The Bad Mother's Handbook (22 page)

She sat down and ordered, then produced a plastic
bag containing a fluffy toy from Anya, a card signed by
the sixth-form girls, and a book on pregnancy month
by month from Mrs Carlisle. I was completely overwhelmed.

‘Anya wanted to come too, but we thought it might
outface you seeing us both together. But she says she’ll
ring you next week. We’d have been in touch before but
Mrs Carlisle told us when you were first off you’d got suspected
glandular fever and didn’t want to get out of bed.
But, wow, you’re doing great. Everyone’s really excited,
and they all send their best wishes.’ She sat Anya’s little
fluffy rabbit-thing up on its hind paws. ‘Sweet! So, how
you doing?’

I’d been feeling not too bad until the presents, but the
unexpected kindness slew me. My face went red and my
voice strangled with the effort of not crying.

‘It’s really nice—’ was all I managed.

‘Say no more.’ Julia was brisk. The drinks arrived and
a plate of cakes. ‘God, don’t you just
love
these chocolate
muffins? I could literally eat them till all my buttons
popped off. Fantastic. Oh, you missed some major gossip
over the last few weeks. Did you know Denny’s been
suspended for selling funny cigarettes to Year 9s? One of
them nearly set fire to the toilets, apparently, trying to
light one of his home-made fags. God knows what was
in them, because it wasn’t tobacco. Martin Ainsworth
reckons it was dried seaweed. Some of the kiddies lost
their voices, that’s how the teachers knew something was
going on, they’d all come back in after break croaking
like frogs. Anyway, at least it wasn’t proper dope because
he’d have been out on his ear, you know how twitchy
the Head is over drugs.’

It was relaxing to have her rattle on like this. It made
me pretend I could be normal again, with the usual
teenage concerns and excitements. She made me laugh
in spite of myself, and the baby inside me jumped and
squirmed.

‘. . . So then Jimbo told Simon that he’d seen Abby and
Dom eating each other’s faces in Fatty Arbuckle’s, and
Simon went absolutely ballistic and told Abby she was
a tart in front of everyone in the dinner queue, so Dom
jumped on him and there was this huge fight, tables everywhere,
and Mr Barry had to drag them apart and make
them go to separate rooms to cool off and their parents
were called in. It was really hectic.’ Julia stopped to draw
breath. ‘So you can see you’ve missed loads. I don’t know
how anyone’s got any work done. I certainly didn’t. My
report was a disaster. Like I really care.’ She took a big
bite of cake and winked at me.

‘Mine was brilliant,’ I said gloomily. Mum had been in
a terrible temper when it came through the post. It was
one of those no-win situations, like every year when the
GCSE results improve and the press go, ‘Oh, standards
must be slipping.’ But if ever the results were down on last
year’s, it would be, ‘Oh, we see standards are slipping,’
and the
Daily Telegraph
would commission a special
shock report on how thick today’s teenagers truly are. So
if my exam marks had been bad Mum would have been
beside herself because I was throwing away my chances.
The fact that they were better than I could ever have
expected made the pregnancy even more of a disaster
because I was clearly destined for great things. Or would
have been.

‘Julia,’ I said, ‘what happened when Mrs Carlisle told
you about me?’

She paused for a fraction of a second only. ‘Well, we
were all really surprised, and a few people looked at me
because they must’ve thought I knew about it—’

‘You can understand why I couldn’t say anything?’

‘Yeah, yeah, of course. A big thing like that, you need
to get your own head round it before it becomes public
property. Then the twins asked if they could send you a
card and Mrs Carlisle said she thought that’d be very nice.
That was it, to be honest. Oh, a few people have asked me
whether you’ll be around next year. Will you?’

‘I dunno. I don’t know what it’s like having a baby
around. If it’s not too much hassle I could put it in a
crèche or something and come back in January. Maybe
sooner. I don’t want to have to repeat the year, not with
all those bozos from Year 11 coming up. The teachers
could send me work and I could get Special Consideration
for the exams. Oh, I don’t know. It goes round and round
in my mind. We’ll have to see.’

Julia was nodding, then she said, ‘And of course,
somebody asked me who the father was . . . I told them
I didn’t know, but I don’t know if they believed me.
Obviously you don’t have to say anything if you don’t
want to.’

I could tell she’d been burning to get this question out.
Well, she’d been pretty good with me so far. It would be a
relief to say something at last.

