The Case of the Missing Boyfriend (23 page)

‘Oh, thanks . . . My mum actually,’ I say, putting my coffee down on the table and turning away.

‘You’re supposed to clear the table,’ the woman says. ‘It’s self- service, innit.’

I grab my coat from the back of her daughter’s chair and head for the door. ‘Yeah, sorry about that,’ I say.

When I catch up with Mum, she glances at me coldly. ‘Where’s the umbrella?’ she asks.

‘Shit,’ I mutter. ‘Don’t move.’

When I return for the umbrella, ‘Tracey’ holds it out at arm’s length. ‘And don’t worry about the plates,’ she says. ‘I sorted them for you.’

‘Thanks,’ I say. But as I turn away again, she mutters, ‘Bloody cheek.’

I suppose she’s right. I suppose it is a cheek. But frankly, right now, I have other things on my mind.

Back outside, I find Mum sheltering against the side of the building. It’s raining quite hard now, and for this I am grateful. I suspect that otherwise she would have vanished into the distance.

I lean against the wall beside her and say, ‘So come on, what happened there?’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she answers crisply.

‘Oh come on! One minute we’re having a nice leisurely dinner, and the next we don’t have time for me to drink the coffee I already paid for.’

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Sorry. Let’s just forget it and enjoy our day, OK?’

I open my umbrella, and we link arms and walk on for a while in silence.

After a pause, I say, ‘I’d much rather you just told me what I said to upset you.’

‘It really doesn’t matter,’ she says. ‘I understand.’

‘What do you understand?’

‘Forget it,’ she says. ‘It’s classic Freudian angst.’

‘What’s classic Freudian angst?’

‘Kids never want to imagine their parents as sexual beings,’ she says.

‘So you
did
have a holiday fling?’

‘I think it’s quite clear from your reaction that you would just find it amusing,’ she says.

‘Oh, Mum!’ I admonish. ‘Don’t say that. It was just him. I thought you were having a fling with your guide. And then when I saw him, he was just a boy. That’s the only reason I laughed.’

‘He’s twenty-three,’ she says.

‘OK, twenty-three. Whatever. So come on, who is he? What’s his name?’

‘The name’s a bit unfortunate,’ she says. ‘You mustn’t laugh.’

‘I promise,’ I say. ‘I’m dead good with dodgy Christian names. I have to be with mine.’ I feel her flinch when I say this.

‘There’s nothing whatsoever wrong with your name,’ she says. ‘Jenny Robinson called her daughter . . .’

‘Primrose. Yes, I know.’

‘So think yourself lucky.’

‘I think I prefer Primrose,’ I mutter. ‘But anyway, that’s not the subject here. So what’s his name?’

‘Saddam,’ she says.

‘Saddam?’ I repeat, my voice as flat as I can manage. I turn away and blow silently through pursed lips as I restrain my smirk. ‘OK,’ I say. ‘Well, that’s a good strong name if ever I heard one. He doesn’t have a big straggly beard, does he?’

‘I knew you’d find the whole thing terribly amusing.’

‘Oh, Mum, it’s just a name. I mean, obviously, it’s a bit funny. You don’t meet a lot of Saddams do you . . . But it’s fine. What’s he like?’

‘What do you mean, what’s he like?’

‘OK . . . What does he look like? Hopefully not like
the
Saddam.’

‘You know what he looks like.’

‘Do I?’

‘I just showed you. He was in most of the photos.’

I frown and attempt to run the images through my mind’s eye. ‘I think I must have missed him,’ I say.
Unless he looks like an old woman or a teenage boy
, I think.

‘He was the guide,’ she says.

I freeze. I unlink my arm from hers and turn to face her. This involves leaving the protection of the umbrella. ‘You had a fling with the boy
in the photo
?’

‘He’s not a boy,’ she says.

‘The twenty-three-year-old, then,’ I say.

‘Yes, dear.’

I swallow with difficulty. I open my mouth to speak, and then, when words fail me, I close it again.

‘You see,’ she says. ‘I knew you’d find it all terribly funny.’

But I don’t. I don’t find it funny at all. In fact I feel like my lunch is about to come back up. ‘But he’s . . . he’s twenty-three,’ I say.

‘I know.
I
just told
you
that.’

‘You had a fling with a twenty-three-year-old.’

‘I did not have a fling with him. Will you stop saying that?’

