The Mum Who Got Her Life Back

by Fiona Gibson

  We finally decide on the Miró Foundation, which involves a huge walk – far steeper than I’d anticipated. Although we chit-chat on the way there, we don’t touch upon the matter of Camilla, or university, or any of that, and I’m wondering now if he regrets showing me the tattoo. I’m also reeling a little from what I told him about Sandy. I hadn’t planned to do that at all. It just … fell out, entirely by accident. Oh, Christ.

  As we wander through the light-filled galleries, marvelling at the intensity of the paintings, I start to relax a little. Alfie even seems to be enjoying himself. At least, there’s no moaning or grumbling or going all floppy, the way kids can tend to do when subjected to art.

  Plus, Nadia will be back in town soon. Perhaps the three of us could have lunch? I know there’s been this Rico situation but, well, maybe I’ve read too much into that? From that first text Alfie showed me, it sounded as if there was a group of them last night. Perhaps I just panicked, and it’s not the hot-Spanish-lover-type situation I’ve been imagining? So things might be okay between us, after all.

  From the gallery, Alfie and I head back down to the Gothic Quarter. As we wander past shop after shop, all crammed with the kinds of things I’d usually find interesting – old books, antiques, paintings and curios – I’m aware of a sense of anticipation growing in me: I want to see Nadia, and apologise.

  We stop off for coffee, and I ping a message to Lori: Hey love how’s things? But there’s no reply. We stroll down to the waterside, and I try to appreciate the long, wide promenade, and the huge, glinting structure at the end of it – a coppery fish – whilst wondering if things are okay at home, and how Nadia will react when she sees me.

  ‘Fancy sitting on the beach for a bit?’ I ask Alfie.

  ‘Uh, I’m not that keen, to be honest.’ Maybe he’s scared I have swimming trunks on beneath my shorts, and will strip off to reveal them? So we perch on the edge of a concrete block, like a couple of old curmudgeons who are afraid of sand. I check my watch: just gone one, and still no reply from Lori, or any indication from Nadia about whether she’s on her way back. Alfie and I make our way to the Picasso Museum – but of course, the queue is vast, and we can’t face standing in line in the baking heat. Instead, we wander back towards the Ramblas, and finally, Alfie’s phone rings.

  ‘Mum? Hi.’ He glances at me, and we stop. I try to adopt a casual stance and wander away a little to give him privacy. ‘You what?’ I hear him murmur. ‘You mean … you actually had all your clothes off?’

  I fix my gaze upon an unremarkable shop selling all manner of souvenirs – bags, hats, beach towels – emblazoned with crude interpretations of the notable Gaudí buildings. I really can’t understand who buys this stuff.

  ‘But why?’ Alfie gasps. ‘I can’t see why you had to …’

  I try to focus on the souvenirs dangling from hooks and revolving stands, but I’m not really seeing anything properly.

  Then: ‘God, Mum. Have you gone completely mad?’

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  None of the other stuff matters, I reflect as the plane touches down at Glasgow airport. There was the call from Iain who, sounding quite hysterical, babbled, ‘Veronica sold it! She sold it for £1.50, Jack! I’m so sorry. It was locked up in the safe, I promise you. I don’t know who took it out. I think it was Mags. She kept saying we should steam clean it or something, make it smell a bit better in time for the auction. I said, no, leave Jack to deal with that, when he gets back. He knows best …’

  Veronica is one of the older volunteers; a quiet lady who goes about her business in an efficient way, pricing up items, tidying shelves and manning the till when required. She’d seen it lying about and thought it was just a normal jacket, apparently.

  Anyway, that’s not important, and neither is the revelation that Nadia did some life modelling for that art group in Figueres. Who knows what was going on there, and what does it matter anyway? She’s waited long enough for her freedom after bringing up twins, mainly on her own, by all accounts as Danny was often away working. What she gets up to now is her business, as she and I are clearly over.

  And now, all I want to do is get home, because Lori finally responded to my text, with a call.

  ‘Dad, I’m really sorry to call you but Mum’s had an accident. She’s in hospital.’

  Imagine: apologising because she needed me. I was having a coffee across the road from my hotel when she phoned. I left in a blur, grabbing my stuff from my room, checking out when the woman with the bun finally appeared at reception – I had to ring the brass bell on the desk three times – and heading straight to the airport. Luckily, I managed to get on the next flight to Glasgow.

