Mummy Said the F-Word (15 page)

I lie there on Sam’s blanket, watching stars fizz and pop, mirroring the fizzing and popping in my heart.

Back in London, the feeling hovers above me like a cloud.

Shooting-stars night. Lying beside Sam on the damp blanket. The two of us watching the sky explode. I tell no one, aware that Millie would blow it up into a Big Thing and bully me mercilessly to ‘make something happen’. Rachel, too, would badger me to ‘take it further’ – not that there’s anything
to
take. Nothing happened. No hand-holding, no touching – certainly no kiss. We watched the stars. We glimpsed the old couple canoodling by their dog-tent. Then Sam and I said goodnight and went to bed in our separate tents. Which suggests that I’m deluding myself horribly, and that he does not – and never will – regard me as more than a friend.

It’s affecting the way I behave around him and I panic that he’s noticed. I fret about behaving unnaturally, which has the effect of making me behave
really
unnaturally – a simmering ball of self-consciousness, incapable of normal conversation. I feel as awkward as Jake must have done when he was forced to be one of the Three Wise Men in the school nativity and muttered, ‘I bring you Frankenstein.’

I want to tell Sam how I feel and to hell with it – that something changed for me that night, that I felt alive again – but know he’d laugh in my face. Or be horrified and run off and vomit in the toilet. Or, by far the most humiliating option, give me a gentle talking-to along the lines of, ‘Cait, you’re a wonderful friend, and I’m really sorry to say this, but I don’t feel that way about you. I’m sorry.’ After which I would be forced to commit hara-kiri with our bread knife.

As a distraction technique, I work into the night on my page,
answering
letters personally, even though Millie warned me not to. I tried throwing them away, getting as far as dumping a few in the bin, but ended up retrieving them and giving them a quick rinse under the tap.

I pore over moist, partially smudged writing:

Dear Harriet,

Please help. My boyfriend and I split up last year. We have two small children and they have taken the break-up quite badly. Now my ex is hinting that we should get back together. At the time, he said we had grown apart and that although he loved me, he wasn’t ‘in love’ with me any more. Now he says he made a mistake. He wants to come back. Should I give him a second chance?

I enjoy your page very much and was sorry to read that this week will be your last for some time. I hope your replacement offers equally sage advice. You’re certainly a hard act to follow.

Confused, Kidderminster

I type:

Dear Confused,

You talk about your children and ex-partner and hardly mention yourself. How you feel about him. Whether
you
believe that you have a future with him.

I tail off. So what should she do? I gawp at the screen, scratchy-eyed and incapable of coming up with a suitable course of action. Of course she shouldn’t let him come back. But what if she still loves him? Who am I to dictate what she does? I thought I’d settled into this, and have been rattling off answers – dozens of personal replies – without too much trouble. Now I’m stuck, my confidence shredded, my head full of ridiculous Sam-thoughts.

Tossing the letter aside, I choose a problem about interfering grandparents instead.

It arrives next day, Monday morning. The bulky A4 envelope looks so innocent, lying among a soul-sapping array of junk mail, bills and a pamphlet emblazoned with the disconcerting message: ‘
EEZEE-CLEAN CARPET-CLEANER. “I CAN’T BELIEVE HOW MUCH DIRT CAME OUT OF MY CARPET. THE WATER WAS BLACK
!” –
Brenda, Welwyn Garden City
.’

I pick up the brown envelope and clutch it to my chest. I should be cajoling the kids to get ready for school, but I need to see this, to have the horror over and done with. Ripping it open, I yank out the magazine and flick to my page.

As predicted, the photo is terrible. It’s also bloody
huge
. For reasons known only to themselves, either Millie or some smartarse on the art desk has seen fit to give it maximum space. Pike, in her crisp white shirt, had occupied something like three square centimetres. My picture is four times the size, with a pink border round it which screams, ‘Look! Check out this twerp! Who does she think she is?’ Even worse, it looks like I’m pouting, as if I reckon I’m a proper model in an advert for Lancôme or Max Factor. I could sob. There’s not a pouting gene in my body. I’d been trying to make comforting noises and reassure Travis that this wasn’t some unconvincing trannie but
me
– the very woman who’d nurtured him in her womb and sported a 36H Bonne Maman nursing bra with pre-moulded zip cups.

Hurrying down to the kitchen, I frantically consider my options. Damage limitation would involve resigning from the problem page. I am also tempted to undergo drastic face-changing surgery so no one recognises me. Aren’t face transplants available these days? One of those would do.

