Free This Holey Life by Sophie Duffy Page B

sighs. ‘I’ve got to get round to Desmond’s
anyway. There’s an Alpha meeting.’
    ‘And what about Jeremy? What was all the sulking for?’
    ‘Apparently he fancies Jessica Talbot. Rachel told him he was embarrassing.’
    ‘Fancying? At his age?’
    Steve shrugs his shoulders as if it’s quite normal. The only person I fancied at that age was Starsky. And he wasn’t real.
    I’m trying to put my thoughts into words but I’m not quick enough. Steve has kissed Olivia and Imo and dashed off again. Another call-out. Around the clock. Only he can’t
charge extra these days. He does it for a pittance. He does it for love.
    Back in the shed, Jeremy is scoffing a packet of Monster Munch. He has rigged up some Christmas lights that he must have swiped before I put the decorations back up in the
loft, tidied away alongside the plumbing manuals and teaching resources.
    ‘You’ve got it all nice in here,’ I say, bright and breezy.
    ‘I’ve got to have somewhere of my own.’
    ‘Of course you do. It must be hard camping out on the zed-bed. You must miss your bedroom.’
    ‘I miss my mum.’ He sounds younger than Olivia when he says this. And I’m so angry with Martin and Claudia for doing this to their child. Their son.
    ‘Oh, Jeremy. She’ll be back in a couple of days.’
    ‘I want to go home now.’ Tears slide down his cheeks – cheeks like Imo’s, hamster-like – and I want to hug him too but I’ve never done that before. He’s
never been a huggable boy. At least Rachel was huggable when she was little and still is, in weak moments. Martin and Claudia should have spent more time with him. Nurtured him. Hugged him. And I
feel bad, guilty, that I can’t just do it for them. I pat his hand instead. I even manage to leave my hand on top of his for a bit without too much awkwardness. He is my nephew after all. But
I can’t shake away the knowledge that he is Martin’s son. I have never hugged Martin in my life.
    ‘Come back in the house when you’re ready. There’s cake.’
    ‘Could you bring me out a piece, Auntie Vicky?’
    I am about to tell him to come and get it himself when I stop. The least I can do is bring the poor boy a piece of cake.
    But I’m not happy about the situation. I shall have strong words with Martin tonight. He must take Jeremy back to his mother on her return on Sunday. And as for Martin, he’s going to
have to make it up to Claudia or find somewhere else to live. Ha!
    Several hours later, when the kids are fed and bathed and pyjamaed and absorbed in Coronation Street , Martin finally returns home. He enters the living room with a
banana box full of papers and his laptop, which he dumps in the middle of the room, the children moaning at him to move away from the telly. I’m not going to ask him what’s taken him so
long, or what the papers are for.
    ‘Research,’ he says, anyway, moving reluctantly to one side. As if I care about his research. He thinks he’s someone important. We’re all someone important according to
Steve. Each one of us unique and special to God. I don’t feel particularly special or unique with tea tree hairspray in one hand and a nit comb in the other, knowing there are mothers all
over South London in a very similar position.
    ‘Have you got nits, Vicky-Love?’
    ‘No-one has in this house, I make sure of that... though I haven’t checked your fine head of hair. Or that beard.’
    Martin starts scratching his head. Then, realising what he’s doing, he stoops to pick up his ‘research’ and crashes out of the room. I listen to him pinball down the hall to
the kitchen, to the echo of his loaded box as he dumps it on the kitchen table, recently cleared and wiped down ready for breakfast tomorrow. Then the fridge door. The familiar clank and fizz that
announces Martin’s return home. Martin making himself at home. My home.
    I need to talk to him.
    But first Imo needs her bedtime feed. She’s holding up her Popeye arms to me from