by Kerrie Noor
Moving from my mother wasn’t easy—she liked us there. Her and George had an ongoing on/off sort of relationship.
To be honest, I was surprised there was ever any on; she was unbelievably hard to live with. Mum was uncompromising on all fronts, from breakfast to the remote; everything was a minefield with her.
“Don’t burn the toast.”
“You call this cooked?”
“Coffee, no sugar, just a hint of milk—no, not heated, warmed.”
George, a patient man with an excellent sense of humour, had a tendency to leave and not come back for days. He called it “downtime.” He had two set of toothbrushes, a selection of PJs—in fact, two of everything. However, Mum didn’t like being alone. She, for all her claims to “love” her independence, liked someone within yelling distance. She hated wheeling herself out of the house unaccompanied. She liked to know, as she put it, that if she overbalanced in her wheelchair, someone was just a shout away.
She had no truck with the so-called care in the community; as she said, “the council is full of tits and arseholes” (she always reverted to body parts when angry) and “I’m not spending an afternoon on the floor waiting for someone to answer my friggin’ buzzer.”
We looked at the blue line of the pregnancy-testing kit, still trying to take it in.
“Steven,” yelled Mum. “Don’t forget to take the bin out.”
“We really need to move,” he said.
Chapter Three
Mum
A hammer is only as good as its holder.
We had tried to move several times over the years, but something always got in the way, mainly Mum. Mum objected to all the houses we saw: she would wheel into our bedsit, spy the latest leaflet, and pooh-pooh it with as many reasons why not as she had stories.
Soon, what would be wrong with the next place became a joke between us . . . until I fell pregnant. Suddenly, there was little to laugh at.
George maintained that Mum meant well. My sister, however, saw it differently.
She laughed her head off. “You’ll need to give up the booze,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes.
Like I drank every day . . .
Then she stopped mid-chuckle and looked from me to Steven with a you poor cow look.
“What about Mum—have you told her?” said Lindsey.
Steven sighed. “I think she suspects.”
“What?” I said.
He looked at me. “Every time she’s here, you’re throwing up.”
“Nothing new there,” muttered Lindsey.
“I haven’t had a hangover in ages,” I snapped.
“And,” said Steven, “she’s obsessed with your perineum.”
Lindsey pulled a face. “Typical . . . has she brought you rich tea biscuits yet?”
Steven looked at me with a has she? look.
“Well, yes,” I muttered.
“Bugger,” muttered Lindsey, “it’s worse than I thought. She’ll want to help next.”
“You are joking,” said Steven. “Beatrice helping?”
“You have no idea what is coming,” said Lindsey. “The depths of Mother’s seduction.”
I almost laughed. Mum, seducing?
Lindsey threw me a not kidding look. “One whiff of baby powder and Mum is unstoppable.” She turned to Steven. “She’s like a drug addict—she can’t get enough of a baby.”
“I find that hard to believe,” said Steven. “Your mother hates kids. According to her, our moving out of the garage is the event of the century.”
Lindsey sniffed. “Mere empty words. Mum’s as cryptic as a Guardian crossword; she has more double meanings than a Shakespearean play.”
“Aren’t we being a tad dramatic?” said Steven.
“Dramatic,” said Lindsey with a look of impeding plague. “You’re like lambs to the slaughter.”
Distant memories of when Lindsey was a new mother came flooding back. Within a week of her son being born, Mum had pushed my sister to the brink. Lindsey started phoning me with threats of “wrist-slitting” and “no longer being responsible for my actions.”
And Lindsey hated the sight of blood . . .
In the end, my sister survived by moving away and paying a cleaner/babysitter who, to quote both the cleaner and Lindsey, not only knew “all about babies” but gave Mum “a run for her money.”
“She’ll tempt you, but don’t be fooled. And don’t let her talk you out of moving.” Lindsey grabbed my arm. “Promise me.”
I tentatively withdrew my arm. “You make motherhood sound like an execution. Do you have to be so brutal?”
“Brutal doesn’t even begin to describe motherhood and babies. Tell me you’re moving.”
“Definitely,” muttered Steven.
After Lindsey left, making us promise to “get out while you can,” Mum called me over.
I walked in on Mum mid–coffee plunging, humming like a half-cut hairdresser. She gleefully offered cream; I started to feel nervous. She never offered me cream, stating that it was the last thing my hips needed.
I pulled up a seat in the kitchen, catching sight of three books on the table: Chicken Soup for Grandmothers, Natural Childbirth—God’s Greatest Gift, and There Is More to Babies Than Nappies.
She offered me one of my favourite chocolate biscuits. “Help yourself,” she said with what I presumed was her seductive look. “Keep your strength up.”
I eyed her offerings.
She nudged the biscuits towards me.
“So what’s your sister saying then?”
I pushed the packet back towards her.
“She had morning sickness too, you know,” said Mum.
“Everyone knows about rich tea biscuits,” I said.
“Well, you didn’t,” said Mum.
“Yes I did, I was just being polite,” I said.
Mum nudged the biscuit nearer with an it’s chocolate, your favourite look. “You have no idea of what you are letting yourself into,” she said.
