Bad Mothers United (4 page)
Read Bad Mothers United Online
Authors: Kate Long
As soon as Steve left I got the mobile back out and began to fiddle. After all, if Charlotte was in bother, I might be able to help her. In fact, the more I thought about it,
the more I decided I had a right to know. Where was
Contacts
on this phone? Where was
Call Log
? Why did they have to make every model different? Mine was a Nokia too, but nearly
twice the size. Fiddly bloody buttons, teeny screen. Right,
Messages
, that would do. You see, if my daughter
talked
to me, if she was more open, I wouldn’t be forced to
snoop around like this.
The last text she’d received was from me, asking why she hadn’t got her phone switched on. Message two was from Daniel: Abidec Toddler Vitamin Drops, his father recommended. Well,
his dad was a doctor, he’d know. Another message from Daniel: running a half-hour late because his mother had banged her head. From Daniel again:
Big kiss for
Will. Bigger kiss
for you.
Such a lovely boy.
Raft of messages from before Christmas, mainly indecipherable rubbish from her flatmates, Gemma and Roz. None of them seemed to be able to spell, for all they were at university. Also, how many
hours a day did Charlotte waste answering these nuggets of gibberish when she should’ve had her head down, working? That wasn’t what we got her the phone for. God, if she veered
off-track now, in her second year, after all that effort, I’d never forgive her—
Wait, what was this one now:
Soz abt lst nt. Cn stll b frnds?
My heart speeded up and I scrolled down quickly to see the name at the bottom:
W
, it was signed. Dated a week
before she came home.
I could guess who W was: Walsh, or Walshy, or Walshman, she called him, the other member of the house. Not Roz’s boyfriend, because he was called Gareth Thomas, like the rugby player.
Walsh was Charlotte’s landlord, if you please.
I’d said over the summer, ‘One man sharing with three girls? What’s going on there?’ And she said it was his house and he could let it to whoever he liked. And I said I
didn’t like the sound of that either. What was a lad of twenty doing owning property? What would happen if any of them couldn’t pay their rent – what would he ask for in lieu? And
she said I had a nasty mind and that he was nice and a mate of Gemma’s. ‘You don’t know what it’s like to share a house. It’s a different relationship with
flatmates,’ she’d said.
You know nothing, Mother
, is what she meant
.
I knew enough to count one man and three girls.
I read the text again.
Soz
, was he? For what, exactly? I navigated back to
Sent Messages
to see if she’d replied, but there was nothing. No, well. I may not be on top of
my Text Speak, but I’m not a fool. I get what sorry about last night means when it comes from a lad. And it proves I was right to check her phone. Call it mother’s instinct: I
knew
she was unsettled. I pick it up like a radio signal.
So now there’s Daniel, our smashing Daniel, a GP’s son, always available, always accommodating. Wonderful with Will, super-polite with me, comes into the house like a ray of
sunshine. I’ve told him he needs to stand up for himself more, but he’s not made that way. Love seems to have filleted him.
Then there’s this Walshy, wide boy, stirrer. Once went to a lecture so hungover he fell down the theatre steps, apparently. Famous for catching a seagull under a towel and letting it loose
in Woolworths. He’s a show-off and a twit, the last kind of male I want anywhere near our Charlotte. I bet his dad’s not a doctor, either.
Always there’s this destructive streak in her, always she manages to scupper her own chances. Where in God’s name does she get it from?
NAN: What have you got there, Karen?
KAREN: Hang on a minute, Mum. Is it working? How can you tell it’s working?
CHARLOTTE: There’s a red light.
KAREN: Oh, I see. Right. And it’s this button to pause, is it? Which one do you press to play back?
CHARLOTTE: Did you hear about the businessman who asked his boss if he could use his dictaphone? And his boss said, ‘No, you can use your finger like everyone
else.’
KAREN: You’re not helping, Charlotte.
NAN: Is it a cigarette-lighter?
KAREN: Ah, right, I see now. I get it. You hold both buttons down at the same time. OK, Nan, we’re ready to go. This is a tape recorder, only it’s a lot smaller
than the one we had before. I’ll pop it here on the chair arm, OK? And then you just forget about it. And we’ll carry on chatting, yes? About the family, the past, whatever you
remember.
CHARLOTTE: Can
I
ask Nan something?
KAREN: No one’s stopping you.
CHARLOTTE: OK, Nan? Nan? Can you tell us about how you met Granddad?