‘I don’t think it’s anyone you’d know. A lad I used to
go to school with years ago. Paul. But we’re not together
any more. He didn’t want anything to do with me once
he’d found out. I got it
so
wrong. You’d think, if you’d . . .
if you’d slept with someone – that you’d know them
pretty well. That’s what I’d thought anyway, more fool
me. I hope – I hope he gets run over by a lorry, very
slowly, so his ribs crack one by one and you can hear his
screams all the way to Blackpool. I hope he moves to the
other side of the world and I never see him again. Oh—’

A pain shot through my groin.

Julia was on her feet at once.

‘Charlotte! Are you all right? Do you want me to get
someone? Shall I phone for a doctor?’

I shifted on the chair. ‘It’s OK, stop flapping. I think it
was a one-off. Ooh!’ This twinge bent me over and made
me gasp.

‘Stay where you are, I’ll get an ambulance.’

‘Come back!’ I shouted as Julia shoved her chair out
of the way and prepared to do a mercy dash. ‘I’m not
going into labour. At least, I don’t think I am. The pain’s
in the wrong place. It’s down here. Ow.’

Heads were beginning to turn and the panic that
always overtakes me if I inadvertently become the centre
of attention began to well up. There was another twinge.
I had to get out, and quickly.

‘I need to go home,’ I said. ‘Can you walk me to the
bus stop?’

‘To the bus stop? You must be kidding. I’m driving
you home. But don’t you dare give birth on my mother’s
new seat covers, we’d never hear the last of it.’

Julia drove me back from town with exaggerated
care, glancing over at me continually. Was the seat belt
too tight? Were the pains coming every three minutes?
Did I want her to turn the car round and go to the
Royal Bolton? I kept saying no and gradually the pains
went off. She began telling me about her holiday plans
and her new bedroom, and then we were pulling into
Brown Moss Road, both of us heaving a sigh of relief.

She stopped the car. ‘You gave me a fright, missus. Are
you OK now?’

I nodded.

‘You’re not just saying that?’

‘No. Honestly. Thanks.’

‘Do you want me to walk you to the door?’

‘No, really. I feel fine now, it must just have been . . .’

We both caught sight of him at the same time. Julia
turned to me puzzled.

‘Who’s that man bleeding onto your doorstep?’

‘Oh God,’ I said. ‘Oh God oh God. This is why I never
bring anyone home.’

‘Id wed a bid wrog,’
my dad said through his hanky.
‘I’b sorry, Charlie.’ Mum had got him sitting on the sofa
leaning forwards and pinching his nose; she has to deal
with nosebleeds all the time at school.

‘Don’t keep swallowing,’ snapped Mum, ‘it’ll make
you sick. Spit into this if you have to.’ She thrust a Pyrex
bowl under his chin.

‘I can’t believe you went round there. Why didn’t you
say anything to me first? What was he like? Was he really
angry?’

Part of me was horrified that Dad had crashed my private
life like this, after years of sitting on the sidelines. But
part of me was grateful that someone should finally have
thought to give Paul a good bollocking, it was about time.
If that’s what had happened. It didn’t look too promising.

‘Aggry? He were brickid hisself when he realized who
I was. I told hib the score. Dobody walks away from
subbat like that. Be a ban, I said. Face up to your responsibilities.’

‘Is that when he hit you?’ said my mum. I knew what
she was thinking because I was thinking it too. He looked
pathetic, with his red hanky and his head bowed, a
button hanging off his shirt. Beaten up by a seventeen-year-old,
nice going, Dad.

Through the muffles of clotting blood we finally got
the tale, though how much he’d brushed it up I wouldn’t
like to say.

