Jane Wenham-Jones - Mum in the Middle - Feel good, funny and unforgettable

It was only because I was tired, I told myself now. Wrung out by moving and work and scrubbing and hauling furniture about – more drawn to a long lie-down than adventure. That’s why I found myself looking around at my unnaturally tidy sitting room, unsullied by a single lager tin or take-away container, thinking wistfully of that other perpetually messy, noisy abode where there was always a starving teenager sprawling, a manic cat killing something and washing piling up.

All the things I used to complain about, really, I mused wryly, as I went back for the other bin, making a mental note to write in my diary it was bottles next time, and then jumping when a piercing voice cut through my thoughts.

‘Hey! OY!’

I looked around for a wayward dog, very possibly chewing on a small child, only to find that strident tone was directed at me.

‘Tess! How you doing in there?’ My opposite neighbour was standing by her gates, dressed in a quilted jacket and wellington boots with flowers on. ‘SURVIVING?’ she yelled.

I’d met the striking-looking Jinni before – she’d hollered at me when I first moved in – and I had her down as an interesting mixture of bohemian creative and woman of formidable capability. She was renovating the big old rectory over the road, and I’d seen her both floating around in a kaftan, apparently reciting poetry to herself, and up on the roof with a hammer.

‘All straight, then?’ she demanded, crossing the street and surveying me. ‘I hate bloody Sundays, don’t you?’ she continued, clearly not caring whether I was ‘straight’ or not. ‘Can’t get on with anything till the bloody plumbers turn back up tomorrow. If they do …’

‘How’s it going?’ I nodded towards the beautiful grey-stone house with its mullioned windows and creeper.

‘Want to see?’ Jinni jerked her head towards her front door. ‘Fancy a drink?’

I looked at my watch. ‘I’d love one,’ I said, thinking that a spot of lunchtime alcohol was exactly what I could do with. ‘But I’ve got to drive to Margate. To see my mother,’ I added, as Jinni raised her brows.

‘I’m an orphan now,’ – she gave a loud and not entirely appropriate-sounding laugh – ‘so I don’t have to do all that Mother’s Day crap.’

I rather wished I didn’t have to either, but Alice had spoken. My sister does not believe in ‘me’ time – especially if it’s mine.

Jinni pointed down the road. ‘Seen all the kids scuttling to the church to get their free flowers? Never go any other time. Little buggers …’

‘Do you have children?’ I asked.

Jinni nodded. ‘Dan’s in Australia, working for a surf school, and Emma’s teaching up in Nottingham.’

She did not look at all sad about this. In fact she was smiling widely. ‘Haven’t seen either of them since Christmas,’ she said cheerfully. ‘But Dan’s back in the summer and Emma will roll up at some point. What are yours doing?’

I tried to sound as pleased as she did. ‘They’re all in London. Oliver is a trainee surveyor, Tilly’s finished drama school and is working in a diner while she tries to get auditions and Ben’s at uni doing computer science with music.’

‘Off your hands, then,’ Jinny said.

‘Yes.’

I thought about telling Jinni that, as odd as it sounded, it was the first time in my 47 years I’d ever lived alone. That since Friday when Ben had abandoned his sensible plan of saving money by living with his mum while studying in the capital, for the much better one of taking up a box room near the Holloway Road and disposing of his student loan in a variety of bars – I was not finding it very easy.

I’d been lucky to have him here at all. How could a small market town, known for its pottery and teashops, with four pubs, a tiny theatre and a KFC – deemed such a potential den of iniquity, it had by all accounts had the locals up in arms – compare with life in the city?

But I didn’t know Jinni well enough to start bleating. Instead I forced my face into bright smile. ‘And what about you? What do you do – or did you do? I can see this must be a full-time job …’

‘Bloody nightmare,’ said Jinni merrily. ‘I was an actress too, if your Tilly needs warning onto a better path. Did you ever see Maddison and Cutler ?’

‘Er, I may have seen the odd episode, I remember it being on …’

Jinni laughed. ‘It’s my only claim to fame – unless you count playing a prostitute in Casualty . I was Maddy!’

I stared at her dark eyes, defined cheekbones and red lipstick and had a sudden flash of recognition. Remembered Rob watching appreciatively as the hot young TV detective – always dressed in tight black leather and invariably waving a gun about – strutted her stuff.

‘Oh my God,’ I said. ‘My ex-husband fancied you rotten!’

Jinni laughed again. ‘It made me a fortune, well, enough to eventually buy this place, anyway. And I married well.’ She laughed again. ‘And divorced even better. He was the producer’, she added. ‘Egocentric bastard …’

She talked on, telling me her plans to open a boutique B&B, dropping in details of her past, her hands waving about expressively, her glossy dark hair tossed back over a shoulder, kohled eyes fixed on mine. She had an energy and passion about her that made me feel dull and mousy.

She’d just finished a diatribe about how men were all largely useless but she did miss it if she didn’t have one to go to bed with occasionally and had moved onto the sort of bathrooms she was planning.

‘They are going to be really sleek and classy,’ she was saying, ‘with rain showers and power baths, but I want to give each bedroom a totally different style with a mix of contemporary and vintage.’ She stopped and gave another of her strange honks of laughter. ‘In other words, I’ll be round the junk shops and … Oh Lord, here we go!’

A small thin woman in her sixties with cropped grey hair and sharp, pretty features was coming along the pavement in jeans, dark donkey jacket and a red patterned scarf. Her dark eyes looked us both up and down.

‘Hello, Jinni,’ she said coolly, before holding her hand out to me. ‘I don’t think we’ve met,’ she added, her voice low, but with an edge.

‘How remiss of you!’ Jinni’s tone was dry. ‘Not harangued Tess with one of your many petitions yet? Not even the one about me?’ Jinni turned back to me, unsmiling. ‘Ingrid is against what I am doing here. She thinks if I am allowed to open a B&B it will bring ruin and devastation on the town and all who live here …’

Ingrid released her grip on my fingers and gave a chilly smile. ‘I am concerned,’ she said in her cultured tones, ‘about extra traffic and congestion in this narrow road.’ She held out a flyer. ‘We are already seeing a greater influx of Londoners using this as a weekend base and contributing nothing to the local economy Monday to Friday. And now, with the high-speed rail link bringing in new residents who can comfortably commute from here,’ she paused and raised her eyebrows at me, ‘the housing stock is shrinking and local people are being priced out of the market.’ She gave an extraordinarily sweet smile that was framed in steel.

‘Tess is my newest neighbour,’ Jinni told her. ‘Ingrid is Northstone’s foremost agitator, she said to me. ‘No issue too small! The local council adore her.’

‘I prefer the term “campaigner”’ said Ingrid, with another sugary-tight beam. ‘It’s nothing personal,’ she finished. Jinni made a small snorting noise.

‘Well, nice to meet you,’ I said uncertainly. ‘I must get going. Jinni, I’ll um–’

‘Come over soon,’ Jinni finished for me shortly. ‘And shout if you need anything.’ She turned abruptly and strode back over the road towards her house.