Jane

I'd just got in from picking Peter [about twelve, Jane's younger brother] from the cinema when my phone rang. Oddly, it was Jane [fifteen, had a boyfriend that she wouldn't want Mum to know about by blocking Mum on Instagram]. Jane never calls me. At best she deigns to send a terse text if she has to communicate with me over the electric telephone. 

'Jane! Is everything OK, sweetheart?'

'Hi Mum, I need you to come and pick me up, please,' sobbed Jane. [Jane only called her mother Mum when she was softy or really emotional, normally she would sarcastically call her Mum MOTHER]

'Are you at the party?'

"Nooooooooooo!' she wailed 'Muuuuum! Harry dumped me and then he got off with Tilly, and what am I going to doooooo?'

'Oh God, Jane. Where are you?'

'At the bus station. I thought I could get the last bus home but I missed it, and it's clearly scary here, Mum, it's dark and cold.'

Oh Jesus Christ. My baby girl, on her own, at the dubious bus station in town, in her skimpy party dress on a Saturday night with her poor little heart broken. At least she'd had the sense to call me.

'I'm coming now, sweetheart, OK, just - is there anywhere you can go? Any cafes open, or shops where you can wait?'

'No, everything's closed. The only things open are the pubs, and there's lots of drunk people and lots of horrible men keep trying to talk to me.'

'Oh shit, baby girl! I'm on my way. I'll be there with you as soon as I can, but it'll take me about twenty-five minutes to get there.'

'Please hurry up, Mum,' begged Jane.

'What's happening?' said Peter.

'Jane! She's on her own at the bus station in town, and I need to go and get her.'

'Why you?' said Peter.

'Because I'm her MOTHER!' I shrieked.

'No, Mum. I mean it'll take you ages to get there. Call Dad [Mum and Dad separated, getting divorced, Dad lived in town, Jane and Peter lived with Mum out of town], call Sam [Mum's gay best friend]. One of them can be there in five minutes instead of Jane having to wait for you.'

'Oh God, why didn't I think of that?'

'Because you never ask for help.'

'OK, OK, I know, this isn't the time for the lecture,' I gibbered, as I found Simon's number and called him. Thank God he picked up and I blurted out the situation.

'OK, I'm going now, but there's roadworks on my side of town. Call Sam as well and see if he can go too. He might get there sooner.'

'I will, I will,' I gabbled. 'And Simon, if you get there first, don't say a word about what's she's done. Just bring her home to me, all right? She doesn't need you lecturing her and giving her a hard time just now.'

Simon said, 'OK, if you say so. I'm on my way,' and then, once I'd rung Sam, I sat and bit my nails and started anxiously at my phone until Simon called.

'I've got her!' he said. 'She's fine. A bit shaken, but fine. Sam got here about five  minutes before me. A couple of guys were trying to chat her up but they didn't touch her. Thank God you called us, though. It's payday weekend and the town is carnage tonight, no place for a fifteen-year-old-girl on her own. I'm bringing her over now.'

When they arrived, I ran out of the house, and Jane hurtled out of Simon's car and into my arms.

Simon put down his window. 'She says she just wants to talk to you and has asked me to go home,' he said. 'Text me later and let me know how she is.'

'Oh Mum,' she wailed, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I was so stupid, I know, but please don't be angry with me, I was so scared. And Harry's such a bastard [clearly, this family is British]. How could he do that to me? I thought he loved me!'

'Oh Jane, darling. I'm just so glad you're OK - I was so worried about you. Thank God you're all right.'

'Aren't you mad with me?'

'I'm too relieved to be mad with you. And however angry I got with you for going off on your own like that, whatever punishment I gave you, would it really make you think about things any more than how scared you got being on your own in town like that?'

'No,' she sniffed. 'Mum, what am I going to do about Harry?'

'Umm, Jane, darling, how far did things go with Harry?' I asked carefully, while reflecting that Cersei Lannister's threats in Game of Thrones to burn down cities to protect her children were nothing, NOTHING AT ALL, to what I'd do if I got my hands on that little sod.

'Do you mean have I slept with him?' sniffed Jane.

'Well, yes.'