NAN: Oh, well. Your granddad. Aye. Well, I were carrying a basket o’ washing back to t’doctor’s – my mother did his laundry for him – and it were
blowing about and I were worried it’d end up on t’ground and get mucky – because it were all day of a job, washing then, and hard work – and Bill come over, crossed
t’street and laid his coat on top. Then he took a handle and walked alongside me. It were a lot easier to carry wi’ two.
CHARLOTTE: Aw, that’s lovely. And what happened then? Did he ask you out? Did he kiss you?
NAN: He went off to t’convalescent home in Blackpool. He had TB. I didn’t see him for months.
CHARLOTTE: Oh no! How awful. Could you not go up and visit him on the train?
NAN: (laughs) I were only nineteen, I’d never been further than Harrop. We hadn’t the money to be getting on trains.
KAREN: No, and you couldn’t even speak to him because you had no telephone in those days.
NAN: Aye, so he met this girl there—
KAREN: Alice Fitton.
NAN: That were her name, a bonny woman. Older than him. From up Chorley way – her father ran an ironmonger’s.
KAREN: And you were working at the mill.
NAN: At Jarrod’s, aye.
KAREN: And then what happened? She had an accident, this Alice Fitton, didn’t she?
(NAN laughs guiltily.)
KAREN: What happened, Mum?
NAN: It were a shame. She’d come t’have her tea with Bill’s mother – now she was a fierce woman, old Mrs Hesketh. Very religious, wouldn’t even
knit on a Sunday. Did I ever tell you about her?
CHARLOTTE: What happened to Alice, Nan?
(NAN laughs again.)
KAREN: Didn’t she come a-cropper by the butcher’s?
NAN: Aye, well, what happened was, she were walking past t’shop door and t’butcher threw a pail o’ swill all over her legs.
KAREN: That’s the water they use for wiping down the surfaces at the end of the day, Charlotte. Water with blood and scraps of meat in it, basically.
CHARLOTTE: I know.
NAN: All up her dress, it went, over her stockings and shoes. So when she got to Bill’s house—
KAREN: I don’t suppose his mother was very impressed when she turned up in that state.
CHARLOTTE: Oh my God. Bet she stank!
NAN: It were a shame, aye.
CHARLOTTE: So why are you smiling?
(NAN laughs.)
KAREN: And it finished? They had a row and she broke off the engagement?
NAN: Aye.
KAREN: So you and Granddad started courting.
NAN: We did.
KAREN: And he was cured of TB by then?
NAN: Well, he allus had a weak chest. That’s what killed him in t’finish, his lungs.
KAREN: But he played the tenor horn in the pit band.
NAN: Oh aye. For a bit. He’d a beautiful tone.
KAREN: And you were married how long?
NAN: Forty years. He died in seventy-nine.
CHARLOTTE: That’s amazing. So how did you know he was The One?
(NAN laughs.)
CHARLOTTE: Seriously, Nan, how did you know you wanted to marry him? What made you wait?
KAREN: Don’t pester her if she doesn’t want to answer.
CHARLOTTE: I just wanted to know.
(Sound of knocking on the door.)
CARE ASSISTANT: Mrs Hesketh, it’s time for your – oh, I didn’t realise you had visitors. Can I just get these tablets down her? Is that OK? Won’t be a
tick.
KAREN: It’s all right. We were only really experimenting today.
CHARLOTTE: Shall I switch the tape off?
KAREN: No, I’m nearest. I’ll get it.
CHARLOTTE: Oh, have you brought that photo of Will, Mum, or did we leave it on the—’
CHAPTER 2
Yorkshire sun streamed through the window of my student room, making even the shabby wallpaper look cheerful. Nan’s kittens-in-a-basket picture, which I’d hung
over my desk next to a sheet of Will’s mad daubs, was positively illuminated. Shards of light from my hanging crystal crossed and re-crossed the duvet, my planner, my waiting backpack.
Thank God the night was over. The dark hours.
