Fiona Gibson - The Mum Who Got Her Life Back

She hadn’t even invited him; he’d been in Glasgow on some work-related mission, and someone had brought him along. We sat together all night, reminiscing about college and, eventually, indulging in a little furtive hand-holding and kissing. ‘Be good, you two!’ Corinne had chuckled as we left together.

I took him back to my place where we crept in gingerly at 6.30 a.m. There was no real need to creep – Molly and Alfie were away on a school trip to France – but still, I’d half expected them to jump out from behind the sofa yelling, ‘Ah-a! So here’s our filthy mother, drunk and with a man!’ Even when Ryan and I went to bed, I was still on edge in case they charged in, flung down their rucksacks and clicked on the dazzling overhead light.

In the four days that followed, it felt as if we were teenagers, getting it on as much as humanly possible before my parents returned. When the kids phoned home, it was an almighty effort to put on a normal voice as I asked about their trips to Parc Astérix and the Camembert factory, which Alfie especially loved (ironic, given that he is now a vegan and regards cheese as the devil’s work: ‘No, I don’t miss it, Mum. Why’s everyone so obsessed with cheese?’ Because it’s heavenly! I always want to retort).

During that whole time, Ryan and I barely left my flat. We had pizzas delivered – cheese-laden pizzas – and drank wine during the day. We had long, languid baths together, with Ryan graciously occupying the tap end. It was terribly decadent but then, it had marked the end of yet another lengthy sex drought for me. It was as if I’d been on a juice fast – not just a weekend ‘cleanse’, but for two bloody years – and had then been presented with a mountain of profiteroles. I started to think we might have a ‘thing’, albeit of the sporadic, long-distance variety, as Ryan was still based in London. Like an idiot, I pictured him nipping up for weekends, and me standing there – blow-dried, make-up immaculate – at Glasgow Central station, waiting for him.

Then my kids came back, by which point Ryan had already loped off back to London, where he runs a successful leather accessories company, promising to stay in touch. But his replies to my texts were curt – he was ‘manic with work’, or ‘out of the country’ – then they stopped altogether. Some frantic googling revealed that, for many years, Ryan had been having an on-off thing with a model-stroke-personal-trainer with an ash-blonde pixie cut.

I felt pretty foolish, I suppose, as he’d claimed he hadn’t been seeing anyone for ages. I’d trusted him; perhaps that’s another reason why I refuse to join a dating site, despite Gus and Corinne badgering me to do so.

‘There must be someone you’d consider having a drink with,’ Corinne remarks now, when the three of us break off for coffee on our squashy corner sofa.

‘Yeah, there are about 800,000 people in this city, Nads,’ Gus adds with a smirk.

‘Yes,’ I say, ‘but once you take away everyone who’s too young, too old, married or crazy, that probably leaves about three, and what would be the chances of us fancying each other?’

‘There’s every chance,’ Gus insists. ‘You’re a very gorgeous woman, Nads.’

I laugh and look at Corinne. ‘And he’s not even drunk!’

He snorts in mock exasperation. All three of us are single but, unlike Corinne and me, he has no shortage of dates. A good-looking artist with bags of charm, apparently he has no desire to meet ‘the one’. While his lifestyle would be a little hectic for me, I envy him sometimes.

‘Don’t you ever look at a man and think, oooh ?’ he asks.

‘It’s very, very rare,’ I say truthfully. In fact, I reflect as I get back to work, I’ve wondered if that part of my biological make-up has died, like a flat car battery. But that very lunchtime, when I pop out to buy a few last-minute presents, it becomes clear that that hasn’t happened after all.

The city centre feels jolly and festive, and I look around, feeling grateful to be part of this big, vibrant city where I grew up, and which I still love very much. In a few days’ time I’ll be installed at my sister Sarah’s on the Ayrshire coast, with Molly and Alfie and Sarah’s family for Christmas, and it’ll be lovely. We’ll all eat too much (Sarah is a wonderful cook, the self-appointed Queen of Christmas), play board games and kick back and relax. But for now I’m enjoying the festive build-up, the seasonal music blasting out from the shops, and the sense that quite a few shoppers have enjoyed a few drinks already.

Feeling the chill now, and regretting not putting on a jacket, I step gratefully into the warmth of a bustling shop. I’m perusing the shelves, looking for stocking fillers for Molly, when a dark-haired man – wearing jeans, a black jacket and a grey sweater – walks in. I know it’s weird to stare so blatantly, but I can’t help myself. Despite the marauding hordes, and ‘Winter Wonderland’ blaring out of the speakers, I cannot tear my gaze away.

Apparently, my ability to find another person wildly desirable hasn’t died after all. It has just jump-started.

He is tall and lean with a strong, proud nose and the kind of generous mouth that suggests he smiles a lot. From my vantage point some way across the shop, I can’t tell what colour his eyes are. But actually, it’s not just his appearance that’s stopped me in my tracks.

Normally, the word ‘aura’ makes me shudder, but this man has one. It’s one of quiet courage and calmness – the way he strolled into the melee without flinching. Clearly on a mission, a bold pioneer fearlessly navigating the store, apparently untroubled by people clamouring for highly scented goods. He wanders from one display to the next, then stops and looks around, as if assessing the terrain before deciding how best to proceed …

A man, in a branch of Lush, five days before Christmas: he deserves some kind of national bravery award for that.

I try to focus on what I came in for, but all thoughts of body lotions and bath oils have evaporated now. I edge past a boy with mauve dreadlocks who’s demonstrating some kind of product in a bowl of bubbly water. Girls cluster around him, squealing excitedly as if he might be about to pluck a live unicorn from the foam.

I’m closer to the man now, pulled towards him by a powerful magnetic force. Although he seems to be alone, I still scan his immediate vicinity for evidence of an accompanying female – daughter, wife, friend. There appears to be no one. This man looks like someone I absolutely have to speak to; all I need to do is figure out how.

Don’t be a lunatic, I tell myself. He’s probably married or gay or … my God, he made eye contact and smiled at me! It was a proper smile – warm and wide and perhaps held for a couple of moments more than you might expect from a stranger. Heat surges up my neck as I smile back, briefly, before turning away. Now I’m gazing around the shop as if I have never been to Lush before, and am considering writing a thesis on it. (I’d start it: How trustworthy are those labels on the products, depicting the person who made them? Can we be sure that Daria really created that massage bar, or could the labels be randomly generated?)

Pushing away such disturbing thoughts, I edge my way towards the man, pretending to examine the hand-cut soaps along the way. There’s just a display table between us now, bearing an outlandish rockery of pink and yellow spheres. He’s peering at bowls of gloop that are displayed on crushed ice, like fish. Feeling terribly stalkerish, I sidle around the table and position myself next to him. Now I’m close enough to register the colour of his eyes; they are a clear, piercing blue.