Have I ever told you I love you? Thank you xxx
Pleasure. I’ve only been in this group for five minutes and suspect my name is already mud! Creepy? FFS! Xx
I smile and look at the poster. Now she mentions it, maybe Denise has a point . . .
I decide to have a look again later tonight because right now, my priority is the family dinner I’ve cooked to celebrate my mother’s 72nd or possibly 73rd birthday – I’m not sure she remembers herself and, clearly, it’s too late to ask now. I dart to the oven to check on the roast potatoes.
‘They’re fine. Just need another couple of minutes,’ says Mum.
‘Mum, sit down and put your feet up. Please. Let me top you up with some Prosecco.’
‘Well, I’d never say no to that,’ she says, holding out her glass, as I take the bottle out of the fridge.
‘Where’s Dad disappeared to?’ I say, grabbing a pair of oven gloves to remove the chicken.
‘Oh, he’s fixing your gutter.’
‘What?’
I lower the roasting dish onto a trivet and crane my neck so I can see out of the bifold doors. My father is currently at the top of a ladder, which he presumably helped himself to from the garage in order to undertake a little light roofing before his meal.
He’s had this compulsion ever since Brendan left. Every time he walks through my door, I can see him scanning the fittings – on the lookout for wonky skirting boards and dripping taps – to see what DIY tasks might be required now there is no longer a Man of the House.
I have tried to tell him that Brendan was useless on that front anyway, that his leaving hasn’t made the slightest bit of difference and that, while I’m very grateful, heisallowed to just come over to see us all sometimes without firing up a Black and Decker. It falls entirely on deaf ears.
‘What’s wrong with my gutter?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. He said something about the “fall” not being sufficient.’
I look out again as he starts doing something with a spirit level.
‘Well, will you tell him to get in here and have a beer instead?’
She walks to the door and opens it up. ‘Lisa says stop interfering.’
‘I didn’t saythat,’ I call out. ‘But I’m about to serve up.’
I wipe sweat from my forehead as Mum puts her glass down.
‘What else can I do?’ she asks.
‘Nothing,’ I reply, which she takes as her cue to start doingeverything. Both of my parents are doers by nature. He’s the sort of man who taught himself to rewire a house and plumb in an entire bathroom back in 1978 using nothing more than a Collins manual. She makes her own jam, compost, biodegradable wet wipes and can offer you seven different tips for getting stains out of a linen tablecloth.
There is no doubt I have inherited these sensibilities but I have somehow ended up living a life in which there isn’t a minute in which to put them all into practice – hence the jam recipe she wrote down for me two years ago is still pinned on our corkboard, entirely redundant.
By the time both parents and my children are at the table in front of what – if I do say so myself – is a damn good home-cooked meal, I feel a small twinge of smugness. I feel sure Philippa Perry would approve. So much so that I get a rush of blood to the head and, deciding to emulate the kind of nice, functional families you see on TV, I say—
‘Shall we say grace?’
Leo’s face scrunches up like a bull mastiff. ‘Why? You’re an atheist.’
‘You’re not, are you?’ Mum gasps, nearly dropping her Prosecco.
‘What’s an atheist?’ asks Jacob.
‘Someone who doesn’t believe in God. And no, I’m not. I’m agnostic.’
‘What’s agnostic?’
