Chapter 14
14
THE UNBEARABLE SEXINESS OF MAGNUM PI
I don’t often have to call Simon, especially now that the boys are older. With no more handovers of children at weekends, I rarely see him any more. That’s kind of okay with me. We’ve long run out of things to say to each other – not that our conversations aren’t amicable, they’re just more businesslike. As if we are CEOs in the lives of Messrs Adam and Saul Cooke and have to discuss our strategy going into the next quarter.
Thankfully in most things parenting related, our values align pretty well although I am definitely the softer of the two these days. The boys moving away has certainly upped my generosity of spirit towards them.
But right now, my boys, or my one boy in particular, does not need my generosity of spirit. He needs my generosity of bank account. And his father’s.
Calling Simon, it’s hard to remember the days when my heart used to be all of a flutter waiting for him to pick up. Those days when we could talk for hours on the phone even though we’d spent the afternoon or evening together. It’s hard to remember the funny, gooey feeling I got in the pit of my stomach when I heard his voice say, ‘Hello.’
Now my pulse doesn’t quicken when I hear his voice, I just get straight to business.
‘Simon,’ I say.
‘Becca,’ he says. ‘What crisis have our offspring unloaded upon us now?’ Oh, how well he knows me, and them.
‘One of financial implication. Although to be fair, it’s Saul who has an issue. Adam is doing fine,’ I tell him.
‘None of that surprises me,’ he sighs. ‘How big and bad is this issue? Because, you know, it’s three weeks from Christmas and Santa still has a few things to sort here. Jessica is going OTT again.’ He’s trying to sound exasperated but I know he isn’t. He’s happy as Larry with the Cooke family set-up 2.0. Jessica is his wife of six years and, thankfully, not the woman he cheated on me with. She’s lovely and she seems to find Simon lovely. I’m happy for them, honestly, and I’m not even jealous that Simon has had more children. Saskia is five and absolutely gorgeous. Theo is three and makes raising twin boys look easy. Wild is not the word. I couldn’t imagine dealing with either of them full time again at my age.
‘Well he’s skint, and he hasn’t booked his flight back yet. So I figured we send him a couple of hundred quid, and book his flight for him? If we can split that it shouldn’t cost either of us more than about ￡160? Does that sound okay?’ I hate asking Simon for money even though he has never once tried to make me feel bad about it. But still, I’m cringing as I wait for his response.
‘Well, I’d suggest we send the money to Adam and he can help Saul budget a bit, otherwise he is likely to go on the mother of all benders and we’ll find ourselves in this position again in a couple of days,’ he says.
‘Good idea,’ I tell him. ‘Thanks Simon.’
‘No worries. And I’ll have a word with him about his partying when he gets back. Nothing too heavy but just a gentle chat.’
‘Thanks,’ I say again.
‘It was nice to see you at the funeral,’ he says. ‘I mean, awful circumstances of course. But nice you were there. For Laura. I know she misses you.’
His words make me sad, even though I know he doesn’t mean for them to. I don’t want to pick at this particular wound, certainly not with Simon.
‘Yeah, Niamh and I were glad we could be there for her. So, look, I have to get on but if I send you my half of the money could you forward it all to Adam?’ Yes, I am cutting this discussion off at the pass.
‘I will do. Mind yourself,’ he says, and in the background I hear a godawful crash which I can only imagine is Theo continuing on his one-man destruction mission. No, I’m really not jealous of Simon at all.
My bank account raided and my list set aside for now, I switch on the shower and prepare to soothe away the newly formed tension knots in my neck and shoulders. I’m dreaming of how good it’s going to feel when I’m clean, warm and in my comfiest pyjamas in front of the fire. I might even order a takeaway for tea. Maybe a pizza. I know I shouldn’t. Especially after having to dig Saul out of a hole of his own making. I should be switching to beans on toast or cornflakes for the next fortnight even though the texture of beans makes me feel sick to my stomach and it’s much too cold to be living off cereal.
Teenage me would approve of the extravagance of ordering a pizza just for myself so I decide that I absolutely deserve a ham and mushroom thin crust from Paolo’s Pizza. Even making that decision is enough to ease some of the tension in my aching muscles and to make up for the sudden removal of my dream of dancing across the moors.
