The Birthday That Changed Everything: Perfect summer holiday reading!. Debbie Johnson
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in my eyes, running down my face in big, fat, chocolaty drops, pooling under my chin and making my neck soggy.
I stared into space while the deluge continued, barely able to breathe between sobs, lovely Ollie patting my hand and looking slightly more hysterical with every passing moment.
He jumped up as he heard the front door slam – I don’t think he’d have cared if it was a gas salesman, or a hooded figure carrying a scythe. It was the cavalry as far as he was concerned.
My own heart did an equally big jig – was it him? Was it Simon, coming home to tell me it had all been a mistake? Telling me he was sorry? Telling me to forget all about it? I felt so impossibly weak, so impossibly broken by his proposed absence, that the thought of him walking back through that door was like being zapped by a defibrillator.
‘What the fuck’s going on here?’ Lucy shrilled at us as she stormed into the living room. Not Simon after all. Someone much scarier.
Lucy is five foot eight, most of it legs, and does a very good storm. Hands on hips, she stared down at her weeping mother, fidgeting brother, and the tea towel smeared with the remains of mayo-on-sponge. She narrowed her eyes and threw her head back. Her hair didn’t budge – probably because it was dyed midnight blue-black, straightened, and glued to her head with industrial-strength hairspray.
‘Tash, Soph!’ she yelled. ‘Bugger off, will you? Mommy dearest is having some kind of spaz attack and I need to deal with the dramatics…’
I heard a very impolite sniggering from the hallway, and a slight creak of the door as the Devil’s Daughters sneaked a peek at the crazy woman.
They might listen to a lot of songs about the unbearable agonies of stubbing your toe on a guitar amp, but they had no empathy with a real-life human being at all. They’d be more upset at missing an episode of The Vampire Diaries than seeing me in tears, and I’d known them since they were four. They departed in a fit of giggles.
Lucy looked down at me, not knowing quite how to behave for a change. Her usual loving approach – verbal abuse combined with facial representations of complete contempt – normally served her well, but she was clearly a bit unsettled by all the tears.
‘Okay, Mother, what’s the big deal? I know this is probably just some stupid retarded midlife crisis, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt – have you got cancer?’
Momentarily thrown by a worldview where having cancer was preferable to a midlife crisis, I managed to stop my sniffling and stem the torrential waterworks. Attagirl, Lucy.
‘No, I haven’t got cancer,’ I said, feeling poor Ollie deflate slightly beside me with relief – he’d obviously feared something similar. But, unlike my darling daughter, he’d actually given a shit.
‘It’s your dad…’
‘Has he got cancer?’ interrupted Lucy, kicking her Converse-clad feet impatiently against the coffee table. She was dressed in leggings with black and purple hoops, and could have passed for the Wicked Witch of the West.
‘And if he has got cancer, is it in some disgusting place like his testicles? Because I’m telling you now there is no way I am going to sit around listening to people discuss my dad’s balls—’
‘No, no, your dad’s balls are fine…well, I suppose they are, I haven’t seen them up close recently…’
‘Oh, gross, Mum!’ cried Ollie, making gagging gestures with his fingers in his throat and pretending to vomit. Lucy looked similarly disgusted at the mere mention of me in close proximity to her father’s genitals. Clearly she preferred the theory that she had been hand-delivered by Satan’s stork.
‘Oh, just shut up, both of you!’ I said. ‘Your dad, and his testicles, are okay – but he’s leaving us. No, that’s not right. Not us – me. He’s leaving me. For a while. Just for a bit, while he gets his head together. I’m probably being dramatic for no reason. But…well, I only just found out. He told me today. Kind of. He e-mailed me today, actually—’
‘Hang on a minute – did you say e-mail? Are you telling me he frigging e-mailed you to say he was doing a runner?’ asked Lucy, incredulously.
‘Yes, well, you know how busy he gets at work…’
‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Mum, you,’ she replied, leaning down over the sofa and poking one of her fingers in my face so hard that I went cross-eyed, ‘are such a loser! He e-mails you to say he’s walking out and you justify it because he’s busy? This isn’t about him, it’s about you. You’re a doormat. You’ve got no backbone. You’re just a human being made of fucking jelly. No wonder he left you – you probably bored him to death!’
Exit Lucy, stage left, in a cloud of sulphurous smoke. I could practically feel the ceiling shake as she stomped up the stairs to her room, slammed the door, and started blasting music so loudly through her speakers that nomadic tribespeople in Uzbekistan would be wondering where the party was and if they should bring a bottle.
Oh good. The Afterbirth again. My favourites.
‘Nobody else my arse,’ said my sister-in-law Diane on the phone from Liverpool. ‘There always is, Sal. It’s rule number one in the big book of rules about men – they never, ever leave a woman unless there’s someone else to go to, no matter how miserable they are. They treat their sex lives like a relay race – they always need to pass the baton…’
Phallic imagery aside, I knew she had a point. And Di should know. She was married to my brother Mark, who was pretty much the best of a bad bunch, but they’d really gone through the mill when they were younger. He’d had affairs. She’d had affairs. It got to the stage where they needed a PA to remind them of who was shagging who. Eventually all the mistresses and toy boys became a burden, and they decided to have an affair with each other instead. Two decades on, they’re still married, so they must have done something right.
It was the day after my exciting e-mail treat, and the kids were handling it about as well as could be expected. Lucy was out, probably scaring toddlers in the local park as she sat having a fag in the playground with the Demon Twins. Ollie was upstairs in his room, playing Lords of Legend online.
And Simon was due to come round any minute.
‘But he says he needs to find himself, Di. Don’t you think there could be some truth in that? We’ve all been so busy for so long since the kids came along, and there’s his work. What if he genuinely just needs a bit of time and space?’
‘Yeah, right,’ she snorted, ‘of course. Let’s face it, Sal, any man who spends as much time in front of the mirror as Simon does shouldn’t have any problem with finding himself. And, as for his work, are we supposed to feel sorry for him because he’s successful? That could’ve been you if things had worked out differently. I know you wouldn’t be without the kids – well, not Ollie anyway – but if Mr Lover Lover Man hadn’t got you knocked up when you were still a student, you’d be a doctor too.
‘He couldn’t have done everything he has without you at home backing him up. So don’t give me that “finding myself” crap. Take my word for it, he’s got some little tart he’s shacking up with who gives him seven blow jobs a day and treats him like God. I know it’s not really in your nature, but you need to find your inner bitch. He deserves it for dumping you by e-mail.’
‘I know,’ I said, ‘I keep thinking I might have missed something and opening it again…For a while I convinced myself it wasn’t real, it was some kind of freaky spam…Anyway, better go – he’ll be here soon. Thanks for all the advice and I’ll try to stay tough, okay?’
‘Okay, love, you do that – and you better not have ironed those bloody shirts!’
I put the phone down, still