a grimace.

‘Doing anything nice tonight?’

‘No plans, I’ve just been out for lunch with the girls, that was lovely—’

‘Yeah, you sound inebriated,’ he teases. Since embarking on self-sufficient bliss in the wilds of Northumberland with his girlfriend Laura – a wispy, jam-making sort – my ex has become rather smug.

‘I’ve only had three glasses of wine,’ I fib, wandering through to the kitchen to top up Paul’s flowers with water.

‘Sure you have. Anyway, how’s our useless layabout of a son? Any signs of him shifting his arse off that sofa yet?’

‘Not so I’ve noticed …’

Vince grunts. ‘Can I have a word?’

‘Of course,’ I say, striding back to the living room and holding out the phone. Morgan disentangles himself from his lady love and squints at it, as if not entirely sure what it is. To be fair, cold callers and Vince are the only ones who ever ring.

‘Happy birthday, Audrey,’ Jenna says, somewhat belatedly, as Morgan falls into a muttered conversation with his father.

‘Thanks, Jenna.’

‘Yuh,’ Morgan murmurs, ‘I’m lookin’, Dad. Can’t just magic up a job, y’know? It’s tough out there …’

‘So great about your prize,’ she adds. ‘Decided what you’re going to do with the money yet?’

I hesitate, wishing the focus were more on the accolade and less on the cash. She’s a sweet girl, and clearly loves Morgan to bits, but she hasn’t shaken him out of his reverie as I’d hoped she might.

Morgan finishes the call – it lasted barely two minutes – and flips open his laptop.

Jenna nudges my son. ‘Five grand, Morgan! Imagine having all that to spend …’

‘Uh, yeah …’ He stares hard at the screen.

‘I’d hit Top Shop,’ she announces. ‘Oh my God, can you imagine? I’d have a St Tropez tan and get HD brows and individual lash extensions …’ This is how different we are as females. At the prospect of sudden riches, she thinks: beautification. I think: new kitchen table.

‘Yup,’ he grunts while I glance around the room for a beautifully wrapped present with my name on it. Heck, any old thing in a Superdrug carrier bag would do. But all I spot are Morgan’s juggling sticks dumped on the rug and the aforementioned pants still strewn around. A packet of salami is lying open on the coffee table; several slices have escaped and are wilting on the glass surface, like coasters made from fatty pork. I glower at them, willing Morgan to shut his laptop and at least acknowledge the occasion. ‘Oh, man,’ he blurts out, ‘that’s so cool!’

‘What is?’ I ask.

‘This thing here.’ He jabs at his laptop. I go behind him and peer over his shoulder at the screen.

‘What is this?’

‘Just a thing, a tutorial thing …’

I watch a few seconds of the YouTube clip in which an earnest-looking child is balancing a beach ball on his head while juggling multi-coloured blocks. ‘But he’s just a little kid, Morgan. He looks about eight.’

‘Yeah.’ He nods.

‘And it doesn’t look that difficult,’ I add.

He rounds on me. ‘It is! You’ve no idea …’

‘Oh, come on,’ I say, laughing. ‘It’s not as if he’s, I don’t know, juggling while dancing on burning hot coals or eating fire—’

‘You want that poor kid to burn himself?’

‘Of course I don’t …’

He turns to Jenna. ‘She’ll only be happy when he’s admitted to hospital for skin grafts.’

‘Jesus!’

The two of them snigger conspiratorially and, not for the first time, I feel like the intruder here, who’s blundered into a world of love bites and YouTube tutorials and meals consisting of salami and crisps, which I have no hope of ever understanding.

‘S’good, this,’ he mutters huffily, having turned his attention back to the screen. ‘S’giving me ideas …’

‘Ideas for what specifically?’ I ask.

He exhales through his nose as the clip switches to the child balancing a stack of bricks on his chin. ‘My act,’ Morgan murmurs.

What act? I want to ask, but can’t bring myself to be so cutting, especially in front of Jenna. However, Morgan’s childhood yearnings to be an international spy seem entirely achievable, compared to expecting a career to materialise through no effort whatsoever on his part. I miss his youthful drive, his boundless energy, and his fondness for leaving coded notes for me on the toilet cistern: MUM UOY EVOL I. With no interest in college or uni – ‘I mean, what would I do?’ – he scraped through his exams, gaining pretty unsensational grades, and in the past year has dabbled with a couple of short-lived part-time jobs. My once-vibrant son has been a packer in the pie factory and a washer-upper at a nearby hotel. Then for the past six months, nothing. I can hardly strap him to his desk chair and force him to write his CV. ‘Morgan,’ I say carefully, ‘if you’re not interested in college, you’re going to have to find something to occupy yourself.’