I grab my phone and tap into the Spotify app. I’d like to say that my Spotify account is beautifully curated but the truth is it’s a mess of random songs and genres all saved into seven different playlists, each called ‘New’ or ‘New New’. It takes a few minutes to find the tracks I’m looking for and as Lizzo starts singing about being a ‘thicc’ bad bitch – which I’ve been reassured by the twins is a good thing – I open the shower cubicle and pretend the waft of steam that emerges is dry ice and I’m walking on stage to perform in my sell-out tour. I’m just stepping onto the stage (into the shower) when my phone bursts into life again. If I just let it ring out, I can check it when I get out of the shower and sure, I’m only going to be a few minutes anyway and it isn’t likely to be anything so urgent that it can’t wait a few minutes, I think, trying to resist the urge to look at the screen and see who’s calling.
At the same time, I know that if I don’t see who is calling, or answer, I won’t be able to fully relax in the shower. No way will I be able to perfect the TikTok dance to ‘About Damn Time’ that I’ve been trying to get right for weeks, and I can’t let my fans down!
Sighing, I close the shower door and look at the windowsill where my phone is propped up. My mother’s name is on the screen and I know then there’s no way I can ignore her. I live in fear of missing that one phone call where she tells me she has fallen and needs help and by the time I listen to my voicemail it will be too late. She’ll be dead and it will all be my fault.
So, naked as the day she pushed me into this world, I answer the phone to my mother.
‘Rebecca,’ she says before I’ve had the chance to speak. ‘Sweetheart. I need your help. Have you seen the weather outside today?’
I think of my walk with Daniel during which I was a little scared a White Walker might appear round a corner, and tell her that yes, I have indeed seen the weather today. ‘It’s a day for staying in and staying warm,’ I tell her.
‘Well, I agree with you but the thing is I’ve run out of milk and I’m low on bread and when I called over to Mrs Bishop to see if she was okay, the poor woman was sitting in the cold because her gas had run out. I said I would walk down to the shop and get her a top-up but then I slipped walking down the path and…’
My heart plummets to the pit of my stomach. ‘You slipped? Oh Mum! Are you okay?’ I ask, grabbing the clean underwear I had brought into the bathroom with me and quickly getting dressed, phone now on loud speaker.
‘Well, I’m fine. A bit bruised you know. My arm… and my leg… and my ego…’ There’s a little wobble in her voice as she answers and I know this much to be true. My mother is not one to complain about her lot. Not even when Daddy died and I could see that her heart was broken clean in half, she would just say that he wouldn’t want her moping around and she’d better get off her backside and get on with living her life. If there is a wobble in her voice, something is definitely wrong.
‘When did this happen?’ I lift my phone and carry it through to the bedroom where instead of putting on my comfy pyjamas I haul on a fresh pair of joggers and another hoodie. This one has the slogan ‘Tired and Needy’ plastered across the front and it could not be more accurate if it tried.
‘Oh, a couple of hours ago. But I thought if I just took a couple of paracetamol and had a cup of tea, I’d feel a bit better and head to the shop then. Mrs Bishop has come in to sit with me, and to keep herself warm, so don’t worry. I’ve not been here on my own,’ my mother says.
Unsurprisingly, it’s not as reassuring as she thinks it might be.
‘Mum! You should’ve phoned me when it happened. You know I would’ve come over,’ I say, rifling through my drawer for matching socks. How on earth can I have an empty laundry basket and not a single bloody matching pair of socks to be found anywhere?
‘I didn’t want to be a burden. You’ve enough on your plate what with work, and the boys and then Mrs O’Hagan’s funeral and…’
‘You’re never a burden!’ I scold her and I feel tears prick at my eyes as yet another Unexpected Wave of Sadness assaults me – made worse by the hangover horrors. ‘I just need to put my trainers on and I’ll be round as soon as I can. I’ll bring milk and bread so you get a nice warm cup of tea and then I’ll nip out and get gas for Mrs Bishop and I’ll put the code in her meter for her. Now, is there anything else you need? Painkillers? Arnica cream?’
‘No,’ my mother replies and her voice sounds small. ‘You’re very good to me, Rebecca.’
‘I’ll see you soon, Mum. Fifteen minutes or so,’ I tell her and end the call before I sob down the line. What right have I to cry over my mother falling when she says she’s fine? Maybe it’s that I don’t quite believe her or I know that she’s hurtling towards eighty and a time might just come sooner rather than later when she isn’t fine.
