A Makeover for My Old Mum Ch. 01

'You look amazing, Mum,' I said, truthfully. 'How does it feel?'

She sat down and picked her gin and tonic off the table and took a large sip, then sat back and crossed her legs, giving rise to a rustle of nylon. 'I feel a bit like an actor, as though I'm playing a part. I suppose I don't feel completely me.'

Resisting the urge to point out that that had been the object of the exercise, I took the opportunity to take a few photos on my phone to load onto her website profile. I'd also suggested that I re-write her profile and with the changes that I had in mind, I felt certain she'd strike a chord with someone. And hopefully the right someone.

We had a rather wonderful time at dinner. The food was excellent and we polished off an extravagant bottle of vintage Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Mum was good company; as sparkling and animated as I'd ever seen her. Indeed, there was something of Cinderella about the evening and I had secret visions of her disappearing at midnight and leaving one high-heeled shoe on the floor of the restaurant. Well, that didn't happen but she did suggest we ordered another bottle, so she must have been ultra-relaxed. By the time the meal was over we were only half-way through the second bottle but I picked it up as we left the table with the intention of drinking it in my room. But mum had other ideas.

'Shall we go up to my suite and have a nightcap?' She smiled as she said "suite". 'I've never stayed in one before and I ought to make the most of it. And I've got a balcony.'

The balcony wasn't huge but it had a couple of chairs and a great view out over fields to the River Isis. Mum poured us a generous glass of red that practically finished the bottle off and we sank into the cushioned balcony chairs. The night was clear, the sky moonless and star-studded. We sat for a while in silence me thinking about nothing in particular and mum, as it turned out, summoning up her courage. It was she who broke the silence.

'Jack, I really appreciate the help you've given me in this dating thing. And buying me all those clothes! Thank you. You must think I'm a proper idiot, needing all this help and being clueless, but the fact of the matter is that I've never dated before.'

I didn't say anything but I was on the alert now, feeling that some kind of disclosure was on its way. Mum wasn't easy to read and I certainly hadn't anticipated what she said next.

'I know you've always wondered about your father, and I've always brushed you off. But I think it's time I told you about it, as it has a bit of a bearing on my situation.'

I remained silent as she told me the whole story of the symposium in Leeds. It was pretty much as gran had described it, so I'd heard it before. Nevertheless, I did a workmanlike job of appearing to listen to an amazing tale.

'So you've no idea who this guy was?' I asked when she'd finished.

'None at all. I know that sounds so awful. It's one of the reasons I've never talked about it. I suppose if you really wanted to it might be possible to trace him by finding out who attended the symposium, but it was twenty-six years ago so it might be impossible.'

'I'm not in the least interested in finding him,' I said, 'except maybe to give him a good hiding. Bastard just left you in the bathroom.'

'Yes, it wasn't my finest hour. But you can see my problem?'

I waited.

'He's the only man I've ever had any kind of encounter with, and I don't remember anything about it at all. Nothing has ever come back about that night. And that gives me a real problem when I'm looking for a partner; who's going to want someone who's effectively a sixty-two-year-old virgin?' She paused for a second but I still said nothing. 'The other day, when I had that one and only and totally disastrous date, when he tried to kiss me at the end of it I didn't even know what to do!'

'You must have seen people kissing on television, in films. I mean kissing's easy you just—'

'Not when you've never done it,' she said with some anguish. 'It's all very well to dress me up like this but on a proper date I'll be found out in five minutes.'

'I think you're worrying about nothing, Mum.'

'Yes, well you know me. I'm a worrier.' She drained her glass, stood up and moved into the suite. I stayed where I was and a couple of minutes later she appeared with two small bottles of red wine from the minibar. 'We might as well have these, they're complementary.'

'Are you going to be ok, Mum. We've had quite a bit to drink.'

'Yes, I know. It's the only way I can summon the courage to ask you a difficult question.'

'Go ahead,' I said, puzzled.

'Right.' She appeared to be steadying herself. 'I know this is going to sound dreadful, but I can't think of an alternative -- you're the only man I know. At least the only one I could ask...'

'What, Mum?'

