The Bad Mother's Handbook

by Kate Long

  Mr Hammond clasped his hands and looked sympathetic. ‘I’m afraid things are on a different footing now,’ he said.

  ‘I guessed so.’

  ‘You have to understand that for the foreseeable future Mrs Hesketh is going to be significantly disabled. At the moment nurses are helping to feed, dress and toilet her. She’s going to need a lot of care.’

  There was a silence while I took this in.

  ‘What about physiotherapy?’

  ‘That may have some long-term benefits, but it isn’t going to work miracles.’

  ‘Will she be able to climb the stairs?’

  Mr Hammond shook his head. ‘She won’t be able to walk without assistance. She was quite severely affected by the stroke. So what we have to decide, together, is how to provide the level of care that your mother needs to achieve the best possible quality of life.’

  So this was my penance for rejecting her and trying to find something better. I was going to have to fireman’s lift her every time she needed a wee, for the rest of her life; spoon-feed William with one hand and her with the other. My heart sank to my boots.

  ‘She wants to come home. She’ll have to come home eventually, but can you not keep her another month or two? My daughter had a baby eight weeks ago and the house is upside down, as you can imagine, and we’re going to need more help from social services . . . Can you see to that for me or do I have to contact them myself?’

  ‘I’m still not sure you understand the full picture,’ he said gently. ‘I don’t see how you can cope on your own. Your mum will need a lot of care.’

  I thought of her bedroom, of carrying her downstairs to the toilet in the night, or of trying to fit a bed in the living room, then where would the table go, where would we eat? Maybe if we shifted the sideboard – but where? Could we make Nan’s room into a study-cum-dining room for Charlotte to work in? It would be funny eating upstairs, and taking food all the way from the kitchen and then the dishes back again . . .

  ‘Do you work?’ asked Mr Hammond.

  ‘Part time. Why?’

  But he didn’t have to say anything. My life was telescoping before my eyes.

  ‘I think you should consider a nursing home,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, that’s out of the question. We’ll find a way of managing,’ I replied. I knew that however grim the situation was, there was no way I could hurt Nan any more than she was already. It was an impossible idea, Nan not being around.

  As I got up to leave an idea I’d been trying to suppress for a long time rose to the surface. Mr Hammond seemed a kind man. ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Do you think my getting divorced all those years back might have triggered the dementia? She was really cut up about it; family’s everything to her.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh. Thank you.’ I got as far as the door. ‘And, er, is there any chance that her stroke might have happened because I had a few days away on holiday the week before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh. I thought I’d ask.’

  ‘Goodbye, Mrs Coper,’ I heard him say as I closed the door. I didn’t know what to make of that.

  I walked through the hospital building, past the maternity unit with its soft colours and posters of happy breastfeeders, past the children’s ward with its giant Tigger mural, to the shop where I bought a family size bar of chocolate. I wolfed it down unhappily, then I went to see Nan. She was trying to turn over a page of Woman’s Weekly, licking her thumb and index finger and fiddling with the corner. ‘Damn useless,’ she was muttering. But her face lit up when she saw me, and that was something. ‘Eh, it’s our Karen. You look bonny. Have you brought that baby today? He’s so lovely, little thing.’

  ‘No, Mum, I’ll bring him tomorrow.’

  She looked vacant for a second, then she was back again.

  ‘Ooh, it is lovely to see you, I can’t be doing with hospitals, everyone talks rubbish. And you look bonny; have you a new frock on?’

  ‘No, Mum. It’s C&A, I got it when we went to Chester that time. Do you remember? It poured down so all we did was go in shops.’

  ‘Aye. No, not really. Have you brought that little baby, then?’

  AFTER THAT I went back to Steve’s and accidentally slept with him.

  ‘You’re full of surprises, you.’ Steve shifted so he was leaning up on his elbow. ‘I’d have changed t’ sheets if I’d known.’

  ‘Oh God.’ I closed my eyes in irritation. ‘Why do you have to be so disgusting! You’re never any different.’

  ‘It’s part of me charm.’

