Chapter 3
Mum throws another pair of Disney-themed pyjamas over her arm. ‘Think I’ll need a basket.’
‘Or you could buy less.’
‘I need stuff for my holiday,’ she says.
‘Where is it you’re going that you’ll need so many pyjamas?’
‘Don’t you listen to anything we say? We’re starting our walking series.
First up, the Moors. I’ve heard the weather is crap there.
So, it’s PJs under clothes and windbreakers for the rain.
I got this for your dad, he suits colour.
’ She holds up a flammable-looking garment in luminescent green.
‘Might as well get some new knickers while we’re here. The moths have been at mine.’
‘Who are all these people?’ I ask as I follow her through the packed aisles of Primark. ‘Does no one work on Fridays anymore?’
‘I love having Fridays off,’ Mum says. ‘I can’t keep up with my social media when I’m working full time.’
I’m still exhausted from being in the office four days this week, yet when Mum called to check in on me this morning, and I said, ‘I’m feeling great,’ she heard, ‘Please come and take me shopping.’
She picks up a pair of lacy red panties. ‘In what world is this a large? I don’t think I’d get one arse cheek in here. It’d look great on you though, skinny minnie.’
I stick it back on the rail.
‘You don’t want to treat yourself?’ Mum says, almost accusatory.
‘More like I don’t want thrush.’
Her noisy laugh turns a few heads. ‘How can they sell stuff so cheaply? You think it’s little kids making it?’
‘Definitely.’
She waves a hand about dramatically. ‘Why’d you have to say that?’
‘You asked.’
‘I hate first-world guilt.’
‘I’m sure the children get paid.’ I peek in her basket. ‘Can you really trust a twenty-pound pair of boots for walking in the Moors?’
‘We hardly do any walking,’ she says. ‘We’re much more about getting the shots.’
My parents love to go on about things like getting the shots, as if they’re off to film an Oscar-winning film, rather than what they’re really doing, which is filming content for their problematically named YouTube channel Off with the Es.
Its tagline: ‘Reviews on world travel from some middle-aged hotties’, though they’ve never reviewed anywhere beyond my dad’s hometown of Aranjuez in Spain and, being teachers, they only manage to upload during school holidays.
The channel largely consists of them complaining.
It’s either bad meals, bad weather or bad accommodation.
Personally, I find it all a bit negative but there’s a certain type of subscriber – 6,763 of them at the last count – who find my parents’ brand of pessimism hilarious.
While in the sensory hell that is the Primark fitting rooms, I busy myself rehanging the clothes people have left strewn on the floor while Mum disappears behind a grubby grey curtain.
After a few moments, she reappears wearing a badly fitting gold dress, her mass of curly brown hair frizzed from heat.
‘Is this sexy or do I come off like a Poundland Tina Turner?’
‘What era of Tina Turner are you going for?’
‘You little cow.’ She tries for a glare then smiles. ‘It’s good to hear you laugh. Even if your laugh sounds like a tractor breaking down.’
‘So does yours,’ I reply.
‘No, it doesn’t. My laugh sounds like the tinkling of angels.’ She checks herself in the mirror and tries to force her boobs into the thin material.
‘That’s so much flesh.’ I make a big show of shielding my eyes. ‘Why have I inherited your laugh but not your boobs? I hate genetics.’
She jiggles them and answers, ‘You need to have some babies if you want a pair of these.’
‘That sounds like a very big price to pay.’
There’s no denying that my mum, who is all big bouncy hair and ridiculous curves, has more sex appeal at fifty-two than I have at twenty-nine.
It’s truly humbling. I try to count myself lucky I’ve got dad’s height, though I’ve also inherited his thick, straight hair, which does nothing other than be thick and straight, and a figure that looks like I run for fun.
I don’t run. I don’t do any exercise. Though I went through a stage of doing Bulgarian split squats after hearing they give you a bum. They don’t.
Mum’s phone chimes with a message and grabs it from her bag. ‘It’s your dad. What does the old bugger want?’ She attempts to pull up the front of her dress. ‘He wants to know if you’re okay.’
‘Yes, I’m okay.’
She reads, ‘“Are you being nice to your baby brother?”’
‘My baby brother, as in that six-foot adult man I now live with?’
Mum pouts at me. ‘You’ve always bullied Eric.’