'Would you teach me how to kiss? It's fine if you don't want to or don't think it's appropriate,' she said quickly. 'If that's the case then we'll just forget I asked. Maybe with the help of the whisky in the minibar.' She smiled nervously, twisting her hands together, a picture of embarrassment.

I was taken by surprise; nothing had prepared me for this request. But at the same time I appreciated what it must have cost mum to ask such a question. I took a gulp of wine and breathed deeply to try and clear my head. I'm sure it wasn't appropriate to kiss your mother as a suitor would, even if she's asked. But you have to remember that the person sitting next to me didn't really look like my mother. Plus I was pretty drunk by this time and feeling very protective towards this woman who had bared her soul to me for the first time in my life.

'What, now?' I ventured.

'Seems as good a time as any. We've both had a bit to drink so...'

Tipsy I may have been but there were butterflies in my stomach as I stood up and held out my hand to my mother.

'Ok. But not on the balcony, right?'

'Whatever you want, Jack.'

We went back into the lounge and I drew the balcony curtains. In the twilight of the room I led her to the settee and we sat down, side by side. Part of my brain was saying "don't do this!", but another part was remembering doing up her suspenders, the scent of her talcum powder and the silkiness of her knickers, just inches from my nose. So I took the plunge.

Putting my arm around her shoulders, I drew her to me. The satin of her cocktail dress felt cool and soft and I smelt her shampoo as I whispered, 'just relax,' into her ear. She tilted her head towards mine and I bent slightly and touched my lips to hers. They were warm and soft. I nuzzled my lips against hers, tasting her lipstick, feeling her front teeth. Then I opened my mouth and, after a pause, she opened hers to mine and I slid my tongue into my mother's mouth. We kissed like this -- like lovers -- for perhaps two minutes then I withdrew my tongue and played my lips against hers before separating and whispering in her ear again.

'That's all there is to it. Now I should be getting back to my room.'

Mum was very quiet. My arm was still around her shoulders. 'Kiss me again, please Jack.'

This time I gently removed her glasses before I lowered my mouth to hers again, putting my other arm around her and drawing her to me. Her body felt slender, bony, her chest flat against mine, although I fancied I could feel her nipples against my ribs. The kiss was more passionate this time and lasted longer. She put her hands on my neck and pressed my face into hers, her nails lightly digging into my flesh. It was hard to reconcile this woman with my mother, and that made it better. Or less weird.

Eventually I broke free told her that I needed to go. She slumped down in the settee, apparently drained.

'Are you going to be ok, Mum?'

'I'll be fine. I'll see you at breakfast.'

I walked over to the door and mum called out: 'Jack.'

'Yes, Mum?'

'Thank you.'

Back in my room I stripped and got into bed, but sleep eluded me for hours that night. I tossed and turned, playing the end of the evening over and over in my head. Trying to recall exactly how it felt to hold her, to kiss her. In the end I slept.

As I showered the next morning, I was beset by the fear of meeting mum in the breakfast room after what we'd done last night. Ok, we hadn't broken the law or anything but it was highly unusual behaviour, nonetheless. Taboo, in fact. But when I asked myself if I regretted it, the answer was more no than yes.

Mum was already at breakfast when I appeared. She'd done her own make-up that morning and done a good job of it. She was wearing a skirt and top that we'd brought the day before and she looked pretty good. We managed to get through breakfast without mentioning the night before and shortly after that we checked out and loaded our cases into my car. The trip home was only forty-five minutes or so but once on the road, mum wasted no time.

'I guess we need to talk about last night.'

I braced myself for a lamentation about inadequate parenting and the perils of drink. What she actually said was: 'I enjoyed yesterday more than I can say! It was a wonderful day. And as for the kissing, well I've been thinking about that this morning and I find that I really don't regret it at all.' This last was said with a hint of defiance.

This was a great weight off my mind. 'I don't regret it either,' I said with some relief. 'In fact any time you want lesson two, just give me a call.'

'I didn't realise there was going to be more than one lesson,' she said quietly.

'As many as you want,' I said, staring ahead through the windscreen.

Mum was silent for a moment, then: 'In that case, perhaps I could ask another favour.'

'Fire away.'

'Would you take me out on a date? I mean as if we'd met through the website? I would feel much more confident having a dry run.'

