The M Word

by Eileen Wharton

  ‘I don’t,’ I said. ‘I’d like you to stop.’ The whole of the next week I couldn’t do anything right. He would fling things under my nose and tell me to type them again. And again. Nothing was good enough. Then, he caught me in the stationery cupboard and put his hand up my skirt. I punched him in the face and that’s when I lost my job.

  Knobhead seemed to be supportive, but when I look back, it was all male bravado and guilt. He threatened to punch Coombes’s lights out and bought me gifts: flowers, chocolates, jewellery… I should have known from the aftershave and the working late he was playing away. It was all textbook, but I was so young, so trusting, not to mention busy raising three small children. I had no experience of relationships. I thought this was what was supposed to happen after a few years.

  When he dropped it on me, he just came out with it. We were eating chips and pork chops, brown sauce on the side and tea in a teapot. I was bustling round the table, plump with contentment.

  ‘I’m leaving you,’ he said. My mouth opened, but no words came out. I couldn’t move. It was like I was frozen in time. ‘I’ve met someone.’

  ‘An affair?’ I eventually managed, slumping into a chair. ‘You’ve been unfaithful?’

  ‘No. Not an affair. I’m in love. I’m leaving you. We were…’

  ‘What? What were we?’ I shouted, fists clenched. Anger burned within me.

  ‘A mistake,’ he said.

  He got up, then packed his bags while I threw things and screamed. When that made no difference, I pleaded and begged. I clung to him as he kicked me away like I was an unwanted dog. I was numb. Bereft. In total shock. I couldn’t believe it. We were so happy. So, in love. How could he do that to me? I wanted to kill her. I couldn’t believe that he had fallen for someone else, that he was living with someone else, that he loved someone else. He was mine. We were supposed to last forever. He stood at the altar and swore to love and honour me, in front of all our family and friends. How could he just have taken up with a tart of a travel agent?

  I rang and threatened them at regular intervals. I found out where she lived and turned up at the house. I smashed up her car, broke in to her house and filled all his shoes with cement. I was arrested three times. At the time, I felt like I was going mad. I obviously suffered a breakdown. I couldn’t handle the pain, the loss and rejection. After that, I turned off my feelings to protect myself. Some women throw themselves into motherhood when this happens. Some throw themselves at other men. I did neither. I closed myself off from life, from people. I refused to be hurt again, so, for a while, I refused to live.

  The all-encompassing love I’d had for Andy turned into the most rancorous hatred, which I aimed at everyone else.

  16

  #sexpestilence

  I take a selfie at breakfast and immediately delete it because Knobhead is in the shot.

  I have ten missed calls from Mick and a text to say, ‘Stop being so stubborn.’ I’m still hurt, confused and angry about the work situation, and I’m in a state of disbelief that Knobhead is in the process of moving his stuff in.

  ‘You’re staying for two weeks, Andy. You don’t need your Welsh dresser.’

  ‘I can’t leave it there. Terri-Ann has threatened to burn it.’

  ‘Put it in storage, then. You can bring your clothes, and that’s all.’

  ‘What about my La-Z-boy?’

  ‘And that’s all.’ It would be better than having his stinking carcass on my furniture. ‘You’re in the spare room, and I swear to God, if you go a-wandering during the night and end up in my bed at any point, I will do a Bobbit on you.’ He knows this is no idle threat. I think he’ll keep himself to himself.

  #rainingmen

  I take a selfie of me having breakfast: croissants and fruit, smoked salmon and hollandaise sauce. I think it makes me look like I’m holidaying in Europe. I add a filter and upload it to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram because it doesn’t show my crow’s feet and my teeth look white. I make it my profile pic and get two likes immediately: Johnathan the Foetus and Annie One-Eye from accounts. I have no missed calls or texts from Mick. He must’ve realised I’m not coming back. So why do I feel disappointed? I suppose it’s like when you have a scab. You pick it off, you miss it.

  Another weird email pings into my inbox. They’re intriguing me, but that’s what these viruses do. I resist the temptation to open it. “I exist in two places, here and where you are”, the subject line says.

