it's his mother that i miss

Clare Reid did not just lose a boyfriend, but contact with his much-loved family

have a little godson somewhere - I'm not sure precisely where, because I know his family have moved since I was last in touch. When I last saw him, he was a baby - now he must be four or maybe even five, and he'll be walking and talking. The reason why I've hardly fulfilled my duties to his spiritual welfare is because his parents are my former boyfriend's sister and brother-in-law, and when I split up with him, they somehow disappeared as well.

When a long-term relationship disintegrates, you don't just lose your partner - you lose their family as well. If you've been almost part of this family for years, it can be quite a wrench. Alex and I met when we were students. My parents were at the other end of the country, his were a 40-minute bus ride away; his sister and brother-in-law lived just down the road from them. We were fed up with freezing in our student home; within a short time we were spending nearly every weekend visiting. Alex's parents would let us use their car, and his mum would cook and send us back to campus laden with home-made casseroles and cakes and most of the contents of her freezer. We were thoroughly spoiled.

Alex was close to his brother-in-law, Tim. Alex's sister Jane and I got on wonderfully. We chatted and shopped and went out endlessly. The four of us were inseparable; and I loved playing with their little girl, Nicola, who was two when Alex and I met, and six when we split up. Poor little Nicola: she somehow got hold of my phone number, and would often ring to ask when I was coming to see her, or if she could come to see me, until eventually she realised our long and elaborate painting and cooking sessions just weren't going to happen any more.

After Alex and I had been going out for four years, it was tacitly accepted that we would eventually get married. Everyone was delighted by the idea. "Just think what a cute little bridesmaid Nicola would make," Jane would say fondly. At Christmases and birthdays there would be lavish gifts for me. I'd be invited to family parties as a matter of course and Jane brought Nicola to stay with my parents by the sea. I met Alex's old friends from home, and his parents' friends, and his grandparents. I set out to please and charm, and everyone was delighted with me. The only thing that alarmed me slightly was when Jane and Tim asked me to be godmother to their new baby. It seemed terribly settled, somehow; too much of an official sign of recognition. But I couldn't think of a polite way to refuse.

Then Alex and I moved 100 miles to London. Our relationship began to work out less well. Outside our charmed student existence we began to draw apart; eventually I asked him to move out. Once he'd left, I would see him occasionally and we even remained friends. Jane and I exchanged Christmas and birthday cards for a few years. But I never saw any of the rest of them again. I made one call, some weeks after the split, to Alex's mother, I'll call her Moira. She was very sweet. She said she'd known I would ring her when I was ready to, and that I was always to consider myself welcome, and that I must visit whenever I wanted. I never did. It seemed a long way to go, and I'd have felt awkward without Alex, and by the time my conscience started pricking me about my long silence, it seemed that it had been too long for me to try and re-establish contact.

In many ways, Moira is the one I miss most, even more than Jane and Tim. Although I didn't think so at the time, I was very young when I saw so much of her, and she was like a second mum and quite different to my own. Things that would (quite reasonably) have sent my mum into a state of frozen horror, she took in her stride. I remember with gratitude the formal dinner-dance where I took on board what felt at the time like a fatal overdose of champagne cocktails. Moira held my spinning head in the Ladies, deftly hitching my dress out of the way at the same time. In the background, her friend Louise was giving a running commentary. "Don't you worry, love! We've all been there! Just look out for your dress. I've been there, Moira's been there,don't you feel ashamed!" This comforting monologue ran on as Moira continued with her first aid.

Less hilariously, when I fell pregnant with what would have been her grandchild, she did not offer a word of reproach or any kind of pressure. She offered calmly and without guilt-inducing tears, to keep the baby until such time as we could look after it ourselves; when we decided to go ahead with a termination, she lent us her car, and the money, and never uttered a word of reproach. I wonder if Moira ever thinks of me nowadays. I haven't seen her for four years now, and I don't suppose I ever shall again.