We were getting back to normal, which in this case meant that Jaz had way more hostility for Oliver than for anybody else. “Not if they don’t check IDs properly.”
“If it isn’t a toilet festival”—Judy still seemed to be puzzling the whole situation out—“how are the non-toilet aspects going?”
“Ironically,” I said, “they’re going a bit toilet. It’s amazing how few international megastars want to play a charity gig for dung beetles where they’d have to be billed below a rich arsehole’s vanity band.”
Mum looked unbothered. “Really, aren’t most bands rich arseholes’ vanity bands?”
“Some of them are probably poor arseholes’ vanity bands,” Judy pointed out. “In my experience, the wealth of the arsehole makes very little difference.”
Taking the opportunity to set down his spoon, Oliver glanced at the rest of the adults. “Could we maybe sayarseholejust slightly less in front of Jasmine?”
Walking up to the open goal and kicking the ball straight through it, Jaz looked Oliver square in the eye and said, “Don’t be an arsehole.”
“Jas.” Mum somehow managed to sound nonjudgemental without doing that thing I sometimes did where I gave away that I was secretly amused. “That is a very bad thing to call Oliver. He is not being an arsehole. He is only being a prude. When you get to my age, you learn that they are very different, and arseholes are far worse.”
Jaz gave a half nod, then, by some weird miracle, said, “Sorry” again.
While Oliver and I were both adjusting to the shock, Jaz took another bite of special curry, then put her spoon firmly down and pushed the bowl away. “You…you do know this is shit, right?”
Oliver froze. I…I didn’t. I was pretty sure I knew how this was going to go.
“Of course I do,” Mum replied. “I do not have the Alzheimer’s.”
Most people, when confronted with Mum’s completely blasé attitude towards pretty much any criticism, gave up. Jaz, somehow, didn’t. “Have you tried making itnotshit?”
Mum shook her head. “Non.”
The expression Jaz was directing at Mum in that moment could only be described asaffectionate hatred. “Why?”
“Ah, well, you see I am terrified that people will reject me, so I try to push them away by forcing them to have unpleasant experiences.”
I couldn’t quite tell if that was truer than Mum would have readily admitted, or a pointed comment about Jaz, or a pointed comment about me.
“No, seriously,” Jaz pressed, “what’s the deal? This is weird. Like, it’s not normal. It’s weird.”
Mum continued to look utterly unbothered. “I am a star of the rock ’n’ roll. We are not meant to be normal.”
Jaz carried on stabbing Mum with her eyes. “That’s not an answer.”
“I got to fifty,” said Mum laconically, “and I realised I wasa terrible cook. So I decided I had to either learn or steer into it. I steered into it.”
I was used to Mum by now. And so was Oliver. Jaz was not. “That’s—that doesn’t makesense.”
“Makes sense to me,” replied Mum, giving Jaz a taste of her own medicine, shrug-wise.
Jaz looked like she was about to yell for the third time that evening. Instead, she just turned to me and asked accusingly, “Is she always like this?”
“Pretty much.”
She almost, almost, looked sympathetic. “No wonder you’re like that.”
“Honestly, some days I’m amazed I survived.”
Mum and Oliver were both giving me cut-it-out looks. Mum’s seemed playful. Oliver’s didn’t.
“Excuse me,” Mum fauxtested, “I think you will find I was one of the all-timegreatmothers. I am up there at the top of the list with Clytemnestra.”
To which Jaz asked, “Who?” and Oliver asked, “Are yousurethat’s the one you mean?” and I didn’t ask anything because my lack of knowledge of Greek mythology was matched only by my lack of caring about my lack of knowledge of Greek mythology.
