The Woman Who Upped and Left: A laugh-out-loud read that will put a spring in your step!

I started secondary school and was pinged straight into remedial maths. By now, Dad had given up on me, and himself, or so it seemed: while he’d once worked as a carpenter he rarely left the house these days. Mum’s letters had dwindled to one every few months, and in my replies I was careful to stress that everything was fine at home, that I was happy and doing well at school. I’d passed grade 6 with distinction on my clarinet – Mum sent a rather wonkily drawn congratulations card which I treasured for years – and spent every spare moment playing. See, Dad, I can concentrate. Give me a piece of sheet music that’s so crammed with notes it looks like a swarm of ants dancing all over it and I’m fine.

Better than fine, in fact. While practising really hard pieces I’d stop hearing him stomping about downstairs. I’d be utterly lost in a world of my own, where I didn’t need Mum, Dad or anyone. It was only hours later, when I ventured downstairs in the night, that I’d see the smashed cereal bowl (Dad and I consumed a lot of cereal), the soggy cornflakes scattered, the milk having already seeped into our matted brown rug. Sometimes I’d wake to hear our rusting old van revving furiously in front of our terraced house. Dad would drive off, fuelled by whisky and despair, and I’d creep down to deal with the mess, because one thing I knew was that milk smells disgusting – like sick – if no one mops it up.

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 through no effort whatsoever on his part. I miss his youthful drive, his boundless energy, and his fondness for leaving coded notes for me on the toilet cistern: MUM UOY EVOL I. With no interest in college or uni – ‘I mean, what would I do?’ – he scraped through his exams, gaining pretty unsensational grades, and in the past year has dabbled with a couple of short-lived part-time jobs. My once-vibrant son has been a packer in the pie factory and a washer-upper at a nearby hotel. Then for the past six months, nothing. I can hardly strap him to his desk chair and force him to write his CV. ‘Morgan,’ I say carefully, ‘if you’re not interested in college, you’re going to have to find something to occupy yourself.’

He nods. ‘Yeah, I know. I’m gonna do some street theatre.’

My heart drops. ‘As a hobby, yes. I meant something as a real job.’

‘No, that’s what I mean. As my job …’

I stare at him, lost for words for a moment. ‘But that’s not … it’s not a career. However long you stood out there, doing your thing, you’d never earn enough to—’

‘Nah, nah, I don’t mean doing it around here. I’d go to York or maybe, I dunno, even Leeds …’ He says this as if it’s Los Angeles. ‘You need big crowds to make decent money,’ he adds.

‘He’s really good,’ Jenna says loyally. ‘You should see him.’ Sweetheart, enormous chunks of my life have been spent watching Morgan clonking into the vegetable rack on that unicycle … ‘I know he is,’ I say quickly, turning back to my son, ‘but Morgan, you tried that, didn’t you? I mean, you set off for the day with your sandwiches and flask and you were back about two hours later …’

He shrugs. ‘It was raining.’

‘Yes, but this is the north of England. It’s cold a lot of the time. It’s an occupational hazard, I’d have thought …’

‘It was freezing! And I only had my thin jacket …’

‘The thin jacket you chose,’ I shoot back, ‘when I’d given you money to specifically buy a proper, insulating winter coat …’

He turns to Jenna and chuckles. ‘Mum wants me to have proper insulation, like a boiler.’ I clamp my back teeth together as they both giggle away.

‘I meant a coat that was a bit thicker than a doily, Morgan …’

‘What’s a doily?’

I glower at him. ‘You’ve got to eighteen years old and don’t know what a doily is?’

He makes a little snorty noise, like a horse. ‘See what I have to put up with, Jen? It never stops!’

I glare down at him, deeply irritated now. I need a proper talk with my son – with capitals, a Proper Talk – but how is that possible when Jenna’s always here, nuzzling his ear? It’s not fair to discuss big, serious issues – like his future, and whether he’s been remembering to put ointment on his athlete’s foot – with his girlfriend listening in. Anyway, he’s hardly likely to give me his full attention while he’s absent-mindedly massaging her delicate bare tootsies.

