Bad Mothers United

by Kate Long

  Will shook his head.

  ‘It’s fine, love. There’s nothing there.’ I pulled open the airing cupboard and stuck my head in as far as I could get it, which wasn’t that far because of the lagged bulk of the boiler. ‘Will, look. Are you looking? Now, how could a lion fit in here? There isn’t even room for Pringle-cat.’

  Frowning, he strained forward and nodded at the tank. ‘In there.’

  ‘No. No lions in there, love. It’s full of water. Lions can’t live in water. And there isn’t a way in or out. Only this thin pipe. A great big lion couldn’t get through a little narrow pipe. It couldn’t, could it? And this water gets very hot. The lion would be cooked. He’d be boiled, like your egg.’

  I thought this barrage of logic would have convinced him, but I forget he’s not even three. In the World of Two, anything’s possible. ‘There,’ he said, pointing to the shelf above the tank.

  ‘That’s towels.’

  ‘He lives there.’

  Bloody hell, I thought, I’m going to strangle your mother when she gets home.

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Wait.’

  I nipped back through to the lounge and picked up a chair. This I carried to the bathroom and placed in front of the cupboard. Then I clambered up onto the seat and started pulling out the towels one by one. At first I tried to throw them so they landed neatishly across the sink, but they soon slipped off on to the floor. Will watched for a moment, then jumped into the middle of the pile.

  ‘Can you see,’ I called down to him as he rolled about, ‘no lions. Not one. No animals at all, unless you count a little spider.’ Just a battered tenor horn case right against the wall, and a box of candles and a possibly antique first aid kit. I climbed down again, intending to hoist him in my arms so he could inspect the space and declare it lion-free. Only he’d wrapped himself in towels like a mummy and didn’t want to be freed, so I had a bit of a battle on there, and then in all the kerfuffle he did another wee, and I was just starting to get to crisis point when the front doorbell rang.

  I left him where he was and ran to peep out of the window. It was Eric on the step.

  ‘Hang on,’ I yelled into the hall, then scuttled back to the bathroom. While I was away Will must have rolled against the sink pedestal because he was sitting up with a red mark on his forehead, crying. He was still entirely naked from the waist down. His stinky trousers, socks and pants festered in the bath waiting for me to deal with them. I didn’t dare check myself in the mirror; I had a fair idea of the state I was in.

  ‘Right, you.’ I picked up my grandson, gave his head a quick rub and then dragged him into the lounge where his potty was. ‘Sit there for one minute, don’t move, and you can have a Kit Kat. Yes?’

  He sat without argument. I dashed back to the bathroom and picked out the dirty clothes. For a moment I considered hurling them into the washing machine, but really they needed a scrape and also I couldn’t cope with the smell any longer. So I nipped out the back door and just slung the lot in the bin. Then I came back inside, gave the place a frantic blast of air freshener, stuck my hands under the tap and finally went to greet Eric.

  ‘Are you busy?’ were his first words. Kenzie clung to his hand.

  ‘I’ve one or two things on.’

  Eric pulled a pleading face.

  ‘Do you need me to look after him?’ I said.

  ‘Would you? Would you really? You’re such a star, Karen. I wouldn’t ask only it’s a job, y’ ken, and you can’t keep turning down work, can you? Not these days. But we should be done in a couple of hours – say, by midday.’ He relaxed his grasp and Kenzie stepped confidently inside.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘And then,’ he paused for effect, ‘I’m taking you out.’

  ‘Out?’

  ‘Pub lunch.’

  ‘Oh. Well, that’s nice.’

  ‘My treat. You deserve it. Although I’m thinking, we’ll have to go somewhere with a playbarn, that place on the bypass, so we can get a bit of peace while we eat.’

  I knew the pub he meant. We’d been to a birthday party there. They had a plastic ball pit and slides and a soft play area for under-threes. Weary mums and dads sat at nearby tables and forked out an endless stream of cash for sweets, slushies, Simpsons keyrings, hairbands, helium balloons, Postman Pat rides. Pop music boomed from all sides, cranking up the hysteria. Meanwhile the kids flung themselves about and every ten minutes there’d be some collision requiring the mopping of tears and the buying of further junk. It’s torture for adults, basically.

