The Mum Who Got Her Life Back

by Fiona Gibson

  ‘But with no clothes on,’ Molly crowed. ‘You never told us that part, did you?’

  ‘No,’ I conceded, ‘and I’m sorry if you’re embarrassed. But that’s just what life drawing classes are like. You know how naked people are a big thing in art? Go to any gallery and you can’t move for nude women—’

  ‘But you’re not a painting in a gallery, are you?’ Alfie snapped. ‘You’re our mum.’

  When Danny returned, he couldn’t understand why I was so het up. ‘They must’ve known what life modelling entails. Did they think you sit there wearing a duffel coat?’

  ‘Probably,’ I said with a hollow laugh.

  ‘And now they know it involves fifteen people staring at your fanny.’

  ‘Danny!’ I exclaimed, trying to be outraged, but I couldn’t help laughing. ‘D’you think it’s wrong, that I do this?’ I added.

  ‘Don’t be crazy. Of course I don’t …’

  ‘I mean, it’s just a few polite students in St Cuthbert’s Community Hall. It’s where the Embroiderers’ Guild have their meetings. How could anything sleazy possibly happen there?’

  Danny barked with laughter.

  ‘Seriously, d’you think I should give it up?’

  ‘No,’ he retorted. ‘We can’t let the kids control our lives like that, and anyway, if it wasn’t that, there’d be some other reason why you’re embarrassing …’

  ‘Why I’m embarrassing,’ I spluttered. ‘Not you.’

  ‘Hey, who’s been parading about in her nuddy-pants around here?’ he snorted.

  And now, as I take off my robe and recline, sit and stand, I find myself wondering: is that what I’m doing, yet again – shaping my life around my kids, when it really is time to please myself now?

  I have never felt embarrassed or shy doing this kind of work, perhaps because I was so used to the life drawing classes, and being around nudity, at college. A modelling session has always represented a time to think, as far as I’m concerned. You just assume poses that you hope are satisfying to draw; you really are just a ‘thing’ to the students. And now, as I’m being drawn, I finally have time to mull over recent events, and decide I really must stop fussing around Molly and Alfie, preparing their every meal as if they were twelve. Christ, the other evening I heard myself asking Alfie if I could run his bath for him, seeing as I was ‘passing’. As if he might be incapable of operating the taps.

  As for Jack, I know I’ve sidelined him since Alfie bowled up – and that will change too. The kids – well, Alfie in particular – will just have to come to terms with that.

  As if he knows he’s on my mind, Jack calls as I’m lacing up my shoes, having just got dressed after the session. ‘Are you home just now?’ he asks.

  ‘Heading that way,’ I reply. ‘I was asked to do life class at the last minute, but I’ve just finished … is everything okay?’

  ‘Um … sort of. I’m out with Iain from the shop. Lori’s here too. We’re only five minutes away from your place, actually …’

  Jack, Lori and Iain, all out together? ‘Really? What’re you doing?’

  He sighs loudly. ‘Don’t fancy joining us later, do you? Iain’s dog bolted today – escaped from his flat. He called me at the shop in a panic, and we’re all out looking for him, and we’re not too far from you …’

  It’s wrong, of course, to feel happy about a dog being lost, but I’m so glad he called. ‘Of course I’ll join you. I’ll be home in fifteen minutes …’ I pause. ‘You’re so kind, helping him—’

  ‘Huh.’ Jack laughs dryly, ‘I had no choice really. Seems like it was all my fault.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  It’s no surprise when Molly agrees to join the search party, but it takes a little cajoling to persuade Alfie that he could do something heroic (or at least, be involved in something heroic). However, eventually, he shuffles off to his room in his customary convalescence wear and re-emerges clad in not especially fresh jeans and a grey T-shirt. And before long we’ve found Jack, Lori and Iain, striding across an expanse of waste ground a few blocks away from our street.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ Jack says, hugging me briefly. ‘You too, Alfie …’

  ‘’S’all right …’

  ‘Jack, this is Molly …’ I start.

  ‘Hi, Molly.’ He smiles, and she beams at him as he introduces Lori and Iain.

  ‘We really appreciate this, don’t we Iain?’ Jack prompts him.

  ‘Yeah, thanks for coming,’ Iain murmurs with a shrug.

  ‘I can’t believe Dad made you all come out,’ Lori exclaims.