“I think I do.”
“You can’t have enough help when you have a baby, and unlike Lindsey, you can’t afford help,” said Mum.
A sinking feeling hit me like heartburn . . .
“I’ve got Steven,” I said.
“Pfff, he’s just the dad,” laughed Mum.
“What do you mean, just the dad? The dad is vital, and he intends on being as vital as they come. Every night he talks to my stomach.”
“Stomach? What about the nappies?” she said. “Your father was useless.”
“They’re disposable now, as easy to slip on as a sock,” I said. “And besides, Steven’s different.”
“Sensitive, you mean.”
“Sensitive is not a dirty word,” I said.
“Aye, but where is sensitivity when you’re both needing a break?” said Mum. She pulled out another packet of rich tea biscuits and gave me a Mum knows best look.
“I’m not feeling sick at the moment,” I muttered.
“Like I said, you can’t have enough help,” said Mum. “I mean, if it hadn’t been for me, where would Lindsey be? She forgets.”
“I don’t think so,” I muttered. “Besides, Steven has arranged for Helen to come and help.”
“I’m talking of the wee one.” She looked at me. “This Helen may be a dab hand at silicone and tiling, but she’ll not be much help with a baby.”
Helen, a quiet woman who liked smashing things with a hammer, was Steven’s sister. And it was Steven’s idea for her to help me install a kitchen—a kitchen which, to quote Beatrice, was “perfectly good as it was.”
I filled up my coffee and braced myself for some drama as I told Mum that we were planning on moving and getting something bigger, “at least with more than one room.”
She stopped in her tracks. “You in a house?”
“What’s so weird about that?” I said.
She looked at me with concern. “Cleaning a house is not for everyone, and moving?” She pulled a face. “Ver
y stressful—are you sure you are up for it with all this morning sickness?”
“We live in a bedsit the size of a tent,” I said. “We need more room.”
Mum slid a chocolate biscuit between her lips, spotting George as he entered. She nodded. “I understand.”
“What?” I choked on my coffee.
“And I can help.” She paused, catching a look from George. “With the move, that is.”
I looked at her. Did she mean it, or was she joking? I hadn’t a clue, and I was so confused I dunked a tea biscuit in my mother’s coffee. Her lips tilted into a smile.
Chapter Four
Henry
It takes two years and a TV remote to know the dark side of a partner.
Helen was a woman people didn’t notice much, except for Steven. He cared about his sister.
“All’s she needs is liberation from that dick of a husband,” he used to say, and when I met her husband, I understood why.
Helen was still married to Henry when I first met her. We were sitting in their lounge room a week after our wedding, holding hands as Henry lit the fire. Henry was fresh from the pub and smelt of whisky, while Helen was in the kitchen doing something, according to Henry, “stupid with lentils.”
At the time I didn’t take any notice of her or her lentils. I was loved up and just wanted the visit to end. Henry was not an easy man to be around. He filled the room with his presence, demanding attention, and I got enough of that from my Mum.
He, like me, worked with his hands; he was a builder who looked at my DIY business as a wee project, a sideline. The last thing you need when you’re starting out, especially when your husband buggers off to help his sister with her lentils.
“Any time you need help with your wee project, just let me know,” he said, sucking on a roll-up. “Helen don’t mind me helping.”
Wee project? I wanted to slap his whiskery chin.
“Built this house, you know, when she”—Henry tilted his head to the kitchen—“fell pregnant.”
He lit the fire, poured himself a whisky, then, with a sip, stared at the flames.
I lingered over my wine. As Henry talked of how he converted the stone byre, in a home.
I could hear Steven and Helen talking cookery, joking.
He looked at me with an “it’s all her fault” nod at the kitchen. “Spent my savings on this place. Not that I had much back then, just starting out like you—then she gets pregnant . . .”
Helen’s laughter filtered from the kitchen.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’d love a tribe of kids, a houseful”—he shrugged—“but she can’t even cope with one.” He shrugged again. “What can you do?”
I didn’t know what to say. I mean, I hardly knew the guy, and there he was spilling his guts like a soap opera.
Henry crunched his roll-up between his fingers, tossed it at the fire, and emptied his glass.
“How’s that soup coming along, luv?” he shouted. He smiled at me again like a schoolboy. “Hope you’re not hungry. She takes ages.”
He filled his glass and sipped it like it was the best whisky ever.
“And it’s always tasteless. She means well, but Jesus . . .” He shrugged, this time with an excellent poor me look. “What can you do?”
He tapped my hand. “But mind, if you need any help . . . don’t worry about Helen.”
I looked around at the stone walls, dusty, unfinished, littered with roll-up cigarette stubs like a gigantic ashtray, the second-hand furniture that deserved burning, and a pile of tools neatly stacked in the corner.
It was hardly home, it was more a DIY shed.
Really?
He drained his glass like it was tea going cold, then began to tell me what it was like to have a “village idiot of a wife.”
“Hormones,” he said, “hers are fucked.”
I said nothing.
“And I have to deal with everything—even the talk.”