  ‘We could,’ I said. ‘But I’ve an even better idea.’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  He smiled and I thought, Why do you have to be so damn handsome.

  ‘I’ll put myself in your hands, then,’ he said.

  I had literally not closed the front door behind me when Mum announced she was leaving me to babysit someone else’s kid. That’s terrific, isn’t it? Foist whoever you like on me, ’cause I’ve nothing better to do. And really I needed five minutes to come round because down by Cobbs Barn I’d made a complete hash of parallel parking, got myself stuck against the kerb with my front wing poking out, rev-rev, everyone looking, plus there was a bunch of scuzzy kids on the corner all laughing at me. Bastards. Towards the Wigan end of the village they do go a bit feral.

  So I walked into the house and the first thing I see is Will, sitting on the sofa in a T-shirt only and with a towel under him. Kenzie’s next to him but fully dressed, thank God for small mercies, and Mum and Eric are canoodling in the corner. Well, I say canoodling; they’re leaning over a newspaper together. It looks way too familiar, anyway. Mum goes, ‘Yeah, so the kids have eaten and we’re popping out for some lunch, won’t be long, and I’ve got my mobile phone.’ She didn’t even have the decency to phrase it as a request.

  I said, ‘Where are Will’s trousers?’

  She said, ‘In the bin. They’re beyond redemption.’

  ‘Beyond redemption? Gemma bought him those, he’s only been wearing them a couple of months. What’s he done, spilt nitric acid down them?’

  ‘What do you think he’s done?’

  I said, ‘Any luck with the potty?’

  She laughed nastily.

  I asked her where exactly she was going in case there was a problem or emergency. She went, ‘I’ve got my phone,’ again and winked. It wasn’t an answer at all. I hate the way she goes all arch when there’s a man around she fancies. It’s so embarrassing. Christ knows what Eric thinks, although as long as he’s getting his free childcare I don’t suppose he’s bothered. I call it a colossal cheek, them leaving me with a strange child to look after. Exploitation, it was. When Mum came back we were going to have it out.

  I started by turning off the TV. Will immediately flared into temper mode and threw a cushion, but Kenzie just slouched back, watching me. There’s something odd about that child. He’s too quiet, for a start, and his eyes are permanently wide as if he’s searching for something right inside your soul. It’s unsettling. I can’t warm to him.

  I said, ‘Let’s get the folding table out and do some drawing. I’ll join in. It’ll be fun.’

  Will kicked the towel onto the floor. I thought, Don’t get cross, Charlotte. Be positive, be bright.

  ‘Hey, I know. Will, how about a little wee-wee before we start?’

  He buried his face against the back of the sofa, his small white bum poking upwards. Making the point, I suppose. It’s my bottom and I’ll do what I like with it. He was like a bomb ready to go off.

  Of course, when you tell people you’re potty-training, everyone has some surefire piece of advice to give you. Start early; start late. Cheer your child madly all the way; play the whole business right down. Make him sit and don’t let him move till he performs; never force him. Offer rewards and treats; never bribe him onto the toilet or he may grow up plagued by weird associations. One point everyone seemed to agree on, though, was that once you’d started, you had to see it
through to the bitter end.

  ‘Come on, sweetie.’ I picked up my son, intending to set him down next to the potty. ‘Give it a go.’ But when he saw where I was headed, he suddenly went all floppy-at-the-shoulder-joints so he was slithering down my body and out of my arms. I released him in a gentle heap onto the carpet.

  I gave up and went to fetch the folding table, and paper and pens. These I set up in front of Kenzie, while my son rolled his head back and forth against the edge of the rug and giggled insanely. I wondered about shoving the towel under him again, but thought that might be courting failure.

  ‘OK,’ I said, grabbing a couple of sheets off the table and two felt tips. I knelt down next to Will, the potty at my elbow. ‘I’m going to draw the biggest snake in the world. What are you going to draw?’

  That caught his attention. He sat up, swiped the red pen and pulled off the cap.

  ‘Snake.’ He began scoring his own paper energetically.

  ‘Look at mine. Mine’s enormous.’ I trailed my snake all round the outside edge of the paper, winding his length in spirally. ‘See his long tongue and his zigzag back.’

