by Jean Ure
“I suppose that’s why he spent it,” said Vix.
She wasn’t being sarcastic; she was genuinely trying to help.
“He spent it because he wanted Mum to have nice things,” I said. “Not stupid, boring things like cookers!”
“But perhaps she wanted stupid boring things,” said Vix.
“Well, she did,” I said, “but Dad wasn’t to know! I mean, he did know, but – he kept forgetting. He’d see something he thought she’d like, and he couldn’t resist getting it for her. And then she’d say it was a waste of money, or stupid, or useless, or she’d make him take it back… poor Dad! He was only trying to make her happy.”
“This is it,” said Vix.
What did she mean, this is it!
“It’s what people do,” said Vix. “When they’re married… they try to make each other happy, but sometimes it doesn’t always work and they just make each other miserable, and – and they only get happy when they’re not living together any more. Maybe,” she added.
Mum ought to have been happier, now she’d got rid of Dad and could save up for new cookers without any fear of him gambling her money away on horses that didn’t reach the finishing point. You’d have thought she’d be happier. Instead, she just got crabbier and crabbier, even worse than she’d been before, when Dad was turning her life into turmoil. At least, that’s how it seemed to me and the Afterthought. She wouldn’t let us do things, she wouldn’t let us have things, she wouldn’t let us buy the clothes we wanted, we couldn’t even read what we wanted.
“This magazine is disgusting!” cried Mum, slapping down my latest copy of Babe. Babe just happened, at the time, to be my favourite teen mag. I’ve grown out of it now; but at the age of thirteen there were things I desperately needed to know, and Babe was where I found out about them.
I mean, you have to find out somewhere. You can’t go through life being ignorant.
I tried explaining this to Mum but she had frothed herself up into one of her states and wouldn’t listen.
“DO BLOKES PREFER BOOBS OR BUMS? At your age?”
“Mum,” I said, “I need to know!”
“You’ll find out quite soon enough,” said Mum, “without resorting to this kind of trash… what, for heaven’s sake, is Daddy drool supposed to mean?”
Again, I tried explaining: “It means when people fancy your dad.” But again she wouldn’t listen.
“This is just so cheap! It is just so tacky! Where did you get it from?”
I said, “The newsagent.”
“Mr Patel? I’m surprised he’d sell you such a thing!”
“Mum, everybody reads it,” I said.
“Does Victoria read it?” said Mum.
I said, “No, she reads one that’s even worse.” I giggled. “Then we swop!”
It was a mistake to giggle. Mum immediately thought that I was cheeking her. Plus she’d actually gone and opened the mag and her eye had fallen on a rather cheeky article (ha ha, that is a joke!) about male bums. Shock, horror! Did she think I’d never seen one before???
“For crying out loud!” Mum glared at the offending article, bug-eyed. Maybe she’d never seen one before… “What is this? Teenage porn?”
I said, “Mum, it’s just facts of life.”
“So is sewage,” said Mum.
Was she saying male bums were sewage? No! She’d flicked over the page and seen something else. Something I’d been really looking forward to reading!
“This is unbelievable,” said Mum. “Selling this stuff to thirteen-year-old girls! I’m going to have a word with Mr Patel.”
“Mum! No!” I shrieked.
I wasn’t worried about Mr Patel, I was worried about Babe. How was I going to learn things if he wasn’t allowed to sell it to me any more?
“Stephanie, I don’t want this kind of filth in the house,” said Mum. “Do you understand?”
I sulkily said yes, while thinking to myself that I bet Dad wouldn’t have minded. Mum had just got so crabby.
“She’s an old cow,” said the Afterthought.
Mum and the Afterthought were finding it really difficult to get along; they rowed even worse than Mum and me. The Afterthought wanted a kitten. A girl in her class had a cat that was going to have some, and the Afterthought had conceived this passion.
(Conceived! Ha! What would Mum say to that!) Every day the Afterthought nagged and begged and howled and pleaded; and every day Mum very firmly said no. She said she was sorry, but she had quite enough to cope with without having an animal to look after.
