Page 58 of The Golden Girls’ Road Trip

‘If she’s still with us,’ he says.

‘Well, yes, but you’ll phone me if there’s any change?’

‘Sure.’

‘And, Simon, I promise you, I’ll be wherever Diana needs me.’

His face softens and he pulls me into a hug.

‘Have you seen Leo? He was here.’

‘Yes,’ I say, quickly. ‘We had a chat. Look, we’ve got to go now, but I’ll speak to you later.’

He looks at Alex for a moment before he tells her it was nice to meet her, but he doesn’t look as if it was a nice experience. I need some breathing space to work all of this out. Simon heads back to my mother, and Alex and I leave. I am exhausted.

29

The journey back to Brighton is slow and quiet. I don’t know how to feel about what has transpired. My mother hasn’t been in my life for such a long time that it was so strange to see her again. Perhaps I will have to re-evaluate what I think I know about her. Maybe I should have listened to Simon and reconnected earlier when we could have really talked, but once I’d made my decision to drop my parents out of my life, it became increasingly difficult to reach out.

I suppose Simon holds all the answers now, or certainly some answers for the last ten years. I have to accept that he wanted to meet his grandmother and that he felt he had to do it behind my back. I feel terrible about that. Would I have talked him out of it if he’d told me at the time? I probably would have tried. And now there’s a whole ten years that I know nothing about, which is my own fault. I wonder what they talked about, what that ten-year shared experience was like for them both. I wonder if she talked about me. It’s odd to think that the catalyst for my meeting Alex and the estrangement from my parents is all wrapped up in my son. He is the reason for everything.

*

I turn the key in the lock of my flat and invite Alex inside. It’s the most surreal experience to have this woman in a space that I’ve called home for a few years. She seems to dither in the doorway as if she’s unsure whether to come in or not, but eventually she steps inside, Bardo trotting after her, and I close the door behind them.

‘Shall I make a cup of tea?’ she asks, in an odd detached voice. ‘Do you need to have a rest? You’ve been through quite an experience.’

A rest? She makes me sound like an old woman. An experience? I’d quite like to shake off the last few hours of my life and never revisit them. I want to open a bottle of wine and take it and, possibly, Alex to bed.

‘Let’s open some wine,’ I say, and then I panic that I’ve said my thoughts out loud. But Alex doesn’t look horrified; she just looks exhausted too.

I pull a bottle from the makeshift rack I’ve constructed in the gap between the dishwasher and the under-sink cupboard and I take a couple of glasses from the shelf. Alex is standing in the middle of the living room scrutinising my painting, her painting, while Bardo makes a circuit, sniffing everything at his height. Alex turns to take the glass of wine from me, her face expressionless.

‘Still looks good doesn’t it,’ she says, but it’s not a question.

My eyes move around the small space: my tatty sofa with an old blanket thrown over to cover the worst of the worn bits, the armchair that doesn’t match, the rug in front of the ugly gas fire that I never light because it smells, the coffee table with my to-be-read pile almost obscuring the view of the TV on the stand in the corner, my collection of plants crowding the windowsill and the blind above that never shuts fully because they’re in the way, the uninspiring view down to the car park below.

It’s not that I’m ashamed of my home particularly, but it is interesting to try and see it through Alex’s eyes. She hasn’t taken her attention off the painting though.

She gulps at her wine as if she’s nervous. I choose the sofa and leave Alex to make her own choice, but Bardo leaps up onto the armchair, turns twice and promptly falls asleep. She sits down next to me, her eyes still on the painting. I’m about to tell her she can have it and sell it with the other one, but my phone buzzes on the coffee table.

‘It’s Simon again,’ Alex says, removing her eyes from the painting to stare at my phone. ‘It’s a message.’

I pick it up and open it quickly, expecting news about my mother. Maybe she’s gone, and if she has, I don’t know what to think about that.

Mum, Grandma is holding on. Hope you can pop in tomorrow. Don’t really want her to die alone. We’ll have a proper chat when I’m back from Prague on Thursday. Love you x

‘Oh, Simon,’ I say to my phone and text back that I love him too. I don’t want any bad feeling between us. Goodness knows what he’s going to think when he hears about Leo, though. I glance at Alex and see she’s finished her wine. I’ve not even started mine. I don’t want her to get drunk again, I want to talk, and I actually want to kiss her. A heat rushes to my cheeks and I feel as if I’m eighteen again.

‘Can I have some more wine?’ Alex asks, turning her gaze from the painting to fix it on me.

‘Sure, help yourself, it’s in the kitchen.’ I say, glancing up from my phone.

After she’s gone, I drop it back onto the table, and walk to the bathroom. I use the loo, wash my hands and stare at myself in the mirror. My hair is working its way out of the bun I put it in and I contemplate setting it free, but I don’t want to walk back into the room, looking as if I’ve made any sort of effort. For the same reason I don’t put on any lipstick or concealer under my eyes.

Less than two weeks ago I became seventy. I had a fiancé, had found out I was going to be a grandmother and was looking my retirement years squarely in the face. I was finally settling down, becoming the person other people thought I should be and told myself I was happy. I didn’t talk to my mother, hadn’t confronted the worst thing that had ever happened to me and had lost forever, my one true love.

Everything has changed now, well, most things have changed. I’m certainly in a very different place than I was. I will not be that young woman frightened in the bathroom. I am the owner of all my wishes and desires now.