  ‘Oh, we’re happy to help,’ I tell her. ‘We can all split up and cover more ground …’ I scan the expanse of scrubby grass bordered by run-down, mostly shut-up shops, and a partially demolished building with tangled grasses sprouting from its crevices.

  ‘It all feels a bit hopeless,’ Iain says glumly. ‘Me and Una have looked all over already.’ He glances at me. ‘She lives upstairs from me. She walks Pancake at lunchtime when I’m at the shop.’

  ‘Well, let’s start searching,’ I suggest.

  ‘Yep, we have to be hopeful here,’ Jack offers, agreeing that our ‘plan’ should be to split up and search the surrounding streets in order to cover as much ground as possible. But first, Iain is keen to impress upon me that Pancake’s disappearance is Jack’s fault.

  ‘I was cooking,’ he tells me as we start to wander along in a straggly line, ‘like Jack’s been telling me to …’

  ‘That was at Christmas, Iain. Five months ago.’ Jack throws me a quick look and shakes his head.

  ‘Yeah, well, I’m a busy man,’ Iain retorts. ‘I’ve only just got around to it, and look how it ended up.’

  ‘What happened?’ I ask, frowning.

  ‘I was making soup. That’s what Jack’s always saying. “Make soup! It’s healthy! Even my daughter can do it!”’

  ‘I can,’ Lori says, a smile flickering across her pale face. ‘I make loads at home. It’s not that difficult.’ I gather that Jack’s daughter has met Iain on several occasions, and thinks he’s ‘sweet, but a bit sad’. Unlike her mother, who reckons that Jack gets ‘far too involved’ with the volunteers.

  ‘All I said,’ Jack murmurs, ‘is that maybe it’d be good to learn to cook a few basic things, and not just live on cereal …’

  ‘Nothing wrong with cereal,’ Iain retorts.

  ‘I just meant, perhaps you could have some meals that aren’t spooned from a bowl,’ Jack adds.

  ‘Soup’s spooned from a bowl,’ Iain retorts, which causes Alfie to catch my eye and splutter. Christ, my son is actually laughing, in public, with people he doesn’t even know. I’m glad that I dragged him along now.

  ‘But not the soup he made today,’ Jack says, addressing me now. ‘Iain, tell Nadia what happened …’

  ‘You tell them,’ Iain huffs, as if to underline – once again – Jack’s culpability.

  Jack sighs. ‘So, I told Iain that all you have to do is fry up some onions or leeks …’

  ‘Which I did,’ Iain says pointedly.

  ‘Yes,’ Jack continues, his hand brushing against mine as we walk, ‘but I didn’t say fry them to the point where they’re stuck to the bottom of the pan, and burning …’

  ‘Making the kitchen stink,’ Iain adds pointedly.

  ‘Okay, Iain …’ Jack glances at me with an eye-roll, and my heart seems to shift. I’ve missed just being with him these past few days. I love being together, out in the world, just pottering, chatting and doing ordinary stuff. I love all those conventional date-type things, like wandering through a park or a museum, or stopping off for lunch on a sunny Saturday afternoon. But it feels just as right being here, in the desolate car park we’re striding across now, the tarmac pitted, an overflowing bin surrounded by stacks of wet cardboard and cooking oil tins.

  ‘So, Iain opened his flat door to let the smell out,’ Jack explains.

  ‘And the main outside door as well,’ Iain interjects, �
��’cause I didn’t want the hallway filling with cooking smells. Una wouldn’t like that …’

  ‘And that’s how your dog got out?’ Molly asks, catching my eye.

  ‘Nooooo,’ Iain exclaims. ‘Pancake was lying in his basket, perfectly happy. I chipped off the onions and scrubbed out the pan, and then – because Jack had been on at me – I got the butternut squash …’

  ‘I said any veg would do,’ Jack cuts in. ‘I didn’t specify butternut—’

  ‘So I put it in the pan with water,’ Iain continues, ‘and boiled it, just like Jack said …’

  ‘Without peeling it or chopping it up,’ Jack adds dryly.

  Iain looks around at us. Somehow, we have all stopped and gathered around him, apparently keen to find out what happened next. ‘And it exploded,’ Iain exclaims with a swoop of his arms. ‘I mean, a fucking huge explosion! Una ran down from upstairs. She’s eighty-three. I’d never seen her run before—’

  ‘’Course it exploded,’ Lori says, laughing in bewilderment now. ‘You boil a whole butternut squash in a pan and what d’you think’ll happen?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have imagined that,’ Alfie remarks. ‘I’d have thought—’

  ‘The bang terrified Pancake,’ Iain cuts in. ‘He shot out of his basket and out of the flat, along the hall, then outside and …’ He breaks off, eyes wide as he looks around at all of us. ‘This is what happens when I take Jack’s advice to make soup.’

