Let Me Eat Cake by Margaret Graham

First published 6 years ago by People’s Friend on publication of the final of the Easterleigh Hall series (A House Divided)

The wrapping paper was red, festooned with the image of umbrellas – blue and green. There were many sheets, because my son Gerald’s birthday present to me was HUGE.  He had returned a month ago from his ‘year off after Uni’ trip, having been gone a year. He had e-mailed occasionally, and said that he also tweeted. I e-mail but I don’t tweet. Who wants to meet a troll? Or is that on Facebook?

He actually put me on Facebook in his last year of uni to boost his number of ‘friends’, but I seldom used it. I have only three Facebook friends. One is my son, the others are my nephew and niece, who wanted to build up their list of ‘likes’ or something. I forget what.  I enjoyed Gerald’s occasional e-mails while on his  trip. So many places: Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and so on. One forgets quite where, when it’s another week, another place.

I daresay the best bits took place during the prolonged e-mail silences. I say this because one day I logged into my facebook page, first time for ages, and my nephew had ‘shared’ a post of Gerald’s. It showed more than a mother cares to see, as he dashed naked through snowy streets brandishing a bottle of beer. I think Gerald had taken a selfie using a long selfie stick. Presumably to prove to himself and everyone that the whole of him exists.

Beneath the selfie was a place for comments. I felt it rude not to, so I typed: And this is the boy who usually wears thermal vests and eats mung beans.’ Gerald unfriended me, or blocked me or something, and sent an email saying image was everything these days, and no-one needed to know about either the thermal vests or the ming beans. I apologised and agreed I should not have mention it in public. He said I should not mention it in public or in private.

Children are a minefield. I went out and bought a dog.

Rosie was sitting in her cubicle as I walked along the corridor of the rescue kennels. She was crouched in the far corner, though every other dog shouted and yelled and leapt at their gates. Somehow they reminded me of Gerald. I looked at Rosie, and she looked at me, and I knew her. It was the look in her eyes, which I couldn’t quite place – was it a quiet desperation?

Once home I popped her into the bath. She loved the hair dryer and we snuggled on the sofa. But only for a moment because two of my neighbours knocked on the door, one from either side. They had heard Rosie barking.  ‘We’d like to walk her with you,’ they said, smiling. ‘We want to earn our cake for tea.’

So they did. The next day Moira bought Rosie a lovely collar and I lifted her up so she could see her beautiful shaggy self in the hall mirror. It was then I realised why I knew her. Her eyes held the same expression I had in mine. I fell quiet.

My neighbours became my friends and we walked Rosie every day, and it was fun – for them too, though unlike them, I did not return to eat cake. It was not what I had learned to do.

Soon Christmas was upon me. Gerald and I had inherited his father’s rules for living. We should always be resonsible with our health, no indulgences my late husband had insisted, so sugar was not allowed – or fat, or anything rather tasty. As I wrote my shopping list I looked at Rosie. The expression in her eyes had changed. I looked in the mirror. So had mine. I hesitated but only for a moment, then crossed out fish, no sauce, and wrote turkey crown and trimmings. I added Christmas pudding . 

As I wrote I had  felt something snapping inside me, and recklessly I added Double cream and a small bottle of brandy. I think it was something to do with Gerald running through the streets. No, don’t worry, I wasn’t going to strip off and do the same. It was the memory of the bottle of beer I concentrated on. Didn’t he know it contained sugar? What would his father say? Perhaps Gerald didn’t care? How wonderful that would be. Though of course he was right, the old Gerald should not have been mentioned.

As December became January, my neighbours began to come home with me after our walks and I provided cake. Sometimes they did too. My shopping list grew ever more exciting. By April I had to buy my clothes in a bigger size and Rosie and I bounced alongside our neighbours, laughing and talking. Yes we did. We bounced, and I think perhaps even my shadow did.

But enough is enough, so I exerted portion control – or so the article in the magazine called it. My weight steadied at a size 14. Then we were in May, and Gerald’s due date for return. I picked him up from the airport, and of course I was pleased to see him, until he hugged me.

‘My word,’ he said. ‘Image is everything, Mum.’ He poked my waist. I sighed. The beer had been an aberration, I thought then, as Gerald’s finger sank an inch into by chubby waist.

However, back in my sitting room the HUGE present was still there, in its wrapping. I looked at Rosie, she looked at me.

I fetched my camera, removed the wrapping. It was no surprise, though it was thoughtful of him, but the treadmill was going on eBay and the money would pay for a great many lunches out my friends and I would have when we ventured ever further on our weekly ‘longer Rosie walks’. As I put the paper into recycling, I decided that I would tell Gerald that when he came on his occasional duty weekend visits, the right-hand side of the larder was mine. He could put his mung beans and sprouts on the left.

Of course I should have said the same to his father years ago, but I didn’t have Rosie then to change my life.

The front door opened, because my friends didn’t knock any more. ‘Yoo-hoo’ Moira called. And together we all went for a walk, and looked forward to our tea and cake.

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