More Than Just Mom

by Rebecca Smith

  ‘But you’d like to have a girlfriend, wouldn’t you?’ says Scarlet, resting her chin on her hands. ‘And fortunately for you, my Instagram stalking would suggest that Zoe is currently boyfriendless and looking for luuuurve.’

  ‘You are a hideous sister,’ Dylan tells her, but I can see that he’s keen to hear more.

  ‘I’m never going to get married,’ Benji informs us while attempting to surreptitiously feed the rest of his sausage to Dogger. Clearly my youngest child does not have a future in espionage. ‘And I’m definitely not having any kids.’

  This distracts my attention from the Zoe situation for a second.

  ‘Why not, darling?’ I ask. ‘Having children is wonderful and fulfilling and life-affirming and …’ I trail off, aware that all other conversation has ceased.

  ‘Are you kidding us?’ says Scarlet. ‘You’re constantly knackered and you’re always saying that you’ve got no money because we’re so expensive.’

  ‘Well, yes, but you see, that’s all—’

  ‘And you and Dad are always talking about the holidays you could have if it was just the two of you,’ adds Dylan. ‘You could be going to Mauritius this summer and not having two weeks camping in France.’

  Scarlet shudders. ‘God. It’s a no-brainer. Dirty nappies and crying babies and never losing your baby belly. I’m never having kids.’

  I instinctively suck in my tummy. ‘Those things are true, but—’

  ‘I’m going to live with Logan,’ Benji tells us. ‘We’re going to live in this house and go to work on quad bikes and play on the Xbox and eat pizza every night.’

  ‘Are you both going to live with Dad and me?’ I smile, momentarily warmed by my youngest child. ‘That’ll be nice.’

  He loads up his fork and rams it into his mouth.

  ‘No. You’ll both be dead by then,’ he mumbles through a mouthful of masticated beans, which takes the wind out of my sails just a little bit.

  ‘I don’t even know why you had kids,’ says Scarlet. ‘I’ve seen photos of you from before and you look way younger.’

  ‘That’s because I was way younger,’ I retort. ‘And people get older regardless of whether they’ve had kids or not.’

  ‘It’s not the same though, is it?’ Scarlet is on a roll. ‘Like, you’re always moaning that you’ve lost all sense of your own identity and that you have no time for yourself.’

  ‘I’m not,’ I protest feebly.

  I am.

  ‘Okay.’ Scarlet raises her eyebrows at me. ‘So that wasn’t you earlier, telling Jennifer Aniston to piss off?’

  ‘Who is Jennifer Aniston and why were you telling her to piss off, Mum?’ asks Benji. ‘That was a bit rude of you.’

  ‘Language!’ I say automatically. ‘And I didn’t tell Jennifer Aniston to piss off.’

  ‘You did!’ crows Scarlet. ‘I heard you! You were on your laptop and Jennifer Aniston was on the screen, going on about how important it is to have some “me time” every day and you said, “Oh, piss off, Jennifer Aniston and get back to me about ‘me time’ when you’ve spent all day sprinting around after other people.” Or something like that.’

  ‘I’d rather have a dog than a kid,’ says Dylan. We all automatically look at Dogger who, embarrassed by the attention, starts licking her vagina.

  ‘Well, at least none of you guys ever tried to do that,’ I gesture towards her. ‘Although Benji did once manage to wee in his own ear when he was a baby.’ I remember exhaustedly cleaning him up at three o’clock in the morning and trying to sob silently so that he’d go back to sleep. Happy times.

  Scarlet smirks smugly. ‘I bet I never did anything as disgusting as the boys, did I, Mum?’

  I smile back at her. ‘Oh, sweetheart. I don’t think a mealtime is the right occasion to talk about all the foul things that you got up to when you were little.’ I pause. ‘And also, not so little.’

  Dylan and Benji laugh and Scarlet pulls a face at them.

  ‘So, are you going to ask Zoe out, then?’ she asks Dylan, retreating to safer ground.

  ‘None of your business,’ he snarls. ‘And if I were you, I’d be too busy worrying about the identity of my mystery online boyfriend to be bothered with my brother’s love life.’

  ‘What mystery online boyfriend?’ I ask.

