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‘I’ll go get them,’ the man I’ve been chatting to says. I think he’d do anything to get away from me now.
‘No worries, pal,’ the other man – I’m assuming this is Tommy – replies.
He briefly takes his eyes off my mum and turns to me. As we make eye contact, there’s a shared look of recognition between us. We know each other. He’s…
‘Tom Paulson?’ I say, my voice shooting up at the end, because I can’t be certain.
‘Yeah,’ he replies, his smile growing as he realises where he knows me from. ‘Billie May, right? I remember you.’
My mum looks at me expectantly, her curiosity clearly getting the better of her as she waits for an introduction.
‘Mum, do you remember Tom from my class at primary school?’ I ask her.
I went to secondary school with him too, but I was too old and too cool to have my mum taking me to school then, obviously. Still, I remember him. He somehow looks so different, but also not really that different at all. He looks like I remember his dad looking – he was a policeman, who dropped by the school when we were in Year 2 or 3 to give us a talk on stranger danger. I don’t waste time wondering whether or not I look as much like my mum, I know that I don’t.
‘Yourmum?’ Tom says in disbelief as his jaw heads for the floor. ‘This is never your mum. I can’t believe it.’
‘Believe it,’ I practically beg.
This happens all the time now and, while I’m happy for my mum, I still don’t find it easy.
‘I would have noticed a MILF like you at the school gates,’ Tom tells her with a wiggle of his eyebrows.
My mum, visibly delighted to be referred to as a MILF, laughs and bats her hand.
‘Oh, yeah, I remember you being such a charismatic nine-year-old,’ I reply sarcastically. ‘Didn’t you pee your pants during sports day?’
Tom frowns. He turns back to my mum.
‘So, is Mr May still on the scene?’ he asks curiously. Gross.
‘Sadly not,’ my mum replies, with a tone and a look that implies she is anything but sad about it.
My dad left my mum (and me and Jess in the process) years ago, when I was barely a teenager. He ‘fell in love’ and styled out leaving us as this bold, romantic thing, as though that’s going to mean anything to a couple of kids staring down the barrel of occasional evenings and every other weekend (which we only did for as long as we absolutely had to). He thought he was heroic, following his heart, leaving his marriage for true love. Of course, in a not-so-shocking turn of events, it turns out the woman who he was seeing behind his wife’s back wasn’t his true love.
Anyway, things may not have turned out so well for my dad, but my mum never let herself become a casualty of divorce. Divorce, it turns out, looks great on her. Or divorce settlements do, at least. My mum didn’t just wash that man out of her hair, and she didn’t waste any time scratching his face out of photos of the two of them, my mum had a series of cosmetic surgeries that made her look so different it effectively scrubbed the old her from the photos instead. I’ll never know the full extent of the work she had done – she didn’t even tell me and Jess, on the day when she had the bulk of the heavy lifting done, until she was back home again – but she’s in great shape, her skin looks like there’s an Instagram filter over it, I cringe to even admit it, but her boob age is way younger than mine now. The new Kate May looks incredible, she’s happy, she really is living her best life. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy for her, it’s just massively uncomfortable for me when things like this happen.
I never would have guessed Mum would be the type to have work done – she certainly never used to be – but my dad left a massive hole in her life when he broke her heart. I think their relationship had become such a big part of her identity, all she wanted to do was reinvent herself. She’s certainly achieved it – and good for her.
Tom begrudgingly turns his attention back to me. I can’t help but sigh – not that he notices – because somehow my mum looking so good makes me feel like I look crap in comparison. I know, we’re apples and oranges, and more than anything I think it’s the fact that my mum defies her age that fascinates people, but it’s hard not to feel unremarkable in her shadow – not that it’s her fault, and not that I begrudge her it, after wasting all those years with my dad.
‘Actually, it’s weird, I was talking about you the other day, someone at football said you’d moved in with Declan Clancy? Mad that anyone could still be with their Year 11 boyfriend or girlfriend, innit?’
Tom looks to my mum. There’s a car driving past so she takes this opportunity to look away for a moment, leaving me alone in my awkward moment.
‘Well, we weren’t together the whole time,’ I explain. ‘And, erm, we’re not together now, actually.’
I probably should have opened with that, but I still find it so uncomfortable to talk about. I don’t even like to admit it to myself because it sets me going down a path where I question everything, until I start being overly critical of myself, and that’s no way to live.Declanwas Declan’s problem, not me.
Tom’s cheeks flush.
‘Sorry, Billie, love, I was sure one of the lads said you’d bought a house together recently,’ he says sincerely.
‘Oh, no, we did,’ I reply. I pull a sort of playfully irritated face, as though I’m talking about some minor inconvenience. ‘We bought a fixer-upper together, just over a year ago, and then he pissed off and left me with it, so that was fun.’
Awkward part over, my mum re-joins the conversation, seeing her opportunity to help defuse things.
‘Her house is stunning now,’ she gushes. ‘Just phenomenal – and she did it all by herself.’
