‘What’s up, Mum?’
‘I just wanted to hear your voice.’
Pull the other one, he thought, but he’d go with it.
He gave her the gist of his day. It was something to talk about that distracted her from asking him for money or him asking her whether she’d quit drinking yet.
‘You saved a dog; that’s so sweet! You always did love dogs. I hope that family were grateful to you all for putting your lives at risk.’
‘Kind of in the job description, Mum.’
‘Well, anyway… I have a bit of news.’
He braced himself for what was next: new boyfriend? (Usually a loser and down-and-out scrounger who’d leave her whenthey got bored.) Or perhaps she was moving. (The last time it was in with a friend but, translated, that meant sleeping on someone’s sofa because she was behind with her rent.) Of course, the most frequent ‘news’ she had was thatthis time it will be different.Which meant she’d stopped drinking – again – and it never lasted.
‘I have a job,’ she announced with a great deal of glee for this time of night.
‘Mum, that’s great.’ And it was a relief.
But the doubts soon crept in. He could already anticipate the peak when she started work and loved it and the money coming in, then the trough when it went wrong. She’d never had much staying power, her track record was abysmal and the only saving grace she had in her corner was that she’d never pissed off an employer so much that she was left with only bad references. Usually, she walked away without much fuss, made an excuse for leaving so it wouldn’t look to them like she just couldn’t be bothered any more.
‘Aren’t you going to ask me what it is?’ she prompted.
‘Of course. What’s the job?’
‘Now don’t freak out.’ She paused. ‘It’s a cleaning job.’
‘Why would I freak out about that?’
‘It’s in a pub.’
A pub. Great. Say no more.
‘I’m not drinking, Gio.’
‘Okay.’ He’d heard that one before.
‘I’m not, I promise you.’
He wondered how long she’d last before this job went the same way as every other job she’d had over the last decade.
‘When do you start?’ He didn’t have the energy to voice his doubts. It never did any good.
‘In the morning… well, late morning.’
When there was an awkward silence, he almost made his excuses to hang up. He was sitting in a towel on the edge of the bed and was starting to get cold.
‘I bought some sparklers the other day,’ she said, trying her best to carry the conversation on. It happened now and then – not every time – sometimes, she wanted to go almost the moment the call connected, even though she’d been the one to phone him, but tonight, it seemed she wanted to talk.
‘Sparklers?’
‘For bonfire night! Well, I’ve used them already even though it’s only October, but they remind me so much of you boys. I’ll bet Matilda and Billy love sparklers.’
Gio’s brother Marco, also a firefighter, was married to Saffy and they had two kids: seven-year-old Matilda and six-year-old Billy. Gio’s niece and nephew were real little characters and Marianne adored them when she got to see them. Marco, however, was reticent at having his kids spend too much time with their grandma given the times he’d taken them to visit and she’d either been on her way to getting drunk or she was hungover and a mess.
‘I’m sure they do, Mum.’
‘Do you think they go crazy for them like you boys did?’
