Bad Mothers United

by Kate Long

  CHAPTER 8

  On a day in August

  I swear there’s a special circle of hell reserved for mothers who repeatedly ask about their daughter’s love-life. Two weeks into the summer holidays and I felt chewed to bits.

  By day I had Mum making ever more earnest enquiries about when she was going to see Daniel again, how we were getting on, was I being nice to him. Meanwhile, for every one of the fourteen nights I’d been home, Will’d had me up with nightmares or just fancying a play in the small hours. ‘Mummy,’ I’d hear him shouting through the wall. ‘Mummy, come!’ ‘It’s your own fault,’ Mum said when I complained I was exhausted. ‘He’s been sleeping through for me. But you get him all excited at bedtime and then he can’t settle.’ Obviously I’m not supposed to have fun with my child post-5 p.m. Not supposed to cuddle him after dark, either. ‘Look, if he wakes up and there’s nothing really wrong, then tuck him in and leave him,’ says Mum, all sanctimonious. ‘Don’t lift him out of bed and start chatting, or make his teddies talk or read him a story. He’s not going to want to sleep after that, is he?’ I said, ‘So now I’m not allowed to comfort my own son? Is that how you used to treat me when I was little?’ And she went, ‘Why do you always have to twist my words, Charlotte?’ In the end I told her, ‘Decent mums don’t mind getting up in the night. It’s our job.’ But she switched on the hoover and drowned me out.

  So this early light found me sitting on the floor of the front box room, resting my neck against the wall with my lap full of teddies, while Will bounced up and down on his duvet.

  ‘This used to be my room,’ I told him. He took no notice, obviously: like I had any kind of a life before him. But I did, I wanted to tell him. I was a child once, without any cares, with a mummy and a nan who arranged everything for me. I sailed through my days, gold stars in my schoolbooks and clean plates at the table. ‘A good girl’, I’d hear people say.

  It was when I grew up and struck out on my own that the trouble started.

  By the crack of illumination under Will’s curtains and the glow of Bedtime Bear I could make out the wardrobe mirror I’d stood in front of the day it dawned on me I might be pregnant. Will had been nothing more than a little tiny grub-thing wriggling about inside me when I’d put my hands on my stomach and wished him away with all my might. Three months later and blown up like a cushion I’d sat on the bed sharing Mintoes with Nan while Mum raged about us, screaming how I’d ruined both our chances. In the corner, where nowadays Will’s nappy-changing unit lived, I used to have a bean bag. Daniel had once sat on it and listened to me angst about whether I still loved my baby’s father or not. But it was the room next door – Nan’s old room – where Dan and I had our first real kiss. That was where we’d begun. The beginning and the end. From outside of us I could see the whole shape of our relationship, the highs and lows, the points where we’d been closest and where we’d drifted apart. Probably Daniel could draw a graph of it, labelled axes, the lot.

  I deserve better, Charlotte.

  Had somebody fed him that line? I’d been replaying his words for a fortnight, waiting for the pain to hit. After all, this was my best mate in all the world, the biggest part of my adult life after Will, closing the door on me. Basically I think I didn’t believe it.

  ‘What do you want me to do, Daniel?’ I’d said. ‘You knew I had baggage when we got together.’

  ‘It’s not the baggage. It’s how you see me. It’s like you’ve been gradually disconnecting yourself all year, I don’t know why. Not through lack of effort on my part, that’s for sure. I try and do everything to suit you. And now I’m tired of being in the background, taken for granted.’

  ‘I don’t take you for granted.’

  He just looked at me. In the end I’d had to lower my gaze, away from the lie.

  The light under Will’s curtains was growing stronger, now casting a bar across the duvet and carpet. Next to me Will rolled and kicked his legs out sideways, battling the bedclothes. ‘Mummy,’ he said. ‘Stuck.’

  I turned sideways to unravel him and he snuggled into me, butting his head against my breastbone. What about you, you poor fatherless ferret, I thought. When will you realise Daniel’s not around any more? Will it matter to you? How much do the under-threes remember? That hurt, the worry that my fucked-up love-life might be damaging my own child. It cut deep.

  ‘I can’t do this any more,’ was what Daniel had said.

