Bad Mothers United

by Kate Long

  ‘You’ll be wanting your cat,’ she said bitterly. ‘He ran inside, he wouldn’t go. He’s all . . . eugh. I couldn’t bring myself to touch him.’

  I took a deep breath – because there’d be time for accusation and shouting later – then pushed past her to claim my pet. God, but it felt weird to walk into somebody’s wardrobe. Narnia this was not: stumbling into gloom over Eric’s footwear and ducking under his shirts, breathing in dust and the smell of plaster and new paint. The cupboard space behind, now I saw it clearly, was a work of art. He’d created a place to store everything, even down to her toothbrush. There were labelled plastic drawers and wall pockets, a hanging shoe tree, swing-out rails. On the wardrobe side of the door he’d nailed a bracket which he’d draped with his own belts, presumably so no one would guess it for a handle. Bloody hell. You had to appreciate the ingenuity.

  Pringle was underneath one of the shelves, lying on a pale blue cardigan or coat, with his mashed back leg out at an angle. I could hardly bear to look but I made myself. Someone had to take charge. I knelt down to him and, bizarrely, he started purring. I said, ‘Hey up, lad,’ and he laid his head in my palm as if it was too much for him to keep it raised himself.

  ‘Right.’ I stood, assessed my route out and kicked a few shoes aside to clear a path. Then I bent and picked him up, cardigan and all, and I thought, Just let her say something, just let her. She didn’t, though. She’d sank down on the bed and was holding her face in her hands.

  I looked down at my pathetic bundle. ‘Can you at least go ahead and open doors for me?’

  And she did.

  Roz linked my arm as we came out of Boots. ‘How you getting on with Laine, then?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh. Laine. She’s OK. She’s got a lot of energy. Quite a piercing laugh. Put it this way, you know when she’s in the house.’

  ‘Gareth said that. He calls her Foghorn Leghorn.’

  ‘Your charming boyfriend.’

  Roz giggled. ‘He only ever means it in fun.’

  We crossed the precinct and went into Top Shop. Gemma had texted to say she couldn’t make it so the afternoon’s shopping and tent-hunting was mine and Roz’s alone.

  ‘Crap about her parents, though, isn’t it?’ Roz held up a lace dress to herself doubtfully, then replaced it on the rail.

  ‘She’s gutted, you can tell. More than anything because she was so sure they’d accept it. But they’re still being horrible with her. She’s not allowed to mention Laine at all.’

  ‘That’s awful. Poor Gemma. I said to her, “At least you’ve got us, we’ll be your family till your mum comes round.” I think that made her feel better.’

  ‘So we’re Gemma’s family now. What a thought. I suppose Walshy would enjoy playing wicked uncle.’

  A complicated set of emotions seemed to cross Roz’s face. At last she said, ‘Yeah, Walshy. It was a surprise, you two getting together.’

  ‘Was it?’ I remembered the secret tin of Charlotte-mementoes, hidden under his bed. I’d never mentioned it to anyone, not even him.

  ‘I thought he annoyed you.’

  ‘He does, a bit. It’s just, sometimes I want to muck about and be young. I get sick of serious. He’s fun, and there’s basically a decent guy in there.’

  ‘You don’t have to convince me. I’ve always thought he was nice. He was brilliant with me over, you know.’ Roz lowered her eyes. ‘Only he gets through lots of girlfriends. That’s all. And you’re bound to be feeling a bit vulnerable after Daniel. That was so rough, on top of your dad and everything. Gemma and I don’t want you getting hurt again.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve talked it over, have you?’

  ‘We’re just concerned for you.’

  ‘I’ll bear it in mind.’

  To be hurt, you have to love someone, I could have said. I don’t know what I’m doing with Walshy, but it isn’t that. It’s not love.

  We wandered through racks of party clothes, maxi-coats, fur gilets. Roz seemed generally brighter than she’d been for ages, girly and jokey, and I was glad for her. At one point she found me a fur hat and plonked it on my head, so I pulled a bobbly scarf off its hanger and wrapped it round her neck. It made her look very young and sweet. ‘I miss you,’ I said. ‘Laine can cook a mean corned-beef hash, but the house doesn’t feel the same. I wish we could go back to how we were at the start of the year. Or how we were in the summer – the day we put the yurt up. That was good, that. Before all the change.’ Before I lost Daniel, before my dad’s accident. When the end of uni seemed an age away.