  When I left the hospital I was too upset to go home so I went shopping. After an hour wandering round Debenhams I still didn’t feel like going back, so I stopped off at his house. I was hoping for a cup of tea and half an hour to get my head round things before I talked to Charlotte. What I got was Steve fresh out the bath, clean shaven again and slightly tipsy still from the night before. ‘I’d best sober up, I’m back at work in two hours. I hate these evening shifts. I could do wi’ workin’ part time.’

  ‘You could do with packing up altogether,’ I laughed. I’ve never known anyone as lazy.’

  He scratched his head amiably. ‘Aye, well, life’s too short. So, what can I do you for? Everything all right with our little belter?’

  I told him about the consultant. ‘You see, Nan’s so trusting, she’s like a baby herself. I couldn’t put her in a home, it would be cruel.’

  Steve pulled at the belt of his dressing gown. ‘Aye, it’s a poser. Can social services not sort summat out for you?’

  ‘I don’t know. They’ll have to, won’t they? Oh, the thought of having to go through all those different departments again and fill in all those assessments.’ I didn’t want to have to go near their offices again either in case I bumped into Joyce Fitton and had to face the look of pity in her eyes. ‘It’s been one thing after another this year. I must have broken a mirror or run over a black cat.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Steve (and he moved chairs to sit next to me), ‘this in’t the drink talking, you know, this has been on my mind for a while.’

  ‘What has?’

  ‘All it is, I’ve enjoyed helping out a bit more, you know, being around, involved. It’s nice to see more of Charlotte now she’s not so hoity-toity all the time, it’s done her good to roll her sleeves up and change a few nappies. I’m not much of a one for babies—’

  ‘You can say that again.’

  ‘No, fair enough, but the lad’ll need someone to play footie with him as he grows up and I’d quite like to be, well, around.’

  ‘You are. You’ve been quite helpful at times. What are you trying to say, Steve?’ I was aware of his arm pressing against mine and the smell of his aftershave.

  ‘Are you seeing that feller?’

  ‘Who? Leo Fairbrother?’

  ‘Yeah, th’ headmaster.’ He rubbed his lip where the moustache had been. ‘Is he your boyfriend?’

  ‘No.’ This was true; absolutely nothing had happened between us and it didn’t look as though anything was ever going to. I had no idea what Leo was up to, but it didn’t seem as though a great seduction was on the horizon. I’d more or less given up. ‘What about you? What about that woman from Turton, that one who ran the London Marathon?’

  ‘Oh, her? She were nowt.’

  ‘Nowt as in Nothing or Nowt as in Bad-tempered?’

  ‘Both, really. She wanted me to go jogging, can you imagine? I said, the only way you’ll get me to jog is to put a pub at t’ finishing line. She weren’t amused.’

  ‘What are you like.’ I nudged him good-humouredly, he nudged me back and it turned into a clumsy embrace. His face loomed into mine, his lips hit my cheek then my mouth, and my face went into shock. ‘Bloody hell, Steve, what are we doing?’

  He stopped. ‘Why? Do you not like it?’ He had a point; it was very nice. I’d not slept with anyone for over a year; some of the men
at the Over Seventies were beginning to look pretty tasty. ‘No strings, come on. It’ll do us both good.’

  ‘I can’t sleep with you, don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘You know your trouble?’ said Steve kissing my neck where he knew I liked it. ‘You look for problems. Sometimes you just have to go with the moment. Stop analysing everything.’ His hand dipped under my collar and eased down my bra strap, making my nipples tingle with anticipation. His dressing gown fell open. ‘You don’t know what you do to me.’

  ‘I’ve a fair idea,’ I mumbled as he unbuttoned my top.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘DOES THIS MEAN I’m back in, then?’ Steve pulled his jeans on and fastened them round his skinny waist.

  ‘Back in where? Have you seen my tights?’

  ‘They’re here, stuck on this lampshade.’ He threw them over. ‘Back in the bosom of me family.’

  I wriggled my hand down inside each leg to turn the tights right-side out. ‘Get off. It’s not like you live in Australia, is it? You are part of the family, whether I like it or not; you’re Charlotte’s dad and she needs you around at the moment.’

  ‘I were thinking, though.’ He sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘We could have another go, couldn’t we? I don’t mean move back or anything mad like that, but we could meet up for a drink sometimes and, and . . .’

