The Boy Who Fell to Earth by Kathy Lette Page B

still found it in her heart to love him.
    ‘Do you know that our mother has a tattoo somewhere on her body?’ I interrogated Phoebe as she returned from the kitchen with a platter of antipasto.
    We both looked at our parent with amused awe. ‘Show me!’ Phoebe insisted.
    ‘I’m not showing either of you until your romantically challenged little sister promises to date again. Merlin needs a male influence in his life,’ Mum reiterated, in the same tone someone would say ‘
May Day. Abandon ship. Right now
.’
    ‘Lucy, our mother has a tatt. Just promise to date again,’ Phoebe beseeched me. ‘Come on. Don’t you want to see it?’
    ‘Perhaps I’ll date again, later …’ I shrugged, with a mouth full of taramasalata.
    ‘How much later, dear? You’ll still be hot, yes, but only due to your menopausal flushes. You’ll be wearing support fishnets. And an orthopaedic G-string, as your vagina will have dropped because you didn’t do those pelvic-floor muscle exercises I keep telling you two about,’ my mother chided. ‘Do them now, girls, for God’s sake.’
    We all sat silently for a few minutes, contracting and holding and counting. Cold was creeping into the garden. The best of the day was behind us.
    ‘Mum’s right. I love you so much, Lulu. But you’re becoming curmudgeonly,’ Phoebe said, ruffling my just-brushed hair. ‘You need an outlet … Merlin needs an outlet. Your relationship is too intense. You need a man in your life. Do it for your child.’
    ‘I can’t believe you’re serious, Phoebe. Where can a 36-year-old woman with a special needs child find a sexy, intellectual, evolved male who is interested in her? Let me tell you. In a bookstore. Under “Fiction”. Besides, Merlin would hate it if I dated men.’
    ‘Merlin!’ my mother called in her imposing voice, a voice that could not just quell a school library of unruly illiterates but no doubt command a battleship. ‘Come here, darling!’
    My mother gestured for him to come closer. But, of course, he couldn’t just walk over. He had to walk towards us in a certain way, for luck. Anti-clockwise, it turned out today. ‘So that I can go on living,’ as he put it. Five minutes of anticlockwise circumnavigation later, he threw himself at me, launched himself really, like a fleshy Exocet missile. He hugged me with debilitating enthusiasm, the kind of hug that would require a chiropractor to reset my bones.
    ‘So, what’s been on your mind lately, Grandma?’ Merlin said experimentally, trying to fit in.
    ‘Merlin,’ my mother chirped, ‘don’t you think it would be a good idea if your mum had a boyfriend?’
    I awaited his howl of protest, but instead his eyes sparkled. ‘Why does a woman marry one man and have babies and then stay that way for life? I find it lacking in ambition. It’s like being the teacher’s pet. I like the French approach. You don’t have to think I’ll be upset if you get a boyfriend, Mum. I would find it intriguing.’
    As I prised myself free of Merlin’s vice-like grip, I looked at my son’s slender, toned body and, for the first time in a long time, missed the bulk of a real man.
    ‘It’s not a man’s world. I don’t think father-pride. That’s the old style. But it would be enthralling to know what happened to my real father. Is he a time traveller?’ His face lit up with puppyish eagerness. ‘A moonwalker? Or an International Man of Mystery?’
    Sadness settled on me like a soft deposit of giant snowflakes. I could be the best mother in the world but my son would still be furtively seeking a father’s hand in the dark.
    ‘Look,’ I acquiesced, ‘even if I wanted to go out with men again … I’m a single mother. I mean … how can I date?’
    ‘Because,’ my mother stated grandly, ‘I am going to Merlin-sit. I’ve put away my leopardskin luggage for a while, to stay with my adorable grandson,’ she said, placing a big, juicy, coral-coloured kiss on his cheek.
    ‘Grandma, how