Mum in the Middle

by Jane Wenham-Jones

  ‘Come off it! You said “mmmm” at the gallery.’

  Caroline looked surprised. ‘I was talking about Malcolm.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s rather sexy,’ Caroline mused. ‘In a sort of lived-in, craggy, TV detective sort of way. And he obviously likes you too–’

  ‘He says his ex-wives said he was a bastard.’

  Caroline laughed. ‘Maybe he’s mellowed. At least he hasn’t been performing with your neighbour. As far as we know! Now, did you let that poor boy down gently …?’

  The London sky grew dark and the lights from surrounding buildings shone through the open window from the street beyond as I related the conversation. The way I’d assured Gabriel of my fondness and concern for him and my total lack of romantic interest, explaining as gently as I could that he’d be much happier with someone of his own age ….

  ‘I mean,’ I said to Caroline now. ‘At some point he’ll want children.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘And right now he’s a young man full of testosterone.’

  ‘I know, but …’ Caroline always made me feel so straight and old-fashioned. Was it so weird to want an ordinary, traditional relationship, where you did intend to spend the next twenty years together? Where you loved each other to the exclusion of anyone else? I had an image of Malcolm tenderly feeding that motherless blackbird. Suddenly I felt lonely and sad.

  ‘Don’t get maudlin, darling!’ Caroline cried, sloshing more champagne into my glass and jumping off the sofa again. ‘I love this!’ She pointed the remote control across the room and pushed up the volume. ‘I play it at the gym!’

  She pulled me to my feet and began to dance, singing along loudly to Paolo Nutini’s ‘New Shoes’, swaying her hips, her brightly painted toes bobbing up and down on the striped rug. After a moment, I joined her, the champagne hitting me as I jigged about.

  Caroline was clapping her hands and twirling to the music. I grinned at her as she slid into step beside me and bumped her thigh against mine, the rhythm infecting me too. I found myself moving to the beat and as I shook my head and felt my hair swinging to the pulse of the melody I felt suddenly free and silly and young again. I grabbed my glass and took a big gulp of the champagne, laughing as the bubbles hit the back of my nose, wondering why I didn’t have fun like this more often.

  ‘This is good too!’ Caroline cried, as the song came to an end. ‘This whole playlist is good for dancing … Yay!’ She began to writhe faster to a Madonna number, throwing an arm around my shoulder so I had to move with her. I looked at her with affection as we danced together, giggling. Other ex-sisters-in-law might have faded away but Caroline and I had grown closer. She was a fantastic friend to me and she was right I should spend more time with her, having a good time …

  We were on our fourth number when I saw my phone flashing on the sofa. I stopped dancing and grabbed at it. Caroline turned the music down. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Missed call from Tilly. And she hasn’t left a message. I’ll have to call her back.’

  Caroline flopped down on the end of the sofa and looked at me despairingly. ‘Darling, she’s a grown woman. If it was that important she would have left one, wouldn’t she. Or she’ll call back.’

  ‘Supposing she’s found out about Gabriel’s crush on me and is upset?’

  ‘Why would she? He won’t tell her, will he …?’

  ‘He said he once told Ben he fancied me and Ben thought he’d had too many beers and was joking!’ I pulled a face. ‘I think he had had too many beers, actually.’

  ‘Well, he won’t tell Tilly,’ Caroline said with authority. ‘And even if he does, it’s hardly your fault you’re a MILF, is it?’ She gave me a grin. ‘You see, you may say you don’t care about having a sex life but subconsciously you are putting out all the chemical signals of the mating female and the men around you are being helplessly drawn …’

  I threw a cushion at her, blushing. ‘Don’t be daft–’ I looked at the screen as my phone rang again. ‘Oh, my God,’ I yelped, holding it away from me. ‘It’s him!’

  ‘Answer it!’

  ‘I’m drunk!’

  ‘Good! It will lower your inhibitions. You can tell him to sling his hook.’

  I stared frozen as David’s name continued to flash in front of me.

  ‘Give it to me!’ Caroline’s hand shot out and whipped the phone from mine. I shrieked.

  ‘Don’t you dare!’

