The Mum Who Got Her Life Back

by Fiona Gibson

  ‘I won’t drag you to hundreds of museums,’ I add.

  ‘You can if you like …’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ I say, smiling. ‘I know you have your cut-off point and it’s no fun looking around them with someone who’s dragging their feet …’

  ‘I’m nineteen, Mum,’ Alfie reminds me, laughing now, ‘not six.’

  I smile at him, figuring that this isn’t remotely how I imaged my trip to pan out, but perhaps it really will help to bring us closer. It’s painful when your kids, who once loved you to pieces and cried if you left the room, start to regard you with sneers as if you smell terrible and exist solely to ruin their fun. No one warns you that this stage starts when they’re about twelve and goes on until … well, this morning, actually. That’s seven years of being mildly disliked! Even Molly, who’s pretty sunny these days, had a tendency to regard me as a nuisance when she hit her teens.

  But never mind that now, because the atmosphere is convivial as Alfie and I tuck into our supper. ‘D’you honestly not miss cheese?’ I muse, having devoured my croquettes.

  ‘Everyone asks that,’ he reminds me. ‘It’s actually addictive, did you know that?’

  ‘Really?’ I ask with genuine interest.

  ‘Yeah. The dairy proteins are really concentrated and act as sort of opiates.’

  ‘That makes sense. Once I get started, I find it almost impossible to stop.’

  ‘I’ve noticed,’ he says, chuckling. We finish our supper, and amazingly, Alfie doesn’t exhibit any concern over the fact that I’d like us to walk back to our apartment, via a couple of bars.

  We stop off for coffee, and another wine, and by the time we’re back at the apartment and say goodnight – me heading for the double room, and Alfie to the single-bedded box room without complaint – it strikes me that I am one truly lucky woman.

  Okay, so things have gone wrong with Jack and me. But right now, as I slip between the cool white sheets, I figure that there are worse situations I could have found myself in than to be in this glorious city, with my son.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Jack

  ‘This is amazing,’ I exclaim on Monday morning when I show up at the shop.

  ‘It’s all right, I s’pose,’ Mags says as I examine the denim jacket.

  ‘Mags, this’ll fetch loads!’ I tell her. ‘He’s really popular, you know. D’you know how Nadia managed to get hold of it?’

  Mags shrugs, then mumbles, ‘Something about her ex-husband knowing him …’

  ‘Oh, right. Of course.’ Christ – so she actually asked him for me, and he came up with this. It’s far better than a pair of sheepskin mittens or a grubby apron. ‘That’s Danny Raven,’ I add. ‘Have you seen any of his films?’

  She looks blank and shakes her head. ‘Are they musicals?’

  ‘No, they’re not musicals,’ I say, trying not to smile. ‘They’re quite gritty really, very British … about ordinary people having struggles, trying to make something of themselves.’

  ‘Who wants to go to the cinema to see stuff like that?’ she retorts, tailing me to the back room. ‘There’s enough of that in real life.’

  ‘Well, I s’pose he likes to reflect real life.’

  ‘I don’t want it reflected.’ She eyes the jacket with what I can only describe as mild distaste as I fold it carefully and place it on the counter. ‘I want to be transported somewhere. I want fun and music like in Mamma Mia!’ She brightens. ‘Have you seen either of them?’

  ‘Er, bits of the first one – Lori had it on DVD …’

  ‘Seen the end bit?’

  ‘Um, no, I don’t think—’

  ‘I have it,’ she announces. ‘You could come round and watch it with me. You need to see the whole thing, or you’ll never know how it turns out.’

  To think, I muse, I have reached the age of forty-nine without finding out which of the three men Meryl Streep had a kid with!

  ‘It’s not massively my kind of thing,’ I say, at which her expression falls; Mags’s moods are always clearly displayed. ‘But … thanks anyway.’ I turn to busy myself by unpacking a box of children’s books. One of them is one of those touchy-feely kinds with panels of fur and Velcro. When I flick through it to check for marks or rips, a piece of cooked bacon drops out.

  ‘So, are you back in all week, then?’ she asks, her tone cooler now.

