Page 88 of Sex Ed

I pretend to play along, half of my sandwich in my mouth, but I know what she means. London’s two-week summer is here, you must absorb it all while the moment lasts. I open one eye and watch her bask, hair bundled atop her head in a loose bandana. She reaches out for her glass of lemonade and takes a long sip. It always feels like my mum has never changed, just like her home. You see it in the velveteen sofa in the front room with its worn cushions, a yellow ukulele that hangs on the wall, Mum’s pine dining table that also acts as a craft station/mail room and her overgrown garden, filled with stone statues of woodland creatures in interesting poses and a boggy pond to the rear. I first got drunk in this garden. I was with two A-Level friends and the drinking was purely out of curiosity, thinking we needed to get that much done before we went off to university. We threw up in the pond. My mum lost frogs. I never confessed it may have been my doing.

‘I like having you here, in my garden. It reminds me of when you were little and you had your sandpit,’ she tells me, her face still turned to the sun.

‘Which I can’t believe you still have,’ I remark, looking at the faded blue plastic shell-shaped structure propped up against the fence.

‘It’s a part of your childhood,’ she tells me. ‘Like that teddy you slept with until you were in your teens. I’ve kept him, too. What was his name again?’

‘Beary White,’ I remind her.

She laughs. That was a good name though, for a bear. I stuff the last crustless quarter of sandwich in my mouth and stand up, rolling up my sleeves.

‘Well, when you’re done taking in your vitamin D, give me a hand with this trellis,’ I say, reaching for a hammer. She stretches and I put out a hand to pull her out of her chair. I’d like to say I’m here in my childhood garden to just eat retro snacks and take in the sun, but the reality is, in a few weeks’ time, exams will have finished and the final year kids will be attending their prom for which I’ve volunteered to make frames for their group photos. Given Mum is keen on making a placard, I knew she would have the tools, paints and garden space for me to get this done.

‘I’m glad you asked me to help you with this. We haven’t done anything like this for a while,’ she tells me, putting an arm around me.

‘You come round to mine. I make you lunch. I come on your protests sometimes.’

‘Not because you believe in the cause. You worry I’m going to get myself arrested. This is nice, it feels collaborative. Like when we used to build forts together,’ she remembers animatedly.

‘Mum, I need to remind you again that I’m twenty-eight…’

‘They were good forts.’

‘You had skills with gaffer tape,’ I tell her. That she did, she was that sort of mother. A life held together with gaffer tape and love. She lifts the trellis up and I start hammering the small tacks into the edges. I notice a terracotta plant pot by the fence and realise that there are stubs of what look like old spliffs sitting there. I say nothing.

‘So how are things with you anyway?’ she asks me. ‘How’s the love life?’

She always asks me this, though in recent years she’s started to say it in resigned tones like nothing may ever happen in that respect. Maybe today is the day to surprise her.

‘So something has happened there. Developments, shall we say…’

‘Developments?’ Mum asks me, alarmed by my seriousness.

‘No. I’m dating someone.’

Mum stops for a moment, downs tools and yes, that’s a tear in her eye. I knew the reaction would be over the top but didn’t expect crying.

‘Please tell me that’s allergies. Why are you crying?’ I ask, bemused.

‘I am allowed to be happy. I’ve waited for this day for a long time. I’m thrilled.’ She comes over and swings her arms around my neck and kisses my forehead. I’m conscious that the splodges of paint will smudge all over my shirt. ‘You should be more thrilled, though. It feels like you’ve just told me bad news. I’m not reading your brow here.’

‘It’s just very new and I want it to go well.’

‘You’re procrastinating then…’

‘Maybe…’

‘Is it too soon for a lunch?’ she asks me.

‘We’re having lunch now.’ If you can call it that.

‘No. Can I have lunch with her? I’d love to have lunch with her.’

‘Then no.’

‘I’m not embarrassing though. I’m a bit loud and tactile but I’d be nice to her. She’s already met me.’

‘No, she hasn’t,’ I say, confused.

---