The Bad Mother's Handbook (8 page)

He’d not been under the car two minutes when Nan
appeared at the front door. I motioned her to go back inside
but she only waved back, put her hand to the jamb and
lowered herself down the step. Then she waddled down
the path holding some bit of paper aloft.

‘I’ve won a Range Rover,’ she said, pushing a letter
in my face. ‘Charlotte can have it, she can have it for
school.’

I thought there hadn’t been any post that morning, but
Nan had been up before me.

‘Let’s have a look.’ I whipped it off her and scanned the
contents. ‘Load of rubbish. No, you haven’t, Mum. It’s junk
mail. And it’s for me anyway.’

‘It never is.’ Nan looked cross.

‘Look, what does that say?’ I pointed at the address
window. ‘See?’

She peered forward and huffed at me. Then she spotted
Davy, who had wriggled himself back out from under the
chassis while we’d been talking. ‘Who’s this?’

‘Davy, Mum.’

‘Jamie? Eeh, you favour a German.’ She reached down
and touched his leg. ‘Is he foreign?’

‘No. Come on back inside and I’ll make you some tea.’

She gave him a glazed smile before retreating. ‘You
want to watch them swanky pants,’ was her parting shot.
‘Don’t get muck on ’em.’

We went back up the path, me holding her elbow to
stop her escaping, and I got her ensconced in her chair
and put the telly on.
Love Boat
, ideal. Then I came out
again.

The Ribble bus went past and stopped at the corner.
Charlotte got off, face like thunder.

When she got close enough she held up a carrier bag
and snapped, ‘They wouldn’t take it back! Can you believe
it! Just because I’d washed it! I tell you what, I’m never
shopping there again, bunch of rip-off merchants.’

She stepped angrily over Davy’s legs, then paused as
she realized they were coming out from under my car.

‘Bloody hell,’ she said staring down. ‘Mum? Mum, who
is this?’

‘It’s Davy. A, er, friend of mine.’

She shot me a withering look.

Davy shuffled out, grin at the ready, wiping his hands
on the oily rag. Then his face fell. There was a pause.

‘Jesus, Mum; we’ve met, actually,’ said Charlotte in icy
tones. ‘Last week, at Krystal’s. I’m sure you remember, all
those
teenage girls
. God, how disgusting. Twenty-eight, my
arse! You’re really wrinkly in the daylight, Mr Leather
Pants. Don’t you ever wear anything else? They must be
beginning to
stink
by now.’

The penny was beginning to drop.

‘You old, sick bastard,’ she said, and turned on her heel.
I gaped after her.
Charlotte
?

‘Small world,’ said Davy.

‘I’ll give you small world,’ I snarled. My leg twitched
with the effort of not kicking him. ‘You want reporting.
Get your hands off my car and leave my daughter alone,
or I might do something vicious with that socket set.’

‘You’ll laugh about this one day,’ I heard him saying as
I walked away.

When I got inside Charlotte had stropped off upstairs,
but Nan was still watching
Love Boat
. A soft-focused couple
were embracing to a backdrop of blue sea, and from the
bridge a little boy was watching them, a big smile on his
face. The captain put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and a
tear twinkled in his eye. ‘I guess your mom’s found what
she was looking for, Jimmy,’ he said as the music swelled
and the credits rolled.

‘I forgot to tell you, I’ve won a Range Rover,’ said Nan,
pulling out an envelope from under the cushion.

‘Jesus Christ,’ I said, snatching it off her. But this time it
wasn’t junk mail. It was from Social Services Adoption
Department.

I didn’t know
what to do.

If I contacted him first, would that make me look like
a total Sad Act? Would it be reported to his mates that
I was turning into some mad stalker, unable to accept the
bleeding obvious, that her boyfriend had blown her out?
Because he had, hadn’t he? Or was it me who gave him
the boot? Or was it neither?

Or
what if I’d got it all wrong and he was sitting alone
in his room, broken-hearted, too dispirited to pick up the
phone? After the initial fog of anger had cleared I’d got
to thinking we’d make it up, maybe sulk for a few days
but then fall into each other’s arms, and out of the ether
he’d pull some magic words which would wipe my head
clean forever of Jeanette Piper and her writhing limbs and
panting cries.

