Meet the Family

Toad. What a complete and utter toad.

Here I am, a fortnight in and doing just fine. I’ve been to the sales, I’ve bought cushions, I’ve bought some microwaveable vegetables, made healthy meals for one and I haven’t had a drink. I’m being mature and sensible; you might even say, acting my age. Then, I open the bloody paper and there they are:

They are not the A-team: we were the A-Team – Alan and Angie. Doing everything together and sticking by each other no matter what. That was our nickname, I made it up. How dare he give it to his new slut.

They’re obviously deliriously happy in the photo; all glammed up in black tie, sipping the champagne and nibbling hors d’oeuvres, no doubt. I bet she took her make-up off before she went to bed. That should have been me? How did we get here? The doorbell rings.

‘You’ve seen it?’ asks my daughter.

Zoe can see me holding the offending article but has a copy with her just in case I’m the last to find out. She always was a daddy’s girl and was devastated when this first happened, especially as her graduation party had been the incendiary event. Since the divorce finalised she has tried her best to be neutral, but she knows the photograph and him using our family nickname can only hurt me.

‘Why didn’t you mention it when we spoke?’ I ask.

‘I didn’t want you to think that I’d chosen to spend New Year with them; I didn’t have a choice. You know that, don’t you?’ she pleads.

‘Et tu, Brute,’ I think to myself, rather unfairly.

She’s the hotel assistant manager, so I knew she would be there, but still I feel the knife twisting.

‘You’ve got this place looking nice,’ she says looking round.

I’m not going to change the subject or do small talk. I really can’t. Not with my daughter. It must come across as surly and she lets out an exasperated sigh.

‘It’s happened, Mum. He’s a bastard...’

Yippee.

‘... but it’s happened. Dad’s getting on with his life, you need to now.’

Three thoughts enter my head:

1. What the hell does ‘getting on with your life’ actually mean? (What precisely do I get on with?)

2. Why do people say it when the life you knew is over?

And...

3. I’m getting advice from a twenty-three-year-old. Shouldn’t she be having the relationship crises and turning to me?

‘... come on, Mum, forget him. Let’s go to lunch, I’ll drive,’ says Zoe.

I find myself drifting in and out of most conversations these days, then suddenly they’re over and, like today, I’ve agreed to something.

‘I’ll wait until you’ve had a shower, you’ll feel better,’ she adds.

I must look worse than I realise.

Half an hour later I’m refreshed and presentable. I get into Zoe’s stylish Fiat 500 and giggle to myself as I see many residents of Cross Road being picked up by their kids. The old folks’ weekly outing; I hope they’ve all remembered their teeth.

When we get to the restaurant, Zoe insists on a table by the window. I watch her as she glances through the menu and then asks about the provenance of the beef. I know this isn’t a vanity: she loves her food and the hotel she manages is gaining a reputation for dining since she joined it. She checks that I’d be happy with a chateaubriand before ordering it.

‘After all, we’re celebrating a new start,’ she says when I try to insist she doesn’t need to spend this much on me.

I can see that an assertive young woman has taken over my baby girl’s body and I approve wholeheartedly.

It shouldn’t surprise me. When she was five years old she took hold of a menu and very calmly ordered ‘soup then peas’ from the waiter who was offering her fish fingers. At eleven, she made her sports teacher go through the rules of hockey while she wrote them down before the game. She then held them out to the referee each time she thought there’d been an error.

At university she got a first in hospitality management and now she’s on a fast track programme with the DeWynter Hotel chain, looking every inch the professional that she is.

Yes, my daughter has grown into a very kind but serious young woman, the image of her father with her hazel eyes, dark blonde hair and dimples. I haven’t seen the dimples much recently as she’s all but stopped smiling since the divorce.

I think back to my twenties with Patty, all the fun we had, and just hope Alan and I haven’t destroyed her chances of that.

‘Work is fun,’ she replies when I ask her about it.

‘What about laughing, dancing, friends and boyfriends?’

‘The last thing I want is a relationship,’ she says.

‘We did have some good times you know. I did love him,’ I remind her.

‘It’s not enough though, is it?’ she whispers and I take her hand.

She looks up at me and smiles with her mouth but not her eyes.

* * *

I’m back in the office today and Charlie has the same article open on his desk.

‘Any chance of your Alan spending those holiday vouchers with us,’ he asks.

‘You’re not suggesting I ask him?’ I say.

‘You could get Zoe to drop a hint,’ he suggests. ‘It’d be nice to get a few thousand pounds worth of sales in the till. Didn’t you want to do a few more days’ work?’

And that’s the truth; right now I work part-time, which was fine as a second income, but I could do with a bit more now I’m an independent woman.

Charlie started Mercury Travel ten years ago when he finally realised that his Rep days were over. I joined eighteen months ago and there’s also a young Australian girl, Josie, working here. She came to England backpacking hoping that one day she’d meet the perfect English gent; the business is a bit like a sanctuary for losers in love.

