The Bad Mother's Handbook (9 page)

This means that
if you were adopted before12 November 1975
, you will have to see an experienced
social worker called a counsellor before you can
obtain further information from your original birth
record.

There was something in the phrasing that had made
me pause.
What
might it mean for me? And who else was
it going to affect if I began my search properly? The
Adoption Contact Register had drawn a blank. All they’d
said was that ‘my details had been entered in Section 1’,
so that must mean there was nothing in Section 2 which
matched up. But Jessie Pilkington probably didn’t know
the Register existed: why should she? She’d been told
nobody could trace anybody, when she handed me over
That was That. However you looked at it, I was going to
be a bolt from the blue. Best not to over-analyse the situation,
really. I mean, if you went through life examining
the minute consequences of everything you were about to
do, you’d end up so bloody paranoid you’d do nothing.
We might as well all live under the table.

I shut the letter inside a Trex cookbook and shoved it to
the back of the cupboard.

‘Phyllis Heaton’s had a hysterectomy, did I tell you?’
Nan was playing with a piece of toast left over from
breakfast; God knows where she’d stowed it.

‘No, Mum. No, she hasn’t. She’s gone ex-directory. You
mis-heard.’

‘And she can’t accept it.’ Nan carried on as if I hadn’t
spoken. ‘If you ask her, she denies it. Eeh, it’s a shame for
some folk. We don’t know as what we’ll come to, any on
us.’ She gnawed at the toast like a terrier.

It was then I noticed the amaryllis.

‘God, Mum, what’s happened to my flower?’

Instead of two brilliant red trumpets, a naked green
spike rose two feet into the air, and stopped. The pot had
been pushed back to the left of the windowsill, behind the
curtain, so I knew who’d done it. I leaned across the table
and slid it back out.

‘Mum? Mum, look at me. Mum, what happened to the
flowers on the end? Where have they gone?’

Nan laughed uncomfortably. ‘I were closing t’ curtains
and I must have caught it. It came away in my hand. It’ll be
all right.’

‘How can it be all right when you’ve knocked its head
off? Honestly! I can’t keep anything nice in this house, if
it’s not you it’s Charlotte with her magazines and clothes
all over the floor, I ask her and ask her to tidy them up but
she takes no notice, neither of you do. What’s the point of
me reading
Homes and bloody Gardens
when you’re busy
mutilating my plants and hiding bits of food around the
place?’

Nan glanced guiltily at the sofa.

‘Oh, hell, you’ve not got butter on the cushions, have
you?’ I flipped them up angrily, one after the other. But it
wasn’t toast, it was the amaryllis, tattered and flaccid like a
burst balloon, and sporting a little Sellotape collar round
the base. I held it up, speechless.

‘It’ll be all right,’ said Nan. ‘We’ll just stick it back on.
It’ll be all right.’ But she didn’t sound convinced.

‘No, Mum. It won’t be all right.’ The flower heads came
apart and I squashed them up hard in my palms, feeling
the cool petals bruise and smear. When I opened my hands it was like the stigmata. Nan stared. I looked over to where
the letter was hidden, waiting. ‘There are some things you
can’t mend.’

*

There is
no privacy
in this house. My mum, probably
just to spite me, has the phone wall-mounted in the hall,
which is just about big enough for two medium-sized
people to stand chest to chest. Since there is no room even
for a chair, let alone those swanky telephone seats she
drools over in the catalogues, I have to sit on the stairs
to have a conversation. It’s bloody freezing, too, I don’t
know why we bother having a fridge. We could just
keep the milk on the doormat. The letter box doesn’t fit
properly and she’s never got round to fixing it (waiting for
a man to sort it for her, dream on, Ma), so it blows open
at the slightest breeze. You can, of course, hear everything
that’s going on in the next room and vice versa. So all in
all, it’s pretty crap. I’m
definitely
having a mobile for my
birthday.

I could have sneaked out to the public phone box,
but knowing my luck my money would jam or run out, or
there’d be some pervo outside listening in. I needed this
call to go well, I had to be on top of it. I didn’t want to
lay my heart on the line in a stinky glass box.

As I dialled the number I could hear Mum picking on
Nan again, something to do with some stupid flower. Like
it matters. I pulled Nan’s scarf down from the hook above
and wound it round my neck. It smelt of Coty L’Aimant.

