Bad Mothers United

by Kate Long

  And yet you hear people say how teenage girls have babies ‘because it’s the easy way out’, and that pisses me off SO much. It’s the complete opposite. Having a child in the picture makes everything you do about a million times harder. There’s nothing easy about the way your identity’s squashed into a mum-shape, whether it fits or not. There’s nothing easy about being distracted and tired and anxious, all kinds of health professionals watching you like hawks, about the massive endless weight of responsibility. Trying to frame your basic short-term plans, never mind the long-term. Where was I headed? God knows. Motherhood had taken up almost everything I was. What room was there left?

  Something small and hard hit me on the cheek. ‘Fuck,’ I said.

  ‘Oops,’ said Roz. ‘Friendly fire, sorry.’ When I looked, she’d started flicking peanuts at Walshy. A lot of her shots were going wide, though. He stood the onslaught for about twenty seconds, then made a lunge for her, grabbing her wrists and forcing her backwards across a cushion.

  ‘I’ll teach you to play with nuts, missus,’ he said.

  She squealed and wriggled underneath him. Without lifting his body weight off her, he let go of one of her wrists and grabbed a fistful of peanuts. He raised his arm above her face. ‘Now we’ll see.’

  One by one he let the contents of his fist fall. Peanuts bounced mainly onto her chest, trampolining off onto the grass. ‘Say “Walshy, you are King of the Nuts”.’

  ‘No!’ She was giggling and breathless. His face was close to hers.

  ‘Say it.’

  Gemma was sitting just a few feet away – there was even a peanut lodged in her shirt – but she’d zoned out. Her eyes were closed and her features relaxed.

  ‘Say it, Roz.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then we’re doomed to lie here, locked in combat indefinitely.’

  She let out another squeak.

  Walshy shifted his body down and let his head drop onto her chest. ‘Actually, I’m quite happy. You make a smashing mattress. Nice and squashy. Well-covered. Lovely fleshy squashy tum-tum. Mmm.’

  There was a pause while she thought about this, then without ceremony she heaved herself sideways and bucked him off so he flopped onto the grass. Before she could sit up he reached across and grabbed her T-shirt.

  ‘Aw, what? Come back, flesh-mattress. I need you.’

  ‘Piss off.’

  ‘Eh? You’re not in a mood, are you?’

  She unhooked his fingers from the material and stood up. ‘Why would I be in a mood?’

  ‘I dunno. Girls usually are. One minute you’re fine, the next, bang. It’s a mystery.’

  Roz ignored him. She just strode over to the yurt entrance, lifted the flap and slipped through, dropping the canvas behind her.

  ‘What? What did I do?’ Walshy turned to me.

  ‘Called her fat, you pea-brain.’

  ‘I did not. I called her squashy, which is a compliment. Women are meant to be squashy. Squashy bellies, squashy boobs.’

  ‘Shut up, Walsh,’ said Gemma.

  He sank back down on a cushion. ‘She started it.’

  After a moment Gemma opened her eyes, unhooked her daisy crown and laid it across Walshy’s chest like a wreath.

  And this grand non-plan of yours for the future – where do I fit in? Daniel’s voice came into my head, unbidden and plaintive. He would phone tonight. If I talked to him about the way I was feeling, would he listen, or would he try to tell me about membranes or capillaries or neural transmitters?

  In front of me, Walshy heaved himself into a sitting position and plucked the daisy chain off his chest. He edged over and tried to hook it over my wrist, but I shook him off. He sighed, took the flowers and mashed them into a ball between his palms.

  Daniel and me, ten years’ time. Would we make it that far? If you really loved someone, you didn’t fancy other people, did you? No, you didn’t, Slut-Girl. I tried to picture a wedding day, Mum in raptures and some unsuitable hat, Will tricked out as a pageboy, Mrs G sulkily dishing out buttonholes at the back of Bank Top parish church. The idea felt bizarre, like trying to imagine myself on TV or something.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I heard Gemma say. ‘You’ve not drunk your wine.’