  I located my shoes, slipped them on and stood looking down at him. ‘No, Steve, no way. It would be too complicated.’

  ‘Complicated? I’m about the least complicated chap you could have. There’s nowt complicated about me, now is there? Go on, admit it.’

  I sighed. ‘That’s not what I meant. The answer’s no.’

  ‘Ahwww. I’ve got you a smashin’ Christmas present, an’ all.’

  ‘Bribery won’t get you anywhere. We haven’t bought each other Christmas presents for thirteen years. I’m not going to start now.’ I picked up his mucky hairbrush and tried to smooth my hair without actually touching the bristles. ‘Let’s quit while we’re ahead, eh? You can come round when you want, but no more of this malarky.’

  He put his face under mine and grinned. ‘It were good though, weren’t it?’

  *

  The first place we went to was at the bottom of the village: Bishop House. The air had been freezing, the sky looked like tracing paper and the tarmac drive was slippery under the pram wheels. The light was failing too, even though it was only mid-afternoon. As far as I was concerned Bishop House had just been a big Victorian pile behind some conker trees on the bus route to Bolton, but now there was every chance it could be Nan’s new home.

  ‘You see,’ Mum had said over breakfast, ‘I’m not sure I can give her the care she needs. She’s been really poorly and she’s never going to get completely better. That’s what the doctors say. She needs qualified nurses round her twenty-four hours a day.’

  I stared out of the window trying to take in the news. The Ribble bus went past and I remembered the trips with Nan to Wigan on the top deck, and the Pick ’n’ Mix from Woolworth’s we always used to choose together. I really enjoyed going shopping with Nan as a child because there was never a row and I got my own way and a bag to put it in. She loved my company, and I loved hers, simple. Then, as I got older, things changed; I changed. For all those hours she’d spent cutting pictures out of catalogues for me and helping me make pastry animals, suddenly I never had the time for her any more. God, I’d let her down.

  ‘I could help out. Can we not get the council to put in one of those stairlifts Thora Hird’s always chuntering on about? They do walk-in baths too, I’ve seen them advertised during Countdown. If the two of us work together . . .’

  Mum shook her head. ‘You’ve more than enough on your plate. It’s all you can do at the moment to wash your armpits in a morning and put your sweater on right-side out. Well, isn’t it? You don’t understand the level of attention she’ll need, I didn’t at first. You’re thinking of the old Nan, Nan as she was. She’s a different person now.’ She was speaking in a slow, sort of rehearsed way that made me think she’d been over the arguments again and again.

  ‘I feel as if she’d died, it’s horrible, Mum.’

  ‘You mustn’t think like that, Charlotte.’ Mum stirred her coffee rapidly, but she didn’t elaborate.

  We sat in gloomy silence while Will watched us seriously from the hearthrug. I tried to get some cornflakes down but they stuck in my throat. I’d really thought, once Nan was out of danger, it was simply a matter of time and she’d be out of hospital, back home and making a nuisance of herself. I mean, here we were on the verge of the twenty-first century, they could send cameras to Jupiter and Saturn, so why couldn’t medical science sort out her wayward limbs? It was unbelievable that Nan wasn’t coming home.

  ‘We’ll find somewhere nice with some young male nurses she can flirt with. Everyone’ll love her, she’ll be happy as Larry once she settles in.’

  I was still wondering about this as the huge front door of Bishop House opened and a smell of pee hit us. I noticed Mum had got baby sick all down the back of her sleeve, but I knew she was so keyed up it was probably better not to mention it. We pushed Will up the wheelchair ramp and parked him in the hall while the young girl who had let us in went to fetch the Matron.

  ‘God, it’s hot in here,’ said Mum, unwinding her scarf. ‘You’d better unwrap William before he cooks.’

  As I was fiddling with the baby’s blankets a tiny old man came out of the TV lounge and moved shakily towards us. He fixed on my mother and snapped: ‘I need to go to the toilet!’

  Mum raised her eyebrows at me. ‘I’ll see if I can find a nurse.’

  ‘You don’t understand, I need to go now.’ His eyes were watery and desperate; he made me want to throw up.