“Kittens grow into cats, and cats need feeding, cats need injections, cats cost money …I’m sorry, Sam! It’s just not the right moment. Maybe in a few months.”
“That’ll be too late!” wailed the Afterthought. “All the kittens will be gone!”
“There’ll be more,” said Mum.
“Not from Sukey. They won’t be Sukey’s kittens. I want one of Sukey’s! She’s so sweet. Dad would let me!” roared the Afterthought.
“Very possibly, but your dad doesn’t happen to be here,” said Mum.
“No! Because you got rid of him! I want my kitten!” bellowed the Afterthought.
It ended up, as it always did, with Mum losing patience and the Afterthought going off into one of her tantrums. I told Vix that life at home had become impossible. Vix said, “Yes, for me, too! Specially after your mum talked to my mum about teenage filth and now my mum says I’m not to buy that sort of thing any more!” I stared at her, appalled.
“What right have they got,” I said, “to talk about us behind our backs?”
The weeks dragged on, with things just going from bad to worse. Mum got crabbier and crabbier. She got specially crabby on days when we had telephone calls from Dad. He rang us, like, about once every two weeks, and the Afterthought always snatched up the phone and grizzled into it.
“Dad, it’s horrible here! When are you going to get settled?”
I tried to be a little bit more discreet, because I could see that probably it was a bit irritating for Mum. I mean, she was doing her best. Dad was now living down south, in Brighton. He said that he missed us and would love to have us with him, but he wasn’t quite settled enough; not just yet.
“Soon, I hope!”
Triumphantly, the Afterthought relayed this to Mum. “Soon Dad’s going to be settled, and then we can go and live with him!”
I knew that Mum would never let us, and in any case I wasn’t really sure that I’d want to. Not permanently, I mean. I loved Dad to bits, because he wasn’t ever crabby like Mum, I couldn’t remember Dad telling us off for anything, ever; but I couldn’t imagine actually leaving Mum, no matter how impossible she was being. And she was being. Running off to Vix’s mum like that! Interfering with Vix’s life, as well as mine. I didn’t think she ought to have done that; it could have caused great problems between me and Vix. Fortunately Vix understood that it wasn’t my fault. As she said, “You can’t control how your mum behaves.” But Vix’s mum had been quite put out to discover that her angelic daughter was reading about s.e.x. and gazing at pictures of male bums. It’s what comes of living in a grungy old place way out in the sticks where nothing ever happens and s.e.x. is something you are not supposed to have heard of, let alone think about. Vix agreed with me that in Brighton people probably thought about it all the time, even thirteen-year-old girls, and no one turned a hair.
I said to Mum, “When I am fourteen,” (which I was going to be quite soon), “can I think about it then?”
“You can think about it all you like,” said Mum. “I just don’t want you reading about it in trashy magazines. That’s all!”
It was shortly after my fourteenth birthday that Mum finally went and flipped. I’d been trying ever so hard to make allowances for her. I’d discussed it with Vix and we had agreed that it was probably something to do with her age. Vix said, “Women get really odd when they reach a certain age. How old is your mum?”
I said, “She’s
only thirty-six.” I mean, pretty old, but not actually decrepit.
“Old enough,” said Vix. “She’s probably getting broody.”
I said, “Getting what?”
“Broody. You know?”
“I thought that was something to do with chickens,” I said.
“Chickens and women… it makes them desperate.”
“Desperate for what?”
“Having babies while they still can.”
“But she’s had babies!” I said.
“Doesn’t make any difference,” said Vix. “Don’t worry! She’ll grow out of it.”
“Yes, but when?’ I wailed.
“Dunno.” Vix wrinkled her nose. “When she’s about… fifty, maybe?”