  It’s got to be easier tracing long-lost relatives now we have the internet. I type in “tracing a long-lost relative” and a number of sites pop up. I click on one of them, and it immediately asks for money. While I don’t mind paying to find my brother, I’m sure there are companies that do it for free. I’ve heard of people who’ve done it on Facebook, so I could try that too.

  I eat a family-sized bag of cheese and onion crisps and get raging indigestion. I consume twenty small doughnuts to see if that will help. It doesn’t.

  Never in a million years did I imagine I’d be cooking for Knobhead and chatting about the election. He pours me a glass of orange juice as I stir the béchamel.

  ‘This is very civilised,’ he says.

  ‘Well, don’t get too cosy,’ I say. ‘Two weeks, maximum.’

  There’s a knock at the door, and I ask him to get it as the sauce is at a crucial moment. I’m not going to have him telling everyone I’m a disaster in the kitchen as well as everywhere else. I hear a man’s voice I recognise, but it’s out of place, and I can’t think to whom it belongs. I round the corner of the kitchen and see him. I nearly drop the saucepan. ‘Roberta,’ he says.

  ‘Mick…er…this is Andy… I…my…husband…ex…husband.’

  ‘I was worried,’ Mick says. ‘But I can see I had no cause to be. I wanted to try to set up a meeting to try and get you back to work.’

  ‘Back to work?’ I say in shock.

  ‘Yes. I can see now that that’s the farthest thing from your mind. I’m sorry to have interrupted you. I’ll see myself out.’ He disappears as quickly as he’d appeared, and I would have thought it was a dream but for the fact that Knobhead won’t shut up about it.

  ‘What does he mean, back to work? You on the sick?’

  ‘No. I resigned.’

  ‘Why does he want you back, then?’

  ‘Oh, I dunno, Andy. Maybe he thinks I’m good at my job. Now, isn’t that a novel idea? Me being good at something.’

  ‘Roberta, you were good at lots of things.’ He gives me a knowing wink, and I want to vomit. ‘Maybe he fancies you.’

  I look at him incredulously. ‘He most definitely does not. We can’t stand each other.’

  ‘I’m telling you. He wants a slice of Robbie-erta.’ He laughs.

  ‘It’s not completely ludicrous that someone would fancy me, and don’t call me that.’

  ‘Why? Does it bring back memories?’ In truth, it does. Memories of when we were courting. Lazy days on Blackpool beach and back to the B and B for a night of passion. It had all been so simple then. Such fun. Then, he ruined it by getting married, having kids and breaking my heart.

  ‘Memories you spoiled by shagging Terri-Ann from Thomas Cook.’

  ‘Do you have to always bring that up? Can’t we call a truce?’

  ‘The truce has already been called, or you would not have your stinky DNA all over my bathroom and spare bedroom. I have to pop up to Durham after work to pick up Mother’s ashes. I might stay over, so you’d better behave while I’m away. No wild parties.’

  ‘Pinkie promise,’ he says. ‘What kind of arsehole would I be to be throwing wild parties at your place when you’ve just lost your mother?’

  ‘What kind, indeed?’

  #caughtshort

  I decided not to stay at Mother’s. If the truth be known, I felt a bit creeped out about staying in her house on my own. What if her spirit decided to wander? The journey home was a sober affair. It didn’t feel right somehow to be quaffing Prosecco while Mother
had been reduced to something that resembles cat litter. Felicity said she’d contact me about the will after we’d split the ashes. It didn’t sit well with me, having Mother in two different pots, so I suggested to Felicity that we should get together to hold a little ceremony, and I left after an air kiss and an empty promise to write.

  I get a short text from Mick saying he hopes I’m ok.

  When I shove open my front door, I feel drained and emotional. I’m even looking forward to a bit of company as I watch Corrie. I cannot believe the sight that meets my eyes. Knobhead on my sofa, Calvin Kleins round his ankles, rutting away at some poor cow with her legs akimbo, her blonde bun bobbing up and down like a duck at the fair.

  ‘Out,’ I scream. ‘Get out of my house.’ It’s only when she jumps up and grabs for her knickers that I realise who she is.

  ‘Not so perfect now, eh, Pamela? Wonder what Steve will have to say about this.’

