183 Times a Year (15 page)

He's right and I savour the moment; re-live the memory of that rush to answer the phone, that feeling of uncertainty about who was on the other end. I could watch that bloody phone for hours if I was expecting a call, constantly walking past it, lifting the receiver to make sure the line was connected then immediately regretting it, convinced my caller had tried to phone at that precise moment but had now given up on finding the line engaged.

‘But you know, I don't think I ever imagined then the day when I'd actually be reading my phone.' I pick up my mobile phone and swipe the screen. I've just remembered a work email I meant to do earlier.

‘Yeah, we certainly had a kind of freedom I don't think – sadly – our kids will ever experience. But it's difficult not to be amazed by the technology that surrounds our lives now, isn't it?' Simon reaches for his mobile to set his alarm for the morning. ‘Pretty mind blowing stuff eh?'

‘Hmmm,' I reply, digesting the morsels of this conversation and the one I had with Mrs Lambert this morning. ‘Yes, I have to agree, it's hard not to be blinded by science. It's certainly made the world a smaller, more accessible place hasn't it? But is it a scarier place? We can connect with far more people than we've ever been able to but at what price? Surely dominant screen time actually equates to a disconnection with the real world – a disconnection with nature that we had and took for
granted?
Is the price of all this technology actually our freedom? Well, our children's freedom anyway? Do we have to have one without the other…?'

I suddenly realise Simon is very quiet. I look across at him. His eyes are closed and his lower jaw has relaxed so that his mouth looks slightly open. Catching flies Dad would say.

‘Oi,' I say prodding him with my elbow, ‘are you listening to me?'

‘Ummmm, what, what,' he replies somewhat startled. ‘Course I am babe.' Simon reaches for and pats my arm, his eyes closing again. ‘S'late and you think too much. The kids'll be fine,' he says.

Maybe I do think too much. Maybe the memories of my childhood have been tainted with misty-eyed nostalgia. Maybe I'll take the kids for a picnic at the weekend, breathe some of that fresh polluted air. I'm sure there's an app you can download to your phone that provides loads of ideas about re-wilding your kids?

Yeah, like you're ever gonna get Cassie and Maisy on a picnic with you
.

I turn off the light and lay still as the darkness swallows me, my head a hazy mix of childhood memories. I wonder at the staggering speed with which technology has catapulted us into the 21st century. My eyes grow heavy, it's been another long day and sleep is beckoning. Childhood recollections fight fiercely to be a part of my dreams, as do mobile phones and computers.

Do you remember that really hot summer we had when you were a girl?

I do remember. It was 1976 and I was brown as a berry – no factor fifty sunscreens then. I can smell the peas I shelled with Mum, fresh from their pods, and taste their crisp, watery sweetness. I can also smell the beautiful bouquet carried from the honeysuckle that seemed to be everywhere and its white petals
that
provided a mesmerising blanket of snow in temperatures of 90 degrees plus. I can smell freshly cut grass and I remember the straw like scorched patches scored across any remaining lawn caused by the heat of the midday sun. I can hear the hum of bumblebees hovering above the wilting, singed flowers and the revitalising taste of water shared from the hosepipe with my brother. I can taste iron in my mouth from the blood that flowed through it after going straight over the handlebars of my new bike and the feeling of euphoria for beating my fear and getting straight back on after the said incident. I can taste relief in the sweet ice of frozen orange and lemonade lollies rubbed across my sun parched lips and the feeling of liberation from the deadly shades of summer as my friends and I danced around the garden water sprinkler.

Somewhere in this evocative dream a phone is ringing. I answer it but no one replies. Then I realise it isn't ringing; it's actually the sound of a text alert. I read the text:

The past is an outlandish habitat: things are done differently there.

Chapter 13

TROUBLE

LIZZIE

‘Yo, bitch.'

I open the front door confronted by these two words and the back of a tall, dark haired young man.

Somebody's been watching too many US television dramas.

A ring of smoke wafts above his head and as he turns to face me I am presented with a cheeky smile and the youthful chiselled features of someone who appears slightly older than Cassie.

‘I beg your pardon?' I reply. His expression quickly turns from that of arrogant amusement to sheer horror.

‘Oh bloody hell,' he exclaims, ‘I'm … I'm sorry. I thought you were, well, I thought you were Cassie,' he continues.

‘Oh? Do you call all girls bitches or just Cassie?'

‘What?' he replies, his face beginning to redden slightly. ‘Ummm, errrrr, well just Cassie … well what I mean to say is … well it's just … No.' He coughs to clear a throat that doesn't need clearing. ‘It's just that I haven't really made my mind up about Cassie – yet – but if I make her my girlfriend then she'll be my bit…' He trails off, catching the glint of disapproval in my eye. ‘It's just a laugh,' he says. ‘It doesn't mean I actually think she's a bitch.' He wears an expression of sombre dejection.

The pause between us feels colossal and I can't help feeling slightly amused. I finally break the silence.

‘So, what you are saying is – and please correct me here if
I'm
wrong – if Cassie is
lucky
enough to be your girlfriend then she'll become your bitch and to be your bitch is something good, a term of endearment?' His dark eyes dance with mischief and a broad grin spreads across his face.

‘Yo. I mean yeah, that's exactly what I mean Mrs … Cassie's Mum. You are like, well sick.' Why he feels the need to bend both knees slightly and gesticulate his left hand down towards the ground in the opposite direction as he says this is quite beyond me.

‘Wonderful,' I reply. ‘Cassie is – potentially anyway – a bitch and I am sick. It's so reassuring to know that men's attitudes towards women have advanced so far. For years now, hundreds in fact, many women, and men, have fought for the equality and rights of women. So, for all those that threw themselves in front of horses, chained themselves to the Houses of Parliament and Downing Street, went on hunger strike and burned their bras, it's so thoroughly heartening to know that despite our progression and the establishment of rights most young women now take for granted, casual, low level sexism still exists. Emmeline Pankhurst and Gloria Steinman would, I'm sure, turn in their graves.'