Which was why, the following Saturday evening, I rang my mother's doorbell and waited for her to answer. We'd agreed that we would behave as though I were a potential suitor taking her out for the first time. This meant calling her by her first name. In fact I would be calling her Elizabeth, something which no one ever did, and there were a number of other little pieces of play-acting. The whole thing had sounded like fun when mum outlined it in the car. Now I was surprisingly nervous. And excited. Definitely excited. I knew that at some stage this evening I was going to French kiss my mother again. Not that I hadn't spent the last week thinking about it and getting a hard-on at the thought and feeling terrible at getting an erection by thinking about my mum.

She answered the door and I presented her with the bunch of tulips I was holding. I had pointed out that she should, under no circumstances, give out her address before a first date, so we should really meet in the restaurant. Mum had thought about this and then said that she took my point but it was silly both of us driving. I wondered, afterwards, if it was because she wanted me to drive her home after the meal.

She was looking at her best again this evening and I suspected that she'd been practising with her make-up, though I thought she'd overdone the lipstick on her lower lip a bit; it made her look -- how could I put it -- slightly wanton? But her newly dyed hair looked freshly washed and lustrous and she was wearing an attractive dark-green silk sheath that we'd bought last Saturday. It was perhaps a bit too tight-fitting, showing off curves she didn't have, but the whole effect was nice. She was making a real effort with her appearance, that was the important thing. Black stockings and high heels rounded off the ensemble. In truth they might have been tights but I thought maybe she'd been practising doing up the suspenders too.

'Elizabeth! How nice to meet you! And how nice you look too!'

'Thank you, Jack. And it's very nice to meet you too. And thank you for the lovely flowers. I'll just run and put them in a vase.'

We kept this sort of "Gone With The Wind" dialogue up until we got to the restaurant, by which time it was beginning to tire and we relapsed gratefully into more normal speech patterns. I'd booked an exclusive and reassuringly expensive restaurant in a sixteenth-century cottage by the canal. I'd also asked for a table with some privacy, as I was sure that was what any sensible potential suitor would have done. It was in a little alcove in a room off the main eating area, and if the waiter noticed the glaring discrepancy in our ages as he showed us to the table, he was too professional to let it show.

The evening was a major success. The food was a bit disappointing but mum polished off most of the bottle of red -- I was driving -- and got really chatty, something she rarely was. We maintained a little of the first-date fiction but there was none of the awkwardness that there would probably have been, especially with someone like my mum, on a first date. It was a bore not being able to have more than a glass of wine, but I made up for it by staring at mum's hands as she ate. As I've said before, she had lovely, feminine hands and tonight she'd put on a dark plum nail varnish. She must have bought that herself during the week; somehow this intensified the attraction. We talked about this and that and never mentioned kissing, and the time flew and then it was well past eleven and the waiters were fussing around and tidying up and all but ushering us out of the door, which I thought was a bit rude considering the size of the bill.

I parked outside her house and turned to her, in the passenger seat. 'Thank you for a really lovely evening, Elizabeth. I hope you enjoyed it too.' I Paused. 'I'd like to see you again, if you'd like to, that is.'

'Well thank you. I've had a marvellous evening and yes, I'd like to see you again too. Maybe we could go for a walk one day. Shall I give you my mobile number?'

'Oh, right, yes, that would be super.' Super? We'd left "Gone With The Wind" and morphed into P G Wodehouse.

'Would you like to come up for a coffee, Jack?'

'I'd love to Elizabeth but I should get back. The cat's been in for five hours now.'

'You haven't got a cat.'

'Mum, this is supposed to be a simulation of a first date. There's a protocol. Don't invite a stranger into your house when you only met him a few hours ago.'

'Well I wouldn't if this was a real date.'

'But we're supposed to be acting as though it is. And it's gone midnight.'

'Just a quick cup of coffee? Seems a shame for you to just drive off after such a lovely evening. And I've got decaf.'

I'd planned on giving her lesson two in kissing in the car then going home. I felt vaguely uncomfortable about going into the house with her after our "date". But there was a note of appeal in her voice and I didn't see how I could refuse.

'Ok, a quick cup and the I must be going.'

