It’s another Saturday morning when I should be lying in bed with a novel, but instead I’m drinking a strong coffee, figuring out what I’m going to cook for dessert. Tonight, Finn is bringing his new friend who is not, repeat not, his girlfriend.
‘Don’t treat her like that,’ says Finn to me. ‘She’s –’ he pauses, thinking – ‘just don’t treat her like that. I haven’t asked her out or anything. I need to go slow here.’
‘Why?’ I ask.
‘Just because,’ he says enigmatically.
So, no pressure. Finn – a gorgeous human being – has, since he split up with Mags some years ago, had the taste in girlfriends of someone who’s suffered a lot of concussions. But this sounds different. I hope.
Once, I harboured plans that he’d fall for Bea or even my sister, April, but Bea isn’t interested in anything but friendship from Finn and April only likes those men who are permanently unavailable. It’s a mystery why Finn – decent, a gentleman, funny, kind to children and animals andgood-looking – is still single.
Hisbreak-up with Mags seems to have affected his ability to recognise women who are all wrong for him. His last girlfriend Ivanna – whom Steve and Nate cruelly called Ivanna the terrible – was far too cold and humourless for him. And this woman, this Sid? Who knows – time will tell.
‘Mum,’ says Rachel, moving into the kitchen with speed and snagging a banana from the fruit bowl, ‘since you have got people over tonight, could I possibly borrow your car?’
‘Where are you going, darling?’ I say idly, as if I wasn’t checking up on her, but I so am. Since the Les Cloob incident, I am terrified of something happening to Rachel. My motherly fear sensors have edged up a notch because of it. Now, I see, she’s truly at the age where she can go off into the world on her own and I cannot be beside her every moment. Another lesson in the painful and lifelong parenting journey, for which there is no damn guidebook.
Louise, Megan’s mother, is more sanguine: ‘They learned their lesson,’ she says.
‘No they didn’t,’ I say. ‘They’re kids and at that age, the brain tells them to take more risks.’
I feel generally more anxious lately and I don’t know it if it’s because of what happened with Rachel and Megan or because of how Nate’s becoming more and more distant. Theone-armed-hug king.Not a single sexy moment on the stairs for weeks. I might as well be invisible.And now, another bloody gang over for drinks and food, which means another family Saturday evening gone. When do we ever get to have time to ourselves?
Despite the Rachel incident, I have to be careful not to imply that thisone-off means she is untrustworthy. You can’t keep harping on about don’t drink and drive, or never get into a car with anyone who is drunk. You have got to let go or they won’t tell you anything at all.
‘Megan and I were thinking of seeing a band, just a small indie thing with some of the guys,’ says Rachel.
‘Guys?’ I can’t help myself using an inflection to imply that I need the names, addresses and photo IDs of these men. As soon as I have said it, I’m sorry because you are not supposed to enquire as to the identity of youreighteen-year-old daughter’s friends.
The modern parent is, apparently, supposed to cheerfully say: ‘Yeah, fine.’
And the next morning, when the police come round and say, ‘do you know who your daughter was with last night?’ you are going to look like you really don’t care. How to strike that balance?
Rachel takes pity on me.
‘Matt, Lorcan and possibly Cameron.’
‘Sounds lovely,’ I say, much more enthusiastically. They’re nice young men. Responsible. I have had them in my house many times and I have given them fierce looks, analysed them, looked at the way they filled the dishwasher and said, ‘thank you, this is lovely, Marin’ politely as they ate meals I prepared for them. And basically did my best to frighten them so they will not even dream of hurting my daughter. Nate always laughs at this.
‘You are so soft in every other way, Marin,’ he’ll say. ‘But you’re like someone with a copy ofGuns ’n’ Ammounder the bed when it comes to those guys, and that’s supposed to be my job.’
I agree that he’s the one who should be doing the tough dad thing – but Nate is very laid back lately. Honestly, he’s being useless.
I want to make sure that Rachel is hanging around with decent young men who get the concept of consent, full stop, and that when they are out they stay together, and they understand that drunk and unable to say no does not mean yes.I want to be sure that she’ll be safe. Because I will find those boys and rip them into pieces if she is not.
‘Sounds fine,’ I say to Rachel now. ‘Can you give me a hand for a few minutes and get some eggs in the corner shop? Finn’s bringing a new woman who is a friend, and not a date,’ I add, ‘so all stops are being pulled out.’
‘Hope she’s better than the last stupid cow,’ says Rachel.
‘Rachel, we do not diss other women,’ I say sternly, even though I had been dissing Ivanna in my own head. ‘If you’re still around when this Sid comes, drop in and give this nice new girl/woman the once over,’ I said. ‘Just don’t push her up against the wall and ask her too many intense questions.’
Rachel laughs. ‘That’s your job, Mum,’ she says.
Then Joey is at the door, an empty cereal bowl in his hand and a look of hunger on his face. Joey, almost taller than me already at ten, is always hungry. There’s something of the monster about him in that he can keep eating the way Godzilla keeps eating things, even when there really can’t be any more room for stuff in there. But Godzilla’s not lanky, with ruffled hair and that lovelyhalf-little-boy,half-tweenager look of my darling Joey.
Rachel grabs the keys.
‘We need Cheerios,’ says Joey, as she disappears out the door.
