father-son combo might have bought it.’
‘Doubt it. But hey, if you’re right, you could go out with the dad. Wouldn’t that be great?’ Amber was delighted. ‘You could come home and tell me all about it. And I’d laugh and warn you not to let him get past first base on the first date!’
Faye grabbed a nettle by mistake and gasped with pain.
‘Ouch. That was stupid,’ she muttered lamely. ‘It’s a serious subject, Mum,’ Amber said gravely.
Just to show how serious, she sat up cross-legged a
and gazed at her mother, her face solemn. ‘I know how much you’ve given up for me but I’m an adult now and you can have your life back. I’ll be going to college. You need to do your own thing.’
The little speech sounded like one Amber had been working on for ages and Faye almost grabbed the nettle again for the comfort of physical pain against this shocking emotional stabbing sensation.
She was meant to be urging Amber gently into the world, not the other way round.
Seventeen-year-olds were supposed to be too involved with their own problems to notice their mothers’. If Amber was urging her to get a social life, she must be a total basket case. Well, Faye’s own mother thought so, too.
‘Come on, Faye, don’t bury yourself. You’re not dead yet,’ Josie had said many years before, and it had triggered the one big row between them since before Amber was born.
‘Leave me alone to live my life my way! You don’t know what I want,’ Faye had said furiously.
She’d never forgotten what her mother had said.
Josie hadn’t understood at all. This life with Amber wasn’t being buried: it was living peacefully and contentedly without the interference of any man.
‘I’m just saying think about it,’ Amber went on. ‘I’ll be gone and I’ll worry about you, Mum. I won’t be here so much and you’ll need to keep busy. And I don’t mean doing overtime,’ she added sternly. ‘I mean having fun. Getting out. Going on dates. Grace would love to set you up on a blind date at one of her dinners, you know she would.
Sure, you’d probably meet a few men you’d hate, but you never know, you might find romance.’
Lecture over, she went back to her maths book, leaving Faye feeling that their roles had been reversed. She’d been the one receiving the lecture on life from her daughter.
Amber’s remarks had been running through Faye’s head since Saturday afternoon.
Climbing the steps to the swimming pool complex, Faye wondered, was this all normal teenager stuff: get a life, Mum, because I’m going to and I don’t want to worry about you. Or was there something else?
Faye went into the women’s changing room, switched off her music and changed into her plain black swimsuit quickly. She did everything quickly and efficiently.
‘Economical and precise,’ Grace said, which was high praise indeed because Grace, Faye’s boss in Little Island Recruitment, turned efficiency into an art form.
‘Economical and precise or obsessional?’ Faye wondered from time to time when she was interviewing in her office and saw candidates staring at her pristine desk with everything exactly at right angles to everything else. A cluttered desk meant a cluttered mind and Faye had never had time for a cluttered mind.
But didn’t it signify an obsessional mind if you
arranged all your paperclips to lie lengthwise in their compartment in the desk organiser?
She stowed her navy skirt suit in a locker and pulled on a swimhat. She never looked at herself in the mirror like some women in the changing room, anxiously making sure they didn’t look awful in clinging Lycra or admiring a physique honed by laps.
At the age of forty, and carrying probably two stone more than she should, Faye was no fan of mirrors. They lied. You could be scarred to bits on the inside and look beautiful outside.
She walked out of the changing room, shivered under the cool shower for a moment, then slipped into the pool’s
‘Doubt it. But hey, if you’re right, you could go out with the dad. Wouldn’t that be great?’ Amber was delighted. ‘You could come home and tell me all about it. And I’d laugh and warn you not to let him get past first base on the first date!’
Faye grabbed a nettle by mistake and gasped with pain.
‘Ouch. That was stupid,’ she muttered lamely. ‘It’s a serious subject, Mum,’ Amber said gravely.
Just to show how serious, she sat up cross-legged a
and gazed at her mother, her face solemn. ‘I know how much you’ve given up for me but I’m an adult now and you can have your life back. I’ll be going to college. You need to do your own thing.’
The little speech sounded like one Amber had been working on for ages and Faye almost grabbed the nettle again for the comfort of physical pain against this shocking emotional stabbing sensation.
She was meant to be urging Amber gently into the world, not the other way round.
Seventeen-year-olds were supposed to be too involved with their own problems to notice their mothers’. If Amber was urging her to get a social life, she must be a total basket case. Well, Faye’s own mother thought so, too.
‘Come on, Faye, don’t bury yourself. You’re not dead yet,’ Josie had said many years before, and it had triggered the one big row between them since before Amber was born.
‘Leave me alone to live my life my way! You don’t know what I want,’ Faye had said furiously.
She’d never forgotten what her mother had said.
Josie hadn’t understood at all. This life with Amber wasn’t being buried: it was living peacefully and contentedly without the interference of any man.
‘I’m just saying think about it,’ Amber went on. ‘I’ll be gone and I’ll worry about you, Mum. I won’t be here so much and you’ll need to keep busy. And I don’t mean doing overtime,’ she added sternly. ‘I mean having fun. Getting out. Going on dates. Grace would love to set you up on a blind date at one of her dinners, you know she would.
Sure, you’d probably meet a few men you’d hate, but you never know, you might find romance.’
Lecture over, she went back to her maths book, leaving Faye feeling that their roles had been reversed. She’d been the one receiving the lecture on life from her daughter.
Amber’s remarks had been running through Faye’s head since Saturday afternoon.
Climbing the steps to the swimming pool complex, Faye wondered, was this all normal teenager stuff: get a life, Mum, because I’m going to and I don’t want to worry about you. Or was there something else?
Faye went into the women’s changing room, switched off her music and changed into her plain black swimsuit quickly. She did everything quickly and efficiently.
‘Economical and precise,’ Grace said, which was high praise indeed because Grace, Faye’s boss in Little Island Recruitment, turned efficiency into an art form.
‘Economical and precise or obsessional?’ Faye wondered from time to time when she was interviewing in her office and saw candidates staring at her pristine desk with everything exactly at right angles to everything else. A cluttered desk meant a cluttered mind and Faye had never had time for a cluttered mind.
But didn’t it signify an obsessional mind if you
arranged all your paperclips to lie lengthwise in their compartment in the desk organiser?
She stowed her navy skirt suit in a locker and pulled on a swimhat. She never looked at herself in the mirror like some women in the changing room, anxiously making sure they didn’t look awful in clinging Lycra or admiring a physique honed by laps.
At the age of forty, and carrying probably two stone more than she should, Faye was no fan of mirrors. They lied. You could be scarred to bits on the inside and look beautiful outside.
She walked out of the changing room, shivered under the cool shower for a moment, then slipped into the pool’s
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