I used to think that Friday was the best night of the week: all that time stretching in front of me, with only good food, sex and frivolity ahead of me. I can’t shake the sensation of Tony’s arms around me and it takes me back to places I haven’t visited for years. For good reason.
Now I try to find joy at the bottom of a washing pile. I fold my knickers and hold a pair up to the light, and recall when I wore a thong made from such little material that there was no room for a tuck and a gather, just the suggestion of nakedness. James comes into the utility behind me and I drop the underwear back into the basket.
‘Are my white Calvin Kleins in there?’ he asks. ‘There are none in my drawer.’
‘Have you looked on your floor?’ I ask him.
He smiles and I wonder that Jeremy and I are responsible for his handsomeness. His face is tanned and full of mischief. He stands next to me and rifles through the neatly piled washing.
‘James! I’ve just folded that!’ I slap his hand.
‘God, Mum, what are these?’
He playfully holds up my pants and presses them to his groin. I agree that they look more like wind sails than under garments.
‘They’re comfortable,’ I say.
‘For a whole family?’
‘Sod off. Here, there’s a pair of Calvins, do you need them now? I’ll pop them in the dryer.’
I have a solution for everything. He kisses me.
‘Do you think Ewan will go anywhere near the rec tonight?’ I ask him seriously.
‘I don’t know. He wants to be like the other kids,’ he adds.
‘What does that mean?’
‘You can’t baby him just because he gets beaten up,’ he tells me.
I sense resentment in his voice.
‘Do I treat him differently to you, when you were his age?’ I ask him.
He considers his answer before he replies. ‘Yeah, you’re more cautious with him.’
I turn away and get washing powder out of the cupboard. There are two more loads to put in. My Friday treat.
‘Why are adults so serious? It’s as if you have your fun cauterised at forty. I’m never getting married.’
I drop the washing and stand up to face him. I can’t think of a comedic retort.
‘See? Didn’t you ever get stoned and do stupid things? I thought you both went to uni.’
‘To be old and wise, one has to first be young and stupid,’ I say to him. ‘We used to get up to some crazy stuff,’ I say, in my defence. It’s unconvincing, even to myself.
‘You don’t have to stay with him, you know. Just because it’s the proper thing to do. He’s an arsehole, you have a right to kick him out. I would. And don’t tell me he’s my father and I should respect him, that’s bullshit. Kids are always told that their elders know better but if that’s the case then why don’t I spend all day in bed after a session on the weed, feeling sorry for myself because I’m too scared to admit that I can’t get a job as good as my wife’s?’
The emasculation is complete. Jeremy has reduced himself to a foetus in their eyes: undeveloped, parasitic and suspended in the pose of a freeloader.
‘Sorry,’ he says.
‘No worries. I appreciate your honesty.’
‘Now I’ve got it off my chest we can go on pretending,’ he quips.
It’s one of my lines. He comes forward, and before I know it, his six-foot frame is bending towards me and he holds me. I allow him to overpower me with affection and sincerity. It’s nice to be held for a while. Inside his hug, I feel curiously safe and it’s his gift to me.
‘Your pants will be twenty minutes,’ I tell him after he’s released me back into the big bad world. He disappears. I busy myself with the washing once more and try to remember how I became so miserable.
We were a foursome at college. Me, Jeremy, Tony and Sarah. The abandon afforded by the security of wealthy parents was lost on us then. The chosen few. Academia was imbibed alongside a pint of Guinness, next to the castle on the mound, steeped in history that meant nothing to us. Edinburgh wrapped us in a mantle of elitism preserved for those to whom tuition fees and monthly rent appeared trivial pursuits.
The bills were paid and our futures mapped out.
We took risks because there was no consequence. We were born to conquer and command. Smoking the odd joint and even taking LSD, we still followed the flock. The establishment swathed us in blankets of self-assurance and confidence that only money can buy. I look back on the abominable ignorance of the ruling class, and the precariousness of such a hold on the tide of superiority that we all took for granted slaps me in the face.
Jeremy has disappeared in all but name, Tony has been running all his life, mainly between women, I pretend to hold everything together because of my postcode, and Sarah… She never got to witness our combined failures. Now we’re grown-ups, we can only hold on to the mirage of authority by doing what everyone else does: paying the mortgage, abiding by the law, and feeding our children to the meat grinder of education, so they can prop up the system too.
But my eighteen-year-old son has just told me that it all means nothing if you don’t believe in it. Like the vision of an oasis in the desert: it’s only there if you want it to be.