So yes, Ellie was right when she said that being a dinner lady wasn’t part of the plan. The dream had been to work my way through the remaining grades and apply for music college, and maybe one day stand on a stage, playing Debussy’s Rapsodie, which I loved – it sounded like running water – in a chic little black dress. But by the evening of my fifteenth birthday I no longer had a clarinet, and by seventeenth I no longer had a father either as he died in a car accident whilst under the influence.
I had to leave school then, and Mum rushed up to see me: to ‘look after you’, she said, rather belatedly, even suggesting I move down to Wales with her as I wasn’t in a position to pay rent and cook my own dinners and take care of myself. I told her tersely that I’d been cooking my own dinners for years. Convincing her I’d be okay, I packed her off home and managed to nab a job as a live-in cleaner at Sunshine Valley holiday park near Morecambe Bay. And that’s when my glittering career began …
Whoa, daytime boozing! It’s sent my thoughts racing as I loiter at the bar while Janice gets our drinks. I need to slow down, drink some water, like everyone says. But then, it is my birthday, and I’ve arranged a day off from Mrs B. So why not? The next few hours pass extremely enjoyably, and by the time I return home at just gone five, I’m so buoyed up that I barely even register the scattering of Hula Hoop packets littering the kitchen.
Morgan and Jenna have returned from their trip and are watching something very shouty on TV. Like Hitler invading Poland, my son seems to have annexed our living room as his private snogging quarters while I beaver away in the kitchen. No mention of my birthday yet, but never mind. I poke my head round the living room door. ‘I’ll do pizzas later,’ I announce, at which the lovers spring apart.
‘Mum! D’you have to just barge in?’
‘I didn’t barge, Morgan. I’m just trying to cater to your needs. Anyway, what am I supposed to do? Wear a little bell around my neck, like a cow, to warn you that I’m approaching?’
‘No need to be like that …’
‘It’s just, it is my house too. I actually live here. I’m not just the maid …’
Jenna giggles and smooths her rumpled fair hair. Oh God, there’s what looks distinctly like a love bite planted on her slender neck. I thought they went out of fashion around 1979, like Clackers. What the heck will her mum say?
The landline trills in the hall beside me and I snatch it from the shelf. It’s Vince, my ex. ‘Happy birthday, Aud,’ he says jovially.
‘Thanks, Vince.’ It’s lovely to hear from him, actually. Once we’d recovered from the break-up, we’ve functioned pretty well as friends; better, in fact, than as partners. ‘All the fours, eh?’ he adds. ‘How does that feel?’
‘Ancient,’ I reply with a grimace.
‘Doing anything nice tonight?’
‘No plans, I’ve just been out for lunch with the girls, that was lovely—’
‘Yeah, you sound inebriated,’ he teases. Since embarking on self-sufficient bliss in the wilds of Northumberland with his girlfriend Laura – a wispy, jam-making sort – my ex has become rather smug.
‘I’ve only had three glasses of wine,’ I fib, wandering through to the kitchen to top up Paul’s flowers with water.
‘Sure you have. Anyway, how’s our useless layabout of a son? Any signs of him shifting his arse off that sofa yet?’
‘Not so I’ve noticed …’
Vince grunts. ‘Can I have a word?’
‘Of course,’ I say, striding back to the living room and holding out the phone. Morgan disentangles himself from his lady love and squints at it, as if not entirely sure what it is. To be fair, cold callers and Vince are the only ones who ever ring.
‘Happy birthday, Audrey,’ Jenna says, somewhat belatedly, as Morgan falls into a muttered conversation with his father.
‘Thanks, Jenna.’
‘Yuh,’ Morgan murmurs, ‘I’m lookin’, Dad. Can’t just magic up a job, y’know? It’s tough out there …’
‘So great about your prize,’ she adds. ‘Decided what you’re going to do with the money yet?’
I hesitate, wishing the focus were more on the accolade and less on the cash. She’s a sweet girl, and clearly loves Morgan to bits, but she hasn’t shaken him out of his reverie as I’d hoped she might.
Morgan finishes the call – it lasted barely two minutes – and flips open his laptop.
Jenna nudges my son. ‘Five grand, Morgan! Imagine having all that to spend …’
‘Uh, yeah …’ He stares hard at the screen.
‘I’d hit Top Shop,’ she announces. ‘Oh my God, can you imagine? I’d have a St Tropez tan and get HD brows and individual lash extensions …’ This is how different we are as females. At the prospect of sudden riches, she thinks: beautification. I think: new kitchen table.
‘Yup,’ he grunts while I glance around the room for a beautifully wrapped present with my name on it. Heck, any old thing in a Superdrug carrier bag would do. But all I spot are Morgan’s juggling sticks dumped on the rug and the aforementioned pants still strewn around. A packet of salami is lying open on the coffee table; several slices have escaped and are wilting on the glass surface, like coasters made from fatty pork. I glower at them, willing Morgan to shut his laptop and at least acknowledge the occasion. ‘Oh, man,’ he blurts out, ‘that’s so cool!’
‘What is?’ I ask.
‘This thing here.’ He jabs at his laptop. I go behind him and peer over his shoulder at the screen.
‘What is this?’
‘Just a thing, a tutorial thing …’
I watch a few seconds of the YouTube clip in which an earnest-looking child is balancing a beach ball on his head while juggling multi-coloured blocks. ‘But he’s just a little kid, Morgan. He looks about eight.’
‘Yeah.’ He nods.
‘And it doesn’t look that difficult,’ I add.
He rounds on me. ‘It is! You’ve no idea …’
‘Oh, come on,’ I say, laughing. ‘It’s not as if he’s, I don’t know, juggling while dancing on burning hot coals or eating fire—’
‘You want that poor kid to burn himself?’
‘Of course I don’t …’
He turns to Jenna. ‘She’ll only be happy when he’s admitted to hospital for skin grafts.’
‘Jesus!’
The two of them snigger conspiratorially and, not for the first time, I feel like the intruder here, who’s blundered into a world of love bites and YouTube tutorials and meals consisting of salami and crisps, which I have no hope of ever understanding.
‘S’good, this,’ he mutters huffily, having turned his attention back to the screen. ‘S’giving me ideas …’
‘Ideas for what specifically?’ I ask.
He exhales through his nose as the clip switches to the child balancing a stack of bricks on his chin. ‘My act,’ Morgan murmurs.
What act? I want to ask, but can’t bring myself to be so cutting, especially in front of Jenna. However, Morgan’s childhood yearnings to be an international spy seem entirely achievable, compared to expecting a career to materialise