Page 20 of The F*cking Fabulous Forties Club

But right now, my boys, or my one boy in particular, does not need my generosity of spirit. He needs my generosity of bank account. And his father’s.

Calling Simon, it’s hard to remember the days when my heart used to be all of a flutter waiting for him to pick up. Those days when we could talk for hours on the phone even though we’d spent the afternoon or evening together. It’s hard to remember the funny, gooey feeling I got in the pit of my stomach when I heard his voice say, ‘Hello.’

Now my pulse doesn’t quicken when I hear his voice, I just get straight to business.

‘Simon,’ I say.

‘Becca,’ he says. ‘What crisis have our offspring unloaded upon us now?’ Oh, how well he knows me, and them.

‘One of financial implication. Although to be fair, it’s Saul who has an issue. Adam is doing fine,’ I tell him.

‘None of that surprises me,’ he sighs. ‘How big and bad is this issue? Because, you know, it’s three weeks from Christmas and Santa still has a few things to sort here. Jessica is going OTT again.’ He’s trying to sound exasperated but I know he isn’t. He’s happy as Larry with the Cooke family set-up 2.0. Jessica is his wife of six years and, thankfully, not the woman he cheated on me with. She’s lovely and she seems to find Simon lovely. I’m happy for them, honestly, and I’m not even jealous that Simon has had more children. Saskia is five and absolutely gorgeous. Theo is three and makes raising twin boys look easy. Wild is not the word. I couldn’t imagine dealing with either of them full time again at my age.

‘Well he’s skint, and he hasn’t booked his flight back yet. So I figured we send him a couple of hundred quid, and book his flight for him? If we can split that it shouldn’t cost either of us more than about £160? Does that sound okay?’ I hate asking Simon for money even though he has never once tried to make me feel bad about it. But still, I’m cringing as I wait for his response.

‘Well, I’d suggest we send the money to Adam and he can help Saul budget a bit, otherwise he is likely to go on the mother of all benders and we’ll find ourselves in this position again in a couple of days,’ he says.

‘Good idea,’ I tell him. ‘Thanks Simon.’

‘No worries. And I’ll have a word with him about his partying when he gets back. Nothing too heavy but just a gentle chat.’

‘Thanks,’ I say again.

‘It was nice to see you at the funeral,’ he says. ‘I mean, awful circumstances of course. But nice you were there. For Laura. I know she misses you.’

His words make me sad, even though I know he doesn’t mean for them to. I don’t want to pick at this particular wound, certainly not with Simon.

‘Yeah, Niamh and I were glad we could be there for her. So, look, I have to get on but if I send you my half of the money could you forward it all to Adam?’ Yes, I am cutting this discussion off at the pass.

‘I will do. Mind yourself,’ he says, and in the background I hear a godawful crash which I can only imagine is Theo continuing on his one-man destruction mission. No, I’m really not jealous of Simon at all.

My bank account raided and my list set aside for now, I switch on the shower and prepare to soothe away the newly formed tension knots in my neck and shoulders. I’m dreaming of how good it’s going to feel when I’m clean, warm and in my comfiest pyjamas in front of the fire. I might even order a takeaway for tea. Maybe a pizza. I know I shouldn’t. Especially after having to dig Saul out of a hole of his own making. I should be switching to beans on toast or cornflakes for the next fortnight even though the texture of beans makes me feel sick to my stomach and it’s much too cold to be living off cereal.

Teenage me would approve of the extravagance of ordering a pizza just for myself so I decide that I absolutely deserve a ham and mushroom thin crust from Paolo’s Pizza. Even making that decision is enough to ease some of the tension in my aching muscles and to make up for the sudden removal of my dream of dancing across the moors.

I grab my phone and tap into the Spotify app. I’d like to say that my Spotify account is beautifully curated but the truth is it’s a mess of random songs and genres all saved into seven different playlists, each called ‘New’ or ‘New New’. It takes a few minutes to find the tracks I’m looking for and as Lizzo starts singing about being a ‘thicc’ bad bitch – which I’ve been reassured by the twins is a good thing – I open the shower cubicle and pretend the waft of steam that emerges is dry ice and I’m walking on stage to perform in my sell-out tour. I’m just stepping onto the stage (into the shower) when my phone bursts into life again. If I just let it ring out, I can check it when I get out of the shower and sure, I’m only going to be a few minutes anyway and it isn’t likely to be anything so urgent that it can’t wait a few minutes, I think, trying to resist the urge to look at the screen and see who’s calling.

At the same time, I know that if I don’t see who is calling, or answer, I won’t be able to fully relax in the shower. No way will I be able to perfect the TikTok dance to ‘About Damn Time’ that I’ve been trying to get right for weeks, and I can’t let my fans down!

Sighing, I close the shower door and look at the windowsill where my phone is propped up. My mother’s name is on the screen and I know then there’s no way I can ignore her. I live in fear of missing that one phone call where she tells me she has fallen and needs help and by the time I listen to my voicemail it will be too late. She’ll be dead and it will all be my fault.

So, naked as the day she pushed me into this world, I answer the phone to my mother.

‘Rebecca,’ she says before I’ve had the chance to speak. ‘Sweetheart. I need your help. Have you seen the weather outside today?’

I think of my walk with Daniel during which I was a little scared a White Walker might appear round a corner, and tell her that yes, I have indeed seen the weather today. ‘It’s a day for staying in and staying warm,’ I tell her.

‘Well, I agree with you but the thing is I’ve run out of milk and I’m low on bread and when I called over to Mrs Bishop to see if she was okay, the poor woman was sitting in the cold because her gas had run out. I said I would walk down to the shop and get her a top-up but then I slipped walking down the path and…’

My heart plummets to the pit of my stomach. ‘You slipped? Oh Mum! Are you okay?’ I ask, grabbing the clean underwear I had brought into the bathroom with me and quickly getting dressed, phone now on loud speaker.

‘Well, I’m fine. A bit bruised you know. My arm… and my leg… and my ego…’ There’s a little wobble in her voice as she answers and I know this much to be true. My mother is not one to complain about her lot. Not even when Daddy died and I could see that her heart was broken clean in half, she would just say that he wouldn’t want her moping around and she’d better get off her backside and get on with living her life. If there is a wobble in her voice, something is definitely wrong.

‘When did this happen?’ I lift my phone and carry it through to the bedroom where instead of putting on my comfy pyjamas I haul on a fresh pair of joggers and another hoodie. This one has the slogan ‘Tired and Needy’ plastered across the front and it could not be more accurate if it tried.

‘Oh, a couple of hours ago. But I thought if I just took a couple of paracetamol and had a cup of tea, I’d feel a bit better and head to the shop then. Mrs Bishop has come in to sit with me, and to keep herself warm, so don’t worry. I’ve not been here on my own,’ my mother says.

Unsurprisingly, it’s not as reassuring as she thinks it might be.

---