Sorting Out Billy

by Jo Brand

  So when Ted answered the door, unattractive as he was, poor sod, Tan could at least see from the way he was dressed that something approaching respectability clung to him and breathed a sigh of relief. Then she entered the flat and saw that chaos was king and poor Martha, hardly even aware that one bosom was poking out, sat hunched in the corner of the settee, ravenously devouring a bowl of bran to try and get yet another sluggish part of her body moving.

  ‘Tea?’ said Ted and Tan stipulated an ordinary bog standard cup of the cheap non-scented variety which made Martha warm to her immediately. Tan had spent too many years pouring the vile leaf tea of one inappropriate shrub or another down her throat to take pot luck any more.

  When Ted returned with the tea and more types of biscuits than Tan had ever seen in one tin, she relaxed even more, and looking at the sort-of-well-suited couple, said, ‘Well, how’s it going?’

  Martha and Ted said, ‘Shit,’ and ‘Great,’ at exactly the same time and so began Tan’s job of the great unravelling of the emotional epicentre of the earthquake that is a new baby. She started on Martha, as she had always felt that if she could get the mother on her side the rest would fall into place and she had to do it quickly as she only had eight days left of her allotted ten to establish The Tan Dynasty before some badass health visitor hoved into view with her liberal views and her over-relaxed structure.

  ‘Just tell me how it’s been,’ she said to Martha in a brisk but kindly way, enough anyway to set Martha weeping again.

  ‘It’s been hard,’ said Martha, gathering up Jesus from his cot and snuggling him to the bosom that wasn’t sticking out. ‘I love him to death but I just feel like I don’t know what to do with him. He’s starving hungry most of the time and it kills me to feed him, but in the hospital they said I shouldn’t give him any formula milk and I should stick at it, but it’s like being tortured. Ted and me were up all night, weren’t we?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Ted, managing in those two simple words to convey the overwhelming pain of the experience.

  ‘And sometimes,’ Martha went on, ‘I know I shouldn’t, but I feel like I’m a big blob of nothingness only here for Jesus to feed off.’

  ‘Who?’ said Tan, thinking, Surely I misheard that?.

  ‘Oh just a silly family joke,’ said Ted and Martha concurred.

  ‘Well,’ said Tan, ‘I’m sure you won’t feel any better if I tell you that most new mothers feel like this, like they are floating unanchored in an unfamiliar sea, and need to be tied down — and the way to do that is to try and impose a bit of order on your day, even if it’s only regular mealtimes or putting Je— your baby down for his sleep at the same time.’

  Martha produced a packet of crisps from somewhere and began to munch them.

  ‘And stop eating crap if you’re breastfeeding,’ said Tan who, although she didn’t march with the Breastfeeding Brownshirts, thought if Martha was going to try it, she might as well do it properly.

  ‘Don’t worry too much about housework either,’ said Tan, even though she had already realised that housework had never been a priority in this flat. Tan took Jesus from Martha and had a look at the various important bits.

  ‘Happy with changing, bathing and all that?’ she said to Martha.

  ‘Oh, can I have a bath yet?’ said Martha.

  ‘I meant the baby,’ said Tan.

  Ted pissed himself laughing at this and Tan thought what a nice bloke he was, even if his face let him down really badly in the first-impressions department.

  ‘More tea, Midwife?’ said Ted and Tan nodded, feeling very comfortable in this rather messy high-rise with these two friendly incompetents and their poor unsuspecting baby.

  There was a loud frantic knock on the door. Ted answered it. It was Flower and she looked in a state. Ted was only just getting to know Martha’s friends and naturally there had been very little time or inclination on Martha’s part to give him the rundown on them as they had either been exhausted, marvelling at Jesus’s face and appendages or laughing hysterically when Ted tried to change Jesus and got a mouthful of urine as he failed to realise that a tiny baby penis is a bit of a water pistol, unless controlled.

  ‘Are you all right, Flower?’ said Martha who, even through the fog of new motherhood, had detected that her friend was emotionally charged.

  ‘Yes, but Sarah’s not,’ said Flower. ‘I came round, I didn’t want to talk on the phone about it. I knew you’d be in.’

