It was hard not to feel a little bit uprooted as I rang the doorbell of my daughter's house, clutching my hastily-packed suitcase. The heating of my own house had failed to come on that morning and the engineer said it would be Tuesday before he could get the new part to fix the boiler. Today was Friday, so for a few days, I was throwing myself on the mercy of my daughter Mia and her husband Ryan.
"Oh, Mum!" Mia exclaimed, giving me a big hug the moment she'd opened the door. "I'm so sorry about the heating!"
I stepped inside, enjoying the lovely warmth of their house compared to the freezing cold of my own. "Oh, don't worry, darling, the engineer seemed very capable," I said dismissively, putting my suitcase down in the hall. "Come Tuesday night I'll be back at home."
"Well, until then, make yourself at home," Mia assured me. "You know where the guest bedroom is."
"Is Ryan at work?" I asked, taking off my coat and hanging it on the rack.
"Yes, they're in the middle of a project at the moment so he'll probably be back late," she explained. Ryan was a design engineer and frequently had to put in extra hours when they had a deadline looming.
"But you're not working today?" I asked, adding my scarf to the rack next to my coat.
"Just a half day. I've been finished since lunchtime," Mia confirmed.
"An early finish on Fridays is nice. Makes the weekend feel longer."
"What would you know, Mum?" Mia teased, leading me through to the kitchen so she could put the kettle on. She was right: since I divorced her dad fifteen years ago, I'd been living off the settlement and hadn't needed a job. All courtesy of my ex and his housebuilding company.
"Very true," I agreed, kicking off my shoes. "Speaking of which, have you seen your dad recently?"
Mia shook her head. "He's so busy with his other family that we don't see each other much. And I think Kirsten keeps him on a short lead."
Kirsten, his former PA who I'd discovered him in bed with, was a sensible woman, I reflected.
"Tea or coffee?" Mia asked, lifting mugs out of the cupboard. "Or I suppose I could open a bottle of wine if you like; with Ryan at work I haven't got any plans this evening."
"After the day I've had, wine sounds fabulous," I told her and she laughed, putting the mugs back, switching off the kettle and heading for the fridge.
Mia was my only child and we were very alike: both blonde, although mine had begun fading to more of a platinum colour these days, and both blue-eyed. We were almost exactly the same height and shared many of the same interests (mainly trashy TV and shopping), so we were easily identifiable as a mother-daughter pair. The one thing Mia hadn't inherited from me was her tits: I'd always been busty, one of the characteristics that had attracted her dad in the first place, whereas Mia was slim and had almost no bust to speak of. This made sharing clothes awkward, unfortunately, although we did manage to swap trousers occasionally.
We were on our second glass of wine and deep in a catch-up when Mia picked up her phone to answer a text from Ryan.
"What do you fancy for dinner tonight? Ryan says he's stuck at work for at least another hour so we'll have to fend for ourselves," she said, rapidly typing a response to him.
"I don't know about you, but I don't fancy cooking," I said, wiggling my feet which were encased in fluffy socks to emphasise my point.
"Me neither," Mia said. "In fact, getting up off the sofa doesn't appeal to me."
We shared a look and a grin.
"Shanghai Palace?" we both said, almost in unison, giggling.
We'd been getting takeaways from Shanghai Palace ever since the divorce. I didn't even need to tell Mia my order, and in fact, when the proprietress answered the phone to Mia, she just said 'do you two ladies want the usual?' It arrived half an hour later and we watched reality TV surrounded by a sea of side dishes in plastic boxes.
I was munching a prawn cracker when the front door opened and Mia looked up from her phone.
"It's me," Ryan said, sounding weary as he hung up his coat and took off his shoes in the hall. "Bloody hell, it's turned cold out there. Something smells good, though. Is your mum here?"
Mia gave me a guilty look. "She's in here with me. How was work, babe?" she asked, not moving from her spot curled up in a corner of the sofa as he came into the room.