  ‘Hang on, Mum.’ I popped Will back down and ran along the hall, round the corner (only four old ladies playing cards in a side room), doubled back and checked up the stairs to the landing, but there were no staff in sight. ‘Nurse!’ I shouted. ‘Nu-urse!’ a white-haired biddy in a blue dressing gown sang back at me cheerfully. She waved at me over the banisters till I got to the bottom. ‘You’d think they’d have a bell or something . . .’ I called as I stalked crossly back to the pram, but Mum and the old man had vanished. I hoisted Will out again and went to sit on the stairs to wait. Finally she reappeared, frowning.

  ‘Honestly! That poor man.’

  ‘You didn’t—?’

  ‘Well, of course I did, once we’d found where the toilet actually was. He was terribly upset. Did you manage to find a nurse?’

  ‘Nope. So, did you have to, wipe his bum?’ I couldn’t believe what she’d just done. I was full of appalled respect.

  ‘No, only his willy.’ Mum checked her watch. ‘What can that woman be doing? Don’t look so funny, it’s only what I have to do at school sometimes only on a bigger scale, Reception are forever having toilet incidents. If it had been Nan you’d have wanted someone to help her, wouldn’t you?’

  That shut me up. We waited for another five minutes under the feeble Christmas decorations stuck to the light fittings, then the young girl came back.

  ‘Mrs Street says she’s very sorry but she’s been delayed.’ She lowered her voice. ‘A resident passed away this morning and she’s with the daughter now. But I can be showing you around till she’s free.’

  We walked along behind the girl whose hair needed washing. It was a sad route. Every door opened like a blighted Advent calendar: a lady on her own, slumped in an easy chair, watching Bodger and Badger on children’s TV; three old women all asleep where they sat, sticks laid on the floor; a bald, hunched man sitting looking out of a bay window at the gathering dark. The furniture was cheap and nasty, house-clearance stuff in white melamine or black ash and the carpet was that rough, corded type; some of it was stained. In one room we passed a lady was lying in her bed shouting, ‘Help! Help!’

  ‘Do you not need to go in to her?’ asked Mum.

  The girl
smiled. ‘No, she’s all right, our Mrs Wallis. She always does that, then when you go in and ask her what’s up she says, “Was I shouting?” She’s fine, really.’ She shut the door on Mrs Wallis’ cries. ‘It’s a lovely place for them, they get their meals laid on and their own rooms, and there’s always company for them. We do bingo and concerts too. The children are coming from St Peter’s next week to do carols in the dining room. It’s a nice home, this one.’

  I searched for irony in her face but there was none. I grasped Will to me and he rooted against my shoulder and whimpered.

  By the time we got outside we were nearly hysterical with the horror of it all. I could see the relief on my mum’s face in the security floodlights. Her breath came out in a frosty cloud.

  ‘We can’t send her there!’

  ‘Oh, thank God, Mum. It was awful. The thought of her in with that lot . . .’

  ‘I know. And yet, do you know, I think the staff were trying their best. It’s just so sad . . .’ She shook her head. ‘That commode, though!’ She started to giggle.

  ‘Well, I didn’t know what it was, I thought it was just a seat. I was tired; you try carting Fatso here round for forty minutes, I thought my legs were going to give way.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have been so bad if it had been empty . . . Your face!’

  ‘All right.’ I was laughing too, it was the nerves. ‘But we’re not sending Nan there, are we?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. Merry Christmas.’

  ‘Merry Christmas, Charlotte. Incidentally, did you know you’ve got baby sick on your shoulder?’

  From inside the depths of the pram, Will’s eyes glittered.

  ‘You little soiler,’ I told him.

  *

  I’D MADE UP my mind, to be honest, or at least I thought I had; come hell or high water there was no way my mother was going in a home. But it was Leo who said, ‘Have you investigated Mayfield?’ Apparently his father had had a couple of weeks’ respite care there and they’d both been impressed. ‘More like your four-star hotel,’ he told me in the Octagon bar after we’d been to see An Inspector Calls. ‘Very upbeat, not at all depressing even though some of the residents are pretty laid-up. I know it’s further away than you’d want, ideally, but you’ve always got the car, it’s only fifteen minutes or so. Worth a recce, anyway, I’d have thought. I’ll come with you if you like.’