  ‘Um, I’m not sure. I’ve had a chat with Helen and she said she’d been looking forward to spending some time here. So I might just drop in now and again, but take some time off too …’

  ‘Right.’ I can sense Mags mulling this over, itching to ask the real reason why I didn’t fly to Spain yesterday. So far, I have brushed off everyone’s queries with a rather vague, ‘Oh, Nadia decided to make it a working trip.’ Whether they believed me or not is up to them.

  Right now, with Mags beginning to sort a large bag of shoes rather huffily, going into any more detail about my lamentable love life is the last thing I need.

  At least Iain is impressed with the jacket, as he keeps removing it from the safe in the back room, where it’s being stored until Dinah drops by to collect it for the auction. ‘Have you heard of Seb Jeffries?’ he keeps asking customers as he rushes out with it to show them.

  ‘No,’ retorts Jean Cuthbertson when she comes in that afternoon. Jean seems no more impressed than when Mags told her ‘we’ (I seem to remember that she just stood and watched) sorted through the hoover bag’s contents in our search for her wedding ring.

  ‘He’s really well known,’ Iain says loftily. ‘He’s in all these dark, depressing films where people hang about on patches of grass and nothing much goes on. You know, the ones Danny Raven makes?’

  She narrows her eyes at him. ‘Who?’

  ‘He’s a film producer. I mean director. He’s a mate of Jack’s …’

  ‘Still don’t know who you’re talking about …’

  ‘Well, he’s an actor!’ Iain exclaims.

  ‘Seb Raven?’

  Iain groans. ‘No – Seb Jeffries …’

  ‘What would I want with his jacket?’ Jean asks, frowning at it. ‘It’s for a man.’

  ‘You could, uh, wear it over a dress, or casually toss it over your shoulders,’ Iain offers, suddenly the style expert.

  ‘I have a perfectly good coat, thanks,’ Jean retorts as she strides out of the shop.

  All through Monday and Tuesday – I’ve accepted I might as well come in after all, extra pair of hands and all that – the jacket is paraded about and shoved in customers’ faces. A delicate-looking woman with a small child reels back in surprise. ‘Could it be washed?’

  ‘Oh, yes – denim’s very hard wearing and washable,’ Iain replies, ‘but you’d have to take the badges off and not let your little girl play with them.’

  ‘I’m a boy,’ the child shouts.

  At one point, Iain models it, twisting and turning so it can be viewed from all angles, and striding back and forth as if our rather worn shop floor were a catwalk. The other volunteers and I are all in hysterics. Even Mags cracks a grin. I’m so grateful to Iain for shaking me out of my gloom that I offer to take him back to that pizza place once we’ve closed for the day.

  We wait until everyone else – well, Mags really – has gone home, and we sneak off.

  And here, as we tear into our pepperoni pizzas and cheese-laden garlic bread, I find myself knocking back a couple of beers and telling Iain what really happened between Nadia and me. Of all the people I could confide in, I choose him – perhaps because I know his response will be straightforward and honest, a knee-jerk reaction to the mess.

  ‘That’s awful, Jack,’ he murmurs with genuine concern. ‘She’s a lovely lady. I like her a lot.’

  ‘Yeah, I do too,’ I say.

  ‘After she brought in the jacket as well!’

  ‘Yes, well, I told her before that …’

  ‘But why?’ he asks.

  I inhale deeply. ‘I’ve explained, Iain. My
mum got upset at the party, and then afterwards Nadia and I had a bit of a tetchy phone conversation – a row, I suppose, the first one we’ve had. She was out with a friend, and a bit drunk, and it sort of escalated. Before I knew it I’d said I couldn’t go away with her.’ Christ, what possessed me to do that? I reflect now. It seems so trivial and stupid.

  Iain tuts and shakes his head. ‘Aww, that’s bad.’

  ‘Yeah. I know.’

  He munches thoughtfully on his last scrap of pizza, and we fall into silence for a few moments. ‘You know what, though?’ he adds.

  ‘What?’ I ask.

  ‘You didn’t really mean to break up, did you? I mean, you just said it because you were mad.’

  ‘Erm …’ I take a sip of my beer. ‘No, I suppose I didn’t mean it. At least, I didn’t plan to say what I did. It just sort of … fell out.’

  ‘And now you’ve fallen out,’ he exclaims, seemingly pleased at his word usage. ‘Which is silly, really, ’cause you want to be with her. I can tell.’

