The Marriage Mender by Linda Green Page A

at his feet before answering. ‘With Mum. She’s got a spare ticket for some band she reckons are really good.’
    ‘And how does Tom feel about being blown out?’ asked Chris.
    ‘He’s cool about it. Really.’
    I looked at Chris.
    He sighed, aware he was cornered. ‘OK. But don’t make a habit of letting down your best mate.’
    ‘Thanks,’ said Josh. ‘I’ll let you know if the band are any good. Mum reckons you’d like them.’
    My skin bristled. She still claimed to know him. To know him in the way that you only do if you live with someone, if you’re their soulmate. I imagined them lying together listening to music. Lying in what was now our bedroom. I wondered if she used to make him compilation tapes. Whether she’d done dance ones. And ones to have sex to.
    Chris leant back in the chair and ran his fingers through his hair as Josh left the room and bounded back upstairs.
    ‘She doesn’t make it easy, does she?’ I said.
    ‘No. She never did.’
    I stared out of the window, hating the way she was doing this. Leaving silent footprints all around us.
    ‘I tell you what,’ I said, leaning over and kissing him on his forehead. ‘We should go out tonight.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because we never do.’
    ‘Fair point. I could ask Mum to babysit.’
    ‘You’re sure she won’t mind?’
    ‘What, spending a few hours of quality time with her only granddaughter?’
    ‘It might stop Matilda complaining about everyone else going out,’ I said. ‘And she’ll like having your mum all to herself.’
    ‘Good. That’s sorted.’
    ‘I’ll book a table, then,’ I said, smiling at him. I wasn’t going to let her do this. Let her memory come between us.
    * * *
    ‘You off already?’ I asked Josh later. ‘I thought you might see Grandma before you go.’
    ‘Sorry, we’re going somewhere to eat first. Nelson’s, I think.’
    ‘Is she vegetarian?’
    ‘Yeah, didn’t you know?’
    I shook my head, wondering what else I didn’t know about her. ‘Do you need some money, then?’
    ‘No, it’s OK, thanks, Mum’s paying.’
    I’d heard him say the word enough times that I should have been used to it. I wasn’t, though.
    ‘Have you got your emergency money?’ I asked.
    ‘Yeah and the monkey chaff, Mrs Potato Head,’ said Josh, grinning.
    I could still remember watching
Toy Story 2
with him when he was a kid. I think Chris had started calling me it first. But Josh was the one who’d carried it on every time I started listing items he may need.
    ‘Thank you for the cheek,’ I replied. ‘Home before midnight, please.’
    ‘Or I’ll turn into a pumpkin.’
    ‘How are you getting home? Has she got a car?’
    ‘No. She said she’d get me a cab.’
    ‘Well, have some more money, just in case,’ I said, reaching for my purse.
    ‘I’m fine,’ he replied. ‘Stop being such a mum.’
    It must have shown on my face. Even though I tried hard to stop it.
    ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean –’
    ‘No, it’s OK,’ I said. ‘It’s fine.’ I smiled at him. Put the ten-pound note back in my purse. ‘Have a good time, then,’ I said.
    ‘Thanks. And you.’
    He closed the front door quietly behind him. I sat down for a second on the bottom of the stairs. Conscious that Lydia had once been a proper mum to him. In this very house. Had fed him, winded him, changed his nappy, things that I had never done. So I had no right, really. No right to feel the way I was feeling. She had been here first. I was the newcomer. I was the one who couldn’t complain that a mother had come to reclaim her child.
    As long as that was all she was trying to reclaim.
    I sighed and looked at the clock. Chris and Matilda wouldn’t be back from picking up Barbara for a good half an hour yet. I decided to go and have a bath.
    * * *
    I took a long while doing my make-up afterwards. It was like being a teenager again, having the luxury of taking your time to get ready for a night out.
    I tried to remember the last