  ‘So you’re admitting that you have a love life!’ screeches Scarlet. ‘Ha! A loveless life, more like it.’

  ‘So you’re not denying that he exists, then?’ returns Dylan.

  ‘What mystery online boyfriend?’ I repeat, louder this time. ‘Will someone please tell me what you’re talking about?’

  ‘Scarlet’s got a boyfriend but she’s only met him online,’ says Dylan, not breaking eye contact with his sister.

  ‘He’s just a friend and it’s nothing to worry about,’ Scarlet says, glaring back at him.

  ‘Nothing to worry about as long as he isn’t actually a fifty-six-year-old weirdo, you mean?’ Dylan grins at her.

  ‘Scarlet?’ I tap my hand on the table to get her attention. ‘Who is this person? Is he actually fifty-six? Because you are aware that would not actually be okay?’

  Scarlet gives Dylan a withering look, which manages to concisely convey that she will be having words with him at a later date, before turning to me and putting on her reassuring face, which only serves to make me more wary.

  ‘He’s a friend of a friend and he’s not fifty-six, Mum. He’s sixteen and he lives in the Czech Republic and he’s totally fine.’

  I frown. ‘And you know this how?’

  Scarlet sighs dramatically. ‘Because I’ve seen photos of him and he’s a teenager, not a pervy old man.’

  ‘What does “pervy” mean?’ asks Benji.

  ‘She said nervy,’ I tell him. ‘Pervy’ does not feel like a word that should be in a ten-year-old’s vocabulary and the last thing I want is a phone call from the school, complaining about his language. ‘Go on, Scarlet.’

  ‘I’ll show you his photo,’ she says. ‘Then you can chill.’

  ‘I want to see your conversations. So that I know he isn’t being inappropriate.’

  And also, so that I know that you aren’t engaging in sexting or nudes or anything else terrifying.

  Scarlet’s face wrinkles up. ‘That’s an invasion of my privacy,’ she complains. ‘Those conversations are private.’

  I eyeball her. ‘There’s no such thing as private on the Internet, you know that. The government can read anything you write online.’

  ‘God,’ she groans. ‘No wonder our country is in such a mess, if politicians are spending all their time snooping at my emails and messages instead of actually doing stuff.’

  ‘We’ll discuss this again later,’ I assure her, gathering up the plates. ‘Now, who wants some pudding? We’ve got apples and bananas.’

  ‘An apple is not a pudding,’ complains Dylan. ‘I need more than that if I’m going to keep my energy up.’

  ‘And he does need a lot of energy,’ Scarlet agrees. ‘If he’s going to be pursuing the lovely Zoe.’

  It never ceases, their enthusiasm for winding each other up.

  I think about the worries that are stacking up in my brain, like jumbo jets circling to land at Heathrow airport. Dylan and his potential girlfriend. Scarlet’s online liaison with a stranger. Benji’s insistence that he won’t ever be having children, which makes me question whether Nick and I have done such a terrible job of parenting that it’s the last thing that they want to do with their lives.

  I think about all the conversations that I need to have with my offspring and I bitterly regret my decision to be self-righteous and virtuous and not drink during the school week.

  Chapter 3

  I gaze out across the classroom, looking at the twenty-six faces that are staring back at me. Elise has just asked me a question and I absolutely know the answer. Of course I do. I am a teacher, and therefore I possess all knowledge.

  ‘So is it true then, miss? Did Shakespear
e steal all of his good ideas from someone else?’ she asks again, leaning forward and fixing me with a steely glare. ‘Because that’s called plagiarism, that is.’

  ‘It’s called cheating actually,’ Brody informs her haughtily, before turning back to look at me. ‘Why do we have to read his stuff, if he’s a cheating scumbag?’

  ‘I’m sure that William Shakespeare wrote all of his own works,’ I say, trying to sound authoritative. I hold up a copy of Romeo and Juliet. ‘His name is on the front, after all!’

  ‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ calls Vincent from the back row. ‘I once got Wayne to do my Maths homework and then put my name on the top and Mr Jenkins didn’t suspect a thing.’

  We all turn to look at Wayne, who is inspecting the contents of his nose. Vincent’s life choices clearly leave something to be desired.