  She was aware that the dynamic in the house had changed since the arrival of Ted and wondered if she was free to blurt out anything she wanted to in his presence or whether they had to play Boyfriend’s-Here-Keep-It-Clean, a game Martha had initially been hopeless at and had had to be taught by Flower, after shrieking across the room at a party to Flower and Charlie, who’d just got together: ‘Hey, Flower, do you remember when you were hitchhiking in France and you fucked those two brothers from that pig farm?’

  ‘Tan, Flower, Flower, Tan,’ said Ted, trying to do the introductions before Flower launched into her tirade about what Martha guessed might be Sarah’s latest drama.

  ‘Hi Tan,’ said Flower. ‘It’s Tangerine, I guess, is it?’

  ‘Well yes,’ said Tan. ‘How on earth did you know?’

  ‘Well, being a “Flower” has enabled me to sniff out a hippy name at twenty paces,’ said Flower. ‘And which pop festival were you conceived at?’

  Tan laughed. ‘Isle Of Wight. You?’

  ‘Nothing so romantic,’ said Flower. ‘A squat in Kennington.’

  ‘Anyway.’ said Tan, ‘I won’t interfere any more, you’ve obviously got things to talk about. Nice to meet you and if you ever set up a support group, let me know.’

  ‘I’ll walk you down,’ said Ted, who was just being nice, but Martha felt the slightest of twinge of what — jealousy? Surely not! How on earth could she be a potential possessor of this great lummox of a man to the exclusion of other beasts of the field that might want to have a go on him? She put it down to hormones and turned to Flower.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Martha, somewhat sarcastically, ‘Sarah and Billy — not getting on, are they? He’s never been very nice, has he?’

  ‘Don’t take the piss,’ said Flower. ‘This is serious.’

  She thought that Martha seemed strangely distracted, and although she was not the world’s best listener, at least Flower had always been able to get Martha to focus on a good story if it had all the hallmarks of a soap opera — which the Sarah and Billy saga certainly did. What Flower did not realise, and what Martha would have strenuously denied because she was as yet unable to see it herself, was that Martha was very subtly taking on the mantle of motherhood, because it is impossible not to unless you are either emotionally damaged in some way, or you didn’t really want a baby in the first place.

  For the rest of her life Martha would carry with her this slight lack of concentration on what anyone else was doing; a constant small percentage of her attention permanently focused on her child or children. And Flower would just have to put up with it until she had children herself and did the same thing. Until that time she would just be irritated by it.

  Martha picked up Jesus and started to feed him as best she could, being extra clumsy because she was performing in front of someone.

  ‘Oh, how did the gig go the other night?’ she asked, and although Flower really felt very strongly that she should get onto the latest in the Billy and Sarah drama she couldn’t resist talking about her stand-up.

  ‘The heckler guy was there again and I’m beginning to get a bit bloody scared, if I’m honest,’ she said.

  ‘Saw old Tangerine into her car,’ shouted Ted, coming through the front door, then seeing that Flower and Martha were in discussion and that Jesus must be asleep or feeding as his only three modi operandi at the moment were crying, eating and sleeping, he went into the kitchen to wash up and listen to some sport on the radio.

  ‘How’s it going with … ?‘ said Flower, inclining her head to
wards the kitchen.

  ‘All right, I think,’ said Martha. ‘I can’t do it for six weeks though, and I feel I should as we’ve only done it once in our whole relationship and I’m even having trouble remembering that. Anyway, I’ll tell you more when we’re on our own.’

  ‘All right,’ said Flower. ‘Anyway, this gig the other night — God, the compère was shit and pissed, you’ll never guess what he did when—’

  Flower’s mobile rang and seeing it was Sarah, she answered it. The conversation was brief and annoyingly opaque for Martha, who could tell that things were worse and that something had happened, peppered as Flower’s responses were with a selection of ’Oh fucks’ and ‘my Gods’.

  Flower finished by saying, ‘All right, I’ll see you there. Yeh, Sar, I’m sure that’ll be fine. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Well?’ said Martha.

