‘Yeah, I’m just . . .’
She could hear her son on the other end of the phone, fannying around.
‘Aiden, it’s so unfair! I’m feeling all the anxiety of wanting to get to the airport on time. I’m worried about a queue at check-in, the hassle of having to cram my decanted liquids into one of those slightly too narrow plastic bags, which I can never quite close properly. I’m watching the minutes tick; my pulse is through the roof and it’s not even me who’s flying! I’m happy to drop you off, love, of course I am,but you said you’d be here by ten past and it’s nearly half past and I already thought you were cutting it fine, supposing we hit traffic!’
Aware she sounded a little manic, it was, she thought, preferable than admitting to her only child that Holly wasn’t the only one who was anxious about him being out of reach for three whole weeks. When had she become this needy?
‘Mum, just take a minute, chill, please! Jim has only just left and I’m getting my stuff together.’
Suddenly, it all made sense! Jim, her son’s rugby friend, was always big on drinking and seemed not to pay any heed to timekeeping. She liked Jim, liked him very much, but he was that friend whom, at the risk of sounding like one ofthosemothers, she’d describe as a bad influence.
Memories of her boy as a teenager calling from a field in the middle of Wiltshire filled her mind. There had apparently been a mix-up and two cars had driven off leaving Aiden in the wilderness, each car believing he was a passenger in the other. The whole jaunt planned and poorly executed by Jim. Jonathan had sleepily grabbed the car keys, ready to retrieve their boy from wherever he’d been abandoned. She had watched him shuffle out of the door with a sweatshirt over his PJs and his hair sticking up at all angles. A good dad. The kind of parent who, like her, didn’t think twice, but was simply always on the end of a phone, for whatever their son might need, whenever he might need it.
‘Getting your stuff together, you mean you haven’t packed yet?’ She felt the flare of anxiety at the thought. ‘And you want me tochill?’
This word enough to see her teeth clamp down hard and her jaw flex. What was it about being told to calm down or chill that was almost incendiary!
‘What would happen if you missed your flight?’ This was how she parented, getting him to think things through, figure out the consequences that she hoped might inform his futuredecision-making. It mattered little that he was now twenty-seven. Old habits and all that.
‘Erm, I’d probably get the next one?’
His sarcasm wasn’t lost on her. She glanced across the room at Jonathan, who sat at the dining table with a smile that suggested that, like their son, he found the whole thing highly amusing. It didn’t help. She gave him a slow blink of dismissal.
‘Get the next one? It’s not like buses! You’re going on an aeroplane!’
His laughter was loud and instant, and she could hear Holly joining in. She felt outnumbered, ganged up on, and a little dismissed,silly old Mum, getting her knickers in a twist, and this too did not feel good.
‘Actually, Mum, it’s exactly like buses! In fact, I had to go up to Manchester three weeks ago and my train ticket from Bristol cost three times more than my flight to Rome today. In fact, my plane ticket cost the same as when you, me and Holly went to the cinema! So, I can just get another one.’
Really?This was certainly food for thought, even if he had missed the point.
It was another salient reminder of how the world had moved on. A fact trotted out that made her feel older than her mid-fifties, a scythe to her belief that she was smart. Was she getting dumber? Did that happen? It was as if by staying in more, avoiding all sources of news and current affairs, sometimes finding the world a little too hostile and unkind, she was getting softer, losing her sharp edge of reason. It worried her. That, and the fact that because she was unaware of trends and technological advances, she lost skills or, rather, was getting left behind. When your life was a little set and unchallenging, it made it hard to keep up. Was that the answer, to challenge herself more? Possibly. She wasn’t sure. But as a proficient taker of shorthand, someone who used to be able to remember everyone’s telephone number, map reader extraordinaire, the best dahlia grower this side ofCheltenham, a dab hand at photocopying and a whizz on the Rubik’s cube, this downward slide was also a scythe to her confidence.
She hoped that going into business with Jenny would be the mental shot in the arm she needed. And even if it wasn’t, just being in her friend’s company made her happy, like she was part of a team, protected, loved. Especially now she knew that should the need ever arise, Jenny was not averse to slugging her way out of trouble. The thought made her smile.
‘I just don’t want . . .’ she began.
What didn’t she want? To have her day disrupted, not that she was busy, and in fact had nothing else in her calendar, but she liked to know what she was doing and when. Any last-minute change of plan had the potential to throw her completely. Whatdidshe want? To spend as much time with her son as possible, even the thirty-minute drive to the airport was something she looked forward to. It wasn’t that she missed him, not exactly, but she missed seeing him alone, and not that she didn’t like Holly, she did, in fact shelovedHolly. Her headache pulsed, maybe she was overthinking it. Maybe Aiden was right, she needed to take a minute.
‘I’ll see you when you get here.’ She ended the call. ‘What’s wrong with me, Jonathan? Have I always been like this?’
Her phone buzzed. A text from Jenny.
Let Me Guess, They’re Late And You’re Pacing!
She laughed out loud and replied immediately.
Am I That Predictable?
Jenny fired back with:
No But They Are!! Where Did We Go Wrong??
It was true, but my goodness how the two women adored this young pair, loving nothing more than to chat about the time when they would both be grannies to the same baby! Something on the horizon that filled them both with excitement at the mere prospect. She pictured her days full of trips to the park, reading stories and the feel of a little hand in hers once again, the thought alone enough to move her to tears. She couldn’t wait, knowing the arrival of a little one would be the most glorious gift, a focus for her life that in recent times had felt lacking.
Pickle meowed at the back door. Enya let her out to go wandering, no doubt to catch up with other cats, chew the fat, swap stories, sit in the sunshine, a bit of mutual grooming. It was a sobering thought that the cat had a better social life than she did.
Taking her son’s advice, she tried tochill, did her very best not to let the tick of the clock on the kitchen wall grow louder in her thoughts. She filled the time by watering the plants in the hallway, even the one that was hard to reach, meaning she had to teeter dangerously on the spindly chair that lived in the corner and on to which they piled anything that needed lugging up the stairs. A holding bay for items heading to the bedrooms, clean laundry, letters, replacement tissues, parcels. There was always something in need of ferrying up. She stood on tiptoes and eased the jug of water into the planter of the devil’s ivy that she didn’t particularly like. More than that, actually, she hated it, but the fact that it thrived made it hard to get rid of, as if it were daily trying to earn a place in her affections by growing well and never moaning when she neglected it.