  ‘You’re not going to tell him, are you?’ Fear fills her eyes. ‘He’ll kill me and Andy.’

  ‘Two birds with one stone,’ I say. ‘Now get out of my house.’

  17

  #swinglow

  Today feels flat. An anti-climax without the climax. Job hunting is the order of the day. I update my CV and ping it off to a number of companies, then wait for the deluge of job offers.

  Perhaps the menopause is responsible for the low mood. People might say, ‘You’ve just lost your mother, it’s to be expected.’ But, to be honest, I never had her. She was never a mother. Not in the proper sense of the word. There were no hugs, no kind words, no soft stroking and storytelling. She kept us clean and fed, and we had a bed to sleep in. She was the first to admit she didn’t have a maternal bone in her body. And yet, according to the letters, she had been maternal. She had loved us as much as it’s possible to love, but when she lost my brother, she gave up on love.

  ‘Why have kids?’ I asked her one day.

  ‘It’s not like I had a choice,’ she said. ‘Contraception wasn’t available until the sixties and obey wasn’t just a word in the marriage service, it was a very real situation. If I had my time again, I’d have no kids.’

  I now realise the hurt she went through and why she said those things. All I feel now is a deep, pervading sadness. I used to wonder how she could say she wished she’d had no kids, but now, I understand. If she hadn’t had us, she would never have had to feel the pain of my brother’s loss. And what agony that must have been. It was bad enough to lose a cheating husband but to suffer the loss of a child… When I was young, I think I associated her “black moods” as we called them with the death of our father. When I looked back as a teenager, I assumed she was grieving for him. If only I’d known she was mourning the loss of her child. If only she’d talked more. If I’d known she was dying, maybe I would have had time to make amends. Anger at Felicity flashes within me, but it burns out almost as soon as it begins. Like the flare of a match.

  The man we thought was our dad, but who was apparently only Felicity’s dad, had died when I was six, but I remember him being a big, warm bear of a man who smelled of menthol and had stubble. Mother always said I was viewing him through rose-tinted spectacles, and I never knew what she meant because I didn’t wear glasses. I feel cheated now I realise he wasn’t a good man but a tyrant. Someone much worse than Knobhead. My hurt pales into insignificance compared with the torment Mother must have gone through. I know I’m only getting one side of the story, but Mother was nothing if she wasn’t honest. Brutally honest to the point of being completely tactless. And the letters are proof. Part of me wishes I’d never read them, but another part of me wants to understand Mother. Maybe in understanding her, I’ll be able to have a much deeper understanding of myself. As it stands, I have a feeling that Sigmund Freud himself couldn’t work me out.

  I suppose I got my mothering skills, or lack of them, from her. I wasn’t one of those earth mothers who threw on an apron and did potato painting. No glitter-glue or hugging trees in my house. At least that’s how it became. I used to take my holidays during term time and arrange childcare during the breaks. They were clean, well fed and educated. Not that you’d think so now. Drew looks like a pot-smoking parasite (his looks do not belie the truth), Shoni hasn’t got the sense she was born with when it comes to men, and Carolyn… Well, Carolyn’s done alright. I suppose that’s why they say she’s the favourite.

  I do love them. I do. I just find it difficult to show my emotions. There are times when I find myself wanting to give them a hug and tell them I love them, but I always stop myself. Love is pain. I wonder whether Mother felt the same way? You’d have thought on her deathbed she might have shown me some affection. Even if she couldn’t bring herself to hug me, you’d have thought she could have brought herself to tell me she loved me. Then, it springs at me without warning. I should have told her. I should have said, ‘I love you, Mam.’ Why didn’t I say it? Why? Love is pain. Guilt and heartache. Anger is easier to deal with so that’s what I let it become. Just like Mother.

  Knobhead’s belongings are posted to him out of the bedroom window while he shouts from my small patch of lawn in the rain to “be reasonable”. There’s a satisfying smash as the photo of him with George Best hits the deck. I post a selfie of me with George Best and the caption, “Revenge: a dish best served with the smashing of your ex’s favourite pic”. It gets forty-eight likes in two minutes.

  I receive a Facebook message from Harry. Would I like to meet for dinner? I’ve nothing better to do, so I message back. ‘Ok.’

