The beginning

We stood in our new kitchen and looked around; it was all very clean, very sparkly and very alien.
‘You’re a spinster now mom.’ Vicci said in a serious, it’s all over for you sort of tone.
‘What’s a spinster?’ Bear asked.
‘It’s a sad, lonely old woman who can’t keep a man,’ Vicci replied with a judicious nod of her head.
‘Errr Vics...’ I said.
‘Is mom one then?’ Bear interrupted.
‘No I’m bloody not,’ I replied, glaring at them both. ‘I’m not even thirty yet!’
Vicci cast me a pitying glance. ‘Mom’s single now Bear, single with two kids, a really boring job and not a man in sight.’
‘Excuse me...’ I spluttered but Vicci, clearly warming to her theme ignored me. She sat herself down, cracked open a box of family sized maltesers – didn’t offer any - and faced me across the table.
‘Mom’s gonna end up with even wilder hair, fifty cats, a million tweed jumpers and no bras,’ she said.
Bear joined her sister at the table and nodded in support. ‘Yes and you’ll have wrinkles.’
I sat down opposite them and gave them my best mom-is-stern sort of glare. ‘Girls, I’m still in my prime,’ I insisted.
‘No mom, you need to face facts,’ Vicci said around a mouthful of chocolate. ‘You’ll end up all lonely and desperate and asking us to visit every weekend.’
‘We won’t though,’ Sarah declared. ‘’Cause the house will smell of cat wee and books.’
‘No we’ll have to,’ Vicci corrected in the tone of someone making a big sacrifice. ‘Or she’ll die and be eaten by Alsatians.’
‘I don’t even like cats and tweed,’ I replied, stung. ‘And I’ve got plenty of time to get a boyfriend and stuff if I want to and where I ask you did the Alsatian come from? I haven’t seen one since the eighties.’
‘Yes but there’s bound to be one about mom,’ Vicci replied, as if this should have been obvious to me. ‘And the fact you can even remember the eighties sums up my entire point.’
‘Vics...’ I began, ready to acquaint my overly dramatic daughter with some facts.
‘It’s not looking good mom,’ Vicci insisted. ‘You’re gonna be hard pressed to find someone to marry you.’
I frowned and considered her words. It was hard to admit but she did have a point. I have no great pretensions to beauty but people don’t generally shriek in the street when they spot me... unless it’s the morning and I haven’t tied up my hair. I am what the Victorians would have called ‘commonly held to be well to pass’ i.e. she’ll do. The trouble is, third eye aside, I have this tendency to want to be in charge. You know the whole who wears the trousers thing? Well that’s me but I like to wear the t-shirt, the jumper and the trainers too.
I think this comes from growing up on ‘the estate’. A place where men were men (insert assholes) and women were (and apologies in advance for the sweeping generalisation but it’s necessary and probably true) pathetic and downtrodden.
‘I don’t even want to get married,’ I said.
‘That’s beside the point mom,’ Vicci replied.
‘Yeah mom,’ Bear chipped in.
I sighed and considered my two children, perfect though they are in my eyes I am not blinded to the fact that in reality they’re both a tad too opinionated for comfort.
‘A woman does not need a man to be happy girls,’ I told them, for probably the millionth time.
Vicci looked at my hair, currently twisted up into a messy top knot, travelled down to my combats, wrinkled and dirty from the unpacking. Up again to my shapeless t-shirt and settled on my makeupless face. I knew she was dying to say something about the state of my clothes, probably even restraining herself from whipping out her little makeup bag and covering me in gunk, but for once my fourteen year old held her tongue. Instead she smiled at me in a sympathetic sort of way reached across the table and patted my hand. .
‘You better hope not mom,’ she said.