Any Way You Want Me (11 page)

‘Mummy, I don’t like it when you shout at me,’ Molly said accusingly.

Nathan started whimpering again as if he agreed, and I had a horrible vision of them both, twenty years on, slagging me off for having been such a neurotic mum and screwing up their childhoods. Alex would be the one they loved best, I thought miserably. I’d be the one they’d bitch about together whenever they met up. Or maybe they’d save all that for their therapists.

I sighed heavily. Something else to beat myself up about. ‘Tough shit,’ I muttered under my breath. Then I braced myself with a dazzling smile. ‘Let’s go and see what Felix is up to, shall we?’ I said. ‘Let’s all go and have a fun time at Felix’s house!’

‘Hi, Sadie. Hello, darlings, come on in.’

Lizzie looked as serene as ever. She was fair, like Cat, only she had a bob and a feathery fringe. Pale skin that burned in the sun. Light brown eyes, elegant hands.

Felix was peeping out from between her legs. He was nine months older than Molly and painfully shy.

‘Effalunts, effalunts, effalunts!’ Molly bellowed, charging into the front room and completely ignoring Lizzie and Felix.

‘What’s she saying?’ Lizzie frowned. ‘Are you all right, Sadie? You look very pink.’

‘Oh, just . . .’Oh, I just said ‘fuck’ in front of the children, that’s all, and told them to shut up, and I feel horrible about it. ‘Just a parking nightmare, that’s all. And grumpy kids.’ Nothing to do with me whatsoever. Because I am perfect mum today. Well, almost.

She grimaced sympathetically. ‘It’s a nightmare, I know. Everyone has such big cars around here, don’t they? Let me get you a coffee.’

‘Great.’

Lizzie never had any nice biscuits or cakes in the house (Felix wasn’t allowed sugar) but she always had delicious blow-your-head-off coffee, which was some consolation.

She showed me her plans for a conservatory at the back. Did I think it would be too much?

No, I didn’t. I thought it would be fab, especially in summer.

She told me about Boring Steve’s new car. An Audi.

Oh, lovely, I said, trying not to think about the way a new car smelled. Trying not to compare it to our old Peugeot with its plastic toys wedged in the seats, and the crumbs and old pages of the
A to Z
everywhere.

She told me they were thinking of going to Antigua for a spring break and showed me the brochure. Sometimes it was nice to get away from it all, wasn’t it?

I looked at the pictures of aquamarine sea and beaming, tanned families and tried to ignore the phrases that were leaping off the page.
All-inclusive. Five-star retreat. Kids’ club. Snorkelling. Cocktail hour. Luxury. Sunshine
.

‘Listen to me going on, anyway,’ Lizzie said brightly. ‘How are you?’

‘Fine,’ I said miserably. ‘Alex is doing really well at work and Nathan’s sleeping much better these days. Molly’s out of nappies. I’m . . . I’ve taken up running.’

‘Good for you.’ She cast an eye over her slim, linen-encased flanks and sighed theatrically. ‘I could do with going running again. The running machine at our gym is always so busy, I never get to go on it.’

We were all in Lizzie’s cream, clean front room by now. Every cushion plumped up just so, every picture artfully arranged. Even our two children sprawling on the carpet, and the assortment of toys between them (all wooden, all with their original boxes) looked like a scene from a happy families TV programme.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Molly and Felix were both holding on to the same car. I recognized the look of intent on my daughter’s face, her don’t-mess-with-me expression. She’d done the happy families thing for at least a minute. Now it was time to resort to type.

‘Molly, I’m watching you,’ I warned. I set Nathan on the floor and started wedging cushions behind him to prop him in a sitting position. ‘So, yeah, Liz, we’re all fine. I saw Cat the other night – did you hear that she and Tom are going to get a place together?’

‘No! That’s great. He’s—’

‘MY car.’

‘
I
want it!’

WHACK!

‘Molly!’ I cried, jumping up and rushing over. ‘You mustn’t hit people! Say sorry to Felix at once!’

Felix’s mouth had opened wider than I’d ever seen it and he howled. His shoulders shook. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

‘Oh, darling,’ Lizzie said, running over and cuddling him. ‘Are you all right? What a bump!’

