The Times Magazine 7Spinal column Melanie Reid
‘ “Mother, there’s something I’ve got to tell you,”
my son says. I’m speechless when I find out’
n the radio
there was a
thing inviting
people to
phone in with
their guilty
secrets from
childhood.
I laughed out loud at the 47-year-
old man who confessed he’d
never, until then, told his mother
that the 200 gatecrashers who’d
turned up at his 17th birthday
party hadn’t actually been
gatecrashers. He’d delivered
flyers around the neighbourhood,
inviting everyone.
I perfectly understand why he
didn’t tell her at the time, but to
keep it a secret for 30 years seems
a little extreme. Fifteen would
be more reasonable, but maybe
the occasion never arose. No
best man’s speech at a wedding.
Or maybe she was just a very
scary mother.
When my son was at primary
school, I worked with someone
who said his sons had ’fessed up
in their twenties. They’d done it
in the pub with him one night, the
manly way, coming out with the,
“Dad, we think it’s finally time we
told you all the stuff we couldn’t
tell you at the time,” line.
Wow, I thought, that’s
impressive. What a tribute to
successful parenting. I hoped
when my turn came, I’d be
rewarded in the same way. So
when Doug got into his mid-
twenties, with a responsible job
and a bit of daylight between him
and university, I decided to prompt
him. Was he ready, I asked lightly,
to share with me the things he
hadn’t been able to at the time?
He shied like a startled
horse. “Er, not yet,” he said. And
I accepted it with good grace,
as a model parent would. Theyears passed. This spring, when
he was 30, he escaped lockdown
in London and arrived home
with a hired box van full of
his possessions.
“I’ll come and watch you
unload,” I said. He looked
momentarily panicked, then
took a breath. “Mother, there’s
something I’ve got to tell you.”
Indeed there was. There,
lurking at the back of the box
van – indeed the only reason to
hire such a big vehicle – was a
motorbike. His elaborate plea for
mitigation came tumbling out:
he’d had it for ages (“Oh, that old
thing! Been in the wardrobe for
years!”); it was a touring bike,
and therefore very staid andstable and sit-up-and-beg, like a
dairymaid’s bicycle. (As if I had
a clue what a touring bike was.)
It was old and inexpensive, but
came from a good dealer and was
in great nick. And he never, ever
went fast, and he was always very,
very careful.
And, and, and – the final,
case-winning flourish for the
defence – he’d bought a very
expensive airbag vest which
he wore on every journey. For
my sake.
Long before my own injury,
I’d been phobic about motorbikes.
When he was a teenager, I’d
banned them. Too fast, too
exposed, too risky. In fact,
MURDO MACLEOD very much like horses, if I’d
O
been rational about it – but
considerably more predictable
than an animal with a mind
of its own. We always fear the
unknown. Besides, no matter
how careful the biker, they can’t
control the carelessness of car
drivers, and I knew about that.
I didn’t say very much. There
wasn’t much to say. When it was
offloaded, I circled it warily, trying
to be polite with, “Gosh,” and,
“It’s big,” just as non-horsey
friends would once upon a time
eye my animals from a distance
and say vaguely, “Nice horse,” or,
“He’s huge!” I inspected Doug’s
airbag vest closely, enviously,
wishing I’d worn one.
Over the summer I watched,
full of trepidation, as he went off
for rides. I’d keep furiously busy
to stop myself catastrophising and
clock-watching until he came
back. Poor boy, what burdens
my anxiety projects on him. My
girlfriends were incredulous. “Did
I just see Doug on a motorbike?”
asked one, out for a walk.
When he returned south, after
lockdown, I watched him put it
on a special trailer and tie it with
ratchet straps, as carefully as
I ever loaded a horse. He has
promised me he won’t ride it
in foul or icy weather. And so
I must be content. I trust him. I
refuse to catastrophise.
When I asked him permission
to tell this story, I added a PS
about all the other things he’d
never confessed. “One day you
will need to tell me more,” I said.
“One day,” he agreed. And added
a grinning emoji. It probably will
take him 30 years. n@Mel_ReidTimes
Melanie Reid is tetraplegic after
breaking her neck and back in
a riding accident in April 2010