He’d gone round late afternoon when he knew Paul
would probably be in (and I guess hoping his old man
wouldn’t). A ‘little lad’ opened the door and then shouted
for Paul who came down the stairs unsuspecting. Dad
started his speech which quickly turned into a slanging
match, during which Paul maintained first that the baby
wasn’t his, and then that since it was my decision to keep
it against his wishes, he couldn’t be called to account.
(I broke in to argue at this point but my mother shut me
up.) After a few minutes of hurling insults at each other,
Paul had turned to go back upstairs and my dad had
completely lost it, lunged forward and grabbed Paul
round his legs. Paul fell face-first onto the step – ‘He’ll
have a beltin’ black eye tomorrow’ – and in the struggle
to get away kicked out, making contact with Dad’s nose –
‘it were nowt, a lucky blow’. At this point Mr Bentham
appeared on the landing, bleary with sleep and taking
out his earplugs – ‘though he soon looked sharp when
he saw me’. He ran down and hoisted Paul upright,
checked him over briefly and propped him against the
banisters. Meanwhile Dad had been shouting the odds
about his son’s behaviour, and despite Paul’s denials, the
finer details of the situation had begun to dawn on Mr
Bentham. He’d apparently turned to take a swipe, seen
Dad’s berserk blue eyes and his bloody nostrils and let
his arm drop to his side. (I suspect this bit is true. Mr
Bentham goes in for a quiet life.) Then he’d told Dad to
get out of his house and if he wanted to take it further
to get a blood test done. ‘I will, don’t worry. We’ll have
the CSA on you. An’ you want to see that lad of yours gets
a good hidin’,’ my dad had told him, and stormed out.

‘So, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing,’ I
muttered. My mother leaned over and cuffed me round
the ear.

‘Less of that, madam. A thank you would be nice,
after what your dad’s been through. Even if it was a waste
of time.’

Dad shot us a despairing glance and I immediately felt
sorry. A proper daughter would have got up off her backside
and given him a hug, but of course that was impossible,
so I just gave him a thin smile instead. ‘Thanks,
anyway. Hope your nose doesn’t hurt too much.’

He took the hanky away experimentally.

‘I was trying to help.’

‘I know you were. He’s a total git.’

‘Well, I must admit, I don’t know what you ever saw in
him, love. I thought he were an arrogant little gob-shite.’

The baby elbowed me sharply and I thought, You
poor bugger, that’s your father we’re talking about. What
an inheritance.

‘Do you mind if I go upstairs and have a lie-down?’

Mum and Dad shook their heads and I dragged myself
up to my room. Next door Nan was snoring and mumbling.
I flopped onto the bed. The baby kicked on.

‘It’s probably
something called “round ligament pain”,’
said Dr Gale. ‘Nothing to worry about. Your muscles are
having to hold up a tremendous weight, it’s not surprising
they’re putting up a bit of a protest.’ We were in the back
garden of Daniel’s enormous house enjoying the sunshine.
They’d installed me in a sun-lounger in the shade of a
beech tree; later on, under that same beech tree, Daniel
would try to kiss me and I would refuse, so spoiling a
perfect day.

‘That’s what the midwife reckoned. All the joints are
under such pressure I’m bound to get some aches and
pains. It was really scary, though. My friend thought I was
about to give birth.’

‘You’ll be fine,’ smiled Mr Gale. ‘You look perfectly
healthy to me, anyway.’

He was nice, Daniel’s father. Tall, like his son, but more
assured, quite distinguished. Lovely newsreader accent. I
bet all his menopausal women patients harboured fantasies
about him. He made me feel relaxed despite the fact
that I’d never met him before and I was seven months
pregnant and I didn’t know what he’d been told about
me. I suppose he sees all sorts in his surgery. The sun
shone warm on us both and bees crooned among the
lavender at our feet.

Inside I could hear Mrs Gale and Daniel preparing
the evening meal. I’d have called it tea, but here it was
dinner and it happened at seven not five. I remembered
Mum trying that one out on us a few years ago; Nan was
nearly eating the tablecloth in frustration, and I kept
sneaking Custard Creams so by the time the food was on
the table I didn’t want it. ‘Eeh, I can’t be doin’ with this
caper every night,’ Nan had said. Big row.

I wondered what Mum would make of the Gales’
Edwardian villa. Actually she’d be struck dumb with envy
and inadequacy as she ticked off their Minton floor, the
polished staircase, the quality art prints on the walls. By
the time we reached the dream kitchen her jaw would
be on the floor, as mine was. Kitchens aren’t my thing,
I tend just to breeze through on the scrounge, but even I
could see this one was like a show-home. It was huge, for
a start, with a quarry-tiled floor and immaculate units and
– yes, Mum would have died – an Aga
and
a conventional
high-tech built-in oven. Then there were all those
little tasteful touches that I’ve seen on the front of Mum’s
house magazines; bunches of dried herbs hanging from
the ceiling, gleaming copper pans, a hotchpotch of Victorian
tiles along the back wall.