And I was getting ready to see Martin again. Not that I was due for a tutorial, but I wanted to ask about extending my reading and also for some thoughts on the next essay title. I doubted he
had any idea what a treat it was for me to sit in his office, inhaling the wood polish and admiring the shelves of books. He’d pour me a cup of real coffee which I thought tasted disgusting
but drank anyway so as not to appear common. He might ask – I hoped he would – how things were going, four weeks into the new term. Then I could tell him about the Will-dreams: how
quashing thoughts of my son during the daytime only made them resurface later, in super-horrible form. Because in these dreams I’m never doing any normal activity with Will. No squirting
woodlice off the entry wall, or building towers of custard creams. No making hedgehogs out of mashed potato. Instead it’s always some really sinister, upsetting scenario such as last
night’s special, which was that Will was trapped on a rollercoaster on his own and the man who owned it wouldn’t pull the lever to make it stop. And it was
Mum’s
fault
– that’s right, now the detail was coming back to me – Mum had paid for him to go on the ride even though the rules were that you had to be over six and accompanied by a parent,
but she’d stuck him in a seat, pulled down the bar and then buggered off to buy some Vim. And I had to fill in some kind of special form before the man would let Will off. I can’t
remember what happened next, just it was the morning and I was awake.
Martin, I knew, would listen to these ramblings and be sensible and kind. He understood about being apart from your child because his wife had left him last year and taken his nine-year-old
daughter with her. He had a picture on his desk (of the girl, not the mother) and in the past I’d pretended to admire it and said how sad it was when families broke up. I’d told him
about Dad living at the other end of the village, and how Mum and I had managed to muddle along without him OK. For Martin’s sake I’d stressed how, although things were sometimes
tricky, e.g. with money, I hadn’t been in any way
damaged
by growing up in a dad-free home. I didn’t really feel I’d missed out in any way. Dad was only at the end of
the village if I wanted him. And I think Martin appreciated my telling him that. He wasn’t just a brilliant tutor, we really talked to each other, adult to adult.
Which was important because, although the student house was fun, there wasn’t a right lot of serious discussion went on. Roz was good for a chat but she could be a bit silly, especially
with a drink inside her. Her parents were Methodists and very strict; Lord knows what they’d have thought if they could have seen her on a Saturday night outside the union, so wrecked she
had to lean against a wall to keep from falling over.
Gemma was cooler. Her mum was French, which gave her an edge straight away. She was smarter at handling the booze, she went out most nights and she dressed sharper than me and Roz. She spoke
less, was more reserved. It had been a surprise when she and Walshy got together. ‘Chalk and cheese,’ said Roz to me privately. ‘I just don’t get it.’ I’d
said, ‘I suppose they’re both nice-looking.’ And Roz had rolled her eyes as if to suggest she was glad
she
wasn’t afflicted by physical beauty. She said,
‘It won’t last. He collects women.’ She didn’t seem to notice how quiet I went after that.
So there was another reason for getting out of the house this morning. I knew the girls were at lectures, and it made me twitchy when it was just him and me on our own.
I reached for my backpack, squinting against the sunlight, and unhooked my jacket from the chair. But as I did so, one of the shoulders caught and the chair toppled over with a massive crash.
‘Fuck,’ I said.
‘Chaz? Is that you?’
Too late, he’d heard me. ‘Yeah. I’m going out.’
‘Just come and have a look at this.’
‘I’m in a hurry,’ I lied.
‘Won’t take a minute. You’ll be impressed.’
I drew in a long breath and stepped out onto the landing. From there, a sharp chemical smell hit me. ‘Jesus, Walshy. What the hell?’
‘Come and see.’
The door of his room was wide open. I looked in and saw that he was kneeling by the open window, painting the sill a violent acid green.
‘God’s sake,’ I said, stepping through the door. ‘What have you been doing?’
‘Shaving a poodle.’
‘Oh, you’re killing me.’
He was wearing his University of Central Yorkshire T-shirt with its
You See Why (UCY)
slogan. We’d all bought one during Fresher’s Week, before we realised they were
naffer than naff and only fit for covering your nakedness when everything else was in the wash.
I said, ‘If you carry on with that, you won’t get your deposit back.’
‘Yeah, that landlord, he’s a bastard.’
‘Seriously, though, what? That colour’s vandalism in a tin. What’s it called? Burnt Retina?’
‘This is home improvement, this is.’ He propped the brush across the pot and stood up to survey his progress. ‘The paint was all flaking off before.’
‘Did you strip the wood before you started? Or even sand it? Tell me you at least wiped the dead flies away.’
He flashed a roguish smile. ‘It’s created a nice textured effect.’
I watched him overload the brush, gloop paint in a pool onto the windowsill, then try and persuade it evenly over the lumps and ridges. In places it was so thick I knew it would take weeks to
harden. Bristles were detaching themselves at every stroke. At least he’d thought to rest the pot on a magazine.
