How to Make Time for Me

by Fiona Perrin

  ‘Our son?’ I blinked at them both and tears came back into my eyes.

  ‘We know how much you will miss him,’ continued Petra.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ I whispered. ‘How could you ever know that? And when in this plan were you thinking of asking Wilf what he wants?’

  ‘We’ll talk to Wilf once dates are settled, but we hope to move at the end of the term,’ Petra said. ‘That will give him a couple of months to orientate himself and spend quality time with his father and stepmother…’ now she was talking about herself in the third person ‘… before he commences the next stage of his education.’

  I stood up. ‘Make no mistake, I am going to fight you every single step of the way.’ I put my hands on my hips and glared. ‘I will find the money to get legal support. I won’t let you take the child I have raised since he was six away from me.’ Petra nodded as if she’d expected no less and her eyes narrowed. Ralph flinched. ‘And you will not talk to Wilf about it.’

  ‘We have every right,’ Petra said.

  ‘Just give her a few days, babe,’ Ralph said and shrugged at me.

  ‘Maybe we need to schedule another meeting? At the solicitor’s office? To keep momentum on the timeline?’ Petra said, standing up and acting as if this were a standard work meeting, where we would now swap pleasantries on the way to the lift. ‘I’d hope that we’d be able to meet a mediated solution in a few days’ time.’

  ‘I’ll be in touch.’ I ran out of the room and the front door.

  In the background I could hear Petra turn to Ralph and say, ‘Well, can you believe that?’ as if she was surprised at any expression of a woman faced with losing her son.

  6

  I wanted to go home and rage. But there is no such thing as privacy in my house – Lily was there and probably Aiden by now. So, I wiped the tears from my face furiously with the back of my hand, drove round the corner and screeched to a halt by another kerb. Then I let myself thump the steering wheel and shout obscenities for a good minute, ignoring anyone who walked past on the pavement.

  Then I FaceTimed Marvin.

  ‘Doll,’ he said. ‘I was going to give you a bell. How’s the bruises?’ But then he saw my face. ‘Oh, my God, are you OK? What is it?’

  ‘Ralph wants to take Wilf away,’ was all I could manage in between breaths.

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Petra and him – they want to take him to Cape Town to live.’

  Marvin was sitting on his sofa, which showed clear signs of recent sex. The sofa cushions were all shoved up one end and it looked as if it had moved on its castors through some vigorous thrusting. Through the door to his bedroom, I could see his colourful duvets, quilts and pillows strewn across the floor. I was used to this – and much worse, frankly – on a standard Saturday morning, so I said nothing, just thought, Ewww, bodily fluids.

  ‘Wow,’ Marv said. ‘Who’d have thought that Ralph would move to the bottom of the earth?’

  ‘With Petra! Oh, my God, you should’ve seen her. All legal this and legal that and she’s got him by—’

  ‘Sounds like she missed out the short and curlies and went straight for his balls,’ Marv interrupted. It was crude, but also accurate.

  ‘He’s completely dependent on her,’ I said. ‘Like a broken man with Stockholm Syndrome. Now he has no money, no nothing – except life in this horrible, bland box of a house, with a robot wife. So, she says: “Babe, we’re off to South Africa,” and he says, “Great idea, babe,” but then remembers he has a son.’

  ‘And so, she says, “Babe, the son can come too,” and that’s that. Bitch,’ added Marvin, acting out a petulant Petra on the screen.

  ‘He calls her “Pet”.’

  Marv looked quizzical. ‘In a northern way?’

  ‘No, because it’s short for Petra.’ For some reason this made me start to laugh, great shudders of irrepressible giggles from my stomach to my mouth, and Marvin joined in, until I remembered that this was the kind of behaviour that had been happening in the hospital the previous night and stopped. I was clearly now a sandwich short of a picnic.

  ‘All this after the crash last night too,’ Marv said. ‘How are your bruises? Are you in pain?’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘The cyclist bought me sushi. Anyway, what am I going to do? I’ve got about three grand in the bank and I don’t know how much lawyer that gets you… and Petra will be getting mates’ rates through work and—’

  ‘We need to make a plan,’ Marv said. ‘Involving the AAs. We’ll do it tonight.’

