Page 59 of The F*cking Fabulous Forties Club

I wonder if I should just hang up, turn my phone off, and deal with this drama later. I could tell my mum the signal went and hopefully by the time she gets through to me again – when I switch my phone back on, obvs – she will have forgotten about whatever it is that has given her the rage.

Of course that would go against my new policy of meeting things head on, so I take a deep breath.

‘Yes?’ I say. ‘Is everything okay?’

‘Well, no,’ my mother says, her accent particularly well enunciated in the way normally only reserved for when she talks to doctors and priests. This must be very serious business indeed then.

‘I’ve been talking to your brother,’ she says.

Ruairi! I think. He must have grassed on me. I’m not entirely sure what he could’ve grassed on me about, but that isn’t stopping this triggering my own version of PTSD anyway. Dear Reader, let me introduce you to PBWADD – Post-Brother-Was-A-Dick-Disorder. ‘Whatever he says, he’s lying,’ I mumble. ‘I didn’t do anything wrong. He just always wants to get me in trouble!’

I know they say there are times when, as you grow older, you open your mouth and hear your mother’s voice come out. I wasn’t aware there would also be times I would open my mouth and hear one of my own children’s voices as they tried their best to rat each other out.

‘He tells me you were trying to book a holiday for me, for us,’ she says in a voice that makes it sounds as if booking a holiday is the equivalent of taking a poo in the middle of her carpet.

‘Yes,’ I say, confused. ‘Just a few days, maybe. To Donegal. Like we did when we were little.’

‘Well, why would you be wanting to do that? And in winter? What would you do with yourself in Donegal in the winter? And the cost of it too. And you with those boys to put through university.’ She sounds absolutely horrified and enraged. The strength of her reaction is flooring me.

‘Because when we spoke recently about things you really enjoyed you said your happiest memories were the family holidays we went on when we were wee,’ I offer. ‘There’s plenty to do in Donegal in the winter. A walk along the beach on a blustery day is hard to beat.’

‘I’m almost eighty, Rebecca,’ my mother says. ‘There are lot of things that beat a walk on the beach on a cold day. In fact, almost anything does.’

‘And it’s not that expensive,’ I cut across her. ‘Besides, Ruairi said he would pay the majority and it’s not like he’s short of money, what with being so successful and everything.’

I know that going in with a comment praising her beloved eldest child in the hope of placating her is a bit of a manipulative move but needs must. Besides, I’ve no idea how else to go in. This is a nice thing I’m trying to do and yet she sounds mortally offended at the very notion.

‘Maybe so,’ she says, ‘but do you not think you should’ve talked to me about it before you started making plans? I might’ve made other plans already for myself.’

As if, I think but I know better than to say it out loud. ‘Well, we’ve not actually booked it yet. We were just looking at different options and we’d probably have run it past you,’ I tell.

‘Probably?’

She’s really not happy. I need to fix this quick. ‘Well, we would’ve, Mum. I promise.’

‘And I would’ve told you there’s no need because I already have a holiday booked, and I didn’t need anyone to do it for me. There’s life in the aul doll yet, you know.’

I am, for once, at a complete loss for words. My mother has booked a holiday. My mother who can’t even go to Asda on her own, has booked a holiday?

‘What? Where? With who? When?’ The questions spill out of my mouth as quickly as they land in my thoughts.

‘With Mrs Bishop,’ she says. ‘I was thinking about all the stuff you said about living life and trying new things and so I talked to Emily – Mrs Bishop – and she said she couldn’t remember the last time she went on holiday so we thought, you know, why not? Long story short, we found a travel company online?—’

‘You found a travel company online? Online? You, who doesn’t trust the internet not to steal all your money?’ I interrupt, not sure whether to be impressed or terrified she has found some online crook who will, in fact, steal all her money.

‘Yes. Online. One of the lovely ladies down at the Central Library helped us find our way through it,’ my mother says and I immediately think that the lovely ladies in the Central Library must have the patience of saints. ‘We found a company that specialises in holidays for the more senior members of society, and we booked a week-long cruise around the Canary Islands. We fly out at the start of February.’

I’ve never really understood the expression ‘you could’ve knocked me down with a feather’ before now. Nothing in this modern world is really that shocking. Except, I realise, for this.

‘So you see, Rebecca, you don’t need to be spending money or time that would be better devoted to your work, your youngsters or that dog on me and taking me on some holiday. I appreciate the thought but I’m well able to make my own plans and there’s life in me yet. If you can go on a girly holiday, then so can I!’

The thought of my mother describing a break with Mrs Bishop as a ‘girly holiday’ is incredibly sweet. And even though she has just told me off for trying to do a nice thing for her, I can’t help but feel a swell of affection for my mother and a real deluge of pride that she has worked this out without my help. Who would’ve thought my mother and Mrs Bishop had it in them? I only hope they’re not about to unleash a whole new variety of Thelma and Louise-type mayhem on the world. Or maybe I hope they do.

‘Of course you can do it,’ I tell her. ‘I think that’s brilliant. Anything that distracts you from putting your affairs in order, or climbing into attics is a positive in my book.’

I hear a little laugh. It sounds almost girlish. Who would’ve thought that Pandora’s Shoebox would have such a positive effect on my mother as well?

‘Well, I’ll still be putting my affairs in order,’ she says, ‘but I promise that I won’t climb into any more attics. I’ll leave those sorts of antics to you.’

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