‘Mummeee!’
She was in mortal danger. I flew into the lounge.
‘I’ve got a splinter,’ she wailed.
‘Where? Show me.’
‘In my finger.’
‘Let me see.’
‘No, no.’ She was hysterical.
It took ten minutes to get a look at it and a further live to reach a compromise over treatment. Cream and plaster till bedtime and if it didn’t come out in the bath, then, and only then, would tweezers be used. Maddie has a great imagination and a very low pain threshold. On the way back to my cup of tea, I fell over Tom and the contents of the bin-bag. He’d laid out a neat trail of refuse from the back door, along the passage and into the kitchen.
‘Dustbin man,’ he beamed. I cleared up while he threw a tantrum. He stopped when I brought out the chocolate chip cookies. Bribery works.
I sat down with a fresh cup of tea when the phone rang. Maddie made no move to answer it.
‘Shit.’ I slammed my cup down.
‘Hello.’ I tried to keep the irritation from my voice.
‘What’s eating you?’
I’d failed. ‘Diane. Oh, kids.’ My old friend Diane hasn’t got children but I make sure she has a fair idea of the trials of motherhood.
She laughed. ‘Just checking you’re still on for tonight.’
‘Yes.’ We were going for a drink. ‘See you in there, about nine.’
My spirits were raised. There was nothing like a good natter with Diane to put things in perspective and take me out of my own little world. The kids began to argue again.
‘Only two hours,’ I reminded myself, ‘they’ll be asleep and I’ll be out.’
Diane was ensconced in one of the cosy corner seats when I arrived at the pub. Half-way between her house in Rusholme and mine in Withington, it’s one of the few locals that hasn’t been done up to appeal to lager drinkers. But it’s still respectable enough for husbands to bring their wives on the weekly night out. No spit and sawdust. Warm, quiet, dull if you like. I like.
After buying a pint of hand-pumped Boddington’s, I slumped into the seat next to Diane and sighed theatrically.
She raised her glass. ‘Cheers.’
‘Cheers.’ I took a long drink. ‘Ah, that feels better.’ I didn’t just mean the alcohol. Escape. The prospect of two uninterrupted hours stretching ahead. Time to talk, to listen. Time to be me with the best company.
Diane grinned. She has a slow, lazy grin. Like a Cheshire cat. It lingered in her eyes long after it had faded from her lips.
‘I like your hair.’ It was a dark golden colour, shot through with streaks, cut short and asymmetrical.
