‘We’ve had a lovely day, haven’t we?’ asks Mum.
‘Yes,’ I agree.
She doesn’t pause. ‘Issie mentioned a Darren to me. Pass the jam, dear.’ She’s desperately trying to be disingenuous but she’s had no practice. I, on the other hand, am a veteran. I reach into my bag and pull out, from acres of tissue paper, the shoes I’ve just bought for the wedding. They are covered in tiny beads, zillions of them. They are certainly the prettiest pair of shoes I’ve ever seen.
‘What do you think, Mum?’
‘They are beautiful. Wasn’t Darren the one from the north? Didn’t you go on holiday with him?’
Issie really is rent-a-mouth.
‘It wasn’t a holiday. It was work.’
Mum falls back on the etiquette we have used for a thousand years. She refills my teacup and cuts me a slice of cake. She does this with the precision of a geisha girl. I try to be patient until the little ceremony comes to an end. It is only now that I realize she always uses this ritual to buy time. She has something important to say and she is carefully considering how best to phrase it.
‘Josh is a lovely boy.’
I smile, this is fine. We both know this.
‘He’s been like a son to me in some ways, over the years, and certainly like a brother to you. I’m sure he loves you very much.’
‘Er, Mum, this is hardly headline news. We are engaged to be married next month. Isn’t this the usual state of affairs?’
Mum reaches across the table and puts her hand on top of mine. ‘Do you love Josh?’
‘Mum!’ I’m shocked. When my father informed my mother about his affair, she could not believe it. Quite literally. I watched, from the doorway of the kitchen, as she ran to him and hung her arms around his neck. She smiled sweetly, hopefully, up at him and asked if he could possibly love the other woman as much, no more, than his wife and daughter. She had expected him to see sense and tell her, ‘No, of course not.’ That way we could all sweep the whole silly business under the carpet. Unfortunately, my father was unaware of the script. He’d replied that, yes, regrettably, that was the case. My mother reeled from the shock. It was at that moment that she began to construct the elaborate safety net that would protect her from any such horrors and indignities again. The most notable components of the net are that she doesn’t readily show affection (I can count on one hand the number of times she’s deliberately touched me). She never talks about love. And she never asks questions to which she doesn’t know the answers. It bothers me that in a single afternoon, sitting in the Selfridges restaurant, my mother has broken all three of her own rules.
I figure it’s a bit late in the day for my mum to take up the role of adviser. Just because I’ve let her choose the flowers and menu doesn’t mean I want her opinion on every part of my life. She’s my mother and therefore understands nothing and knows less. She’s always let me pretty much make my own mistakes and learn my own lessons. Why start interfering now? Anyway, I am suddenly piqued with myself. Marrying Josh isn’t a mistake. It is the right thing to do. He’s kind and decent and easy-going and everyone likes him and he’s got great career prospects and he’s a good cook.
And he’s not Darren.
I glare at Mum but she won’t be intimidated into shutting up. Instead she says, ‘I’d hate to think that all I’d taught you was sacrifice.’
I put Mum in a taxi, which very nearly spoils the day because she thinks a taxi is frivolous and sees it as yet another example of my decadence and ‘odd ways’. I simply think it will save her hat box from being crushed on the tube. We all but have a stand-up fight, but we are reunited when the cab driver is rude to us and tells us to get ‘bloody in, or bloody out, the bleedin’, bloody cab’. I take another cab and rush back to the studio in time to sit in on the interviews of a couple of possible candidates for next week’s show. The interviews finish at 7.45 p.m. and when I return to my desk I find the department empty, except for Fi.
‘You’re here late,’ I comment.
She doesn’t reply directly but grunts and glowers. I remember my mild, but public, rebuke earlier this morning and calculate that she’s probably still sulking with me. I try to restore departmental harmony by telling her about the interviews.
‘There was this archetypal Essex girl…’
It may be that she wasn’t from Essex at all, but from Edinburgh or Exeter or anywhere in-between. But it’s shorthand that Fi will appreciate. The girl had been describing her ex-lover. His CV read like the admission book to the Priory. A compulsive womanizer and gambler, whose idea of a day’s work was a sticky-fingered sweep round the local shopping centre; a louse in every way but redeemed in her eyes because he was ‘a real salt’.
I stared at the girl, non-comprehending. ‘An Essex term, I presume?’
‘Salt. Salt of the earth. The real thing. A fucker,’ she elaborated.
‘Quite,’ I smiled. Knowing she’d make great TV and the warm-up act would be able to wallow in innumerable Essex jokes.
‘Hey, Fi, what does an Essex girl say after her eleventh orgasm?’ Fi shrugs. ‘Just how many are there in a football team?’
It’s an old gag, but Fi appreciates my effort and finally allows herself to smirk. I know I’ve won her round when she says, ‘I’m just packing up. Fancy a drink? We could go to the Brave Lion.’
I’m about to decline, as is my habit, and explain that I have thirty plus e-mails to clear, when I suddenly think of my mother’s fretful face in Selfridges.
If only I could leave it there.
I know that if I stay in the office on my own she’ll haunt me, so I shut down my PC and grab my bag.
‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine.’
I’m not. But what can I say? How am I going to explain it to Fi, of all people? We clink glasses and sip our G&Ts.
I wonder what she meant? Sacrifice?
Fi is using her fag to orchestrate the tune playing on the jukebox. It’s playing ‘Always Something There to Remind Me’, which seems poignant. Fuck, I’ll be reading horoscopes next. I wish pubs would stick to ambient music. Sentimental lyrics and alcohol are a lethal combination. I charge towards thoughts of work, and away from ones of my mum, or Josh or the wedding.
‘So tell me, Fi, if Sex with an Ex were your show, what would you be doing to “make it bigger”?’
Fi looks shamefaced. ‘Er, sorry about this morning. I got wound up. I was being ridiculous. As you said, I should choose my battles.’
‘Apology unnecessary,’ I grin. ‘It’s good you are so passionate about your work.’ Or at least I think it is. ‘Tell me, what do you think of the show at the moment?’ I ask this to give the impression that I value her opinion. It’s a motivational thing I learnt on a course. Fi sucks the lemon slice from her drink.
‘Honestly?’
Suddenly I do value her opinion.
‘Yeah, honestly.’
I’m indignant that she’s implying that I like to hear anything other than honesty. Then I remember that I often accept half-truths, exaggeration, insincere compliments and uncalled-for criticism, knowing that they are blatant lies. It’s the oil that eases the wheels I call my life. Exaggeration – of anything from quoting the sales figures to qualifications on a CV – is routine. Insincere compliments and uncalled-for criticisms are always the result of someone else having an agenda. Usually the three Ps: promotion (securing theirs, ruining the chances of mine), pay rises (earning theirs, negotiating mine), promiscuity (all of the above).
Half-truths.
This is more uncomfortable.
This is horrendous.
I drain my G&T. Issie and I are dealing exclusively in half-truths at the moment. I find it totally impossible to be frank with her or, for that matter, with my mother or Josh. To be frank with them I’d have to be honest with myself and, although I have briefly considered this, I’ve rejected it as the lunacy it so obviously is.