He nods. ‘Yeah, I know. I’m gonna do some street theatre.’

My heart drops. ‘As a hobby, yes. I meant something as a real job.’

‘No, that’s what I mean. As my job …’

I stare at him, lost for words for a moment. ‘But that’s not … it’s not a career. However long you stood out there, doing your thing, you’d never earn enough to—’

‘Nah, nah, I don’t mean doing it around here. I’d go to York or maybe, I dunno, even Leeds …’ He says this as if it’s Los Angeles. ‘You need big crowds to make decent money,’ he adds.

‘He’s really good,’ Jenna says loyally. ‘You should see him.’ Sweetheart, enormous chunks of my life have been spent watching Morgan clonking into the vegetable rack on that unicycle … ‘I know he is,’ I say quickly, turning back to my son, ‘but Morgan, you tried that, didn’t you? I mean, you set off for the day with your sandwiches and flask and you were back about two hours later …’

He shrugs. ‘It was raining.’

‘Yes, but this is the north of England. It’s cold a lot of the time. It’s an occupational hazard, I’d have thought …’

‘It was freezing! And I only had my thin jacket …’

‘The thin jacket you chose,’ I shoot back, ‘when I’d given you money to specifically buy a proper, insulating winter coat …’

He turns to Jenna and chuckles. ‘Mum wants me to have proper insulation, like a boiler.’ I clamp my back teeth together as they both giggle away.

‘I meant a coat that was a bit thicker than a doily, Morgan …’

‘What’s a doily?’

I glower at him. ‘You’ve got to eighteen years old and don’t know what a doily is?’

He makes a little snorty noise, like a horse. ‘See what I have to put up with, Jen? It never stops!’

I glare down at him, deeply irritated now. I need a proper talk with my son – with capitals, a Proper Talk – but how is that possible when Jenna’s always here, nuzzling his ear? It’s not fair to discuss big, serious issues – like his future, and whether he’s been remembering to put ointment on his athlete’s foot – with his girlfriend listening in. Anyway, he’s hardly likely to give me his full attention while he’s absent-mindedly massaging her delicate bare tootsies.

‘Ooh, that’s nice,’ she breathes, closing her eyes ecstatically, apparently having forgotten I’m here. Where am I supposed to go while this foot fondling is happening? I can’t bear to spend any more time holed up in my bedroom or the kitchen. Maybe I should sit outside in our unlovely back yard, by the wheelie bins? I can’t help glancing down at her pretty little feet, the nails painted baby blue, the toes perfectly straight and not curled weirdly towards the big one due to wearing foot-cramming courts in the 80s. What kind of person have I become, to feel bitter that a beautiful eighteen-year-old girl – whom my son loves to distraction – doesn’t have any corns or calluses? Christ, it’s a small step from wishing a verruca on her.

‘Mum?’ Morgan’s voice cuts into my thoughts.

‘Yes, love?’

‘Are you … okay?’

Hell, I’ve been staring at his girlfriend’s feet. I hurry off like a discreet maid and busy myself with the washing up they’ve left for me, all the while thinking: my only child has forgotten my birthday. The child whose bottom I was once forced to wipe with my original 1960s silk scarf in the park.

I go about my business all evening, dishing up pizza then keeping out of their way, trying not to feel envious when I hear them laughing raucously, and wishing I didn’t mind so much that I’m not allowed to join in. When did I become so needy? It’s only my birthday, after all, and my friends made it fun. And Vince remembered, as did Mum: Happy birthday Audrey, the card said in her quivery scrawl. Stevie didn’t bother, but then he doesn’t strike me as the card-sending sort.

At 11.20 p.m., by which time I have given up on any acknowledgement of the date, I pop my head round the living room door. Jenna is audibly kissing my son’s neck: kiss-kiss-kiss. I hope she isn’t planning to mark him. Can’t imagine a freshly sucked neck will do him any favours in the job interviews I plan to set up for him and frogmarch him to, if necessary … no, no, I must stop this. ‘Goodnight, then,’ I say.

Jenna peels herself off him. ‘Night, Audrey.’

‘Oh, Mum, hang on a minute …’ Morgan delves into his jeans pocket. ‘Here,’ he says, handing me a bent pink envelope.

‘Thank you, darling,’ I say, unable to erase the trace of surprise from my voice. There’s an oily stain on it and MUM has been scribbled lightly in pencil on the front.

He grins and winds an arm around his girlfriend’s shoulders. ‘See what she thinks of me, Jen?’ he chuckles. ‘She actually thought I’d forgot.’