‘Are we late?’ Lola skips into the kitchen still wearing her Pluto nightie.

‘God, yes, we’d better get a move on.’ I snap out of my trauma and yell upstairs to Jake and Travis, wondering if it would look terribly weird if I wore a balaclava on a warm late-April morning.

Jake appears fully dressed apart from his shoes. ‘You don’t care,’ he growls.

I glare at him. Has he somehow managed to see the magazine
and
has realised he’ll be teased mercilessly about his man-mother? No, not possible.

‘Where are your shoes?’ I ask him.

‘You don’t
care
,’ he repeats.

Ah. So the perked-up Jake, who’d been so helpful on our camping trip, has reverted to the Jake who blames me for all that’s wrong in his life. Even though his father is the one having fabulous rumpy while I haven’t glimpsed a naked man since the Edwardian era.

‘What is it,’ I say levelly, ‘that I don’t I care about?’

Travis appears beside him and peers round his brother’s legs.

‘My verrucas,’ Jake announces.

I almost laugh. ‘I thought they’d all gone.’

‘Well, they haven’t.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me? I don’t have time to go round checking everyone’s feet, Jake. There are six feet in this house—’

‘There are eight,’ Lola states smugly. ‘When Daddy was here, there were ten.’

‘Yes, thank you, Lola …’

‘Other mums check feet,’ Jake adds. ‘Other mums
care
.’

‘Oh, really? Whose mum has time to perform daily foot checks?’ My voice is shrill and ugly.

‘Everybody’s!’ Jake rages.

‘Right, like everybody goes to Disneyland Paris at Easter. If your verrucas have come back, just tell me and we’ll put the runny stuff on again.’

‘I
am
telling you. I’m telling you
now
.’

‘How many do you have?’ I try to keep my voice even. Calm, unflappable mother.

‘About forty-five,’ he retorts.

‘Forty-five? Jesus! Are you kidding? Take off your socks!’

‘I’ll show you later,’ he says mildly, meaning,
If you haven’t cared about the pain and discomfort I’ve endured these past weeks, a few more hours aren’t going to make any difference
.

I bob down and reach for his sock. ‘No!’ he roars, jerking his foot from my grasp.

‘Don’t be silly! It won’t take a minute—’

‘What’s a verruca?’ Lola enquires.

‘It’s a little warty thing with a kind of root.’

‘A root?’ she exclaims. ‘What, like a tree? Ugh!’

‘Jake,’ I snap, ‘keep your foot
still
. I need to see them.’

With the foot trapped under one arm, I tear off the sock, but he kicks out furiously, propelling himself backwards and smacking the back of his head on the doorframe.

‘Oh, my God! Are you OK?’ I scoop him up and hold in my arms, raking through his hair to check for some terrible gaping chasm. There isn’t one – there’s no blood at all, although a spectacular lump is already beginning to form. He sobs into my chest. Tears pour down my own cheeks.

‘You hurt me,’ he gulps. ‘You hurt my head.’

‘Darling, I’m so sorry.’ His face feels sticky and hot.

‘Will he have to go to hospital?’ Lola asks brightly.

‘Ambulance!’ Travis announces, banging his milk cup on the table.

‘No, I don’t think we need hospital. Jake, how do you feel, sweetheart?’

‘All right.’ He’s just like the old Jake –
my
Jake – allowing himself to be cuddled and held. I can feel the urgent thudding of his heart. ‘Can you see OK?’ I murmur. ‘Does everything look blurry?’

He nods. Does this mean he
can
see normally, or that his vision’s impaired?

‘I was only trying to get your sock off, and the way you kicked …’ I try to hug him again, but his body has stiffened and he’s edged away from me. It’s like trying to cuddle a freezer. ‘D’you have a headache?’ I rant on. ‘D’you feel sick or anything?’

‘I’m OK!’ Pushing me away, he staggers up and lands heavily on a chair.

‘Jake has forty-five verrucas with roots,’ Lola sing-songs.

‘
I
wanna burooka!’ storms Travis, flinging down his cup.

I stand there, stranded in my own kitchen, not knowing what to do next. There are three children present, with one adult, and
that
adult is me. It is the adult’s job to make decisions, to know what to do at all times. It’s what we’re
for
. I am not a bona fide adult. I can’t even inflate a fucking airbed.