  The ringing had stopped but Caroline had taken the phone to the other side of the room and was tapping on it. ‘Caroline – do not!’ I said desperately. ‘It’s not funny!’

  ‘Remember the internet-dating,’ I added.

  Caroline squealed with laughter. ‘Oh God, that was hilarious …’

  ‘PLEASE!’

  Caroline reluctantly handed the phone back to me. ‘I’ve told David to sod off and told Malcolm you’re crazy about him. We’ll see who answers first!’

  She laughed again as my face collapsed in horror. ‘Relax – I’m joking.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Nothing. I deleted it again,’ she added, as I scrolled through to check.

  ‘Promise me you won’t text anybody. I’d be mortified.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘OR phone,’ I said, suspecting that Caroline may have sent a number to herself. ‘I mean it. I’m going to worry …’

  ‘I promise!’

  Caroline looked stern. ‘But you need to forget David and make it up with Malcolm. He’s been a good friend to you and you said you were missing him.’

  ‘I’ll email him in the morning.’

  But all I could think of when I opened my eyes in Caroline’s spare bedroom was where she might keep the pain-killers. My head pounded, my mouth was parched. Caroline had left a note in the kitchen telling me she’d gone to work, to help myself to everything and stay again tonight.

  I put the kettle on, filled a glass with water, rummaged in her bathroom cabinet for ibuprofen and tottered back to bed, already resolving to take her advice. I could work here on my laptop, Oliver and Sam would probably be happy to have the house to themselves, and frankly I wasn’t sure I could make it to St Pancras.

  I lay back on the pillows and stared at the ceiling, thinking about David and Malcolm and Gabriel and the evening before. David had left a voicemail message, which I’d found sometime later, saying he was off to Beijing the next day but hoped to see me when he got back. Could I give him a quick ring?

  Caroline and I had spent some time debating whether this deserved a response, with me feeling slightly beholden as he’d been so good to Tilly and wondering perhaps whether it was work-related, and Caroline stating unequivocally that men with Aren’t-You-Just-Longing-to-Shag-Me eyes were always a nightmare and he was clearly just excited by the chase and only keen again because I’d turned him down.

  In the end we’d gone for the middle ground, with me typing out a therapeutic: ‘Not if I see you first! Thought you said you weren’t having a relationship, so what was Lucia doing with you twice in two days, you lying bastard?’ And then deleting it as sending anything at all would suggest I gave a fuck.

  Now I sat up and reached for my laptop. And having sent a few reassuring words to Paul about my progress on the latest project, thought about what to say to Malcolm.

  I felt a twinge of shame when I thought about calling him a bastard. But still filled with outrage at him not telling me that Gabriel had lost his mother. And while I could see his point professionally, as I’d said to Caroline the thought of poor Gabriel, alone and jobless with nobody to talk to brought out all my parental feelings and I couldn’t help feeling that Malcolm could have shown just a bit more bloody compassion …

  But most of all I wanted to sit opposite him in Rosie’s and get his daily caustic emails once more. I wanted us to be friends again.

  I took a deep breath and typed.

  ‘I’d like to talk to you. Shall we have lunch soon?’

  The answer cam
e through in minutes. Not exactly brimming with enthusiasm but not turning me down either.

  ‘Thursday.’

  Chapter 39

  I felt a bit nervous as I went into reception.

  I was planning a positive approach. I would go straight up to Malcolm and give him a firm hug and say I was really glad to see him.

  And had been fondly imagining us apologising to each other and going in jaunty fashion for an apple crumble and had hoped Malcolm would know where Gabriel had gone and that after it had transpired that leaving Northstone had been the catalyst for some sort of silver lining to present itself, and he’d sent a postcard from wherever he was currently having a wonderful time, that Malcolm and I would both agree that all was well that ended well and life was too short to fall out. But as I pushed open the door I had a bad feeling in my stomach.

  ‘Hello, Grace,’ I said brightly, ignoring the woman’s stony expression. ‘I’m here to meet Malcolm – shall I go up?’

  ‘Not if you know what’s good for you.’ Grace picked up a piece of paper and scanned it. ‘He might miss his slot.’

  ‘Sorry?’ I looked at her blankly. ‘We’re having lunch.’

