I never check my emails. My phone’s data package is useless and I don’t own a laptop. In fact, I only recently got Wi-Fi in my flat so I can watch Netflix, an outgoing which I know I can do without, but it feels worth it.
My ma’s doing a little hmm. Hmm. Hmm.
‘They don’t half mention Jesus a lot in these postcards,’ she says.
‘You did bring us up Catholic,’ I point out.
‘Yes, I know, but since when did any of you talk about Jesus willingly? I had to bribe you all with a bag of cola pips to get your backsides to mass.’
A strong whiff of floral body spray floats into the room, paired with a voice that makes nails on a chalkboard sound like Mozart. I nearly fall off the edge of the settee. A large woman lingers at the bottom of the stairs.
‘You’re out of toilet roll,’ Ethel Barton announces.
‘Bloody hell, Ethel, where did you sneak in from?’ I ask.
‘Well, where else does your mother keep her toilet roll?’
For a woman turning eighty-four, she’s made of the sort of steel that comes from surviving the Home Front as a child. My ma, a decade younger, wilts in comparison.
‘Now, are you bringing your mother to our Yvonne’s sixtieth tomorrow night?’ Ethel enquires. ‘Or do I need to pick her up? It’s at the club, we’ve got a buffet and everything.’
‘She’s never sixty,’ my ma pipes up. ‘You wouldn’t think she was a day over forty. Not a wrinkle or a grey hair in sight. And I’ll get a taxi, thank you. Don’t be ferrying me around. Jim goes the Pacific Arms with his mates on a Friday, don’t you, love?’
‘Still living life in the fast lane, Jim?’ Ethel huffs.
Going the pub for three or four pints is hardly the fast lane, is it? During my uni days, yeah, I partied hard, blew my student loan and did soft things like shave my eyebrows off, but God, that feels like a bloody lifetime ago.
‘Although you do look smart today,’ Ethel says, heaving towards the table to pinch another Jaffa Cake. ‘In that pullover.’
‘It’s me uniform.’
‘Well, it suits you. I only ever see you in those t-shirts with the daft slogans on them.’
‘Bands … they’re not slogans, they’re bands.’
‘You’re not a teenager, Jim. You’re thirty-five,’ Ethel exclaims.
‘Thirty-three,’ my ma corrects her.
‘How’s your job going? You’ve managed to hold this one down, haven’t you?’
‘Eight years,’ I confirm.
‘Still, we all had higher hopes for you than a toll booth,’ Ethel says, mid munch.
My eyes wander up towards the framed photo of me in my cap and gown, hanging on the wall above the telly. My ma’s looking at it, too. What a day. On the steps of Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral, my dad wearing his only suit, the shirt having been ironed twice that morning, his burly arm around my ma’s slender shoulders. She wore a polka-dot dress and red lipstick, black shoes with little white bows on the toes. Such a bold outfit for a woman who’s always chosen the shadows over the sun. ‘First in the family to get a degree,’ my dad had sung, gloating, as we all emerged from the ceremony.
‘It’s a shame you’re not coming to our Yvonne’s sixtieth, you know,’ Ethel says, sucking the melted Jaffa Cake chocolate off her fingers. ‘Our Yvonne’s niece is about your age, unattached, works for the Civil Service. I mean, you’d be very handsome if you got your hair trimmed. You would, you know.’
‘Oh, leave him alone, Ethel,’ my ma sighs.
‘There’s lots of nice girls who work in the Asda, you know,’ Ethel goes on, talking to me but looking directly at my ma. Then she looks outwards, as if addressing an audience much grander than two. ‘They all know me in there, you know. They know I get your mother’s bits and bobs for her, you know. They ask how I find the time to do me own shopping, you know. They really do. They’re nice girls, Jim. They are, you know.’
‘I know,’ I say.
‘He knows,’ my ma says. Christ, she looks shattered next to Ethel’s booming energy. Her dark greying hair is damp and fragile, her effort of mascara smudged below her eyes.
‘But aren’t all your mates married? Settled?’ Ethel asks, taking one of her shoes off, followed by the other, cracking her toes.
‘Settled,’ I say, ‘is when you have an argument with someone, and you find a way to reconcile. Or, if a problem arises, you resolve it. So, no, me mates aren’t settled. One’s married, two’ve got kids. I reckon that’s the very opposite of settled.’
Ethel scoffs.
‘Too clever for his own good, this one, isn’t he?’ she says.
I flick the standing lamp on, draw the curtains.
‘Right, I need to get going,’ I say. ‘I’ll speak to you later, Mam.’
‘Everything alright, love?’
‘Everything’s boss. I just need to nip home, get changed for the bonfire—’
‘He’s got a date!’ Ethel butts in.
‘Not exactly …’
‘Oh, that means he’s definitely got a date.’
I rub my eyes, scratch my head. Maybe I do need a haircut.
‘I had three children by the time I was your age,’ Ethel tells me, wagging her bloody finger in my face. ‘In fact, it’s borderline selfish that you haven’t given your mother some grandkids who live on this side of the Atlantic. Three children, I had. Three.’
‘There’s two cottage pies in the freezer,’ I say, kissing my ma on the cheek. Then she gives me a look – you know, the sort that only mothers seem to master – that suggests – no, tells me – to kiss Ethel, too. For an easier life, I grit my teeth, oblige. Ethel pretends to get all flustered and fans herself with the sudoku puzzle book lying on the settee, calling me a tease.
‘Wish your Yvonne a happy birthday from me,’ I say, opening the door.
‘She doesn’t look a day over forty,’ my ma reiterates. ‘I mean it.’
Cold drizzle hits me. I welcome its bite and zip up my fleece, my feet picking up a fast pace. I’m going to collect my prize. My golden chalice. It’s like being thirteen again and beating Snowy on the Sega. Christ, it’s better than that. I haven’t been excited about anything for so long that I’ve forgotten how to be excited. Doubt’s a fucker. It clouds my every right to be dancing on the moon, but let’s be honest, it protects me too. Still, I was told I’ve won a car. This is Christmas morning, this is my twenty-first again, this is an ice-cold cocktail whilst lying on a beach somewhere in the Bahamas. This is my turn.
I’m halfway down the street when I hear my name being yelled. Ethel’s standing on the step of my ma’s house, waving her arms.
‘Go and get us a four pack of toilet roll from the Asda, will you? It’ll only take you five minutes if you run. Hurry.’
5
Zara
‘You have reached your destination,’ the satnav announces.
It’s nothing like I’ve imagined. I double check the address, and yes, this pleasant but dull suburban close is Clifton Crescent. Nick’s front door is in my view, third house along. Butterflies dance in my stomach. I know he’ll be there because he works from home. Plus his car is in the driveway. He’s sent me many selfies from that exact vehicle, recorded himself singing Queen songs to me from the driver’s seat as he rested his phone on the dashboard.