Mummy Said the F-Word

by Fiona Gibson

  Shut up, shut up, shut up. If I could get away with it, I’d stick my fingers in my ears and start singing loudly, the way Lola does sometimes when I ask her to pick up her pants from the floor.

  ‘The Siiiimpsons …’ Poppy is laughing heartily in the living room. It’s an unfamiliar, gurgly laugh.

  ‘D’you … like The Simpsons?’ Lola asks tentatively.

  ‘Yeah!’ Poppy enthuses.

  Now they’re all in hysterics together, with even Jake laughing his socks off. Maybe, as far as kids are concerned, it doesn’t matter which family you’re from.

  ‘Daisy,’ I venture, ‘I know I write a problem page, but yours and Martin’s personal stuff … it’s a bit too close for comfort for me to deal with.’

  She laughs uneasily. ‘Yes, of course it is. I’m sorry. You just seem so … sensible in the magazine.’

  I gawp at her. ‘Well, I’m not really. That’s not what I’m like at all. It’s just a job, OK? It’s what I do. Like you and the water-cooler thing.’ The sternness of my voice surprises me, and Daisy shrinks away.

  ‘Martin was really angry that I’d emailed you,’ she adds.

  I shrug.

  ‘He’s very loyal to you, Caitlin. He has a lot of respect for you as, as … a mother.’

  Please, spare me.

  ‘Anyway,’ she adds, ‘it was silly of me to tell you my personal problems. I bet your friends do that all the time.’

  ‘Not really,’ I mutter.

  ‘It’s just …’ she grins lopsidedly ‘… if you weren’t, um, connected to my family, I’d write to you for advice about Poppy. How she nags for new toys all the time – any advert she’s seen on TV, basically, and we really can’t afford them after taking this place on.’

  My jaw is clenched and starting to ache. The woman is a fruitcake. ‘Daisy,’ I say, ‘I think you should talk to Martin about that.’

  ‘That’s … what you’d suggest?’

  She actually seems disappointed that I am unwilling to offer a one-to-one counselling session.

  ‘Yes,’ I say firmly, and stride out of the room.

  While Martin pulls out the sofabed for Lola and Travis to sleep on, the kids settle themselves on cushions on the floor. All four are entranced by the TV. I feel superfluous and utterly lost.

  ‘Well,’ I announce stiffly, ‘I’d better be going. See you on Sunday, OK?’

  ‘Guys,’ Daisy prompts them, ‘your mum’s going now. Aren’t you going to say goodbye?’

  ‘Bye, Mummy,’ Lola sing-songs. I notice with alarm that she and Poppy are sharing a cushion.

  Jake doesn’t even look at me.

  ‘Shush!’ Travis growls. ‘Am watching TV.’

  What should a ditched parent do when she returns to Bleak House? Seek adult company. Despite my fear of interrupting some guest-list-planning session, I call Sam. There’s no Amelia. ‘Change of plan,’ he says lightly. ‘Why don’t you come over?’

  ‘Are you sure? It’s pretty late …’

  He laughs hollowly. ‘To be honest, I could do with some company.’

  I set out with a bottle of wine, plus a headful of gripes about my departed son and his new cardboard home, but by the time I’ve reached Sam’s place, the bad stuff’s evaporated.

  ‘He’ll come back,’ Sam assures me, crouching by his CD shelves as he searches for cheer-up-Cait tunes.

  ‘No he won’t. This is it, Sam.’

  ‘Has he taken all his stuff? Like everything from his room?’

  ‘Well … no. His skateboard’s in the garden, but he’s probably just forgotten it. There are still loads of books in his room – even some of his favourites – and his Top Trumps collection.’

  ‘There you go,’ Sam says softly. ‘He’s just trying to make a point. I bet he’s back by the end of next week.’

  Within minutes Martin texts me: JAKE ASKED IF U CD BRING HIS SKATEBOARD, CDS, ART STUFF, TOP TRUMPS & REST OF BOOKS WHEN U COME ON SUN, CHEERS M.

  Trial separation? Permanent dumpage more like.

  ‘Hey, Sam.’ I show him the text and he meets my gaze. He’s looking especially lovely tonight, honey-skinned after a day spent working in the garden.

  ‘It’s just a phase,’ he says firmly.