If I make Jake go to school – which starts in precisely four minutes – he might pass out and choke on his own vomit in the loos. If I keep him at home – and I’ll still have to drag him out while I take Lola to school – he’ll spend all day radiating hatred.

Jake whispers something that sounds like, ‘I want Dad.’

I swallow hard. ‘Do
you
think you’re OK to go to school?’ Nice one. Pass the buck.

‘Yeah,’ he grumbles.

‘Come on, then. Let’s get coats brushed and teeth on.’

That always lightens the mood in our house. Today, nobody laughs.

We hurtle towards school with me dragging Travis like a pull-along toy. Hell, I’m no better than a child-beater. The least I can do is get my kids to school on time.

‘I’ll get a late mark,’ Jake gloats, adding silently,
And it’ll be all your fault
.

We arrive, panting, at the gates, which I march through with Jake protesting loudly behind me. ‘What are you doing? You can’t go into school! Parents aren’t allowed!’

‘Yes I can, Jake. I want to talk to Miss Race so she can give you one of those “I bumped my head today” stickers. Then all the staff will know to keep an eye on you.’

‘A sticker?’ Jake rounds on me. ‘I’m ten! I don’t want stickers. Stickers are for little kids!’

Ignoring him, I push open the main door with the kids skirmishing behind me.

‘Oh, hello, Jake.’ Miss Race has emerged from the office. She favours clothes in the olive-green/mustard spectrum. (Since my encounter with Carmen, I’ve started thinking in spectrums.) I suspect that she’s had a session with a sadistic colour consultant.

‘Um, Jake bumped his head this morning,’ I explain. ‘I wondered if you could make sure he’s OK.’

Jake pulls in his shoulders and glares at his feet, as if trying to shrink into himself.

‘Oh, poor you,’ Miss Race gushes. ‘Gosh, yes, I can see a nasty lump. What happened?’

‘He, um, fell against the door,’ I babble, aware of the guilt creeping all over my face.

‘He didn’t!’ Travis shouts. ‘Mummy pushed him.’

Miss Race squints at me. ‘Oh, dear.’

‘It was an accident,’ I say with a stupid wittery laugh.

‘Hmmm.’ Her lips crinkle. ‘Well, you will tell me if you feel strange or ill, won’t you, Jake?’

He nods, and his look says,
My own mother tried to maim me
.

Miss Race’s look says,
We know about people like you, and notes will be kept on file
.

Faking jollity, I kiss Lola and Jake goodbye – he virtually retches – and lead Travis outside to the deserted playground. ‘Come on,’ I announce, ‘let’s do something fun to cheer ourselves up.’

‘What?’ he enthuses with a little skip.

‘Let’s go shopping for verruca lotion.’

Clutching Travis’s hand, I step into the chemist’s, grateful for its soothing aromas after our challenging start to the day.

A woman with violently highlighted hair swings round from the homeopathic remedies display. ‘Caitlin Brown!’ shrieks Bev. ‘I’ve just seen it – that hilarious picture of you in
Bambino
. Aren’t you the dark horse?’

My face clenches as she flutters towards me. She is joined by Marcia, who hurries over from the toothbrushes, and Charlene, another PTA mother, who’s gripping a prescription in a paper bag.

‘It’s just, er, a temporary thing,’ I bluster, ‘to fill in while the real agony aunt’s off sick.’

‘You look
different
in your photo, don’t you?’ Marcia crows.

‘Very glam,’ fibs Charlene, baring her teeth.

‘Um, thanks.’ I try for a grin, but my face freezes. It feels like rigor mortis is setting in.

Travis is twizzling round all the bubble baths so they’re facing the wrong way. Christ, I know
Bambino
is popular – market leader and all that – but I hadn’t realised I’d be outed within minutes of it going on sale.

‘Did you have to do special training?’ Marcia arches an eyebrow.

‘No, not really …’

‘So just anyone off the street can start giving advice? Just like that?’ She laughs witheringly.

‘Yes, I suppose they can.’ My mouth twitches as I tug Travis away from the singing toothbrushes. There’s a scrambled chorus as they burst into song:

Sing, sing, sing with me
,

Sing a little song
.

Brush, brush, brush your teeth today

And then you can’t go wrong!

‘There I was,’ Charlene continues, ‘expecting that sensible woman, Harriet-Whatserface with the neat hair. But, no, it was you, our very own Caitlin—’

I have become Our Very Own Caitlin, like some end-of-pier variety act.