The Mum Who Got Her Life Back. Fiona Gibson

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       Chapter One

       Nadia

      Since my children left home, nothing terrible seems to have happened. There has been no evidence of malnutrition or the taking of shedloads of drugs. No one has phoned me, crying, because they couldn’t get a crumpet out of the toaster. At eighteen years old, my twins Alfie and Molly seem to have coped perfectly well during their first semester at university … which means I’ve done a decent job as a parent, right?

      Naturally, their father, Danny, should take some of the credit. But the moving-out part was down to me. Danny is an independent film-maker and he was away shooting down south when I took Molly to her student halls. In the seven years since we split, his career has blossomed; he is pretty famous in film circles, and incredibly busy. At least, too busy/famous to drive Molly from our home in Glasgow to her university halls in Edinburgh.

      ‘Well, this is it,’ I remarked with fake jollity as we lugged her possessions into her stark little room.

      ‘Yeah,’ she said casually, tossing back her long dark hair.

      ‘You will be all right, won’t you?’

      ‘’Course I will!’

      I cleared my throat. ‘Any time you need me, I mean if you need anything, I’ll come straight over.’

      ‘Mum, I won’t need—’

      ‘No, I know, but …’ I stopped. My daughter has always given the impression that she rarely needs anything, from anyone.

      ‘I’m not dying,’ she said, smiling. We hugged tightly, and I was immensely proud of myself as I hurtled out of the block, shoving my way past more new arrivals with their stoical parents and desk lamps and mini fridges and, in one instance, a gerbil in a cage, which I was pretty sure wasn’t allowed in halls. Only when I was safely back in my car did I allow the tears to spill out, and had to mop my face on a waterproof umbrella sleeve.

      Two days later, I drove Alfie to his own halls further north, in Aberdeen. The city felt chillier and greyer than it had when we’d come up for the open day (his father had been too busy/famous to go to that too), and I reminded my son several times that he might start wearing a vest.

      ‘You can just leave my stuff here, Mum,’ he said, indicating the floor on the landing.

      ‘Really? Can’t I come in?’ But he’d already scooted into the flat to find his room, and so I stood there, waiting, like a FedEx delivery person.

      Moments later Alfie reappeared, and we fell into a pattern of me fetching stuff in from the car, lugging it up three flights of stairs and handing it over at the designated spot on the landing. He grabbed the final box in which I’d assembled an emergency rations pack of tinned soups, pastas and – rather optimistically – fruit. ‘See you then,’ he mumbled, gazing down at his feet.

      ‘Er … okay, love. Look after yourself, won’t you?’ In truth, I was more worried about him than Molly. He’d always been rather shy and disorganised, and a klutz when it came to practical matters. I wasn’t convinced he’d be up to boiling spaghetti without somehow setting it on fire.

      ‘Of course I will,’ he insisted. I forced a hug on him and left the building, passing a woman carrying an enormous tropical plant (does anyone really need a tree in their uni halls?), and wishing that Danny was here too, but that night СКАЧАТЬ