‘You don’t want to mope around when you’re widowed, darling. You want to have fun! Why don’t you come over and jump in the sauna with Una and me?’
It was kindly meant, but what did she imagine I was going to do? Run out of the house, abandon the children, drive for an hour and a half, rip off my clothes, have my hair bouffed, then ‘jump in the sauna’?
‘So! Christmas! Una and I were wondering, are you going to come to us or . . .’
(Have you noticed how when people are giving you two options, the second one is always the one they want you to do?)
‘. . . Well, the thing is, darling, there’s the St Oswald’s cruise this year! And we wondered if you might like to come? With the children of course! It’s to the Canaries, but it’s not all old people, you know. There are some very “with-it” places they visit.’
‘Right, right, a cruise, great,’ I said, suddenly thinking that if the Obesity Clinic had made me feel thin, maybe an over-seventies cruise might make me feel young.
Mind, however, now also contained image of me chasing Mabel along a cruise-liner deck through a morass of bouffed hairdos and electric wheelchairs.
‘You’ll be perfectly at home, because it’s actually for over-fifties,’ Mum added, unknowingly putting the kibosh on the plan in a microsecond.
‘Well, actually, we think we might have plans here! You’re welcome to join us, of course, but it’ll be chaos, and if the other option is a cruise in hot weather, then—’
‘Oh, no, darling. We don’t want to leave you at Christmas. Una and I would love to come to you! It’d be super having Christmas with the little ones, it’s such a hard time for us both.’
Gaaah! How could I possibly handle Mum, Una and the kids, with no help as Chloe was going on a t’ai chi retreat to Goa with Graham? Did not want it to end up like last year, with me trying to stop my heart from breaking into pieces at doing Santa without Mark and sobbing behind the kitchen counter, whilst Mum and Una squabbled over lumps in the gravy and commented on my parenting and housekeeping, as if, rather than inviting them for Christmas, I had called them in as Systems Analysts.
‘Let me think about it,’ I said.
‘Well, the thing is, darling, we have to reserve the berths by tomorrow.’
‘Go ahead and book it for just you, Mum. Honestly, because I haven’t worked out—’
‘Well, you can cancel with fourteen days’ notice,’ she said.
‘OK, then,’ I said. ‘OK.’
Great, an over-fifties cruise for Christmas. Everything looks so dark and gloomy.
11 p.m. Was still wearing my prescription sunglasses. That’s better.
Maybe I have just been like a wave building momentum and now I have crashed and another will come along soon! For as it says in Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, women are like waves and men are like rubber bands which ping away to their caves and come back.
Except mine didn’t come back.
11.15 p.m. Look, stoppit. For, as it says on the Dalai Lama’s Twitter:
Maybe will go to yoga and become more flexible.
Or maybe will go out with friends and get plastered.
A PLAN
Sunday 2 September 2012
Alcohol units 5 (but hard to tell with mojitos – maybe 500?).
‘It’s time,’ said Tom, settling into his fourth mojito in Quo Vadis. ‘We’re taking her to the Stronghold.’
The Stronghold has recently become a regular part of Tom’s micro-universe. Run by a client from his therapy practice, it is an illegal American-style speakeasy in Hoxton.
‘It’s like being in an incredibly well-directed music video,’ Tom enthused, eyes shining. ‘There’s every age group: young and ol
d, black and white, gay and straight. Gwyneth’s been seen there! And it’s a “pop-up”.’