Chapter 7

      Mum, Dad & Pretend Gym Sessions

       Text Message:

      Mum: Hello? Delilah? Are you there, love?

      Delilah: Mum, this is a text message. You don’t have to check if I’m here. Just say what you want to say.

      Mum: Right you are. I’m at the shops. Does Lauren want to come for her tea tonight? And does she like Crispy Pancakes?

      Mum and Dad – Raymond and Nancy James – have been married for over forty years. Mum was eighteen when she married Dad but they didn’t have their first child until she was thirty-two as they were having so much fun together. They travelled the world and even spent a year in a tiny camper van as they drove across Europe. They had no ties or responsibilities so they could do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. They’d party until dawn, have a quick kip and party some more. I can’t quite believe this when I look at my parents but they have photo evidence.

      My sister Clara was a surprise (but a good surprise, they insist. I often wonder whether that’s true myself) and while they enjoyed the challenge of being parents and saw it as a new and enriching experience in their lives, it was another five years until I came along. I’m twenty-four now but Mum still sees me as a four-year-old in white frilly ankle socks and carrying a Danger Mouse lunchbox to school. It’s only in the last three months that I’ve convinced her to stop making me a packed lunch to take to work (thankfully not in a Danger Mouse lunchbox) and she still thinks fish fingers are my favourite food. Now, I’m not dissing fish fingers. They’re a fine food and nothing cures a hangover quite like a fish finger sandwich, but my tastes have broadened since I gave up the white frilly ankle socks. Ben used to take me to a seafood restaurant in town while we were together and there isn’t much I wouldn’t do for a lobster roll.

      ‘How was work, love?’ Mum asks as I flop down at the kitchen table. I haven’t even bothered to take my jacket off and my handbag is still slung across my chest.

      Rubbish. Work was absolutely ball-achingly rubbish and I’ve felt the urge to stab Katey-Louise in the eye with a sharpened pencil on several occasions. I refrained, obviously, but only just.

      ‘Like that, is it?’ Mum asks when I simply lift my eyes to meet hers and let out a puff of air. ‘Well, that’s Mondays for you. But it’s over now – the boring bit, at least. Are you off out with your gentleman friend again tonight?’

      I’d stupidly told Mum about my date with Dan, though I hadn’t revealed any of the gory details.

      ‘No, not tonight.’ Not ever.

      ‘Never mind. You’re getting back out there again and that’s the main thing.’ Mum flicks on the kettle and starts to arrange cups on the counter, dropping in teabags and spooning coffee and sugar accordingly. ‘It’ll do you good to date new people. It’s been a while since you and Ben broke up.’

      Before he dumped me, she means. “Broke up” sounds mutual, which it definitely was not.

      ‘It hasn’t been that long.’

      ‘It’s been nine months, love. That’s an awfully long time to be on your own.’

      ‘I’m not on my own.’ I stick my chin out. ‘I have my friends and I have you and Dad.’

      Mum smiles, her lips giving a half-sympathetic, half-amused twitch. ‘You know me and your dad love spending time with our little Delly.’ I groan. Nobody but Mum and Dad call me Delly, but that’s still two people too many. ‘But we’re getting on a bit now. We’re old farts. You should be out there, enjoying yourself. Getting blind drunk and flashing your lady area when you fall down in the gutter. I know people think it’s a travesty with the nation’s youth binge-drinking, but it never did me and your dad any harm.’ Mum’s face lights up with a beaming, I’m-reliving-my-past smile. ‘We had such fun, you know. Your dad was such a fabulous dancer. So sexy! All the girls were jealous that he married me, you know.’ Mum’s smile falters as she catches my eye and she’s brought back down to Earth, back to our kitchen and my failed love life. ‘That’s what I want for you, Delilah. I want you to be happy. That’s all I want for my children.’

      ‘And I am happy.’ Sort of. It’s difficult to be truly happy when the love of your life is engaged to another woman. ‘But I’m not ready to date anybody new yet.’

      ‘It didn’t go well with your new chap then?’

      Understatement alert! I simply shake my head. I’m not ready to confide in Mum just what a disaster my date with Dan – my first date since Ben – had turned out to be.

      ‘It looks like you’re staying in with me and your dad tonight then.’ Mum turns as the kettle clicks off and pours boiling water into the cups. ‘There’s a Bruce Willis film on so I thought we’d watch that.’

      Mum isn’t a huge fan of Bruce Willis but she does have a thing about pointing out how sexy bald celebrities are whenever Dad is present, to show that she isn’t at all bothered by his thinning hair. She recently went through a phase of making us watch ancient repeats of The Crystal Maze and practically salivated whenever Richard O’Brien was on screen.

      ‘I’d love to stay in and watch you perv on Bruce Willis, but unfortunately it’s a gym day. Lauren will be picking me up soon.’

      My busted knee is no longer a valid excuse to avoid the gym and it’s lost its powers on Denise too, unfortunately.

      ‘Is