I waltzed in the door singing to be met by groans and panic. The groans because of the singing, the panic mainly because I almost gave Nick a heart attack by accidentally catching the panic button on the alarm fob. Once the immediate problems had been sorted out we were off to the first appointment, following which I dragged my poor, wheelchair bound son to the supermarket, revelling in his inability to escape the torture. Well, hey, he sends me most days so I saw no reason for him to be let off the hook. Anyway, I was cooking for him and the lad’s night, so his input was required.

We cheerfully insulted each other as we shopped, drawing a few strange looks from other victims of the need to eat. We do that a lot. They may sound odd to outsiders, but our playful slurs and insults are simply an expression of affection. We’ve done it for years. And we are good at it! It gets quite creative.

I suppose it was inevitable that we paused briefly by the cakes. Duly armed with a triple chocolate muffin and a couple of fresh cream scones, we finished shopping and returned to his place, Possum Palace, to dispose of them appropriately. The house name was supposed to be a joke based on his tattoo… so of course, I’d had the sign made.

While Nick was otherwise occupied I went to feed the fish . There were Faith’s rollerblades in the cupboard. Staring at me. My size too. Must be over 30 years since I’d last had skates on my feet…..

Of course I had to.

Caught in the act

When I’d finished playing out, I had cooking and housework to do for him, as well as being the taxi service. And I love cooking. There is a magic in assembling a pile of ingredients, knowing what will work and just what is needed to make a savoury dish that fills the house with a tempting aroma. I play with herbs and spices, very subtly, using the small tricks picked up over decades in a kitchen, skinning garlic in boiling water, adding arcane ingredients to make a seemingly simple dish. I never cook for myself… there is no fun in that. So my weekly foray into lad’s night at Nick’s is a joy.

Nick, meanwhile, settled in to mixing what he loosely calls music and I call by a number of other unprintable epithets. We have differing opinions on this. In fact, music was a source of many giggles today. I am trying to learn to sing, preferably with the right notes in the right order, for a torture to be inflicted upon a privileged few in a few weeks time. My son, to be fair, now knows the lyrics and melody as well as I do. He hears it every day. It haunts him like a nebulous nightmare. It wanders through his mind as he seeks refuge in sleep. He had banned me, begged me, not to sing it any more this morning, after the first ten minutes.

So as I turned on the ignition of the car and the stereo chirped in with the recording of the aforementioned song, his face was an absolute picture. And I just cracked up. That was it. Gone.

The hairdresser who looks after Nick smiled and complimented me again on the red hair. I do it myself and it seems to get brighter every time she sees me. She took Nick’s coat and asked if she could get us anything. We established fairly quickly they don’t stock straitjackets or cyanide, and I was told quite firmly by Nick to take myself off and stop looking at him. I was making him uncomfortable. The nice hairdresser is used to us. Thankfully.

It may not sound like much of a day, but it was sheer delight. The conversation ranged from serious and deep to as light as a bubble. The insults, as colourful as ever and the general tone remarkably, wonderfully, intelligently silly.

Laughter shared, even through insults, with a closeness and trust in each other, is as good a way as any of showing love. There is a lightness in it and a joy.

Chuckling again as I drove him home, it was obvious that holding a sensible conversation just wasn’t going to happen. It got sillier until, to my absolute delight, my son shook his head in seeming despair,

“Are you regressing, Mum?” More chuckles from hobbit driver. “Because I feel like an old man next to you!”

Now isn’t that a lovely thing to say?