The Bad Mother's Handbook (14 page)

And I put my arm round her. ‘You’ll be awreet. Me an’ Bill’ll
look after you,’ I said.

*

Mum had said
to take the washing in if it started to rain
and I wouldn’t normally have bothered, but my best
jeans were out on the line. So when Ivy shouted up
that it was snowing I crawled out from under the duvet
and thumped downstairs. I’d forgotten about the toaster
on the doorstep and, in my haste to get at the jeans, accidentally
booted it, sending it skidding across the flags.
Crumbs and what looked like bits of singed paper sprayed
out of the slot. I ran across the lawn, tugged at the clothes
in turn till they pinged off the washing line, pegs left
swinging on the blue nylon rope or catapulted onto the
lawn, I didn’t care, then laid the bundle over my arm and
scooted back to the house. It was bitterly cold. On the
way I scooped up the toaster, American-football style, and
carried it under the other arm. I slammed the back door
behind me and dumped everything in a heap on the floor.

‘Nan says you’re getting a Range Rover,’ Ivy called
from the lounge.

‘Yeah, right,’ I shouted back. Total bloody nut-house.
I started to examine the toaster.

Dear Mrs
charred bit

Imagine what you could do with a loan for
£
10,000! A new charred bit perhaps,
charred bit
charred bit
or maybe the holiday you’ve been
promising yourself.

I extracted the rest of the letter and flipped open the pedal bin where it could go with all the other loan offers
we’d had that week. Even Nan gets them. God knows
what she’d spend
£
10,000 on. Pontefract cakes, maybe,
except she’s not allowed them because they play havoc
with what’s left of her bowels. Then I turned the toaster
upside down and gave it a good shake. More flakes came
out, devil’s confetti, but there was something still wedged
inside. I brought it over to the window and picked a
table knife up off the draining board. I could definitely
see folded paper when I tilted the slot towards the light.
I fished around, got the blade underneath and eased the
thing out.

‘What’s so funny?’ asked Ivy from the doorway. She
moved over to the pile of clothes and automatically began
to pick them up one by one, smooth them out and stack
them neatly on top of the fridge. ‘Something’s tickled
you.’

‘It’d take too long to explain,’ I said, unfolding the
ruined Keats essay and watching as it disintegrated in my
hands. My shoulders shook uncontrollably and tears of
laughter started to run down my face.

‘Eeh, I like to hear her laugh,’ called Nan. ‘She’s a
bonny laugh but we never hear it these days.’

‘Well, she’s certainly laughing now,’ commented Ivy as
I lay down on the tiles, helpless, and put the essay over my
face.

*

SHE WENT down to London first, the story was she was going
to try for an actress, and I handed my notice in two weeks later.
We’d found her a place at a Mother and Baby Home run by a charity, although they wouldn’t tek her till she were six months.
So we stayed down t’ road wi’ Bill’s sister Annie in Finchley;
she’d been widowed two years before, and she was glad o’ t’
company. She had a funny daughter, Theresa, face like a line of
wet washin’. Now she must have been about sixteen too but
very backward, and she kept asking why Jessie was so fat. I
heard Annie telling her afterwards it was because Jessie had
been a Bad Girl, and to watch herself or she’d end up t’ same
way. Except I don’t think any man ever went near her, she were
so sour.

Hope Lodge, they called the home. I’d heard about it
through the Mothers’ Union: never dreamt I’d ever have anything
to do wi’ it. It weren’t a nice place, though. Big Victorian
brick house, slippery floors, long dark corridors. I can smell the
disinfectant now. They had their own rooms, the girls, but that
made it worse apparently. You could hear ’em cryin’ at night,
Jessie said, behind the doors. She’d not been there above a fortnight
when she announced, ‘I’m not stoppin’ here, Nance. Let
me come back to Annie’s wi’ you. It’s awful. We’re not allowed
to use t’ front door, did you know? And they make you go to
church on Sundays but you have to stand at t’ back so none o’ t’
congregation can see you.’ I talked her round. I said, ‘You have
to stay where there’s nurses and doctors. They have to keep a
special eye on such as you, with you being so young. You’ll get
t’ best care here, love. I’ll come every day, look after you.’ I were
terrified she’d change her mind, if you want to know. Or disappear,
or do herself a mischief. I knew she hadn’t thought it
through.