Ringing. Ringing. Click.

Paul:
Hello?

Me:
Hello.

Paul:
Hello?

Me:
It’s me, Charlotte. I was—

Paul:
Oh yeah, right, Charlotte—

Me:
Yeah . . .

Paul:
I was going to give you a ring.

Me:
Did you get what you were after?

Paul:
You what?

Me:
Your video. Your dad said you’d gone into Bolton.

Paul:
Oh yeah, oh, I see what you mean. Yeah,
England’s Pride
, top twenty goals of the decade. Narrated
by David Beckham. I’ve not watched it yet.

Me:
Sounds fantastic. Look, when you do, can I be
the first to borrow it?

Paul:
Ha bloody ha. It’s better than a video on, I
dunno, make-up or summat, girly stuff.

Me:
Sod off. Look, did you want to meet up for a
drink some time? Only . . .

Paul:
Oh, yeah, right, that would be great. Em, yeah.
I’ll give you a ring . . . we’ll get summat sorted. Maybe
next week. If it’s not too busy. All right?

Me:
Yeah. All right. Well . . .

Paul:
I’ll call you.

Me:
Paul?

Paul:
What?

Me:
Who’s Chrissy?

Pause, click, dialling tone.

The door to the lounge opened and Nan wandered
out. There were crumbs all down her front.

‘Phyllis Heaton’s had a hysterectomy,’ she said sadly,
and sat down on the step next to me.

I unwound the scarf and draped it round us both. I
wanted to cry.

‘There’s some things as can’t be mended,’ she whispered.

*

‘W
ELL
,
YOU WOULDN
’
T
catch me even thinking about it,’
said Sylv, swinging her knees to and fro on her swivel chair
like she does; she’ll come a cropper one of these days and
unswivel herself completely. I was sitting in the office to
cut out my thirty daffodil shapes because Year 6 were
watching a science programme on TV and the classroom
was too dark to see what I was doing, not that it was
exactly taxing stuff. Sylv, however, had been delighted to
see me. ‘I
mean
, what if they want your bone marrow?’

‘You what?’

Sylv looked at me as if I was stupid. ‘Don’t you watch
the news? When these long-lost relatives meet up there’s
always someone wanting your bone marrow, or your
kidneys or what have you, and then if you don’t give it to
them
you’re
the villain. It’s not on. I was reading about a
case in
Woman’s Own
last week. This woman didn’t even
know she had a twin brother until he turned up on the
doorstep wanting her organs. It’s a hell of a risk. No, Karen,
I wouldn’t touch it in your shoes.’

Thanks, Sylv, I thought, these heart-to-hearts we have
are invaluable. You’ve helped me make up my mind. I’m
going to find my birth mother if it kills me.

Just then the Head came into the office with a letter for
typing. Sylv quivered like a pointer.

‘What do you think, Mr Fairbrother?’ She ignored my desperate expression and plunged on. ‘Do you think Karen
should try to find her natural parents?’

Give him his due, Mr F didn’t bat an eyelid. I suppose
he’s used to it, he sees Sylv all the time whereas the rest of
us only consort with her at break times.

‘I really couldn’t give an opinion,’ he said and put the
letter down on the desk. ‘Can you get this out to Gavin
Crossley’s parents by the end of the day? We’ll have to
have them in, it’s no good. Daryl Makinson’s had to have
stitches.’ Then he turned to me. ‘A difficult decision for
you. Not one I should like to be faced with.’ He gave me a
nice smile and left us to it.

‘Such a shame,’ said Sylv as soon as the door was shut.
She means because he’s past forty, possibly fifty, and still
single, and used to live with his parents till they both died
and now he lives on his own in that big house up Castleton
Road, he must rattle around in it, why he doesn’t buy a
little bungalow, and maybe he’s homosexual but doesn’t
realize it, not that it matters in this day and age. And
he’s losing his hair, poor chap. I’ve heard Sylv’s musings on
the subject more times than I can count. But he’s actually
a pleasant man and really quite OK as a boss, especially
when you think the staff are all women: you’d think we’d
drive him mad. He’s great when I need to take time off for
Nan, and he buys us all Christmas presents; just bits and
pieces, but it’s the thought. This year it was cacti. Sylv got
a squat, spiky number. Mine was tall and sort of hairy, as
if a gang of spiders had run amok over it. I don’t like
them as plants, I tend to think they’re a bit common. You
never see cacti on ‘Inspector Morse’. So I put Mr F’s effort
on the back kitchen windowsill, behind the terracotta garlic jar, but I didn’t throw it out, that would have been
ungrateful.