‘Ooh, that’s nice,’ she breathes, closing her eyes ecstatically, apparently having forgotten I’m here. Where am I supposed to go while this foot fondling is happening? I can’t bear to spend any more time holed up in my bedroom or the kitchen. Maybe I should sit outside in our unlovely back yard, by the wheelie bins? I can’t help glancing down at her pretty little feet, the nails painted baby blue, the toes perfectly straight and not curled weirdly towards the big one due to wearing foot-cramming courts in the 80s. What kind of person have I become, to feel bitter that a beautiful eighteen-year-old girl – whom my son loves to distraction – doesn’t have any corns or calluses? Christ, it’s a small step from wishing a verruca on her.

‘Mum?’ Morgan’s voice cuts into my thoughts.

‘Yes, love?’

‘Are you … okay?’

Hell, I’ve been staring at his girlfriend’s feet. I hurry off like a discreet maid and busy myself with the washing up they’ve left for me, all the while thinking: my only child has forgotten my birthday. The child whose bottom I was once forced to wipe with my original 1960s silk scarf in the park.

I go about my business all evening, dishing up pizza then keeping out of their way, trying not to feel envious when I hear them laughing raucously, and wishing I didn’t mind so much that I’m not allowed to join in. When did I become so needy? It’s only my birthday, after all, and my friends made it fun. And Vince remembered, as did Mum: Happy birthday Audrey, the card said in her quivery scrawl. Stevie didn’t bother, but then he doesn’t strike me as the card-sending sort.

At 11.20 p.m., by which time I have given up on any acknowledgement of the date, I pop my head round the living room door. Jenna is audibly kissing my son’s neck: kiss-kiss-kiss. I hope she isn’t planning to mark him. Can’t imagine a freshly sucked neck will do him any favours in the job interviews I plan to set up for him and frogmarch him to, if necessary … no, no, I must stop this. ‘Goodnight, then,’ I say.

Jenna peels herself off him. ‘Night, Audrey.’

‘Oh, Mum, hang on a minute …’ Morgan delves into his jeans pocket. ‘Here,’ he says, handing me a bent pink envelope.

‘Thank you, darling,’ I say, unable to erase the trace of surprise from my voice. There’s an oily stain on it and MUM has been scribbled lightly in pencil on the front.

He grins and winds an arm around his girlfriend’s shoulders. ‘See what she thinks of me, Jen?’ he chuckles. ‘She actually thought I’d forgot.’

Chapter Six

The Wrong Jelly Beans

My heart swells as I take it from him. It’ll be a voucher, probably, which doesn’t score terribly highly on the effort front – but at least he’s thought about the kind of shops I like. At least, I hope it’s for John Lewis and not Asda. I rip it open. It’s a birthday card depicting a plump tortoiseshell cat sitting on a windowsill. A bit grannyish, but never mind. No voucher either. But then, he’s always broke and I wouldn’t feel great about him spending what little he has on me. And it’s my money anyway, so it would be like giving cash to myself, and not as if I need anything …

‘Thanks, Morgan,’ I say, placing the card on the mantelpiece and dropping the envelope into the waste paper bin.

‘Don’t throw that away!’ he yelps.

I blink at him. ‘It was just the envelope, love.’

‘No, no, there’s something in it …’

‘Sorry, I didn’t realise …’ I snatch it back out and find a piece of paper inside, folded over and over into a tiny square. ‘What’s this?’ I murmur, opening it out.

‘Just a list.’

‘A list?’ I squint at his barely-legible scrawl:

 

 

 

 

 

I’m aware of both Morgan and Jenna watching me intently from the sofa as I grip the note. Maybe it’s a joke. It goes on:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Guitar?’ I blurt out. ‘Are you having a laugh? What d’you want one of those for?’

‘’Cause it’d be cool,’ he says airily.

‘But you don’t even play!’

