5 More Minutes

“Jamie your shoelace is undone. For God’s sake put the box down and do it up before you break your neck!”
“Yes Mum.”
I could hear the gentle mocking in his voice when he said that, like its some hilarious little joke that I still act like his mother. He could be 52 with four kids and a pension for all I care, I’d still tell him to do up his bloody shoes. He handed me the box and bent down to do it up. The tip of his tongue was clenched between his teeth and he carefully watched what the laces were doing. I could almost hear him saying “loop it, swoop it, pull”. He’d always been slow with learning how to do his shoelaces. We tried it all: the bunny ears, the squirrel and the tree, one of those giant cardboard shoes with laces to practice. He ended up wearing Velcro till he was 13.
He stood back up, sweeping his fringe out of his eyes. He’d always had big eyes, from the day he was born. The midwife brought him in and handed him to me and as he woke up he batted those long eyelashes at me and the blueness of his eyes took my breath away. In all his school pictures from primary school he reminded me of a caricature with his sticky out ears, big blue eyes and grin that was always missing at least two teeth. Then he went to high school and started growing his hair and forever covering his eyes with that bloody fringe. I told him countless times to cut the damn thing off but he always kissed his teeth and said “it’s fine, Mum”.
“Much better” I said, handing him back the box. He turned around to take the box out to the car, his jeans holding on to his buttocks for dear life as he walked. “Jamie, love, you need a new belt; that one you’re wearing doesn’t seem to be any good.”
Taking the hint, he steadied the box on one hand and pulled up his jeans with the other. Once he’d gone around the corner, I turned and went upstairs.
His bedroom door was wide open and the room looked neat tidy, two things it never was when he was in it. One large open box was in the middle and piled high with books and toys and little trinkets: the stuff he was leaving behind. I picked up a plastic cowboy from the top of the pile; once upon a time it had been his favourite toy. It all started when we took him to see Toy Story in the cinema and having a toy cowboy or astronaut as your best friend became ‘cool’. Before then he had never even given the thing a second glance and suddenly it had to sit with him at dinner, bathe with him and sleep with him. He had tried to write ‘Jamie’ on one of the boots but he could only fit in the ‘Ja’. The cowboy didn’t stay a favourite for long: his Dad bought him a Playstation for Christmas and so anything that wasn’t on a television screen was no longer worth playing with. I always joke that that Christmas was the day I lost my son to the Five More Minutes syndrome. He’d be playing that thing from the moment he woke up till when he went to bed that night, which he always tried to extend by turning his big brown eyes at me and whimpering, “Five more minutes?”
Bathing went out of the window: it took up too much game time. So did haircuts, fresh air, homework and friends. At mealtimes I would yell his name up the stairs, only to hear the faint response “I’m coming mum, five more minutes!” and his dinner would be stone cold by the time he came down. In a matter of days my sociable seven year old turned into an obsessive recluse. It took about 8 months for the novelty to wear off and he went back to playing football with friends and maintaining personal hygiene, but the Five More Minutes syndrome stayed. Throughout his teens those three words became an automatic response to my every command: get out of the shower, do the washing up, go to bed, tidy your room, walk the dog. It was also the excuse for anything that he didn’t want to stop doing: playstation, computer, television, girls. When he was 15 I let him bring his girlfriend round for the first time. She was a tiny blonde twig that barely came up to his shoulder, although by that time he towered well above just about everyone we knew, including me. He took her hand and led her up to his bedroom and I faced the inner struggle of not thinking about what they were doing. A few hours later I yelled up the stairs that her Dad had come to pick her up, to be met with the grunt “five more minutes, mum.” Heaven forbid I should ever know what they needed five more minutes for.
“Mum?”
Jamie was leaning in the doorway, his eyes moving from me to the cowboy in my hands in confusion. I too looked down at the cowboy in my hands. It was dirty, dusty and had a broken arm. I lifted one of the feet to see the very faint traces of “Ja”. I sighed and put it back in the box.
“I was just remembering when you used to be in love with that toy. You were about 7 and we went to see toy story, remember?”
“Oh God Mum, don’t start going down memory lane, I haven’t got all day.”
“Oi, cheeky, don’t talk back.” There was that smile again; Funny little old mum who can’t help but nag. “Is that everything now?”
“Dad’s just setting up the Satnav for the journey. It’ll probably take him ages, he still can’t work it.”
I nodded and smiled weakly. “How long is going to take to get there?”
“About 2 hours. The campus is in the middle of nowhere but there’ll be loads of traffic with all the people coming at the same time. The country lanes are gonna be a friggin’ nightmare.”
I nodded and tried to smile. “All ready to go then?”
He looked around his room, put his hands in his pockets and nodded.
“Think so, yeah.”
I looked at his face, happy, confident and determined: he was ready. I covered my face with my hands.
“Aww Mum, don’t cry” I felt his arms around me and wrapped mine around him, burying my face in his chest.“S’alright, you’ll see me soon.”
I sniffed, pulled away and sat on his bed. “I know, I know. It’s just not easy watching your little boy grow up and leave.”
Jamie stayed quiet for a moment, looking at me awkwardly. He’d only ever seen me cry once, when his grandma died. He came and sat on the bed next to me.
“Remember when we went to Blackpool and you lost me at the Pleasure Beach?”
I laughed and wiped my eyes.
“You ran off after the man with the balloons. We were worried sick looking for you for hours and then when we came to pick you up from the lost and found office you were sat on a chair licking a 99 with a balloon hat on your head, happy as Larry.”
“I wasn’t for long after the arse-whooping you gave me!”
“Yeah well you never ran off again, did you!”
We both sat laughing. His laugh was deep and slow but I could still hear the high –pitched giggle in there. I put my hand on his and smiled at him. He pulled me towards him and hugged me.
“I’ll miss you Mum.”
An impatient yell came up the stairs: “Jamie! I got the Satnav working, let’s get going!”
I held Jamie tighter and yelled,
“Five more minutes!”

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