  ‘She’s only gone and walked out on him,’ said Flower. ‘I can’t believe it. There’s absolutely nothing for us to sort out now’ This was said with some regret. ‘It’s what we always wanted to happen, thank God — what about that, eh?’

  ‘She’ll be back with him in two days,’ said Martha matter-of-factly.

  ‘Oh, don’t be such a bloody pessimist,’ said Flower. ‘We can spirit her off, do that thing they do with people who have joined weird religions, sort of deprogramme her.’

  ‘I do have the slight problem of a three-day-old baby here, you know,’ said Martha.

  ‘Oh sorry,’ said Flower, ‘but he does seem to sleep for quite a bit and Ted can have him for the odd hour, can’t he? Hey, and guess what too?’ She looked at Martha and said in a high stage whisper, ‘I’ve got a gun.’

  Martha sat up and Jesus fell off her breast and started to cry. Martha tried to reattach him.

  ‘You are joking,’ she said.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ said Flower. ‘I’m going to point it at him and scare him.’

  ‘Point what at who?’ said Ted, coming into the room.

  ‘Oh, I was telling her about Jesus’s weeing feats,’ said Martha, shocked that her spongy brain had managed to come up with something and even more shocked by what Flower had just told her.

  ‘Anyway,’ Flower said, ‘I’d better be going — you know, to get Sarah.’

  ‘But you haven’t told me what’s happened,’ said Martha. ‘I haven’t got time,’ said Flower. ‘I’ll call you later. See you, Ted,’ she added. ‘Bye, Jesus,’ and she was gone.

  ‘Nice to see your friend, was it?’ said Ted who, if he’d had any inkling about the content of their conversation, would have worn a very different expression on his face. ‘Come here, my son,’ he said, picking Jesus up from Martha’s lap and holding him aloft, looking up at him with a smile as wide as his suit. ‘How are you, my lovely, lovely little one?’ he said, and started to laugh with what he thought to himself must be pure joy.

  Jesus responded by vomiting and pretty much hitting the target of Ted’s open joyous mouth. Martha, ever the supportive mother and partner, began to laugh, but the effort of trying not to resulted in a volcano of hilarity which Ted, even though he was on the point of throwing up himself, felt he could not avoid joining in.

  When it had all calmed down and they sat in front of the telly with pizza and chips, not having taken Tan’s advice to junk the junk food very seriously. Ted turned to Martha and said, ‘Do we really have to call the poor little fucker Jesus?’

  Martha, who had just been waiting for a get-out clause that wouldn’t imply weakness on her part, was overjoyed.

  ‘Oh all right,’ she said, trying to contain her delight, ‘but unfortunately my dad will be really pleased and he’ll be round here pestering us, you know, and trying to poke his nose in.’

  ‘I don’t give a toss,’ said Ted, ‘as long as we aren’t responsible for the little blighter getting his head kicked in in the playground, like I did.’

  ‘Why, was Ted a particularly weird name in your school?’ said Martha.

  ‘It wasn’t me name,’ said Ted, ‘it was me fucking phizog.’

  ‘Your fucking what?’ said Martha.

  ‘Phizog,’ said Ted. ‘You know … face.’

  ‘What language is that and from what era does it come, old man?’ said Martha.

  ‘You cheeky cow,’ said Ted, ‘I’m only eleven years older than you.’

  ‘So how do you think we’re getting on?’ said Martha, out of the blue. ‘Out of ten?’

  ‘Ooh, I’d say about a seven,’ said Ted. ‘How about you?’

  ‘About a two,’ said Martha, and Ted jerked his head up to see that she was smiling.

  ‘I don’t half fancy a—’ he stopped.

  ‘A what?’ said Martha.

  ‘You know,’ said Ted.

  ‘But it’s not safe, I don’t think,’ said Martha, very strongly seized by a similar desire. ‘Oh fuck it, let’s have a go. Just go easy round…’ and finding herself strangely coy. ‘Oh, you know’

  So there on the carpet, in front of the telly with the recently de-named Jesus bawling his head off indignantly, Martha and Ted had a go at some form of sex which involved hands and mouths far more than it did a certain orifice. It was hot, frantic, sticky, funny and immensely enjoyable and set Martha off weeping again, as Ted lay exhausted on the carpet wondering whether she was going to cry like this on a regular basis for the rest of her life.

