do have fun, and it’s thrilling to think that, instead of making cups of tea for Mrs B tonight and then coming home to channel-hop on my own, I have hours of pleasure ahead. Okay, I’ll have to be up at the crack of dawn to make it home in time for work – pity, as checkout isn’t until eleven (I’m familiar with such details) – but at least we’ll grab some buffet breakfast. While Stevie’s sniffy about the dinner menu, he does enjoy piling his plate high with hash browns and cumberland sausages. Then we’ll be off: me back to my small, sleepy town just outside York, and Stevie to his next appointment somewhere in the Manchester area.
‘That was amazing,’ he murmurs, pulling me close. I glance at my phone, which is sitting beside my empty champagne glass: 10.17 p.m.
‘It really was.’ My stomach growls as I kiss his delicious-smelling neck.
‘You hungry, babe?’
‘Yes, I am a bit.’
He smiles, and plants a tender kiss on my forehead before swivelling out of bed. ‘No problem, I’ll nip out and get us something …’ I glance at his lean, taut body as he pulls on his jeans and shirt, wondering – as I always do – how I managed to get so lucky.
In his absence I stretch out in bed, enjoying the coolness of the sheets against my skin. From a laminated card on the bedside cabinet, I learn that the all-you-can-eat breakfast is just £5. I doze a little, then check my phone, to reassure myself that my darling son hasn’t plunged his finger into an electrical socket or exploded the TV. No texts, which could signify that he’s lying in a fried heap, although I know I’m being ridiculous. No contact from Morgan is completely normal – he tends to message me only when he needs to know where he might find money for late-night chips. And I can’t bring myself to text Jenna to ask if he’s okay; he’d be mortified.
My worries fade as the door opens, signifying that my hunter-gatherer has returned from the service station shop – open 24 hours, another benefit of conducting our sex life on the motorway – with a carrier bag of treats. ‘Hey,’ he chuckles, undressing swiftly and clambering back into bed, ‘imagine finding you here.’ I laugh as he tips out our provisions, which, I happen to notice, contains one of those Fuzzy Brush toothbrushes that come in a little plastic ball from a dispenser in the loos. ‘Forgot my toothbrush,’ he says with a grin.
‘Another great thing about service stations,’ I snigger, which he chooses to ignore. We kiss, and we eat, and then, fuelled by a couple of Ginsters Meat Feast Slices and a tub of Pringles, we fall back into each other’s arms.
It’s lovely, as always. But I still can’t shake off the feeling that this isn’t quite right.
Thursday, 10.35 a.m, and I’ve just arrived home. The kitchen is littered with empty tuna tins – Morgan is prone to forking canned fish straight into his mouth, but has yet to master the art of depositing the tins in the bin – and an array of crumb-strewn plates. There’s a spillage of pink juice (apple and raspberry?) on the table, plus a scattering of shattered Twiglets, like the components of some primitive game. I pick one up and bite it. It lacks freshness. I stare at the mess, dithering over whether or not to lose my rag, and deciding that I can’t face a confrontation the minute I’m home.
Anyway, there’s no one to be annoyed at as the rare nocturnal mating pair has yet to appear. Of course: it’s not yet 11 a.m. As my darling boy is currently neither in employment nor further education – unless you count a weekend course in beginner’s circus skills, foolishly paid for by me, as he fancied ‘a go at street theatre’ – he has no real reason to get up. While Jenna is reputedly studying beauty therapy, the course seems to have an awful lot of leisure time built in. I find it hard to comprehend how two people can do so little with their time.
‘I’m off to work now,’ I call up from the hallway. ‘You might think about hoovering the stairs, Morgan? And get some shopping in, would you? We need bread, cheese, fruit … remember fruit? Does that sound familiar? Apples, pears, stuff like that. They grow on trees, reportedly good for you …’
An unintelligible response. At least I know he’s alive.
‘Or oranges? How about some of those? Full of vitamin C, darling, handy if you want to avoid rickets or scurvy …’ His bedroom door creaks open and he appears on the landing in his oversized stripy dressing gown. He looks pale – light-starved and faintly sweaty – yet is still handsome in his rather malnourished, hair-untroubled-by-comb sort of way.
‘What d’you say?’
I muster a brisk smile. ‘Fruit, darling. Get some, please. There’s money in the jar. Oh, and clear up all that mess you left. I don’t know who’re you’re expecting to do it for you. A team of magic elves?’
He peers at me, as if trying to process my incomprehensible request, then shuffles off back to his room.
‘Even some canned pineapple would do,’ I trill, a little manically, as I step out into the street.
My daytime job is at the local primary school. The brisk ten-minute walk is just long enough for me to shake off domestic irritations and slip into the cheery persona required for working in the canteen. Our home town is definitely a proper town, although Morgan would term it a village as he reckons nothing of any interest ever happens here. ‘What am I s’posed to do exactly?’ he moaned recently, when I complained about his lack of activity. ‘I’m dying in this place. It’s crushing my soul. Why did we ever leave York?’ That’s where he spent his first seven years until Vince, his father, and I broke up. It made sense then to move to the house my friend Kim had just inherited from her mum and offered to let to me at a ridiculously low rent. Although Morgan welcomed the move – and made friends here immediately – he now views it as unforgivable on my part.
School is an imposing Victorian red-brick building, with part of the playground given over to wooden troughs crammed with pansies and marigolds planted by the children. Although being a dinner lady didn’t exactly feature on my plans, I had to find something – a stopgap – to fit around looking after Morgan when we first moved here. I try not to dwell upon the fact that it’s been a very long time since his school hours have been a factor in my life.
In the kitchen, Amanda, the cook, is stirring an enormous pot of fragrant chicken curry. It’s the last day of term, and there’s a lightness in the air, a palpable sense of anticipation. ‘So what are you and Morgan up to this summer?’ she asks, briefly looking round from the stove.
‘Me and Morgan?’ I laugh. ‘Nothing. God, can you imagine him wanting to come away with me?’ I pause, then add, ‘I think me and Stevie might book a last-minute thing …’ Why did I even say that? We have never discussed going away for more than a night together, and certainly nowhere other than a motorway hotel.
I pull on my blue school apron and set out plastic cups and water jugs on the tables. My proper job title is an MSA, a Midday Supervisory Assistant. I don’t exactly look like your classic dinner lady – the stern auntie type with a perm – but then nor do my colleagues. Whippet-thin Amanda has a diamond nose stud and a bleach-blonde crop, while Delyth is all raucous laughter and glossy red lips, possibly the vampiest woman to ever grace a school canteen. However, she can be rather formidable when crossed; she takes no nonsense from the