  I shake my head. ‘If anything, this is worse than Martin leaving. When that happened, I could direct all my anger on to him and Slapper, but with this …’ My eyes prickle. ‘There’s no one I can be angry with, Sam. I don’t know what the hell to do.’

  He smiles and puts his arms round me. My heart flits like a trapped bird. ‘Which stage is anger meant to be again?’ he asks softly.

  ‘Um, three, I think. I’ve forgotten. Think I screwed up the order a long time ago.’

  Sam laughs and pulls me close on the sofa. We sit like that, with my head resting against his chest, even though Harvey could wake up and wander downstairs and be really confused, with the impending nuptials and everything. Sam lightly kisses the top of my head, then gets up to pour wine and play a CD.

  I don’t ask about Amelia. Instead, I play a game with myself in which the wedding isn’t happening at all. He’s changed his mind. She’s changed her mind – got back with that boyfriend in Cornwall. She and Sam were being silly trying to turn back the clock.

  So I pretend, and it feels like we’re our old selves again. In fact, if it weren’t for the fact I’ll be picking up only Lola and Travis on Sunday, life would be pretty damn perfect.

  28

  All week I will myself not to miss Jake. This is tricky because I pass his bedroom about eight billion times a day, find his damp PJs festering in the washing machine and his favourite peach yoghurts in the fridge. I swear the yoghurts smirk at me. Neither Lola nor Travis will eat them, and I can’t face them, so they end up being tipped in the bin. The PJs, I re-wash and iron with a level of care and attention never before seen in our home.

  Plus, I still see him at school every morning. Martin drops him off on his way to the office. This results in him being late to work, but, hey, Superdad is prepared to make small sacrifices for the sake of our first-born.

  Every morning so far I’ve had my teeth jammed together during the walk to school and have been incapable of listening properly to Lola and Travis’s perpetual chat about how clever it is that oranges are in fact orange, and how dogs talk to each other in dog language, which we can’t understand. The school-bound world crackles around me, as if someone has tampered with my inner tuning dial.

  ‘Mummy, you’re not listening!’ Lola chastises me on Friday morning.

  ‘Sorry, sweetheart. We’d better hurry up or we’ll be late …’

  ‘I said, Bethany Holden fell in the playground and her eyes went funny with stars in.’

  ‘That only happens in cartoons, Lols. Real eyes can’t have stars in.’

  ‘They did! I saw.’ She allows her schoolbag to fall from her shoulder and drags it along the ground, narrowly missing a small mound of dog poo.

  ‘Pick up your bag, Lola. It’ll get filthy.’

  ‘Where’s Jake?’ Travis rumbles. ‘I want my brother Jake!’

  Every morning I’ve had this and I fear that my head will explode, splattering the school-gate crowd with juddering brain cells. I want it to stop, for everything to be normal again and not have to endure our two disparate groups (mine, Martin’s) stumbling together for a brief exchange at the railings.

  ‘You’ll see Jake at the school gate,’ I tell Travis, but now his brother’s forgotten and he’s more interested in snapping a branch off a tree.

  Today I spot Martin before he sees me. He still looks self-consciously new to this school-gate lark, in his charcoal work suit and polished black shoes. Jake lurks beside him, with his hair combed in a spooky way. There’s an attempt at a parting and perhaps the introduction of some kind of product. She must have done it. Martin would never acquaint himself with, with … What the fuck is it? Gel, or that serum stuff that looks like snot? Slapper had better not have come into contact with one follic
le on my darling son’s head.

  We have a brief chat about something nonsensical – the weather, thank God for British weather to talk about – while Bev and Marcia gawp openly from the gate. I want to grab Jake – to have him all to myself, if only for a few seconds – and ask, ‘So what did you watch on TV last night? Did you sleep OK under that horrible stiff duvet? Did you do your homework, and has anyone checked it? What did you have for breakfast? Have they bought Cheerios, or d’you have to make do with those nasty little square things that Poppy has?’

  Oh, and, ‘Do you miss me?’

  There’s no opportunity to do this. ‘Hi, Mum,’ Jake says flatly, briefly tweaking his weird hair.

  ‘Hello, darling, how’s things?’