  I rubbed my face like someone waking up. ‘Oh, yeah. I’m – I’ve got an essay crisis on, that’s all. Sitting here worrying I’m not working instead of going up to my room and nailing the bastard. Mad, isn’t it?’

  She nodded. ‘Go for it, then. Make a choice and then stick with it. Which is it to be, work-time or yurt-time?’

  ‘Othello.’

  ‘Good girl.’

  I crossed the scraggy lawn still in my bare feet. Inside our back porch we keep a bike with a punctured tyre and a stolen sandwich board (Walshy’s), a measuring pole (Roz’s), a barbecue (Gemma’s), a broken toy motor boat I filched off a skip, and twelve boxes of empty bottles we keep meaning to put out for recycling. I navigated past them all and placed my trainers under the kitchen table out of the way. Then I thought, before I started work I really ought to have a pee so as to minimise any distraction.

  I was about to push on the loo door when it opened to reveal Roz standing on the other side. Her face was red, wet and streaky with tears.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, taken aback. ‘Jesus. Are you OK?’

  She glared at me and her skin flushed darker.

  ‘Sorry, Roz. Stupid question. Can I do anything?’

  Roz shook her head as if she was brushing me away.

  I said, ‘Look, you mustn’t bother about Walshy, he’s always talking bollocks. You have to let it slide over you. You’re certainly not fat, if that’s what’s worrying you.’

  I put a hand out to touch her shoulder but she jerked back angrily. ‘For God’s sake! It’s not that.’

  ‘What is it? Tell me, then I can help.’

  ‘Just, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You have no idea what’s going on in my life right now. No idea.’ Her eyes were brimming with hurt. She seemed distressed beyond reason.

  Then she barged me aside and ran down the hall.

  ‘Is it Walshy, though?’ I called recklessly. ‘Is it him?’

  No response. I heard her thumping up the stairs, the slam of her bedroom door, silence.

  What the hell was happening to this house?

  Once Will was safely in bed I brought the photos upstairs and laid them out on my duvet. Next I took my notepad and began to write up everything Ivy had told me.

  I wrote about working in the cotton mills and Walking Day parades, about cats mobbing the fish cart and children begging ropes off the greengrocer so they could swing from lamp-posts. I wrote about scarlet fever and whooping cough, and about waking to the sound of clogs on cobbles and how in winter kids would pack the iron soles into platforms with snow and totter about. A whole other Bank Top my mother had lived in, and yet here it was, still just within reach as long as I took the time to search it out, to record and set it all down. Otherwise it would vanish, for good. More than ever I felt I had a mission. These pictures laid across my duvet, there were places and stories here that shouldn’t be forgotten. And people, of course. I picked up the photo of the drinking fountain again, imagined young Jimmy trotting across the graveyard with his saucepan full of tadpoles, his round face bright with mischief. All those summers they thought he had in front of him.

  A sudden chill came over me, and the urge to check on my grandson.

  I’d only put him to bed half an hour before so it was a risky strategy even to open his door two inches. There was every chance he’d hear me and immediately ping awake, and then I’d never get him to lie back down quietly. Not this coming night, not for weeks after. It’s the finest of sciences, toddlers’ bedtime.

  This evening, though, I was in luck. By some miracle he’d gone straight off and his eyes were shut, his chest rising and falling evenly. I pushed the door aside gently, then tiptoed across and bent over him, holding up his lamp to check his skin wasn’t flush
ed or his forehead sweaty. The nights I’d sneaked in here to sit in the gloom after Charlotte left, because the weight of responsibility felt too heavy for me to sleep. A grandmother’s watch. My penance for wishing at the start that he’d never been conceived.

  There’d been no mixed feelings with Mum, of course. She’d welcomed Will with nothing but joy. He’d been the light of her life. Later, on days no one else could get through the fuddle of her dementia, she’d a smile for the baby, always. Despite the losses she’d suffered in her life, she never held back on love.

  I wondered whether she was here now, watching over the nursery invisibly. There had been a couple of occasions, just after we moved her into Mayfield, she’d been home for a visit and we’d managed to haul her up the stairs. Then she’d sat by the cot like a queen on a throne, beaming.