I sat down on the end of the bed. ‘You know, if you’d been after some home improvement, you could simply have cleared the floor.’
Next to the rucked-up duvet a drawer of socks lay tipped on its side. There was a scattering of pens over the carpet as if someone had emptied them there deliberately. A beanie hat was lodged
across his bedside lampshade. Unpaired footwear lay distributed at odd intervals, like a children’s picture puzzle:
How many trainers can you spot hidden around the room?
The more
I looked, in fact, the more I could see out of place. There were bright squares in the dust on top of the table where objects had been recently removed, a desk tidy slung underneath a chair,
empty hooks on the wall. ‘It’s a bit chaotic today, even by your standards. Has Gemma been having a clear-out?’
‘You could say that.’
‘Meaning?’
‘She’s moved back to her old room. We’ve broken up.’
I stared at him. ‘No. When? Why?’
‘Last night. Late, late last night. Morning.’
‘My God.’
‘Don’t look so worried, Chaz.’
‘It wasn’t—’
‘—anything to do with you. Or me, actually.’
‘You sure?’
‘Uh huh.’ He glanced up. ‘She reckons she’s gay.’
‘Eh?’
‘Woke up one morning, found she was a dyke.’
‘Don’t use that word. It’s horrible.’
‘She used it herself.’
My head was reeling. ‘Is this a wind-up, Walshy? Because if it is, it’s in really poor taste.’
All the time he never stopped his painting, the brush sweeping backwards and forwards through the ugly-bright mess. ‘Go ask her. If it
is
a wind-up, it’s hers.’
I thought, No, even you wouldn’t set up a joke like that. He must be telling the truth. ‘Blimey. So is there someone else? A girl, I mean.’
‘Dunno. There’s no need to get stressed over it, though. Me and her, we’re not going to turn into the housemates from hell, throwing plates and screaming down the stairs at
each other. We’ll just go back to how we were when she first moved in – you know, friends. It was probably time we wound it up anyway.’
‘And have I to tell Roz?’
‘’S’up to you. Fuck, I’ve dripped on the curtain. Pass us that towel, will you?’ He frowned at the curtain hem, spat on it, then scrubbed vigorously. ‘I
suppose you’ll be saying I should have taken these down before I started.’
‘It makes no odds now. You need proper paint-remover on that. Have you any white spirit?’
‘Is that like absinthe?’
‘No.’
‘Oh. Can we not just stick it in the washing-machine?’
‘I wouldn’t have thought so. It’s gloss you’re using, isn’t it? Not emulsion.’
‘Search me. I asked for a tin of paint, that’s all I know. The guy in the shop never said.’
I went over to his desk and grabbed the chair, dragged it across to the window.
‘What you doing, Chaz?’
‘Saving your curtains.’ I stepped carefully up till my head was level with the rail. ‘If Gemma or Roz have any nail-varnish remover, we might be OK. So long as we act
fast.’
‘Not Roz. She bites her nails to stumps.’
‘Gemma, then. Look, can you at least take hold of the hem end for me, stop it falling in the paint?’
One by one the plastic hooks clicked off neatly under my fingers. When I glanced down, however, I saw that in stretching across, he’d managed somehow to press the other curtain up
against the wet paint. ‘Ah,’ he said when I pointed.
‘It’s on your jeans too. Stay where you are and I’ll unclip that side while I’m up here.’ My arms were aching and I was desperate not to mark my own clothes.
‘Just watch you don’t knock that tin. Oh, shit. Too late. Right, stand still and
don’t
step off that magazine. Don’t! Yes, it’s on your shoe as well. But if
you stay on the paper you’ll save the carpet.’
He stood quietly with his head bowed while I finished and climbed down. The curtains I balled up, paint smudges tucked away inside, and thrust against his chest. Then I knelt, the way I do to
help Will with his shoes, and eased Walshy’s feet out of his trainers; guided him off the island of magazines and made him sit on the bed and remove his T-shirt. ‘You’ll need to
take your jeans off too. We’ll stick them all in a hot wash together after we’ve had a go with the varnish remover. No promises, but it’s worth a try.’
I could feel his eyes on me throughout. Eventually he said, ‘You always know how to fix everything. You’re like our mum, the House Mum.’
His pale bare shoulders gleamed under the electric light.
‘Get stripped,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you down in the kitchen.’