right,’ I replied. ‘It was really nice to see her actually.’
‘Well of course it was,’ said Mum. ‘You two were such good friends.’ She looked at me with a knowing expression. ‘Didn’t I tell you something significant would be happening now that Mercury’s in retrograde?’
‘Er, I don’t know, did you?’
‘Yes,’ she insisted. ‘I did. It’s also the reason you’re being so bloody bolshy. Still, don’t worry, Venus will be rising soon and things will start going your way. Now, get the bowls out for the crisps and nuts will you? Then, when you’ve filled them up, take them through to the lounge.’
Being treated like a child makes you feel like a child. I wished I could go to bed and fester there for the remainder of the day but got up wearily to do her bidding.
‘How was work today anyway? Nice little kiddies were they?’
‘All right,’ I muttered, not wanting to talk about it.
‘Ah there you are,’ said Mum through the hatch as Martin walked into the lounge, laden with bags from the off-licence. ‘I was starting to think you’d run off and left me.’
On the left of our lounge is an enormous leather suite that rests against a wall, which acts as a partition between the lounge and the kitchen. This wall has a hatch in it, meaning if someone’s busy cooking in the kitchen, by opening it they can still keep an eye on the telly. Quite often I’ll be fully engrossed in a programme when suddenly I’ll glance up only to find Mum’s head hanging out of the hatch directly above me. This can be quite disconcerting.
‘As if,’ said Martin, rounding the partition to enter the kitchen and sidling up behind Mum as she re-wiped the surfaces for the thousandth time.
Mum met Martin when I was ten and Hayley was twelve. Their eyes had met across the big McDonald’s in Romford. I remember it clearly because we’d gone there for my birthday treat and they’d got chatting in the queue. It was a chat that had descended pretty quickly into saucy innuendo about whoppers, which were easy even for a child to decipher. Still, I hadn’t minded too much because I remember it was the first time in ages I’d seen Mum smiling. When we’d left, Martin had taken Mum’s number, and Mum had continued to be in a perky mood for the rest of that evening. Seeing her spirits lift that day was the best birthday present she could have given me.
Dad had left six years previously, which was when we’d had to move out of our house in Hackney and into a damp council flat in Romford. My memories of that time are grim. Mum was depressed and totally unmotivated to find work, as a job would have meant losing her benefits. It was weird though. We were so poor, yet she still owned fur coats and jewellery, left over from her old life with Dad. When she wore them they used to look quite grotesque against the backdrop of our life of penury.
As awful and heart breaking as this period was, looking back, I think it was the last time Hayley and I were really close. Our grief united us for a while I suppose. And I don’t think grief is too strong a word. To have your father in your life one day, a man who adored us and who was, as far as I can remember, a safe, big bear of a figure, our protector, to have him just up and leave was beyond devastating. All I know is that he was a pilot and one day he simply flew to Australia and never returned, abandoning his family without so much as leaving a note. The pain is less raw but I don’t think it will ever truly go away. Then Martin came along, Martin who was as working class as us, but who had done well for himself and had his own business. The only thing missing in his life at that time was someone to share it all with.
Mum and Martin had only been seeing each other for a few months when he asked us all to move into his house in posh Chigwell, the one he had before buying this place, and I don’t think Mum needed long to make up her mind. I believe he saved her in many ways, and Hayley and me for that matter. We’re very different but he’s very kind and the closest thing I’ve had to a dad since mine left. In fact, often I’ve wished he’d made more of his role as ‘stepdad’ but his nature means he prefers to stay in the background and not to interfere, so my mum’s always been in charge of the important stuff. Still, I’m not knocking him, any man who takes on a woman who comes complete with two young daughters has got to be not only reasonably kind but brave, too.
He still gets on my nerves sometimes though.
I watched now as he grabbed Mum’s love handles and gave them a good squeeze.
‘Oi you, don’t grab my extra bits, makes me feel fat,’ she squealed.
‘You are not fat my angel,’ said Martin predictably. ‘You’re built as a woman should be and besides, it just gives me more to love.’
I tried not to shudder and, as Mum untangled herself from Martin’s grip, concentrated on putting crisps into bowls. My hangover was so bad my hands were shaking, so half of them ended up on the floor. Mum frowned at me on her way to the fridge where she got out a bowl of tuna mix, which she handed to me along with a tray of pastry cases.
‘What time are they coming?’ I asked, removing the cellophane and getting to work spooning the gunky mixture into them. I was starting to feel quite nauseous and realised then I desperately needed some food to restore my blood sugar levels. I bent down to pick the dropped crisps up from the floor and shoved them in my mouth along with a bit of fluff from the carpet.
‘Three o’clock,’ Mum replied, the soles of her feet padding against her wedge heels as she bustled around.
‘Why are they coming again?’ enquired Martin, putting bottles away.
‘Good question,’ I remarked, stealing a spoon of tuna mix for myself and cramming that in my mouth, too.
‘Do they need a reason? They are family,’ replied Mum. ‘Although I must admit, Hayley was so adamant we were all here I have got my suspicions.’
‘What?’ I asked, wondering if they matched my own. Personally I was hoping Hayley might finally be pregnant. She and Gary had been trying for two years now and the stress of being disappointed every month had only heightened her already neurotic behaviour. But maybe this get together meant it had finally happened? Gosh I hoped so. It would just be lovely, but Mum had other ideas.
‘Well,’ she said now, her eyes wide with excitement. ‘The other day I told her about an open audition that I saw in The Stage. What’s the betting she went and got it?’
Not for the first time I felt the urge to query her psychic powers but resisted. The irony of the fact she never knew anything in advance was always lost on Mum and Martin.
Martin wandered next door into the lounge, where the TV was blaring. ‘Oof,’ he said, collapsing heavily and gratefully into his favourite armchair before putting his feet up on the leather pouffe. ‘What was the audition for?’
‘Les Mis,’ stated Mum. At this point they were conversing through the hatch in the wall.
‘Mum if you wipe those surfaces any more you’re going to make a hole in them,’ I said a bit impatiently, though what I was really thinking was; Do you honestly think your daughter, who has no real rhythm and sings sharp, is going to make the chorus of one of the most famous West End shows? Are you out of your mind?
‘You’re right love,’ laughed Mum. ‘Look at me getting myself into such a lather. They can take us as they find us can’t they? Martin, why don’t you switch off the