  And somewhere in the middle of my disbelieving panic, Walshy’s shining face was rising up between us, his choppy fringe, his laughing eyes. Walshy in boxer shorts and sunglasses, standing on a plastic garden chair singing ‘No Sleep Till Brooklyn’. Walshy, the man I thought I wanted right up until the day he was mine for the taking.

  I’d got it so wrong.

  ‘Mummy,’ whispered Will down my ear. ‘Need some juice.’

  Here I was in the nursery, cold and stiff from sitting on the floor. Charlotte Cooper, single mum again.

  ‘Shall we go downstairs?’ I could make a hot drink and stick the gas fire on. Watch a video. Text Roz and ask how she was doing. I had a driving lesson at nine. No point trying to go back to bed now anyway.

  Life sails on, whether you’re ready for it or not.

  Banging drawers, running taps. Half past bloody five in the morning, and I think it started up earlier than that only I refused to open my eyes so it could have been any time. Don’t want to wake up. Feel old and unloved and fatty-fat fat. Big blobby whale like the ones you see on the news, stranded on beaches. Done for. Jiggered. Yesterday, I tried on a blouse I bought two months ago, and it’s too tight across my bust. Ripped when I tried to take it off. Bastard buttons, bastard bloody useless thread. Cheap rubbish, that’s what it is. Keep thinking about Steve. I don’t want him, not really. Keep thinking about Eric.

  God Almighty! She can’t half slam a door, can my daughter. I’ve told her till I’m blue in the face to leave Will during the night and he’ll settle himself, but oh no, she’s on this mission to prove she’s Wonder-mum. ‘I’d never turn my back on a child who needs me,’ she says. No one can do pious like our Charlotte. Well, she can get on with it. Good luck to her.

  Bloody birds singing. Shut up.

  Opened some daft magazine article last night, Reclaim Your Zing!. Assuming you ever had any zing in the first place. Mine ran out about 1980. Sniff a pine cone, urged this article. Buy a fresh duvet cover. Change the way you part your hair. Cut out sucrose. Never read such bobbins. Cut out sucrose? White sugar’s been one of the truest friends I’ve had. White sugar in tea. Wish someone would bring me tea in bed. Open that door now with a tray, slice of toast, flower in a vase—

  Bloody cat trying to claw his way in now. How’s he managed to break out of the kitchen? Scratching at the wood, miaowing. Really odd miaow that cat has. Doesn’t sound right. Sounds like someone pretending to be a cat. Sometimes he says ‘meringue’. That’s not normal, is it? Bloody shut up, Pringle, or I will feed you slug pellets.

  Oh, bugger it. Duvet back, swing legs down, connect feet with carpet, unseal eyelids. There, see? Sun’s barely up.

  Grope for door. Forehead against panel for a moment.

  Open door a tiny crack. Look, flea-bag, if I let you in, will you stop your racket? Right. Come on, up, yes, curl up on the pillow next to me and go to sleep.

  Eyes closed again.

  Pringle loves me, at least. Curl up, Pringle. No, not padding about with your bony paws all over my face, Lord knows where they’ve been. Or showing me your backside. Euff. Settle down. Settle. Down. Bloody mog.

  Not that this bed’s going to see any other kind of action for the foreseeable future.

  God, cat, I’m going to open that window and chuck you out. I will, too. Wrap you in a pillowcase and drive you to the canal. Should have done it months ago. Meringue? Never mind meringues. Will you LIE DOWN?

  Mum’s voice in my head: No rest for the wicked. Mum wrapping a worming tablet in mince for Chalkie. Mum boiling up rhubarb o
n the stove; explaining how to roll pastry; showing me how to put on my first pair of grown-up tights.

  Cat going mental. Where’s the damn bedside light switch gone? Who’s moved it? There! Nothing. Bulb’s gone. All I bloody need. Push cat off bed, thud.

  Peace. Lovely.

  No. Dazzled! Someone must be holding a floodlight over my head. Ow, ow, too bright. Have to shade my eyes to be able to see.

  And it’s the damn cat again, jumped on the windowsill and pushing the curtain open. Sun breaking over the horizon right in my face, full on. I’ll never sleep like that. Bloody, bloody animal. Off to the RSPCA with you tomorrow, lad, get you re-homed. You can go ‘meringue’ at someone else.

