The Bad Mother's Handbook (24 page)

I walked out under a grey sky and hurried off to the
municipal gallery to meet Mr F.

I
T WAS A
collection called Dogs In Art.

‘I like paintings to look like something recognizable,
not a chaos of splodges. I don’t know if that makes me
old-fashioned.’ Mr F, Leo-Since-We’re-Not-At-Work, was
standing in front of a large picture featuring a woman in a
white nightie holding a cocker spaniel. ‘I don’t particularly
care, either. Have you seen this little fellow? We used to
have a spaniel when I was a boy.’

‘What was it called?’

‘Kipling. My father named him.’

‘We had a black cat called Chalkie. My dad named him
too. The funny thing was, he went missing the week my
dad went into hospital for the last time. Neither of them
came back. Chalkie wouldn’t have known what to do with
himself without my dad for company anyway; he used to
sit on the workbench while Dad tinkered about in the shed.
Dad used to say he was teaching him how to hold a nail in
his paws.’

‘He sounds like a nice man.’

‘Oh, he was. He really was.’

We walked on in silence and saw a dachshund on a
riverbank and a gundog lying next to a pile of pheasants.

‘And how did the interview with social services go? If
you want to talk about it.’

‘Oh, yeah, there’s no problem. Well, at least I think
there’s no problem. They’re being a bit cloak-and-dagger
about making actual contact, but I’ve got the address of a
woman who knows her so it’s up to me now.’

‘So you’ll be off down to London?’

‘Ah, well . . .’

We walked on past a St Bernard standing silhouetted
on a mountain ridge and a medieval whippet sitting at the
feet of a knight.

‘It’s weird, but I feel . . . almost scared now the end’s
in sight. No, maybe not
scared,
but kind of reluctant to
take that final step. I keep thinking about my childhood;
memories I thought I’d forgotten have started popping into
my head, some of them in dreams. Nan on a picnic with a
caterpillar stuck to her tights. The time she helped me win
the Easter bonnet competition at school. I wonder if – if I’m
kind of rejecting all that by looking for my real mother.
Because they weren’t all unhappy times.’ We stopped in
front of a Great Dane standing over a tiny baby. ‘In fact,
the more I think about it, I actually had quite a nice childhood.
Before Dad became ill, the most frightening event
I experienced was Dr Who fighting the Sea-devils. The
only betrayal I can remember was finding out the label on
my teddy bear’s blanket said Pure New Wool and not Mr
Fuzzy’s. It only went sour between me and Mum after Dad
died. And some of that was probably my fault. See, within
her limitations she’s been a good mother. We just weren’t
matched, that’s all.’

‘Are you feeling disloyal?’

‘Yes.’

‘Come and have a cup of tea and a bun.’

Leo led me out of the gallery – ‘Unashamedly populist
but very enjoyable nevertheless,’ he told the woman at the
desk – and across the road to the Octagon.

‘This is something I remember.’ I stirred the sugar
round in the bowl with a teaspoon. ‘Did you believe in
sugar stealers when you were little?’

‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

I started to smooth out the granules with the back of
the spoon. ‘Those floaty seeds – dandelion clocks and such
– we all thought at primary school that they were insects,
or something, and they lived on sugar. I was always finding
them in our larder. I really thought it was true for ages.’

Leo laughed. ‘No, I can’t say I’ve heard that one. Tell
me another.’

I chopped patterns in the smoothed-out grains while I
thought.

‘OK, what about those green glass chips you get on
graves.’

‘What about them?’

‘Well, if you take even one of them home with you, the
ghost of the person whose grave it is will come and haunt
you in your bedroom until you put it back.’

‘Did you ever try it?’

‘No way. Too scary. But a boy in our class did and he
swore he was woken in the night by an evil old woman. He
lived with his grandma, though, so that was probably it.’

Leo was chuckling and wiping his eyes. ‘Stop, stop.
You’ll have me choking on my bun.’

‘And there was a big craze for giving yourself love
bites on the arm, of course we were only eight, we didn’t
know what they were. Some lads had completely purple
forearms. I’m amazed nobody contacted the NSPCC. Then
a girl called Sharon Dawes said her mother had caught
her doing it and told her it would give her cancer, so we
all stopped overnight. Except for Christopher Flint, but he
was mad. He got sent to a special school in Little Lever.’

