The Mum Who Got Her Life Back. Fiona Gibson

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СКАЧАТЬ with. Corinne and Gus are two of my closest; we’ve all known each other since our art college days in Dundee, and these days we share a studio pretty close to the city centre. As my children grew up, and I managed to establish myself properly, I reached the point where I could finally afford to work outside of the flat. It feels like a luxury sometimes, as now Alfie and Molly have left I can hardly complain about the lack of space at home. But I love working here. Our studio is the top floor of a tatty old warehouse, currently decked out with decorations and a sparkling white tree, as Christmas is approaching.

      ‘So your present to yourself is to get online,’ remarks Gus, as he makes coffee for the three of us.

      ‘I’m not joining a dating site,’ I say firmly.

      ‘Why not just give it a go?’ He glances over from the huge canvas he’s working on.

      ‘I’ve told you, Gus. It’s just not my thing.’

      I turn back to the preliminary sketches that are littered all over my desk. I’m illustrating a series of study guides covering English, maths and history, and possibly more subjects, if the client is happy with the results. As I start to sketch, I’m aware of Gus and Corinne exchanging a look; both of them reckon I have been single for far too long.

      It’s a year and a half since I last slept with someone, and that person happened to be Ryan Tibbles, who was also at art college with us, although I hadn’t known him very well when we were students. I’d just experienced a little frisson whenever I glimpsed him mooching around, with his mop of black, shaggy hair and languid expression, a smouldering roll-up permanently clamped between his sexy lips.

      After we’d graduated, everyone had scattered all over the country in pursuit of work or to further their studies. I returned to Glasgow, to do admin for a small design company, hoping it would lead to greater things. Ryan, who’d been the star of his year, whizzed off to do a post-grad at St Martins in London. I heard nothing from him for all those years until he turned up out of the blue at a party at Corinne’s.

      She hadn’t even invited him; he’d been in Glasgow on some work-related mission, and someone had brought him along. We sat together all night, reminiscing about college and, eventually, indulging in a little furtive hand-holding and kissing. ‘Be good, you two!’ Corinne had chuckled as we left together.

      I took him back to my place where we crept in gingerly at 6.30 a.m. There was no real need to creep – Molly and Alfie were away on a school trip to France – but still, I’d half expected them to jump out from behind the sofa yelling, ‘Ah-a! So here’s our filthy mother, drunk and with a man!’ Even when Ryan and I went to bed, I was still on edge in case they charged in, flung down their rucksacks and clicked on the dazzling overhead light.

      In the four days that followed, it felt as if we were teenagers, getting it on as much as humanly possible before my parents returned. When the kids phoned home, it was an almighty effort to put on a normal voice as I asked about their trips to Parc Astérix and the Camembert factory, which Alfie especially loved (ironic, given that he is now a vegan and regards cheese as the devil’s work: ‘No, I don’t miss it, Mum. Why’s everyone so obsessed with cheese?’ Because it’s heavenly! I always want to retort).

      During that whole time, Ryan and I barely left my flat. We had pizzas delivered – cheese-laden pizzas – and drank wine during the day. We had long, languid baths together, with Ryan graciously occupying the tap end. It was terribly decadent but then, it had marked the end of yet another lengthy sex drought for me. It was as if I’d been on a juice fast – not just a weekend ‘cleanse’, but for two bloody years – and had then been presented with a mountain of profiteroles. I started to think we might have a ‘thing’, albeit of the sporadic, long-distance variety, as Ryan was still based in London. Like an idiot, I pictured him nipping up for weekends, and me standing there – blow-dried, make-up immaculate – at Glasgow Central station, waiting for him.

      Then my kids came back, by which point Ryan had already loped off back to London, where he runs a successful leather accessories company, promising to stay in touch. But his replies to my texts were curt – he was ‘manic with work’, or ‘out of the country’ – then they stopped altogether. Some frantic googling revealed that, for many years, Ryan had been having an on-off thing with a model-stroke-personal-trainer with an ash-blonde pixie cut.

      I felt pretty foolish, I suppose, as he’d claimed he hadn’t been seeing anyone for ages. I’d trusted him; perhaps that’s another reason why I refuse to join a dating site, despite Gus and Corinne badgering me to do so.

      ‘There must be someone you’d consider having a drink with,’ Corinne remarks now, when the three of us break off for coffee on our squashy corner sofa.

      ‘Yeah, there are about 800,000 people in this city, Nads,’ Gus adds with a smirk.

      ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘but once you take away everyone who’s too young, too old, married or crazy, that probably leaves about three, and what would be the chances of us fancying each other?’

      ‘There’s every chance,’ Gus insists. ‘You’re a very gorgeous woman, Nads.’

      I laugh and look at Corinne. ‘And he’s not even drunk!’

      He snorts in mock exasperation. All three of us are single but, unlike Corinne and me, he has no shortage of dates. A good-looking artist with bags of charm, apparently he has no desire to meet ‘the one’. While his lifestyle would be a little hectic for me, I envy him sometimes.

      ‘Don’t you ever look at a man and think, oooh?’ he asks.

      ‘It’s very, very rare,’ I say truthfully. In fact, I reflect as I get back to work, I’ve wondered if that part of my biological make-up has died, like a flat car battery. But that very lunchtime, when I pop out to buy a few last-minute presents, it becomes clear that that hasn’t happened after all.

      The city centre feels jolly and festive, and I look around, feeling grateful to be part of this big, vibrant city where I grew up, and which I still love very much. In a few days’ time I’ll be installed at my sister Sarah’s on the Ayrshire coast, with Molly and Alfie and Sarah’s family for Christmas, and it’ll be lovely. We’ll all eat too much (Sarah is a wonderful cook, the self-appointed Queen of Christmas), play board games and kick back and relax. But for now I’m enjoying the festive build-up, the seasonal music blasting out from the shops, and the sense that quite a few shoppers have enjoyed a few drinks already.

      Feeling the chill now, and regretting not putting on a jacket, I step gratefully into the warmth of a bustling shop. I’m perusing the shelves, looking for stocking fillers for Molly, when a dark-haired man – wearing jeans, a black jacket and a grey sweater – walks in. I know it’s weird to stare so blatantly, but I can’t help myself. Despite the marauding hordes, and ‘Winter Wonderland’ blaring out of the speakers, I cannot tear my gaze away.

      Apparently, my ability to find another person wildly desirable hasn’t died after all. It has just jump-started.

      He is tall and lean with a strong, proud nose and the kind of generous mouth that suggests he smiles a lot. From my vantage point some way across the shop, I can’t tell what colour his eyes are. But actually, it’s not just his appearance that’s stopped me in my tracks.

      Normally, the word ‘aura’ makes me shudder, but this man has one. It’s one of quiet courage and calmness – the way he strolled into the melee without flinching. Clearly on a mission, a bold pioneer fearlessly navigating the store, apparently untroubled by people clamouring for highly scented goods. He wanders СКАЧАТЬ