Page 52 of The F*cking Fabulous Forties Club

‘It’s true,’ I say. ‘He sounds sort of smitten.’

‘I know it’s true,’ she says, turning her phone screen to face me. ‘That’s her location. I have her on Find My Phone and that is definitely not Belfast on the map – it appears to be some sort of student digs in Manchester.’

I blink and squint at the screen, thinking I very much need to book in for an eye test. And yes, it is student digs, and it is the student digs where my boys are staying. Not that I needed convincing. If Adam tells me something, then it is guaranteed to be the absolute truth. Saul is another story… but not Adam.

She pulls her phone away again and taps furiously at the screen. I’m trying to read her face. Is she annoyed? If so, is she annoyed at Jodie for not telling her? Or Jodie for hooking up with my son? Because if it’s the latter, my mama bear instincts are getting primed to tear her to shreds. Any mother should be delighted to have Adam dating their daughter. Of course, again, Saul is another story. But Adam – sweet, gentle, responsible Adam – he’s a catch. If that doesn’t sound too weird coming from his mum.

‘Well, ride me sideways!’ she declares and turns her phone to my face and once again I have to try and focus on the screen in front of me.

‘What am I looking at?’ I ask her as the phone is waved in front of me, but then, slowly at first, the image on the screen comes into focus. It’s a picture of Adam – his very handsome face dominated by the widest of smiles – with his arms wrapped around Jodie. Jodie who happens to be wearing a matching grin. The kind of grin that only comes with that all-encompassing rush of dopamine and endorphins and all sorts of happy hormones that flood our system when we are falling in love for the very first time. Their happiness exudes from the screen so much that it takes me a moment to notice Saul pulling a very confused, ridiculous face in the background in one of his trademark photobombs. Somehow this picture sums up absolutely everything about my children.

Below the picture is a three-word caption. ‘Insta official now!’

I look at Niamh, who is staring directly at me as if trying to read my reaction. We used to joke about this, of course. When the children were born. We did that really awful thing that parents do and referred to our babies as each other’s boyfriend and girlfriend and talked about who would get to wear the biggest hat at the wedding. Niamh always called that particular one because she, of course, would be the mother of the bride which overruled any sort of mother of the groom nonsense.

‘So,’ I say. ‘I’m assuming she didn’t tell you this.’

‘She did not,’ Niamh says, her face falling.

‘I only found out by accident last night,’ I soothe. ‘Seems we were both being kept in the dark.’

‘Sure, as long as Instagram knows, what do we matter?’ she says, her voice bitter and her expression sad. Damn it. We had got back happy Niamh for a bit and now she is back in the feeling pointless and unloved space.

‘They’re young and selfish, just like we were young and selfish,’ I tell her. ‘It’s a privilege only the under twenty-fives really get to enjoy. I’m sure they didn’t mean to exclude us.’ But as I speak, I start to feel a little sad too. Maybe I need to take more co-codamol and sail off on another opioid induced cloud of bliss.

‘Maybe,’ she says. ‘But it would’ve been nice to be told before the world and his mother. God, I’m even sounding like my own ma now – giving out about social media and people sharing their lives.’

I haul myself to standing and walk around the bed and open my arms wide. ‘Here, give me a hug. It will make you feel better. But don’t squeeze too tight. My arse won’t like it.’

She lets out a loud, heartfelt laugh and walks towards me so I can hug her. ‘It’s a good thing though, isn’t it? That our children have found each other?’

‘I suppose it is,’ she says.

‘And at least she’s with Adam and not Saul.’

‘That is a very fair point,’ she says with a laugh. ‘Not that I don’t love the very bones of my godsons the same.’

‘Oh, I know that,’ I say. ‘But Saul’s an eejit.’

‘He is,’ she says, and she is the only person in the entire world who I would allow to speak about my son in that way. ‘But a nice eejit,’ she clarifies.

We hug a little more before she pulls away. ‘I really better get home. It’s only a matter of time before Ethan or Cal see that Insta update, and say something to Paul and all hell breaks loose because there’s no way he’ll believe I knew nothing about it.’

‘I am always here to be your character witness,’ I say as I hobble down the stairs, ouching and oohing as I go.

‘Are you sure you don’t want me to look at that before I go?’ Niamh asks as she gets ready to leave.

‘I think you’ve had a tough enough day without me forcing my bum on you,’ I say. ‘Honestly, I’ll be fine. I’d like to say my ego is more bruised than anything but I don’t think that’s true.’

‘I’ll check in on you tomorrow morning, okay?’ Niamh says, opening the door and letting an icy blast of wind and rain in.

‘Not if I check on you first!’

‘And we definitely need to go to Amsterdam. Let’s get that in the diary. See when suits Laura and let’s make it so,’ she says, kissing me on the cheek and walking down the drive towards her car singing the only two lines from ‘Tulips from Amsterdam’ that she knows.

Balls. I realise that between my fall, her pregnancy scare, Adam and Jodie getting it on, and the high-strength painkillers, I haven’t even told her about Laura. Maybe because I’m terrified that this time she’ll take Laura’s side.

35

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