But that had been two weeks ago. Oh WHY hadn’t
he been in touch? Even to finish it. You know, if you’ve
shared bodily fluids with someone then they ought at least
to tell you where you stand. Surely it’s manners. It wasn’t
just my pride, there was my hymen too. Or perhaps best
to forget about that.

Bloody Paul bloody Bentham, bloody men.

So in the end I went round to his house.

I practised all the stuff I was going to say before I
went, and on the way as well, trying to get the inflections
exactly right, the face, the body language.
I just want to
get things cleared up
, I told my bedroom mirror, folding
and unfolding my arms to assess the different effects.

Clothes had been a problem too. I didn’t want to wear
anything which implied I’d made an effort, only for him
to give me the elbow, that would make me look really
pathetic. On the other hand, I didn’t want to look like
something the cat dragged in, in case he had wanted to get
back together but changed his mind when he saw the state
I was in. God knows, I didn’t want him to think I’d been
pining for him. In the end I’d settled for washing my hair
and worn my second-best jeans.

I think it’s best for both of us
, I told my friend the
Alsatian, and it wagged its tail slowly and grinned. Then
I marched up and rang Paul’s doorbell, shaking.
Paul
Bentham is no good, chop him up for firewood
, my head
kept chanting, which wasn’t exactly helpful. There was a
funny metallic taste in my mouth.

Chimes echoed in the distance but no one stirred. I
waited a long time, then turned to go, half relieved, only
to hear the door open behind me.

‘Sorry, love, I was on the toilet.’ Mr Bentham, naked
to the waist, bare-footed, embarrassed and embarrassing.
I tried not to look at his pink rubbery nipples, and the line
of wiry hair which came up from inside his trousers and
touched his paunch. His face was shiny and he had too
much forehead. You could tell he’d been pretty once, like
Paul, but everything had begun to blur and slide. It made me think of my dad, about the same age, mid-thirties, but
sharp-featured, built like a whippet, all his own hair –
extra, actually, if you count the recent moustache. I hate
it when old people let themselves go.

Mr Bentham stared at me for a moment. ‘He’s norrin.
Went off to Bolton, I think. He’ll be back about tea time.
Shall I tell him you called?’

‘Yeah.’ My heart sank. I was going to have to go
through all this palaver again. ‘No. Actually, can I just
scribble him a note? I won’t be a minute.’ I smiled nicely.

‘Aye, awreet, love. Come in.’ I followed him down the
hall to the back kitchen. ‘Want a cup of tea? There’s one
brewed.’

I glanced round the mess and took in the dish of
gritty butter, the weeping Brown Sauce bottle, top askew,
the open bag of sliced bread stuck on the table. I knew
without looking what state the sink would be in. Even if
it was clear of dirty pots there’d be Christ knows what
clogging and breeding in the plughole. My mum has her
faults, God, but at least our house is fairly clean. Three
men living on their own: possibly even worse than three
women.

‘No, ta, you’re all right.’

Mr Bentham followed my gaze. ‘I work shifts,’ he said
simply. ‘Oh, you’ll need some paper.’

We doubled back and stopped at the telephone table,
which stood under a rectangle of lighter-coloured wallpaper,
a little hook still protruding at the top. ‘Used to be
their wedding photo,’ Paul had pointed out on my very
first visit. ‘You’d have thought he’d have stuck something
over it,’ I’d said to Paul, who’d shrugged.

‘Anyway, give me a shout when you’ve done. Like
I said, he’s gone off to t’ shops. After some video or
summat, I don’t know.’ He shook his head. ‘He dun’t talk
to me you know, I don’t have a clue what he’s up to from
one day to t’ next. But that’s lads for you.’ He scratched
his neck and dropped his gaze to the floor.

‘Thanks.’ I brandished the pen and pad. ‘I won’t be
long.’

Mr Bentham wandered off into the lounge and
Grandstand
came on.

Dear Paul,

I
came
popped round to say can I have my CDs
back sometime? If you want we could
get together
meet up for a drink and a
talk
chat (but only if
you’ve got time). I’ve got loads on at the minute
and I bet you have too!! Give me a ring.

Love
Charlie
Charlotte

This masterpiece of literature took me nearly ten minutes
to draft; I kept thinking, at any point Mr Bentham’s
going to re-emerge to check I’m not up to anything
dodgy, like rifling through his wallet. And what if Paul
came back early and caught me off guard? An RNIB
envelope came though the letter box and I jumped about
a mile. ‘Get a grip,’ I remembered Paul saying, which
irritated me so much I lost my thread even more. But
finally it was finished.

