What Now?

by Shari Low

  ‘That’s the worst T-shirt I’ve ever seen,’ Mac pointed out with a teasing groan and a woeful shake of his head.

  I glanced down at my sparkly grey pyjama top, that announced, ‘ALL’S GOOD IN THE MOTHERHOOD.’ He might have had a point, but it was Mother’s Day so I wasn’t rising to it. Instead, I took the mug of tea and wedged it between my knees and then gingerly balanced the bacon roll on my lap, while Benny flopped down on the available bed space not already consumed by Mac’s six foot three inch frame.

  ‘How did I get this lucky?’ I was having one of those ‘I love my kids more than life’ moments – the ones that balance out the pants on the floor and the discovery of a week’s worth of manky plates under their bed. My life may have turned out nothing like I’d expected it to, but these boys more than made up for it. ‘Thank you, my lovelies. You two are my very favourite people…’ They looked chuffed until I added, ‘That I’ve ever pushed out of my birth canal.’

  Benny closed his eyes and shook his head, clearly unwilling to absorb any form of mental image.

  ‘I can’t believe you remembered it’s Mother’s Day,’ I gushed, only for Mac to swipe his phone screen and hold up the text I’d sent them both yesterday.

  Tomorrow is Mother’s Day. Just sayin’. Love yoos!

  ‘Never seen that before in my life,’ I said innocently. The heat from the mug was radiating through the summer duvet, giving me third-degree burns as I opened the card. My eyes went to the heading.

  To A Special Mum On A Special Day…

  Aw, shucks.

  My tired, green peepers moved downwards.

  If you could cook and play football, you’d be perfect.

  My laughter sent the tea sploshing on the white bed linen, but I didn’t care.

  ‘Right, you have choices,’ Mac declared, and while he ramped up the tension with a dramatic pause, I was struck with the recurring thought that I’ve no idea how I managed to make these two. Mac’s black hair and almond-shaped blue eyes are his dad’s, and Benny’s ash blonde hair and green eyes are mine, but that’s where similarities end. Both of them spend half their lives in the gym, on court or in the pool, so they’ve both got the kind of athletic frames that I could only acquire if I had them tattooed on my size fourteen body.

  But back to the moment. Choices? Had they both cleared their day to spend it with me? Was I being relieved of all taxi duties for a full twenty-four hours? Did they have some wonderful surprises up the short sleeves of their muscle-fit T-shirts?

  Mac enlightened me. ‘We can stop and pick you up either a Subway or a McDonald’s on the way back from the gym.’

  Those were my choices. Subway. McDonald’s. Oh, and they came with the standard side helping of guilt I felt every time they had the motivation to work out, only to be reminded that I haven’t sweated since I gave birth to Benny.

  ‘Or…’ I said, trying not to let my disappointment show. Okay, so they hadn’t actually planned to spend time with me today, but that didn’t mean the whole day was a lost cause. ‘Kate is having a Mother’s Day barbecue next door at 1 o’clock and it’s an open invitation. All the usual suspects will be there. Maybe after you come back from the gym we could go?’

  ‘Are Charlie and Toni going to be there?’ Mac asked, and I immediately realised I had played a winner. Charlotte and Antonia are my eighteen-year-old twin nieces, the darling, gorgeous offspring of my brother Callum and my lifelong pal, Carol.

  Carly. Callum. Carol. There are way too many names that begin with Ca in this little trifecta. It would have been much less confusing if Callum had married Kate, Jess or Sarah. Anyway, Charlie and Toni are my sons’ much-loved cousins. They’ve been pretty much brought up together so they’re more like brothers and sisters, but closer because they don’t live in the same house and fight about who’s taking longest in the bathroom in the mornings.

  ‘I think so,’ I replied, resigned to the fact that the girls would be the deal sealer, not the fact that my sons wanted to spend the afternoon with the woman who still has their stretch marks.

  ‘We’ll come with you, Mum,’ Benny said, one of his arms going around my shoulders and giving me a hug.

  I couldn’t resist teasing them. ‘Because you feel like you don’t spend enough time with your really cool and trendy mother?’

