by Janey Fraser
Poor Bobbie! Vanessa felt for her friend, who’d flushed deep red.
‘Mrs Wright!’ called out the receptionist. ‘Room Three please.’
Looking flustered, Bobbie jumped up. ‘Sit still, you two. Or there’ll be trouble.’
Vanessa hesitated. ‘Sorry I can’t stay and look after them.’ She looked at Daisy, who was now helping Jack to make paper hats out of magazines.
There was a loud harrumph from the matronly patient. ‘Children are allowed to get away with anything nowadays. It’s the parents’ fault.’ She fixed an eye on Bobbie. ‘They’re far too weak.’
‘Room Three, Mrs Wright!’ repeated the receptionist sharply.
‘Please stop doing that, you two,’ Bobbie pleaded. ‘I won’t be long.’
It was only after she’d gone and Vanessa was trying to tidy up the mess on Bobbie’s behalf while persuading Sunshine that no, she couldn’t stay too and play with her friend, that she noticed the magazine that Bobbie had left under her chair. Pregnancy For You.
Of course! Suddenly it all made sense! The peakiness. The sudden aversion to coffee. The buttons on the back of Bobbie’s skirt the other day that hadn’t been done up. So that was why she was here!
By the time she got to the shop, two of her regulars were already waiting slightly crossly outside, looking at their watches. ‘I’m so sorry,’ Vanessa tried to explain. ‘I had a doctor’s appointment. In you go, poppet.’
But Sunshine didn’t want to sit and play like she used to. Nor did Vanessa feel like being in the shop. All she wanted to do was go home and lie on the bed in a little ball until she could have a mammogram. It was the not knowing that was the worst. She remembered that all too well from last time, but over the last five years, she had managed to shut it out. Now all the worries were coming back. But at least last time, she had only herself to worry about. What would happen to Sunshine if the worst came to the worst?
Vanessa wasn’t a particularly religious person but every now and then, she found herself talking to whoever was out there. ‘Please make Brigid get in touch,’ she murmured. ‘Please.’
In the event, Vanessa shut up shop early, partly because she just couldn’t concentrate – she’d already given one customer a ten-pound note in change instead of a fiver – and partly because Sunshine was so restless. ‘We’ll go back for our stuff and go swimming,’ she said.
‘Yeees!’ Sunshine skipped along beside her and then stopped, pointing at an old man shuffling towards them, puffing away on a fag. ‘Van Van? Is that old man going to die soon?’
How embarrassing! Vanessa didn’t know where to look! He had heard too, judging from his startled expression.
‘Of course not. Shhh,’ she said quickly, trying to move Sunshine on.
But her granddaughter was standing fast, staring after him, still speaking in the same high-pitched indignant voice. ‘But that’s what it said on the poster at the doctor’s. SMOKING KILLS. And that old man is smoking, isn’t he?’
‘Well, yes but …’
Sunshine was wagging her finger as though Vanessa was a naughty child. ‘It’s wrong to lie! Miss Davies says so. So is he going to die or not? If he does, is he going to come back as an ant? That’s what bood ists do. Daisy says so.’
Vanessa briefly tried to imagine herself as an ant. If there was such a thing as reincarnation, she’d prefer something else. A tree maybe. Stretching out its branches towards the sun.
‘There are a lot of things we don’t understand in life, poppet,’ she said, giving that little warm hand a gentle squeeze. ‘Now let’s get back, shall we? Brian said he’d be round with Bingo.’
That seemed to do the trick. Sunshine was running ahead now and Vanessa had to break out into a jog to try and keep up. ‘Not so fast,’ she called. ‘Wait! Wait!’
‘Look!’ Sunshine was pointing across the road. ‘There they are!’
‘I said, WAIT!’ Just in time, she grabbed her granddaughter’s hand. ‘OK, we can cross now.’
Immediately Sunshine belted over and flung herself down on the ground next to Bingo, kissing him all over and rubbing noses.
‘Let’s do the same!’ whispered Brian, rubbing his nose against hers too, Eskimo-style.
‘How’s your day been?’ asked Brian as they walked towards the park.
