ONE
We all deal with making Big Life Decisions in different ways, don’t we? I have friends who compile extensive lists of pros and cons for each situation, others who talk things over endlessly until they see every possible side to a dilemma. One woman I met in the hair salon where I work told me – while I was doing her extensions – that she set up an actual spreadsheet when she was considering dumping her boyfriend.
I was impressed with that, I have to say. I’m not sure I even really know what a spreadsheet is; it’s just one of those things that people mention without ever explaining. Anyway, my technique for making Big Life Decisions varies, depending on my mood, and how big the decision is. This morning, as I sit in my freezing cold car blowing on my chilly fingers, I am tempted by one of my tried and tested methods – Radio Roulette.
My eighteen-year-old son, Sam, is slouched on the back seat, his eyes closed, resigned to his fate but not being gracious about it. He’s wearing his Mum-cancelling headphones so there’s no real use trying to talk to him about it.
I glance back at the house, and wonder if I’m being crazy. It’s almost Christmas, and I am about to randomly set off on a road trip to the other end of the country. I don’t even really know where I’m going. Last night I was absolutely, positively, one hundred per cent sure that it was the right thing to do – until I turned the key in the engine five minutes ago. Then, for some reason, the doubts descended, like a flock of hungry birds looking to peck my eyes out.
Yes, the bags are packed, and yes, the car is loaded – but I’m still here. In my driveway. Waiting for the heating to kick in. It’s not too late to change my mind, if that’s what the Gods of Radio decide. I could unpack the bags, unload the car, release the silent teen. I could walk back inside my little house and deal with everything I want to run away from.
I reach out, flick the switch, and turn the dial. At first I get static, which is no help – I already have plenty of that in my own mind. I twiddle a little more, and a song kicks in. I laugh out loud when I realise that it’sShould I Stay Or Should I Goby The Clash – it couldn’t be more perfect, or less helpful.
I twist the dial again, and come acrossI Will Survive. Hmmm. There is reference to walking out of a door, but it’s not exactly clear cut. One more, I think, giving fate a push.
It lands with a perfectly clear signal onI Want To Break Freeby Queen, and I sigh as I settle back in my seat. The heater is working, and I am singing along, and I feel certain again. I might have made this plan while under the influence of a bottle of Baileys, but I think it was the right one – because Idowant to break free, very much. I want to be happy, and have fun, and forget all my woes – at least for a week.
I nod to myself, and silently thank Freddie and the boys. I am going to do this – I am going to drive this car all the way to Dorset, and I am going to find some Christmas magic. I reverse out of my driveway, and immediately feel lighter, calmer, better. We’re on the road to somewhere!
TWO
A FEW WEEKS EARLIER
“The internet is a dangerous place,” I announce solemnly. “You can’t trust people to be who they say they are. There are grown men pretending to be little girls, and people who post Be Kind memes before they go and troll someone for being too fat, and all types of scam artists…the online world just isn’t safe!”
Sam ignores me in that way that only teenagers can – with silent but damning contempt. He smirks as he scrolls through Instagram, and I realise I’m on my own in this.
“I’m not being crazy,” I continue firmly, “or over-protective. The internet is like Mos Eisley. Scum and villainy all over the shop. How do you know that this person is even real? How do you know that you’re not being…I don’t know, that thing that’s to do with fish?”
“Catfished?” he suggests, without even looking up from his phone.
“Yes! That! How do you know you’re not being catfished?”
I turn to look at my seventy-two-year-old mother, who is receiving this lecture with surprising good grace. Yesterday, she told me that she’d met a “nice man” on a dating site for seniors, and that she’s moving to Aberdeen to live with him.
This, as you can imagine, came as something of a surprise – especially as my mother has spent most of the last few decades refusing to part with her ancient cassette player and insisting that new technology, like CDs and watches you don’t need to wind, are the work of the devil.
“Where is Mos Eisley, dear?” she asks, eyebrows raised. “Manchester?”
“It’s from Star Wars, Gran,” Sam interjects. “You know how she gets about old sci-fi films.”
I glare at him, even though he’s right. “That’s not the point, really, is it? I mean, how long have you known this man? How old is he? Does he have his own home?”
“Oh yes,” she replies breezily, “a very nice bungalow. He has all his own teeth as well, in case you were wondering. He’s sixty-eight. Bit of a toy boy.”
She lets out a coquettish laugh and I feel like I’ve been sucked into some weird hell dimension. My mother is not the kind of person who giggles – at least she didn’t used to be. My dad died when I was seven, and that broke her. Since then she’s been…well, old. Even when she wasn’t. She’s lived a quiet life, often not even leaving the house for weeks on end.
I learned at a very young age how to cover for her – how to do the shopping, how to use the washing machine, how to make my own packed lunches, how to forge her signature on school letters she didn’t have the energy to look at. I stayed close by to go to hairdressing college instead of considering anywhere further afield, and I have been here ever since, in our little suburb of Liverpool. She has always needed me too much for me to even consider anything else.
Now, she is sitting across from me with her shiny new bob and her neon pink yoga pants and her FitBit, telling me that she has a toy boy.
I am dazed and confused, and Sam isn’t helping. In fact he’s showing her a picture of Mos Eisley on his phone, and she is making risqué remarks about remembering that Han Solo was “really rather dishy in those tight trousers”.
I think that, with hindsight, it all started a few months ago, when I persuaded her to go to a silver surfers course at Sam’s school. It was a community project run by the teachers, where the kids taught the local old dears how to use the information superhighway.
I’d been hoping she might make a few friends, become a bit less dependent on me, maybe figure out how to order her shopping online or manage her repeat prescriptions. It seemed innocent enough at the time, but now the internet has stolen my mother, and replaced her with an alien creature.
I suppose there have been signs. She asked me to cut her hair in a new style for the first time ever, and told me one day how much she liked Kate Hudson’s Fabletics range. She started missing our weekly Sunday lunches, and told me I didn’t actually need to call in and see her every day on the way home from work.