  ‘That’s exactly it,’ Benny confirmed, in his most certain and definite tone.

  ‘And you’re absolutely lying about that?’ I said, with a grin.

  Benny’s eyes crinkle when he laughs. ‘Completely and utterly.’

  Honestly, they could wreck their rooms, stay out all night and eat the last Kit Kat and I’d still adore them because they make me laugh.

  ‘Look, I’m your mother. It’s my job to be needy and clingy. You can prise me off when you’re forty and I’m ready to let you go.’

  Was it my imagination or did a look pass between them that didn’t quite fit with the light-hearted moment? For a split second I thought about ignoring it, but years of motherhood ninja training kicked in and I knew further investigation was required.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, eyes narrowing as they went from Benny to Mac and back again. ‘What don’t I know about?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Mac countered with the same innocent shrug he perfected when he was about five and going through a phase where he only wanted to be the bad guys from action movies. He made us call him Dr Doom and every time our backs were turned, he tried to thump his brother with my best table lamp.

  They both shifted, climbing off the bed, then took it in turns to give me a kiss.

  Mac didn’t meet my eyes as he said, ‘Right, Mum, we need to go. We’ll be back in time for the barbecue.’

  Benny was next, no eye contact there either. ‘Happy Mother’s Day,’ he said again. ‘We love you.’

  They were almost at the door.

  ‘Freeze!’ I ordered. I removed the mug from between my scorched knees as I watched their shoulders slump like armed robbers who’d just been apprehended with a bag full of balaclavas. ‘What’s going on?’ My voice dipped a few octaves. It was an interrogation technique I’d picked up from Criminal Minds.

  They looked at each other again, and Mac broke first.

  ‘Nothing, Mum, but… eh… Dad called us earlier and he wants you to phone him back.’

  ‘Why?’ I had only spoken to Mark a few days before. We kept everything painfully calm, mature and polite for the boys’ sake. He was great at that. Those were three of his main personality traits throughout our whole marriage. Unfortunately, I’m easily excitable, like a giggle, and blurt out everything I think and feel. The writing was on the wall, really.

  Benny was too slow to get out the door and had to answer. ‘Em, just ask Dad, Mum. Love you,’ he repeated.

  And they were gone. This couldn’t be good. Two ‘love you’s, and the avoidance of full disclosure when it came to a call with their father. My mama senses were tingling. They’re the same as spider senses, but they can also detect dirty plates under their beds and underlying guilt.

  I considered delving straight to the root of the issue by calling Mark, but stopped myself. It was Mother’s Day. I wasn’t going to let anything spoil it. I would finish my tea and bacon roll, perhaps while watching a rerun of a highbrow programme on international criminal justice (in other words, Hawaii Five-0), then I’d read a few chapters of the latest Dorothy Koomson, then get up and give myself plenty of time to throw on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt for Kate’s barbecue, and then…

  The ringing of my mobile phone interrupted my thoughts. I didn’t even look at the screen before picking up because I knew that it would be Kate’s daily morning call.

  ‘Hello, you’ve reached Carly Cooper’s Sex Chat Line. Press one for some heavy breathing, press two for some filthy language, and press three if it’s been so long since you had sex, you can’t remember how to do it.’

  That last one would make her laugh, because she’d know it was me projecting my reality. Since my marria
ge ended, my dating game had been non-existent.

  My amusement was kneecapped by a very male voice saying, ‘How about I press four, for a bloke who probably shouldn’t be discussing his sex life with his ex-wife?’

  I choked on my tea. Bollocks.

  ‘Sorry, Mark, I thought you were Kate,’ I spluttered. And it didn’t escape me that he’d called me his ex-wife, even though the divorce wasn’t technically official yet. We’d started the paperwork, but neither of us were in a rush. It wasn’t as if we were running into the arms of someone else.

  ‘I guessed that. Sorry to disappoint you,’ he said, and I detected a tiny hint of tension beneath his usual calm, mature, politeness. Mark Barwick. Father to my two sons. My husband for approximately nineteen years and the man that I’d legally separated from approximately 226 days ago and counting. My brain had gone rogue and somehow insisted on keeping a running tally, despite my heart’s express orders to stop it.