  Having been shown a photo of Pancake on Iain’s phone – a floppy-eared scamp, the colour of concrete – we split up into groups, comprising Molly and Lori, Jack and Iain, and Alfie and me.

  ‘Poor guy,’ Alfie says, giving me a look as soon as we’re out of earshot.

  ‘Jack seems to think he does okay,’ I say. ‘He’s very attached to the shop, and he manages things at home—’

  ‘As long as he’s not cooking?’ he asks with a smile.

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘So, why did he call his dog Pancake?’

  ‘Because he likes to lie flat,’ I reply, which seems to amuse Alfie hugely as we pass unprepossessing businesses in a neglected street: a picture framer, a dusty off-licence, and what I’d imagine is one of the last internet cafés in existence.

  ‘Pancake!’ we call out repeatedly, choking back giggles every time. ‘Paaaaan-caaayyyyk!’ Naturally, the ideal result would be for us to find the renegade hound and bring him back to Iain and be heroes. However, despite the lack of a positive sighting, I find myself enjoying Alfie’s company as we prowl the streets.

  ‘Jack’s all right, isn’t he?’ Alfie muses as we turn a corner.

  I look at him, both delighted and surprised. ‘Yes, he is. I’m glad you think so too.’

  We make our way along a narrow lane filled with overflowing skips. ‘I do.’ Alfie nods. ‘I mean, doing this for Iain, helping him out …’

  ‘It surprised me at first too, the way he’s so involved with the volunteers—’

  ‘What, all of them?’

  ‘No, not all,’ I reply. ‘I mean the ones who, you know … need a bit of help sometimes. Like Mags, who brings in forms when she needs help with filling them in. Or with some of the older ones, he’s popped round to see them if they’ve been ill, that kind of thing.’

  ‘That’s kind of him,’ Alfie concedes, and I catch him giving me a quick look. ‘How did you meet him again?’

  ‘Erm, just in a shop, love.’

  ‘In a shop?’ He peers at me.

  ‘Yes, we just got chatting …’

  ‘Chatting in a shop? How weird!’

  ‘Why?’ I ask, laughing now. Nothing weird about pouncing on a handsome stranger, impersonating a sales assistant and frantically up-selling bath bombs …

  ‘It just seems kind of …’ He pauses. ‘Funny.’

  ‘You mean, because we met in real life?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He grins as we start to head back towards the waste ground.

  Sensing his defences down, I decided to broach the issue of his girlfriend. ‘But you met Camilla in real life, didn’t you?’ I remind him.

  ‘Yeah, but that’s different – we’re students …’

  I hesitate before continuing: ‘Hon, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but is it really over with Camilla?’

  ‘Mmmm, looks like it,’ he mumbles.

  Encouraged by his neutral tone, I decide to press on. ‘Maybe you just need some time together away from uni? Could she come down to Glasgow for a bit?’

  ‘Nah, I don’t think so.’

  ‘D’you want to get back together?’ I ask tentatively, at which Alfie shrugs. ‘Because if you do,’ I add, ‘and you’ve just had a falling-out or something, maybe you could write to her?’

  He stops and stares. ‘Write to her? Like, an email?’

  ‘Well, yes, you could do that. Or you could, you know … write her a letter and put it in the post—’

  ‘The post?’ He laughs incredulously. ‘I don’t think so, Mum …’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s, like, the twenty-first century!’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘but actually, receiving a letter is a brilliant thing.’

  ‘Is it?’ Alfie asks, smirking. ‘Why’s that, then?’

  ‘Well, it’s personal, obviously. It’s taken time and thought, which suggests that the sender really cares …’ He looks baffled now, as if I’ve suggested sending her a telegram.

  ‘Yeah, but …’ He scratches his ear. ‘It all sounds a bit … complicated.’

  ‘It’s not,’ I assure him. ‘C’mon, honey, you’re an English student and an excellent writer. And you used to write thank-you letters, remember?’