  Elaine had had a fall, apparently, and I hadn’t been around to look after my daughter. Instead, my brother Craig had driven from Perthshire to Glasgow to take care of his niece, when I should have been there, reassuring Lori that everything would be okay.

  Well, I will be now.

  Chapter Fifty

  Nadia

  ‘For God’s sake, Alf, why didn’t you tell me Jack was here?’ I ask, no longer caring about the state of our apartment. There are crumbs everywhere, a puddle of orange juice on the kitchen floor, and various items of his clothing deposited all over the place.

  ‘He told me not to,’ Alfie replies, huddled on the sofa with a coffee.

  ‘But why? Didn’t he think I’d want to see him?’

  He shrugs. ‘He just … I don’t know. He wasn’t sure how you’d react, I suppose.’ He pauses and I see the flush spreading across his cheeks. ‘He thinks you’ve kind of … met someone.’

  I frown at him. ‘Met someone? You mean, a man?’

  He nods. ‘Yeah.’

  Any thrill I might have experienced over Jack flying out here, presumably to make everything right with us, has disappeared as it’s all so bewildering. ‘Who?’ I exclaim.

  ‘Someone called Rico,’ Alfie murmurs with a shrug.

  ‘Oh, Alf. For goodness’ sake.’ I pace across the living room. ‘They’re a bunch of lovely people, that’s all, from Paisley. They’re huge Dalí fans and it’d been a big deal to them, to come on this trip. We had a real laugh last night and—’

  ‘And then you did some life modelling for them this morning?’ Alfie remarks with a frown. ‘How did that happen?’ I fix my gaze on his face. His accusatory expression transports me right back to that moment, all those years ago, when he and Molly found out that ‘my’ kind of modelling involved removing all my clothes, and they were disgusted with me.

  ‘Gerri had this beautiful room in the hotel,’ I explain, ‘all ornate, with amazing antiques, and a gorgeous carved fireplace and a chaise longue, and they thought it would make a great setting for a sketching session. And Fran was saying, “I wish we had a model” and, well, I just thought, why not help them out when they’d been so lovely and welcoming to me?’

  Alfie eyes me levelly. ‘Because … you were in a hotel with these people, and not at your normal kind of drawing class?’

  ‘But it was the same kind of thing,’ I insist. ‘I’ve told you before, Alf. I’m not a body in a situation like that. I’m just a collection of curves and angles, like—’

  ‘Like a bowl of fruit. Yeah.’ He nods grimly, and we slump into an uneasy silence.

  ‘So, where’s Jack now?’ I ask, trying to sound casual.

  He shrugs. ‘Dunno.’

  ‘But … you said you’ve spent time with him?’

  ‘Yeah.’ A hint of a smile then. ‘It’s been all right, actually. I mean, he’s all right …’

  ‘Of course he is. I’m glad you’ve been getting along.’ It strikes me now that all the things I’ve nagged Alfie to do repeatedly, like flush the loo after use, he pointedly ignores. Yet Jack asks him to do one simple thing – i.e. not tell me that he’s here in Barcelona – and Alfie obeys him. Is it a man thing? Are young men wired to follow instructions solely from fellow males?

  ‘Alfie,’ I start, ‘could I borrow your phone,
please? I’d really like to call him.’

  ‘Sure.’ He hands it to me, and it gives me a small glow of pleasure to see ‘Jack’ stored in Alfie’s contacts. However, he doesn’t answer, and when I try again, as we head out into the muggy afternoon, he still doesn’t pick up.

  ‘D’you think he’s annoyed?’ I venture, as we stroll down through Barceloneta towards the beach.

  ‘Why would he be annoyed?’ Alfie asks, airily.

  ‘Well, me staying overnight in Figueres …’ I stop. ‘Honestly, Alfie, it was nothing.’

  ‘Mum, please,’ he says firmly.

  ‘Rico is gay, actually.’

  ‘Right, okay.’

  I glance at him as we reach the waterfront. Does he believe me, or not? Of course, I could show him Rico’s website, where there’s plenty of info about his artistic collaborations with his husband Luke, but I’m not sure that’s what Alfie’s being so prickly about.

