Four Christmases and a Secret. Zara Stoneley

Mum.’ Yes has to be the answer, if I said no I’d get the Spanish inquisition. ‘How could I not be coming to your surprise birthday party?’ Why is she talking about this now? It is months off, I have an interview to prepare for!

      ‘And are you bringing a plus one?’

      ‘Not yet, but I’ll tell him if I decide to.’

      ‘If he asks you to bring food, you won’t bring those stuffed dates, will you dear? And I hope you’re not spending too much on my presents, I know you’re hard up!’

      ‘I won’t, haven’t. But the party is ages away yet!’

      ‘I know dear. That’s not why I called, you just distracted me! I wanted to make sure you weren’t planning on staying up late on Wednesday, you won’t go out with that Frankie girl, will you? You know you turn into Miss Grumpy, if you’re tired, and you have to be bright and breezy, don’t you?’

      ‘Yes, Mum.’

      ‘You’ve got your interview!’

      ‘I know, Mum.’ Does she honestly think I might have forgotten? I go to sleep each night dreaming about my interrogation and wake up each morning feeling slightly sick. I think it’s a bit like when you’re expecting a baby, you’re excited, but just want it to be over, and you wish people would stop asking about it.

      I mean, this has been dragging on for ages. According to our regular updates from James Masters things are progressing as envisaged, but in the office we think this is business-speak for, ‘We’ve been waiting until we’ve sorted out all the voluntary redundancies and know how many of you we’ve got left.’ Anyway, Brian-the-pessimist went into a huge slump after the merger was announced and declared he was too old for change and that he’d rather bite the bullet now, rather than be shot with it later, and took what he decided was a rather satisfactory redundancy package (he had been working for the newspaper for eons). Pass-agg-Eva stuck it out for a month, then realised that in our caretaker boss she’d met her match and managed to find a job stacking shelves at the village supermarket, and quite a few other people who didn’t fancy moving to Stavington headed off to pastures new (as Brian called them). So I think the HQ holding-fire strategy has worked out quite well for them.

      I’m hoping it has also worked out well for me. I have applied for the job of advertising manager, which is a big step up the ladder – but as Frankie pointed out, it is much better to aim high in the area I already have expertise in, rather than be star struck by some of the roles in journalism, which would mean starting at the bottom again. And now, with so many people leaving, I’m sure I’ve made the right decision to hang on. There is hardly any competition!

      ‘That’s why I called! Now, you will ring me the instant you come out and let me know what you’ll be doing, won’t you?’

      ‘It doesn’t work like that, Mum. They won’t tell me on the spot.’

      ‘Oh, I’m sure you’ll get an inkling! It’s so exciting. Now, I better go, lots to do!’ I love the way she always manages to turn things round, and it’s her who is busy and has to dash. ‘Good luck, darling! Your father says good luck as well, he said you need to picture the interviewer dressed as an Easter bunny and it will work wonders!’

      ‘Dad really said that?’

      ‘With ears! Well, not exactly, he said picture them in their undies, but that seems strange to me. Goodness knows how he ever got a job! I’ll speak to you on Thursday, I’ve got flower arranging tomorrow and I’ll be watching my TV series on Wednesday, so I thought I better call now. Love you!’

      I put the phone down feeling strangely happy. When I was at school, Mum was never exactly a pushy mother, but I always knew she was there for me, a reassuring voice in the background saying she knew I could do it – where ‘it’ was practically anything and everything. After ‘it all went wrong’, I’d felt only the disappointment, the weight of expectations that were never going to be met. But I’m beginning to wonder if it was all in my head. I’d been disappointed in myself, hadn’t thought I could do anything right, and I think maybe I only let myself hear the bits I wanted to, the ‘could do better’s the ‘not good enough’s (which she never actually said in so many words) and blanked out the tentative encouragement, the support she’d always offered me.

      Mum has always had my back, never stopped the hugs even when I had my fingers in my ears and was refusing to listen to her. I mean, yeah, she is always going to be in competition with Vera, but she never actually stopped singing my praises, did she? Even when it was a struggle to find anything – full marks to her for turning my dog-fostering into a Nobel Prize-worthy venture and my small ads into a work of literature.

      I do love her. It’s just a shame she’s always going to be disappointed on the man and baby front!

      Oh bugger, I have forgotten what I was going to put on my list. What on earth does ‘wash s’ mean? Socks? Shirt? I’m sure it will come to me, after all it must be important, or I wouldn’t have been adding it to my list.

      As my brain is so overloaded it is refusing to co-operate, I put my summer sunshine playlist on and empty the entire contents of my side of the fridge – a mini bottle of cava that I have been saving for a special occasion. Surely this counts as such an occasion? I am about to have an interview that will hopefully change my life!