  Will ignored me. He still holds the pen like it’s a dagger, his fist curled tight. I’ve told Mum to try and make him grip it correctly but she never bothers. Maybe I’ll have a word with nursery.

  Above me, Kenzie sneezed. I glanced over to check he was all right and saw he had his head down, concentrating on his picture. See? I thought. He’s holding his pen right. Then I remembered he was four and not far off starting school, just tiny for his age. His clothes would fit Will, near enough. And that reminded me of the lost trousers and got me cross again. I’d definitely be fishing them out of the bin and washing them, if only to make the point to Mum. You didn’t chuck clothes away because they had a tiny bit of poo on them, for God’s sake.

  Will pawed at my arm. ‘My big snake.’

  ‘He is big. Where’s his tongue?’

  ‘There.’ Will made a blind stab at the top of the paper.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘There.’

  ‘Right-oh.’

  I reached across and got a clean sheet, laid it on the carpet in front of Will. ‘Can you draw me a cat?’ There was a kid in his group at nursery who’d managed a cat; the picture was on display in the hall near the coat pegs. OK, we’re not talking much detail here, but it had a head and body and eyes and ears. One of the staff had written Bobo underneath.

  ‘What you need to do is hold the pen like this.’ I tried to mould his stubby fingers into position round the barrel. But as soon as I took my hand away, the pen flirted out of his grasp and hit the fireplace. I went and retrieved it from where it had rolled under the TV, and while I was up, cast an eye over Kenzie’s progress. He was drawing some kind of figure with no legs, an oblong body, very long arms and spiked fingers. At the top of its head he was adding exuberant coils of orange hair.

  ‘Who’s that?’ I asked.

  ‘Mummy.’ Kenzie carried on with his tight little circles and I watched half-admiringly, half-irritated at his fine motor skills. All at once he paused mid-stroke, stiffened and looked at me. ‘Not Mummy. Not Mummy. That’s not Mummy.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Not Mummy.’

  ‘You said.’ I sank back down to see how my son was getting on. Really, I couldn’t be doing with Kenzie, he was too freaky. Will meantime had done another scribble, this one more expansive than before, some of the lines heading off onto the carpet. I’d have to have a scrub at those with a wet cloth before Mum came home.

  ‘Just try a cat, for me, yeah? Concentrate, Will.’

  But he’d lost interest in artwork and was playing with his privates.

  ‘God, you so need some pants on,’ I snapped. What the hell’s so fascinating about willies that men have to fiddle with them all the time?

  The view from the bridge where we parked was like a holiday poster: Come to Lancashire, County of Brimming Reservoirs. The sun was strong but the air breezy; the sky was covered in mares’ tails. The water was blue and choppy. On the way up here I’d made him stop at Greenhalgh’s while I bought two meat pies, two Chorley cakes and two tins of pop, everything we’d need for a happy afternoon. Then we’d come up Rivington.

  ‘It was good of your daughter to have the kids,’ said Eric as we ambled towards the shore.

  ‘Will’s her son.’

  ‘I keep forgetting that.’

  The water was a sheet of sparkles and I had to squint against the brightness.

  ‘I’ve some sunglasses in the glove box, if you want.’ Eric nodded towards the car.

  My instinct was to say no so as not to be a nuisance, but then I thought, He’s offering. He’s showing some concern. ‘Thanks,’ I said, and he ran to get them.

  When he caught up again I said, ‘You must be some kind of sun-god, I reckon.’

  He grinned. ‘Aye?’

  ‘You always bring the weather with you. It normally rains on pretty much everything I do, but this summer, since you moved in, it’s been like the Med.’

  ‘Oh, that’s me. A god. Watch, I can make stones walk on water.’ And he picked up a flat pebble from the scattering by his feet and sent it skipping across the reservoir surface in four jumps. ‘I tell you, when I was a kid in Moffat it would rain like you’ve never seen, for days on end. Us kids would just pull our coats on and go play out in it because if you’d waited for the dry, you’d never have left your house. The fields would flood regular, there’d be ducks and geese in the middle of them.’