  He lols me and says, ‘Don’t sound too enthusiastic.’ There’s something about men lolling that gets right on my nerves. It’s up there with turnups on jeans and man buns, but I’m at a loose end, and one more evening alone in front of the telly might just send me over the edge, so I agree to meet him in the Dog and Duck for pre-dinner drinks. Big mistake. Huge.

  #hangoverfromhell

  Oh, God, I am dying. My head will not move from the pillow, but my stomach wishes to be rid of its contents. Why did I suggest the Dog and Duck? Why?

  When I got there, Harry had already been joined by Mick, Tammy, the Foetus and the giggling girls from HR. ‘We’re joining you for dinner,’ Tammy said. ‘Isn’t that nice?’

  ‘Lovely,’ I said sarcastically.

  I had to sit through Mick’s evil looks, Tammy’s inane chatter about cunnilingus with the Foetus and tales of her homicidal brother who’s in Strangeways for trying to bite off the nipple of a nightclub bouncer. Shoot me now.

  I got very drunk. Plastered. No, drunker than that. Paralytic pretty much sums it up. My speech went first, which is probably just as well because in my head I was telling them all exactly what I thought of them. It wasn’t pretty. Lucky that Tammy misunderstood when I called her a paedo and thought I was asking her to pass the dips.

  ‘Quido? Is that what it’s called? I thought it was guacamole.’ She’s such a tit.

  A hot flush descended, and I had to take some air. I was standing with the smokers, trying to stay upwind, when Mick slithered up to me and grabbed my elbow.

  ‘You’re really something, Roberta.’

  ‘Why, shankyou velly much.’

  ‘That poor husband of yours.’

  ‘Shay wha’?’

  He shook his head like a disappointed uncle. What is wrong with that bloke? What the hell did he know about Knobhead? Poor husband, indeed. He must’ve heard that I’d thrown him out and about the whole perfect Pamela fiasco. How embarrassing. How dare he judge me? The last thing I remember is giving him a piece of my mind.

  So here I am now, dying. I have no idea how I got home or, worse still, who undressed me and put me to bed. I pull the covers up and am preparing to have a duvet day when the phone rings. Felicity’s face graces my screen. She’s FaceTiming me. Oh fuck. Ordinarily, I would ignore it. Why I don’t is beyond me. I press ‘Accept’, and the screaming starts.

  ‘I knew it. I knew you and her were planning to do this. All those ye
ars wasted. All for nothing. Nothing. You two-faced, scheming, back-biting bitch.’

  ‘Morning, Felicity.’

  ‘How could you do this to me? Evil, both of you. I hope you rot in hell.’

  ‘If you’d like to explain what’s upset you so much…’

  ‘Explain? You know fine well. Don’t play the innocent with me.’ The wails climb higher and higher. ‘All those wasted years. I could have been in Bermuda with a husband. A police officer and respected member of the community. You bitch. I’ll see you in court.’

  My head pounds, my ears ache. I have no idea what she’s talking about. When the bed stops spinning, I might try to find out.

  I get a text from Mick asking, ‘Are you alright?’ And another saying, ‘Nice arse’ and a smiley face. Oh, God, what does that mean? I don’t reply.

  #wheretheresawill

  The bed finally stopped spinning, my guts are empty, and my head feels like it belongs to me again. Turns out Mother has left everything to me in her will. I didn’t think she had anything, except the house – a small terrace in a mining village in Durham in a very sorry state of repair. I’ll be lucky to get sixty grand for it. And, of course, I would have split it with Felicity, but I’ve found out what she did.

  It transpires Mother had a number of insurance policies and an investment account holding a pretty sizeable sum. Apparently, there was a payout when Dad died, and she hadn’t touched a penny. It seems I am to inherit two hundred thousand pounds.

  I know. I can’t believe it, either. The terms of the will stipulate that I am not to share with Felicity, and I quote Mother, ‘…because she’s a two-faced, lying, cheating, manipulative little bitch, and at least with you, what you see is what you get.’ Ooh, Mother, talk about a sting in the tail and a backhanded compliment. No wonder Felicity’s so angry.