  ‘Yeah, ’cause you made me.’ He snorts. ‘You nagged me to death. “Put in some detail,” you’d tell me. “Say why you liked the present …” Christ, Mum, you virtually stood over me with a gun …’

  Although we’re both laughing now, I can’t help wondering: was I really that bad? Tyrant of the tuba, thank-you-letter obsessive … it would seem that I was. ‘Well, yes,’ I concede, ‘because you can’t just put, “Dear Auntie Sarah. Thanks for the robot. Love Alfie.”’

  ‘It would’ve got the message across.’

  I smile, wanting to put an arm around him now, but managing not to as he shuns physical affection from me these days. ‘Well, okay, but compared to that, writing to Camilla would be a breeze …’

  ‘But what about finding paper,’ he bleats, ‘and an envelope, and going out to post it?’

  ‘There are postboxes, Alf. They’re usually red, with a slot where you put the letter in—’

  ‘And stamps!’ he interjects. ‘Where would I get a stamp?’

  ‘Stamps are everywhere. Supermarkets have them, and corner shops. I even have some in my purse …’ We continue like this, joshing and teasing, and by the time we rejoin the others it’s almost like old times, when we could talk without perpetual eye-rolls and irritation, and he seemed to like me.

  ‘No luck?’ Jack says, striding towards us.

  ‘Nope, no sign, I’m afraid …’ I glance at Iain, and my heart twists at how disappointed he looks. ‘I’m so sorry we haven’t found him.’

  ‘Thanks for trying anyway,’ he murmurs, digging the toe of a shoe into the earth.

  ‘How about phoning the rescue centres?’ Molly suggests.

  ‘Dad’s done that already,’ Lori explains.

  Jack nods. ‘I’ve left messages and posted on various Facebook groups too. There’s a Pets Reunited page and loads of forums, and the council have wardens out picking up strays.’

  ‘He’s not a stray,’ Iain corrects him. ‘He’s an escapee …’

  ‘Yes, well, they have council kennels,’ Jack goes on, ‘but Pancake’s definitely not there.’ He looks around at all of us. ‘After all that, I think we should all go for a pizza. What d’you reckon?’

  ‘I’ve got no money with me,’ Iain says.

  ‘My treat,’ Jack says firmly.

  ‘That’s
not fair—’ he starts to protest, but Jack is adamant.

  ‘It’s only pizza, Iain. C’mon …’ He looks at Alfie, Molly and me. ‘Have you eaten tonight?’

  ‘No,’ Molly declares, ‘and I’m starving …’

  ‘Me too,’ puts in Alfie, ‘but I’m actually a—’

  ‘The place down the road does vegan pizzas,’ Jack cuts in. ‘I’ve checked the menu online.’ He waggles his phone.

  Oh my God, he actually thought to do that. If we weren’t in public, with our nearest and dearest in close proximity, I would grab this man and kiss him – passionately – on his lovely, entirely kissable lips.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  So we gather around a communal table in the buzzing restaurant, where the pizzas are made from sourdough, as seems to be the law these days. Dog-hunting is hungry work, and we tuck in enthusiastically. ‘At last, decent food!’ Alfie announces, as if our bank-stripping trips to Planet Earth had never happened.

  Iain, who seems to have forgiven Jack for the exploded butternut squash, is now explaining how he runs the charity shop, pretty much singlehandedly. ‘Some of the volunteers don’t care about how things are presented,’ he retorts, flicking a crumb from his mustard cardigan. Although Jack reckons he’s only around thirty, Iain’s old-mannish, side-parted hairstyle and his clothing (corduroys and matted knitwear) confuse the issue somewhat. ‘I have to keep an eye on the general appearance of things,’ he adds.

  ‘That’s so important in a charity shop,’ Molly remarks.

  ‘Yep, Jack relies on me for that kind of thing. Some of the other volunteers don’t have a clue, do they, Jack?’

  ‘Everyone brings something different,’ Jack replies, catching my eye with a smile.

  Iain stuffs in the rest of his pizza, a daub of cheese clinging to his unshaven chin. ‘You’re nice, Nadia,’ he blurts out, mouth full, turning to Jack. ‘She’s better than that mad Zoe, with the death masks—’

  ‘Let’s not get into comparisons,’ Jack says quickly as Molly looks at Lori. They both try, unsuccessfully, to stifle sniggers. Clearly, they bonded a little during their search for Pancake. ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you, Iain,’ Jack adds, perhaps to change the subject. ‘Dinah called again, wanting to know how many celebs we’ve persuaded to donate stuff. For the auction, remember?’