The To-Do List Read online

  Thursday 1 February

  1.21 p.m. I am searching for my old debit card for my First Direct bank account in order to find their number so that I can call them and tick off Item 320: ‘Close First Direct account that you haven’t used in about six years’. I’d opened the account because at the time they were offering customers £20 to do so. Sensing a bargain I put £50 in there, waited until they put in the £20 then planned to withdraw the lot and close the account. Obviously me being me, I didn’t get round to closing it but then the strain of having two different PIN numbers to remember took its toll and after about six months I stopped using it altogether.

  1.35 p.m. I have found the card. It was in the kitchen drawer by the back door.

  1.38 p.m. I’m on the computer Googling the bank’s phone number which has changed from the one on the back of the card.

  1.42 p.m. I am on the phone with First Direct:

  FD: Hi, how can I help you?

  Me: I’d like to close my account and get my money back please.

  FD: Of course. Could you give me the details?

  Me: Okay [I then proceed to give her the details].

  FD [after a pause]: Oh, you haven’t used it in a while.

  Me: Er . . . no.

  FD: I see. Well it’s been marked as a dormant account so I’ll have to put you on to my line manager.

  FD line manager: Hi, how can I help you?

  Me: I’d like my money back please.

  FD: Right. [Long pause]. There’s £3.72 in there. [Laughs] Will a cheque do?

  Me: That would be lovely.

  Friday 2 February

  2.28 p.m. Item 398 on the To-Do List is: ‘Buy new pants because walking around acting like you haven’t got a care in the world when your underwear is over a decade old is just plain wrong!’ Therefore I am on my way to Birmingham’s Bullring shopping centre in search of pants. I can’t quite understand how this old pants situation came about given that when it comes to outerwear I’ve always been pretty much on the money. Perhaps the thing is, given that in any one day a man might have 5,000 or so different thoughts, very few of them tend to be about pants. Claire on the other hand is always buying new pants. Rarely does a week pass without a telltale Marks and Spencer carrier bag appearing in the house. The last time I bravely asked why she bought so many pants when there are only seven days in the week and she’s only got one bottom. She didn’t reply. She just narrowed her eyes, pursed her lips and carried on unpacking her pants.

  2.45 p.m. I am in Selfridges looking at Calvin Klein underwear. They want the best part of fifteen quid for a single pair! I do the maths in my head and work out that if I want a pair for each day and an extra pair for good luck it will cost me £120. I don’t want to spend £120 on pants and so I head to M&S.

  3.03 p.m. M&S do okay pants. In fact the ones I’ve got on now are the ones that I wore on my wedding day just over ten years ago. Apart from various bits of fraying they are still going strong. I examine the various designs: boxers, briefs, trunks, hipsters and slips. I immediately discount slips on account of them being called ‘slips’ and briefs too on account of them being plain old nasty. Having always been a fan of ‘a place for everything and everything in its place’, I ruled out boxers and was left with trunks and hipsters (which pretty much looked like trunks). Faced with the further options of ‘climate control’ cotton or ‘RealCool Cotton’ (Did I really need the ability to manage the temperature in my pants or could I get away with them just being constantly cool?) I thought about calling Claire and asking her to try to get a look at Derek’s smalls somehow but, unsure of how this could be safely accomplished, I decided against it and bought three sets of each.

  4.05 p.m. I’m in the changing room at Next allegedly trying on a jumper but in fact changing into my new pants. Boy, do they feel great. I can’t believe that I’ve been missing out on the world of proper support and climate-control cotton for a whole decade. I love my new pants!

  Saturday 3 February

  1.55 p.m. I am on my way to my folks in the car as today I am planning to mostly do Item 119: ‘Remove crap from parents’ house that you insist on keeping there as if there might come a day when you would ever consider moving back in with them.’

  2.16 p.m. I am in my parents’ garage looking at a huge box filled with old school exercise books wondering exactly what to do with them. Mum thinks I should throw them out. Dad thinks I should keep them for posterity. I open up one that says: ENGLISH, Mike Gayle, 1S and flick through to the back page where someone has scrawled the words: ‘Gayle is a Slaphead!’ This makes me laugh. I can’t possibly take this lot home and yet I can’t stand the idea of throwing them away either. I am conflicted.

