Fizzing with happiness

Since my boy passed his driving test, just one month after his 17th birthday, I no longer drive the ten miles to his mother’s house to pick him up at weekends. Now he comes and goes between his parents as he pleases, and the weekly mug of tea and a cigarette at her kitchen table, the 20 minutes of gossip, and the ceremony of the handing over of the 40 quid child maintenance, have come to an abrupt end. Missing the tea and gossip, however, I popped over there one day last week for a purely social visit.

My boy’s mother hasn’t been able to go anywhere in the past 12 years. During that time she let herself go. Her hair ran wild, and she piled on the pounds. The fatter she became the less she moved around, and the less she moved around the fatter she became. At first she was miserable about her size, then defiant, then she just gave up.

She ballooned. Her knees hurt so much she could hardly get up the stairs at bedtime. But in all those 12 years she hadn’t seen a doctor, a dentist or a hairdresser. We’ve all written letters to her doctor over the years, requesting various kinds of help with varying degrees of politeness, but the answer was always the same: any request for medical help must come from the individual concerned.

About six months ago, however, she had a moment of mental clarity and realised what a sad life she was leading. I believe it was a daytime TV programme that sowed the seeds of self-improvement. The change of attitude was so spectacular it seemed miraculous.

She got her boyfriend, a builder’s labourer, to cut and style her hair.