  Stagger up, flailing, grab for the curtain. Only, what’s this? What’s going on in my garden? Who in the name of Jehovah is that lurking by my fence?

  I might be a rubbish girlfriend but by God I’m a good mum. I am.

  I pulled back the curtains on what looked like another sunny day. Amazing how warm it’s been, actually. The cleaners from the Working Men’s Club set up deckchairs on the car park yesterday.

  Next I helped Will dress – no nappy today, we’re living dangerously – and carried him downstairs. I set him on the kitchen floor while I went to splash cold water on my face and rinse my mouth with Listerine. When I came out again he’d broken into the bottom cupboard and was cradling the biscuit barrel hopefully.

  ‘Come here,’ I said, and took it off him. I prised up the lid, snapped off a sliver of digestive and handed it to him to gnaw while I made his porridge. Smart mums compromise (I read that in a magazine).

  I have to say, it’s a sight easier navigating our kitchen since Nan went, but it’s also less exciting. No chance of finding sausages in the bread bin, or half the morning’s post stuffed inside the toaster. This neat drawer where Will’s cutlery and bowls live used to contain sachets of ancient bread mix and wildflower seeds, hair nets and plastic rain hoods, Atrixo, crepe bandages, mousetraps, drawing pins and half a draughts set. The little pantry, which was where Nan stowed her laundry paraphernalia, now houses Mum’s herb pots and features a gingham café-style curtain and a set of much-prized Cath Kidston tins. I know Mum would love to go the whole hog and rip out the old kitchen, have fitted units in a nice farmhouse pine, but she won’t part with her savings. ‘They’re ring-fenced for your education,’ she says in tones that range from martyred to downright angry.

  ‘I’m not going to put that sort of pressure on you,’ I said to Will, who was busy smearing biscuit paste across his clean-on-five-minutes-ago top. ‘Although if you could let me know about the potty today, that would be good.’

  ‘Yuk,’ he said, dragging at his T-shirt.

  ‘Potty?’

  ‘Nah.’

  We’d see. If the books were right, I’d most likely have him continent by the end of the week. And that meant, hooray, no more changing mat and nappy sacks and zinc oxide cream and air freshener and hand sanitiser and trips to the wheeliebin in the middle of the night. End of an era, in fact. Nothing stays the same in motherhood. You just get your head round one routine and then it’s all change. This toddler-porridge I was making (half a cup of water, stir hard, stick dish in microwave) would be replaced by something else in a month or two. I’d come home from uni and find Mum was feeding him Frosties or scrambled eggs or possibly even Kit Kats and milk in a bowl.

  I turned to look at Will where he sat, legs spread out in front of him on the lino, the top of his head lit by a ray of sun. He was so beautiful. The morning was beautiful.

  ‘Hey, you,’ I said. ‘Come outside.’

  The best mums see an opportunity and just take off. I hoisted him up – he’s a bloomin’ weight these days – and settled him on my hip. Then I opened the back door onto the glistening lawn. By now it was properly light, the ridge tiles on Eric’s house and one side of our hedge illuminated red. Over the other side of the sky, the pale moon sank towards Rivington.

  ‘See?’ I said, giving Will a squeeze. ‘See how amazing the world is. There are glow worms and thunderstorms and live music and the seaside, hot-air balloons and magicians and Toblerones and mosaics and snowboarding. Loads of cool stuff. And it’s all out there, waiting for you. There’s so much you can do, there’s so much you can be. There’ll be change, and loss, people you care about who’ll leave you, but you mustn’t be scared. You must run out there and jump straight in. You must go after what you want. Because you’ll always have me behind you, supporting you. I love you so much. Do you know that? Do you understand?’

  Will snuffled against my neck. His body felt hot next to mine. How do I ever manage to go away from you? I thought.

  ‘Because you’re everything to me, and I promise, promise I’m going to make your life better than mine. We’ll have so much fun together. I’m going to take you by the hand and lead you through all the happy times and the sad ones. Whatever unfolds, I’ll be right by your side, and I’ll rejoice in your joy and not whinge for no reason and get disillusioned and start to pick holes in everything you do. You can be who you want to because I’m not going to force you into any kind of mould. You were always a blessing, not a millstone, and I’ll never make you feel anything other than a hundred per cent wanted. Whatever wrong turnings I’ve made, you were never one of them. I really need you to know that. And if I ever do make mistakes, I’ll ’fess up straight away and try and make it right again. I make you that vow. I’m going to come at you with a great towering wall of love, a tidal wave of it, and you won’t have any choice but to love me back and be happy.’