The bell was about to go for break so Sylv tottered off
to the ladies’ to re-do her lipstick and rearrange her underskirt,
and I gathered up my daffodils and set off for the
classroom. As I got to the corner some of them began to
escape and flutter to the floor. Any minute now and they’d
be stampeded by a bunch of ten-year-olds, so I put the rest
of the pile on the Nature Table and got down on my hands
and knees and began swishing up the little paper shapes
with my hands.

‘Let me help.’ Mr F, with his clipboard and stock cupboard
invoices under one arm, was stooping to pick at a
lone petal which had welded itself to the grey vinyl floor
tiles. ‘Tricky customers, aren’t they? Look, I’m sorry about
earlier.’

I must have looked blank.

‘In the office. Sylv.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Sometimes
her enthusiasm to, ahm,
help
gets the better of her.’

‘It’s not your fault, you’ve nothing to apologize for.’

‘Well. Rest assured, it won’t go any further.’ He handed
me my daffodil. ‘And if you’d like someone to talk it
through with sometime, someone objective . . . I can see
it must be a difficult situation, with your mother being
as she is . . . Anyway, I’m usually in the Feathers of a
Sunday lunchtime, the Fourgates Ramblers meet there.
It’s quite a nice atmosphere, I don’t know if you’ve ever
been in. No jukebox, which is a rarity these days.’

Before I had time to do anything other than smile
vaguely we heard the click of heels behind us. Sylv’s face,
newly drawn on, was eager with news. ‘You might like to know we’re running short of paper towel in the ladies’,’
she said as she drew level. Mr F gave a small salute and
walked off towards his room. ‘He’s very much on the short
side for a headmaster, isn’t he?’

*

My dad always says,
‘As one door shuts, another one
slams in your face.’ Mind you, he’s not nearly as bitter as
my mum, because according to her, he didn’t have anything
like as much to lose. He was an apprentice with
British Aerospace when she got caught, and he just carried
on, finished his training and got a full-time job there.
He’s still on the machines, despite waves of redundancies
and his appallingly casual attitude. ‘He thinks it’s beneath
him,’ my mum often says, and we know who to blame for
that idea. A blue-collar worker? Nah. She wanted to land
a professional, a doctor or a lawyer, that sort of league.

Anyway, he’s wrong. About the doors. I was asked out
by someone else the very next week.

I was in the senior library, because I often am. I love
it in there. It smells of furniture polish, and the wicker-bottom
chairs creak under you as you lean back against
the radiator to chew your pen and think. On sunny days
the light makes beams of sparkly dust that drifts like
random thoughts. The calm is intoxicating. It’s about as
unlike our house as you can get.

The one thing my mum can’t get at me for is, I do
work. I’m after four As, mainly to get me away from her.
Don’t know if I’ll get the grades, but it won’t be for want
of trying. There was another module coming up and an
essay to get out of the way (what I want to know is, why can’t teachers communicate with each other so you don’t
get about twenty deadlines at once?).

So I had my Keats out and my Brodie’s Notes and my
Oxford pad and I was just getting into my spider diagram
when someone put an illegal cup of hot chocolate down
on the desk next to me.

‘Absolutely NO food and drink to be consumed in the
library,’ said Daniel Gale brightly. ‘It’s OK, the librarian’s
outside arguing with Mr Stevens over the budget. She’ll be
there for the duration. Cheers.’ He produced a KitKat and
snapped it in half. ‘There you go. Eat up.’

Out of the corner of my eye I saw two Year 11 girls
half turn to gawp.

‘What’s that for?’

He ran his hand through his wiry hair like he does and
pushed his glasses against the bridge of his nose. ‘You
looked in need.’

‘Of what, exactly?’

‘Chocolate.’

‘I think you ought to know I never accept sweets from
strangers.’ I bit into the KitKat and felt better. ‘Thanks.’