  ‘I do,’ I murmur. ‘I really do.’

  Iain nods. ‘So, you might as well phone her, say sorry, and just go …’

  I can’t help laughing at that.

  ‘What’s funny?’ he asks, looking crestfallen.

  ‘Because … I can’t do that, Iain.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s too late. She’s already gone.’

  ‘Why can’t you just go out and join her?’ he asks.

  I consider how best to explain it. ‘I can’t tell her I’m not going and then, two days later, call her up and say, “Hi, Nads! Look, I was a bit of an arse the other day and I’m really sorry. So, what I’ve decided is, I’m coming out to Barcelona with you after all.”’ I look at him, and he frowns.

  ‘I think that sounds pretty good,’ Iain remarks. ‘That’s exactly what you should say. Why don’t you write it down to make sure you get it right?’

  Oh, Jesus. ‘She’d just think I was messing her around, not going one minute, going the next …’

  ‘It’s not minutes,’ he insists. ‘It’s days. Tell her you’ve had time to think things over. Go on – add that in …’

  I smile and drain my beer glass.

  ‘D’you want me to phone her for you?’ he asks.

  ‘No!’ I exclaim. ‘No, thank you. Anyway, you don’t like using the phone …’

  ‘Oh, I’d do it for you, if it’d help. I could pretend it was to thank her for bringing the jacket in,’ he says, raising a brow, as if this counts for real subterfuge.

  ‘Iain. I’m not—’

  ‘You shouldn’t just give up,’ he interrupts, looking quite disappointed in me now. ‘I bet, if you phoned her, she’d be really pleased. She’d much rather be with you than wandering about on her own, lonely and upset …’ I watch as he licks a finger and whirls it round his plate in order to gather up the crumbs. Iain Harrison, who has never had a partner as far as I’ve been able to gather, is dispensing relationship advice. And pretty sensible advice at that …

  ‘She might be enjoying the peace,’ I remark.

  ‘You don’t really think that. I can tell when you don’t mean something, Jack. You’re a terrible liar. I can tell by the shape of your mouth.’

  ‘But I don’t know how she’s feeling,’ I add, uneasy now at the way he’s scrutinising my face across the table. ‘And she mightn’t be on her own anyway. Perhaps she’s gone with a friend instead? I just don’t know, Iain. And even if she hasn’t, she’ll be pretty pissed off with me right now. She seemed to think I was making a comment about the kids having a famous film-director dad, and how he could give Alfie a job, just like that …’

  ‘Did you say that?’ Iain wants to know.

  I wince. ‘Kind of. At least, it came out that way.’

  ‘Apologise then, in person!’ he says. I open my mouth to protest, but he’s off again: ‘You know when Pancake went missing?’

  ‘Er, yes …’

  ‘Well, you told me not to give up, didn’t you? You said I had to keep looking, stay positive.’

  ‘I’m not quite sure it’s the same thing, Iain,’ I murmur with a smile.

  ‘It is,’ he insists. ‘I love Pancake. You love Nadia …’ He blinks at me. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, of course I do,’ I reply.

  ‘Then go get her.’ He beams across the table at me. ‘Go to Barcelona and say sorry, and don’t forget to thank her for the jacket.’

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Nadia

  Yesterday we strolled around the Picasso Museum and gazed in awe at the Sagrada Família (at least, I did; Alfie prodded at his phone). We pottered around Parc Güell and browsed the incredible stalls in the Boqueria food market. Alfie didn’t even complain about the prevalence of cured hams dangling from hooks, and enormous, succulent sausages piled up everywhere we looked. However, I noticed that as time went on, his phone-poking increased, and by the time we emerged from our apartment this morning, it had welded itself to his hand. He seemed to have slipped back into a rather listless frame of mind, murmuring that it was ‘hot’, and showing rather less enthusiasm at my suggestions of what to do.

  When I probed him about what was wrong, he just muttered that he’d ‘had some texts’. From Camilla, I assumed, although naturally he wasn’t prepared to tell me. Anyway, I guessed they hadn’t exactly filled him with joy.

  ‘What would you like to do?’ I ask now as we meander through the Gràcia quarter, with the intention of doing some shopping.

  ‘Don’t mind,’ Alfie replies.