  ‘All right.’ And that’s it. He’s gone, and Lola has scampered away with her schoolbag all grubby at the bottom, and Travis is crying hot tears because Daddy has hurried to his car, barely saying goodbye. That’s the extent of our 9 a.m. exchange. It’s not exactly what the magazines call ‘quality time’.

  I suppose I should be grateful, as at hometime I don’t get to see Jake at all. My only opportunity would be to drag one of the huge wheelie bins to the furthest window, clamber on to it and peer into the classroom that serves as the afterschool club. Which might not go down too well with the caretaker.

  When he lived at home – at his real home – Jake refused point-blank to attend the club. Anyone would have surmised that it’s run by members of a sinister sect who sacrifice kittens and force the children to eat stones. Now, it seems, it’s non-stop party time, as Jake goes there every day, seemingly without complaint. Some days Slapper picks him up. Mostly, though, it’s Martin. I stalked them a couple of days ago, an act which made me feel lowly and pathetic, but I couldn’t stop myself. No Most Controlled Being Award that day either.

  Travis was playing at his mate Eddie’s house, and I’d just dropped Lola at her gym class. I’d intended to spend the hour picking up some shopping and realised, as I was passing school, that afterschool club would be ending. I loitered behind a florist’s delivery van, pretending to admire the cornflowers in the shop window. I kept poking my head round the van and spotted parents and children emerging from school. Marcia and her daughter, Genevieve, came out, giggling together and swinging hands like the mother-daughter duos you see on perky TV shows. The kind that try on kooky hats together in department stores. Finally, Martin and Jake emerged, looking relaxed and happy – looking normal. Jake certainly didn’t look distressed or malnourished.

  Rather than heading along the street where I presumed Martin would have parked, they took a swift turn down the narrow alley that leads to the playing field. The way they did that, with no obvious discussion, made me realise that they’d done this lots of times before. The late-afternoon sun cast an amber glow, and Jake was doing a jolly kind of skip-walk. Martin had a football tucked under his arm.

  How very pleasing. How thoughtful-daddyish. A quick kick-around in the park on a summer afternoon before heading home to that Lego flat that looks like it would crumble to dust if you so much as farted in it. I wanted to stalk them to the playing field, and wished I had some kind of disguise – like a balaclava, or Lola’s Scooby Doo outfit. Their voices faded, and I skulked around the shops and picked up Lola from gym. I tried to chat happily as we walked home, but I couldn’t get Jake out of my head. If I learned to play football, would that bring him back? We’d go to the playing field every day. Football, pancakes – anything.

  So I stop buying peach yoghurts and I try not to miss Jake. Instead of phoning constantly, which I know he’d resent, I offload to R, who listens no matter what.

  Sometimes, though not always, that helps.

  ‘Guess what!’ Millie announces, like a child. ‘Our survey results are back and your page has come out as most popular. Way more than Harriet’s ever was. We need you to stand up and do a little talk.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I ask. ‘Stand up where?’

  ‘At a reader event we’re planning. Nothing too daunting. You’ll answer readers’ problems, just like you do in the magazine, so it’ll be no different really.’

  My heart lurches. It’s Monday morning. Having rejected his breakfast before we took Lola to school, Travis is now mashing his Shredded Wheat with such gusto that milk slops over the side of his dish.

  ‘Millie, of course it’s different,’ I protest. ‘I can’t see anyone when I’m working. It’s just me and the computer in our kitchen. I’m not being … looked at.’

  ‘Yeah, well …’

  ‘And I can’t answer questions on the hop. I need time to mull them over. It takes me ages, you know, to do your page.’

  Millie’s snigger rattles out of the phone. I grip the handset with my shoulder while wrestling Travis’s spoon from his grasp. In a small act of mutiny he dunks a fist into the gunk. Toddler behaviour that he should have outgrown a year ago. ‘Hello, readers, I am Caitlin Brown, Bambino’s, new agony aunt. You might think I can assist with your problems, but it’s quite clear that I know not a damn thing. My three-year-old son still tries to eat Shredded Wheat with his hands, squeezing it gently so the milk drips through his fingers, and my daughter remains firmly attached to the Scooby costume she’s had since she was four. As for my other son … well, he can’t even bear to live with me. So you can see that we are juggling a few “issues”.’

  ‘Surely you can predict the kind of stuff they’ll ask?’ Millie insists. ‘Don’t the problems follow certain themes?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ I admit.