  ‘All the kids are going out,’ I said. Daisy was going to a party; Lily would be with Aiden and Wilf was at Jowan’s sleepover.

  ‘It’s vital that we make a plan.’ Marv was a man with a mission and one that meant noisily guzzling Sauvignon Blanc. ‘Eight o’clock here. I’ll make cheese straws.’

  ‘Yum, but make loads as Ajay always eats them all,’ I said, starting up the engine and feeling as if at least I would have some support from my friends in my battle for my family.

  *

  Next, I drove to my parents’ house. Every time I pulled up outside their house I vowed to get around to doing something about the front ‘garden’. In their growing disarray over the last year or two it had got worse.

  The kids always asked me whether it was like this when I was growing up and I’d honestly been able to say, ‘No, of course not or I’d have had no friends’. In my childhood, Mum and Dad had been great parents in most ways: Dad especially was willing to play endless games of dressing up and make believe. When I got older, my mates thought it was great to have a dad who always wanted to give us a lift and knew the names of all our fave bands, as long as he wasn’t their dad. My mother had banged on a lot about the destructive nature of capitalism, but it was about the time that we were all getting into Das Kapital, so my friends didn’t mind her either.

  Now, though, as I clambered out of the car, it did occur to me that moving them into a permanent place where someone had some sort of eye on them wasn’t a mad idea.

  They mostly lived in the kitchen, and had chosen a year ago to move their double bed into the front room (‘Just like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,’ Wilf had said) for reasons my mother said were related to minimising global warming, but were probably more about the effort of Dad climbing the stairs. I’d hired and watch them fire a series of cleaners over the years: ‘She was all right, but she talked to us like we were old people,’ Dad had said when he’d got rid of the last one. Then there was the one who had left herself in horror at my mother’s insistence on nudity when she was in a phase of trying to get in touch with her inner ying. It might have been yang. It doesn’t matter – no cleaner could handle it.

  Lately, I’d been coming at least once a week to push a Hoover round their bed/sitting room and the kitchen, wash the floor and clean the kitchen and bathroom. They generally sat at the table while I did it, with my mother occasionally mentioning something about how over-cleaning was fuelling diseases like Ebola. Their very worst characteristic was an absolute refusal to admit that they needed me. ‘Your ma is such a stresshead,’ my mum would bellow to the kids as I ran around trying to cook after work. I had to bite my lip hard when I heard that one.

  Still, it was also worth remembering that they were people of considerable achievement. My dad had been a relatively successful scientist and, as leader of the UK’s Academy of Science Communicators (slogan ‘Just ASC’), spent his time appearing on local radio stations, where listeners would call in with questions like, ‘Why does my water go down the plughole that way?’ Mum had been one of the original radical feminists, joining the picket lines at Greenham Common, reading Spare Rib, and denouncing Margaret Thatcher, Milk Snatcher.

  I opened their kitchen door to find them both sitting at the table. I couldn’t spot any more chaos than usual.

  ‘Just me,’ I said loudly enough to attract Mum’s attention.

  ‘Hello, love,’ Dad said. He was reading a copy
of Wilf’s music mag, glasses perched on the end of his long nose and still wearing his pyjamas, with a cardigan over them, even though it was past lunchtime. Mum, at least, was dressed – in very practical dungarees – and seemed to be looking down at her iPad, prodding it with one finger now gnarled with arthritis. She clicked her hearing aid on as she saw me; she’d obviously been pretending to hear my dad for the morning.

  ‘Are you all right after yesterday?’ she asked in a normal tone of voice, peering at me.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I said. They didn’t need to know yet that a much greater shock had swung into my life.

  ‘It was nice of him to give us the fish, though,’ Mum went on. ‘I hope he’s told that nasty conglomerate he works for of the unsafe conditions in which they place their staff.’

  I sighed. ‘Tell me more about this place you’ve been going to – with the young people.’

  ‘Brilliant concept, isn’t it?’ Dad beamed, putting down the magazine.

