A Bit More of You

Chapter One: Let's Stay Together

(Photo from scrapbook: My mother, 1960)

I knew I was in for a wild ride the minute we moved into those flats.

I told my mum I didn't want to move; I wanted to stay living at Grandpa's house, where everything was friendly and familiar. Mum didn't listen and said we were doing Grandpa a favour by moving out. He wouldn't want to be stuck with us forever, and besides, we deserved our own place, didn't we, darling?

I didn't think so. Grandpa nearly cried when Mum told him we were moving out - the complete opposite reaction to what she had expected. I knew a flood of tears was going to happen. Grandpa is the softest, most sentimental person I know, so of course he was going to cry at such big news. However, I didn't think he would weep as much as he did. Mum had tried moving out before but soon realised it was all big mistake and made us move back in with Grandpa.

"Where are you going this time?" Grandpa asked, already started to sniffle.

"We'll be moving across town to this lovely little block of flats," Mum explained. "It's very small but select. There are lots of nice neighbours, so I'm sure Georgia will love it. She'll make lots of friends."

"I doubt it," I mumbled, hunched up in a ball on the living room couch. "I bet they'll be a load of mean old mongrels."

"Georgia!" Mum said sharply. "Please don't talk like that. It's not nice."

I pulled a silly face at her, crossing my eyes and letting my tongue loll. Then I switched back to my normal face and smiled. Mum tried to stay cross, but she was grinning too. My mum is a funny person. She loves to argue and cause a fuss, yet she worries terribly about me and lets me walk all over her. I once asked her why that was.

"Because I love you more than anyone else," Mum had said, giving me a kiss. "I want the best for you and for you to be happy. If that means letting you be who you want to be and do what you want to do, then so be it. I won't stop you."

I really love my mum, too. However, there are some days when I just can't stand her. One of those days being the one where she announced that she and I would be moving out on our own.

"It'll be like an adventure!" Mum said to me that evening. We were sitting together on her bed, eating popcorn and watching a rerun of Coronation Street. Mum had taken out my ponytail and was brushing my long, chestnut-brown hair with her special silver hairbrush.

I sighed. "We've had enough adventure to last a lifetime, Mum."

"Oh, I don't think so," said Mum. "Life is an adventure in itself, don't you think?"

"I don't know. I haven't lived a long time yet, have I?"

"Fifteen is pretty old, darling." Mum paused to stick a bobby pin in my hair to keep it from falling in my eyes. "Surely you've had some adventures. I've had a lot happen to me in a short time, y'know."

"You've told me," I murmured. "And I've had lots of fun times with you, Mum, but I don't know if I want this adventure. Moving and all that. I like it here."

"I know you do, Georgia, and I love it here, too. Your grandpa is a dear old soul, but we can't stay living here forever. We need our own place where we can be just us."

"Promise it'll be just us this time?"

Mum let out a huge sigh. She knew what I was getting at.

A few years ago, when I was about nine or ten, Mum had tried to move us out of Grandpa's house. She had been talking about it for a long time and finally found the opportunity. She made us pack our things and whisked us off halfway across the country to live with her new boyfriend. This surprised me because Mum had told me she didn't want to be in anymore relationships. (I didn't know why at the time and just assumed she didn't like boys.)