‘I not sorry,’ Molly said loudly. ‘MY car.’

‘It is not your car,’ I hissed. What was wrong with her today? She was being a right madam. ‘It’s Felix’s car, isn’t it, so if he wants to play with it, he can. Now
say sorry
.’

‘I not sorry,’ she repeated. God, she was so bloody stubborn. Her mouth was set, and I knew there was no way on earth she was about to cave in and apologize.

‘Molly IS sorry,’ I lied to Felix. ‘She’s very sorry and she’s going to play on her own for a bit now and think about how horrible it is to hit people.’

‘No-o-o-o!’ she wailed. I picked her up, her legs bicycling in mid-air as she tried to kick me, and I took her out to the hall. I could hear Nathan bursting into tears as I left the room. Separation anxiety seemed to be starting early at the age of five months. Fantastic.

‘Listen to me,’ I said as I put my furious daughter down on the carpet. ‘I love you very much, but hitting isn’t a nice thing to do, and Mummy doesn’t like it when you hit people. So you think about that.’

‘No-o-o-o-o!’ she bellowed, lying down and kicking the row of shoes that had been lined up neatly in the hall.

‘And when you feel like saying sorry, you can come back in and play nicely,’ I said. I was practically having to shout to make myself heard.

I went back into the front room to see Lizzie trying to cuddle Felix
and
Nathan, both of whom were still crying.

‘Thanks, Liz,’ I said, taking Nathan off her and rubbing his back. ‘God, what a nightmare. What do you reckon – shall we leave them to it and go out to the pub? They start serving in twenty minutes.’

She didn’t look at me. ‘Come on, Felix, be a big boy,’ she was saying. ‘Let’s dry those tears now.’

‘I NOT SORRY!’ Molly yelled from the hall.

I was starting to think Lizzie really had the hump with me for Molly’s car rage, but then she caught my eye and we both started laughing. ‘Sod you, then,’ I muttered in the direction of the hall and we laughed even harder.

I always felt a sense of relief driving away from Lizzie’s house. Much as I loved her and enjoyed seeing her and cute, basin-haired little Felix, I was always on the edge of my nerves, waiting for Molly to beat Felix up or poo on the carpet or break something expensive.

Still, we were leaving now, and it was her turn to come round to ours next time, where everything that it was possible to break had already been broken, and the carpet was already so knackered that another ‘little accident’ was easily dismissed with a shrug and the dustpan.

It had been nice to catch up with Lizzie, though. And she had asked me along to a book group she was setting up with some friends, which might be fun – if they weren’t too scarily intellectual, of course.

After lunch, when both kids were napping, I tried to pretend I hadn’t seen the enormous washing pile, and booted up Alex’s laptop instead. After all, I hadn’t looked at it for days now. As I waited for the connection to dial through, I thought,
I bet he’s written back. No, he won’t have written back. Well, he might have, I suppose. Probably not though. Still, you never know
.

‘Shut up, moron,’ I groaned.

Inbox: (4) new messages
.

FOUR! Oh my God. I hardly ever got emails. So there had to be one from him, surely. I knew it. Didn’t I say?

I clicked on the inbox, fingers trembling, then scanned down the names as they appeared.

Amazon – a great new offer on some CD I’d never heard of.

Claire Davenport – oh wow, Claire Davenport from school!

Evie Porter – Aussie mate, excellent.

Danny Cooper.
Danny Cooper
.

I clicked on him at once, brain ticking over with the possibilities. My mouth was dry. What, oh what, was he going to say?

Sadie, I made a terrible mistake. I should never have left you
.

Sadie, I’ve been trying to find you for years
.

Sadie, I have never been able to get over you.

Shut up, shut up, shut up. My mind was racing – too much kick-arse coffee at Lizzie’s house. The email opened up finally and I read it.

Dear Sadie,

Good to see your name on the website. I was wondering if you were going to make an appearance. Sounds like things are going really well for you. If you’re ever in Manchester, give us a shout. Would be great to meet up after all these years.

Cheers,

Dan

PS I still have your
Hatful of Hollow
album. Do you want me to post it down?

I stared at the words and read them all again. It was very . . . bland. Disappointingly bland.

