Clearly there is no better way to do that than to load two women in their seventies – my mother and her neighbour Mrs Bishop – into my car and take them to do their weekly shop.
Today, the badness is on them. I used to use that expression about my twin boys when they were still in their pre-school era and prone to getting up to all sorts of mischief. Today, I’m using it in relation to my mother. It’s the real circle of life.
‘Rebecca,’ my mother says as she clicks on her seatbelt. Both she and Mrs Bishop are sitting in the back of my car. Despite the light dusting of Daniel hair and muddy footprints all over the back seat, fresh from our early morning turn around the park, both women were content to sit together and leave me alone in the front like a taxi driver.
‘Yes, Mum,’ I say, glancing up at the rear-view mirror to catch her reflection. I see it, and the canny little smirk on Mrs Bishop’s face too.
‘Do you and your boys watch those TockTock things?’
‘TikTok?’ I ask, cold dread creeping down my spine.
‘Aye, maybe,’ my mother says. ‘The videos everyone makes. Like mini TV shows or comedy sketches. Adam was showing some of them with funny dogs and they were so good.’ She grins and her neighbour does too. I try to convince myself that this is the sum total of the conversation. That she simply wants to tell me about the funny dog videos.
‘Yes. The dog videos are brilliant. Adam and I send them to each other all the time,’ I say.
‘Adam put that thingy on my phone for me so I’m able to watch them myself now,’ she says. ‘I was flipping through them…’
‘Scrolling. That’s what people say. Scrolling.’
‘Or doomscrolling,’ Mrs Bishop butts in with an air of pride about her. Imagine knowing the young folks’ lingo.
‘Yes, well, I was scrolling,’ my mother says, ‘and do you know what else is on there?’
I’m not sure how to answer this. Given that there is a seemingly unending wealth of content available. Does she want me to reply ‘conspiracy theories’, ‘a virtual shopping centre that sells all sorts of weird stuff’ or maybe ‘that wee fellah from up the road who speaks like a sickly Victorian child’? It could be any number of things.
‘Lots of stuff,’ I say, glancing back at the road and the rear of the tractor that pulled out in front of us. I swear on my life there’s a whole clatter of tractors that sit in fields between Derry and Strabane just waiting for signs of a car coming towards them before they roll out and bask in the enjoyment of keeping some poor soul trundling along at half the speed limit.
‘Well yes,’ my mother says. ‘Lots of stuff but we found all these videos of seniors – they call it eldertok – and these people were making great videos, doing dances and comedy, and…’
‘And get-ready-with-me videos,’ Mrs Bishop chimes in. ‘They film themselves doing their make-up and all. All those serums and layers and layers of make-up. Madness. And they tell you a big story while they’re doing it.’
I already have a sinking feeling where this is going. In the year since my own epiphany about the passage of time and grabbing life by the short and curlies, my mother and her neighbour have found their own new lust for life. They have gone on holiday together, joined a book club, taken full advantage of their senior citizen bus passes and developed an obsession with Ubers. They even went to one of those Crazy Bingo events – where dance music is pumped through the sound system and everyone gets blootered on prosecco. They were not a fan of that, but they at least gave it a go. Everything, they seem to think, isworth ‘giving a go’, which is exactly why I’m starting to feel very nervous.
‘We’re going to make a video,’ my mother announces with pride. Roisin Burnside – the woman I have long considered to have been born sensible and reserved – is actually telling me she’s going to make a TikTok.
I have to handle this carefully – just as I did the mad notions of the boys when they were little and would announce that they were going to jump out the window and try to fly, or see how many sweets they could eat before their tummies actually exploded.
‘Sounds great,’ I say through gritted teeth. ‘What are you going to make a video about?’
‘A wee tour of Asda,’ they say in unison.
I can’t really see that one going viral, and it sounds relatively safe, so I decide to nod and tell them I’ll help if they want. With the boys, sometimes just the very act of my trying to get involved in their adventures was enough to convince them they didn’t really want to do them in the first place.
If that tactic doesn’t work with these two wannabe content creators, I’ll simply hope they don’t actually know how to set up a TikTok account, or if they do, that people will be kind to them. The trolls that like to berate me on occasion better not come for my mum. Hell hath no fury like a daughter scorned.
But the ideal outcome of all of this is that Roisin Burnside and Mrs Emily Bishop decide the influencer life is not for them. It’s bad enough having to worry about either of them falling and breaking a hip never mind them going viral. That was most definitely not on my 2024 bingo card.
But they look so delighted with themselves – like two giddy schoolgirls – and I definitely don’t want to be the middle-aged killjoy. So, much to my own chagrin, I find myself saying, ‘Aslong as you behave yourselves.’ They nod solemnly in response and I’m almost – almost – convinced until they burst into laughter.
When we arrive, I am just a little terrified of what they might do but as I watch them twist and turn their phones and try to figure out how to work the camera to record a video that gets them both in frame, I decide to tell myself the lie that I’m worrying over nothing. They can wander around and do their thing and I’ll take a seat in the café with a nice cup of coffee and only intervene in the case of catastrophe. I’ll be a kind of hands-off but on-hand safety net. If the worst comes to the worst, I can pretend to not know them.
Their giddiness has not abated even one bit by the time they film themselves on the travelator between the bottom and first floor – and for a moment I’m reminded that these might be two ladies in their twilight years, but essentially they are just girls trying to squeeze whatever joy they can out of life. Just like Niamh and Laura and me. We all have that little bit inside that refuses to grow up, don’t we? The bit that knows that joy comes from being utterly silly with your best friend.
I leave them heading towards the womenswear section, make my way to the café, and it’s not long before I have a large cup of coffee in my hand, and a very delicious-looking caramel square to go with it.
Just as I take a large bite, my phone starts to ring – the screen illuminating with Conal’s name. My heart swells as I do my best to chew and swallow the bite of gooey caramel and crunchy biscuit goodness so I can speak to him.
‘Hang on…’ I say, mid swallow, sounding like a total hallion, no doubt. ‘One moment.’ I feel a crumb catch in my throat and can’t help but cough and splutter as tears spring to my eyes. For a second I think this might be how this ends – choking to death ona caramel square in Asda with my mother there to capture it for TikTok.