When she went into labour, five weeks early, it was at
night and I didn’t know. It was quick, too, just over four hours.
The nurses said she was mustard. ‘I’ve never known such a foul-mouthed creature,’ one of them told me, ‘and we hear
some things within these four walls, I can tell you.’ She said
they were cruel, wouldn’t give her anything for the pain. ‘It was
unbelievable. I’m NEVER goin’ through that again, I’ll tell you
that for nowt. An’ the doctor, he came in near th’ end and never
spoke a word, not one word. I hope he rots in hell, I hope they
all do.’

I couldn’t think of anything except that baby. ‘Do you still
want me to take her?’ I asked. My heart was in my mouth. ‘Oh,
yes,’ she says straight away, ‘you can have her. I don’t want
her.’ And I went hot and cold all over.

Bill came down to bring me home, stayed a week, and when
I got back everyone was agog. He’d put it about that I’d been
nursing a sick relative. So then I told them that had been a white
lie because, although I was thrilled to be expecting finally, I was
worried it might go wrong, what with my age. I don’t know
if they believed me or not. It didn’t matter. No one ever really
asked, whatever they thought in private. A nine-day wonder,
that’s all it was. And that first Sunday they said prayers at
church for me and t’ little one, and I didn’t feel a bit guilty. ‘It’s
our secret,’ I told the Lord. ‘I won’t say owt if you don’t.’

*

We have no radiators
in our house, of course, nothing
so useful, so I had my jeans laid out on the bed with a
hair-dryer nozzle up one leg. Downstairs the front door
banged and I heard Ivy’s voice, then Mum’s (sounding
strangely muffled). I transferred the nozzle to the other leg
and thought about meeting up with Daniel, that it wasn’t
going to be the ordeal I’d first thought: I could almost say
I liked him. Not
that
way, of course, he was too fucking weird. Funny, though. He seemed to understand me more
than anyone else at school. Maybe I was the weirdo.

I switched off the hairdryer, and in the sudden silence
heard Mum’s bedroom door click shut. Ivy shouted up,
‘I’ll bring you some Milk of Magnesia in a sec, love, you
get your head down for half an hour. I’ll just hang your
mac out on the maiden.’ Another crisis, then.

When I felt at the ankle cuffs the denim was more or
less dry, so I pulled down my trackie bottoms, eased the
elastic over my feet, and stepped into my jeans.

I stopped. Looked at myself in the full-length mirror.
Something wasn’t right. Even as they got to my knees I
knew they weren’t going to do up over my rounded belly.

Fate had got me after all.

T
HIIIINGS CAN ONLY
get better
. It must be true, it was on TV.
But you tell me what political party could sort out my
problems. If I thought it would really make a difference
I’d be down that polling booth at 7 a.m., but nobody really
cares about people like us, stuck at home with only the
insane for company.

We save this country a fortune and where does it all
go? Bloody subsidies for bloody London opera houses
and the like. I’d vote Monster Raving Loony if I could
actually be bothered, but I haven’t got the energy. It’s
all right them offering a lift to the polling station,
but I bet none of them would be prepared to change
Nan’s bag while I was out exercising my democratic
right.

Politicians, they want to try living in the real world.

*

‘You’ll have to
do a test,’ said Daniel, his face blurry
through my tears. We were sitting in Tiggy’s Italian coffee
bar at a Formica-topped table covered with wet ring-marks.
I hadn’t meant to say anything, but it was all my
head was full of, there wasn’t room for anything else. Besides, somehow I thought he’d know what to do. He
seemed that sort.

‘I
can’t
.’

‘Yes, you can. Look, it’s probably a false alarm. I
mean, you don’t
look
pregnant, if it’s any consolation.
How far are you meant to be along?’

‘About three and a half months, if I’m right.’ I began
to draw miserable lines in the sugar with the end of my
spoon. ‘God, I just can’t be. Not me. Anyone else, but not
me
.’

‘It might simply be too many Easter eggs. Or a hormonal
imbalance; have you been sprouting hairs on your
chin?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Daniel, it’s not something to joke
about!’

He drooped his head. ‘Sorry.’

‘Do you
promise
not to tell anyone about this? I
couldn’t bear the thought of the other girls . . .’

‘As if I would.’ He seemed really hurt. ‘I don’t do
that sort of thing. Besides, who have I got to tell? Look,
if it’s not too personal a question, have your periods
stopped?’

‘
Daniel!
Honestly!’