‘I could learn, couldn’t I? You’re always saying I should expand my skill set, whatever that means …’

‘But it’s July,’ I add. ‘Your birthday’s not till next month. Why are you giving me your present list now … in my birthday card?’

‘Oh, it’s not my birthday list,’ he says with a shrug. ‘It says at the top. It’s just stuff I need.’

I stare at him. ‘Have you gone completely crazy? I don’t have the cash for all this—’

‘You’ve got that prize money coming, Mum. It’s just a few things, not that much …’

I’m conscious of breathing slowly, trying not to lose my rag. I keep staring at the note in the hope that I’m just experiencing a mental blip, perhaps triggered by all the prosecco I guzzled earlier, and that the messy scrawl will rearrange itself to read: Sorry I couldn’t afford to get you a present, Mum, just wanted to say how much I love you. But it doesn’t.

‘You mean,’ I say carefully, ‘I’ve sometimes bought you the wrong kind of jelly beans?’

He nods. ‘Occasionally, yeah. Some of the flavours are really weird. The cinnamon ones are horrible.’

I glare at him, then back at the note. If I had a lighter to hand, which I don’t, having given up smoking twenty years ago – although now might be the time to re-start – I’d show him what I think of it. Is it normal, this urge to burn things? I never used to be like this. I’m becoming increasingly less keen on the person I’ve become. ‘So,’ I venture, ‘you’re seriously expecting me to buy you all this? Not for your birthday but just … for no real reason at all?’

He nods. ’Yeah, but please don’t choose my clothes, Mum. Not after that shirt you got me last Christmas …’

‘Don’t be so ungrateful,’ Jenna splutters, nudging him.

‘That perfectly nice one from River Island?’ I remark, arching a brow.

‘Er, yeah.’ At last, he has the decency to look nervous.

‘What was wrong with it?’ I ask, genuinely bewildered.

‘C’mon, Mum,’ he says, blushing now, ‘it was kinda like an old man’s shirt …’

Something shrivels inside me as I stare down at them: two beautiful people with their futures ahead of them – if they can muster the energy to do something. And I know how they view me: as a sour, middle-aged woman, who doesn’t understand that a guitar would be ‘cool’, and who seems to believe that careers should be planned and worked towards, rather than just expected to land in their laps. Even Jenna seems unwilling to grab opportunities presented to her. As she’s studying beauty therapy, I’d assumed she might enjoy assisting Kim on a job. ‘I’ve checked with her,’ I explained, ‘and she really could do with the help. It’ll be great experience for you.’

‘Yeah, maybe,’ Jenna winced, as if I’d arranged work experience at the local abattoir, rather than patting powder onto bridesmaids’ faces.

In my bedroom now, I perch on the edge of my bed and try to figure out whether I’ve been perfectly reasonable or overreacted terribly. Maybe Vince was right, and I’m drunker than I realise; after all, Morgan’s not that bad as teenagers go. He has never written off my car or – to my knowledge – inflicted pain upon a small animal. No, it’s the slow drip-drip of barely significant things that’s making me feel as if I am beginning to ever-so-slightly lose the plot: the mocking of a perfectly acceptable shirt. The perpetual canoodling that makes me feel as if I’m trapped in a sex education film and that any moment, a voiceover will warn, ‘Remember to always use a condom.’ Is it any wonder I find it so hard to relax? Right now, in my tiny, gloomy room, I’d give anything to be in that swanky hotel where the cookery course is happening. Not to cook especially – I mean, I wouldn’t dream of foisting my bland soup on anyone – but just to be.

To take my mind off the note, I unpack my presents from Kim, Ellie and Cheryl from my voluminous shoulder bag. Gorgeous perfume, a posh palette of lip colours and tiny bottles of bath oil with soothing properties. And here, still in its torn-open envelope, is the letter about my competition win, including a contact number for the organiser: Shirley Michaels, whom I’ve already spoken to about the cash prize.