  ‘I thought it was just me with a soggy upbringing.’

  ‘The Lord sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous, as my granny used to say.’

  ‘You don’t talk much about your family, do you?’

  ‘Nope.’ Eric nodded at the ripples his stone had left. ‘Want a go?’

  ‘I’ve tried before, I’m useless.’

  Eric shook his head and scanned the shore for another pebble. He selected one, turned it over, weighed it in his palm and handed it to me. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘This one’s perfect.’

  ‘I know the theory. It’s the practice I fall down on.’

  He came and stood behind me – tingle-tingle went my skin – and drew my arm up and back. ‘Have it between your fingers, like this. Then bend your wrist so when it flies, it flies with a spin. Keep it horizontal. If it tips it’ll sink.’

  Suddenly I felt silly and awkward. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Here.’

  He held my arm level for me, and I swung and let the pebble go. It sploshed into the water at first contact.

  ‘Oh,’ he said.

  ‘See? I told you.’

  ‘It’s practice. That’s all it comes down to. If you spent half an hour, even, you’d crack it. Watch me.’

  He crouched again, searching the ground. I was able to really study his shape, the solid, well-formed muscles of his back and arms and thighs. How different he was from spindly-limbed Steve. All bone and sinew is my ex. This Lusanna would eat him for breakfast.

  The image that popped up, of them in bed together, made me shudder. I shook it away crossly. Skip, skip, skip-skip-plunk went Eric’s stones. Across the reservoir, white gulls joined black rooks, circling.

  At last he emptied his cache and turned back to me, his jacket flapping in the breeze. ‘I’m sorry to say some of my skill comes from winging pheasants.’

  ‘What, chucking rocks at birds?’

  ‘Not rocks. Wee stones. And not to hurt, only to surprise. We liked to make the birds explode out the ground, squawking. There wasn’t a lot else to do when you lived out in the wilds.’

  We wandered over to the stone wall and sat on it.

  ‘What was it made you move to England?’

  ‘Maria.’

  ‘Would you go back?’

  ‘I might, one day. Depends how life unrolls.’

  How nice it must be to take yourself off somewhere fresh and start again.

  ‘Penny for them,’ said Eri
c after a bit.

  I said, ‘Oh, nothing. I was thinking, our Charlotte’s been mustard this holiday. I feel like sending her back to York. Don’t know if it’s because her boyfriend’s not around.’

  ‘Aye? Where is he?’

  ‘Abroad, apparently. He’s taken his mother to France or somewhere.’

  ‘That’s decent of him.’

  ‘I’ll say. I can’t imagine Charlotte ever taking me away anywhere. Do you know, the last holiday I had was . . .’ I paused, realising horribly that the last time I’d had a break from home was when I stormed out and went looking for my birth mother in London. ‘. . . a stopover by the coast, three years back. And that wasn’t much fun.’

  ‘Tell you what, hen. If I come up on the lottery, I’ll buy you a holiday,’ said Eric, passing me one of the cans.

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘I would, too.’

  Even if it was a joke it was a kind joke. A bubble of warmth rose up inside me. I thought of the envelope that had come for me this morning from London, from Jessie, a different handwriting on the front that had fooled me into half-opening it, and the rage which made me rip it straight in two, unread. I thought of Charlotte stomping about, of the chaos and sulk that would no doubt be there to greet me when I got back.

  I said, ‘Do you ever wish you were really old? I mean, so old you didn’t have to do anything except sit around and watch TV and have food brought to you? Have someone drape a nice blanket over you in the morning and pop a cup of milky tea at your elbow. Then just leave you alone to rest.’

  Eric laughed. ‘Ach, no. Do you?’

  ‘Sometimes. When I’m really tired. It’s just the idea that you could close your eyes and drift, and not be worrying about a dozen deadlines before the end of the day. No responsibilities, no one depending on you. You could shed the lot. Just sink down into your bones and sleep and sleep . . .’

  ‘Ha. It’ll come to us all soon enough.’

  I checked myself guiltily. ‘God, sorry. It’s awful of me to even say something like that. Especially after what my poor mum went through towards the end.’

  Mum, lost inside herself, unsure of the days, of who was alive and who was dead.