Bad Mothers United

by Kate Long

  He finished and sat back, giving me space to react. Gradually, against the turmoil in my brain, his words began to settle into some kind of sense. Because I had been tormented with the idea of her pursuing me – If you don’t give me cash I’ll tell your mother where you’ve been – I’d been braced for it, screwed up tight with fear. Dreamed about her landing on our doorstep with some sob-story or threat or outburst.

  I said, ‘Then why did she take the risk of sending us cards? Why not keep quiet about where she lived?’

  Daniel nodded. ‘It was a risk for her, yes. A big one. But from what you tell me, she was on the ropes. Contacting your mother was a last-ditch attempt to get hold of some cash and stave off what was becoming a meltdown situation. A situation so dire it made her reckless.’

  I thought back to that scene in a London street, Dex begging me to use the cash-point. Menacing, cajoling. I’d been frightened, but Jessie had probably been more frightened than me. I wondered whether the people who were after her had caught up in the end, and what they’d done. I realised I didn’t care.

  ‘My mum must never know about this. You’ve not mentioned it to anyone else?’

  ‘How could you even think I would?’

  I closed my eyes to see if it made me feel better, but it didn’t.

  ‘Was I right to tell you, Charlotte?’

  ‘I needed to know,’ I said dully.

  ‘Yes, because it means it’s over, it means you can forget about her. Cut her out of your thoughts.’

  I opened my eyes again and stared at him. ‘It doesn’t, though! It means the opposite. It means, whether I like it or not, Jessie’s part of what made me. It’s Jessie’s genes sloshing about in me, in Mum, in Will. Not lovely Nan’s. So where does that leave us?’

  ‘Exactly where you were. Nothing about your family’s changed here.’

  ‘But it has. What about the DNA of it, the biological inheritance? What gets passed on and what doesn’t? Come on, you’re the scientist. You hear these people who research their family trees practically boasting about how their ancestor was hanged at Newgate or transported to Australia, like they think it’s quite cool to be related to a criminal ’cause it happened two hundred years ago. What about if it isn’t two hundred years ago? If it’s only thirty? What percentage of “badness” gets handed down each time? Huh?’

  Because one thing I really couldn’t bear was the thought of Will being connected to that woman. Every instinct screamed at me to protect him, keep him separate and safe so he’d never ever know. My beautiful son who was more precious than my own life. What would become of him, where would he end up? Suddenly I was drowning in the smell of malt and fag smoke and cheap perfume. Everything around me felt polluted.

  ‘You want some science?’ asked Daniel. ‘Really?’

  ‘Please, Dan.’

  ‘Right, here goes.’ He spread his long fingers and began to count off his arguments. ‘OK, firstly, let’s look at the anecdotal evidence: have you or your mother ever given in to serious violent urges? No. And you’ve had your moments of provocation, haven’t you? So secondly, we have to consider the wider research. And after years of investigation into the subject, across a whole host of countries, all results suggest there is no single gene for aggressive behaviour. It’s possible there might be some combinations of genes that result in a predisposition to violence, but the chances of those exact combinations recurring in the next generation are minute. It’s like expecting a Nobel Prize-winner to give birth to a Nobel Prize-winner. Any transmission would really be down to environment, culture, expectation. For instance, what do you know about Jessie’s upbringing? There could be all kinds of abuse there, fear, violence, factors that would make the best of us turn bad. Add to that the point you made yourself, how pretty much everyone’s got criminal relatives somewhere down the line if you go hunting for them. We’re all genetically contaminated in that sense. But we don’t have to walk around consciously carrying that burden because we’re free to live our own lives. Your genetic heritage is always balanced against choice. Even if you’re born harbouring a particular impulse, you always have the opportunity to resist. In this case, the fact you’re aware you don’t want Will to go in that direction is going to make you encourage him even more strongly to be a decent, upstanding citizen. So in that sense you might even see it as a positive factor. Although, I appreciate that may be pushing it.’

  He nudged the rim of his glasses so they sat higher on his nose, nervously pleased with himself.

  I said, ‘I did smack Will that time.’