  ‘Not now, you’re not.’ She looked at the paper again. ‘He’s working through it. Says he’ll call you later.’

  I frowned. There could be a nuclear missile warning and Malcolm wouldn’t miss lunch and surely he’d have emailed me himself if he needed to change things.

  ‘I’ll just pop up briefly,’ I told Grace firmly. ‘Just to say hello.’

  She shrugged. ‘On your head.’

  I went slowly up the stairs. I couldn’t believe that Malcolm would abruptly cancel, though perhaps he’d decided he didn’t want us to make up after all … It was a bleak thought.

  Upstairs there was no sign of Emily but a couple of other women I recognised were sat typing busily at their screens, one looked up briefly and nodded but made no attempt to speak to me. I remembered how friendly everyone had been when I first came up to these offices. Did they all know I’d rowed with Malcolm? Was I now persona non grata all round?

  Malcolm’s door was shut. Through the glass I could see him talking earnestly to a smooth-faced man in a dark-grey suit, who was listening with a fixed smile. His hands went up in protest, as if Malcolm had said something he didn’t like the sound of and, at that moment, Malcolm leant forward and saw me. A look of alarm crossed his face.

  My heart sank. He really didn’t want to see me. I instinctively stepped back but Malcolm was now standing up and had placed both hands on the desk as he said something emphatic to the suit and then raised one hand and signalled in my direction without looking at me, in a way that could have meant ‘wait there’ or, equally, ‘sod off’. I stepped back a bit more and dithered. I could hear the rise and fall of their voices – the conversation now sounded slightly heated – although I could only make out the odd word.

  Then suddenly the door swung open and the suited man strode past me, and Malcolm appeared in the doorway and bellowed across the office. ‘GLENIS!’ One of the women sprang up and scuttled across the floor. Malcolm handed her a sheet of paper. ‘Got him! Insert the figures – I’ll be writing up the rest of his infantile posturing.’

  Then he turned to me, his voice curt. ‘Didn’t you get the message?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I said, tone as clipped as his. ‘I’ve got the message all right.’

  Malcolm rolled his eyes. ‘Don’t do that one. Is it urgent? Do you need to speak to me right now?’

  He was looking at me intently. I opened my mouth, wanting to say that it could wait, that I was sorry we’d rowed and only wanted to make it up with him but was put off by his brusque manner. ‘What happened to Gabriel?’ I said instead.

  Malcolm shook his head in disbelief. ‘Now THAT I don’t have time for!’ he said, already turning away from me. ‘Bastard that I am!’

  ‘You said it!’ I shot back.

  As I walked away, I heard him say, ‘Oh for heaven’s sake. Don’t be–’ and then he gave a loud sigh, as if I were not worth bothering with, and went back into his office and slammed the door. As I looked back he had his head down and was typing furiously.

  I blinked back tears as I went back down the stairs and out onto the street, glad Grace was on the phone and not able to say she told me so.

  I’d felt disappointed, hurt and let down when David had failed to be the knight in shining armour I’d built my fantasies around, but this was much worse.

  I’d become attached to Malcolm as a real friend. But he wasn’t the man I thought he was either …

  Chapter 40

  Ode to Mum on the occasion of her 48th:

  Happy Birthday Mumsie

  Have a brilliant day

  I’ll buy you a pint when I get home …

  Ben had drawn a smiley face, a beer, a glass of wine and what I think was a plate of chips.

  … But you might have to pay …

  I smiled and put the card on the kitchen dresser with the one from Tilly, and began to open the envelope Oliver and Sam had left on the table with a box of chocolates.

  They’d disappeared early to spend the weekend with Sam’s parents, who’d just flown in from Singapore, full of apologies for leaving me alone. ‘But Ben’s back this evening,’ Oliver had reminded me. ‘And no doubt Jinni will be over!’

  I’d reassured them it didn’t matter a jot and kept quiet about the fact that Ben had said he’d probably only just make last orders as he had his room in London to get cleaned out and had to have a last drink with his housemates. And that Jinni’s son, Dan, was arriving back today and Jinni would be collecting him from the airport.