  ‘Aw. I miss you too, Chaz.’

  ‘Is it all right at Gareth’s?’

  ‘It is, yeah. He’s been dead nice to me. Not that he wasn’t before, only it’s different now, we’re kind of more honest with each other. It’s hard to explain. I know he can be a bit rough and ready but he’s a decent bloke. That’s the thing, when bad stuff happens, you find out how you really feel about someone.’

  You never said a truer word, I thought.

  ‘And how’s your mum, Roz? Walshy told me she’d been finding it tough.’

  ‘Oh. Yeah.’ She unwound the scarf sadly. ‘The problem is, Mum’s trying to deal with it on her own. We decided early on we were never going to tell Dad about the – about me going to the clinic. And it’s not the kind of news she’ll be wanting to share with friends or neighbours – that was her main fear at first, anyone finding out. So, on the outside I’d say she looks like she’s coping with it, but I’m not sure. I catch her sometimes giving me these stares. She’s thinking she doesn’t know me any more. It’s like I’ve opened up a world she knew nothing about, and never wanted to.’

  ‘Mums always come round. They just need time.’

  ‘I don’t blame her. Sometimes I think about what happened and I hardly know myself. Like, it was the right thing to do, definitely. I wasn’t grown-up enough to be a mother, I know that. But it doesn’t make the aftermath any less tough.’

  A woman squeezed past our rail with a double buggy. Inside were twin boys, about a year old, blond and beautiful. Some days there are babies everywhere.

  I said, ‘God, I’m really sorry.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I can’t stand the idea of you ever thinking I’d be cross with you for what you did. I’d have helped you if I’d known. Like a shot. I could have left Will at home and gone to the clinic with you.’

  ‘There’s no need to keep apologising, Chaz. I told you, I wasn’t rational. My hormones were up and down. I had my mum going on at me—’

  ‘Because I would never judge you.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I get that.’

  She took my arm again and we wandered out into the precinct. Already there were Christmas displays in some of the shop windows, posters urging you to panic-buy. I remembered an argument Daniel and I once had about artificial Christmas trees versus real (which was the more middle class), and a Boxing Day where Nan mistook a lavender sachet for a tea bag.

  Roz said, ‘I think it was because you’re such a good mother.’

  I laughed out loud. ‘You are joking, right?’

  ‘No. My God, Charlotte, we don’t know how you do it. We really don’t. You’re so . . . so balanced. We’re all whingeing on about essay deadlines and the prices at the union, but it’s nothing compared with the hassles you have. The travelling backwards and forwards, fitting in your work, those weekend gigs you miss and the parties and stuff. You never complain about it. And we know you’re crazy about Will but you don’t bang on about him the way some mums do about their kids. You don’t tell those long, rambling anecdotes about the littlest things he’s done, or constantly shove baby photos at us. You’re never boring.’

  I thought, Blimey. Well, Roz, I could unpack for you right now my shoddy brand of motherhood – the clashes with Mum, the miserable goodbyes, the way I’ve taught myself to switch Will off when I’m not with him – so not-normal. But did Roz want to hear that? Did it help to know others were floundering, or was it m
ore reassuring to believe that someone, somewhere was in control?

  I said, ‘To be honest, I’m not sure anyone gets the Mum Thing completely right. I used to think the reason I found bringing up Will difficult was because I was a single teenager, but actually anyone can make a hash of it, doesn’t matter what age you are or your marital status or what’s in your bank account. Look at Daniel’s mum, drunk half the time; Gemma’s telling her she isn’t normal. Walshy’s mum ran off when he was only about twelve, how crap is that?’

  ‘Did she? God. I knew his parents had split but he never talks about it.’

  ‘No. There’s quite a bit of damage there, underneath all the couldn’t-give-a-stuff. And it makes me wonder, where are these mothers who always get it right? Do they even exist?’

  Roz shook her head. ‘Only on TV. Actually, that reminds me of something: when I was little I used to look at kids’ presenters and imagine what they’d be like to have as a mum. Did you ever do that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I did. I always fancied Yvette Fielding. Or Isla St Clair.’

  ‘Isla St Clair?’

