Eleven
After the single mingle
I’m up at the crack of dawn the next morning, and the dubious bacon roll I bought at the station is doing queasy little pirouettes in my stomach on the train up to Chester. Why did I decide to subject myself to family time this weekend? And why did I add to the punishment by going for the 7:15am train from Euston, adding a lovely little hangover into the mix for fun? I never thought I was a masochist (I giggled awkwardly through all the ‘sexy parts’ in Fifty Shades ), but maybe I need to reevaluate.
When I booked it two months ago, I imagined it seemed much more achievable. It had probably been one of those unicorn days where you wake up early on a Saturday morning and truly believe that the world is your oyster. I probably thought I’d meditate, do a yoga class, and vacuum the flat, all before 10am. The beginning of a new me, a me who rose with the sun and perfected the crow pose for all my yoga-loving InstaFans. I imagine I booked this train in a zen-like calm, exuding confidence in my own abilities.
Come to think of it; it’s probably actually more likely that I went for this train time because it was forty quid cheaper or something.
The one good thing about the early train is that I was able to avoid too much scrutiny from Adam on my return home from the Single Mingle last night. I sauntered in just after midnight and Adam – as nosy as ever – was clearly waiting up for me, watching episodes of Schitt’s Creek and sipping a beer. A couple of cold slices of pizza sat on the coffee table.
“How did it go?!” he demanded.
“Oh, you know, fine. He seemed nice. I flirted a little. I feel like I boosted his confidence a little. You know, exactly what we planned.” I neglect to tell him about the number exchange or the slight fizzing feeling Ryan gave me.
“Anyway! Early train tomorrow! Better go to bed,” I say, ignoring the worrying little niggle that I can’t tell even the truth to someone who, by most measures, has the morality of an alley cat. I’ll figure it out later.
Pulling my mind back to the present, I jam my laptop onto the tiny tray in front of me and fire it up. I have 4,000 words of scaly prose for Reptiles Monthly to get done by Sunday evening, but the bacon roll is still dancing, and my head is pounding. I decide the better life choice is just to loll in my seat and groan intermittently. I’ll do the article on Sunday night.
I think back to the Single Mingle last night. Well, mostly back to meeting Ryan. I liked his half smile. Warm but ever so slightly tentative. Chris never did a half smile. He’d either be super serious or grinning like the Cheshire Cat. I miss that grin. I then remind myself that his serious mode was usually when he was pontificating about something he thought only he fully understood. And the grin was at its widest when he was laughing at his own jokes. Ryan, on the other hand, actually listened. He’d laughed at my jokes without that weird macho insecurity men seem to have when a woman is funny. That guy’s love life will be fine, I think to myself. Not with me, obviously. That would be far too unprofessional, even for me.
The vibrations of the train must have lured me to sleep, but for once, luck is on my side, and I wake as we’re pulling in. It was not like that awful time when I woke up in Holyhead at 1am and had to sleep on a bench on the platform until the trains started up again. I trudge off the train and find Mum waiting for me at the station with Scoop, our little collie-spaniel mix. As usual, she’s immaculately dressed in her rural chic look: neat chequered slacks, Merino wool jumper, trim Barbour, and her hair is styled with an incredibly precise bob of brown-grey. She looks like she’s stepped out of an advert in one of those country lifestyle mags from the doctor’s surgery. Robust and healthy. My left hand instinctively tries to smooth down my own wilder hair, mussed from two hours of intermittent napping and the occasional half-hearted gesture towards my keyboard.
“Oh darling, you look terrible. Are you poorly?” she asks, simultaneously hugging, inspecting, and critiquing me.
“Oh, just an early start,” I smile weakly, clambering into the jeep – like I said – right from the pages of Country Life .
My mother laughs shrilly. “Early, darling? Weren’t you on the 7:15am? I thought you chose that train for a bit of a lie-in. I was out jogging at six, and your father had already taken Scoop for a walk.” I say nothing.
We quickly escape the city traffic and start trundling along the Cheshire country roads. As with all trained interrogators, my mother’s MO includes peppering seemingly inconsequential questions with deeper meaning into what seems to the untrained observer like basic maternal interest. Have I been very busy? (meaning I haven’t phoned very often recently). Am I still coping with the cost of London? (Are financial struggles the reason I’ve turned up looking like a scarecrow that’s been in a fight with a tractor). How is Adam? (Share some gossip, so Mum has the edge on his mother, Aunt Sheila). As we get more into the wilds, Mum’s questions get heavier. She knows I can’t escape and am now at the mercy of her conversational tentacles. The car’s going too fast to hurl myself out, and we both know that I wouldn’t survive in the countryside for more than an hour before being eaten by cows.
“Darling, Adam mentioned that date you went on the other day. What happened?”
My mother loves to let me know how often she and Adam talk, frequently commenting that she hears more from her nephew than from her daughter.
I mutter something about incompatibility, not wanting to be drawn. Mum glances at my slightly frayed jumper and asks suspiciously, “What did you wear?”
Oh yes, because the thing that ruined the date was my choice of top. Not the potential sleaziness of the male dating pool.
Mercifully, we reach the edge of Knutsford and pull into the drive of my parents’ little cottage. It’s pretty, one of those symmetrical, square little houses that looks like a kid’s picture version of what a house should be. When my parents first bought it, they converted the rambling outbuilding next door into my mum’s vet’s surgery. The cars outside suggest Mum’s deputy, Jenny, is having a busy morning.
“Looks like business is thriving!” I say generously, naively hoping that flattery will get me somewhere.
“Yes, darling. The benefits of a sensible career choice.”
Evidently, it will not.
Dad, who I have never been more delighted to see, comes to the cottage door, hugs me and tells me I’m looking great. “My hero,” I think smugly before noticing he doesn’t have his glasses on. He is very shortsighted. Dammit.
“We’re going to have brunch,” Dad tells me excitedly, steering me to the kitchen, where, to my dismay, I can hear more bacon sizzling. Ever since he discovered brunch later in life, it’s been one of Dad’s favourite things. He has become a brunch evangelical. It can be unfortunate when he goes into extensive detail with friends and loved ones about the concept, the options available, and some of his culinary brunch adventures so far. For him, NASA boffins invented it in 2015, and he has become the self-appointed pioneer for the Northwest.
After a few menacing somersaults, my stomach feels settled, and I gratefully tuck into a pile of pancakes, bacon, and maple syrup. At the same time, my parents alternate between the latest Knutsford scandals and their CIA-level probing of life in London. For Dad, the questions are mostly tube lines, that damp patch in our flat’s bathroom and what we’re doing about it, and light pollution. Mum’s are sharper-edged and involve more of an autopsy of my date with Malcolm, my long-term career plans, and when I will throw out my oldest, most comfortable clothes. I time my responses so I have a mouthful of pancake to murmur through until she gives up.
Despite all the questions, it is nice to be home. I anticipate a lunchtime snooze, curled up on the window nook in the little living room with a gloriously trashy novel. My mother, however, has other ideas. “Darling, I’m going to take you shopping. Treat you to some new clothes for your wardrobe.” She glances meaningfully at my jumper once again.
“Oh, Mum, I don’t need any clothes. I’ve got loads of nice stuff.”
“I just decided I didn’t want to wear any of that today,” I add hastily as she gives me another disappointed once-over.
“I’m sure you do, darling,” Mum lies, “but there are some lovely new clothes shops in Knutsford, designer and everything.”
“Mother! I live in London. It’s a global epicentre for fashion. It has like a thousand clothes shops. Why would I do my shopping in Knutsford?”
“I’ll pay,” Mum answers simply.
And we’re off.