I used to help Alan with his business, then one day he persuaded me I should have my own interests and perhaps find a job which would ‘get me out of the house’. Now that I think about it, that was probably the start of the disintegration and he was lining things up to leave. I shake the thoughts away – can’t dwell on that now.

We’re a boutique agency in a bohemian suburb of Manchester where independent shops tend to thrive. We specialise in a more personalised service for older clientele but that doesn’t protect us from the internet completely. Our customers like something a bit different, so we’re often searching out empty-nester adventures, but they could replace us with their teenage kids if said children could be prised away from games and social media for long enough. We tell our clients, ‘Yes you could do this online but you can also afford to let us do the dreary searching.’

I suppose we’re the travel equivalent of the help and it seems to work.

We’ve spent the morning putting up posters advertising our ‘Tanuary Sale’. Anyone who books their holiday with us this week gets chauffeur driven to the airport. It’s my idea; Charlie wanted to give them a course of sunbed sessions before their trip (hence Tanuary) but I persuaded him that exposing our customers to potential melanoma isn’t the best way of securing repeat business. Anyway, the drive to the airport is something people will value; parking costs a fortune and it’s a lovely way to start a trip, something the big companies just wouldn’t offer.

We need to do something to compete with the bigger agencies as January is a crucial month for travel; everyone gets sick of the British weather and books something to look forward to. Hence the non-stop holiday adverts on TV. People tend to think that the bigger companies can offer better prices than us and don’t bother coming in. Here’s hoping the offer helps and I can avoid begging Alan for his business.

As a bribe, Charlie is sending me to investigate afternoon teas at an exclusive hotel. I ponder why everyone so far this year feels the need to feed me. Are they afraid I’ll poison myself with my cooking? Anyway, it’s time to call my mum, a woman who definitely knows her choux buns from her millefeuille.

On my way out I take some of our brochures. I still can’t get used to the idea that he’ll be picking a holiday without me. I wonder what they’ll choose. What would we have picked if we’d still been together?

It’s a good day to be out and about, a stunning winter’s day – the type children draw, where a clear blue sky is dotted with perfectly formed clouds and complemented by a serene frost across the land – beautiful. Manchester is a wonderful city to live in and an easy city to escape from; within half an hour of leaving the office, I’ll be driving through the glorious Cheshire countryside. Later this afternoon, the sun will set with a warm smile and we’ll feel blessed by Mother Nature. I love this type of weather.

I pick up my mum on the way out.

‘Now, this is work; you need to behave yourself,’ I warn her.

‘When do I not?’ is her shocked reply.

For as long as I can remember my mother has promised to spend her dotage personifying the poem by Jenny Joseph, ‘Warning’. She particularly likes the part about gobbling up samples in shops. I swear that she knows when M&S are about to start their cake tasting. Dad has long given up trying to tame her and sits quietly in the background.

Anything free and she goes for it, so I firmly expect to hear extra cake requests for her ‘poorly friend who couldn’t come’.

We arrive at the hotel and are seated in a beautiful parlour where a dozen tables are waiting pristine in their white linen and silver cutlery. Oh to have lived in an era when one always ‘took tea’ in rooms like this. I turn to say this to my mother and find that she has taken on the alter ego of food critic; she has armed herself with a notepad and half-moon glasses, which she peers over every time the waiter arrives with something.

‘They’ll give us more if they think I’m going to rate them,’ she conspires with a wink.

I shake my head and choose not remind her that the hotel already knows we’re from the travel agents. In an attempt to stop her checking each piece of cutlery for smudges, I start a conversation proving that I’m getting on with my life in a mature, sophisticated way.

‘I’ve seen a poster for a book club,’ I say. ‘I thought it might help me meet people.’

‘Are there men there?’ she asks without looking up from a teaspoon.

‘I don’t want a man, Mum, I was thinking of maybe getting a cat for company.’

‘Well at least a cat won’t walk out because of your cooking.’

So they do think I’ll give myself gastroenteritis if left to my own devices.

‘I can cook,’ I protest, ‘and besides which Alan didn’t leave because of my cooking.’

‘Of course not, dear. What’s that old saying? Oh yes, the way to a man’s stomach is through a microwave. She can cook you know.’

I know she can cook, everyone knows she can cook. Alan bloody well met her because of her cooking. I mean what sort of woman makes a pass at a bloke buying a cake for his twenty-two-year-old daughter? What did she think? The daughter has flown the nest so she might as well move in? And we gave her a bloody round of applause at the party.

I bite my tongue and catch the eye of the manager to agree the deal we’ll offer our customers. He then signals the waiter.

‘Thank you that was lovely,’ I say as he starts clearing the table.

He nods politely and tries to escape, but Mum is in there before he can get away.

‘I don’t suppose you could put another one of those éclairs in a doggy bag?’ she smiles. ‘It’s for my friend who’s very poorly at the moment.’

She never fails.

Ever.