The Mum Who Got Her Life Back

by Fiona Gibson

  ‘Yes?’

  The smile seemed to illuminate her face as she leans more closely towards me. ‘It’s very, very over between him and me. We get along fine, and we raise our kids together. But I am most definitively on my own now. I mean, there’s no one …’ She pauses. It feels as if my heart has stopped. Even closer she comes, her beautiful face before me now. As she kisses me lightly on the lips, I feel as if I might topple off my chair.

  We pull apart and look at each other. Somehow, our hands have entwined under the table. There’s so much I want to say to her, I hardly know where to begin. ‘I’d really like to see you again,’ is all I can manage, ‘if that’s all right with you.’

  Nadia nods. ‘I’d really like to see you too. But, um, there is something …’

  Oh, shit – here it comes: the ‘but’.

  ‘Uh-huh?’ I say, feigning nonchalance.

  ‘There’s, er … a thing I need to tell you.’

  I inhale deeply, various possibilities already forming in my mind: she’s in love with someone. Or something’s wrong – maybe she has an illness? Or an issue with her kids? – and she doesn’t want to get involved with anyone right now. Fine, it’s been a lovely evening; but maybe I really should get home, seeing as I still have a pile of presents to wrap for my parents, my brother and sister-in-law …

  ‘What is it?’ I ask lightly, draining my glass.

  She looks down. ‘I have to tell you … I don’t actually work in Lush.’

  ‘What?’

  She reddens and nods with a closed-lipped smile. I’m baffled now; so why did she spend twenty minutes chatting to me about bath bombs? ‘I’m so sorry,’ I murmur, shaking my head. ‘I just assumed …’

  ‘Yes, of course you did.’ She is laughing now.

  ‘But I accosted you and asked you all those questions about skin stuff! Why didn’t you just tell me to leave you alone?’

  ‘Because I didn’t want you to leave me alone.’

  ‘But what must you have thought?’ I laugh, mortified by my mistake.

  ‘You didn’t accost me,’ she insists. ‘Look – it’s me who should be apologising …’

  ‘Why?’ I am genuinely bewildered.

  ‘Well, I, er …’ She looks down at her hands, and then, as her gaze meets mine, something seems to somersault in the pit of my stomach. ‘I let you think I worked there,’ she says, smiling. ‘Actually, I sort of pretended …’

  ‘You pretended? Why?’

  She pauses and pushes back that wayward strand of hair. ‘Because,’ she says simply, ‘I just wanted to talk to you.’

  Part Two

  Sex and the Empty Nester: Things to Know

  • Your friends will go on about how you can ‘swing from the chandeliers’ – or your IKEA ‘Maskros’ pendant lamp – now the kids have left home. There may be an expectation that you are doing it constantly. You might feel obliged to say you are.

  • Even ordinary sex is better now that you don’t have to be silent.

  • You might find yourself being super-noisy and shouty – more than you ever were pre-children – just because you can.

  • Being able to wander about in the nude feels like a wonderful novelty of which you will never tire.

  • It’s important to enjoy this stage while it lasts – because it might not.

  Chapter Eight

  Four months later

  Nadia

  Molly once explained to me how a microwave works, how its radio waves ‘excite’ the atoms in food, causing them to jiggle about in a frenzy, making everything hot. I feel this way whenever I’m with Jack, even several months in – not hot in a menopausal sweat kind of way, but sort of shimmery and super-charged.

  At certain times my setting switches to FULL POWER: e.g. during sex. To think, I’d almost forgotten what the point of it was, apart from making babies. Like knowing who’s number one in the charts, I’d begun to assume it belonged to a previous era of my life; something I could get along without quite contentedly.

  The full-power thing kicks in even whenever Jack just happens to stroll nakedly across my bedroom. I should be used to him now, as we have been seeing each other regularly since Molly and Alfie headed back to uni after the Christmas break. But I wonder if the novelty aspect will ever wear off, as I still want to shout, ‘There’s a beautiful naked man wandering casually across my bedroom!’ And I want to take a quick snap of his luscious rear view with my phone and beam it onto a huge building. Yep, I want to objectify him, plus lots of other things, because the truth is – although he’d deny this to the hilt – he has a lovely body. It’s not intimidatingly buff, and that’s a plus, in my book, as I’ve always found the idea of a six-pack disconcerting (especially as, size-wise, I am a generous fourteen). Jack has more your casual runner’s-type physique: fairly slim, although he insists that’s just the way he’s built – ‘A bag of bones when I was kid’ – rather than due to his endeavours on the fitness front.