I frown at her. ‘Oh! So you
didn’t
?’ I say. ‘Oh, thank God for that. I was getting completely the wrong end of the—’

‘It wasn’t just a fling,’ she says. ‘That’s what I mean. It’s an ongoing thing.’

I nod, and then shake my head, and then nod again. ‘An ongoing thing . . .’ I repeat, finally. ‘So you’re hoping to see him again next year? Is that what you mean?’

‘Not at all, dear,’ she says. ‘He’s coming to Camberley at the end of the month.’

On Any Other Day

The force of the rain is such that, though I have no desire whatsoever for physical proximity with my mother, I am quickly forced to return beneath the umbrella.

As we head back towards the entrance to the park (apparently there is an unspoken agreement that our lunch date is now over) I try to remain unemotional – I try to limit myself to logical, practical objections. ‘But what can you possibly have in common with a twenty-three-year-old Moroccan?’ I venture.

‘We make each other laugh,’ my mother offers, with a shrug. ‘We have a good sex life. What more is there?’

‘And how do you know he isn’t just after your money? I mean, you said the Moroccans aren’t exactly rich, right?’

‘Well if he
is
after my money, he won’t be getting it. So it’s a bit of a non-issue, as far as I can see.’

But the truth of the matter is that my reactions aren’t logical. They are visceral, and, as time passes, increasingly hysterical. I am struggling desperately to control them, to understand them, to catalogue them, because I sense that otherwise this discussion will spiral
waaay
out of control.

I’m feeling disgusted that my mother feels she can replace my beautiful clever father with a stupid twenty-year-old Moroccan boy. My brain is clever enough to divide itself into chunks, and the logical bit is informing me that this specific reaction is an absurd cliché, and as such should simply be ignored. Virtually all children, it says, feel this jealous repulsion about their parent’s new partners, no matter
how
suitable they are.

Next on the list is that I’m feeling genuinely worried about my mother’s mental well-being. As I listen to her rambling on about how helpful Saddam is, and about all the beautiful places he took her to around Agadir – places she would never have seen otherwise – I can only think that she has lost her grip on reality. The guy is a
tourist guide
, for Christ’s sake. He is
paid
to be helpful and to show people around. It’s like falling in love with the dry-cleaner because he’s good at dry-cleaning.

But the biggest sensation of all is one of overriding physical disgust, and it’s this that I’m having the most trouble containing. I’m trying to understand where it comes from, trying to see if it comes from jealousy, or religion, or logic, or prejudice, but in the end I can neither understand it, nor mask it.

‘It just, somehow . . . it doesn’t seem right,’ I say.

‘It doesn’t seem right,’ my mother repeats flatly.

‘It seems
wrong
then,’ I say.

‘Wrong?’

‘He’s young enough to be . . . well, he’s almost too young to be your son. He’s young enough to be
my
son,’ I say.

‘Only he isn’t your son.’

‘Well, no, of course he isn’t. But he could be.’

‘That makes no sense and you know it,’ my mother says, her tone increasingly terse. ‘Anyway, he’s too old. You would have to have had him at sixteen. And we’re hardly that kind of family.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘You’re right. We’re not the kind of family that has children at sixteen because that would be wrong. And going out with someone forty-four years younger than you is wrong too.’

‘Having sex at sixteen, or fifteen or whatever is illegal. It’s hardly the same.’

‘I can see that,’ I say. ‘Honestly. I can. But, I don’t know . . .’

‘What’s your point then?’

‘My point is that I’m worried about you.’

‘Well don’t be.’

‘And I feel sick. This thing . . . It . . . I don’t know. I’m sorry, Mum.’

‘Sick?’

‘OK, look. So where do
you
draw the line? I mean, if you were a hundred and you were dating, say, an eighteen-year-old. Would that be OK?’

My mother sighs deeply. ‘This is pointless. I’m not a hundred.’

‘But if you were. Would that be OK?’

‘I suppose. If it was what we both wanted.’

I shake my head. I’m about to say that surely there has to be a line, an actual physical, non-negotiable line. But then I remember Charles saying it and putting my gay friends on the wrong side of it.

‘I honestly never thought you would be so “
square
” about it,’ my mother says, surrounding the word
‘
square’ with visual quotes.

