Fiona Gibson - The Mum Who Got Her Life Back

Get a grip, Jack McConnell, I chastise myself silently, and possibly try to get out more.

Over the next few days, I venture nowhere near the overly scented store. It’s not that I want to avoid looking like a weirdo stalker. Okay, it is partly that – but, perhaps handily, there’s no time to take lunch breaks anyway. A deluge of donations has arrived at the shop, suggesting that the whole of Glasgow is clearing out its old tat ahead of Christmas.

If the shop is going to be able to function, then all of this stuff has to be sorted. Despite the sign in our window reading ‘We welcome your sellable donations’, we’re gifted an alarming amount of skanky underwear and used toothbrushes with bristles splayed (sometimes harbouring ‘bits’). Because naturally, such items will bring in the money we need to build and support our network of animal sanctuaries. In fact, I think people sometimes forget that we are a charity at all, and regard us as a gigantic bin. Thank you kindly for your ancient knitting pattern that might possibly have been used to line a budgerigar’s cage! But then, happily, there is the odd pearl among the dross, and we actually do a tidy trade.

As the volunteers and I separate the good stuff from the ripped lampshades and filthy sandwich toasters, I find myself wondering why my lovely helper in Lush chose to work in what seems like a particularly youthful environment.

It’s not that she’s old, not at all; I’d put her at around the same age as me, and I don’t feel old. At least, sometimes I don’t (when I plucked a cracked glass dildo from a box of donated goods I did, admittedly, feel about ninety-six – and on more than one occasion my ex Elaine has ‘jokingly’ asked if I ever worry that being surrounded by so many old things might somehow seep into my consciousness and accelerate the ageing process). It’s just that she didn’t seem to quite fit with the other, multiply pierced and tattooed assistants in there. It’s bizarre, the way this stranger keeps sneaking into my thoughts. Perhaps it’s the time of year; it always unsettles me a bit.

‘Are you sure you’re going to be okay over the holidays?’ I ask Iain, who’s stayed on to help on our last day before we close until the new year.

‘I’ll be fine,’ he says breezily, carefully checking that all the components are present in Home and Away: The Board Game.

I glance at him. ‘You’re going to your mum’s, right?’

‘Yeah.’

Together, we begin to stack up the boxes of donations we haven’t yet sorted, in order to leave the back room in a reasonably orderly state. ‘What about the rest of the time?’ I ask. Who will you see, is what I mean, and what will you do to fill the days?

‘I’ll be fine,’ he says again.

‘Yes, but …’ I pause, wary of sounding patronising. ‘You won’t be on your own the whole time, will you?’

‘Of course not,’ he says with a trace of defensiveness. ‘I’ll be with Pancake … and I’ll finally have time to read,’ he adds, with a note of triumph, as if his life is too hectic normally.

‘Well, that’s good,’ I say as I lift a basket of hairdryers, their cables entangled, onto a shelf.

‘Yeah.’ He beams at me. ‘I’m going to learn some new stuff. Expand my mind …’ He indicates the scruffy hardbacks he’s stacked on the fridge, set aside for him to take home.

‘What kind of stuff?’ I ask, now wiping down the worktop of our tiny kitchen area.

‘All kinds of stuff!’

I turn and look at him. Whenever Iain’s in the shop, he’s never far from my side. Today he’s wearing one of his customary V-necked sweaters – tufts of chest hair are poking out – and his curious old-mannish trousers that always look a little too tight for his belly. Dropping the sponge wipe into the sink, I check the books he’s chosen. ‘ Vehicle Maintenance for Beginners ,’ I murmur.

‘Yeah!’

Whilst I am not au fait with Iain’s various conditions, I’d be surprised – and frankly alarmed – if he was ever capable of driving a car.

Small Plot Gardening in Full Colour is another of his choices. But Iain doesn’t have a small plot, or even a balcony. I check more of his books – which he’ll insist on paying for – hoping to find something that might be of use to a single man living alone with a dog. Picture Framing Made Easy , Creative Crafting With Yarn …

‘That’s what I’m going to do,’ Iain says eagerly.

I frown. ‘What, make macramé pictures of owls?’

‘No,’ he sniggers. ‘I mean this one. I’m going to learn to cook.’ He plucks the relevant book from his pile, and I recognise it immediately: a once-popular guide to a savagely punishing dietary regime.

‘We get this all the time,’ I remark. ‘If there was a prize for the most handed-in book, this would win it. It’s because no one can actually stick to it, Iain.’

He pushes back his wonky, possibly self-cut fringe: ‘But it’s full of healthy recipes. Weren’t you saying I should start eating better?’

I shrug in bafflement, having no memory of saying anything of the sort. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Yeah, you did. At the Christmas lunch …’

‘Oh, that. All I meant was, we’d seen the menu beforehand, and you said you were fine with the full turkey dinner. And then, on the day, you decided you didn’t want veg …’

‘I don’t eat veg,’ he says indignantly.

‘You wanted chips,’ I remind him, ‘instead of roast potatoes, and baked beans in place of the sprouts …’

Iain beams at me. ‘Yeah, well, like I said, I’m going to read this and be healthier, like you’re always on at me about …’ This is so not true. I’m never ‘on at’ him about anything, although sometimes I suspect he’d like me to act like a sort of dad-type figure, dispensing advice. Although he mentions his mum occasionally – I gather she struggles with a raft of mental health issues – he’s given the impression that his father was never around. It’s Una, his upstairs neighbour, who seems to keep an eye on him.

‘Well, um, I think that’s great,’ I say, ‘but, y’know, that book was written quite a long time ago, and people don’t really go for her methods anymore …’

‘But she’s a doctor ,’ he insists, jabbing the author’s name on the cover.

I pause, wondering whether to break it to him. ‘The thing is, she’s not actually a real one.’

‘But it says it on the book!’ His eyes flash with indignation.

‘Yes, but there’s been some debate about whether her qualifications are real, or if she’s just a bit of a charlatan …’

‘A charlatan?’

‘You know – a cheat, a fake …’ I’m reminded now of a difficult conversation I had with Lori a few years back, when she asked me to tell her straight – no messing – whether Father Christmas really exists.

‘People can’t do that,’ Iain retorts. ‘Not when they write books.’

‘They can, if they have the nerve. I mean, I could call myself a doctor …’

‘But you’d be lying, wouldn’t you?’ He glares at me as if I might be considering it as a possibility.

‘Well, yes. I’m just saying—’

‘How did she write a book then?’ Iain snaps.

‘By sitting at her computer and hammering it out, I’d imagine.’ I catch Iain’s crestfallen expression and regret being so blunt. ‘Look,’ I add, ‘I don’t know for certain, but I do know there was a TV show years ago where she used to examine people’s poos …’

‘Ugh!’

‘And you don’t want to spend your Christmas doing that,’ I remark, but my attempt at a joke seems to appal Iain even further.