  ‘Mum?’ I whispered. There followed a long silence where I traced the outline of his alphabet frieze with my eyes, Annie Apple through to Zig Zag Zebra, and then Will let out a deep sigh that ended with a whimper. Was he having a bad dream? Again I moved in to check, but already his limbs were relaxing, his breathing steadied. I pictured Mum’s hand on his brow, comforting.

  Years ago I’d seen a TV programme where a psychic had lit a candle in a haunted house and invited a spirit to blow it out. No idea whether it actually worked, because Mum chose that moment to mention she’d found mouse dirt under the sink, and Charlotte had gone into a five-star panic and insisted we put traps down there and then. Six wood mice we killed that winter. Every damn box of cereal was chewed to buggery.

  I could almost hear Mum chuckling. Well, see, your Pringle would sort that if it happened now. That would be your reward for tekkin’ him in.

  There were tea lights in Charlotte’s bedroom, and matches in the kitchen.

  I stepped away from the bed. Will slept on.

  Who else was there to phone when I was down, but Daniel? That’s what he was there for.

  ‘Sorry, it’s pretty noisy in here,’ he said when he picked up. ‘You’re going to have to shout.’

  Shout? He could sod off, I wasn’t shouting. No way was I going to bare my soul at top volume for everyone else in the house to hear. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Pub.’

  ‘A pub?’

  ‘It’s a building where they serve alcohol to the general public.’

  ‘All right, clever-dick. I meant, what are you doing at the pub?’

  I knew I was being unreasonable – for God’s sake, he was a student, obviously he could go down the pub if he wanted. It’s just that right at this minute I wanted him to be home at his flat, in the quiet, so he could give me his full attention. I needed to know we were OK.

  ‘I’m with the planning group. You know, this Twenty-First Century Rocks thing.’

  ‘Oh. The charity event?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘With Amelia.’

  ‘Amelia’s part of it. There are actually about fifteen of us here—’ The receiver became muffled for a moment. ‘He’s not, is he? The whole lot at once?’

  ‘Daniel—’

  A roar in the background.

  ‘Is something up, Charlotte? I’m sorry I didn’t ring earlier, only as I said, I was in this meeting. Hang on, tell you what, I’ll go outside—’ Ragged cheering and a thumping noise as if something had fallen over. ‘Jesus. Mainly over Rob, I think. Ask at the bar for a cloth.’

  For God’s sake, I wanted to shout. I’m your girlfriend! Bloody pay attention. I need a bit of reassurance, not evidence of you enjoying yourself without me.

  I caught a woman’s voice, posh and slightly strident. I couldn’t tell what she said but the intonation sounded like a question. ‘No, it’s fine,’ Daniel replied.

  Is it, now? I thought.

  Ten seconds later he was back with me. ‘Everything OK?’

  I should have said no. Straight away I should have nailed the conversation, come right out with the fact that tonight I was low and lonely and there was a freaky atmosphere in the house that made me want to pack my bags and jump on the first train back to Bank Top. But I didn’t. I did that stupid stupid thing of lying and then hoping he’d guess. ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘You sound a bit cheesed off.’

  My second chance. ‘No, I’m good. Just a bit bored.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yeah. I just called to chat. Don’t turn it into a big deal.’ And there was the hat-trick.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Great. Listen, I nearly called you earlier: did you hear that amazing story about the guy in Belgium with the pillars of ham? We were all just talking about it.’

  ‘Pillows of ham?’

  ‘Pillars.’

  ‘Of ham? Like you’d put in a sandwich?’

  ‘Yup, ordinary ham. He’s wrapped these slices of meat, about eight thousand of them, round some columns on the university building and covered them in plastic and now he’s waiting for the flies to come and turn his sculpture alive.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To contrast the permanence of science and knowledge – the university – with the fact that bodies rot, he says.’

  ‘Sounds yuk.’

  ‘It does, but at the same time it gets the philosophical point across. And I rather like the idea of public decay.’

  ‘Bobbins.’

  ‘No, people need to appreciate what is a really fascinating and vital natural process. Nature’s waste-disposal. Amazing.’