  ‘Lovely, light apartments,’ Mum joined in. ‘They’re all around a giant courtyard to provide a sense of community.’

  I put three teabags into some cleanish mugs. ‘And where do the young people live?’

  ‘Well, they share flats too but on the top floor, as not many of the older people want the bother of the stairs or a lift; then everyone meets up for activities and mealtimes in a big hall. It’s all very colourful.’

  ‘And it’s actually called “Yoof and a Roof”?’ I asked dubiously.

  ‘No, it’s actually called Seymour House, but the kids gave it the nickname.’

  Seymour House. That sounded much more respectable. I sat down at the table.

  ‘It’s got lovely period features,’ Mum went on. ‘And the standard of renovation is superb.’ For someone who lived in a house that was one up from a hovel, she had very high expectations.

  ‘We were shown round by such a nice young man,’ Dad said.

  ‘A real commitment to ending world poverty,’ Mum added.

  ‘Pete,’ Dad said. ‘His name is Pete and he’s just moved in there.’

  ‘Does he have a job as well as living in the…’

  ‘Community,’ Dad said. ‘They use the word “community”.’

  I could see why this would appeal wholeheartedly to my parents. ‘And Pete is studying to be a sound engineer,’ Mum went on. ‘He’s just starting out and finding his feet, so the set-up makes sense to him. The younger members spend two hours or so a few days a week either helping to run the home or managing an activity or an outing, and their rent is paid for them.’

  ‘So bright and colourful,’ said Dad. ‘None of that smell you get in old people’s homes. It’s a highly proven model in Holland.’

  ‘It does sound great,’ I said. ‘How does it work financially?’

  ‘Well,’ said Dad, ‘this is the clever bit. To ensure that community members are making the right decisions about permanently relocating, the house encourages a trial period. There’s a membership fee — a thousand pounds…’ I gasped but Dad ignored me ‘… but we’ve got that saved up and then you effectively move in, with some of your belongings, but not all, for a month to see how you like it.’

  ‘And if you decide you do, then you pay monthly rent, like anyone else,’ Mum said.

  ‘And if you don’t, you’ve wasted a grand?’ I asked.

  ‘No!’ Mum was triumphant. ‘Because then you can use it for day facilities – like going to the raves and the yoga. The fee would cover us for a year after that.’

  ‘The facts are,’ Dad said, picking up his mug of tea, ‘that it’s a failsafe scheme.’

  ‘And if we did want to move in, we’d sell this place,’ Mum went on, as if she were closing the deal.

  Even if this was their latest fad, it seemed to be one with quite a lot going for it. I looked round at the mess and then got up, much more enthusiastically than usual, in order to start the cleaning. It might be one of the last times I’d have to do this. ‘I’d better book in with you to go and have a look round.’

  7

  The AAs were happy to be invited to top up their alcohol intake at Marv’s. Ajay claimed not to have been up long – he’d been at a party the night before, which apparently hadn’t ended until 6 a.m., so a big glass of Sauv Blanc was his breakfast. Abby had been out too, but as usual there was no sign of it in her capable, line-free face.

  Ajay – all polished metrosexual, carefully curated clothes and slicked hair, despite the hangover – was seated at Marvin’s kitchen table when I arrived. He was clutching a big glass of breakfast wine and saying, ‘No… the absolute tosser, seriously, what a wanker…’ as I let myself in and went into the kitchen. The kitchen smelt of baking and melted cheese.

  Abby was wearing a white shirt and tucked under the table would be blue jeans and her feet in a pair of ballet pumps, her standard weekend uniform. Her face was a muted expression of horror. Abby didn’t really do visible emotion – this expression of rage was about as good as it got. ‘Bastard,’ she hissed.

  ‘Come on in, come on in,’ fussed Marv, pulling out a chair and hugging me. I blew kisses to the AAs across the table.

  Ajay got up and hugged me to his chest with his tight, fitted shirt, overwhelming me with the smell of Bleu de Chanel. ‘Poor baby,’ he said.

  ‘And you haven’t heard yet about her getting knocked over by a Deliveroo rider,’ Marv went on, and proceeded to tell them all how he’d found me ‘deranged and a bit hysterical’ in A & E.