I sat on the big settee in the front room while she fussed about in the kitchen and reappeared with two mugs. She put them down on the glass-topped coffee table and sat next to me. Right next to me. We sipped our coffee, or at least I did, she ignored hers, and made stilted conversation. The elephant in the room was big and silent and looking at us sitting together. I drained my cup and turned to mum.

'I really must be going now but before I do, perhaps I could go through lesson two of how to kiss.'

'Oh, Jack! Yes please! Her face in the subdued lamplight lit up and she smiled, showing her large front teeth and making her look rather pretty and defenceless.

This time we came together more naturally, arms around each other, lips meeting and opening straight away, tongues darting at each other. If I didn't know better, I'd say mum had been practising kissing during the week too. There certainly didn't seem to be much more that I could teach her about osculation. So I forgot about teaching her and just enjoyed kissing her and tried not to think about the erection in my trousers. We kissed for a long time. Towards the end, she started to move her arms, to run her hands over my back to place them on either side of my head and open her mouth wide, mashing her lips against mine, abandoned and passionate. I responded by pulling her closer to me, crushing our chests together before I started to feel uncomfortable, to feel that this wasn't right. I went to release her but mum wasn't having that and she held tight, kissing me desperately. Eventually I broke free and stood up.

'Well you passed the course with honours. If you kiss your date like that he'll be eating out of your hand and begging to see you again.'

''I'm sorry,' she began, embarrassed. 'I got a bit carried away. It was just so nice,' she said, simply.

'Right, well I'll probably pop in during the week,' I said, picking up my jacket and heading for the hall.

'So no lesson three?' She was still on the settee.

'You don't need it, trust me.'

'But I do need to know what to do on a second date. You saw me this evening. I'm hopeless about the protocols and what not.' There was that note of appeal in her voice, stronger now. 'Will you let me take you to dinner Jack? Pretend it's our second date?'

It sounded all wrong but I needed to get some fresh air, get out of that house, so I agreed and we set a date for the following Saturday.

I spent a lot of time thinking about my mum and the whole kissing thing over the next few days. It wasn't what normal mothers and sons did was it? Now I was the first to admit that my relationship with my mother wasn't the standard one, for one thing I never really felt that I knew her as a person; she wasn't easy to get to know, all bottled up and stiff upper lip. Then there was this strange transformation from Doctor Jeckyll to Miss Hyde, Liz to Elizabeth, when she put make-up and smart clothes on. It was as if in this latter incarnation she was no longer my mum the uptight librarian. Was that how she felt about it? Was that why she seemed to want more from me than just to learn how to kiss?

She rang doorbell of my flat at seven o'clock on the dot on Saturday and I buzzed her into the lobby. Miss Hyde was clearly still as punctual as Doctor Jeckyll. She took the lift up and I let her in. I have to say that she looked ok for a sixty-two-year-old librarian. I don't think her colleagues in the college library would have recognised her straight away. Her make-up was a bit on the heavy side but perfectly applied. And she'd evidently been on another shopping spree and not to Primark either. The black pencil skirt and matching jacket were well tailored and complemented the white cotton blouse underneath. Not only that, but when she turned to close the flat door I saw she was wearing seamed stockings, in a barely black shade. Now I'm a sucker for seamed stockings and my stomach did a somersault as I spotted them. I think she saw this because she smiled as she came over to me.

'Hello Jack, lovely to see you. I wasn't sure about flowers so I bought you a bottle of wine.' She put it down on the hall table and turned back to me. 'What a lovely place you've got here. Are you going to give me the grand tour?'

There had been nothing said, but we were obviously back doing the gentle play-acting of the first date. So I showed her round and she expressed her pleasure at everything. Inevitably we went into my bedroom, the larger of the two.

'So this is yours?' she cooed, looking round approvingly. 'Great views!' She moved to the big picture window. 'The dreaming spires of Oxford. How beautiful.'

I said nothing and we went back into the lounge.

'Are you ready to go, Jack? The table's booked for half-past.'

I took my jacket off the back of a chair and shrugged myself into it. 'Yep, ready.'

She hesitated for a second. 'Is it protocol to have a kiss before we leave your flat, on a second date I mean?' She had blushed rather prettily.