  ‘That was stupid,’ states Elise. ‘There’s a girl in Year Eleven who’ll do your homework for five pounds and she puts load of mistakes in so that it doesn’t look too suspicious.’

  ‘Anyway,’ I say, attempting to regain control of the lesson. ‘As I was saying, Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, and—’

  ‘The tragedy is that we have to read it,’ interjects Brody, earning a laugh from the rest of the class. ‘I don’t know why you can’t just let us watch the film. That’s what Miss Wallace did last year when we had to study Macbeth.’

  A mutter of agreement spreads throughout the room and I resist the urge to groan. Not this again. I’ve spent the last five months hearing about what Miriam Wallace got them to do in their English lessons last year – the conclusion being that she didn’t actually get them to do very much. Which means that I now have the thankless task of attempting to teach them everything that they should have learnt in Years Seven and Eight.

  This is not the job I signed up for.

  ‘I want you to get into pairs and make a mind map showing how the theme of love is portrayed in the play,’ I tell the class. ‘Think about Romeo first. Who is he?’

  ‘Leonardo DiCaprio!’ shouts Brandon Hopkins.

  I ignore him. ‘Consider how Romeo professes to feel about Rosaline right at the start and how quickly he switches his affections to Juliet.’

  ‘Romeo is a proper lad,’ calls Brody. ‘Way to go, Ro-may-o!’

  ‘You have twenty-five minutes,’ I snap. ‘And anyone who doesn’t take this task seriously will be doing it as homework.’

  This gets zero response. I can set as much homework as I like but I can’t make them do it. We all know that.

  Year Nine start organising themselves into pairs. By ‘organising’ I mean that they squabble and bicker and barge around the room until at least half the girls are sulking and the boys are all crowded around the back desks in one messy group.

  ‘Ahem.’ I clear my throat to get their attention. ‘Brandon Hopkins! Can you please tell me how many people are in a pair?’

  ‘Depends how large the pair is, miss.’ He snorts and elbows the boy next to him who dutifully sniggers.

  That literally makes no sense. These kids can make an innuendo out of absolutely anything. It is exhausting.

  ‘Very entertaining,’ I tell him, narrowing my eyes. ‘There are two people in a pair, Mr Hopkins, and if you can’t all sort yourselves into pairs in the next thirty seconds then I shall be forced to select your partnerships myself.’ I pause, looking around the room. ‘And they will be mixed gender.’

  There is a horrified gasp and a flurry of movement as everyone scurries to find themselves a partner. I watch the clock, counting down the last ten seconds, and then, once everybody is seated, I walk around the room dispensing large sheets of paper and coloured pens.

  ‘Ooh, felt tips,’ coos Wayne. ‘Miss Wallace never trusted us with the felt tips.’

  This statement fills me with joy. Finally, my teaching style is being compared favourably to hers.

  ‘Get started on your mind maps,’ I instruct. ‘I will be coming round in ten minutes to see how you’re getting on.’

  The class start pulling the lids off the pens and I return to the front, sinking down into my chair. The chair is the only good part about this job. It used to belong to Miriam and she left it behind when she got promoted to Deputy Head. I spent the entire first term having to defend it from the other members of the English department who complained that, as a part-time member of staff, my needs were less important than theirs. I’m no fool though. I set out my terms and conditions at the start of January, making it clear that the chair is the bonus for teaching Year Nine, Class C and that anyone who wished to negotiate for its extra padding and swivel seat would be expected to take on the aforementioned class along with the chair.

  Unsurprisingly, nobody has come after it since then.

  A superior chair is, quite frankly, the least that I deserve. In my humble opinion, Miriam could have left me a sofa and a coffee maker and my own personal water fountain and it still wouldn’t have been enough to soften the blow of making me teach English.

  Because I am not an English teacher. I am a Biology teacher. When I started at this school it was in the Science department, after I’d left university with a Biology degree but couldn’t get a job. The choice between teacher training or moving back in with my mother was an easy one to make and things kind of snowballed from there. Teaching wasn’t ever what I intended to spend my life doing but once Nick and I started having kids, the long school holidays and vaguely decent pay made it a no-brainer.