  ‘Wait till the vermin come. It won’t look too philosophical when he’s knocking rats away with a broom-end.’ From where I sat I could see myself reflected in the window. I was pale without my make-up, and my hair needed a wash. ‘What a tosser.’

  Daniel said, ‘Why are you always so dismissive, Charlotte?’

  ‘I’m not. It’s just, this weirdness. Why do you always go on about stuff that doesn’t matter? I mean, bloody ham.’ And I thought about Mum once telling me how she and Dad were never interested in the same things, and that was one of the reasons the marriage failed.

  I heard him clear his throat. There was still a lot of background noise, faint music, laughter. Any minute now he would apologise. Perhaps he’d end the call and go straight back to the flat, ring from there. I waited.

  The girl’s voice came again, this time clearer; she must be standing closer. She was telling him she’d brought his drink through before someone had it. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Daniel?’

  ‘Look, you want to tell me something but you won’t say what, or you want me to come out with a particular line and I’ve to guess—’

  ‘No—’

  ‘But it’s obviously not the right time for this conversation. It’s too busy here and I can’t – Yeah, I’m coming, one minute – and I’m in the middle of a meeting and I don’t know how long we’re going on for here. It’s better if I ring you first thing tomorrow, yeah? Then we can have a proper talk. OK? Chin up, Charlotte. We’ll thresh it out, whatever it is. Love you.’

  And he hung up. I couldn’t believe it.

  I was always the one who hung up first.

  I found a better candle, a scented job in a glass jar that one of the kids at school had bought me. Alpine Fields read the label. I took it into Charlotte’s room because that had been Mum’s, before Mayfield.

  I struck a match and held it for a moment till the flare died down. Then I put it to the wick and placed the candle on the dressing-table, where its reflection wobbled in the mirror. I turned the lights out and went to sit on the bed.

  It wasn’t right to speak out loud, I decided, so I just asked Mum in my head if she’d come. For a minute or so I focused on the brightness of the flame, studying every slight movement. The shape of it varied, sometimes fat and sometimes stretched-up and thin, with a thread of black smoke coming from the tip. It stayed pretty upright, though.

  I found myself thinking of the times I’d helped her make this bed, and how she liked to sing to housework even though her voice was awful, quavery a
nd off-tune. ‘Come Down, O Love Divine’ was a favourite. O comforter, draw near, within my heart appear.

  On Mondays, which was washing day, her fingers would stay reddened till teatime; on Wednesdays, which was Downstairs, they’d be marked with Duraglit. If I concentrated now, I could smell it over the top of Alpine Fields.

  True lowliness of heart, which takes the humbler part

  And o’er its own shortcomings weeps with loathing.

  The flame began to quiver, then bend.

  ‘Mum?’

  Immediately it swayed upright again, then set up a juddering vertical motion. The shadows on the walls jigged in sympathy, disorientating me.

  ‘Mum, are you there? I need to tell you something. I need to say I’m sorry for looking elsewhere. Do you understand?’

  Some tiny reassurance, that was all I needed.

  For maybe ten minutes afterwards I paced the room, sweeping stuff off my desk into the bin, kicking furniture that got in the way. Why hadn’t I been able to tell him what was wrong? Why hadn’t he tried harder to guess? And what the fuck was this Amelia up to? I was desperate to call him back, but I knew how weak that would make me look. My head felt like it was going to burst apart.

  I said, ‘I never wanted another mother. You were my mum, always. Going to London was a mistake. I’m glad you adopted me. And I wish I’d said that to you, I wish we’d talked about the adoption instead of pretending it never happened. Do you understand? Can you hear me? Is there something you want to say to me?’

  The flame wobbled, as if under a breath. Darkness closed in from the sides of my vision and a sense of calm crept over me.

  So in the end I phoned Mum. That’s how upset I was.

  Then the phone went.

  I tried to ignore it. I let it ring for ages, willing it to stop, till it dawned on me that no normal person keeps trying for that long. This was someone with a point to make. Or a crisis, some news I had to deal with straight away. God.