I thought that fifty was a long time to wait for Mum to stop being desperate, but in the meanwhile, in the interests of peaceful living, I would do my best to humour her. I would no longer read nasty magazines full of s.e.x., at any rate, not while I was indoors, and I would no longer nag her for new clothes except when I really, really needed them, and I would make my bed and I would tidy my bedroom and I would help with the washing up, and do all those things that she was always on at me to do. So I did. For an entire whole week. And then she went and flipped! All because I’d been to a party and got home about two seconds later than she’d said. Plus I’d just happened to be brought back by this boy that for some reason she’d taken exception to and told me not to see any more, only I hadn’t realised that she meant it. I mean, how was I to know that she’d meant it?
“What did you think I meant?” said Mum, all cold and brittle, like an icicle. “I told you I didn’t want you seeing him any more!”
“But why not?” I said. “What’s the matter with him?”
“Stephanie, we have already been through all this,” said Mum.
“But it doesn’t make any sense! He’s just a boy, the same as any other boy. It’s not like he’s on drugs, or anything.”
Well, he wasn’t; not as far as I knew. It’s stupid to think that just because someone has a nose stud and tattoos he’s doing drugs. Mum was just so prejudiced! But I suppose I shouldn’t have tried arguing with her; I can see, now, that that was a bit ill-judged. Mum went up like a light. She went incandescent. Fire practically spurted out of her nostrils. I couldn’t ever remember seeing her that mad. And at me! Who’d tried her best to make allowances! It didn’t help that the Afterthought was there, leaning over the banisters. The Afterthought never can manage to keep her mouth shut. She had to go starting on about kittens again.
“Dad would have let me have one! You never let us have anything! You’re just a misery! You aren’t any fun!”
She said afterwards that she thought she was coming to my aid. She thought she was being supportive.
“Showing that I was on your side!”
All it did, of course, was make matters worse. Mum just suddenly snapped. She raised two clenched fists to heaven and demanded to know what she had done to get lumbered with two such beastly brats.
“Thoroughly unpleasant! Totally ungrateful! Utterly selfish! Well, that’s it. I’ve had it! I’m sick to death of the pair of you! As far as I’m concerned, your father can have you, and welcome. I’ve done my stint. From now on, you can be his responsibility!”
Wow. I think even the Afterthought was a bit taken aback.
“I HAVE SPENT sixteen years of my life,” said Mum, “coping with your dad. Sixteen years of clearing up his messes, getting us out of the trouble that he’s got us into. If it weren’t for me, God alone knows where this family would be! Out on the streets, with a begging bowl. Well, I’ve had it, do you hear? I have had it. I cannot take any more! Do I make myself plain?”
Me and the Afterthought, shocked into silence, just stared woodenly.
“Do I make myself plain?” bellowed Mum.
“Y-yes!” I snapped to attention. “Absolutely!”
“Good. Then you will understand why it is that I am relinquishing all responsibility. Because if I am asked to cope just one minute longer — ” Mum’s voice rose to a piercing shriek “ — with your tempers and your tantrums and your utter – your utter —”
We waited.
“Your utter selfishness,” screamed Mum, “I shall end up in a lunatic asylum! Have you got that?”
I nodded.
“I said, have you got that?” bawled Mum.
“Got it,” I said.
“Got it,” muttered the Afterthought.
“Right! Just so long as you have. I want there to be no misunderstandings. Now, get off to bed, the pair of you!”
Me and the Afterthought both scuttled into our bedrooms and stayed there. I wondered gloomily if Mum was having a nervous breakdown, and if so, whether it was my fault. All I’d done was just go to a party! I lay awake the rest of the night thinking that if Mum ended up in a lunatic asylum, I would be the one that put her there, but when I told Vix about it next day Vix said that me going to the party was probably just the last straw. She said that her mum had said that my mum had been under pressure for far too long.
“She’s probably cracking up,” said Vix.
