More Than a Mum

by Charlene Allcott

  ‘I really do. He’s not like the other boys. He’s … I don’t know. He’s just really cool.’

  ‘That’s great, Rubes, as long as you know that you’re too young to get into anything serious right now, and you’ve got a big year coming up and—’

  ‘Yeah, I know, Mum.’ She was silent again, and I wanted to smack myself for messing it up so quickly.

  ‘Sorry. You like him. I get that.’ Ruby sat up and the slices fell on to the duvet.

  ‘I really do. I have since Year 7. He split up with his girlfriend yesterday and there’s auditions for the drama club tomorrow. He’s told me he’s going to go, so I’m gonna try and join too!’ Her cheeks were growing flushed. She must really like him; her excitement had superseded her disdain for me.

  ‘I didn’t know you were interested in drama! That’s brilliant, Rubes.’ It might be helpful to have her dramatics channelled elsewhere, and I was quite enamoured with the idea that my girls could continue my creative legacy.

  ‘I don’t care about the drama,’ she said, ‘but we’ll spend all this time together and then he’s blatantly going to ask me out.’

  ‘Well, that is interesting,’ I said carefully. ‘Don’t spend too much time thinking about it though, Rubes. Wait and see what tomorrow brings. I wouldn’t want you to be disappointed …’ She glared at me. Her eyes were a little red. I hadn’t taken her to the GP for a hay-fever prescription that spring.

  ‘Why would I be disappointed?’ she said. In the words was a warning.

  ‘No reason. Just if it doesn’t go how you’d expect …’ Ruby looked away.

  ‘Great. Even my own mother doesn’t think I’m good enough for him.’ I put my hand on her leg, and she slowly but decisively moved it away.

  ‘I do. Of course I do. He could be Robert Pattinson and I wouldn’t think he was out of your league.’ Ruby didn’t turn back to me but gently shook her head. Obviously, Robert was no longer du jour. I could practically taste her regret, caused by the misplaced belief that she could trust me with her secrets. ‘I just want you to be prepared. And if I don’t tell you, no one will.’ I realized I’d heard those words before, from my mother’s mouth. Without prompting she’d told me about sex, not just the mechanics of it but the mess and expectation. What I thought of her at the time was now displayed on my daughter’s face. ‘It will be fine, and your eyes look lovely. They always do.’ She let out a bark of a laugh. ‘I could put your hair in rags?’

  When she was a kid, I would do this the night before she attended parties. I remember once hearing her say to a friend, ‘No, I didn’t go to the hairdresser. My mum did it.’ She was so proud I belonged to her then.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I have work to do.’ She returned to her desk, her face a placid mask of dignity.

  ‘I don’t mind. You could read whilst I do it.’

  ‘No,’ she said harshly. ‘You want me to be prepared, don’t you?’ I took my cue and left. Closing the door, I swore quietly and then again and again, a steady stream of fucks.

  ‘You OK, babe?’ Dylan called from the living room.

  ‘Yeah,’ I shouted back. ‘Gonna lie down for a bit.’

  ‘K!’

  The bed was unmade; Dylan must have taken an afternoon nap. I felt helpless. Even when I was trying, it wasn’t working; I would have to accept that the problem was me. I once watched a film about two babies inadvertently exchanged in a hospital ward. One, meek and bookish, was taken home by a raucous, extrovert family, and the other, wild and attention-seeking, by a quiet, academic pair. Though for a long time they didn’t know the error had been made, they always sensed that something was wrong. I thought about another woman living in a home not far away, one who was patient and present and had grown up with a person who had taught her how to be a wife and mother. Of course, if she was supposed to be with my family where did that put me?

  I pulled my phone out of my jeans pocket. No message from Frank. I searched ‘rats eyes red’. The first result was an article on pet care. ‘White rats usually have red eyes,’ said the text below an image of one of the creatures. ‘Fuck,’ I said again.

  22

  FRANK MADE ME wait two days before he sent me the meeting point – the back of a restaurant in North London. Two waiters eyed me coolly as they smoked their break-time cigarettes. I smiled at one of them, and he elbowed his companion in the ribs before saying something in a foreign tongue. His friend responded with a snort of laughter. I clutched my huge handbag to my chest. If I’d paid more attention in school I might have understood what they were saying, or at least the language in which it was spoken. I could have shouted, ‘I’m not an escort!’ in Spanish or whatever.

