Page 11 of The Notecard
‘Today would have been Meg and James’s seventh anniversary,’ says Keri suddenly. She’s back in the room. ‘It’s why I’m making the non-vegan vegan chocolate cake. I think you should give her a break and be nice to her.’
Mum and Laura are both silent for a moment. I suddenly feel an emotion grip my heart. I don’t want to feel it, but I do. I’ve been keeping it inside of me all evening. I don’t want to cry, but I can’t help it. Tears suddenly sting my eyes and start rolling down my face. Fucking James.
‘Oh, Megs, baby,’ says Mum.
‘Great! And now she’s crying,’ says Laura, who gets up and storms off to the bathroom.
Mum looks at me and then she goes after Laura. Gymnastics and dance beats debate club.
‘Come on, Laura babes, tonight is all about you,’ says Mum, rather pathetically. ‘Babes.’
The bathroom door slams shut.
This isn’t how I wanted tonight to go. Despite Laura’s claims that I make everything about me, I was trying to keep this one thing inside. It’s been a shit day, and I was really trying to have a good time tonight. The thing is, James and I were together for so long. I thought he was it. The One. We were going to get married, buy a house, have children, grow old together. He was my entire world. My everything. James and Meg. I had seen our whole future together, and it was going to be glorious. But then, in a moment, it was gone. So yes, it’s been six months since we broke up. Since I left our flat and turned up on Keri’s door crying my heart out, but I’m not over it. I’m still heartbroken, and not just for James, but for the life we were going to have. For all the moments we had yet to experience together #MegAndJamesMemories
Nick
Dotty has gone home. Mum is washing up and I’m on drying duty. The old double act we performed so many times growing up. We don’t need to speak. We do it automatically. Instinct. Muscle memory. Wash. Pass. Dry. Put away. Repeat. I like this. When it’s just me and Mum doing something familiar. It’s soothing. We did this a lot after Dad died. Not just washing up. We took long walks on Hampstead Heath. We sorted through Dad's things. We cooked dinners. That summer after Dad died, it was just us. It feels as though we’ve never really moved on from that summer. As though a part of both of us died along with Dad and we’ve never really got it back.
I’m relieved Dotty isn’t here so I can quiz Mum on her news that she’s ready to date again. I also don’t need to hear more about Dotty’s vagina and sexual appetite. The big news is that she’s still got one (a sexual appetite, not a vagina. I mean, she has a vagina too obviously).
‘Mum,’ I say, but before I can say anything else, she has stopped washing up and she’s looking at me with a serious expression on her face. ‘What is it?’
‘Norfolk,’ says Mum cryptically.
‘What?’
‘There wasn’t a Norfolk.’
‘There wasn’t a Norfolk?’
I’m lost.
‘Norfolk, Nick. I never went to Norfolk.’
‘So there isn’t an auntie Catherine?’
‘I made the whole thing up,’ says Mum. She looks guilty. Crushed. Her face is pale.
‘So where were you?’ I say, confused by Mum’s sudden confession.
Mum says she’ll make us a cup of tea and explain everything, and despite it being almost eight o’clock, and I need to leave for work in half-an-hour, I agree. I’m curious to know where Mum might have gone and why she lied to me about Norfolk. I can’t even imagine.
Mum and I sit in the living room. She pulls her feet up next to her on the sofa and I turn and look at her. Her chestnut brown hair is turning grey in places. She pulls her cardigan across her chest. She looks guilty or crestfallen. She doesn’t say anything for a moment, and then she says.
‘I went to a yoga retreat near Oxford, Nick. I spent five days doing yoga, meditation, and the food was all vegan, Nick. Beans mainly. Vegetables. No dairy, that was hard. Lots of yoga. Meditation. Hair. There was lots of hair. And shouting. Group shouting. Mainly yoga, though.’
I don’t know what to say. I’m completely flawed.
‘I’m confused, Mum. Why would you lie about going to a yoga, meditation, vegan retreat and why did you make up a distant relative in Norfolk?’
‘It sounds silly when you say it like that.’
‘Like what?’
‘That I made up a distant relative in Norfolk because of my yoga, meditation, vegan retreat.’
‘But that’s exactly what you did.’