This comment momentarily takes my breath away. Being called ‘square’ by my sixty-seven-year-old mother from Camberley is a new event in my life. ‘Look, I think I need to go home,’ I finally say. ‘I’m sorry. I . . . I don’t know what to think. And I don’t want to say what I
do
think until I’ve thought about it. If that makes any sense.’

‘Why, what do you think?’

‘I don’t . . . please . . .’

‘No, come on. It’s not like you to hold back.’

I unlink my arm from hers. I can’t think what to say to the woman. Or rather, the only word I can think of is one that will go down like a neutron bomb. ‘Really. I don’t want to . . .’

‘You’ve said everything else.’

‘OK, look. I know it isn’t, technically . . . But it seems like . . .’

I swallow hard. My mother opens the palm of her hand as if to say, ‘And?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘No. This isn’t a good idea. Let’s just, let’s go our separate ways for today and, we’ll talk in a while.’

My mother shakes her head in apparent despair, then shrugs and opens her arms. We hug rigidly and then I turn and start to walk briskly to the gate, leaving my umbrella with her. I have no idea how she feels about my reaction. I don’t seem to have the space in my brain to work it out.

The rain is harder now, but I don’t put my hood up. The cold droplets lashing my face feel good.

Just as I pass through the gate, I glance back and see Mum still standing on the same spot watching me go. My guess is that she might be in tears, but I just give her a tiny wave and then vanish from view.

I feel sorry for her. She seems so happy about it all. I honestly don’t want to ruin that for her. But if I had stayed one moment longer I would have said the word that was on the tip of my tongue. I would have told her that her relationship with a twenty-three-year-old may not technically be wrong, but that it feels, to me at least, like paedophilia. That’s the word I would have used.

The call of the pub at Kew station is too much to resist. I feel trembly with pent-up emotion and so, for only the third time in my life, I head for the bar and order a double whisky. Around me, the pub is stuffed with families tucking into Sunday roasts.

I don’t even like whisky, and I totally hate going to pubs on my own, but this is ritual, and in such situations, ritual is useful. My father – who rarely drank otherwise – always greeted any good news with a pint of Guinness and any bad news with a ‘
stiff whisky.
’ When things happen that are so big you don’t know what to do next, ritual, I find, is usually your best bet.

As I watch the barman pour the double measure, I think about the irony that my mother’s new love interest is up there with Waiine’s death and receiving my divorce papers. On my personal Richter scale of life events, this fits into the top three.

I don’t know why downing this glass of burning liquid helps, but somehow it does. The scorching sensation at least makes me aware of my body again, which takes me out of my brain for a few seconds. I fish for my purse to pay the barman and momentarily consider ordering a repeat. But the thought that he will think me an alcoholic quashes that idea.

Apparently a double whisky is international sign language, for the man beside me at the bar says, in a thick French accent, ‘Bad day, yes?’

I turn and look at him blankly. ‘Yes,’ I say, quietly. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

His expression – scrunched eyebrows, tight-lipped smile – perfectly expresses brotherly concern. ‘You want to talk?’ he asks.

I restrain a sigh. I try to look at him objectively. Though I can see that he’s cute and well-dressed, and French (which despite everything, I rather like), the sad truth is that my brain is just in too much of a swirl to care about him today. I shake my head. ‘Thanks, but no,’ I say.

He nods thoughtfully. ‘OK, I understand,’ he says. ‘No problem.’

I give him a similar tight-lipped smile to his own, and knock back the remains of my whisky.

‘Another?’ he asks.

I turn back to face him and he nods at my now-empty glass.

I wrinkle my nose. ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘You’re very sweet. But I have to go home now.’

He looks thoroughly forlorn as I turn and head for the door. Poor guy. On any other day he would have been in luck.

On any other day,
I
might have been in luck.

But of course on any other day I wouldn’t have been at The Railway in Kew in the first place. Such are the complex webs of chance and missed opportunity that Lady Luck weaves around our lives.

As I negotiate the Underground, I’m glad I didn’t have the second whisky, because travelling slightly drunk at midday on the Tube is a strange and unnerving experience. Everything feels a little unreal, as if I’m watching a pop video with blurred visual effects and over-saturated colours.

When I finally get home, I sit at my kitchen table and stare out at the Leylandii and the rain and nurse a cup of tea, and think about my mother, and Brian, and Ronan, and Waiine and the French guy in the pub.