  Frank pulled up and rescued me. I scrambled into the passenger seat.

  ‘You’re late,’ I chided.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and kissed me on the mouth. It’s rare for a man to be able to apologize like that, without explanation and pontification. It requires a lot of self-possession. ‘You look amazing,’ he added. It was a cheap line, but it was great hearing it. Also, I believed he wouldn’t have said it if he didn’t mean it. I had spent a lot of time getting ready, done all the things I had been told to do by fashion magazines – I felt amazing.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘A hotel in Gatwick.’ I nodded. Our relationship wasn’t taking us to the most exotic locations.

  ‘I know, it’s a bit of a cliché. I wish I could take you home with me.’ And at that point the wish was enough. Frank drove in the way that he spoke – calm but assertive. He drove like he knew exactly where he was going; or maybe he did.

  Despite my doubts about the location, I was impressed with the hotel. Small and chic with a spa attached. If we had to hole up in the suburban wilderness, this was the perfect hideout. I actually screamed when I entered the room, squealed like a child. A huge roll-top bath stood at the foot of the king-size bed.

  ‘Frank, it’s gorgeous,’ I said, running my fingertips across the rim. ‘I’ve always wanted to stay in a room with a bath.’

  ‘You’re gorgeous,’ he said seriously.

  ‘Let’s christen it.’ I turned on the taps.

  Frank poured us drinks. I took off my clothes and sat in the tub as it filled. As I watched him undress, I considered how easy it was to be naked in front of him. Over the years with Dylan, what I’d worn to bed had become increasingly modest; a few more years and I’d be kissing him goodnight in an overcoat and boots. I dipped my head under the water, hoping to leave thoughts of home there. I’d told him I was going to an art show for research and would stay with Dee if it got late. I felt doubly wretched saying it, because I should have been going to art shows for research and I was coasting on Nush’s ignorance. Dylan accepted the lie easily. He didn’t even ask why the company’s bookkeeper would be joining me for a research trip. It only proved how little he really listened, which on some dark, petty level may have been why I said it. Frank would have noticed; he noticed everything. I told him about a consultant who had visited the office for a day and, when he asked me about him the next week, I had no idea what he was talking about – he listened to me more than I listened to myself. I lifted my head and the room was empty. It was unsettling.

  ‘Frank,’ I said tentatively and then louder, more urgently, again.

  ‘I’m in the bathroom!’ came his voice from behind the door.

  ‘Why are you in the bathroom when we’re having a bath!’ He came out with a towel round his waist. He kept his head down, eyes on the carpet at his feet.

  ‘I’m, erm, I’m just waiting till I calm down.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I stood up and grabbed a towel from a rail beside the tub. I didn’t want him to tell me something awful whilst I was naked.

  ‘You’re not helping,’ he said, his eyes now lifted to meet mine. He nodded towards the towel, and I understood it wasn’t his mind that needed to settle. I laughed and dropped the towel, and then knelt back down in the bath and swooshed the water w
ith my hands.

  ‘I’ll close my eyes,’ I said, and covered my face with my hands. When I didn’t hear him approach, I took them away. ‘Get in, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.’ His face fell, and I didn’t check but I’m pretty sure everything else did too. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said quickly.

  ‘Don’t be. There’s no point denying our reality.’ Which of course made me think about his wife, whom I had been doing a pretty decent job of denying. Frank crossed the room and sat on the bed. I got out and wrapped the towel under my arms. I climbed across the mattress to approach him from behind. As I put my arms around his shoulders, he tensed for a second before relenting. ‘I’m really happy you’re here,’ he said, although he sounded incredibly sad.

  ‘I’m glad to be here. I’m glad you brought me.’ He pulled my arms away and lay down on the bed. ‘What did you tell her?’ I said. He gave a meaty groan and I regretted inviting her to intrude on our afternoon.