  ‘And what are they?’

  ‘Relationship problems, mostly. Things not being the same since they had a child. Being knackered, snappy, irritable. Blaming each other for not helping enough. No sex. Having nothing to talk about apart from the kids. Being paranoid about a partner having affairs, then actually having affairs. Oh, and kids’ behavioural problems. I get lots of those: tantrums, sleep problems, faddy eaters, terrible manners.’ Travis sticks out his tongue. A tiny Shredded Wheat nest is perched on it.

  ‘See,’ Millie gloats, ‘you do know your stuff. Come on, we’re only talking a couple of hundred readers.’

  A couple of hundred? However you look at it, that’s a heck of a lot. It’s not a PTA fundraising meeting. Those 200 readers will know, at a glance, that it takes me hours to formulate my replies, that I mull them over on the walk home from school, in the bath, in bed – anytime I have a spare moment. It doesn’t come easily. I’m too anxious of getting it wrong, of fouling up someone’s life. Sometimes I even ask R for suggestions, which probably isn’t ethical – confidentiality and all that – but, hey, any port in a storm.

  ‘It’ll be great for your profile,’ Millie adds in a gentler tone.

  ‘I don’t want a profile!’

  She sighs dramatically. ‘I’ve already told the big cheeses that you’ll be there, OK? Please, Cait. It’ll be painless.’

  I watch bleakly as Travis picks up his bowl and slurps mush from its rim. ‘It won’t be a huge all-singing, all-dancing thing, will it?’

  She laughs throatily. ‘It’s just a tiny, miniscule, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it thing.’

  We finish the call, her almighty fib shimmering in the air.

  Hi, Cait,

  Been thinking about you and wondering how your second week’s going since Jake moved in with his dad. Did you see him at the weekend? Hope all went well.

  Love, R x

  Dear R,

  Thanks for asking. It wasn’t so bad, actually, though I’d been dreading it in case he’d reverted to his old, loving self (in which case I am clearly the problem) or, worse, I got the cold-shoulder treatment. In fact he was pretty … in-betweeny. Normal, I suppose.

  I took the three of them swimming to the new place with flumes. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure that Jake would want to come. But he did and I was ridiculously grateful – how tragic is that? He showed me the touch-turns that Martin’s taught him to do. Martin’s always been better with stuff l
ike that than I am. I consider it a major achievement just to get them all changed and in the water without losing anything.

  I realised, when Jake was queuing up for the flume that he’s changing – physically I mean. He’s no longer kid-shaped. He looked taller and has long, strong legs like his dad’s. I wondered if there’s been other stuff that I haven’t noticed. Surely a parent should be aware of everything that’s happening to their kids? I felt ashamed, R. As if he’s slipped from my grasp without me seeing it happening.

  Anyway, we had fun. Jake and I had a swimming race and he beat me hands down. We also went to the park and threw stale bread for the ducks, which I worried that Jake would find boring, but it seemed to be fine. He even reminded Travis to tear up the bread into tiny pieces for the smaller birds. It brought a lump to my throat, seeing them bread-ripping together, Jake being the kind big brother.

  I wanted to ask him so many questions, to interrogate him about how things are going and ask what the hell that gunk is that he puts in his hair now, but I remembered what you said and managed not to.

  As it turned out, I only had him for the day. Jake had made it clear that he didn’t want to stay overnight at our house, even though I’d cleaned his blasted room until it reeked of Mr Sheen Lemon Shine and developed RSI of the entire body from all the scrubbing. Anyway, your advice was really helpful and I think it made things more relaxed and natural between us. So a huge thank you.

  Love, Cait x

  And it’s true: I am grateful. R’s regular dispatches are forming a kind of operator’s manual for a ten-year-old boy. It doesn’t matter that Millie thinks I’m a crackpot for involving myself with him, or that I am the one who’s supposed to be au fait with this parenting lark.

  R is always there for me, at any time of day or night, and it feels as if he cares. Anyway, for the moment he is all I have.

  29

  ‘I’m coming to your Bambino thing,’ Rachel announces. ‘So are Bev, Marcia, Charlene … everyone, really. All the PTA lot and the gymnastics crowd. Paula tried to get a ticket, but it was sold out.’