Hey, you, I taught you everything about sex, I felt like emailing back. I was your first love, remember! What about that bunk-up in the school toilets, eh? How can you be so cool and polite to me now? Why aren’t you begging me to take you back?

I hit the Reply key and gazed at the blank screen for a while.

No. Replying straight away was far too keen, if I was going to keep up my fantasy career story. Career woman Sadie would be too busy and overworked to write back the same day to some no-mark schoolboy she’d once been out with, wouldn’t she? I would make him wait. Make him wonder.

I read the message one last time and then switched off the laptop without even bothering to read the others. I had work to be getting on with, after all. OK, so it was a pile of clean washing to hang out and the kitchen floor to sweep and mop, but even so. I was still too busy to drop everything for Danny Cooper. Far too busy.

I went into the kitchen and tried to forget about him. I would give him my address, though, I decided. Just so he could send my album back. I’d loved that album and he had always denied that he had it. Yeah, I’d just get my album back and leave it at that. Closure. OK, so our turntable was broken and had been for well over a year – but that wasn’t the point. Danny didn’t have to know that. He didn’t have to know anything I didn’t want him to know.

I pulled the washing into the laundry basket and smiled. Danny Cooper was back in my life. And I was back in his. So pleasing that we could be so mature and adult about these things, wasn’t it?

Seven

Hi Danny,

Nice to hear from you. Sorry it’s taken me a while to reply – things have been mad at work. You know how it is. We’re all heads down for a new programme that’s launching next week called . . .

Hmmm. I flicked through
Heat
magazine for inspiration but couldn’t see any new Channel 4 programmes starting soon that I could convincingly put my name to. I didn’t want to get too embroiled in details anyway. Probably a very bad idea. Tangled webs, and all that.

Hi Danny,

How’s it going? Fancy hearing from you after all these years! Hey, remember that time we sneaked into your brother’s room and found his stash of porn mags in the wardrobe? Remember what happened next?

Maybe not. Tempting, but ill-advised, I decided.

Hello Danny,

I’m in Manchester on business next week. How about we meet up and you could give me my record back in person?

Thinking up other-life fantasies seemed to be the only way I was going to get through the afternoon with the children from hell, who seemed to have replaced my own little angels. Molly had refused her usual post-lunch nap and was over-tired and argumentative. I’d taken them out to the playground hoping she’d let off steam, but it had started to rain almost as soon as we’d got there, and we’d had to turn around and come straight back. There’d been tears that the raincover had to go on the buggy, and then furious shouts and small fists banging on the other side of the said hated raincover when it became clear that I wasn’t going to allow even one go on the swings.

For a second, I felt like saying, ‘OK, you sit in the rain and get drenched and really cold and come down with pneumonia. Fine. If that’s what my sweetheart wants, that’s what my sweetheart will have. Bollocks to it.’

I didn’t, though. I said, ‘No, sorry.
I said, no!
Now, that’s enough!’

I trudged all the way back through the rain, people staring at the two wailing infants I was pushing. I tried to assemble my face into an ‘Oh, the little scamps!’ expression but I was too tired to pretend, and instead found myself glaring and thinking that I hated them. Miserable whining little brats. And why did everyone keep
looking
at us, for goodness’ sake? All children cried sometimes, after all. Why did every passer-by seem hell-bent on making me feel like uber-crap parent today?

Back home, rain lashed against the windows all afternoon in long, grey streaks. I had to put the lights on by three o’clock, the sky was so dark. It wasn’t just the weather that was miserable, either. Every time I tried to sit Nathan up in a safe cushion ring, he toppled over heavily and cried, face down, sobs muffled. Molly didn’t want to do anything. Painting? No. Sticking? No. Play-Doh? No. Drawing? NO.

‘What, then?’ I snapped, rapidly losing the will to live.

‘Video,’ she muttered. ‘I watch
Monsters
.’

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘
Monsters
we can do. Let’s all sit down and watch
Monsters
and cheer up and
stop
crying for five minutes.’
Before I do something I regret
, I thought savagely.

I slammed
Monsters, Inc
, Molly’s favourite film in the world, into the video and then shut my eyes gratefully as a temporary peace began.