Fiona Gibson - The Mum Who’d Had Enough - A laugh out loud romantic comedy perfect for fans of Why Mummy Drinks

‘Of course he won’t hate you,’ she exclaims. ‘Flynn adores you. Come on, this isn’t making you feel any better …’

‘I’m sorry, I just seem to offload to you all the time …’

‘Offload away,’ Abby says, smiling now. ‘You’ve done the same for me, plenty of times.’

I muster a smile too. ‘Well, I’m so grateful, Abs. You are brilliant, you know that?’

She shrugs off the compliment and pushes back her long blonde hair. Dressed in a simple black shift, with minimal make-up, her brand of pub manager is sleekly groomed rather than OTT glamour. Although she is very much my friend – the one she confided in during those failed rounds of IVF, and then her divorce – I first got to know her through Nate, when he and a big bunch of mates shared a house.

We channel-hop now, finally settling on a soothing nature documentary about seals. We share the rest of the bottle of wine and, by the time we say goodnight at around 1 a.m., I am slightly light-headed – yet again.

What kind of mother am I? I reflect as I climb into bed in Abby’s spare room. I drink too much. Worse still, I have abandoned my lovely boy who needs me. And I can’t even bring myself to set a mousetrap, for goodness’ sake! How can that be, when I’ve dealt with the numerous challenges of raising Flynn? But that’s just me. Recently, I seem to have become fearful of quite a few silly things. I don’t know whether it’s age, or hormones, or what. Maybe Rachel might have some ideas?

At our last session, I’d told her how I’d tried to keep my business going as a new mum. However, Flynn was a terrible sleeper and my determination to graft away into the night soon proved impossible. Even when he finally learnt to distinguish night from day, his early years were filled with medical and therapeutic appointments. Although Nate and I never discussed it, the person to take charge of such matters – and accompany him on virtually all of these – was me.

And so orders fell away, and Sinead Hogan, so-called shining star, was replaced by Sinead Turner in ratty old jeans and a faded sweatshirt, fringe home-cut, face devoid of make-up and frankly knackered. I once went to apply some mascara for a party and discovered that it had entirely solidified. My jewellery equipment and materials were either sold or packed away in boxes and stashed in the attic. My old filing cabinet, in which I’d stored years’ worth of magazine clippings, scribbled notes and designs, was shunted into what we have always referred to, optimistically, as our ‘guest room’, and which is now entirely filled with junk.

It wasn’t as if Nate pushed me into any of that. It was my choice to put my business on hold; I wanted to be a full-time mum, and no other job was as thrilling and rewarding – or downright terrifying when it was suggested that Flynn’s development wasn’t following the expected curves. Weren’t all babies different? I insisted, belligerently. What did health visitors and GPs know? What could paediatric neurologists and behavioural development specialists actually tell us, with their decades of study and experience in impaired muscle coordination and control?

‘They just want to label him,’ I protested to Nate – as if there was a ‘them’ and ‘us’. Like these kindly professionals were trying to put our baby into some kind of box, just to be difficult. There were numerous scans, examinations and tests. We joked, rather bleakly, that we should be issued with hospital loyalty cards.

Eventually, a grey-bearded consultant explained that Flynn – who was by then nine months old – had cerebral palsy. No, we didn’t ‘cause’ it, he insisted. It had nothing to do with the wine I’d drunk at our friends’ wedding, plus tequila shots, ill-advised gin jellies and God knows what else I’d tipped down my throat before we’d realised I was pregnant.

Eventually, Nate insisted that I had to stop beating myself up or I’d go mad. It took a long time for me to trust these unfailingly kind professionals and not assume everyone was lying to us. If someone had said, ‘Your son has this condition because you’ve worn thongs/took ecstasy – once, in 1992, and nothing actually happened ’ – then they’re the ones I’d have believed. Our consultant suggested that I wanted someone, or something, to blame. As our baby’s carrier for forty weeks, it seemed that had to be me.

I tried to explain this to Nate, but he brushed me off, implying that I was being silly and even hysterical. Eventually I stopped talking about it as it just seemed to cause rows. Meanwhile, we threw everything into being Flynn’s parents. He was our little hero, and our entire life, and when one aspect of life is all-consuming, other things tend to be forgotten. Like paying parking fines on time and sending Nate’s mother a birthday present (somehow, since I’d let my business slide, attending to such matters had become my job). We forgot about wedding anniversaries, and rarely had nights out, despite numerous offers of babysitting. For the most part, we even forgot about having sex. Let’s just say our cars had oil changes more regularly than Nate and I were getting it together. And somewhere along the way, we lost ourselves.

For a while, I assumed the real problem was money, and it was certainly tight. I knew this was partially my fault. All through Flynn’s primary school years I was a non-working person, which sometimes seemed to tip into being a non- person. But I accepted that, because Flynn was surpassing all expectations and growing up into the sunniest, most determined and delightful boy. CP was just a part of him, like his love of dogs and fascination with his dad’s vast record collection.

By the time Flynn was twelve I had an overwhelming urge to return to work. Jewellery was far too precarious an option, and by then I was lamentably out of touch with trends and potential retail outlets. Plus, as Nate often pointed out – quite rightly – our debts were mounting and we needed another regular income. Pre-parenthood he’d scraped a living through teaching guitar, playing in bands and driving musicians, plus their gear, the length and breadth of Britain. He’d enjoyed the driving part so much, he’d eventually trained as a driving instructor, and then the examiner he is now.

Reliable, hard-grafting Nate: willing to swap his life in music for one of tests and minutiae, because he loves us and wanted to take care of us. Meanwhile, I took on some part-time admin work, until last year, when a card in a local shop window caught my eye: Full-time sales assistant required. Please enquire within.

‘Would it seem ridiculous,’ I asked Nate, ‘for me to apply for a shop job?’

‘What kind of shop?’ He started to rearrange the contents of our dishwasher, as he always reckons I stack it incorrectly.

‘A new gift shop called Little Owl. It’s by that bistro in Stoker Road. You probably haven’t noticed it …’

There was a clink of crockery as he repositioned the top shelf’s contents to ensure effective cleansing. As my friend Michelle once put it, ‘A man who criticises your dishwasher-loading technique risks being shoved into it with the intensive setting whacked on.’

‘So, what d’you think?’ I prompted him.

He removed the forks from the appliance’s holder and put them back properly , with prongs facing upwards.

I jammed my back teeth together. People have committed murder over less. ‘Nate? Did you actually hear what I said?’

‘Yeah, sorry, darling.’ He turned and smiled. ‘Yeah. I think a little shop job would be really good for you.’

Little shop job!

I was replaying all of this as I scribbled that list two nights ago. I hardly knew what I was doing as I placed it by the kettle, then called Abby in a state. Of course I could stay with her, she assured me. She would come and get me, and would I please stop apologising? She met me in her car at 1.40 a.m. at the end of our road.