Oh dear, the glazed, slightly bewildered expression now staring back at me tells me I've gone too far. Cassie is suddenly beside me, anger etched into red lines of embarrassment now spreading across her face. She scurries past, knocking me away from the door, scrunched up jacket in one hand, phone in the other.

‘Oh my actual god, really Mum? Really? Joe, just ignore my Mum, she's a librarian. She thinks she knows everything but really she knows nothing. C'mon let's go.' I stifle a laugh.

‘I thought you were going to answer the door?' Joe hisses at Cassie as they walk down the drive.

‘Your friend's welcome to come in Cassie,' I call after their
retreating
backs. ‘Yo Joe. Bitch,' I shout. Both Cassie and Joe stop walking and turn in unison to look at me, Cassie's face now a deep crimson red. I point two fingers at my eyes then turn them to point at Joe. ‘I'm watching you.'

‘Mum, really?'

‘Did Cassie tell you her Grandfather has his own laboratory?' Cassie glares at me.

‘Oh my actual god Mum. As if!' she shouts back. They quickly turn the corner and are gone, out of sight.

There. I hope you're pleased with yourself?

‘Well, I couldn't help it,' I respond to myself out loud. ‘I, like most mothers, have a built in, primitive urge to defend my children. He called her a bitch for god's sake.'

You call her that – in here, in your head – sometimes. I've heard you
.

‘Yes, I know,' I continue out loud, ‘but I don't say it out loud (very often) and I don't mean it. Besides, what do young people really know? And what do they know of what we know of the world? C'mon tell me that?'

Now you really do sound like your Mother! He didn't actually mean it, it's just a few words of a language you're no longer privy to, the language of the young. Remember when everything was ‘cool' or ‘heavy man' in the 80s or ‘fab' and ‘groovy' in the 60s?

Besides, you've done your best; Cassie can look after herself.
‘Yeah, I suppose you're right,' I reply out loud again. ‘Mum?' I turn to see Connor looking at me.
Who
are you talking to?' he asks.

CASSIE

Oh my actual god. Why? Why does she do things like that to me? How can Ruby be so sick and Mum be so bloody … unsick? She's not normal. I think she's like that Sherlock Holmes
character,
a highly defunctional schitziopath – or whatever it is he calls himself. Still, I'm not going to worry about it coz I'm walking down the street with Joe as my boyfriend. Well sort of, maybe, I think. That's of course if my stupid cow of a mother hasn't blown my chances with him after telling him off like some naughty schoolboy for calling me a bitch. Which he didn't, not really. She's just old and doesn't get it. What is it with old people anyway? I mean really, what do they actually know? And what do they know about the stuff we know about? Zip, zero, nothing, that's what.

‘You're Mum's a Don,' Joe says inhaling on the cigarette he's just lit. He draws deeply, before exhaling several impressive smoke rings, making a slightly annoying pap pap sound at the same time. I study his face as we walk. He's beautiful, absolutely gawjuss and I swear I'm in love with him. Even more than I am with Chelsea's brother Ollie. I want to believe he asked to see me coz he likes me but deep down I think it's got something to do with Francoise Libert.

My phone hasn't stopped since mine and Ruby's little stunt. I mean it's literally been Facebook, Twitter, texts, and phone calls galore. Chelsea even phoned me and insisted I go to hers to get ready pre-prinks.

‘She's stupid,' I snort, ‘that much I do know. I'm so sorry about all that stuff she just said.'

‘Nah, it's fine,' he continues, ‘she's not stupid, she's sweet, clearly up for a bit a banta. Not like my old lady, moody as fuck. Unless she's shopping of course,' he adds.

‘My mum doesn't really like shopping.'

‘Yeah, I can see that,' he replies, ‘her clothes are a bit shit considering she's friends with a fashion designer and everything.' His words sting and I'm surprised how defensive I suddenly feel towards Mum. I feel hurt but embarrassed and ashamed at the same time.

I
shrug my shoulders. ‘She just doesn't buy into materialism and all that label crap.'

‘Really?' Joe eyes me suspiciously. ‘And yet your Mum's friend, your godmother, is a famous fashion designer – surely she can give her some of her shit?'

I stick my hands into my jacket pockets and screw them into tight fists. This is uncomfortable. I think about telling Joe the truth but then just as quickly swot that stupid idea away. I'm pretty sure Joe would tell Chelsea and once she knew, I'd be finished. It would be like committing social suicide for god sake.

‘Nah,' I reply. ‘They knew each other long before Rub – I mean Francoise – became a designer. And besides, Mum would look at any free stuff given to her as charity and she won't accept charity from anyone – not when there are people starving in the world she says.' Joe raises his eyes and smirks at me. ‘And as my Dad has never paid a penny in maintenance for me and Connor,' I continue, ‘even though he drives a bloody Beamer, most of any money Mum has had has always been spent on me and my brother.'

‘So you're Dad's a wanker too then?'

I look at Joe and we both laugh. ‘You could say that. Why, what's your Dad like then?'

Joe drops the cigarette he's been smoking and stubs it out with a twist of his foot.

He then reaches into my jacket pocket and takes out one of my hands, curling his fingers around mine.

‘I'd rather not talk about that tosser if it's okay with you,' he replies. Joe's hand is warm and feels rougher than mine. I can't believe he's holding my hand in public. We continue just walking and talking.

‘She looks good on nothing though,' Joe says. I throw him a quizzical look. ‘Your Mum,' he explains. ‘For an old woman she's a bit of a MILF.'