‘It’s mostly deserved. Anyway, I’ve hardly seen him – he spent a few nights at the flat then went off to Birmingham to do something unspecified for work.’
‘Has he not been there for you?’ she asks, with concern.
‘I don’t need him to be anywhere for me.’
Eric’s a sales manager for an electronics brand no one’s ever heard of, though someone is certainly buying as he has the kind of disposable income I could only dream of. He’s moved in with me ‘temporarily’ to save money and eventually buy a place of his own.
Mum’s phone goes again. ‘Dad says, “Has she put on some weight?”’
‘He saw me recently; how much weight does he expect me to have put on?’
Mum lowers her screen to scan me up and down. ‘You seem a bit fuller in your face. I suppose some sandwiches are quite calorific, aren’t they?’
‘Thanks. I think. Also, I do eat.’
Her phone keeps buzzing. ‘Bloody hell, this man. Doesn’t say a word in days, then texts me an essay.’ She chucks the phone back into the bag by my side. ‘Darling girl, tell me how you’ve been spending your time?’
‘Working,’ I say.
‘Besides working.’
‘Hanging out at home. Watching TV. Cuddling my cat.’
‘You don’t have a cat.’ She pulls the curtain shut, wafting around the smell of feet and kebab, because someone is definitely consuming a kebab close by. ‘Been out partying recently?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Getting back out there will be good for you,’ she goes on. ‘The party scene needs its golden girl back.’
‘You used to criticise me for going out too much. Now I’ve stopped and you’re encouraging me to get back into it.’
‘A little ecstasy never hurt anyone.’
‘Ecstasy!’ I gasp playfully.
‘I didn’t mean the drug, I meant the feeling. It’s good to lose yourself, to get buck wild and crazy.’
If I showed up hungover to Sunday lunch or missed someone’s birthday it was always because I had prioritised getting buck wild and crazy over family, so it’s mad to hear her now try to sell it as something I should be doing.
Mum doesn’t know how to deal with this. It was most apparent in the weeks I stayed at home. She had come over and cleaned the flat, then sat on my bed and talked continuously about nothing while I drifted in and out of sleep.
‘I don’t need to be going out at all,’ I explain, ‘It’s not before.’
Her dismembered head pops out from behind the curtains.
‘Oh Zoe,’ she says, then stops, because she doesn’t want to talk about why my life has been split into before and now.
Her head disappears. ‘How’s that sexy millionaire boss of yours?
Do you think he’s on the hunt for a new woman because your dad is doing my head in. It’s time I married up.’
My phone buzzes.
Unknown: Hi. Thanks again for dropping my stuff off. The bobble head has certainly boosted my productivity. Cian
Cian has my number. How? Maybe Jimmy gave it to him.
Or more likely, he took it from one of the many unsolicited group chats everyone at work gets added to.
Groups such as Soy Much Fun (shared Chinese for lunch on Fridays), StaffFun!
!! (for the distribution of memes, conspiracy theories and casual sexism) and Great Bake-Off Fun (compulsory baking on theme to encourage team building).
I message back:
Me: No problem. Hope you’re feeling better.
Sounds a bit throwaway, like what you’d say to someone who’s had diarrhoea or the flu, not someone who shattered their knee during a climbing accident. The reply comes:
Unknown: Off my face on painkillers. Feel great.
‘The thing I don’t know about pleather,’ Mum calls through, ‘is whether it makes you sweat more or less than when you wear real leather. I used to have a leather miniskirt. This was in the late eighties.’
Cian is still online. I save his number and send:
Me: I bet you’ll do great work while off your face.
Cian: The very best. Look forward to the entire infrastructure collapsing next week.
The curtain bursts open once more and Mum, now fully dressed and heavily flushed, stands in front of me. ‘Are you listening to me?’
‘Leather versus pleather. Miniskirt. It was the late eighties.’
‘Who are you messaging?’
‘One of my colleagues. He had a climbing accident and is now homebound.’
‘What was he climbing?’
‘A mountain,’ I say. ‘No, a cliff. To be honest, I don’t know.’
‘You should send him a link to our YouTube channel. We’ve done a segment on mountains. Not that I’d climb one. And your dad won’t wear a harness after what happened in Snowdon. Now, let’s pay up and then I’ll let you go.’
By the time I head home, three hours later, I feel tired and so much lighter for having gone out and shared company.