  ‘Or Lorraine Kelly. Or Marti Caine. Marti Caine doing my hair for me. How smart would that have been?’

  ‘And Isla St Clair singing you a bedtime story?’ My phone beeped with a text message.

  ‘Yeah, see, it would’ve been cool. Although a mum who baked a lot would also be handy,’ Roz was saying as I brought the screen up. ‘Someone like Delia Smith. I mean, I loved my actual mum, but she was always a bit boring, the way real life is.’

  I pressed Open and stared.

  ‘. . . Oh, and Johnny Ball for my dad. He could’ve helped with my maths homework.’

  ‘Wait,’ I said, holding up my hand.

  ‘What is it? Oh my God, what is it, Chaz? You look awful.’

  I said, ‘Daniel’s here. In York. And he says he needs to see me right now.’

  By the time I got to the vet’s, Pringle had soiled himself. I thought, She won’t be wearing that cardigan again in a hurry.

  I laid the cat gently on the table and the vet bent to examine the wound. I tried to read his expression but he was too professional. Did they get used to seeing animals in distress, did it become just part of the job? I recalled the briskness of the paramedic who’d treated Steve at the roadside, and the positively cheerful porter who’d taken him down for his second op. You must have to build up a resistance to suffering when you’re surrounded by it. No good if everyone goes to pieces.

  ‘Can you at least stop the pain?’

  The vet nodded. ‘We’ll give him a sedative while we assess the damage. Do you want to go to the waiting room and we’ll call you?’

  Out of my panicky haze I remembered Will stuck at nursery and due for collection any minute. ‘I can’t. I have to get back to my grandson.’

  ‘That’s all right. Give us a call in, say, half an hour and I’ll tell you how things are looking. We’ll go from there, yes?’

  ‘OK.’ I stared at Pringle’s leg again. The fur there was drenched in blood and sticking flat down. His ribcage strained. ‘It’s not looking so great, is it?’

  The vet pressed his lips together.

  That’s that, then, I thought.

  ‘We’ll do our best, Mrs Cooper,’ he said.

  On the way out I stopped and held the door open for a woman holding a shoe box. God knows what she had in there. Nothing big enough to make a fuss about. She smiled a thank-you and I noticed she had pretty much the same vivid colour hair as wardrobe-woman. Funny coincidence, I thought, and then light dawned. Hair-dye. Of course! Eric’s woman used red dye. And that’s what I’d seen round the plughole in Eric’s bathroom. Yes. They might have thought to stash every other piece of evidence out of sight, but she’d forgotten to rinse the sink. It wasn’t blood, you idiot.

  I was seeing blood everywhere. Then again, there was a lot of blood to see.

  ‘Tell him to get stuffed!’ Roz had said as I left her, livid on my behalf. ‘Jerking you around. It’s like you said, either he wants to be with you or he doesn’t. Bastard.’

  ‘No. Something’s wrong.’

  The way Daniel and I had left things had been pretty clear: no more contact, ever. Which meant this wasn’t any kind of reconciliation, or social call. Some emergency must be driving him.

  Immediately I tried ringing Mum but only got the answering machine. Next I phoned nursery, who told me Will had eaten all his fish fingers, built a train track, and his grandma was running slightly late but was on her way. So nothing amiss there. Last I rang Dad’s ward expecting God knows what, but the nurse insisted everything was grand. So whatever bombshell Daniel was about to deliver, my family was safe. That was something. My mind churned with possibilities. Maybe it was to do with Amelia. Maybe he wanted to let me know officially they were going out now. If that was his news, he was going to get a beer in the face.

  His text had asked me to meet him in the Crown. When I got there, the drinks were already on the table.

  ‘What’s this?’ I asked, picking up the tumbler and tilting it critically.

  ‘Whisky.’

  ‘Why? I hate whisky.’

  ‘Because you might need it.’

  He’d had his hair cut shorter and was clearly using some product on it because it looked a lot better. I wondered whose influence that was. Loads of times I’d asked him to sort his hair out.

  I took a swig of the whisky and grimaced. ‘OK, whatever it is, tell me – quick. And you’d better not be playing games.’

  ‘It’s your Jessie Pilkington.’

  That I hadn’t been expecting. ‘What? What about her?’

  ‘I wanted to set your mind at rest. I can pretty much guarantee you won’t be hearing from her again.’

