I Spent Thirty Years Working in a Factory So My Children Could Have a Better Life. For My Seventieth Birthday, They All Chipped In for a Bouquet of Flowers with Delivery

Thirty years at the textile mill, all so my children might one day have more than I ever did. On my seventieth birthday, they pooled together for a basket of flowers with a card, hand-delivered by a courier. I stood in my hollow flat, clutching those flowers, and I wept. If, forty years ago, someone had told me this is how Id spend the day I turned seventy, Id have called it a dark joke. But life is fond of odd punchlinesit waits for no ones readiness before revealing them.

That Thursday, I woke at six, though I had nowhere to be. Habit, I supposethirty years of rising before dawn for the morning shift at the Manchester sewing works. School uniforms, overalls, tabards, more uniforms. At one time, it seemed every woman in Salford, Stockport, Chester, bent over the whirring hum of a machine, hands pricked and pricked but with minds fixed on dreamsdreams they folded neatly into their childrens pockets.

My Johnmay he rest in peaceworked on the rails. Together we kept the house ticking over. I cant complain; we got by. Started with a cramped bedsit on the outskirts of Liverpool, later managed to swap it for a proper two-room council flat near Oldham, with central heating and a tiny square of balcony overlooking a car park.

The children always had clean trousers, a hot supper, and textbooks for school. Edward went for English tuition, Claire attended a computer evening class. John took overtime, and I would sew curtains and party dresses for the neighbours late into the evenings.

It paid off. Edward graduated law school, now runs his own practice in London. Claire spearheads a marketing company in Bristolthough I never quite worked out what it is she actually does, except that people pay her well for it. I am proud of them. I truly am. Yet lately, pride tastes rather like a cup of weak tea without sugarjust missing something, somehow.

John left us eight years past. His heart. Sudden; slipped quietly away in his sleep, barely a whisper. That first year, the children called daily. By year two, every Sunday. Now, Edward sometimes rings after his roast lunch, provided he doesnt forget.

Claire sends textsshort and clipped, telegrams out of the blue: Mum, you well? Love you xx I reply, Alls fine, love. What else could I send? That I chat to the television most nights? That, last Saturday, the only one to speak to me was the cashier at Sainsburys?

I prepared for these birthday celebrations a whole week in advance. Silly old womanbaked a cheesecake, the one with the biscuit base, from my mothers scribbled recipe. Bought a cheerful cotton tablecloth with sunflowers. Polished the old Wedgwood tea set we received as a wedding present. Four place settings. Edward said hed try to pop in, and Claire wrote shed see about her diary.

Edward called in the morning. Tired voice, as though hed not slept. Mum, cant make it todaygot a case moved up to this weeks docket. But Saturday, definitely, alright?

One hour later, a text from Claire. Not even a call. Mum, work trip in Newcastle, wont make it, love you, will visit at the weekend!!! Three exclamation marks, as if they might stand in for her warm body at my table.

I stood in the kitchen and looked at those four plates, the cheesecake set just so, that silly sunflower cloth I thought would lighten things. Then I put the plates away. Folded the cloth. Draped a tea towel over the cake.

At three, the entry phone buzzed. Courier. Just a lad, not twenty-five, zipped up in a navy jacket. Stood there with an enormous basketroses, lilies, and something I couldnt even place. Plus an envelope: Dearest Mum, Wishing you health and every happiness! Edward & Claire.

Courier grinned. Happy birthday, Mrs. Harris! Someone really loves you.

The basket was heavy. I set it on the hall table and closed the door behind. Sat myself down on the little stool next to the coatsthe sort John always wore to the platformand just sat, five, ten, or twenty minutes, counting the cloying perfume of the flowers pressing thick in that narrow hallway.

In the evening, Harrietmy last neighbour friendrang up. Seventy-five, lives just downstairs; lives alone, like me. Patricia, youve got a birthday; come round for some tea. Ive baked apple tart. And so I went. Sat in her small kitchen until nearly ten. She didnt ask after the children. She knew not to.

Saturday, Edward visited. Alone; no wife, no grandchildren. Three hours, of which one he stood out on the balcony with his mobile glued to his ear. He left an envelope of cash on the dresser by the door. Claire cancelled her weekend plans in the endsomethings come up, Mum, but well make up for it at Christmas, I promise.

Thats when it all became so clear to me. My children love me. Not that they dont. They do, in their own scheduled, pocket-diary waybetween hearings in London and powerpoints in Newcastle. They love just as I loved my sewing: faithfully, but with their mind already on something else, always checking the clock. For thirty years, I worked so theyd never need to. Nobody warned me Id be the only one left filling the empty flat.

Harriet and I ate the cheesecake. The flowers held out a week, then drooped away. The money from Edward I tucked into the drawer where Johns old trainman papers live.

Yesterday, I bought myself a ticket on a coach trip to the Lake District. Coach for two days; group of us oldies. Harriets coming as well. When I told Claire on the phone, she sounded surprised. Mum, since when do you go off travelling?

From my seventieth birthday, darling, I said.

Three seconds of silence at her end. Then, only: Thats lovely, Mum, and the subject drifted elsewhere. But in those three secondswell, they meant more than all the exclamation marks in her texts. I know, one day, shell understand. Perhaps when shes sixty herself, with an empty chair at her own table. But Ive no need to wait for that day.

Im seventy. My legs still work, Ive a coach ticket, and a neighbour who bakes apple tart. John would say, Pat, dont moan, just go. So Im going.