  Flower met Sarah in the pub and it seemed so strange that Martha wasn’t there.

  The first of many meetings without her, Flower thought, although in the summer she supposed they could all meet up in the garden. Fresh air and breezes weren’t really Martha’s thing, but from now on they would have to be unless she achieved the title of The One Mother In London Quite Happy For Her Child To Do Passive Smoking.

  Sarah had very heavy eye make-up on and looked like a panda but Flower didn’t realise that she actually looked like a panda underneath as well. Much to Charlie’s reluctance, she had offered to let Sarah sleep at their flat until she found something more permanent, but after what Martha had said, she wondered whether the split would be fleeting and fragile.

  Sarah was a little bit dubious about sleeping at Flower’s, which showed she had not quite been taken over by the madness of the heartbroken woman, or she would have slept in a wheelie bin. She thought the flat was probably unhygienic and full of cockroaches, so made a mental note not to sleep on the floor if at all possible.

  ‘So what happened?’ Flower’s voice interrupted her musing.

  ‘Well,’ said Sarah, ‘I went for the big one, for a complete makeover, came home hoping it might make a difference to our lives and the bastard laughed at me.

  Flower, not familiar with the concept, had to ask what a makeover involved, considering Sarah had a really bad haircut and her skin was the worst Flower had ever seen it.

  ‘So you decided to leave him because he didn’t like it?’ she said incredulously.

  ‘Oh shit no,’ said Sarah. ‘No, it all went off after that.’

  ‘How?’ said Flower, who felt so pleased she had never had a relationship like this and now never would.

  ‘I shouted at him and hit him, he hit me back, I locked myself in the bathroom, he broke the door down, I hit him with a chair, he hit me with the towel rail, I kicked him in the bollocks, he threw me into the wall, I scratched him with my nails and he kicked me,’ said Sarah, starting matter-of-factly and finishing tearfully.

  ‘Oh Sarah, I’m so sorry,’ said Flower. ‘You poor thing, did you call the police?’

  ‘Oh Christ no,’ said Sarah. ‘They don’t give a toss and anyway I’d probably change my mind about it all before the first form was filled in.’

  ‘It’s your flat,’ said Flower. ‘Why don’t you get him to move out?’

  ‘Great idea,’ said Sarah. ‘I’m sure if I wagged my finger at him he’d go really easily.’ She started to cry again.

  ‘Look, let me get you a drink and we’ll make a plan,’ said Flower.

  At the bar, s
he phoned Charlie and said, ‘I’ll be back soon with Sarah, is that still all right?’

  ‘S’pose so,’ said Charlie, who was thinking rather ungraciously of the limits it would put on his sex-life if Sarah was quivering with tears on the sofa. He very generously, he thought, neglected to mention this.

  Flower wrinkled her nose, as the man next to her at the bar smelled unpleasantly cheesy She looked at him: he seemed vaguely familiar and she suddenly realised that the cheesy chappie buying a large sherry was the Reverend Brian Harris. He obviously didn’t recognise her, and maybe she should have left it that way, but something made her say hello to him.

  He turned, a sneer ready on his face. ‘Yes, and who might you be?’ he said.

  ‘I’m Flower, Martha’s friend,’ she said. ‘We met in the maternity ward at the General.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said distastefully, as though he had met a decomposed, talking rodent. ‘And how is the girl?’

  ‘Sorry, which girl?’ said Flower, having briefly lost the plot.

  ‘My daughter, of course,’ he said. ‘You young people have no concentration.’

  At that point Flower’s mobile rang. Normally she would have left it, but some instinct told her to answer. It was Steve Marchant, who ran the biggest chain of comedy clubs in the country.

  ‘Hi, Flower,’ he said, ‘Steve Marchant here. I’m afraid Muff’s had to pull out of our late show at the Comedy Store on Sunday night — just wondered if you’d be available. Three hundred for twenty minutes, OK?’