  What the fuck had he done? Paid her off? Taken out a contract on her?

  ‘How?’

  ‘This.’

  He took a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and pushed it across the table to me. I took it gingerly and opened it out. It was a badly photocopied newspaper clipping, the font tiny and old-fashioned. I tried to scan it for meaning but the words blurred and shifted.

  ‘What, though? Really, just tell me.’

  ‘Read it, Charlotte.’

  So I did. I made myself focus, and through the roaring that quickly started up in my ears, I managed to gather it was a 1971 report about a six-year-old girl who’d died at the hands of her stepfather after months of neglect. He’d gone to prison, and so had the girl’s mother for letting it happen, although her sentence wasn’t as long because the judge said the mother had been both intimidated and disorientated by her partner’s violence. Further down the article there were details of the bruising and injuries found on the girl’s body, and comments from neighbours about seeing her sometimes foraging in bins. It was utterly heartbreaking. But what made it far, far worse than a tragic tale from long ago was that I knew this mother: I’d met her, spoken to her, I’d been in her flat and drunk her sodding tea. It was Jen, it was Jessie.

  I picked up the glass of whisky, drained it, then read the report through again. This time, as the details sank in, it seemed much more horrible. Emma, the girl had been called. In the grainy black and white photo she wore a gingham school dress and a cardigan. Her hair looked as if it might have been brown.

  ‘Where did you get this, Daniel?’ I whispered.

  He tried to run his hand through his sticky fringe, and failed. ‘I’m sorry, perhaps it wasn’t my place, but I felt something wasn’t right about what you told me. About Jessie’s behaviour, I mean. So I did a little digging online and turned up a mention of a Jessie Pilkington in connection with this girl’s death. So then I paid a visit to the Newspaper Library at Colindale and searched through their archive. And the full story was there. I did check out four or five versions but all the main facts I think are in this article. I couldn’t find anything else. I don’t know if there was any more.’

  His eyes were anxious as I clutched
my empty glass.

  ‘Did I do right in telling you, Charlotte?’

  At first I was too choked up to answer. God, her own daughter. How could it have happened? In the middle of a city. Why didn’t the neighbours do anything? Call the police, Social Services? And what kind of a bitch stays with a man who beats her kid? Shit, I’d slaughter anyone who hurt Will. Rip their fucking head off. ‘Jesus, Daniel . . . I was in her flat. She’s Mum’s mum. God, oh God. Why did I need to hear about this? Why did you have to drop it into my head?’

  He reached for my glass. ‘You’ve had a shock. Sit there while I get you another drink. Then I’ll explain why I thought you needed to know.’

  He sloped off to the bar and left me. At other tables around the room people chatted and flirted and bitched and laughed their way through their ordinary days. Meanwhile panicked, guilty voices raged through my head: You wanted this woman to meet your mum! – Why didn’t you try checking her out before you went? – Would Emma have been your aunt? – How can any mother stand by like that? – What in God’s name possessed you to go turning over stones when all the family you ever needed was around you? Idiot! Idiot!

  Daniel set my drink down with an awkward clunk. His jaw was tense and his face grim.

  ‘OK, Charlotte?’

  ‘What do you think? Oh, Jesus. How am I ever going to move past this? It’s going to be in my head forever, spoiling everything I look at. Will’s little face . . .’

  He took my hand and held it, and I let him. ‘No, listen. The point is – and this is why you needed to hear – Jessie won’t be coming after you. She’s got too much to lose.’

  ‘How do you work that one out?’

  ‘Well, why do you think she moved to London, changed her name? She’ll have been trying to escape her past ever since she got out of prison. Probably the authorities even advised her to do that. But say you were to go to the papers or the police, she’d be a target all over again. Have you any idea how child abusers get treated in this country? The public can be deeply vindictive if they decide someone hasn’t been punished enough. And we’re not just talking a spot of graffiti, or cat-calling in the street. I’ve read about people in her position who’ve been sent broken glass through the post, nail bombs, had petrol poured through their letterboxes. Women like her attract lynch mobs. Charlotte, you hold the power here. If she did ever make any sort of approach, try to intrude on your family, all you’d have to do would be to say you were going to the press. If you want, I can write and spell this out to her, but I’m pretty sure there’s no need.’