Page 2 of Secrets of Starshine
It was what I’d wanted, I suppose. A bit more freedom, a bit less responsibility. Between raising Sam and looking after my mum and listening to my clients share their life stories, I’ve never had much time for myself – never had the luxury of putting myself first. I love my mum, and my son, and my job, but there was part of me that felt choked by it all, as though I was being slowly smothered by everyone else’s needs. If she had a bit of a life outside me, I’d thought, then there would be a slight easing of the pressure.
Now I feel guilty for ever thinking such a thing. In fact I feel guilty about everything – about my mum potentially being swindled by an internet shark; about Sam’s gap year turning into a crap year; about buying cheap clothes that are probably made in sweatshops; about world hunger; about war and famine and climate change. They’re probably all down to me, because this is what happens when I take my eye off the ball.
“Alexa,” says Sam, grinning at the look on my face, “make fart noises.”
This has always been one of our favourite games, and Alexa leaps into action, doing some fat squelches and some short and squeakies. Sam and my mother join in gleefully, improvising their own versions and laughing so hard that she eventually belches, which is an entirely different thing.
Definitely a hell dimension, I think, watching the two of them curl up in balls at an especially juicy one.
“What if it’s all a trick?” I ask, shouting over the racket. “What if you’re being human trafficked?”
My mum calms herself, and wipes tears of amusement from her cheeks. “Well, it would have to be a niche market, wouldn’t it, love? I mean, I am in my seventies!”
“Exactly!” I pronounce. “You’re in your seventies! Is this the right time for a whole new life? Shouldn’t you be…?”
I trail off, because I don’t know what she should be. In truth, she has lived no kind of life for many years. Her world has been small, protected, a tiny bubble inhabited only by herself, me and Sam.
“Shouldn’t I be…what?” she asks when I flounder. “Staying at home and waiting to die? I’ve tried that, Cally, and I’ve decided I’ve had enough of it. It’s never too late to start again.”
“Where did you hear that?” I ask, my voice annoyingly shrill even to my own ears. “TikTok?”
She comes and sits next to me on the sofa, and holds my hand. I am being consoled by her, and it feels strange – I am not usually the one who needs consolation. I am usually the one doing the comforting, not the other way around. Even when Sam’s dad left us ten years ago, I didn’t turn to her for moral support, because I knew she didn’t have it in her. She didn’t have it to spare – getting through each day was hard enough in my mum’s existence.
“Sweetie, I know this is a surprise – it’s been a bit of a surprise to me too, to be honest. And I know you’re saying all of these things because you love me, and because you’re worried about me. But I think it’s about time I started looking after myself, don’t you?”
She makes it sound so easy. So simple. As though that one sentence can erase all the years of struggle, all the times I’ve had to drag her out into the sunlight, or persuade her to shower, or pay the bills for her. All the times I have arrived at her flat after a busy day at work, and found her still lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. All the worry and the fretting and the anxiety, the fact that I’ve not had a holiday abroad for decades because I’ve been too fearful of leaving her alone.
I should be happy about this – and maybe, one day, I will be. I will see her new lease of life as a blessing, as an unexpected joy. But right now, I cannot quite give up the role I have played for such a very long time.
“Have you even met him?” I ask. “In person. Not on Zoom. Because I assume you do Zoom these days.”
“I do, and you can have such fun with those background screens, can’t you? I had an entire conversation with your cousin, Stephanie. You know, the one in Australia?”
“Yes, Mum. I only have one cousin, and I know she lives in Australia.”
“Anyway, we were both on a pirate ship and she kept saying, ‘Shiver me timbers!’ It was hilarious. But in answer to your question, yes, I have met him. He’s a delight. Looks a bit like a beefy Liam Neeson.”
I am momentarily floored by this image, but it is soon overtaken by remembering the filmTaken, and wondering if he’s involved in an Albanian crime ring.
“When did you meet him?” I ask. “And how?”
My mother cannot drive, and views public transport with the same horror most people view an Ebola outbreak.
“Well, it was when I went on that coach trip – you know, to the Lakes? With the other silver surfers?”
I remember this well, and at the time I’d been delighted. In fact I’d been quite smug and pleased with myself – I’d finally found something that had tempted her out of her rabbit hole, and it had given me an entire day off from worrying about whether she’d eaten or if she needed any help putting the bins out.
“He drove down and met us there,” she says, grinning. “He bought me some Kendal mint cake and we walked along the shores of Windermere. It was very romantic.”
I shake my head in confusion. These concepts – my mum and romance; my mum and the great outdoors; my mum and adventure – simply do not go hand in hand. They do not compute.
“But Mum,” I say, still not convinced, “it’s a bit of a leap from seeing someone once to uprooting your whole life and moving in with them isn’t it?”
“Is that what you call it, darling – a life? I’m not sure I’ve had one of those for a very long time. I’m not an idiot – I know how much you’ve sacrificed, how hard it’s been to take care of me when really it should have been the other way around. I’m grateful, Cally, I really am – but now it’s time for a new chapter. For both of us.”
“Very poetic, Gran,” says Sam, tearing his eyes away from his phone. “I think it’s great. What did you meet him on? Is there a kind of Tinder for old people out there, where you all talk about your blood pressure tablets and swap recommendations for bulk buys of Gaviscon? Swipe left if you’ve got high cholesterol, right if you’ve had a hip replacement? Does your profile say you like short walks on the beach because your arthritis is playing up, and that you’re looking for a man who can empty his own commode?”
She calls him a cheeky monkey and throws a cushion at his head. He ducks it, but it comes perilously close to messing up his hair. He’s very particular about his hair, is Sam – it is shaved on the sides, floppy on top, and it takes him a good hour to make it look as though he’s made no effort at all.
