“You have to be careful, love,” Mum said. “I was talking to Angie Skeggs the other day, and her friend Brenda’s sister in-law has a nephew who’s gay. Well, apparently, he went to something called a ‘fisting party’ and busted the laggy band in his bumhole and now he has to shit into a bag. It’s proper tragic.”
“That didn’t happen, Mum.”
“It did too. Angie told me. He was up the ospiccle for six weeks. He still can’t eat solids.”
“Angie Skeggs thinks aliens abducted the real Nigel Farage the day after the Brexit vote and QAnon is covering it up. You should get your news from reputable sources.”
“OK, love, I’ll get all my news from theBulletinfrom now on.”
My mother could be shady when she wanted to be. Fifteen years on the till at the local Tesco supermarket being polite to knobheads is the equivalent of a vocational qualification in sarcasm. She also definitely knew what fisting was. She’d been running the local PFLAG since the year after I came out and knew more about the mechanics of homosexuality than I did. This was just her sense of humour.
“Thanks for your support,” I said, sucking the dregs from the glass of water on my bedside table.
“Only joking, love. Had anything good in the paper this week?”
“Nothing worth buying it for, Mum. I had a story on Wednesday about the government giving millions of pounds to some otters.”
“Otters? That’s nice. I’m glad they’ve got money for the otters,” Mum said. “You remember old Shirley Trimble? They’ve cut her Universal Credit again. That leg of hers is infected now, and she can’t get in to see a GP for six weeks. She’ll be tickled bloody pink about the otters. When she comes down the food bank on Monday, I’ll make sure and tell her.”
Apparently, the answer to the question “Who doesn’t love otters?” was Stacey Ann Miller. And, possibly, Shirley Trimble. (Confirmation pending.) The sound of bus air brakes outside scraped around the inside of my skull. I shoved a lazy hand under the elastic of my pants and scratched my balls. You could dig for peat down there. I needed a shower.
“Did you have a reason for calling, Mum?” She called every Saturday. By consent. It was just past time in the conversation for me to wrong-foot her. Just for the variety.
“Just wanted to hear your voice, my lovely. Are you sure you’re all right? You sound off.”
If my mum had a superpower, it was knowing when something wasn’t right. When my first boyfriend dumped me, she was on the blower within fifteen minutes to check if I was OK. It was spooky. Though I learned later she’d seen him snogging Derek Potts in the Highcross Costa that morning, so she probably knew something was up.
“I got into a mardy with some posh bellend in a club last night, that’s all.”
“Jesus, Sunshine! What have I told you about fighting?” Mum’s voice was so sharp I could feel it in my eyes. “You’ve got to get that temper of yours under control, Sunny. Is anyone hurt? Are you OK?”
“It wasn’t a punch-up, Mum. Although I could definitely have taken him. To be fair, a sock puppet armed with a tube of toothpaste could have taken him.”
“But no injuries, no hospital, no cops. Just two idiots with more testosterone in their tongues than their bollocks? No harm done.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. (Also, ew, Mum, gross.) My stomach twisted. Time for a full confession.
“It’s complicated,” I said. “He’s a reporter. For another paper. Where his dad is the editor. A dad who is also one of the most powerful men on Fleet Street. Oh, and he has a mum who is also incredibly senior at the BBC. I think I might have made myself some very powerful enemies. Of the kind that might come back to haunt me.”
OK, so it wasalmosta full confession. I didn’t say the reporter in question also had piercing blue eyes and a floppy boy band fringe of black curly hair and the juiciest buttocks outside a Brazilian plastic surgeon’s outpatient ward. Or that I found him both beautiful and confusing. Or that he kept creeping into my thoughts, even before I tore his family to shreds in a drunken nightclub tirade.
“If it was just about work, won’t it all blow over?” Mum asked.
I cringed. “Not really. I got… pretty personal. I kind of attacked his whole family.”
“The family that runs the entire UK media?”
“Um, yeah.”
Mum sighed. It was more the thoughtful kind of sigh than an exasperated my-son-is-an-idiot sigh. So that was good, at least. I didn’t need a lecture.
“You remember when I got into a fight with Denise from Asda in the Five Bells that time?”
“When she threw her drink at Nan and you slammed her tit into her gravy?” How could I forget? The video resurfaced in my Instagram suggested posts at least once a month.
“I’m not proud of it, Sunny.”
“It’s had eighteen million views, Mum.”
