‘I can’t wait,’ she says, beaming, and I’m struck by her fresh youth and the fact that she’s prepared to let my poor brother and all his baggage go and move on. At that moment I want to slap Dominic and my mother. Although I think my mother might get the biggest slap.
‘I’d better get back to the office,’ I say.
She stands up and hugs me. ‘I’ll pay for this, go on. We’ll talk after Christmas, OK?’
‘Yes, right. If you need me to intervene in the whole legal thing talk to me.’
‘No, I don’t,’ says Sue firmly. ‘You’re not fixing this, you are not helping me, you are taking care of yourself. Hey, maybe that can be your Christmas present to yourself, Marin, you taking care of you. Your mother shouldn’t have sent you here. It’s none of her business.’
She gives me an extra tight hug and releases me.
I walk down the street and I feel shaky, as if someone has just ripped a veil from in front of me and shown me something I didn’t know. People have plans and they can choose what they want, they don’t have to get tied up in the past, they don’t have to follow the old message. And I thought, I really thought, that April was the one searching for the prince, but it was me, and Nate’s the prince and I’m always trying to do the right thing for my prince in case he goes off me. I don’t want a Christmas party. I don’t want to go to my parents’ house for Christmas – well, I do to see Dad. But Ma, I could give her a miss and it wouldn’t bother me.
And I don’t want to go to Nate’s mother’s house on Christmas Day, because Nate’s mother always looks at me as though I’m some consolation prize he was made to marry. I want to be at home in my own house with maybe April coming over whenever she’s freed from waiting for the current married lover. I want to have simple food I haven’t spent four hours preparing and play Monopoly or cards with the kids, watch a Disney movie, and just have fun.
That’s my plan. It may not be afive-year one, but it’s a plan all right.
21
Bea
Antoinette is sick so I have to do her shift and stay for the full day in work, which means Mum picks Luke up from school. I’m tired and anxious by the time I drive in her gate to pick him up, and I hope she’s fed him because I am literally too shattered to even think of heating up the mac and cheese I made at the weekend in one of myultra-organisedcook-and-freeze days.
At work, Laoise was muttering about the practice being halved although she has no more evidence than she had last month.
‘Why don’t we just ask Dr Franklin?’ I say to her.
Laoise goggles at me. ‘Ask?’ she says, as if I have suggested a day trip to Mars.
‘Yes, ask. This is our job security we’re talking about.’
Laoise deflates. ‘I don’t know anything else. I was just worrying out loud.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t,’ I say, ‘because when you worry, I worry and the week before Christmas is not the time to think about possible job losses.’
I’m thinking of this as I let myself into Mum’s and feel the huge relief I always feel when I’m there. I’d never have managed without her all these years. She’s had my back in every way: I am so lucky to have her.
This whole week, I feel as though somebody has got a giant Christmas tree and bashed me over the head with it. The practice is madly busy with people determined to have doctor’s visits for random complaints because they know we’ll be closed over the holidays.
I’ve also been working hard the way I do every year to make everything Christmassy for Luke. We’re going to have Christmas in Mum’s house this year. And she’s very excited because a new neighbour moved in next door, a very charmingsixty-something gentleman with rippling silver hair, who was apparently something big in theboat-building industry.
‘I think they’re boats but they might be yachts,’ says Mum. ‘Maybe you could ask, because I have sort of forgotten and I don’t want to let on. His name is Cliff and he’s coming in for apre-lunch drink. I did think of asking him for lunch but...’ Her voice trails off. And I realise she’s anxious about what I will think.
‘He’s a widower. I told him all about you and Luke and he says this is a very precious time with your daughter and your grandson. Is there anything I can bring? Imagine, he thought of bringing something. You do think it’s all right, darling, don’t you?’
I beam at her. I’m genuinely so thrilled for Mum, it’s completely wonderful. But it makes me feel everything is changing. Mum is looking at a man in a romantic way and it’s startling. I never thought there’d be anyone for her but Dad. And, Lord, I hate those kids who expect their parents to remain surgically attached to a corpse for the rest of their lives. But it’s just so unusual. For so long it’s been her and me and Luke. And then Shazz and Raffie and Norma and Christie and Vincent; it’s our little gang, and Mum’s changing it.
‘You don’t mind, darling, do you?’ she says, still anxious. ‘Do you feel I’m being unfaithful to Dad?’
‘Mum, you loved Dad so much and he loved you, but I want you to be happy. For goodness’ sake, you do realise that people who have happy marriages often get married again really quickly if something happens to their spouse? It’s proof of how wonderful marriage was for them.’
‘Well, yes,’ she says, flustered. ‘I’m not going to marry Cliff; he’s only coming in for a drink.’
‘Why doesn’t he join us for dinner?’ I hear myself say.
Imagine – darling Mum thinking of falling in love again.
She chatters happily as she makes us both tea and I think idly of Nate and Marin’s annual Christmas party and how I’m dreading it. I’m tired of these parties. I’m tired of being the single woman like a splinter in a thumb. The person who used to be part of their gang and is now the pity element. Not that Marin thinks like that, or Finn. But sometimes I think I’m stuck and I’ll never get out of being stuck. Yet, if I move away from everything thatJean-Luc and I had together, then maybe I’ll be nothing. I’m stuck in limbo – unable to get a decent date, destined to be alone until I’m Mum’s age and meet a sweet widower from next door.