‘Brilliant, thanks.’
‘Van Van had to see the doctor,’ chirruped Sunshine before grabbing the puppy’s lead.
‘Really?’ Brian raised his eyebrows.
Vanessa waved her hand. ‘It was only a small thing.’
‘Promise?’
He was looking at her. Really looking. Sunshine’s words from earlier rang in her head. ‘It’s wrong to lie!’ Maybe. But sometimes, when you were a parent, you had to compromise.
‘I promise. Look at Sunshine! She’ll wear Bingo out!’
Suddenly she felt Brian take her hand. It was warm. Firmly reassuring. ‘I was thinking that I might stay round for supper again if that’s all right. I’ve taken the liberty of buying three of those rather upmarket supermarket meals. How does that sound?’
Vanessa felt a lovely glow inside, tempered only by that funny flutter of fear that had been there ever since she’d found the lump. ‘Lovely. Absolutely lovely.’
At the school gate, Vanessa made them laugh about the old man smoking.
‘How are you getting on with these weekly diaries that Miss Davies wants us to do?’ asked American Express worriedly. ‘I’ve written down that my son was sick during the night but I thought he was well enough to go to school. Then I got a call at work to collect him and when I got there, he was sitting on the receptionist’s knee. Know what he said? “I told them I was sick last night, Mum.” Now she’ll think I’m really irresponsible.’
Everyone laughed, apart from Mr Perfect and Bobbie, who seemed rather quiet. How peaky she looked, noticed Vanessa, but it wasn’t her place to pry. Bobbie obviously didn’t want anyone to know about her pregnancy yet.
‘Anyone want to hear my diary?’ asked Too Many Kids Mum chummily. ‘My Alfie emptied my handbag out in a shop the other day. Everything fell out of it – and I mean everything!’
The mind boggled! Vanessa’s thoughts began to drift off towards Brian and the other evening. They hadn’t meant to do anything but Sunshine had fallen asleep, exhausted by all that running around with Bingo. By mutual silent agreement, they had sneaked off into her bedroom.
‘You’re beautiful,’ Brian had whispered, tracing her scar gently. ‘Really beautiful, you know.’
She had almost told him then about the lump but something stopped her. Why spoil the moment? One step at a time. After all, that’s what had got her through before.
The following day, as she was rushing round the house to find Sunshine’s lost shoe (it turned out to be in the garden, thanks to Bingo, two pieces of post fluttered through the letterbox. Vanessa’s heart pounded as she noticed the hospital frank. Her mammogram appointment.
There was a postcard too, half hanging through the letterbox.
Greetings from Goa!
Vanessa’s head began to spin as she took in the picture of a sandy beach and an impossibly blue sea.
My darling Sunshine, hope you are having a lovely time with Granny. Be a good girl. Love Mum.
It was dated four weeks ago.
So Brigid hadn’t been kidnapped or hurt or been put in prison or any of the other things she’d been worried about. She was simply enjoying herself. Leaving others to handle her responsibilities.
‘This time, my girl,’ Vanessa muttered, ‘you’ve gone too far.’
There once was a working mum,
Who said, ‘It’s all right for some!
I want family time
Before sixty-nine.
I need time to sit on my bum.’
PERFECT PARENTS: SESSION SEVEN
HOW TO KEEP SANE AS A PARENT!
(Ed’s note: Is this really possible?)
Chapter 27
ANDY
> SURELY SHE OUGHT to be back by now? Andy paced up and down the lounge or, as Pamela called it, ‘the drawing room’. It was nearly ten o’clock! What was Mel playing at? She had school the next day.
‘I’m just off to the gym!’ That’s what she’d said when she’d pushed her dinner to one side earlier in the evening (fish fingers that he’d cooked specially) and then announced that she wasn’t very hungry.
He hadn’t blamed her. His cooking repertoire was extremely limited and although he’d tried to tame the fish fingers, they had somehow got slightly singed in that extremely complicated cooker which Pamela usually presided over. Ridiculous thing! It looked more like an inbuilt sports car, set into the gleaming chrome complex that she’d had fitted at huge expense last year.
