Page 31 of Sex Ed

‘Hi! Here, I brought you cake.’ Mia stands there, handing me a napkin of quite decent chocolate cake to be fair, looking slightly forlorn for a Sunday afternoon. I can’t quite read her mood or the outfit. All I know is that she’s definitely not been to church.

‘You have. Thank you. Where did you steal this from?’

She then does a very strange and unexpected move where she enters my flat and then backs me against my front door, her body pressed against mine and her breath warm against my chin. She smells like breaded mushrooms. Her lips search for mine and she kisses me softly.

This is new. I don’t mind this. For a moment I kiss her back and then I push her away from me, gently. ‘Is this how we’re greeting each other now? We won’t be able to do this on the bus. Or in the staffroom.’ And then we both hear the flush of the toilet.

‘WHO?’ she whispers, her hands over her mouth.

I hear the door unlatching and footsteps until my mother reveals herself to us. Please don’t be too much, please. Both of you.

‘Hello! Who are you?’ she asks curiously.

‘Mum, this is Mia. My colleague…’ I tell her.

‘Mia! OH MY DAYS! Come here!’ She reaches over and gives Mia a long, warm embrace as she widens her eyes at me over her shoulder. ‘I’ve heard so much about you!’

‘All good, I hope. Ed, you have a mum!’ Mia tells me mockingly.

‘I do. Biology dictates that I was born of a woman. I was not grown in a laboratory. Mia, this is my mum, Adele.’

‘But people call me Addy.’ Mum holds Mia’s shoulders back and looks at her face intensely. ‘Why have we not met before?’ she asks her.

‘I have no idea and I’m glad that’s now changed,’ Mia says and looks at both of us. ‘You don’t look anything alike,’ she remarks.

Well, obviously not as Mum has her wild frizzy hair swept back in a hairband and is wearing sunflower dungarees and Doc Marten boots.

Mum rolls her eyes. ‘No. Poor bastard is the mirror image of his father… But luckily, he didn’t inherit anything else from the sod.’

I wouldn’t know. I never knew him, but I stand there as my Mum does the usual thing of disparaging his character to people she’s just met.

‘God, you’re very pretty. You never told me she was pretty, Ed,’ Mum adds.

‘Yeah, Ed. Why didn’t you tell your mother I was fit?’ Mia demands, laughing to herself. ‘Are you staying? We can have tea, you can tell me embarrassing life stories about Ed.’

‘That is super sweet, but I have somewhere to be. But next time, I want this to happen. I never meet any of Eddie’s friends. I was starting to think Nigel was the only person in his life.’

Mia giggles. There is a reason I’ve not introduced the two of them and that’s mainly because I’m not sure I could handle sitting there while they dismantle me as a person. My mother also knows far too much. I don’t need Mia learning that I slept with a teddy until I was thirteen. Rumours like that would travel with light warp speed through the staffroom.

‘It’s a date. It’s lovely to meet you,’ Mia says as Mum grabs her bag and comes to hug me. It’s always a long hug with Mum, as if she’s sending you off to spend time at sea.

‘Eddie, your potatoes were par excellence. I adore you. I will call you in the week, my darling.’

‘Love you, Mum. Take care,’ I tell her.

Mia watches the interaction closely as I usher Mum out of the door, closing it softly behind her. I turn slowly, wondering if she’s going to jump me again.

‘ED!’

‘Mia?’

‘That’s your mum?’ she shrieks. ‘She’s brilliant!’

‘Yes, you’ve seen her picture on my Facebook before. This is not a surprise.’

‘She was just not what I expected. She had badges on her handbag about women’s rights and fossil fuels.’

‘Oh yeah, that’s where she’s going now. She likes a protest on a Sunday afternoon.’ Mia looks completely perplexed.She’sconfused? Imagine how I felt growing up. Mum was everything – warm and open and I never felt anything but loved – but her life was governed by a level of outspoken chaos. ‘Thank God she didn’t catch us snogging. What was that, by the way?’ I ask.

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