We were both giggling now.

‘Sounds like Gavin Crossley,’ said Leo. ‘I can’t see him
being with us much longer, the rate he’s going.’

‘Oh, he was much worse than that. He pushed a
wardrobe on top of his brother once, and fired an airgun
at Mrs Porter from the newsagent’s when she refused to
give him a paper round.’

‘Village characters.’

‘Happy times.’

‘So do you think you’ll go to London or not?’

‘God knows. I’ll toss a coin. No, I won’t; I’ll count the
currants in my bun. Evens says I go, odds I stay.’ I took a
knife and began to saw. ‘I can always change my mind
later.’

*

I NEVER had no new clothes when I was a girl except for the
lace-up shoes I wore on a Sunday, it was all hand-me-downs. So
at Field Days, Walkin’ Days they’re called now, I used have to
go at t’ back o’ t’ line even though the only time I ever missed
church was when I broke my arm. I’ll tell you who allus walked
under the banner, it was Annie Catterall in her fancy white
frock, an’ she never went to Sunday school nor nothin’. It was
only ’cause her parents could afford to kit her out. One time my
friend Lily Alker was on a ribbon off a banner, I don’t know how
she managed it ’cause her father was an invalid. She’d perhaps
lent a frock off someone. Anyroad, they were gettin’ to th’ end
of the procession and this ribbon broke. Annie pocketed it, took
it home an’ made hair braids out of it. When she got found out
she was stripped and sent to bed, besides gettin’ a good hidin’.
So perhaps I was best off marchin’ at the back.

The worst whippin’ I ever got was when I took all my
mother’s buttons to play in t’ street. We used make a circle in t’
dirt an’ try an’ flirt these buttons in, an’ if you got a button inside
you could have your pick of all the others. I got in a row many
a time for it, but you don’t think when you’re young. They
used play piggy too, an’ cock-on-big-or-little. Piggy were t’ best,
though I don’t think they play it now. You used put your piggy,
which were a fat peg of wood with a whittled end, on a brick on
t’ floor so as snout was hangin’ ovver th’ end. Then you got a
stick and you walloped it so it flew i’ th’ air. Some big lads could
mek it go right along t’ street. They used guess how many
strides away it was. Sometimes the Co-Op held races down the
Chantry, but I never won owt. I could never run, me. I got a doll
once, but that was only ’cause everyone did; I still finished last.

But they were poor days. When times were good Grandma
Florrie made parkin an’ barm cakes, steak puddings and cow
heel with a crust on top. A tripe man used come round t’ streets
too, shoutin’. But in the years after the war, when I was still only
little, my mother had to go to the church for charity loaves, you
could have two a week. An’ there were allus people singin’ in the
streets, beggin’, an’ miners squattin’ at street corners ’cause
they had no work.

My mother was marvellous, now I think about it, because
me an’ Jimmy never felt it, all that poverty, not really. I wish I
could have known her longer.

*

Anya had
phoned up to say she was going into school for
her module results and did I want to meet her there.

‘The twins are going for a picnic in the park after, if
it’s not raining. They’re dying to see you. So am I. Come
on, shift yourself.’

I thought I was too miserable to lift my head off the
pillow, but I went in the end. Missing Daniel was like a
pain; worse than splitting up with Paul, which had been
a series of stabs to the chest. This feeling was a deep, dull
ache all over, as if I was about to come down with flu.

I wondered if I was going to bump into him at the
office. Theoretically students come between 10 and 12 to
pick up their slips, but in practice there’s a seething crowd
of hysterical teenagers round the front door by 9.50 and
a mad rush when the head of sixth comes down to open
it. I slid in with the general melee at 10.03 so I didn’t have
to wait around being gawped at. Generally the students
who come later are the ones who know they’ve either
done really well or really badly. A lot of posturing goes
on, class jokers pretending to be amazed they didn’t do
even worse; huddles of girls patting and hugging tearful
friends in an agony of embarrassment at their own success.
The teachers stand around and offer congratulations
where appropriate, and avoid eye contact where it’s
not. The air is electric. I hated it last year, hated it again
now.

