“I hope I’m on speaker.”
“You are!”
“Are you using the phone mount that Dad sent you? Or is the phone in your lap again?”
I think about the unopened phone mount in the back.
“I’m using the phone mount, Elaine,” I reply.
A huff at me for calling her by her first name, but the diversion works. “How was the big trip, then?”
“It was fine. I saw a bit of the city. It was very cool.”
“Cool?” she repeats, confused.
“Yes, Budapest is very cool, very creative and cultured,” I say.
“Oh lovely, Mara,” she says. “It sounds like you’ve got the wanderlust.”
“You should try it, Mum,” I say. It’s a dig. My mother doesn’t like to travel and prefers to holiday in the north of England. She’s barely noticed the pandemic, she’s such a homebody.
I feel bad. I hate that I speak to my mother like this, and yet, I keep doing it. But it’s easier to keep both parents at arm’s length.
They are constant worriers and wing clippers, the pair of them. It was clear that when I left film school, without a degree and without an internship, I could never go back and face theiryou should have had a plan Btirade.
I hear a loud sigh and then she starts again. “And is everything good with work?”
“Fine,” I say quickly. “Work is fine. My house is fine. My life is just fine.”
“Ben got a new car; did you see the photos on Facebook?”
“No one is on Facebook anymore,” I say, as the summer sun hits the windscreen and I’m almost blinded. “Shit!”
“Mara, I wish you wouldn’t call me from the car,” Mum says, sighing again. “I know you’re very busy these days, but it would be nice to do a FaceTime so I can see you.”
And just like that, I feel guilty. What my mother wants is more of me, I know it. But if she could see the reality of my life, it would be too much to bear. I have to give her something.
“I met someone, by the way.”
“Ooh, Mara,” she says, and then after a beat: “Really?”
“Yes,really, Mother.”
“I just mean...” Her voice is silent for a moment as I hear her take a breath, and then more brightly, she continues. “Well, who is this lucky man?”
“He’s a concert cellist. He lives in Vienna for now, but he’s coming across in August, if not before,” I say, “and his name is Josef. He’s just perfect. Worldly. Handsome. Sophisticated.”
“He certainly does sound intriguing,” she says.
“He’s perfect,” I insist.
Silence on her end of the phone, before: “You can ask him to my birthday if you like.”
“He lives in Vienna, Mother,” I say quickly, trying to imagine all that dark, expensive wool and height moving around in my little childhood house, eating M&S party food from a disposable silver tray.
“Oh, that’s a shame. What about Charlie?” she tries.
“I don’t think she would be able to,” I reply. “She’s still breastfeeding.”