  I’d been equally bright with Tilly when she’d told me they were doing an extra performance for a youth club, and I’d told Caroline I was really looking forward to a quiet day on my own, when she’d explained about the charity fashion dinner.

  The funny thing was, it was true. The prospect of a day pottering around an empty house, listening to the radio and doing a spot of gardening seemed heaven-sent. A few short months ago I was bereft not to have my children around me. Now I was a person happy to live alone.

  Or rather I would be when Oliver and Sam had actually moved into her parents’ apartment and Ben had finally made up his mind whether to go to Portugal. (I had gathered from Oliver that Maria, now officially Ben’s girlfriend, was very attractive but quite volatile. Oliver privately thought the relationship sufficiently tempestuous to be over before Ben got around to raising the money for his plane ticket, a nugget of information, despite my new-found independence of spirit, I’d received with some relief.)

  It was a good feeling and if it came with any small pangs of sadness or hollowness inside then I was ignoring them. I missed Gabriel popping in and felt sad he didn’t feel he could be in touch with me. There was a big gap in my life where Malcolm had been, despite my disappointment with him. But by immersing myself in work and the garden, and practising the yoga breathing I’d learned from my first class in the original crumbling community centre the locals were still arguing about, I could achieve something that almost amounted to inner peace. Especially after a glass of rosé.

  I’d seen and heard nothing of David and had no idea whether he was back from Beijing, but if he did pop up I wouldn’t be sucked into any suggestions about meeting him. I will have a relationship when the time is right, I had told Caroline firmly and she, for once, had dropped the subject of dating apps and moved swiftly on to the latest in eyelash extensions.

  She’d sent me a fabulous pair of ivory silk pyjamas, like the ones of hers I’d admired, and a hand-written voucher for a Kayla facial, reminding me to have a drink first in order to cope with the rigours of having my gums poked and my entire face lifted from within.

  There was a card with a cartoon picture of two tipsy-looking women in high heels clutching glasses of champagne. ‘Us soon, darling!’ she’d written inside, followed by lots of kisses.

  I smiled again. I s
till had the bottle she’d given me in the fridge. I’d crack that open later.

  But right now it was Saturday, the sun was shining and I had no pressing office projects to catch up on that couldn’t wait till Monday. Dressed in an old pair of shorts, I headed for the tangle of bushes and weeds at the far end of the newly cropped lawn.

  By four o’clock I was ready to drop. Apart from a brief trip indoors for a cold drink and some cheese and, ever-mindful of Caroline’s entreaties about free radicals, to slather on more sun lotion, I’d barely stopped except to read a nice text from Nikki and send a stern one to Aaron the plumber, who continued to assure me cheerily and unconvincingly he’d be round ‘later’.

  Now I stretched out my aching back and looked with pleasure at the garden that had been so bedraggled and cheerless when I’d moved in and now had colourful shrubs and trimmed edges and borders of French marigolds and pansies. I was sweaty and scratched and there was mud up my arms but I felt content. I gathered up my tools and the bit of old carpet I’d been kneeling on, and headed for the bath.

  I had just lowered myself into the steaming water when the doorbell rang.

  ‘Bollocks!’ I said aloud as I dripped my way back out again. The downstairs loo was pretty much unusable now and I was getting worried about the others – I wasn’t going to let a plumber get away if he was finally here. I ran downstairs, a towelling robe wrapped hastily around my wet body. Jim from next door looked bemused.

  ‘You got trouble with your lav, Duck?’

  I gawped. Did the old man work for the elusive Aaron?

  ‘Ours is bad too. Every two years it happens.’ Jim shook his head. ‘Can I have a look?’

  He walked purposefully through my house and out of the back door, and stopped in front of a square manhole cover I’d never noticed, set into the paving stones. ‘Under there’s the culprit. Got a stick?’

  I looked around the garden as if one might miraculously appear, while Jim explained the curious nature of the shared plumbing. An underground pipe the other side of Jim’s side of the house had started to collapse and needed renewing and this caused a periodic build-up of debris below the cover we were looking at, which Jim and Angus – the previous owner of my house – had taken to clearing manually as required, since they’d been hanging on for the water board to come and replace the whole length of the waste-water channel since 2011.