  ‘I wish I’d known Jack was here,’ I add, as we follow the steps down onto the sand. ‘I’d have come straight back, you know.’

  ‘I don’t really want to sit on the beach, Mum,’ Alfie says quickly, as if I hadn’t spoken.

  ‘Oh, come on, hon. Let’s just chill out here for a while. Take your T-shirt off – get some sun on your body. You’re so lucky, you always tan so easily, unlike me.’ I stride onwards, then look round to see him hanging back.

  ‘Mum, I don’t really want—’

  ‘I have towels in my bag, and sunscreen,’ I say with a smile. ‘Don’t worry, it’s only factor ten. Not the thick stuff, the kind you used to call “bandages” …’

  He blinks at me, and seems to gather himself as he makes his way towards me, and we find a clear patch of sand.

  Here, I pull off my T-shirt; I’m wearing my swimsuit underneath. I look at Alfie, hoping he’ll at least take off his own T-shirt, and expose his skinny torso to the sun. He looks at me, and then I see him inhale deeply as he grabs at the bottom of his faded pinkish T-shirt, and hoists it up over his head. ‘That’s better,’ I remark.

  ‘Is it?’ He gives a curious look.

  I frown. ‘What d’you mean?’

  He turns then, and points to his upper arm, and now I see it.

  It’s a horrible tattoo marring my beautiful son’s arm, badly drawn and ugly. And is that Camilla’s name entwined in the hair, wrongly spelt? He looks at me nervously, checking my reaction. I try to dredge up something positive – or even just neutral – to say about it, but nothing comes. But in a way, perhaps it explains a lot. ‘Oh, Alf,’ is all I can say.

  ‘Mum, please, don’t go on.’

  ‘I’m not going on! All I said was …’ I stop, because what’s the point of saying anything now? Instead, I just look at it for a few moments longer, and then we hug, tightly; amazingly, he allows it. I can’t remember the last time we held each other like this.

  ‘Maybe,’ I venture as we pull apart, ‘you should keep it covered for a while?’

  ‘It’s awful, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is, but you know that anyway, and that’s not what I mean. It just looks a bit sore, love.’ As he grunts and pulls his T-shirt back on, I fish out the sunscreen from my bag. ‘I just don’t want it getting sunburned,’ I add. ‘They probably said that, when you had it done, and they gave you a talk about after-care …’

  Alfie looks at me, and for a second I know he’s weighing up whether or not to lie. ‘Mum,’ he says, wincing, ‘there wasn’t a talk about after-care. I just … left.’

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Jack

  When I arrive at the Royal Infirmary and find Lori and Craig sitting with Elaine in the busy ward, it seems that the ‘fall’ is just part of the story.

  ‘So, here you are,’ she says, with a trace of snideness that hardly seems justified, given the circumstances.

  I hug Lori and my brother, grateful when he offers to take Lori for a coffee so Elaine and I can ‘have a bit of time’.

  I pull up a plastic chair and sit down. ‘So you’ve broken your arm and collarbone,’ I say, and she nods.

  ‘Look, Jack, please don’t lecture me.’ Her face is pale and sweaty, her hair matted and unwashed. I can tell she’s been crying. She’s wearing a sling, her forearm is in a plaster cast, and she doesn’t seem to be able to move without wincing.

  ‘The last thing I’m going to do is lecture you,’ I murmur.

  ‘Well, yeah, but you might as well know what happened.’ She clears her throat, and I hand her the glass of water from the side table. ‘Me and Harry had a bit of a sesh last night.’

  ‘Right. So that’s how you—’

  ‘Look, I don’t know exactly what happened,’ she says quickly. ‘I must’ve blacked out. When I came to, in this place, they said I’d had my stomach pumped …’

  ‘Oh, God, Elaine!’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ Her eyes brim with tears and she blinks rapidly. ‘Crap, isn’t it? I thought I was getting on top of it, Jack. I’ve tried, you know, but I’m not going to go to meetings, all that stuff, with a load of people who sit around, sharing their innermost thoughts, confessing the worst things they’ve ever done in some mass spilling out of emotions.’

  I touch her unbroken arm. She feels cool and clammy. ‘I don’t think it’s always like that,’ I say gently.