‘Well, it’s a bit crucial, Charlotte. I mean, I’m only a
mere male but even I can see there might be a connection.’

‘Well, yes and no. Oh, I can’t start going into details,
it’s too gross. And especially not with you. You don’t talk
about things like that, it’s not polite.’

He shrugged. ‘We talk about everything biological in
our house. It’s with my dad being a GP. No bodily function
is taboo. They used to take us to a naturist beach in Greece every year, until I started getting what my mother
called “stirrings”.’

‘That’s because you’re Middle Class, probably. In
our house everything’s taboo, there are no safe subjects,
so mostly we don’t talk. Well, Nan does, but she doesn’t
count because none of it makes any sense.’ The knowledge
of why I was here settled on my shoulders again and
I slumped forward. ‘Oh, Daniel, what am I going to do?’

‘Wait here,’ he said, rising to his feet. ‘Don’t move a
muscle.’ And he dived out of the shop.

I waited and watched through the window. Shoppers
crowded past, carefree. Every other figure was loaded
with personal irony: the willowy pair of teenage girls with
flat stomachs, laughing at some private joke; the smart
brisk career woman whose life was clearly going places;
the – oh, horror – hugely pregnant mum holding a toddler
on reins and peering into the cafe, her hand shading
her weary brow. I stared back. Surely it must hurt when
your body got to that size? What happened to your skin?
Might it not split, like a dropped tomato? How did her
trousers not fall down? How could she see what she was
doing when she went to the toilet?

‘Give the woman a break,’ said Daniel, sitting down
again and sliding a Boots bag across at me. I realized I was
gaping with horror, and looked away quickly.

‘Is that what I think it is?’

‘Uh-huh. Now, nip to the toilets, sort yourself out and
then come with me.’

‘Where?’

‘Do as you’re told. Come on.’ He pulled me up and
shepherded me to the back of the cafe.

Once in the cubicle I undid the cellophane, then
opened the box. A white plastic felt-tip thing slid out. I
had a good look at it, pulled the cap off, then fished out
the instruction leaflet and unpleated it. So, you just peed
on the end of the stick; two minutes later it was all over
bar the shouting.

When I came out Daniel was waiting. ‘Well?’

‘I haven’t looked yet.’

‘Good.’

He grabbed my hand and pulled me out onto the
street.

‘Where are we going?’ I shouted as he yanked me
through the crowds.

‘Just come on!’

We ran and ran, up Standishgate, down Market Street
and Parson’s Walk, into Mesnes Park Terrace and through
to the park.

‘Quick!’ We dashed through the iron gates and dived
for the grass. I sort of fell, then rolled over and lay back,
gasping. ‘It’s not too wet, is it?’ he asked, patting around
with his palm.

‘Yeah, it’s bloody soaking but I don’t care.’ I was still
panting like mad. ‘What’s going on?’

He squatted beside me. ‘Unwrap the test. Go on.’ He
nodded encouragingly.

I sat up, drew the bag out of my jacket pocket and
held up the box. My fingernail slid under the cardboard
flap. ‘I know what I’m looking for, I read the blurb. If the
second window’s empty, I’m in the clear . . . Oh, God,
Daniel, oh, God. Oh, no.’

He leaned over to peer at the two blue lines. The air felt still around us. It was one of those moments when the
universe pivots and you know nothing’s ever going to be
the same again.

Daniel looked shattered. ‘Oh, Charlotte, I’m sorry. I
was so sure it was going to be OK. I was so sure.’

Don’t touch me! I thought, but he didn’t. He set his
jaw and gazed out to the tree tops. I could tell he didn’t
have a clue what to say and I wished to God I could snap
my fingers and make him vanish.

I don’t know how long we sat there on the damp
grass. I wasn’t thinking proper thoughts, just giving in to
a squeezing sensation round my ribcage and a feeling like
my heart was going to explode. I just kept staring at the
sun going in, out, flirting with the clouds, but there was
no heat. I was chilled right through.

‘Your teeth are chattering,’ said Daniel, wrenching his
focus back to me. ‘Maybe we should go.’

I hate you, I thought. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t
have known. It’s your fault, you speccy weirdo bastard.
I was waiting for the sky to cave in, or one of those giant
pointing fingers to come pushing out of the heavens.
It
could be YOU – and it IS!
How could things be going on
as normal around me, the woman walking the Airedale,
the kid wobbling around on a bike, when my life was
over? It wasn’t fucking FAIR.