Honestly! Vix may be my best and oldest friend, but I can’t help feeling she doesn’t always stop and think before she opens her mouth. Cracking up. What a thing to say! It worried me almost sick. I crept round Mum like a little mouse, hardly daring even to breathe for fear of upsetting her. I had these visions of her suddenly tearing off all her clothes and running naked into the street and having to be locked up. The Afterthought, being almost totally insensitive where other people’s feelings are concerned, just carried on the same as usual, except that she didn’t actually whinge quite as much. Instead of whining about cornflakes for breakfast instead of sugar puffs, for instance, she simply rolled her eyes and made huffing sounds; instead of screaming that “Dad would let me!” when Mum refused to let her sit up till midnight watching telly, she just did this angry scoffing thing, like “Khuurgh!” and walloped out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
I, in the meantime, was on eggshells, waiting for Mum to tear her clothes off. In fact she didn’t. After her one manic outburst, she became deadly cool and calm, which was quite frightening in itself as I felt that underneath things were bubbling. Like it would take just one little incident and that would be it: clothes off, running naked. Or, alternatively, tearing out her hair in great chunks, which is what I’d read somewhere that people did when they were having breakdowns.
I told the Afterthought to stop being so horrible. “You don’t want Mum to end up in a lunatic asylum, do you?” The Afterthought just tossed her head and said she couldn’t care less.
“I hate her! I’ll always hate her! She sent my dad away!”
“Your dad? He’s my dad, too!” I said.
“I’m the one that loves him best! You can have her” said the Afterthought. “She’s your favourite!”
One week later, term came to an end. The very next day, Mum got rid of us. Well, that was what it seemed like. Like she just couldn’t wait to be free. She’d made us pack all our stuff the night before, but she couldn’t actually ship us off until after lunch as Dad said he had to work. Mum said, “On a Saturday?” She was fuming! Now she’d made up her mind to dump us, she wanted us to go now, at once, immediately. The Afterthought would have liked to go now, at once, immediately, too. She was jigging with impatience the whole morning. I sort of wanted to go – I mean, I was really looking forward to seeing Dad again – but I still couldn’t quite believe that Mum was doing this to us.
As we piled into the car with all our gear, I said, “It’s just for the summer holidays, right?”
Well, it had to be! I mean, what about clothes? What about school?
“I wouldn’t want to miss any school,” I said.
“Really?” said Mum. “I never heard that one before!”
OK, I knew she was still mad at us, but I didn’t see there was any need for sarcasm. I said, “Well, but anyway, yo
u’ll be back long before then!”
Mum had announced that she was flying off to Spain to stay with an old school friend who owned a nightclub. She’d said she was going to “live it up” It worried me because I didn’t think of Mum as a living-it-up kind of person. I couldn’t imagine her drinking and dancing and lying about on the beach.
How would she cope? It just wasn’t Mum.
“You’ll have to be back,” I said. ‘Will I?” said Mum. “Why?”
Why? What kind of a question was that?
“You have to work,” I said.
Mum had this job in the customer service department of one of the big stores in the centre of Nottingham. She had responsibilities. She couldn’t just disappear for months!
“Actually,” said Mum, “I don’t have to work… I jacked it in. I’ve left.”
I said, “What?”
“I’ve left,” said Mum. “I gave in my notice.”
“Gave in your notice?” I was aghast. Mum couldn’t do that!
“You can’t!” I bleated.
“I have,” said Mum. “I gave it in last week… I’m unemployed!”
I shrieked, “Mum!”
“What’s the problem?” said Mum. “It never seemed to bother you when your dad was unemployed.”
“That was because he couldn’t be tied down,” said the Afterthought, in angry tones.
“Well, I’ve decided… neither can I!” Mum giggled. I don’t think I’d ever heard Mum giggle before. “Two can play at being free spirits.”
“But what will we live on?” I wailed.
“Ah!” said Mum. “That’s the question… what will we live on? Worrying, isn’t it? Maybe your dad will provide.”
I glanced at the Afterthought. Her lip was quivering. She wanted to be with Dad OK, but only so long as Mum was still there, in the background, like a kind of safety net. We couldn’t have two parents being free spirits!
“As a matter of fact,” said Mum, “I’m thinking of going in with Romy.”