For those few minutes my pregnancy was completely
forgotten. Anya and I stood in isolated pools of agony,
tearing open the slips, gazing, absorbing, then shrieking at
each other, at anyone who’d listen.

‘I got an A!’

‘Oh my God, so did I!’

Anya put her arm round me, no mean feat, and we
tottered out onto the drive like two drunks. Mrs Carlisle
hurried after us.

‘Well done, both of you. Looking forward to next
year.’ She smiled at me. ‘This is for you, my home phone
number. You can call me at any time and we can get
together to talk about how things stand.’ She passed me
a sealed envelope. ‘Don’t let it fall into the wrong hands.
I don’t want obscene calls all summer!’

‘She is
so
nice,’ said Anya as we walked slowly out
of the gates towards the park. We passed the twins on
their way in, mad with nerves, but there was still no sign
of Daniel. It occurred to me he might be away or have
arranged for them to be posted. But I couldn’t stop scanning
the faces as one car after another drove past us over
the ramp and crawled round the quad.

‘Do you want to talk about the baby?’ asked Anya
unexpectedly. ‘Now, I mean, before the twins come out.
Because we weren’t sure whether you’d like to or not, and
we didn’t want to get it wrong.’

Poor Anya. It must have cost her an effort to say that.

I shook my head. ‘Thanks. No, I don’t, not this afternoon.
I think I’d like to just be me, not Mrs Pregnant. Do
you mind?’

‘No, not at all.’ There was relief in her voice. I wished
then, so keenly, that I could have shed the pregnancy for
a few hours, unstrapped the bulge and hung it up in the
wardrobe. I wanted a break, time off for good behaviour,
one last good laugh with the girls and then I’d be ready to
go back to it in the evening. It was so
part of me
. I looked
awful now and felt breathless most of the time, couldn’t
bend down, constantly needed to pee . . . You’re a big
parasite, I’d told the baby in the bath. Let it hear, I didn’t
care.

When the twins caught up (‘two Cs’) we strolled to
the park and sat round the sunken garden, eating. And
although there was this great black hole in the conversation,
everyone including me trying to avoid the topic that
was screaming in our faces, it was good because there
were so many other things to talk about. Teenage things,
trivia, plans, gossip. I couldn’t exactly join in, but I could
listen and laugh and tease.

An ice-cream van rolled up and Anya and I went to get
99s for us all. The sun was pretty hot now and there was
a shimmer over the grass. As I cast my eyes over the red
and white flower beds sloping up to the entrance I spotted
Daniel walking quickly towards us. I didn’t know what to
do, and anyway I had an ice-cream cone in each hand so
I was a bit restricted. I smiled, then looked away in case
that was too much. One of the ice-creams began to melt
and drip over my fingers, so I twisted my hand round and
tried to lick it off. Daniel broke into a run.

‘No!’ he shouted.

‘What’s up with him?’ I turned to Anya but she only
shrugged.

Without losing speed he charged at me and, like a
jousting knight, knocked the 99 from my grasp. It
splatted onto the floor, cone upended, and began to merge
with the gravel.

He overshot, blasted through a flower bed and staggered
to a halt several metres away, panting. Anya pulled
a Loony face at me.

‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?’
I asked. This was some bizarre revenge for rejecting
him.

He came up to us, wild haired and grinning.

‘That was a close one. Didn’t your midwife tell you
about listeria?’

‘Yeah. Deadly bug. It’s in blue cheese and pâté and I
don’t like either. So?’

‘And in soft ice-cream from vans, if you’re unlucky.
Can’t be too careful. Can I treat you to a choc ice?’

‘Jesus.’ I turned to Anya with a despairing look. What
would you do with him?

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ she said, sniggering, and joined
the goggle-eyed twins back on the bench.

What could I do? ‘I’ll have a Zoom,’ I said grimly.

We must have made an odd couple from a distance,
me like a barrel on legs and him a tall streak of nothing.
When he gave me my lolly he flourished his hand and
bowed. I could have kicked him.

‘Listen, Prince Charming, do you want me to stick this
up your nose?’ I hissed.

We went over and joined the others but there were
a lot of meaningful looks going on behind our backs and
stifled giggles. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt
and say they were still a bit hysterical from the exam
results.