  ‘Once. And remember how you felt afterwards?’

  ‘Awful.’

  ‘There you go.’

  I thought about Will in pain, reminded myself how it felt to watch. Catching his arm on the hot tap during bathtime, how he’d yelled; the awful moment he fell and banged his forehead on the hearth; the day of his MMR jab. A heavy book tumbling off the shelf onto his bare foot. A wasp sting, a splinter off the back fence, a trapped finger. His pain was always my pain, only ten times worse. Then I remembered when I was little, Mum sitting up with me through the small hours when I was ill. She used to keep a flannel in the fridge for when I had a temperature. And I thought of her dabbing my split lip with an ice cube wrapped in a hanky, and calmly clearing up where I’d been sick. It used to nearly kill her to use TCP on my cuts; she’d suck in her breath and wince as she pressed the cotton wool on. Now I understood why. Motherhood strips us down to the thinnest layer of skin and makes us super-sensitive. It should do, anyway. And then I thought of Nan bending to button my winter coat and helping me work my small fingers into gloves, her expression of rapture when she first peeped into Will’s crib. My brilliant nan. That was where my family came from, from that well of decency and love, not from some twisted stranger in another city.

  I worked my hand loose from his.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he said again.

  ‘I’m not sure. But – I suppose I should say thank you, anyway. It can’t have been easy to bring me that news.’

  ‘It wasn’t.’

  No. What must the discovery have been like for him, scrolling through those old newspaper reports? Then the journey here, waiting in the pub for me, watching my shock register as he talked. There’d been no need for him to suffer any of it.

  ‘Do you need another drink, Charlotte?’

  ‘I’ve had plenty, thanks. In fact, I should probably get some fresh air.’

  ‘Of course. Do you need me to take you outside?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ My legs felt wobbly, as if they’d never carry me anywhere again.

  For a minute or so we sat listening to the juke box play ‘Life Is A Rollercoaster’. Apparently the trick was you just had to ride it.

  I said, ‘Dad’s coming home in a fortnight. That’s one good thing at least.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, it is.’

  ‘Mum’s getting a bed for downstairs. It’s going to be chaos, basically.’

  ‘She’ll cope, though?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Mum always does.’

  ‘And Will’s OK? Am I allowed to ask?’

  ‘He’s fine. Learning to pedal his trike.’

  ‘Splendid.’

  ‘God, Jessie Pilkington. Will I ever feel normal again, Dan?’

  ‘You will.’

  Somewhere in the background Ronan Keating finished telling us not to fight it, and an old song came on over the speakers:

  You are the star-sun-moon that guides me

  My lightship in the storm

  You keep me safe from harm

  Safe and warm

  Through the storm

  It made me feel seventeen again, a schoolgirl poring over her revision timetable. I used to have this tape, I could have said, ‘We’ve kissed to this track. Do you remember?’

  For a long time we sat without talking, just watching the lights on the fruit machine flash out their sequence. Gradually my churning heart settled a little, and I tuned back into the ordinary world.r />
  ‘So,’ Daniel said at last.

  ‘So.’

  ‘Where do you go from here? Can I give you a lift anywhere?’

  I got to my feet. ‘I’m meeting a friend at Constantine’s. I’ll walk.’

  ‘Ah.’

  He stepped aside to let me past and we stood facing each other for a few seconds. There was no expectation now, I understood where we were.

  I said, ‘I don’t know how to do goodbyes with you any more.’

  He glanced at his hands, thrust them into his pockets.

  ‘I guess you could tell me to take care.’

  The light across the sea

  Always guides you back to me

  On a path that’s wavering bright

  Through the night

  ‘Take care, then, Dan. Really, I mean it. Look after yourself.’

  ‘You too, Charlotte.’

  And then there was nothing else to say. I turned and walked away, out of the pub.

  Eric must have been watching my house for the lights to go on because I’d barely taken my coat off before he was knocking at the door. I put the TV on for Will and went to answer it.

  ‘For you,’ he said, holding out a bunch of carnations.