I lie back on my bed. My room really is tiny: suitable only for a small child, or possibly just coats. There’s space only for a three-quarter bed – no wonder Stevie rarely stays over, he’s six-foot-two – plus a small, rickety bedside table and a chrome rail for clothes. God, that lovely hotel. I can’t get it out of my mind. Lifting my laptop from my bedside table, I Google Wilton Grange. Judging by the pictures on its website, it’s extremely fancy. Without wanting to sound as if I struggle to use cutlery politely, it is far posher than anywhere I’ve ever stayed. We’re talking old-style glamour; all plump sofas, twinkling chandeliers and enormous stone fireplaces decked with the kind of fragile-looking vases you’re scared to walk past in case you create a gust and blow them off. There are oil paintings of glowering old men and galloping horses, and in the restaurant the food comes with little blobs and swirls of sauce. Imagine having your food decorated.

There’s a spa, in which guests are lounging around in white dressing gowns, giving the impression that their lives are totally sorted. While they might stop off at Charnock Richard for petrol or a coffee, it would never occur to them to stay overnight. Their pulses wouldn’t quicken at the prospect of a £5 all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. They have never endured obsessive voucher collecting to buy their child a perfectly acceptable checked shirt which, it turns out, he hates. A son who, rather than buying his mother a small birthday gift – just a token, a pack of sodding Hello Kitty hair clips would have sufficed – presents her with an extensive list of stuff he wants.

I should have chosen the cookery course prize, I decide, undressing and pulling on my pyjamas. But it’s too late now.

*

Or is it? That’s the thought that spears through my brain when I wake, dry-mouthed from the prosecco, just after nine. I scramble out of bed and grab the letter from my bag and stare at the contact numbers. There’s an office number, and a mobile. I shouldn’t call on a Sunday but what the hell? I tap out the number on my mobile, my heart rattling away as it rings.

‘Hello?’

I clear my throat. ‘Hello Shirley, it’s Audrey Pepper. I’m so sorry to call you at the weekend …’

‘Audrey Pepper? I’m sorry, I don’t think I know—’

‘We, um, spoke a few days ago about the Dinner Lady of the Year award …’

‘Oh, yes, of course. If you’re calling about the transfer, I have all your bank details and was planning to put through payment first thing on Monday …’

‘Um, actually, I just wondered,’ I cut in, ‘could I change my mind? I mean, if it’s at all possible?’

Small pause. ‘You mean you’d like to do the cookery course instead?’

‘Er … yes. Yes, I would.’ Another pause as she clears her throat.

‘Umm … I think it’s pretty booked up, and I’m not sure if I can get hold of anyone today … could you hold for a moment please?’

‘Sure,’ I say, licking my parched lips.

I wait and wait and wait. I glance up at the mottled ceiling; it needs a coat of emulsion, the whole place does. I’ve suggested to Morgan that he might paint it for me, thus acquiring some decorating skills – there’s a line of work that’s always in demand – but he flatly refused to do it without pay. How would he react, I wonder, if I presented him with an invoice for meals cooked, laundry serviced and cleaning undertaken?

‘Audrey? Sorry to keep you waiting.’

‘That’s okay, that’s fine …’

‘Now, I’m afraid the week where we had a place reserved for you is all fully booked …’

‘Oh, I see.’ My heart seems to slump.

‘… But,’ she goes on, ‘the course starting tomorrow has one place free. There are no single or twin rooms free, I’m afraid …’

It’s okay, I’ll camp in the ruddy garden …

‘But there is the honeymoon suite, and seeing as you’ve won your place they’re happy for you to have that.’

‘Oh!’ I gasp. Honeymoon suite? Vince and I didn’t have one of those. We stayed in his aunt’s guesthouse in Whitby.

‘It starts at midday with a welcome reception,’ she goes on. ‘I know you’re in Yorkshire, and it’s an awfully long way to travel down to Buckinghamshire, but do you possibly think …’

Yes, I do. I do possibly think. ‘Er, can I check something and get straight back to you?’