  ‘Nothing really. I didn’t tell; she didn’t ask. She’s a sweet girl, but I don’t know if she challenges me enough.’ I congratulated myself on squashing the urge to ask exactly how old she was, but even without this knowledge she haunted me. For days after, I’d get pulled away without warning by the thought, does sweet equate to beautiful? ‘In fact,’ continued Frank, ‘I know she doesn’t challenge me. I knew it on our wedding day.’ He sighed and I lay down beside him. ‘We had this terrible, terrible DJ, Trevor I think he was called. He announced the first dance and it was this ridiculous love song she’d chosen, and everyone was standing in a circle staring at us and I thought, this probably isn’t it. Do you know what I mean?’

  I didn’t. My wedding day was perfect. Until meeting Dylan I had been ambivalent about marriage, after watching my mother take an emotional hatchet to her own. He made the concept of matrimony feel logical; I managed to push aside all the stress of planning a wedding and focus on what I saw as the goal – becoming a team. I felt it most during our first dance. We swayed slowly to ‘Ebony and Ivory’ because it was silly and weird and so were we, but I wanted Frank to think that I understood him because that was the way he made me feel, so I lied a little and told him I knew exactly what he meant.

  ‘I can’t tell you how much I’ve wanted this,’ he said. He didn’t mean sex – he was talking about the foundation we had created – but I responded by kissing him, and he responded in turn by pulling me on top of him. The sex was good, the sort you brag about at brunch, but I knew I couldn’t brag about it and the knowledge robbed me of my orgasm. I didn’t feel completely free to enjoy what shouldn’t be enjoyable, but I knew that in the future, if I could allow myself, we would be amazing together.

  Afterwards, we lay naked on the bed, my head resting on his chest. ‘I have someone I want you to meet,’ Frank said. I sat up and ran my fingers through my hair. ‘They’re not here now.’ I could hear him smiling at me.

  ‘I know,’ I said. I pulled the duvet up under my armpits. He stretched and gave a rich yawn.

  ‘It’s one of my oldest friends. We were at school together. He lives near here and I thought we could meet him for lunch.’ It was so real. An actual person from his authentic life. Someone he had history with, which suggested he wanted to make history with me.

  ‘Is that OK? Won’t that complicate stuff?’ Frank kissed me.

  ‘Things are already very complicated.’

  Frank drove us to a pub half an hour away, in the sort of nondescript place that reminded me of my hometown in Essex. Before she married Eddie, Mum would take me to pubs just like it on a Saturday. One comic and a packet of crisps had to last me for hours. She had a series of ‘friends’, portly men with red faces and suit jackets bunched awkwardly around their frames – Frank’s mate Anthony looked like one of them. He stood as we approached and, if it weren’t for his outstretched arms, I would never have guessed he had anything to do with my polished companion. As I watched them hug and exchange amiable banter, Anthony looked more like a benevolent uncle than a peer. Frank stepped back and pushed me forward, presenting me like a prize.

  ‘This is Alison,’ he said. Anthony pulled me in. His embrace was almost overwhelming, but it was clear he wasn’t letting go until I reciprocated. When I did, it felt better than I had expected.

  ‘It’s very good to meet you,’ said Anthony as we sat down. ‘I like you already.’ He shouted over to the bar. ‘Another bottle of red, Jan!’ The landlady responded with a purse of her lips but moved into action. Anthony poured what was left of a bottle on the table into an empty glass in front of him. ‘They look after me here,’ he explained.

  The men began an intense discussion about the sale of a house. It seemed that Anthony had an ex-wife refusing to vacate it. He spoke of her as if she were a leaky roof, merely an impediment in the sales process. I watched Anthony as he talked; a mole on his right cheek bobbed as his mouth moved. Frank nodded empathetically and offered up the name of a good lawyer; I wondered if he knew him in a personal or professional capacity. The wine arrived, and I thanked Jan and poured myself a glass.

  ‘Sorry, Alison,’ said Anthony. ‘Boy talk.’

  ‘You’re hardly boys,’ I countered. Anthony delivered a honking laugh, one so abrasive it made me commit to not saying anything that might provoke it again.

  ‘Well observed,’ he said when the noise had concluded. ‘We’ve known each other since we were kids. I’m still a kid,’ he patted his stomach, ‘a big kid, but Frank here – he’s all grown up.’ Frank didn’t respond, not even the flicker of an eyelid. ‘Who are you though, Alison? Tell me everything.’ I shook my head rapidly. He laughed again and I winced. ‘She’s shy!’ The two men exchanged a look, but I couldn’t tell what it communicated.