  ‘Sod off,’ I hissed, barring the entrance. ‘It’s been a hell of a day and I can’t be doing with any more crap.’

  ‘But I need to explain, Karen.’

  ‘What you need to do is turn right round and go whining back to bloody Anne Frank over there.’

  ‘She didna live in the cupboard,’ Eric said, as if the clarification was some kind of help. ‘That’s just where Maria stored her stuff so it was out the way if the benefits officer came round.’

  ‘I don’t want to know.’

  ‘I didna mean to lie to you. Not you.’

  ‘Oh, I’m flattered.’

  ‘No, listen. What it was, she came back to me out the blue—’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Not long. A few months ago. She’d been claiming for a flat, and she’d have lost that money if we’d declared it, and it was only till we got back on our feet – and anyway, Kenzie needed his mum with him. You wouldnae separate a lad and his mother over a few quid, would you?’

  ‘Enough of this.’ I tapped my watch sarcastically. ‘See, single parents like me haven’t time to stand chatting on the doorstep. What with being on our own.’

  ‘Wait, Karen!’

  ‘What?’

  He thrust the flowers forward, pleading. ‘I need to know: are you going to report us?’

  I took a long, deep breath to stop the stream of abuse escaping.

  ‘That’s for me to know and you to fret about.’

  And I shut the door in his broad, handsome face.

  NAN: Is it night-time yet?

  KAREN: No, it’s only afternoon. They’ve not been round with the tea trolley yet.

  NAN: I’m that tired.

  KAREN: I know. Well, close your eyes, get some rest. Nothing’s spoiling.

  (Long pause.)

  NAN: I keep thinking of your dad. He was marvellous with that tenor horn.

  KAREN: I know.

  (Long pause.)

  NAN: Will you stay with me till I get off?

  KAREN: Of course I will, Mum, of course I will. (Pause.) I’ll stay as long as you want.

  CHAPTER 12

  On a day in December

  ‘It’s a belter, I’ll say that,’ Dad observed from his bed in the corner of the living room. ‘I swear you could stick a saddle on it and ride it down Vickeridge Road.’

  ‘Where the hell’s it come from? That’s what I want to know.’ Mum, hemmed in behind Dad’s perching stool, squinted nervously at the ceiling.

  ‘Nothing to do with me,’ I said.

  ‘Well, you were the one brought in all that holly, Charlotte.’

  ‘Yeah, but I think I’d have noticed if a spider the size of my fist had been clinging to the branches.’

  A lone strand of tinsel above the gas fire shivered in the convection currents. Less than a week to go till Christmas and we hadn’t managed to put up a tree yet. Stuff Christmas this year, Mum had said.

  ‘Hey up, he’s on the move again. He’s making for the lightshade,’ said Dad.

  ‘It’s that scuttling movement I can’t stand,’ said Mum. ‘And the way they drop without warning. Urgh.’

  I pointed to where Pringle slept on the wheelchair seat. ‘Why haven’t you been training him up to eat spiders? That’d be a useful contribution he could make to the household. Pay you back for his massive vet’s bill.’

  ‘Him? He’ll be lucky if he can catch a slug these days, poor beggar.’

  The way Pringle was curled up, you couldn’t see the amputation at all. He could have been an ordinary four-limbed cat.

  ‘No, I’ve seen him circuit the garden at a fair speed. He manages pretty well.’

  ‘He’s got more working legs on him than me,’ said Dad.

  The spider was exploring the light-fitting now with thoughtful interest, like a prospective house-buyer.

  I said, ‘Listen, when Will gets back from nursery you’re not to say anything about this. Phobias are learned. I don’t want him growing up frightened of everyday objects. It’s irrational. Spiders can’t hurt you.’

  ‘If you feel so strongly,’ said Mum, ‘get yourself a dining chair and climb up after it. I’m not stopping you.’

  ‘If I could get out of this flaming bed, I’d have him for you. Spiders are nowt, a little tickle on your skin.’

  ‘Perhaps he was attracted in by your tache, Dad. He might think it’s a mate squatting there on your top lip.’