  I glance at him. ‘Maybe, if you have a read of the guidebook …’

  He throws me an incredulous look, as if I’d suggested consulting tarot cards. I suppose it does seem rather quaint to him. But I like an old-fashioned guidebook, with pictures and everything neatly organised into sections: food, entertainment, trips out of the city. So much less confusing than consulting hundreds of online travel guides where no on can agree on the best things to do.

  ‘It’s so hot,’ Alfie announces for about the fiftieth time.

  ‘Well, it is Spain,’ I remind him.

  ‘I’m just saying. I didn’t think it’d be this hot in June.’

  I glance at him as we stroll. ‘I did say bring some shorts, didn’t I? You must be roasting in jeans.’

  ‘I am,’ he says in a pained way. ‘But I told you. I don’t have any shorts.’

  ‘I’ll buy you some then,’ I say.

  ‘Oh, I don’t want to go shopping for shorts with you …’

  Roast, then! I think, irritated now that he’s not appreciating being here enough. Perhaps we should have gone to Greenland instead? But that wouldn’t have been much help for my maps, and in fact, our explorations here have given me loads of ideas for imagery and colours. So thank you, Jack, I think bitterly; it’s proving to be a useful research trip after all.

  I’m about to suggest to Alfie that we choose a hat for him, but think better of it.

  ‘I could give you some euros,’ I venture, ‘and you could go and buy shorts and we’ll meet up later. How does that sound?’

  He twists his mouth into a frown. ‘Where would I go?’

  ‘C’mon, Alf,’ I say. ‘Use your initiative. There are thousands of shops.’

  It’s wrong to compare my kids, I know that, but Molly would jump at the chance to shoot off and do a bit of shopping. My daughter and I have been texting daily, and all’s fine at home; she’s been working hard, and seemingly partying hard too, judging from her Instagram feed.

  Alfie and I stop off for lunch in a shady square, after which I press a wad of notes into his hand with the instruction to meet at Café Opera on the Ramblas in a couple of hours’ time. He lopes off, looking a little bewildered. And now, as I wander around the streets alone, I find Jack sneaking into my thoughts. He could have at least texted to say thanks for the jacket, or even a simple, ‘Hope you’re having nice time’. I stop walking with the intention of checking my phone
– and discover it’s not in my bag.

  With a sickening jolt, I realise I’ve left it on the café table. I can picture it sitting there, next to the zinc ashtray. I charge back, but by the time I reach the square, an elderly couple are already sitting at the table. No, they haven’t seen my phone, and none of the staff have either. Someone must have wandered by and grabbed it. ‘Oh, Jesus,’ I mutter, my initial thought being: what if Alfie needs to contact me? But then, we’re meeting at three, and he’s only buying shorts. I can use his phone later to let Molly know I’ve lost mine.

  Slightly soothed – it’s insured, after all, and I will not let this mishap ruin my day – I stroll onwards to the shops, with the intention of perusing dresses. Bright colours and zingy prints abound here. Last year, I’d fallen into the habit of wearing so much black – hence fitting in so well with the Lush staff – that I’d almost forgotten which colours I liked. But then I met Jack, and my confidence soared and I started to think: yes, of course I can wear red or pink or emerald! Almost instantly, I fell back in love with colour, specifically prints, which I’d loved when I was younger. And now my wardrobe is filled with the cheery colours and patterns I’d worn pretty much every day as an art student.

  I upgraded my underwear, too. My old, saggy articles haven’t seen the light of day since I met Jack; I’ve taken to wearing ‘girlfriend undies’ in black or cream lace, and my previously squidgy belly has flattened a little, probably due to our ‘activities’ and being wildly, deliciously, in love.

  I stop with the intention of heading into a shop, but am whacked with a wave of sadness. God, I miss him. We’d so looked forward to this trip. I’m picturing his face, his lovely blue eyes and wide smile, and the way we lie together, our legs tangled together in bed, after sex. I miss his voice, his laugh, the way he smells when he pulls me close to him. I’m not even angry with Alfie anymore because it’s not just about him; it’s about the row Jack and I had afterwards, when I’d got drunk with Corinne. It’s a fuck-up, that’s what it is. I don’t want to be shopping alone. I’m no longer interested in dresses. But I have no phone, and there’s over an hour to fill before I meet Alfie at Café Opera.