Page 30 of The F*cking Fabulous Forties Club

‘So, I broke your heart?’ I ask, ready for the onslaught of guilt to add to the already huge bag of guilt I carry with me wherever I go.

‘You did,’ she says and I tense. ‘But, love, the story doesn’t end when your children move out. See that heartbreak? When you have to let your babies go? Well, it’s not forever. Things get better. Your heart gets better. If you’re lucky – and I count myself as lucky – you get to build a new kind of relationship with your grown-up children, one that is just as rewarding but in a different way. And the added bonus is that you also get to discover yourself again.’

‘I’m afraid there’s nothing there to discover,’ I say, and feel her hand stroking my hair.

‘Rebecca, there is so much inside you that has just been waiting for the right time to shine. This is your time.’ Her words are as gentle and soothing as her touch.

‘Did you feel that way when Ruairi and I moved out? Did you feel like you were going to discover yourself again?’

I feel her shift awkwardly beside me and I sit up so I can see her face. If I’m not mistaken, she is blushing a little. ‘This isn’t about me, Rebecca,’ she says, before calling Daniel over to lavish some affection on him. That’s how I know, without a doubt, she is hiding something. A perfectly innocent mother would not willingly invite her arch nemesis to climb up beside her on the sofa.

‘It is a bit,’ I say. ‘I want to understand your experiences too. So, how did you feel when we moved out?’

‘Things were different then,’ she says, as if we are talking about the 1890s and not the 1990s. ‘My generation did things differently to you young ones. And I had your father in my life and as much as I loved that man with every part of me, he required quite a bit of looking after and mollycoddling. I didn’t begrudge it, most of the time. He was a good man and we were very happy.’

‘But did you feel you were able to reinvent yourself or chase the dreams your sixteen-year-old self had, once you were freed from the shackles of motherhood?’ It sounds very dramatic when I put it like that but to be honest, it feels very dramatic now. Millions of women might move past their active mother stage every day the world over, but no one really talks about the seismic shift to your identity that comes with having to work out who you actually are once the apron strings have been cut.

My mother laughs. ‘You see, love, that’s the difference between my generation and yours. My dreams when I was sixteen were to meet a good man, marry him, keep a nice home and raise children. I lived my dreams, love.’

‘Mum, there must’ve been other things…’ I say.

‘Like what?’ she asks. ‘I’ve had a largely happy life. There’s many people not that lucky. I’d be churlish to complain about the less-than-perfect parts. No one gets a perfect life.’

‘So you think I should be happy with my lot?’ I ask her. After all, it has had its challenges and its heartbreaks but it hasn’t been bad. Not really.

She smiles. ‘You weren’t made for the same kind of life I was. The world changed, pet. In the years between me being born and you arriving. It opened up. Your generation were promised you could have it all if you wanted it. I do remember thinking it was very exciting for you. That you’d do things I never would. And I remember that wee girl of mine who wanted to be Lois Lane. Who wanted to see the world and make things happen and I believed you would. But then you met Simon and you got married and had the boys and that was okay too. At first, I thought you were just a different kind of happy and were content to not reach the dizzying heights you used to dream about so I was happy for you too.’

‘But then it all went to shit,’ I say with a sigh.

‘Language, Rebecca!’ my mother gently scolds, before taking my hand in hers. ‘But you’re right. It all went to shit.’

I’m shocked to hear that word come out of my mother’s mouth, and that she doesn’t even drop her voice to a whisper to say it.

‘Oh, don’t look so surprised. I know a fair selection of bad words too, and I know when to use them,’ she says, a wicked glint in her soft blue eyes. ‘You don’t live to my age without amassing quite the vocabulary. But look, that aside, Simon was not the man any of us had thought he was and he didn’t deserve you or the years you gave him. Nor did he deserve those boys.’

She’s right of course. Simon didn’t deserve me, and even more so our boys. My boys, as I think of them, definitely deserved more than what they got with him. He’s done his level best to make amends in recent years, but the mammy in me will never forgive him hurting them.

‘You deserved to marry a man like your father,’ she says, a little wobble in her voice. ‘A good man and a great daddy too.’

‘The best,’ I say, squeezing her hand back.

‘He believed in you so much and he was so very proud of you. And if he was still here, he’d tell you that you are just a young thing yet and if there is something you want to try, or somewhere you want to go then you should do it. He’d tell you that you’ll be dead for a long time so get your living in now. So, love, do what makes your heart happy. Go work for a glam magazine, see the world, marry a celebrity. What about that Rylan fellah? Could you marry him? He seems like a lovely young man.’

‘I don’t think I’m his type, Mum,’ I say, and smile. Far be it from me to explain to her just why we’re not a good match.

‘Nonsense,’ she replies, straightening herself. ‘Men like older women these days. I saw them talking about it on Loose Women. MILFs and cougars and what not.’

I’m about to tell her about the dating sites I stumbled across looking for sugar mamas when she starts to speak again. ‘The Loose Women even said some men like a GILF, which is a Granny I’d Like To F?—’

‘Mum!’ I say, shocked to my very core. But she isn’t bothered by my interruption.

‘Anyway,’ she says, ‘Mrs Bishop and I were joking we should get on that… what’s it called… that Timber or whatever it is.’

‘Tinder,’ I say, floored that my mother and her elderly neighbour have been discussing dating apps I haven’t even been brave enough to register on yet. Between that and the swearing, I’m starting to worry she may have had some sort of stroke.

‘Ah, Tinder,’ she repeats. ‘I suppose that makes more sense. Like a flame of passion.’ She nods and smiles, no doubt conjuring the image in her head. ‘We thought they were just being really rude by calling it Timber. You know, because the men would get wood…’

‘Mum!’ I don’t know whether to cover my ears, call for an ambulance or call for an exorcism because there is no way my seventy-six-year-old mother is discussing euphemisms for an erect penis without something being very much amiss. Stroke or demonic possession being the two obvious possibilities.

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