'No, I haven't. That was the problem. He's been going on about it for ages. He kept telling me if I loved him I'd do it, but surely if he loved me he wouldn't make me before I was ready, would he?'

Jesus Christ. How many problem pages in Just Seventeen were devoted to exactly those lines? Teenage boys simply do not change, so thank God Jane had the strength of character to stand firm.

'No, darling, if someone loves you they'll never pressure you into doing something you're uncomfortable with,' I assured her.

'Well, then tonight he said I couldn't love him if I wouldn't even do that one little thing for him, so he said I was dumped if I wouldn't, and I said I just wasn't sure yet, and he said would I at least send him some photos -'

'Photos?' I said faintly.

'Yeah, you know, like topless ones.'

'Please tell me you didn't.'

'Of course I didn't,' said Jane indignantly, with a brief flash of her usual stroppy self. 'So then he said I obviously didn't care about him and that it was over, and then two minutes later he was snogging Tilly. But I do love him, Mum, I really do! What am I going to do? How am I going to face everyone at school?'

I refrained from trying to make light of Jane's woes and telling her that of course she didn't love him - that at fifteen you had no concept of what real love is and when you did find it you'd realise how different it was from those teenage infatuations - because I remembered myself how unhelpful it was to be told that my feelings were silly and didn't really matter.

'I know this is awful now, sweetheart,' I said, hugging her, 'but I promise it will pass. It might not feel like it, but it will. And I don't doubt you loved him, but I think maybe you loved a version of him that wasn't the real him. Now you know what he's really like, you don't love the person Harry actually is, only the idealised Harry, who never really existed.'

Jane sniffed hard again. 'Maybe you're right,' she admitted. HA! Jane said I was right! Damn, why wasn't I recording this conversation for posterity?

'After all,' she went on, wiping her eyes bravely, 'I don't want to love someone who can be so horrible. I want someone who respects me for more than my tits! Tilly is welcome to him.'

'That's my girl,' I said encouragingly. 'I'm proud of you. Shall we have some ice cream?'

'No, Mother,' said Jane [See? Back to MOTHER now]. 'We're not in some mother-daughter American sitcom.' That was more like the Jane I knew and loved and feared.

'But being a teenager is so hard, Mum. I just wish I was grown up and it was all easier.'

I contemplated telling her that it didn't get easier when you were a grown-up - if anything it got harder - but I didn't want to crush her hopes, so I just gave her a hug instead.

'Mum, I do love you', she whispered.

'I love you too, sweetheart.'

'Mum?'

'Yes, darling.'

'Is that what happened with you and Dad? You loved an imaginary person, not who really was?'

'No, sweetheart. I loved him very much, but we were very young when we met and I supposed we just grew into different people who weren't so meant for each other as we were when we first got married. Relationships are difficult, Jane. They aren't black and white.'

'Oh, I know!' said Jane grandly. I made a mental note to brace myself for Jane in future to be an expert on all things relationship on the strength of her first break-up.

'Mum, did you ever do anything stupid like I did tonight? she asked suddenly.

'Darling, I did more stupid and dangerous things than I even want to think about.'

'What did your mum do?'

'I don't think she ever knew. I never would have told her or called her for help.'

'Why not?'

'Because she'd been angry and told me it was all my fault. I always just sorted things out for myself, because the alternative wasn't worth contemplating.'

'But you're not like her - and you're not a mum like her. Why not?'

'Well, I supposed because I made a conscious decision not to be like her. To try to be a different mum, a better mum. All we can do is attempt to break the cycles and not repeat the mistakes our parents made. You'll probably do the same too if you ever have children. I was lucky, though. I did have an example of what sort of mum I wanted to be, in Hannah's mum, Mrs. P.'

'Mrs. P is lovely,' agreed Jane. 'I'm glad you try to be like her, not Granny.'

After all the drama, when Jane had finally gone to bed and I was letting the dogs out for a last pee, Peter came into the kitchen and pulled a milk carton out the the fridge.

'See, Mum,' he said, after taking a long guzzle straight out the carton, 'sometimes when you actually ask for help it turns out for the best.'

...

This post is for you, K.

--- Why Mummy Doesn't Give A ****! ---

--- Gill Sims---