  I have to say, his bottom is especially lovely. Corinne has a word she uses, to describe an attractive male rear: biteable, adjective, meaning ‘evokes lust’. It suits Jack’s perfectly. I do have a few pictures of him on my phone – not of his bottom, but his lovely face, and of the two of us together; selfies taken when we’ve been out and about, doing the kind of things newish couples do: strolling through parks, visiting galleries, having picnics and walks along the river. When no one’s looking I’m prone to browsing through them. My boyfriend. It feels weird, using that term at fifty-one years old, but nothing else seems quite right. Jack is the kind of man I’d imagined, occasionally, might be out there somewhere: the one I’d kept missing as we went about our business in the same city all these years.

  The long, cold winter has blossomed into a glorious spring, and by now I have met his friends and the volunteers at his shop. Iain claimed to have remembered me from when I popped in, and I was treated to one of his hot-tap coffees before Jack could dive for the kettle himself.

  This coming weekend, significantly, I am meeting Lori. He’s been suggesting it for a while now, but I’ve been nervous. He’d also told me about his ex Elaine’s litany of boyfriends, and how they’ve tended to just appear at her house, to be presented to Lori, and then in a few weeks they’d be gone.

  ‘It’s not like that with us,’ Jack has insisted, ‘and she knows all about you. She really wants to meet you and thinks I’m hiding you away – or making you up.’

  ‘What, even though you’ve shown her pictures of me?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah. She’s starting to think her dad’s a sad bastard who’s taken pictures of some random woman off the internet and is pretending she’s his girlfriend.’ He laughed, then turned serious. ‘She also knows your kids are academic types, at uni, and she said, “You’re not ashamed of me, are you, Dad?”’

  Well, that did it. We agreed that I could go round to his place one Saturday, when Lori was there, and he’d make lunch.

  Naturally, I’ve been to Jack’s place countless times, but when the day rolls around my mouth is parched, my hands sticky with sweat, as I emerge from the subway station and make my way to his flat. Determined to make a good impression, I’m wearing a summery cotton dress, plus cardi and minimal meeting-the-boyfriend’s-offspring-type make-up … at least, I hope that’s what it is. I’ve never been in this situation before. Jack has already filled me in on the fact that, whilst Lori isn’t terribly keen on school, she does love her drama club – which seems appropriate as I feel as if I am on my way to an audition.

  In fact, it’s Jack who seems the edgiest when I arrive, and he fusses over serving our lunch: a big bowl of spaghetti puttanesca, slightly over-boiled, which is unlike him; Jack’s pasta is usually cooked to perfection.

  I like Lori immediately. For one thing, she looks so like him; I knew that already, from photos he’d shown me, but it’s even more apparent in real life. As she tucks into her lunch, she’s relaxed and chatty, answering my questions about her drama club. And as I
watch them together, I’m overcome by a surge of love for Jack.

  ‘Lori’s an actress who doesn’t want to be famous,’ he remarks, and they catch each other’s expressions and smile.

  ‘I so don’t,’ she declares. ‘But some of them do.’ She looks at her father. ‘Shannon does …’

  ‘That’s Lori’s best friend,’ he explains.

  ‘Yeah.’ Lori spears her spaghetti and smirks. ‘I love her but, you know. She’s kinda …’ She glances back at her dad, as if checking for confirmation. ‘Shall I show Nadia what she’s like?’ She nudges her phone, which is parked right at her side on the table, and he nods.

  ‘Go on then.’ He grins.

  ‘I feel mean,’ she adds, wincing. ‘She’s a really sweet person …’

  Jack chuckles. ‘But.’

  ‘But,’ Lori repeats, smiling now as she flips to her friend’s Instagram account and shows me a series of selfies. She is deeply tanned, displaying colossal false lashes and those extreme brows that tend to look too defined: sharp-edged, as if cut from black fabric and stuck onto the face.

  ‘Wow,’ is all I can say.

  ‘I know,’ Lori murmurs, continuing to scroll through her friend’s pictures.

  ‘Those lips,’ I exclaim at one point.

  ‘They’re fillers,’ she says sagely, and I notice she’s edged her chair closer to mine.

