AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘I’m going to have to do something else soon.’ Courtney cut a chunk from her fish. ‘I’m bored working in a shop. It was fun at first, but my brain feels like it only gets one trip out per year.’ She tilted her head to one side in thought. ‘That’s a good idea though, Mum. I’ll mull it over.’
‘Don’t be like me and fly under the radar.’ Had she led her children to be like her by example? To be a doormat? To live a little life?
Courtney hooted, pointing at her mother with a chip. ‘Me? Are you mixing me up with someone else?’
‘I don’t want you to scrabble around on the ground.’
‘I really missed you,’ said Courtney. ‘And your words of incomprehensible wisdom.’
‘You hardly saw me after you moved out,’ Shay countered.
‘Yeah, but I always knew you were there if I needed you. These past couple of weeks I’ve felt as if you’d ripped off my armbands and pushed me off the side into the deep end.’
‘You can swim,’ said Shay, ‘just stay away from the shark-infested waters.’ Which brought someone immediately to mind. ‘How’s Dingo?’ She braced herself for the answer that he’d been thrown off his anger management course for twatting someone with a teapot, or he’d got into theGuinness Book of Recordsfor most Cornish pasties eaten in a minute and he’d proposed to her daughter in the historic, euphoric moment.
‘Dunno. He’s gone for good,’ said Courtney and wafted her hand as if swatting an invisible mosquito. ‘I’ve moved on.’ She grinned and Shay’s heart lurched in her chest. Who now? Whammo, Gizmo, Tommo, Bummo? A cage fighter – or a bloke in a Texas prison currently on deathrow? Whoever it was, she’d have to let her get on with it. There was a difference between lending a drowning man a hand and pandering to a child having a meltdown in a paddling pool.
‘Do I want to know?’
‘Mort,’ said Courtney, shoving a gigantic chip in her gob and chewing gleefully.
Shay’s heart sank a little and it must have showed on her face because Courtney quickly cleared her mouth in order to speak. ‘I know what you’re going to say, Don’t hurt him, don’t use him—’
‘I thought he was seeing someone?’
‘He went out on a couple of dates with her but it only reinforced the feelings he had for me, so he said.’ Courtney smiled – a sweet gentle smile that rather suited her lips. ‘That was a shocker. I never knew he fancied me until he came right out with it last week.’
Shay nearly choked on a chunk of batter.
‘You must be the only person on the planet who didn’t.’
‘I’ve always liked him too. But I thought he was too good for me.’
‘Why would you think that?’ Shay asked her.
‘Because I’m anarchy personified and he’s always been steady, gentle, caring, lovely and so surely he deserves better than me.’
‘Who are you, strange creature, to diss my daughter,’ said Shay.
‘He turned up at the flat with a massive bunch of flowers and said he was putting his cards on the table.’ Courtney gave a little sigh, like a gothic Disney princess. ‘Oh my god, I thought.He’s gone insane. But if he wants to take the risk, then who am I to deny him his dream?’
Shay wondered if aliens had grown a replica of her daughter in a pod and replaced her.
‘He’s lovely, Mum.’
‘He is.’
‘I can’t believe I’ve seen him for all these years but notseenhim, do you know what I mean? We’re going to an opera in Leeds at the weekend.’
Her daughter really had been replaced by an alien.
‘And wouldn’t Courtney Jagger be the most rock and roll name ever to have?’
‘Court—’
‘Chillax, Mater. Everyone thinks Mort’s a bit thick because he’s big and galumpy, but he so isn’t. We’re going to have a wander around Amsterdam as well, see the Van Gogh museum and eat lots of cheese.’
Shay smiled at the cheese word. She wondered if she’d always have that reaction now going forward, like a variation of Pavlov’s dogs but with a smile instead of salivation.
