I don’t know what made me admit this. Normally I go out of my way to hide my mother’s neediness. Mark just nodded. ‘That’s kind of you. Do you travel abroad at all with work?’
‘No, mostly in the UK. There are opportunities to transfer to overseas offices, but that’s never appealed to me. Well, again, my mum.’ I shrugged. ‘UK travel is disruptive enough. I haven’t bought my own place. I suppose I could afford something but it’s more of a question of where do I put down my roots?’ I realised that I might just have confessed to waiting to find the right man, to help me make the decision about the right place and so I hurried on. ‘I’m gunning for a senior manager role at the end of this year. If that promotion happens, a decade of hard graft will have been worth it.’ I wanted to ask what Frances did for a living, if she worked out of the house, that is, but there is no reason to assume she would because she had two young boys. I held back because I thought it might seem impertinent.
‘Frances was a teacher,’ said Mark, as though he had read my mind. ‘Although her career was a bit stop-start. Interrupted by two maternity leaves, two bouts of cancer.’
After tea Mark and Oli kicked a football around the garden. Seb wanted to join in, but Mark was being cautious because of his wound. Seb started to cry with tiredness and frustration. I instinctively picked him up, hitched him onto my hip and he rewarded my boldness by immediately settling, nuzzling into my neck. Mark looked relieved, grateful. I left just before the boys’ bathtime.
The second time I went around for tea, we had lasagne and a glass of wine. Quickly, visiting Mark and the boys became the thing I most looked forward to.
‘Are you dating him?’ Fiona wanted to know.
‘No.’
‘But you want to?’
‘Yes,’ I muttered. I didn’t want to look as though I was dissatisfied with our friendship, because I wasn’t. Not exactly. I was enjoying what Mark was able to offer, I couldn’t expect more. ‘But it’s not like that. He’s grieving. I’m—’
‘Handy.’ I scowled at Fiona. ‘Well, you are. Let’s be honest, an extra pair of hands at bathtime and bedtime. Least the kids’ bedtime,’ she added with a wink, letting me know she didn’t want to cause offence, she was just looking out for me.
‘We’re friends and I’m fine with that. I like going to the swimming baths and the park with them at the weekend. It feels really comfortable being around them all.’
‘Just don’t let yourself be friend-zoned. Mark is really hot and there aren’t many hot men around. All these non-sexual playdates might be sending out the wrong message.’
After two months of ‘playdates’, Mark kissed me. We had been to Legoland and the boys had fallen to sleep in the back of the car on the journey home. We put them to bed clothed, not bothering to wake them to clean their teeth.
‘Stay for a glass of wine.’ I couldn’t tell from his tone whether it was a question or an instruction. It didn’t matter, I wasn’t going to say no. He got the wine out of the fridge but before he even opened the bottle, he marched over to me, put one of his hands on the back of my head and pulled my lips onto his. It was intense, explosive. The sort of kiss that oozes energy, purpose. In seconds I was bent over the breakfast bar, my knickers around my ankles. It was the right side of rough. It was fast, dirty, exciting.
Not friend-zoned then.
5
Leigh
‘Mark is a good man, one of the best.’ My mother’s voice oozes approval and relief. I smile, also relieved to have pleased her. Passed the test that neither of us thought I was ever going to get to sit. A man wants to marry me, a good man. I will be a wife. I’ve made it. ‘You are so lucky,’ she adds, a hint of wistfulness in her voice. I take a deep breath; the room has no oxygen. Never before has my mother called me lucky. I’ve longed for her to but the pronouncement, now it has come, seems bitter.
For as long as I can remember my mother has firmly asserted that we are unlucky. She and I. She said it often when I was growing up. Repeatedly. Small inconveniences would weigh on her disproportionately, but at the same time she seemed to expect and certainly accept the bothers, upsets and troubles, never challenging them or offering solutions, because she considered us unlucky. It was just the way it was. Not something to be contested, or even resented, something I ought to accept. My unluckiness. Goods arriving through the post, faulty or damaged, never got returned, she didn’t trust the retailer to send a refund so she would make do with whatever she’d received. When she discovered damp or insufferably noisy neighbours in a rental, she didn’t question landlords but instead shrugged and just complained of endless chest infections that she said were expected – and indeed they were under those conditions. I did not get into the outstanding comprehensive school in my catchment area but had to get on a bus to travel to a much bigger, rougher one several miles away, however she didn’t appeal the decision, the way some mothers successfully did, instead she just accepted it.
Then when, aged nineteen, I got mumps which led to the rare complication of viral meningitis, which in turn was identified as the reason for me having the rarer still case of early menopause at just twenty-four, my mother simply