‘Shall I leave it in the hall?’ I shouted towards the
lounge.

Mr Bentham ambled out. ‘No, give it here, we put
them on a board in the kitchen. See?’

‘Oh, yeah. Right.’

I thought that was a bit civilized, but then I registered
the gingham frame round the cork and I realized it was
just another bit of Mrs B that she’d left behind. He
impaled the note with a map pin, underneath a take-away
menu and next to, oh God, next to a note for Paul,
written in childish handwriting, must be Darren’s, saying
‘Phone Chrissy about Sat eve!’

Of course, Chrissy could be a bloke. Or a friend. No
need to panic yet.

*

I
WANTED TO
get back so I could read the letter again, just
in case I’d missed something, because I still hadn’t decided
what to do. But shopping with Nan takes forever because
we have to stop and chat to all and sundry. Forty-five
minutes it took us to walk back up from the butcher’s;
we could have done it in ten, and all the while the blood
seeping out of the cold chops and pooling in the corner
of the plastic bag. Little Jim by the Post Office, with his
flat cap and muffler, wanted to know how Reenie Mather’s
operation had gone (‘She were the colour of this envelope
when th’ ambulance men carried her out, she were,
honest’). Then he detailed his own ailments for us (why
should he think I want to know about his prostate? Nan
was all ears, though).

Next it was Skippy, our local tramp, so called because
he spends a lot of time ferreting about on the Corporation
tip. He was turning on his heel outside the library, blagging
change and spitting on the pavement.

‘Awreet?’ Nan asks, cheerful as anything. I can never tell what Skippy says, so I left them to it and went in to
see if the new Mary Wesley was in (it wasn’t). When I came
out Skippy was on his hands and knees making a sort
of yipping noise and Nan was two-double, Christ knows
what was going on there. I didn’t stop to ask, just dragged
Nan away. ‘Eeh, he’s a rum ’un,’ she said, wiping her eyes
with a hanky. ‘Filthy old deviant, more like,’ I muttered,
but she was blowing her nose and didn’t hear.

Then, when we were on the home stretch, up pops
Mr Rowland, the newish vicar. Don’t know what it is
about vicars, they always make me feel guilty, then
annoyed with myself for feeling guilty. I mean, I know
I don’t go to church but on the other hand, I’m not
especially sinful either. Not on the world scale of evil,
anyway.

‘Lovely to see you,’ he calls across the road like he
means it. Nan beams, and he bounds over and starts to
describe at length how the vicarage is shaping up and how
Mrs Rowland’s knee has been poorly because she fell off a
stepladder trying to get to a cobweb and it’s started an
old hockey injury off again. Nan tuts and shakes her head
sympathetically while I lean on the wall and look over his
shoulder. Hanging baskets are going up in the High Street;
they’ll last all of two minutes.

He finally remembers some appointment and dashes
off (where does he get his energy from? God, presumably).
Nan watches him go fondly. ‘Now
he’s
a good man. Not
like that Mr Shankland, playing guitars and tambourines,
what have you. I’m not surprised he didn’t last long.
Clapping in church! He went off somewhere foreign i’ th’
end, didn’t he?’

‘Surrey, Mum. Mr Shankland went to form a Charismatic
group in Farnham. You told
me
that.’

‘Nay, I never did. Are you sure? Well, who was it went
to Japan?’

‘I’ve no idea.’ I bundled her up the step and shut the
door. I felt like I’d run the London Marathon. ‘I’ll get the
kettle on. Give us your coat.’

I pulled the letter out of the table drawer and took it
into the kitchen to scan it again while the water boiled.

In the past it was thought best for all concerned
that an adopted child’s break with his birth family
should be total. Parents who placed a child for adoption
were generally told that a child would not have
access to his birth record. The current legislation
reflects increased understanding of the wishes and
needs of adopted people. It recognises that although
adoption makes a child a full member of a new
family, information about his or her origins may still
be important to an adopted person.

People adopted before 12 November 1975 are
required to see a counsellor before they can be given
access to their records because in the years before
1975, some parents and adopters may have been led to
believe that the children being adopted would never
be able to find out their original names or the names
of their parents. These arrangements were made in
good faith and it is important that adopted people
who want to find out more about their origins
should understand what it may mean for them and
others.