“Talk?” I said.
“You know, the talk,” he said.
I looked at him.
“With the daughter,” he said, like that made it clear.
Helen popped her head around the corner with a what’s he saying now? look. She was like a female Steven: blonde wavy hair and so slight that one sneeze would blow her away. Fragile maybe, but not an idiot; in fact, as I was to discover, she had more layers than a puff pastry.
She smiled a Steven smile at me. “Don’t take any notice, he always talks too much after the pub.”
Henry threw her a “shut it” look.
“Soup’s ready,” shouted Steven.
I thought the soup was all right—not as great as Steven’s enthusiastic, lip-smacking “terrific,” but not as bad as the “dishwater” Henry had made it out to be and certainly better than mine. Henry, however, spent the whole meal pulling I told you it was shit faces at me like the others weren’t there; then, when finished, he wiped the bowl clean with his bread and, with a smile at Helen, said, “The best soup ever,” followed by a wink at me.
“Remember, anytime you need help.” He smacked his lips.
“Help?” said Helen.
She looked at me. “Help?”
She turned to him.
He shrugged his shoulders. “You got a roof over your head.”
“But what about all the other stuff?” She sighed. “All those promises of sorting things later.”
She cleared the plates, headed into the kitchen, and began to crash about.
Steven followed.
“I’ve got to make money, luv,” shouted Henry. “Can’t afford to turn down work.”
On the way home, I called Henry a prick.
Steven sighed.
“That was the afternoon from hell,” I said. “That house is freezing—it’s like a shed. Do you know she has no wardrobe? And what with the stone walls, can’t he use an ashtray like everyone else?”
“It’s been like that since Helen moved in,” said Steven.
“Even the cigarette stubs.”
“She hoovers them.”
“She should get him to pick ’em up with his tongue.”
I pulled into our drive and wrenched the brake on.
“God, I hate him,” muttered Steven. “He talks about her like she’s a dill, a huge burden that only he could deal with.”
I touched Steven’s knee. “Promise me you’ll never start winking,” I said.
He laughed.
In the end, Helen left. She moved into a caravan and even came to one of Nefertiti’s belly dancing classes. Some folk were taken aback; they never thought Helen had it in her. Others, like Steven, were relieved.
Henry blamed the menopause and carried on as normal.
“She’ll soon come back,” Henry told everyone, until she, ignoring all his calls, found a job in a garage and built a porch onto her caravan. Then he began to complain of a broken heart.
“It was the flat tyre that did it,” she said. “It changed everything.”
We were sitting in the Argyll at the time. I, newly pregnant, was drinking sparkling water, and Mum was on her last mouthful of wine. She stopped. “Flat tyre?”
Helen told us how Henry and she had been heading home after helping Amy move to college when her tyre exploded.
“Henry was further on,” she said, “his four-wheel drive being way faster than my clapped-out mini. He was in a race to get back for some meeting.”
“Meeting on a Saturday?” muttered Mum.
“He went mental,” said Helen. “‘Of all the places to get a flat, you had to choose here,’” he said. “Like I had exploded the tyre myself. Like I had personally jumped out of the car and blasted it with a couple of hand grenades. He tore into me about how useless I was— ‘what’s the point of having a friggin’ jack in your boot if you’re not going to use it?’—he shouted . . . until someone stopped to help. Then he was nice . . .”
Mum touched her hand.
“. . . friggin’ nice.”
“J
esus,” muttered Mum.
“The funny thing is,” said Helen, “he had told me not to use it. He said if I ever got a flat to call him, as the friggin’ jack was a bastard to use, and unless I knew where to put it I’d fuck the car.”
Helen sighed.
“It was a lightbulb moment. If I could learn to change my own tyre, then, well . . . what was the point of Henry?”
Chapter Five
The Hospital
The mothering instincts are not always immediate.
The day after my daughter was born, I woke to the sound of a clattering trolley, hoovering under the bed, and a crying baby. I eased myself up and stared at the row of babies in the corridor lined up in Perspex bassinets.
“Is that mine crying?” I muttered.
The young mother across from me looked up from her phone. “Nah, the nurse will soon let you know.”
I flopped back onto my pillow with a sigh. God, I ached. I thought about the toilet and gingerly shifted . . .
I had wanted Steven’s baby from the first moment I woke to his sweet face . . . I just assumed that ten years of belly dancing would make the whole thing as easy as slipping off a sock.
Easy—it took hours.
My muscles felt like they had been stretched to the limit, and they were throbbing rather than “bouncing back,” as Neff claimed.
Ten fucking years of dancing . . .
Nobody told me things could be so painful. My bits hurt like fuck, and the thought of going to the toilet scared the hell out of me.
“I feel like there is a hedgehog between my legs,” I said.
The young mother made to laugh, then clutched her stomach in pain. She had yelled so much during her labour her voice was hoarse. In the end, she had had a caesarean.
“I mean, is it all going to drop when I go to the loo?” I said.
A nurse appeared with a cup of pills. She told me not to be so stupid, then handed the young mother her tablets with a “here.”