  ‘I’m not disappointed.’ I hoped I’d hidden the sigh from my voice. We’d been some variation of best friends, lovers or partners since I was fourteen years old and now it was like we were in that awkward stage that came after a one-night stand with someone you barely knew. Not that I can remember the last time I was in that situation. I used the bottom of my pyjama top to dry the tea off my blanket as I ploughed on. ‘I was going to call you. The boys said you were looking for me and they were acting like Crimewatch suspects. Is everything okay?’

  ‘Eh, yeah.’

  Oh, sweet Jesus, there was something hesitant in his voice now too. My stomach began to churn. What the hell was going on? Were the boys in trouble? Had one of them done something and was too scared to tell me? Mac was sixteen – oh God, had he knocked someone up? How many packets of condoms had I put in his drawer?

  ‘I’m too young to be a granny,’ I blurted.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sorry, my imagination is running away with me. Please tell me Mac hasn’t got anyone pregnant.’

  His laugh was both a heart-warming relief and a condescending dig. ‘Not like you to be dramatic. No. At least, not as far as I know. I didn’t even know he had a girlfriend.’

  ‘He doesn’t, I’m just…’ I stopped myself before I came out with something that suggested I was neurotic, anxious, or prone to catastrophising. He knew all that already. ‘It doesn’t matter. Anyway, why were you calling me?’

  ‘I just wanted to talk to you about summer. We haven’t got around to finalising when we’d have the boys and I just wondered if you had any plans?’

  I hadn’t known this man for over half my life without picking up a few things. Other than the fact that he was a workaholic, there was a reason he was a very successful lawyer – he never entered a negotiation without a battle strategy. However, my bacon sandwich was getting cold, so I had no time for playing games.

  ‘No, no plans yet. I was thinking I might take them over to see Sam at some point, but I hadn’t got any further than that.’

  Sam. Benny’s godfather. Who just also happened to be my aforementioned ex-boyfriend and a drop-dead gorgeous human being who went on to be a bona fide Hollywood star and GQ magazine’s Sexiest Man of the Year, 2009. It’s a long story and I promise I’ll come back to it later.

  There was a pause and I imagined that I could hear Mark’s teeth grinding. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that Sam and I had no romantic interest in each other – that ship sailed long ago – but I think the boys’ general hero-worship of their uber-cool godfather hit him smack bang in the ego.

  ‘Okay, it’s just that I was thinking I might take them away too.’

  ‘That would be great,’ I agreed, surprised but enthusiastic. Mark worked such long hours that Mac and Benny only spent alternate weekends and the occasional midweek night with him, so a boys’ week at the beach or city-hopping around Europe would be great for them. A real bonding experience and one that they hadn’t had before now.

  ‘Yeah, I agree. It’ll be the first summer since… you know…’ He didn’t seem to be able to say ‘since we split up’, but I let it go as he went on, ‘… So I thought we could do something special.’

  Ooooh, maybe catch some big sports event? Perhaps an F1 race somewhere? I didn’t get the chance to question him as he cleared his throat and continued.

  ‘And I spoke to the boys about it and we thought we’d hire an RV and spend a month touring the east coast of the States.’

  I had to rewind it at least twice to make sure I’d heard correctly, and even then, I had to check I wasn’t mistaken.

  ‘A month? You want to take the boys away for a month?’

  Was this an April Fool’s joke? No, that was tomorrow. Mark was way too grown up and sensible to pull a prank on the wrong day. Or any day, for that matter.

  ‘Yes. Is that a problem?’ There was a hint of challenge in there and I had to clench my jaw to stop myself rising to it with full-force sarcasm along the lines of ‘No, of course not. Why should it be a problem? It’s not as if I begged you for years to take more than a week off work. And when you did grudgingly agree to a short break, it’s not as if you’d then spend every day on the phone and trying to get Wi-Fi so you could answer your emails. It’s not as if one of the very real reasons that I called time on our marriage was because I couldn’t bear to carry on living a life in which I always felt the kids and I were below work on your priority list. It’s not as if you promised me a hundred times that you’d show more interest in us, and then immediately reverted back to showing zero interest. And it’s definitely not as if I eventually gave up trying to make it work, we finally separated and you’ve suddenly decided you’ve got positively oodles of free time and you’re father of the bloody year.’

