Chapter 5
With my first Zoom meeting of the morning done, it occurs to me that my mum still hasn’t responded to any of my calls. If they had any ravines in central London, I could have been stuck at the bottom of one and she’d never know. Vexed, I try her again.
‘So your mobile does work!’ I exclaim as my mum finally answers. ‘Why haven’t you called me back?’
‘Ali? Is that you?’
‘Cousin Ali is Spanish, Mum. And male.’
Across the desk, I hear Kieran snort.
She places me on speakerphone. I can hear Smooth Radio playing in the background. Tina Turner’s ‘What’s Love Got to Do with It’ almost drowning out the hum of the washing machine.
‘I was going to call you back, Soapy,’ she insists. ‘Time just keeps getting away from me.’
Soapy. The way I pronounced my name when I was two. Forty-three years later, she still thinks it’s cute, despite my regular protests.
‘I’ve already done two loads of washing and I still have to hang out my bedding and clean the bathroom.’
I can picture her running around in her old tracksuit trousers, her hair pulled back, held up by a hair claw. For as long as I can remember, she’s always been a clean freak. She’d have a fit if she ever saw my flat.
‘You sound swamped,’ I reply. ‘Time flies when you have a new man, I guess.’
She giggles like a schoolgirl. ‘How did you know that?’
‘My spies are everywhere,’ I tell her. ‘So, who is he then, this new fella? What happened to George? Or Derek?’
‘Oh, Derek, I haven’t seen him in ages. Lovely man, just not for me. I think he bought a narrow boat and moved to Daventry. I could never, far too cramped. And George . . . well, you know how it is. Sometimes things just don’t work out.’
I smile. ‘It was the ducks, wasn’t it?’
‘I stood around for two hours in that effin field while they put these poor ducks through some peculiar assault course. This is not how I plan to spend the next forty years on God’s green earth, Soapy.’
Forty years? She’s sixty-four! That level of confidence in life expectancy is nothing short of impressive.
‘But Paul, he’s a real sweetheart. Very handsome. I’ve been seeing him for a couple of weeks. Lives in that big house in Prospect Hill. Retired air force pilot. Loaded. Luckily for him, I know my way around a cockpi—’
‘Mum!’ I exclaim, visibly cringing. ‘It’s eleven thirty in the morning, can we not?’
‘Massive feet.’
‘MUM!’
She cackles. ‘Did I make you clutch your pearls there, Soapy? You really need to lighten up.’
As much as I love my mum, I sometimes feel like our roles have reversed and I’m the parent, scolding and disapproving at every turn.
‘How did you meet?’ I ask, rapidly moving things along. I do not need to lighten up, I need to remain completely in the dark about all things relating to my mother’s sex life.
‘Facebook,’ she replies. ‘The local buying and selling group. It’s very useful, you know. I sold your old bed frame for seventy quid. He was getting rid of a sideboard, and I went round to view it. Love at first sight.’
‘With him or the sideboard?’ I ask, miffed that she got rid of my teenage bed. I loved that bed.
‘Both actually,’ she replies. ‘The sideboard is in the hall. It’s forest green. Plenty of space. Anyway, why were you calling? Are you all right?’
‘Everything is fine,’ I inform her, now ready to end the conversation. ‘Nothing important. I wasn’t stuck down a ravine or anything. Just wanted to say hi. See how you are.’
The time for bragging about my marketing genius has passed and I doubt she’d remember me mentioning it in the first place.
‘OK, give me a call next week. I really must run. Busy busy!’
She hangs up as my head slowly thuds down onto my desk. If she gets her way, there’s only another forty years of this to go.