  But then the inept government started making ludicrous cuts and our school became an academy and all the rules changed overnight. I didn’t even see it coming, that’s the humiliating part. I strutted into the Head’s office last July ready for my annual appraisal, wondering whether I’d have time to pop to the shops on my way home. If I was vaguely surprised to see Miriam in there then it wasn’t enough to register any thoughts of alarm. We all knew that she’d just been promoted to Deputy Head and it seemed obvious that she’d want to be involved in staff evaluations.

  The panic bells only began when Miriam took the lead, telling me that sadly, financial cuts meant that the Biology department was being downsized but that I wasn’t to worry, they had found a new position for me. It would be fewer hours and less pay. Worst of all, it would be taking on her old post in the English department.

  I had stutteringly queried my suitability for such a job, but Miriam had glossed over my concerns.

  ‘We’ve been looking back over your curriculum vitae,’ she told me, brandishing a file with my name on the front. ‘And it states quite clearly that you are an avid reader of books and an aspiring writer. If anything, you are overqualified to teach the students at this school.’

  I tried to tell her that the phrase ‘aspiring writer’ referred to my one attempt at writing a collection of short stories, after I took a creative writing module as part of my teaching course. When I presented my efforts to the tutor, he informed me that my writing was too try-hard and that it lacked any sparkle. My CV was the last fictitious work that I ever wrote.

  I also attempted to explain that my life has changed quite dramatically since then. Not least with the addition of three children, which hasn’t left me with a lot of spare time for pursuing my own hobbies and interests. But Miriam is like a very efficient bulldozer, and before I knew what had really happened I had agreed to a one-year temporary contract, teaching English, three days a week.

  ‘We will review your progress on a regular basis,’ Miriam assured me. It sounded like the threat that it was meant to be.

  And so, for the last six months I have faked my way through agonising grammar lessons and un-creative writing lessons and lively debates where nobody says anything remotely linked to the topic at hand. I have diverted and distracted and downright lied when asked a question to which I do not know the answer and I have stood at the front of the class pretending that I am not an imposter, a charlatan and a complete and utter con artist.

  It has been the most exhausting six months of
my life and I have hated every single second of it. But I can’t afford to lose this job, and Miriam knows it. If we were playing a game of poker, she would have the entire royal family and I’d just be left with a few twos and a three, and maybe the joker.

  The noise in the room has escalated to uncomfortable levels so I bang my hand on the desk.

  ‘All that talking had better be about the theme of love,’ I warn. ‘Vincent. What have you got so far?’

  Before Vincent can reply, the door swings open and Miriam Wallace walks in, as if my thoughts have magically summoned her from whichever dark corner she’d been lurking in. She casts a beady glance around the desks, her eyes narrowing.

  I stand to attention and resist the urge to curtsey. Or salute.

  ‘You’ve given them felt tips, Mrs Thompson?’ she asks, her voice frosty.

  And that, Year Nine, Class C, is a perfect example of a rhetorical question. Beautifully executed with a hint of power play. Round One to Ms Wallace.

  ‘Yes.’ I attempt a smile. ‘I always find that mind maps are much more powerful if the words stand out in a vibrant colour.’

  Round Two to me. I am taking control of my choices. This is my classroom now.

  Miriam sneers at me. ‘It’s the “vibrant colours” that cause me concern,’ she says. ‘We are encouraging a professional, corporate look here at Westhill Academy and that includes crisp, white shirts that are unadorned with childish scribbles.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think we need to worry about that,’ I laugh. ‘This is Year Nine, Ms Wallace. They’re quite capable of—’

  ‘It’s Year Nine, Class C, Mrs Thompson,’ she snaps back. ‘Wayne! Stand up!’

  ‘Honestly, Miriam,’ I murmur. ‘I’d have noticed if they were doing anything untoward. Look. His shirt is fine.’

  Wayne is standing in the middle of the room, a large smirk on his face. I smile at him reassuringly and turn back to the Deputy Head.

  ‘We’ve been doing a lot of work on responsibility and appropriate behaviour,’ I tell her, not wanting to lose this opportunity to brag about my teaching. ‘I really do think that I’m getting somewhere with them. I’ve seen a real improvement in their levels of maturity and their ability to focus. For example, this lesson is all about identifying the way that the theme of love is addressed in Romeo and Juliet which, I think you’ll agree, is a complex and highly nuanced topic.’