  ‘I mean, how deranged exactly?’ Abby asked Marv.

  ‘Not quite full-on batshit, but out there.’

  ‘And then she had to find this out about Wilf.’

  ‘I am here, you know,’ I said.

  ‘After all that stuff about being invisible last night, are you sure?’ Marv raised his eyebrows and cocked his head to the side.

  ‘Ha, ha, very funny,’ I said. I was halfway through my first glass of cold wine and it was finally lifting my spirits.

  ‘Right.’ Ajay picked up a cheese straw and I eyed him suspiciously; I’d calculated that there were four each and he’d already had two. ‘What are we going to do about Ralph-the-child-stealer, then?’

  I loved the ‘we’ in that. They might be my slightly mad, mostly drunk friends, but they were on my side.

  We’d met at uni, sharing a corridor and fighting about whose turn it was to clean the kitchen. We came together in a shared hatred of a boy called Adrian who lived next door to Marv and, instead of washing up his dishes, simply opened his cutlery drawer and put all the filthy plates in there, refusing to do anything about it. The dishes stayed in the drawer for about a month before flies started buzzing near it and Marv dramatically cleared it out wearing a pair of Marigolds.

  Ajay was from Berkshire, clever, twisty, a natural software geek who, at eighteen, tried very visibly to be cooler than the average tech guy. Abby was studying biology and, even then, she was the same wiry, practical, almost emotionless blonde. I was what I was – a home counties girl from a creative household, trying as hard as I possibly could to be cool now that I was away at Sussex Uni in Brighton.

  Marv was the magnet who pulled us into his gravity. He was flamboyant, like a late-teens Oscar Wilde who’d grown up in an age of grunge and rave. He wore robes then, quite consistently, long flowing kimonos in spectacular colours that he’d found in charity shops. He was colourful, bearded and full of drama.

  ‘Like a bogus Jesus,’ muttered Abby under her breath as we all met that first day in the kitchen.

  ‘But quite a cool one,’ I said as Marv got us all out to a bar and we all got very drunk. Twenty years passed and, while we’d all lived in different places, when I’d ended up back in my home town – now handily classified as ‘one of the most desirable places to live’ with its country feel, but just outside London – Marv had come to rent a flat and Ajay and Abby, all of them still childless and single off and on, had come a year or two later.

  ‘You can’t choose your fam
ily,’ Marv would say, ‘but you can choose your friends and I choose you. My logical family.’

  Now Marv – always the ringleader – drew our kitchen-table meeting together. He put down his glass and looked each of us in the eye, one by one. Abby picked up a cheese straw and I took my second. Ajay reached out for his third. I resisted saying anything.

  ‘First we need to check out the legals,’ Abby started.

  ‘Have you looked up your rights, Cal?’ Marv asked.

  I’d spent the rest of the day reading various family law websites. Certainly, it looked as if, without some sort of specific injunction and child care order, I had very few rights. I wasn’t Wilf’s stepmother legally; his views would be considered, but not as much as they would if he were sixteen rather than fourteen. And would Wilf really say he wanted to stay with me, in front of his own father, in court? I thought about asking him to do that and how traumatic it would be for him.

  The fact that Ralph had left our house only eighteen months previously and had been sober all that time, didn’t help. Neither would the fact that he’d had constant contact with Wilf over that time and they were undeniably close.

  I explained this to my friends. Marv, who was poised with a pad and pen for the plan, wrote down: ‘Find qualified expert lawyer’ and then wrote ‘1’ beside it and circled it emphatically.

  ‘I’ll ask around at work,’ said Abby. She worked in London at one of those flash management consultancies with a big glass building on the South Bank. ‘Someone must know a family lawyer. And I’ll lend you money, Cal, if you run out.’

  This was very sweet of her, but she was easily the richest of the four of us, having bounded up her career ladder and with no partner or children to spend it on. ‘Thank you, Abs,’ I said and reached over to squeeze her hand. She looked embarrassed, as she normally did at any expression of emotion, and gently pushed my hand away.