My mum just phoned the flat. She always uses the same routine; she finishes work and gets off the tube, then she goes to a little pub near her house and downs a few glasses of wine, maybe a scotch or two, then she goes home and gets all nostalgic and sentimental and then she texts me: “Are u home babe? “ If I don’t want to talk to her I just reply; “No, in pub”. But she got used to that, so now she texts Dagmar and Dagmar always tells the truth. Bad idea, but I can’t convince her.
Let me tell you a little about my mum first. She had me on her 20th Birthday, so she’s whinging about being almost 60. Birthdays were always great, we always spoiled ourselves a little, went shopping and had a meal somewhere. Mum got divorced when I was about 6, never saw much of my Dad after that. There was always some boyfriend around, I never got to meet them all. Then she met Bob, he was ok, a bit quiet maybe. She got married to Bob, 2 weeks before I got married, so she could bring a husband to my wedding. I’ve got a half-sister who’s now 24 and she lives with her boyfriend Steve. Poor old Bob went and died in 1993, just after 2 years of being married, they’d been together 11 years. Bob was always a bit sad that Martina, my sister, never took his name, but Mum loves being a Hawkins (my Dads name) and wouldn’t change it when they got married.
I was only married for about 4 years, I was far too young for the whole thing, but I’ve got a daughter, Kate, now 17. She lives with the ex and her husband in West London.
Mum’s worked most of her life doing the admin for a smallish firm of solicitors in the city and I really thought that was why she was calling me. Firstly, she’s due to retire and Johnny her latest boyfriend (for 3 years) who’s also her long term boss, wants to announce something at her retirement party.
But no, that wasn’t why she called. No, she’d bumped into Mags my ex-girlfriend in Sainsbury’s and Mags was still chuntering about the car. Well Margaret, HA HA HA! you can’t have it.
Mags parents are a bit well off, Daddie’s a big posh Doctor, a consultant of something or other and Mummy and Daddy also have a nice house in France. They bought a new left hand drive Audi A4 estate, for easier driving they said. However, I think they bought it so people would ask why they had a left hooker, and then they could boast about their house in France. But they were busy at that time doing something, so they arranged for me to help them out picking it up and effectively buying it. So the car ended up in my name and when Mags kicked me out shortly after, I borrowed it to move my gear and well, I just kept it. Now it’s got Czech number plates, HA HA again!!
And now Johnny says, they can’t touch me, the cars mine, so HA HA HA once more, because Johnny’s a big clever lawyer and he’s my Mums boyfriend.
Mags’ family never liked me much, I was never good enough for their daughter. I was just a lowly Facilities Manager, promoted from the post room They thought Mum was a drunk and Kate, my daughter was a cheeky little girl who never said please. As for Martina, they couldn’t stand the fact she didn’t take them seriously.
Ok, so we grew up in a council house, but Mum did buy it a long time ago and she’s incredibly houseproud.
Oh yeah, the phone call, it was the car, blah blah blah, normal gossipy stuff blah blah blah, and, Oh yes, Katie and her friend want to come out and visit!!!
Well, I thought, this could be a big problem, but I’ve written enough today and you can only offload so much baggage in one session.
So you’ll have to wait for the next episode.
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