  Nope, I didn’t say any of that because I understood now why the boys were being shifty – they knew this would blindside me and they didn’t know how I’d react. Despite Mark’s initial objections to the separation, we’d both agreed to be amicable, to go with the line that we’d just outgrown each other and parted as friends. However, this morning I could sense that they felt stuck in the middle, and that was somewhere I didn’t want them to be.

  I forced myself to reply in a non-fricking-furious tone. ‘No, it’s not a problem. I just wish you’d discussed it with me before talking to the boys.’

  A sigh at his end. ‘God, I can’t win. Look, I know I haven’t been around as much as I should have, but I’m changing that now. And it just came up in conversation with them…’

  ‘And I take it they want to go?’ I swear my ovaries clenched. Say no. Please say they don’t want to leave me for a whole month, that they were positively inconsolable at the very thought of it.

  ‘They do.’ Dammit.

  ‘Then it’s fine with me,’ I blurted.

  ‘Are you sure?’ I could make out surprise, relief and a tinge of disbelief.

  ‘Absolutely,’ I assured him, trying so hard to sound sunny and enthusiastic that I was now using the same voice as the actors in washing powder commercials. ‘I think it’s a smashing idea and I’m all for it.’

  2

  Fifteen Minutes Later – Kate’s House Next Door

  Not Ready To Make Nice – The Chicks

  ‘And are you all for it?’ Kate asked, her jaw almost hitting the hot tray of stuffed peppers she was clutching between her oven gloves. Apart from the distraught and needy pal, this was Kate’s idea of a perfect Mother’s Day – cooking and baking up a feast for everyone she loves. The best thing about living next door to your best friend was that you could slip through the gate connecting your gardens and be in their kitchen in seconds. Right now, I’m not sure Kate felt the same. She went through far less biscuits when we lived at opposite ends of the country.

  The defection of most of our high-school girl-gang from Glasgow to London had begun back in the late eighties. At eighteen, Carol had been the first to go in search of fame, fortune, or at least enough modelling gigs to keep a roof over her beautiful head and maintain an endless
supply of black coffee and Marlboro lights. Jess had followed at twenty-one, when she left uni with a degree in politics and came south to fulfil her dream of working in the epicentre of government. Back then, when we were all catching lusty feelings for Brad Pitt and we were yet to discover that Clooney bloke in ER, Jess could come over all sexually giddy at the sight of a well-written manifesto. Kate had joined the other two, when she landed a junior position in a swanky London salon. The only one whose path didn’t bring her down the M6 was Sarah, who’d lived in Scotland until she moved to the USA in her thirties.

  I’d been the last to make the move, finally settling here when I decided my world travels were over and it was time to grow up and put some roots down. My brother, Callum, was already living just off the King’s Road, my brother, Michael, visited often, and my parents stayed back in Scotland, which suited us fine because they had pretty much zero interest in what their offspring were doing anyway. Years later, Mark had no objection to making it our home after we married. His parents had moved abroad, so he had no family ties to Glasgow. We’d bought the house next door to Kate and strictly speaking, that’s where I’d lived ever since, but I spent so much time in Kate’s kitchen that she could probably justify charging me rent.

  I lifted my head off the battered but beautiful oak table that had been the centre of the room for two decades, and realised she was still waiting for an answer. ‘Of course not! Nineteen years, Kate! Nineteen years and he has not arranged or organised a single thing in our lives…’

  Kate interrupted me. ‘Are you about to go full-scale martyr and rhyme off everything he’s ever done to upset you, because I’m not sure how long I can hold this tray for.’

  ‘I am,’ I confirmed.

  ‘Okay, give me a sec to get organised so that I can give your rant my undivided attention.’

  In the time it took her to put the tray on the drainer, grab a mug, pour a coffee from the pot and join me, I fired off a text to Sarah’s daughter, Hannah.