I abandon Lizzo and my dreams of headlining at Glastonbury and set out once again into the stormy day to rescue my mother and her neighbour.
Stopping at the shop, I pick up the essentials my mother asked for, and a Victoria Sponge which a good daughter would probably bake from scratch. Guilt makes me add a packet of McVitie’s Chocolate Digestives to my basket as well. And some spuds, carrots, broccoli and chicken. I’ll make sure to prepare dinner for Mum and Mrs Bishop before I leave again. Knowing my mother, she will argue that there is no need, and we might even end up giving each other all sorts of bad looks but reach a compromise that I’ve peeled and chopped everything and she will do the actual cooking part.
‘Are you all right, love?’ the woman behind the counter asks me. ‘You look a bit pale.’
For the briefest of moments, I consider telling her exactly how I’m not all right. That I’m only just forty-six and swinging into the menopause at a rate of knots. That I’m divorced and haven’t had so much as a snog in years. That my children have abandoned me and at least one of them seems to take me completely for granted and I only hear from him when he wants something. My mother is ageing and I’m terrified that she’s not immortal and that chances are I’m going to lose her in the next ten to fifteen years and that’s only if I’m lucky and she doesn’t insist on offering to go to the shops for her elderly neighbour when it is icy and hailing outside. And to top all that, I’m absolutely hanging out of my arse for the first time in about three years and I’m pretty sure I’m now sweating 12 per cent alcohol Sauvignon Blanc.
‘Tired and Needy?’ she says before I’ve a chance to reply.
‘Is it that obvious?’ I ask, fighting with a plastic carrier bag to open it as a queue forms behind me.
‘Your top,’ the woman says, nodding to where my hoodie is partially exposed beneath my gilet.
‘Well, if the hoodie fits,’ I mutter with a half-smile that hides my urge to throw the damned plastic bag across the shop and throw a hissy fit that wouldn’t look out of place on a two-year-old.
‘Here,’ the woman behind the counter says, gently putting her hand on top of mine before taking the bag from me. ‘There’s a knack to it,’ she says. ‘I’m always telling them they need to get better quality bags. Especially now people have to pay for them.’ Her voice is soft and kind and I’m not sure why but once again I feel tears prick at my eyes and I will myself not to start sobbing in the middle of Eurospar. I give her a watery smile, not trusting myself to say anything in response to her kindness.
‘I hope I’m not speaking out of turn,’ she says, dropping her voice to a whisper, ‘but you look around my age and… well… I’ve gone on HRT and it has helped me no end. I’m not quite so… well… tired and needy as I was before.’
I nod and mouth ‘thank you’, revelling in a moment of kinship with another woman. Maybe she’s right. Maybe it’s time I got proper, medically provided, help. Grabbing my shopping, I leave and make my way to my mum’s, where I find two very contented women watching an old episode of Magnum PI as if they hadn’t a worry in the world.
‘You’re a great girl, Rebecca,’ Mrs Bishop tells me twenty minutes later when I have been out and topped up her gas meter before making them both a cup of tea, served with a slice of cake of course.
‘She is, you know,’ my mother says proudly. ‘I’m very lucky to have her.’ I feel just as self-conscious while also as warm and fuzzy inside as I did when I was a child and my mother would boast about me to her friends. ‘She has the reading age of a fourteen-year-old! Can you imagine that?’ She’d beamed with pride as ten-year-old me coloured beside her.
Leaving them to their tea and their chatter over the noise of the TV, I start preparing enough dinner for both of them in the kitchen. Now, maybe my hearing is a bit off, but I’m as sure as sure can be that I hear Mrs Bishop tell my mother she would ‘climb that Magnum fellah like a tree’ given half the chance.
‘Ah now, he wouldn’t be my type,’ I hear my mother tell her. ‘But that Harrison Ford? Now, he’s a quare fellah! I wouldn’t kick him out of bed for eating toast!’ The loud peals of laughter that erupt between them warm my heart so much that I immediately burst into tears, and have to do my best to stifle my sobs so that I don’t give my mother anything to worry about.
It’s just been a long few days, I think. With a lot of emotions to process, not least the metaphorical face-to-face I’d had with my teenage self. I’ll probably feel less emotional once I get a shower, something to eat and a long sleep. Surely that will make a huge difference to how I feel?