Don’t get me wrong. We’re a very happy family. More often than not. Very happy. It’s just sometimes – and any mother will tell you this – sometimes being a mum seems a bit thankless, a bit hopeless. Well, if not hopeless, then certainly outside of your control. I think that’s the hardest lesson I have had to learn as a parent; no matter how much I try, I am not able to guarantee my sons’ happiness and success. There are constant outside forces at work that disrupt things. Forces that matter to them more than I do. Friendship groups, strict or nagging teachers, Insta likes and follows, whether or not they are picked for a team or invited to a party, whether they think they are tall enough, too fat, too thin, too spotty. Whether they are the best at something, at anything. It was easier when they were younger; a cuddle, a colourful Elastoplast or an ice lolly solved just about everything.
I like to listen to music when the house is empty. Two reasons. One, to fill the void that is normally owned by the noise of video games beeping, music blaring and the TV streaming, and secondly because when the boys are home, I rarely get to pick what music is played. Oli likes hip-hop and rap, Seb pretends to like these things because he lives in awe of his big brother and tries to ape his every move – adopting his style, claiming his tastes in music, food, TV shows – much to Oli’s annoyance. Because both the boys like hip-hop and rap, the angry lyrics and heavy, insistent beats tend to thud through our rooms whenever they are about; my preferences are not considered. No one would call me a muso. I stopped following bands when Oasis and Blur started to slip down the charts. Most of the music I like is blacklisted on Radio 1, but I do like dancing. I like a beat thrilling through my body. I guess I’m the musical equivalent to that person who says they know nothing about wine, except what they like to drink.
Sometimes I’ll hear a track that Oli and Seb are listening to and I’ll say, ‘What’s this? This is good.’ Up until about six months ago that would make Oli smile; he’d excitedly show me some incomprehensible YouTube video and tell me facts about the singer: they’ve been in prison, they’ve performed on a yacht to crowds on the shore, they gave away ten million in cash in their local hood. The worlds he describes are alien to me; I remember when the most surprising thing a pop star could do was wear eyeliner. But I liked to listen to him enthuse. I liked to see him animated, I felt honoured that it was me he chose to share his excitement with. I miss that. I miss him.
I once made the mistake of commenting that after hearing Taylor Swift on Radio 1, I considered her my spirit animal – because if you listen to her lyrics, she writes the things I feel. Well, felt, when I was young and vulnerable. It appears those things don’t change for a woman no matter how woke a world becomes. It was around this time that I noticed Oli change towards me. When I said the spirit animal thing, he didn’t get the sentiment, couldn’t see my joke or my attempt at connection. He was horrified. Suddenly furious that I might encroach on his world of youth and possibility, crushes, and illicit under the covers (solo) activity.
‘You don’t even know what a spirit animal is,’ he snapped. ‘Another person can’t be your spirit animal.’
‘I know, I was making a joke!’ I said, smiling, trying to get him to engage. ‘But she is brilliant, isn’t she? It’s as though she understands everything there is to understand about secret longings, triumphs and mistakes.’ After hearing her on the radio, I had downloaded her latest album. I pressed play on my phone. ‘Listen.’ I began to dance around the kitchen. We first bonded over dancing, me and Oli. He used to climb onto my feet, and I would step with him, in a strange slow shuffle dance, the way my father had once moved with me. Obviously, he’s far too big now. He’s taller than me! He’s a great dancer. I like watching him. It takes a confident teen to dance anywhere, let alone in the kitchen with his mother. That day, when I said the thing about Taylor Swift, I waited for him to join in, but Oli just scowled, said Taylor Swift was crap and then disappeared to his room. I can’t remember him dancing with me since.
Wallowing in the luxury of an empty house, I pump up the volume and listen to her touching lyrics and dazzling melodies whilst I mop the kitchen floor. She sings about young love and irresponsibility. Mark and I never had that. He was a father when I met him and I became a mother the day I agreed to be his girlfriend – or at least a stand-in-mother, an almost-mother. Yet as I listen to the words, I am flung even further back into days defined by spectacular failures, magnificent consequences. I like to dance, it’s a great source of joy to me. I adore the sheer extravagance of it. The alone time on a Sunday afternoon seems deliciously illicit, indulgent. I start to sway my hips, move my feet, click out a beat. Soon the lyrics and rhythm infiltrate my body like a stranger. I give in to it. No, that suggests resistance – I jump in to it. I let myself go. I let it all out. I’m normally in control of everything: myself, my family, time. I’m relatively self-conscious, constantly aware