"Hi Laura," he said to me, giving me a smile.
"Hiya Ryan."
I'd always been slightly envious of Mia and Ryan's relationship. The principal attraction I'd had to my ex-husband was the size of his wallet and his penchant for buying me expensive gifts, since otherwise he was quite plain-looking and prematurely balding. Ryan, by contrast, was tall, good-looking, in great shape and showed no sign of losing any of his chestnut hair. Mia had made a great match and I tried not to watch as he leant over my daughter and kissed her.
"Is mine in the kitchen?" he asked cheerfully, nodding in the direction of our takeaway boxes.
"We didn't get you any," Mia told him, and I watched his face fall. "We weren't sure when you were getting back, and it'd be stone cold by now."
"Fuck's sake, I'm starving," he moaned, poking through the boxes looking for leftovers. "I could've reheated it."
"Sorry," Mia said, but the smile she gave me behind his back didn't look sorry. "There's pasta and stuff in the cupboards, though."
"Fantastic," he said, clearly upset, and we pretended not to hear him muttering under his breath as he clattered about in the kitchen for the next twenty minutes. Instead we turned our attention back to the TV.
When he'd made his dinner, a big bowl of spaghetti with bolognese sauce from a jar, he came through and glanced at the available seating. Mia was sprawled across the armchair and I was occupying more than half of the two-seater facing the TV. A flicker of conflict went across his face before he sat down in the remaining space next to me, clearly having decided not to complain about our mess. He feigned an interest in the show we were watching.
"When's the deadline for your project?" I asked him, trying to include him in our conversation.
"Next week. We were actually finished months ago, but the client messed up the legwork and I've been left to sort it all out," Ryan said, shaking his head. "Right pain in the arse, let me tell you."
There was something about Ryan that was cute when he was mildly pissed off about things. I couldn't put my finger on it, but it might have been the way he narrowed his eyes or drummed his fingers impatiently. Or maybe the way his cheeks flushed slightly, giving away an unexpectedly passionate side of him.
"Want anything from the fridge, Ryan?" Mia asked, taking my wine glass for a refill when she got up.
"Beer," he said, simply, transferring the last mouthful of spaghetti from the bowl into his mouth. "It's been one of those days."
For the next hour or so, I watched TV while Mia scrolled on her phone and Ryan slumped back, unwinding, half an eye on the TV and half on his drinks can. When he'd relaxed enough, he forced himself to sit up and turned his eyes onto me.
"So, what's wrong with the boiler?" he asked with the curiosity of the engineer.
"Not sure. The man said something about an intake."
He grinned. "You mean he said something technical and you switched off?"
"Pretty much."
"When's it getting fixed?"
"Tuesday," I said. "Sorry that you'll have me hanging around all weekend."
He shrugged. "No problem, we're happy to have you. We're out most of tomorrow at Mia's mate's twenty-fifth birthday anyway, so you'll have the house to yourself."
"I've brought a good book with me and there's always the TV to catch up on," I said. "Don't worry about me."
"Oh, I'm not worried," he said, smiling. "If anything, I'm concerned that you'll have too much fun drinking all of our wine and undoing all my hard work teaching Mia to actually clean up after herself."
"That does sound like me," I giggled, picking up my glass. "So long as I can remember which bed's mine, I'll be fine."
"
Mum!
" Mia said, mouth open, acting scandalised.
They were both fairly tired from the working week and were yawning by ten o'clock, so I suggested we call it a night. I needed to unpack a bit anyway, so after changing into an old pair of leggings and an oversized jumper for pyjamas, I bustled around their guest room, putting my things into the wardrobe and locating my toothbrush. It was when I was bending down to put my knickers in the bedside drawer that I heard a knock on the open door.
"Just wanted to check you have everything you need," Ryan said as I straightened up and turned to look.
"Yes, I'm fine, thanks for asking," I told him, smiling, suddenly wondering if I'd left one of my bras lying around or something.