  Mum folded her arms. ‘Don’t worry, Charlotte. The facial hair’s coming off in the New Year. It’s one of my conditions as his carer. I’ll empty his urinal and I’ll chop up his meals, but I’ve decided there’s no way I’m faffing about grooming a moustache. That’s above and beyond the call of duty. In fact, I should’ve got shut of it while he was still in intensive care.’

  ‘Oh aye?’ Dad touched his top lip. ‘First I’ve heard of it. See what I have to put up with, Charlie? It’s bullying. Of the disabled. So what are these other conditions, then?’

  The spider left the ceiling rose and began to trundle in the direction of the bed. We all followed it with our eyes.

  ‘No more motorbikes,’ said Mum.

  ‘Well, I couldn’t if I wanted to. I can’t bend me flaming knee, can I?’

  ‘If you ever get so you do.’

  ‘It’s not fair to blame the bike, Karen. I was unlucky. You can be unlucky in a car, or crossing the street. You can have a heart attack sitting at home watching TV. There was a chap at t’warehouse’d lost part of his hand just shutting one of them big iron gates.’

  ‘You’ve lost a sight more than part of your hand.’

  ‘I weren’t even going fast.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Dad sighed. ‘See, Charlie? She gets me at every turn.’

  I said, ‘Watch out, it’s directly over your head now. Try and lure it down. Wiggle your lip at it.’

  We sat transfixed as the spider made its way coyly across the picture rail.

  ‘Your dad’s always been quite good with wildlife.’

  ‘Has he?’ I was surprised.

  ‘Oh yes. On our first ever date he saved me from a wasp. Flicked its bottom right off.’

  ‘Move over, Bill Oddie.’

  ‘And do you remember that time you got mobbed by ducks, Steve?’

  Dad nodded. ‘In Queens Park? I do, yeah. But it was you they mobbed. You had summat on your sandwiches that was driving ’em mad. I had to rescue you. And a bloody big goose come waddling up and pecked me in the knackers.’

  ‘I’d forgotten that.’

  ‘I hadn’t.’ Dad turned to me. ‘She couldn’t fight ’em off herself because she were pregnant wi’ you. Blown up like a beach ball, could barely see her own feet. I had to charge in and pull her out of danger.’

  My brain
did a little skip of readjustment as I tried to imagine the scene: Mum eighteen and swollen, rising out of a sea of angry waterfowl, and Dad spotty-faced with his hair over his collar and his bleach-washed jeans. She never talked much about that time, about the marriage full stop. I’d always assumed it was one long round of miserable sniping, but clearly that was wrong. They must have had their happy days, e.g. the duck encounter. And I looked up at the spider now, still dithering a metre out of reach above Dad’s bed, and I thought, This’ll become one of those little-nothing family stories too, one of those moments we recall which seem to sum up a mood or a time. Dad sitting up in bed, his bad arm strapped against his chest in a blue Velcro sling; Mum tucked into the far corner where, till a fortnight ago, the china cabinet had lived; me hovering by the kitchen door, poised for flight in case of spider attack. It had felt bizarre but also quite nice having both parents at home for once, as if I was little again, a safe harbour after all the upset with Daniel and before I had to start thinking about final exams.

  And even though the circumstances of Dad’s moving in were horrible, nevertheless there was something comforting about the routines Mum had set up around his disability. In the morning, before I came down, she’d empty his pee bottle and give him his tablets, and then she’d shout me and we’d all have breakfast together. Then I’d have to disappear back up with Will while she manoeuvred Dad into his wheelchair and got him to the bathroom for a sponge-wash. After that she’d leave him for five minutes’ privacy, then she’d return and change the bandage on his leg and re-splint him and dress him and wheel him back to bed. At first it felt odd to be upstairs helping Will pull on his trousers while Mum was downstairs doing the same for Dad, but it’s amazing how quickly your mind adjusts to a new set of circumstances when there’s no alternative. Dad might be in a ton of pain, but he was so happy to be out of hospital. Mum slotted into the role of carer almost cheerfully, if that doesn’t sound too strange. I suppose she’d done a lot of caring for Nan so it was like old times for her.