This was the last time my mother was going to control my life.
The last time.
I was done.
2
The following day, I finished work at three. Having arrived back in Sherwood half an hour later （Sherwood the Nottingham suburb, not to be confused with the forest）， I got off the bus and headed straight to the shop.
Mum’s older sister, Aunty Linda, ran the Buttonhole craft shop and haberdashery, situated in prime position in amongst Sherwood’s artisan bakeries and gin bars. Aunty Linda’s shrewd business mind and talent for evolving one step ahead of the times had allowed the Buttonhole to not only survive, but thrive for over three decades. Mum also worked there, but when her ‘pains’ flared up a few years ago, she’d cut down her hours along with her enthusiasm, demoting herself from sought-after craftswoman to lacklustre shop assistant. She wasn’t in today, hence me visiting.
I entered the Victorian-style doorway to find one of their hugely popular workshops in full swing. Several women were seated around two large tables, heads bent over balls of wool, needles clacking in time to their animated conversations. Linda stood up as soon as she saw me, automatically pausing to compliment someone’s handiwork before striding over to where I hovered by the counter.
‘How’s she doing?’ Linda grimaced, her lilac glasses halfway down her nose. She shared Mum’s wiry frame and narrow features, but her hair, far more salt than pepper, was invariably wound up in a plaited bun, into which she’d have stuck a crochet hook, or a random ribbon.
‘She’d made an amazing recovery by the end of the evening.’
‘Oh, love.’ She gave my arm a sympathetic squeeze. ‘There’s tea in the pot, and plenty of cake.’ She moved over to the refreshment counter, setting out two large, flowery mugs.
‘What do you think would happen to her if I ever moved out?’ I asked, causing Linda to pause, still holding the teapot in mid-air.
‘I think you need to focus on what it would mean for you, and your life.’ She eyed me carefully. ‘Leave your mum to worry about herself.’
The previous evening, as we’d eaten the curry in front of a romantic comedy that made me feel more like crying than laughing, I had thought of little else.
‘I’m scared to even consider how she’d cope without me.’
‘Moving out doesn’t mean severing all contact. It’s what most people do, Ollie. Find their own place to live, pop back home at the weekend and Christmas, like your cousins.’
‘But if her “pains” are bad again, I’ll end up back home so often it would be easier not to bother leaving.’
‘What’s the alternative? Stay, and sacrifice your happiness for hers?’
‘I’m not unhappy…’
My aunt rolled her eyes. ‘Only because you don’t allow yourself to feel anything much at all. I don’t want to presume that you hope to have a family one day. But it was something you used to talk about a lot, when you were with Jonathan.’
Jonathan.
Hearing his name still made my heart clench.
We took our drinks and cake over to an empty table and sat down. ‘I do want to meet someone. I have a whole list of things I’ve dreamt of doing when I can finally move out. Things I don’t want to do with my mother.’
Linda raised one eyebrow. ‘Oh yes?’
‘I mean… like get a puppy. Or camp out under the stars. I want to host a party, full of noise and laughter and the kind of friends who push the table to one side to make room for dancing.’ I sighed, before taking a bite of fudge cake. ‘I have so many dreams about how life would be, once I’ve found the person to do it with. But they seem to just keep getting further away the older I get. How am I supposed to find a partner, when I can’t even make it to a first date?’
Linda sipped her tea. ‘Perhaps it’s time to stop waiting.’
She didn’t add what we both knew to be true – I stood no chance of finding a man who wanted to share my current life, unless he was also prepared to share it with my mother. I had met Jonathan in my final year at Nottingham University （commuting every day from home）。 Back then, it was probably only natural that Mum and I were close, given that it had been the two of us for so long. It was as Jonathan and I grew more serious that her mystery pains began, and as her illness grew worse, alongside the anxiety, I ended up having to repeatedly prioritise her over Jonathan.
The frailer she grew, the clearer it became quite how much she needed me. She told Jonathan, several times, that I was ‘the man of the house’ and once she reduced her hours at the shop it seemed sensible to transfer household accounts to my name. After a few months, she had deteriorated to the point where she couldn’t drive any more, so also depended on me for lifts.