  2.45 p.m. I am up in my parents’ loft holding the 5-in-1 microscope that I got for my thirteenth birthday. I had a lot of fun looking at onion cells and microscopic amoeba with this microscope but nowhere near enough fun to warrant me bringing it back home. Should I chuck it? Once again I feel conflicted.

  3.15 p.m. I’m in my parents’ shed looking at my old racing bike. Blah. Blah. Blah. Conflicted.

  3.58 p.m. I now have an inordinate amount of stuff that I have to decide what to do with. ‘But this is what parents’ houses are for,’ I try to explain to Mum. ‘When Lydia and Maisie move home they’ll leave loads of crap at our house too. It’s the circle of life!’ My mum is having none of it. ‘If you leave it all here even one more day I’ll put it out for the bin men.’ ‘Fine,’ I sigh. ‘I’ll take it.’

  Sunday 4 February

  3.15 p.m. We’re off to the park with the kids. ‘What’s all this stuff in the back of the car?’ asks Claire. ‘My childhood,’ I say mournfully. ‘It can’t stay there.’ ‘I know,’ I sigh. ‘I’m working on it.’

  Monday 5 February

  9.55 a.m. The good news: the postman has just arrived with my cheque from First Direct. I am so taken aback by their startling efficiency that I almost rejoin them. The bad news: my childhood is still in the car.

  Tuesday 6 February

  15.21 p.m. Inspired by my success with First Direct I am searching out the phone number for my bank in order to tick off Item 819: ‘Call bank and get rid of any old direct debits.’ I’ve always hated direct debits. The idea that some institution can just whip money out of my bank at will seems wrong.

  15.25 p.m. I am now on the phone with my bank and the woman on the phone is going through my list of direct debits. Most appear legitimate but then she comes across one (taking out the sneaky sum of £1 a month) for insurance cover for a TV that we don’t even own any more. In a fit of righteous indignation I cancel it straight away and tell the lady on the end of the phone that yes, indeed I will write to the company to let them know what I’ve done (even though I have NO intention of doing so). I can’t believe it! With one short phone call I have saved myself £10 and prevented my account from being potentially raided by old direct debits.

  Wednesday 7 February

  19.05 p.m. Claire and I are in London for a posh book-award ceremony that I had been a judge for earlier in the year. I see a number of people in the trade that I know and they are all without exception impressed by my facial hair. The beard is a definite hit.

  Chapter 11: ‘Spend quality time with your mum because she’s not always going to be around.’

  It was the Monday morning of the second week in February and having woken up a little later than normal due to a post-Sunday Night Pub Club visit to Arthur’s, I headed downstairs for breakfast to find Claire and Lydia in the kitchen eating cereal.

  ‘So what are you up to today?’ asked Claire as she replaced Lydia’s empty cereal bowl with a plate of toast and Marmite. ‘Any big List plans?’

  As I watched Lydia licking the Marmite off her toast I pretended that I was mulling the question over. Not only had I got my entire day planned, I’d got my entire week planned out too.

  ‘Today and in fact for the rest of the week I will be mostly concentrating my efforts on ticking off Item 26.’
r />   ‘So what’s that then?’ Claire was nonplussed. ‘Jumping out of a plane? Rounding up your old school mates? Learning to ride a uni-cycle? You’re forgetting that you still haven’t let me see the List yet.’

  ‘I didn’t forget.’ I raised my right eyebrow archly. ‘I was being mysterious.’

  ‘Listen, mate. I haven’t got time for you to be mysterious. I’ve got to get Lydia to pre-school and then go to Sainsbury’s before the Ring and Ride lot turn up. It’s always packed when they get there. So come on, Mr Mystery, just cough it out so I can get on with my business.’

  ‘Fine,’ I relented. ‘Item number 26 is this: “Spend more time with my parents because they’re not going to be around forever”.’