The flat is too quiet and warm, so I grab a can of Coke from the fridge, push open the back door and sit on the step.
Immediately Wuffy appears on the fence; he skids down and makes his way over.
‘Hello, Wuffy,’ I coo, ‘you beautiful little thing.’
He sniffs at my hand then rolls his sun-warmed head around it.
I encourage him onto my lap where he gets to work, padding the cotton of my skirt before he flips himself belly up.
I take a series of photos, each one cuter than the last. It’s times like this I almost miss social media, though having deleted all my personal accounts last month I can’t imagine going back.
‘You’re my favourite fur baby. Pretty little thing.’ I stroke Wuffy under the chin. ‘Stormzy. Ridiculous.’ I bring up the sweetest photo and hover over Cian’s contact in my phone before hitting send.
He replies straight away.
Cian: Stop stealing Stormzy. He’s my only friend.
Me: Are you that lonely?
Cian: Yes. You’re the only person I’ve spoken to this week who isn’t a member of my family, the NHS or God’s Kingdom.
I start typing, You’re only three minutes away. I can always— Then stop. Why am I offering to hang out with some random from work? I delete it and put my phone down.
The sun feels good, though I only have on factor 15 and am beginning to sweat through my Skims. I bum-shuffle into the shade of my kitchen, careful not to wake Wuffy as he never actually comes inside the flat. My phone goes again.
Cian: Can I ask you a favour?
A favour? Haven’t I just done him one? Plus, I don’t know him, yet I type:
Me: Of course
Cian: I left my bike in the garage at work. Keep getting paranoid I’ve not locked it properly. If I send you a photo, will you check it for me?
I picture Nicole mouthing the word no, while encouraging me to do the same.
Me: Sure. Where’s the bike garage?
Cian: LOL!
I begin typing another reply, to inform him that while I’ve heard rumours of an office bike garage, I have no clue where it is or how to get there. Though it’s hard to text with Wuffy now partially leaning on one arm, so I call instead.
‘Hi?’ Cian answers, his voice unsure.
At work I speak on the phone all the time, so often forget that outside an office environment phone calls freak people out.
‘Are you one of those people who hate talking on the phone?’
‘No,’ he says touchily.
He clearly is, and I’m going to wait for him to speak first to prove it.
‘I used to talk on the phone every Sunday evening with my nan,’ he says. ‘She loved calling. She was eighty-nine.’
‘Sounds like a smart woman. No time to waste. Calling, it’s so much quicker than all this back-and-forth texting.’
‘You do text very slowly.’
Cian’s got quite a loud, rumbly voice, which is far more noticeable on the phone than it was in person.
‘Apart from Nana, I can’t think of the last time someone called me,’ he continues.
‘I’m sure you’ve had the odd booty call over the years, Cian.’
‘What?’ he sounds offended.
‘I’m kidding,’ I say. ‘Besides, if I’m going to booty-call you it won’t be at half four in the afternoon. Not that I would ever booty-call a random colleague.’
‘A random colleague,’ he repeats. ‘Why does that sound so derogatory?’
‘Anyway, yes, where is this garage?’
The sound of his laugh relaxes me somewhat because making cracks about booty calls is a definite violation of the ‘Safety for everybody and every body’ policy.
‘Garage?’ I try and he laughs harder. There’s no way he’s going to let me pretend I didn’t say something completely deranged. ‘I apologise. I don’t know why I said that about booty calls.’
‘Out of interest, what are official booty-calling hours?’
‘I’m no expert, but, I’d say any time between ten p.m. and two a.m.’
‘Two a.m.? That’s an unacceptable time to call anybody.’
‘You’ve got to consider post-clubbing calls. So,’ I try again, ‘how do I find this—’
‘Is a booty call true to its name? Does it have to be a call or does text work as well?’
I speak over him, ‘Tell me where the garage is, and I’ll check on Monday.’
‘Monday?’
‘I’m not at work. I’ve got today off. I’m back to full time from next week.’
‘Ah,’ he says, ‘I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have texted you if I did.’
‘No, it’s fine. I’m the one who called you.’
We both fall quiet, then I say, ‘Send me a photo of your bike.’
‘No, it’s cool. I’ll ask Dev instead.’
‘You sure?’ I ask, a clear hint of desperation in my voice. Why?
‘Yes. Thanks anyway.’