‘The gym?’ he’d repeated approvingly. ‘Nattie, don’t giggle. It’s good to be healthy.’
Perhaps he ought to do the same. Since being at home, he had piled on the pounds himself. So easy when there wasn’t anything to do but run the house and look after the girls. Then he’d discovered the store of Bourbon biscuits that Pamela kept at the back of a cupboard for Mrs C., their daily. Back in the days of the home, Andy remembered, you were given a Bourbon or a jam ring if you did something good. It was a very rare treat and the sweetness had been comforting. Very comforting. Especially when you were bored, as he was now.
Boredom was not something that Andy was used to. When he’d been working, he would come back exhausted at the end of the day, feeling secretly envious of Pamela who had spent her days shopping or having lunch with friends or making their home into one of those places featured in the current issue of Stunning House magazine that sat on the coffee table.
‘What did you do today?’ she’d often ask him, but he would gloss over the deals he’d had to cut and the interminable meetings, because that was the last thing he wanted to talk about. Only now did he realise that Pamela’s questions had been directed more from envy than curiosity. She had probably been as bored as he was! After all, you could only do so much home-making and shopping.
No wonder he was going stir-crazy! Perhaps, Andy asked himself, as he went to the window to see if his eldest daughter was coming up the drive, that’s what had made him almost spill the beans on his past at parent class. Or maybe it was to call Kieran’s bluff. Then again, perhaps it was due to this desperate need to unburden himself.
Over the years, he had learned to live with his secret; push it to one side, pretending that it had happened to someone else and not him. But meeting Kieran again so unexpectedly had opened up a whole new can of worms and now it just wouldn’t go away.
Then there was the other thing. ‘Are you sure you want to go ahead?’ George had asked doubtfully when he’d told him what to do.
‘I’m certain!’
Just saying the words gave him a buzz; rather like the one women were meant to get when they went shopping. It was just like the old days in the office when he’d taken huge gambles with other people’s money. Gambles that usually paid off.
Where the hell was Mel? Andy began to feel a tight panic rising up his chest. Why was her mobile still going straight through to answerphone? And why was Nattie playing loud music from her room when she was meant to be asleep?
‘Chill out, Dad,’ said his youngest crossly when he went to investigate.
What? He could hardly hear her above the noise.
‘Dad!’ Nattie’s furious little face glared at him as he headed for the off switch on the expensive stereo system that had been ‘part of’ her last Christmas present. Pamela had thought it was too much but Andy wanted the girls to have everything he hadn’t had as a child. Now he was beginning to wonder if he was right.
‘I was listening to that!’ Her words were lashing out at him as though she was the angry parent and he was the child that had done something wrong. ‘And knock next time, can you? Mum always does. She says we’re all entitled to privacy. Now get out of my room, Dad. Please. I’m trying to do my homework.’
But … Yes! There was the sound of a key in the lock! ‘Mel,’ he called out, rushing down stairs. ‘Where on earth have you been?’
His oldest daughter glared at him. ‘To the gym, Dad. I told you!’
She was indeed wearing jogging bottoms and a cute little top. But she didn’t look particularly sweaty or mussed up the way he had done when he’d attempted to do an hour on the power plates the other day.
‘But it’s so late!’
‘Late!’ She laughed. ‘Get real, Dad. We’re not babies any more.’
Something wasn’t right. His instinct told him that. His daughter reeked of cigarettes. Ordinary cigarettes, thank God.
‘Who were you with?’ he demanded.
‘What is this? Twenty questions?’
As she spoke, there was a sudden roar of a car revving up before shooting down the road. ‘Did someone give you a lift?’ he demanded, looking her straight in the eye.
‘No, Dad.’ She glared back brazenly. ‘I walked.’ Quickly, she grabbed her bag and shot up the stairs.
‘Mel?’ he yelled, hammering on her locked door. ‘Were you in someone’s car just now? You know the rules! You’re not allowed to be driven by any of your friends unless they’ve had a full licence for at least six months.’
That was something that both he and Pamela felt strongly about. There were too many teenagers racing around in Corrywood: kids in their parents’ cars who had more money than sense. ‘Mel? Do you hear me?’