  She smiled. ‘That’s a good thing to have on your list.’

  ‘I think it might be too good.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, half of me just wants to get the tick and move on, but the other half feels guilty that in doing Mum and Dad at the same time I’m trying to kill two birds with one stone.’

  ‘So do them separately. Do your mum now and maybe do your dad later in the year.’

  ‘But isn’t that just making work for myself?’

  ‘Probably,’ replied Claire. ‘But it’ll be worth it. It can’t all be just about getting ticks can it? I’m pretty sure that some things on your List will be worth more than any number of ticks in the long run if you actually do them.’

  ‘You’re right,’ I replied kissing her fondly. ‘I’ll do Mum now and Dad later.’

  ‘So what are you going to do? Take her out somewhere nice for the day?’

  I shook my head. ‘I thought about that but then I thought it would probably freak her out more if I turned up and just hung out with her for a few days without telling her why.’

  ‘What reason could you possibly have for wanting to freak your mum out? She’s your mum. You’re her son. And she’s seventy years old. You shouldn’t want to freak your mum out.’

  ‘Suffice it to say,’ I tapped the side of my nose in a knowing fashion, ‘I have my reasons.’

  My reason was simple: nothing – not a single thing in the world – ever surprised my mum. After her time as a nurse she wasn’t fazed by blood, guts or gore. After raising three boys she wasn’t fazed at being left in sole charge of four grandchildren under three. And after a lifetime of being uninterested in TV she wasn’t the slightest bit fazed when the producers of Channel Four’s Big Breakfast once asked her to pop out of an oversized Christmas present live on national TV. Honestly, you could take my mum out to the park and say, ‘Look, Mum, a dinosaur eating a caramel,’ and she would undoubtedly look the other way just to underline how unfazed she was.

  My mum didn’t do fazed. She did unfazed. So much so that for the majority of my thirty-six years it had been my greatest wish to do something that might get her to raise her eyebrows and think, ‘Well, I didn’t see that coming.’ In the past the news that I was getting married and, later, making her a grandmother had failed to make her even pause for breath let alone appear surprised, so I was relishing the opportunity to catch her out by turning up on her doorstep and without explaining my actions, spending quality time with her whether she liked it or not.

  Pulling up outside my parents’ house just after ten I let myself in, turned on the TV and arranged myself casually on their posh new leather sofa.

  ‘Morning,’ greeted my mum as though it was an everyday occurrence to walk into her own living room and find her thirty-six-year-old son watching the opening credits to Homes Under The Hammer. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m good thanks. What are you up to today?’

  ‘Minding my own business,’ she grinned. ‘How about you?’

  ‘I had planned to do some work, but minding your business seems as good as any idea I’ve got. So what are we doing today?’

  I had no idea if Mum’s curiosity was even vaguely piqued by my declaration that I was spending the day hanging out with her because she didn’t let on. What she did say was, ‘Well if you’re going to make yourself useful, as it turns out I have got a few things that I need to do,’ and before I knew it I was being sucked into her world. But whereas on previous occasions when I had promised to take her places or run errands I would end up getting frustrated because she seemed to think nothing of wasting my time and patience taking forever to make up her mind about what to buy, or where to go next, this time the small boy with the bad temper that dwells within every son was nowhere to be seen. Even though I say so myself I was a perfect delight to be with and that was because I had nothing planned other than to lavish time and attention upon my mother. So if that meant spending three hours in T.K.Maxx watching Mum looking for clothing bargains that was what we did. If it meant being her general taxi service on visits to Sandwell to see my aunt Cynthia, Handsworth to do some shopping, or Southampton to see my cousin Marjorie, then we did that too. In fact, whatever was on her own personal To-Do List of things that she had never had the time, energy or transport (neither of my parents drove) to do, we did. And as the days drifted by ferrying her from one place to the other we talked about the kind of things that are only possible when you’ve spent all day with someone and have long since passed the point where everyday conversation will do. Instead I got to dip into the mysterious reservoir of topics that I just didn’t get access to via my usual ten minute ‘popping not stopping’ flying visits, my regular ‘Mum, do you mind having the kids for a couple of hours?’ telephone conversations or even my occasional appearances for Sunday lunch that were always dominated by the kids.