  ‘Lip fillers? I mean … how old is she?’

  ‘Fourteen, same as me. And yeah – loads of girls are having them …’

  ‘But … how much do they cost?’

  Lori shrugs. ‘About three hundred quid.’

  ‘Three hundred quid?’ I exclaim, hoping I don’t sound like some buttoned-up aunt.

  Lori nods, and she and her father start laughing, clearly enjoying some shared joke. ‘She had them done for an audition,’ Jack tells me.

  ‘Oliver,’ Lori adds. ‘She’s into musical theatre. Wants to go to London …’

  ‘Or work on cruise ships,’ Jack cuts in.

  ‘Right,’ I say. ‘And how about you?’ I catch myself. ‘Sorry. I know people always do that, ask what you’d like to be—’

  ‘… when I grow up,’ Lori says with a grin. ‘Don’t know really. I just like my drama club. We do improv, we write little plays – it’s just … good.’ She shrugs and smiles. ‘I don’t want to be up on some stage, belting out ballads, doing the big-eyes-and-teeth thing …’

  I nod, and because it seems okay to do so, I tell her all about Danny, and how some of the actors in his films were discovered working in cafés, or in school plays. She’s vaguely aware of his better-known films, and I’m happy to share what I know about the film-making process. Then once again I am privy to her Instagram feed – specifically pictures of Lori and her drama club friends involved in various acting workshops.

  ‘That’s Shannon?’ I ask, picking her out from a group picture, and Lori nods.

  ‘Lor,’ Jack says as he clears away our bowls, ‘tell Nadia what happened last time the two of you were left alone at your mum’s …’

  ‘Dad,’ she groans, feigning horror, although I suspect she wants me to know. She turns to me. ‘Shannon threw up all over the living room carpet.’

  ‘Oh no!’

  ‘Orange sick,’ Jack adds with a grimace. ‘Lori’s adamant that Shannon brought the booze …’

  ‘She did, Dad! Where else would it’ve come from?’

  Jack eye-rolls, clearly enjoying playing the part of the disapproving dad.

  ‘She has a fake ID,’ Lori tells me, ‘so she can buy anything …’

  ‘Plus, she looks way older than she is,’ Jack remarks, at which Lori nods.

  ‘I’d never get away with it, even with a fake ID. I don’t drink anyway. I don’t like it.’

  ‘Well, you’re only fourteen,’ I remark, hoping that doesn’t sound patronising – and I’m fully aware that lots of kids of that age do drink. There were certainly a few incidences where both Alfie and Molly had tottered in, clearly tipsy well under-age.

  ‘I don’t think I ever will,’ she adds lightly, and I catch a quick look between her and her dad, before she blurts out, ‘I forgot! I made brownies for you coming.’

  ‘Really?’ I am extremely touched by this. Without wishing to read too much into the gesture – perhaps she just enjoys baking, like Alfie used to? – I decide to interpret it as a sign that she really was looking forward to meeting me today.

  The afternoon flies by, and when it’s time to leave I am almost sorry to go.

  ‘Great to meet you, Lori,’ I say, as I pull on my jacket.

  ‘You too,’ she says with a smile.

  Jack sees me out. ‘Did that go okay?’ I ask.

  ‘What do you think?’ He pulls me closer and kisses my hair.

  ‘I think she’s lovely. She’s a real credit to you.’

  He smiles and shrugs off the compliment. ‘She’s very much her own person. But thanks, darling. We, um, had a quick word, when you were in the loo …’

  I feign a terrified face. ‘What about?’

  He laughs now, brushing away a strand of hair from my face, the way he does sometimes. ‘She just said you were lovely too. And normal!’

  ‘She said I’m normal?’ I remark, laughing now.

  ‘Yeah. “Not weird”, she said. You know how everything’s “weird” these days? I mean, someone only has to scratch their ear in public to be classed as “weird”. She said I was weird, the other day, for singing while I was cooking—’

  ‘Did she? Christ – I sing all the time …’

  ‘Apparently you’re not weird, though,’ he says, kissing my lips. ‘But you are very gorgeous.’

  I smile, fizzling with happiness. So I’ve passed the test, I reflect, as I stride towards the subway. I am filled with the most delicious, chewy brownies (top marks to Lori), and a feeling that Jack and I have somehow moved along another small but significant step.