  ‘It’s not that …’ It’s that I was no longer sure of the answer to that question.

  ‘OK, tell me this. Do you like boats?’

  23

  IT WAS EASIER being dropped off at work. I decided if we did it again, that’s what I would do – and I already knew we would do it again. I appreciated having a buffer between Frank’s world and home life. When the two were next to each other, it was too easy to compare them and find Dylan and the girls lacking. I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to think my husband wasn’t good enough. He was good enough for someone, but I was starting to think it wasn’t me. Bettina was so fired up about her afternoon with the teacher, she barely noticed my noncommittal anecdotes about my weekend.

  ‘He brought me a book,’ she purred, ‘which you know I appreciated more than flowers or chocolates. Most guys wouldn’t be brave enough to do that. They’d fear judgement over their choice – which they should.’

  ‘I got you a book.’ Marcus’s voice floated out from under Bettina’s desk, where he was connecting her new monitor. ‘In the Secret Santa last year. I know it’s meant to be a secret …’ It wasn’t a secret; Marcus had spent weeks negotiating, campaigning and finally paying for her name in the draw. Bettina looked to the ceiling, and then shrugged as if she had been asked to remember what she had for lunch last Wednesday.

  ‘It was a collection of Dostoevsky’s short stories. I mean, you couldn’t get any more perfect. I’m getting a herbal tea if anyone wants one.’

  Marcus appeared from under the desk and threw himself into Bettina’s chair. ‘I’m never gonna get her,’ he said.

  I don’t think it was a question but I answered. ‘Women are not for getting,’ I said.

  He looked appropriately apologetic and I felt a flash of warmth for him.

  ‘What was the book?’ I asked.

  ‘Love letters,’ he said, ‘from famous men to the women they loved, I guess.’ I placed my hands on the desk, and leaned forward in an effort to create at least the illusion of privacy.

  ‘Marcus,’ I said. ‘Stop trying so hard.’ He stroked his goatee thoughtfully.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘How do I do that?’ I shook my head. ‘Oh, oh, I get it,’ he said.

  ‘Move,’ said Bettina forcefully. He
jumped up quickly and then, catching himself, wandered slowly away from the desk.

  ‘Yeah, I was going anyway,’ he said in a languid tone. Bettina examined the chair before sitting. Marcus gave her one last wistful look before scurrying away.

  ‘I don’t think this monitor’s any better than the last one,’ she said. ‘Anyway, Tristan. He finally asked me to the wedding! That’s an official thing, right? He wouldn’t ask me if we weren’t official?’ I opened my email to see if Frank had sent anything, but there was only a string of updates from Annie.

  ‘Have you spoken about exclusivity? I wouldn’t assume anything unless you have.’

  ‘Really? I guess I didn’t think people did that. It seems a bit “back of the school bus”, actually asking someone to be your girlfriend.’

  ‘I agree it would be fab if we could rely on men to get all the subtext, but you and I both know they’re not that nuanced.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Bettina. Her extension began to cry for attention, but she ignored it. ‘I think he might be.’

  ‘I hope so, but don’t count on it. I don’t want to see you hurt again.’ My words broke her from a hypnotic trance.

  ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘The deal’s not done till it’s done.’ She picked up her phone and began responding to the caller in clipped monosyllables. I felt hungry. It was guilt. I raided the break room and found a bag of spongy pretzels. I didn’t want to be that cynical friend bursting bubbles and debunking the fairy tale; if anything, that was Bettina’s job. I was meant to be the optimistic sidekick in the romantic comedy of life, but it pained me to hear Bettina falling for someone in such an uncomplicated way. I wanted to tell her this, but I resented the disapproval I knew she would unleash in her trademark, uncensored manner. The carbs seemed to quell my crabbiness, and I committed to presenting a better friend face. What was the point of a mate if they didn’t help to prop up your fantasies? I was scraping the crumbs from the bottom of the packet when Carter strode into the room. He had on a suit with an open-necked shirt, which I took to be his version of casual.