  ‘I thought I could do it by myself,’ she goes on, ‘for Lori, you know? And I was doing really well. I really was. I was only drinking moderately. I mean, okay, maybe a doctor wouldn’t call it moderate, but things were fine, honestly!’ She stares at me, eyes defiant now. Of course, things weren’t really fine. But if she’d made a good job of kidding herself that that was the case, then maybe I had too.

  ‘Elaine,’ I say, ‘all that matters is you getting well, okay? No one’s going to judge you. No one’ll give you a hard time for—’

  ‘Yes they will,’ she says gruffly.

  ‘Who’s “they”? Who are you talking about exactly?’

  She shrugs. ‘Well, your parents always made it pretty clear what they thought of me …’

  ‘Oh, come on. They liked you.’

  ‘You know that’s not true,’ she says. I exhale, not really wanting to rake over all of this again – not because it’s untrue, but because it’s in the past.

  In fairness, my parents never quite knew what to make of Elaine, who was a bit of a new-ager back when we were together, a mass of flowing red hair, little vest tops and hand-made batik skirts that she’d tie around herself haphazardly; one fell off in Tesco once, leaving Elaine shrieking with laughter in her top and knickers in the nappy aisle.

  And yes, there were frequent drinking injuries – her ‘little mishaps’, as she called them – like the time she toppled off a bar stool and split her head. ‘I only popped in for one after work,’ she retorted. ‘You often go out after work!’ Yes, I said, with the guys from the Gander offices, and generally, that didn’t end up with someone having to have their head stitched.

  ‘People are so well meaning,’ she mutters now, ‘when they talk about drinking. It’s always, “Let’s look at your patterns. How many units of alcohol would you say you have in a week?”’ She narrows her eyes at me. ‘We all know the rules, don’t we, Jack? You halve it. Anyone who doesn’t is lying.’

  ‘Elaine,’ I say, ‘that’s fine, we can talk about all of this later, when you’re out of here. But in the meantime, Lori will come and live with me.’ I pause. ‘I mean, for the foreseeable future, okay?’

  I almost expect her to argue that too, but she just nods. ‘Okay. I s’pose that’s the best solution for now. She’s been good, you know.’

  ‘I know, she’s a great girl.’

  Elaine blinks at me. ‘She helps out when I’m, uh … not too well. She’s so supportive.’

  ‘It’s supposed to be the other way round,’ I murmur, regretting it instantly as she glares at me.

  ‘Yes, well, it might not have been the drink last night anyway,’ she snaps. ‘We’d had a curry earlier, an
d the restaurant was so stuffy. So was the pub actually. Maybe it’s my hormones – a kind of hot flush – and I fainted?’

  But you’ve just told me you had your stomach pumped. What were they trying to get out of there – naan bread?

  ‘Or maybe it’s low blood pressure?’ Elaine’s eyes widen at this sudden idea. ‘Better to be low than high, right?’

  ‘Yeah, I guess so!’ I remark, feigning positivity.

  She grunts. ‘I just want to get out of here, Jack. Everyone in here is mad, drunk or out of their heads on something. Apart from the medical staff, obviously.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’d hope that’s the case …’

  ‘But they’re all rushing around, mad busy, being shouted at by people who should be saying thank you instead of abusing them …’

  ‘I’m sure they’re all doing their best,’ I say, ‘and you’ll be able to come home as soon as they decide you’re ready.’

  ‘Hmm.’ She rolls her eyes, and now I’m starting to realise how it’s been for our daughter, pretending things were okay, perhaps taking time off school to look after her mum, when things have lurched to the wrong side of chaos.

  Why didn’t Lori tell me how bad things really were? It makes sense now: her poor attendance at school, her supposed inability to concentrate. Perhaps that’s why she didn’t go to the Christmas school dance; because she was needed at home.

  With a stab of shame I realise I should have known that things were escalating out of control. The signs were all there. I should have been stronger, more forceful, and insisted that Lori moved in with me full time. Now it’s clear that she has been carrying way too much for a girl of her age – for anyone really. She’s been brave and loyal to Elaine, and has been trying to look after her and not rock the boat.

  Well, she won’t have to deal with all of that on her own anymore.