  So his daughter thinks I am actually all right. I know I am grinning madly – I literally cannot stop – as I descend the escalator to the train. And I also know that if Lori could see me now, she’d think I was far too weird for her beloved dad.

  Chapter Nine

  It’s Jack’s turn to be vetted a couple of weeks later, when my sister invites us for Sunday lunch. Jack offers to drive us to her renovated farm on the Ayrshire coast. I glance at him as we near her place, reflecting that a newish relationship presents a series of these ‘firsts’, these meetings during which everyone pretends there’s no ‘checking out’ going on (when of course there is). Anyone who cares about you wants to appraise the person you’ve fallen in love with.

  Jack and I have already had drinks with a couple of old schoolmates of mine, plus other friends I’ve got to know through the children, their various activities and the life modelling circuit. He’s handled it well, being his natural, extremely likeable self, despite his slight shyness and the fact that he might have started to feel like a new puppy being given his first tour of the park.

  Naturally, he met Corinne and Gus early on. Corinne enjoys referring to him as Mr Lush, even to his face, which Jack always takes in extremely good spirit. A terrible flirt, she made a huge fuss over him that first time we all went out, and insisted on a selfie with him, crammed into the corner of our booth in the pub, later to be captioned: ‘Stole Nadia’s new boyfriend for five minutes, took him round back of pub and God he was GOOD.’

  Jack pretended to be mortified when I showed him her Instagram post, but I could tell he was secretly amused. ‘Always nice to get a positive review,’ he chuckled. Meanwhile Gus, who seems to find it hilarious that Jack is all of two years younger than me, refers to him as my ‘toyboy’, a term I’d assumed had fallen into obscurity a long time ago. One lunchtime, when we nipped out for a sandwich together, Gus spotted a portly young man sauntering towards us wearing a T-shirt bearing the charming slogan: ‘MILF-CHASER.’

  ‘Get one for Jack?’ he whispered, swerving to avoid my punch to
his arm. Later, we spotted another guy – bearded and lanky, sporting a wiry man-bun – whose T-shirt read: I’M RAISING A TRIBE. And that, we concluded, was far more offensive as slogans go. Gus took a candid picture of the man with his phone and sent it to me.

  ‘Look at this,’ I said later, showing it to Jack.

  ‘Oh, God,’ he groaned. ‘The smugness. It should be banned under some kind of offensive clothing bylaw.’

  ‘Yeah. We wanted to tear it off him and pelt him with rusks.’

  He spluttered.

  We just ‘get’ each other, Jack and I; and if we had raised a tribe, I’m pretty sure he’d have just got on with the job rather than wearing a T-shirt to advertise the fact.

  And now, as the Ayrshire coast opens up before us on this clear-skied May afternoon, I allow myself a moment to reflect that perhaps this wouldn’t have happened if Alfie and Molly still lived at home. At least, it might not have seemed quite so easy. As it is – particularly as Lori spends at least half the week at her mum’s – Jack and I have been able to spend time together without being answerable to anyone. There was no one else hovering around in the morning the first time he stayed over at mine. I’ve been able to stay at his place without letting Alfie and Molly know I wouldn’t be home until morning. At first it was something of a novelty, waking up in Jack’s light-filled, airy bedroom, and sipping his far superior coffee while he pottered about warming up croissants and festooning me with his extensive selection of jams. (‘I have such a sweet tooth,’ he admitted. ‘The palate of an eight-year-old. It’s embarrassing really.’)

  Of course, I do miss my kids, in that I’d love to see them more often. But I have to say it has also been extremely liberating, living my life unpoliced, in this way.

  ‘It’s the next turn-off to the right,’ I tell Jack, as we pass a familiar row of ancient stone cottages, then a farm shop and a B&B.

  ‘It’s lovely out here,’ he remarks. ‘I don’t really know this part of the country at all.’

  ‘We used to come here all the time when we were little,’ I tell him. ‘We loved the coast. It was only a half-hour drive from home but it seemed like a real treat. Sarah’s always stayed in the area.’ I wonder now when Jack might tell me more about his childhood; specifically, about his younger brother, Sandy, who died. Obviously, whatever happened must have been horrific, but whenever Sandy’s name has been mentioned, I’ve sensed Jack shutting down, as if sending out the clear message that he really doesn’t want me to ask about it.