  Out of the blue, a memory of Daniel jogging round the garden with Will shrieking on his shoulders . . .

  There was a clunk as the back door opened and I heard my mother’s voice.

  ‘You know you’ve knackered the microwave, don’t you?’

  I let Will slither gently to the ground. ‘What?’

  ‘You set it for thirty minutes, not thirty seconds. His porridge exploded. His ladybird spoon’s melted. This is what happens when you go round half-asleep.’

  She marched up to us and peered into my face. ‘Where’s your red scarf gone?’

  ‘What red scarf?’

  ‘You were wearing a red scarf.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Five minutes ago. I saw you from upstairs.’

  ‘No, I wasn’t. I don’t own a red scarf.’

  Her colour was high, and there was gunk in the corner of her eyes. I wondered if she was going a bit mad. She’s so near the edge these days.

  ‘I saw you,’ she said. ‘You were rooting about in the bushes.’

  ‘You must have dreamed it.’

  ‘I ought to be able to come up with better dreams than that.’

  There’s no arguing with her when she’s in a mood. I said, ‘I was showing Will the sunrise. Isn’t it fantastic? I couldn’t let him miss it.’

  She dismissed the glorious sky in a glance, then pointed triumphantly at a dark patch on the side of my T-shirt.

  ‘Looks like you did a good job, anyway. He’s wet himself with excitement.’

  Within three hours we’d had a sight worse than wee. Thank God his trousers had elasticated ankles. Of course by this time Madam’s swanned off for her driving lesson, so it was all for me to deal with.

  I took him to the bathroom, in fact I stood him in the bath, and peeled off his lower clothes. Lord, where to start.

  ‘Why didn’t you ask for the potty, Will? It was right by you, under the table. Mummy showed you.’

  He cast his eyes round the room as if he was considering.

  ‘Will?’

  ‘A big crocodile lives there,’ he said, pointing at the plughole.

  ‘What? Who told you that?’

  ‘Mummy. It goes snap! Snap! Snap!’

  Oh brilliant, I thought. That’ll be another screaming fit round about bedtime.

  ‘Don’t be silly, love. How would it get through that tiny hole? Crocodiles are big. Bigger than you. Could you fit
down there?’

  ‘Snap!’

  ‘You couldn’t fit down there, could you?’

  ‘Snap you up for dinner.’

  ‘Can you stop jigging about, at least?’

  I set to work with the toddler wipes but it was hard going. There was poo on his socks, for heaven’s sake. How could one small child produce so much? And as I scrubbed and flushed, scrubbed and flushed, I was thinking, You know, I’ve done all this once. My life’s moved on. My time for this is past.

  ‘Snap! Grandma. Snap your leg.’

  ‘So next time you’re going to say, aren’t you? Next time you need the potty. Don’t wait. You know where it is, you can just go.’

  ‘A lion in there.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘In there. Rarrrrr.’

  In the airing cupboard now. Well, that was great. What other beasts had Charlotte installed around the house for him to panic about? As if we didn’t have enough tension in the air without generating imaginary stress factors. ‘No, there isn’t. Hey, those trousers are getting pretty thin on the knees. We’ll have to buy you some more. Shall we do that? Nice new trousers?’

  ‘He comes out at night.’

  ‘Who does?’

  ‘Lion.’

  I began to dry off his legs with a towel. ‘There’s no lion in the cupboard, Will. I promise you.’

  ‘Mummy said.’

  ‘Mummy made a mistake. Look, we’ll open the door now, shall we? You can see for yourself.’

  I lifted him out of the bath, gave him a quick dust of talc and set him on the mat. He’d become distracted by a silver moth which had flown out of the curtain and was dithering about by the mirror. But I didn’t want to let the lion business go. I knew it would rear up again, and the very last thing we needed during the trauma of potty training was for him to develop a phobia of the bathroom.

  ‘Shall we see?’