  There were no earth-shattering revelations of the ‘Did you know I always wanted to be a dancer at the Moulin Rouge?’ kind, instead there were a lot of snapshots of a version of my mum that I never knew. The little girl growing up in rural Jamaica in the 1940s making clothes from torn rags for dolls made from twisted strands of corn; the teenager having to look after a brood of six younger siblings while her mum worked the land; the young woman leaving the warmth and the vibrancy of her country of birth to arrive in dull, grey 1960s Wolverhampton.

  All too soon, however, our day-to-day companionship drew to a close. Fortunately I had one last trick up my sleeve that would ensure that neither of us would forget the week in a hurry.

  ‘So are you coming up again tomorrow or have you got other plans?’ asked Mum as I dropped her off after an afternoon spent hunting for curtain material and cushions in Dunelm Mill.

  ‘I was going to ask you the same question,’ I replied. ‘Have you got any plans for tomorrow?’

  ‘No, not really. I was thinking about taking some of those things we bought from T.K.Maxx back because I’ve changed my mind about them but I could leave that until next week. Then I got to thinking that I might quite like you to take me to visit my friend Sandra in Coventry but I’m not fussed really. What have you got in mind?’

  ‘How do you feel about a trip to London?’

  ‘London?’ she replied. ‘What do I want to go to London for?’

  ‘To meet the Chancellor of the Exchequer,’ I replied. ‘Because tomorrow you and I are going to Eleven Downing Street to meet Gordon Brown.’

  The reason I was inviting my mum down to London to meet the next prime minister of England had nothing to do with having friends in high places and everything to do with the fact that when you write books for a living you get involved in all manner of charitable activities. Ninety-nine per cent of the time this means giving talks to bored secondary-school kids but every now and again you get a corker of an invitation that combines doing something good for charity whilst getting to poke your nose around the home of the Chancellor of the Exchequer as though you’re auditioning for a job presenting Through The Keyhole.

  A year earlier, out of the blue, I received an invitation to contribute a piece to a charity anthology about mums that was being edited by the Chancellor’s wife Sarah Brown. A few months after handing in the piece (the same piece which sat on my everyday wo
rk To-Do List for the best part of six months before I actually got round to it) I received a letter on Downing Street-headed notepaper inviting contributors, authors and their guests to a tea-time reception at 11 Downing Street as a thank you. My initial thought was to take Claire as there are few things that she enjoys more than the opportunity for a good dress-up, but then I realised this was my chance for a genuine gasp of surprise from my mum. So with Claire’s blessing I put the invitation away until I was ready to reveal all.

  Mum barely raised an eyebrow at my invitation to Gordon Brown’s gaff and so having resigned myself to the fact that I was never going to crack my mum’s obstinate façade of unsurprise, I took her down to Euston by train and across London by taxi to Downing Street. We were scanned and frisked by security and then finally allowed to wander Downing Street at our leisure.

  Walking past number 10 I noticed that the front door was open and so Mum and I automatically slowed down in the hope of catching a glimpse of either Tony or Cherie Blair. Neither of them was anywhere in sight but I did get a big smile and a nod from a policeman armed with a machine gun.

  Entering the large crowded downstairs drawing room of number 11 in which the reception was being held I switched into star-spotting mode. I whispered the names of a few big-time authors into Mum’s ear but could tell from her expression that she wasn’t much impressed. She was, however, quite interested in what Sarah Brown was wearing and whispered slightly too loudly that she looked like, ‘a lady with a good eye for a nice outfit’. This was high praise indeed and I was considering encouraging her to strike up a conversation with the Chanceller’s wife about what she should wear to her friend’s daughter’s wedding the following month when there was a noticeable change in the mood of the room as though people were excited but desperately trying to hide it.

  ‘It’s Tony Blair!’ said Mum with genuine surprise in her voice. ‘It’s Tony Blair!’

  I was too busy taking in the big grin on Mum’s face even to look around.