The music volume rose in response.
Choices, the parenting course said. Give them choices.
‘I’m warning you, Mel. If you don’t listen, I’ll …’
He’d do what?
Why was it that parenting was recognised as the most important job in the world but no one could give you a manual for it? One that really worked.
If only he didn’t have parenting class the next day. Andy knew he was doomed from the minute he walked in. It wasn’t just yesterday’s horrible argument with the girls which made him feel like a hopeless parent, let alone a hopeless teacher. It was the look that Audrey was shooting him right now. That withering, disappointed yet also sullen stare that said, ‘I saw you. With that woman in the pub last week.’
He glanced at his notes, which he hadn’t had time to absorb properly. Fail to prepare and prepare to fail. That’s what he’d learned at work. And now here he was, heading for a fall.
‘This session is about getting the kids to be polite,’ he began, looking around for Kieran. Great! He wasn’t here. Maybe working late again. That was something. ‘Some of you may already know that I have two teenage daughters,’ he continued. ‘I’ve been looking after them full-time while my wife is away.’
There was a snort from Audrey followed by another loud whisper in which the words ‘while the cat’s away’ could be heard quite clearly. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. But they were all waiting expectantly! He couldn’t stop now. Besides, at work, he’d been good at winging it. So he should be able to do that now.
‘I have to say that my daughters aren’t as polite to me as I would like them to be.’
There was an impatient sound from Paula. ‘If you can’t get it right, what are you doing in charge of the course?’
‘Exactly my point! I’d like us to brainstorm our own situations. Give each other suggestions. Going back to my own predicament …’
‘Me, me, me,’ muttered Audrey, rolling her eyes.
He hurried on, ignoring her. ‘… last night, I found that one of my daughters had lied to me. She said she was going to the gym but in fact, I’m pretty certain she was in a friend’s car.’
Audrey yawned. ‘So what’s the issue here, Andy?’
‘She’d been lying! We have a rule that our girls can’t go out in the car with friends who’ve only just passed.’
There was a mutter of ‘good idea’s. ‘At least she isn’t smoking dope,’ mumbled Bohemian Mum sleepily. Andy only just stopped himself from correcting her
.
‘I would suggest a family conference,’ sighed Intellectual Mum, wiping her glasses. ‘We tried one the other day. But Julius refused to leave his laptop.’
‘I know it’s not easy,’ he began unsteadily, ‘but it’s worth persevering.’
‘Is it?’ Audrey was rising to her feet. ‘To be honest, Andy, I don’t know if I’m getting much out of these sessions any more. They were OK when they started but it’s not helping. Not with the kind of stuff I’m having to deal with.’
‘What kind of stuff?’ asked Andy desperately.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ She slung her bag over her shoulder. ‘I’m off. Anyone else coming with me?’
‘It was awful,’ said Andy over what had now become a regular weekly coffee with Bobbie after class. ‘Two of the other parents went too. It was almost a mass walkout. I feel a real failure.’
‘Of course you’re not!’ She gave him such a lovely kind sympathetic look that he wanted to take her hand and hold it.
No. Stop right there. Bobbie was his brother-in-law’s wife. And she was pregnant. Tonight, she looked particularly pale and vulnerable. His heart went out to her.
‘I think it was very brave of you to share your own issues,’ she continued. ‘Miss Davies is sweet but she’s not a parent so she can’t possibly understand.’
Andy felt a flash of sympathy for the young teacher. ‘I’m not sure that’s entirely true.’
‘Well I do. This woman you mentioned. You said she had red hair. Was she the one who was staring at us in the pub last week?’
He nodded.
‘The one who had the hots for you?’
He wished he hadn’t said anything now. ‘Well, yes, but …’
‘So that’s why!’ Bobbie let out an I-don’t-believe-it laugh. ‘She’s jealous! She thinks you and I have got something going on together. How ridiculous!’
Was it really?
‘I hope she doesn’t start spreading rumours.’ Bobbie’s eyes were wide with apprehension. ‘She’s a terrible gossip.’