there’s still something about mothers and daughters – sounds crappy happy – but it is a special bond. Mama and I have it and I have it with DD. It’s there and nothing can ever break it. (Keep telling yourself that, Honey.)
When I was little, before Dad left, I remember Mama and Dad as if they were one, inseparable. If I have a memory, they’re both there: rock pooling in France on a camping holiday, peering up at me from the audience at the nativity play. He left when I was twelve and apparently I should be damaged by that but, honestly? How bad can it have been when all I can remember is good stuff. At least, that’s how I recall it, but maybe, maybe when we look back, we just make people seem better than they actually were?
Anyway, suddenly, there was just the two of us, Mama and me. Sure, she’s had lovers over the years, but she never introduced any to me. She kept our home a sanctuary and I loved that. If Dad had to be gone, then I loved growing up with just her and me.
But I don’t seem to have inherited her selfless gene. I don’t seem to have inherited the tidy gene and I certainly have no ability to see things clearly! Perhaps I am more like my father (though he has always said that leaving Mama was absolutely the right thing to do for him. Crystal. Clear. Carpe diem and all that). What I do have is a nagging conscience. It pokes me more often than friends on Facebook but I force myself to ignore it (and then, afterwards, worry I’ll go to hell in a rusty wheelbarrow).
Comment: Solarbomb
You said your dad left when you were twelve. Were you really not angry at him?
Reply: Honey-girl
I remember being upset. I remember knowing everything would be different, but no, strangely, I don’t think I was angry. I still saw a lot of him, and Mama and I, we worked well together. I missed him but … it was okay. I think I was meant to feel different, devastated, but I didn’t. I still had a mother and father who adored me and somehow we worked it out.
Comment: Anonymous
REMOVED BY USER
He wasn’t imagining it, the woman was flirting with him. He tried to remember her name – Jane, Janet; something beginning with a ‘J’. She offered him a slim hand. Long tapered fingers with short but manicured nails grasped his in a firm handshake. ‘Jacqueline,’ she said. ‘You’d forgotten, hadn’t you?’ She smiled, though Theo had to look down to Finn’s height to see it. She was tiny next to his own six-four frame. But that handshake had been strong and, as she stood next to Finn, all kitted out in Lycra and cleats, there was something very self-assured about her.
‘No, of course I hadn’t forgotten,’ he said.
‘Yes, he did. He forgot.’ Finn snorted. ‘Dad forgets everyone’s name.’
‘Jacqueline,’ she repeated. ‘Think French. Think you have to make it sound French even though I’m not. That will give you something to hook onto if you forget again.’
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I definitely won’t forget again. French.’ He nodded.
‘And talking of hooks, let’s get you set up, young man.’ Jacqueline play-punched Finn. ‘We’re doing timed races to the top tonight.’
‘I’ll be in the gym.’ Theo jerked his head towards the next-door building.
‘Great, enjoy,’ Jacqueline said, before steering Finn towards the wall.
Forty minutes later he was rowing hard. He stretched his long body forward on the machine, straightened his arms, then angled them at the elbows, pulling his body weight forward. The digital monitor at eye level told him he had already rowed 3.9 kilometres, which meant just over one more to go. He closed his eyes and, as his body moved, he thought of the woman next door with his son. He thought of her small, rounded body, nothing like Harriet’s, who was tall and lean and angular. He thought of the breasts he had tried to avoid looking at. He thought of the way the suspension belt had wrapped around her thighs. Shit. He rowed harder, ignoring the sudden image of a naked Jacqueline as it imprinted itself in his brain.
When the alarm sounded and Theo slowed down, he opened his eyes to find Eddie, his gym buddy and a friend since school, staring at him, a wide smile on his face.
‘Share, now,’ he said. ‘I want some of whatever you were thinking about.’
Theo lifted a small towel from the front of the machine and wiped his face. ‘Wasn’t thinking anything in particular.’ His breath came in short pants.
‘Liar. You’re talking to someone who knows you.’
Standing slowly, he reset the machine to start again and headed to the men’s showers in Phil’s Gym.
‘What’s up with you anyway?’ Eddie asked as he followed. ‘You’ve had a face like a slapped bum since you arrived.’
‘I’m not sure, if I’m honest.’ Theo was surprised at his frank reply. He looked back at Eddie. ‘I have an incredible urge to go out and get completely shitfaced.’
Theo could almost hear the whirring in Eddie’s brain, trying to work out if there was any way he would get away with joining him; what excuse he could give his wife.
‘Stop, Ed. Jules would have you sliced and diced. Both of us have to get up for work in the morning and I have to go home with Finn.’ He rested his hand on his friend’s arm. ‘Another time …’
When he stood under the pressured hot water, in the shower stall next to Eddie, he called in to him. ‘Stop thinking about it,’ he said, before switching the control to cold, gasping out loud with the shock.
‘What if I tell her you’re having a bad night and need my company?’ Eddie yelled. ‘The au pair, what’s-her-name-again, can look after Finn?’
Theo laughed. ‘I’m going home, Ed. We’ll do it soon.’
He listened to Ed groan. ‘Honestly, you wave it at me, like waving a lollipop at a child, then take it away. Seriously. Not. Fair.’
Theo left Eddie drying his hair, slung his gym bag over his shoulder and exited through a series of doors and corridors to the climbing centre where Finn was already waiting.
‘You’re late.’ His son pointed to his digital watch.
‘By one minute.’
‘Late is late,’ he said, stepping into side by Theo. Looking up at the night sky – clear and star-laden, he added, ‘I don’t reckon aliens are ever late.’
‘Right.’
‘Think about it,’ Finn said. ‘More than likely they’re a highly evolved species. More than likely they’ve sorted out the annoying things in humans. Like being late.’
‘Right,’ Theo repeated. ‘Spag bol or chicken tonight?’
‘I’m
