Mummy Said the F-Word (17 page)

Martin frowns. ‘And you think that’s … OK, do you?’

‘I don’t see why not.’

‘Can I be in the photo?’ Lola asks, tossing her freshly brushed hair.

‘Of course you can, sweetheart. Um … d’you have a problem with this, Martin?’

He shrugs. ‘I just think it’s something we should … be careful about. Parading them like that …’

‘I’m not
parading
them! It’ll be just like, like … a holiday snap.’

Martin sniggers. ‘It’s a bit different from holiday snaps, Cait. It’s a national magazine. But I suppose it’s your decision.’

On your head be it
, is what he means,
when they’re screwed up and in therapy, you child-beater, you
.

To avoid further conversation, I start cracking eggs for the kids’ supper.

Jake peers into the glass bowl. ‘What are we having?’

‘Omelette.’

‘I don’t like them. I can’t eat eggs.’

‘Neither can I,’ Lola announces, frowning. ‘I’m allergic.’

‘Lola, you’re not! You
love
eggs. What about pancakes? They have eggs in—’

‘But they’re not eggy,’ Jake cuts in.

‘Tell you what,’ Martin says, ‘why don’t I take them to Pizza Express seeing as you don’t have much in? There’s still time before the film.’

‘Yeah!’ Lola yelps. ‘Can Mummy come too?’

‘Um, d’you want to come, Cait?’ Martin’s face softens and something snags in my throat. I can’t go through with this. Can’t sit at our usual round table by the window. It had seemed ordinary then, with Jake always choosing the pizza with the egg on top (see, he
does
like eggs) and Lola asking yet again why Venice is in peril. Travis and I would share the salami one; he’d peel off the oily discs, sliding them into his mouth like coins. I can almost smell oregano and Peroni beer.

‘No thanks,’ I say brightly. ‘It’ll be good for the kids to have some time with you on their own.’
Without Slapper and Pink Princess
is what I mean.

‘Sure?’

‘I’ve got some work to get on with anyway.’ I muster a broad smile.

They all head out together, babbling over each other and barely remembering to say goodbye, except Lola who grins bravely. ‘I’ll bring you some pizza back if they’ll let me,’ she says.

‘Thanks, sweetie, but don’t worry about me. It’ll have gone cold. You tuck in and finish it all up.’

She nods. Jake is already musing that a cartoon movie that’s suitable for Travis will be too babyish for him.

‘Hey.’ Martin turns and meets my gaze. ‘Look, I don’t want you to think I’m blaming you for Jake’s bump …’

‘It’s OK,’ I murmur from the doorway. ‘I suppose it was my fault, in a roundabout way.’

They pile into the car, and Martin plugs in everyone’s seat belts, even though Jake can do it by himself. He’s about to climb into the driver’s side when he stops again and looks at me. ‘I’m sorry, Cait,’ he adds.

Sorry for what? For implying that I’m an unfit mother, or for screwing up our lives? I fake a smile, but only because Lola is staring out at me. ‘Nothing to be sorry for,’ I say lightly.

He shrugs and gets into the car. As they drive away, I remind myself that they’re as much Martin’s children as mine, and that they love him desperately. I must try to be mature enough to remember that.

But he’s still a self-satisfied bastard with a fondness for snug-fitting pants.

In the day room with the other inmates, Mum looks normal-sized. Here in the passenger seat of my car, she has assumed the dimensions of a tiny, startled bird.

‘I don’t know where you’re taking me,’ she mutters. ‘I was having a nice time with them old people eating cake and in you come and spoil it.’

‘You’re coming to our house for lunch, Mum,’ I say brusquely. ‘I thought you’d like to spend some time with the kids on your birthday.’

Her milky eyes bore into me. ‘What kids?’

‘Your grandchildren: Jake, Lola and Travis. Look how excited they are to see you.’ I glance into the rear-view mirror. Three doleful faces gawp from the back seat.

‘Will that doctor be there?’ Mum asks.

‘No, Mum, there’s no doctor. There will be a photographer, though – he’s called Adrian and he’s a really nice man. He’s coming after lunch to take our photo for a magazine. I told you about him, remember?’

‘Don’t want no photo taken.’ She fluffs up the back of her perm. ‘My hair’s never been right since they did it.’

I breathe slowly and deeply.
Breathe. Breathe
. ‘It’s just me and the children who are having our picture done, Mum. You can sit and watch. It shouldn’t take long. It’ll be
fun
.’

Mum nods, digesting this, as I park outside our house. Taking her arm, I ease her out of the car. Mum seems to be having a frail day. Not a clambering-over-railings-to-play-poker day.

‘Where are we going?’ she barks as I guide her downstairs.

‘To the kitchen, Mum, for lunch. It’s OK. I’m here to look after you.’

She blinks at me as if my being here is quite the opposite of reassuring. Lately, I’ve become nervous about taking Mum out of the home. There are no capable nurses, no Helenas with their pastel-blue tunics and soothing words. So many things could go wrong, and I’d be fully responsible. She could fall, or fly into an unprovoked rage. (Only this morning she tried to whack another inmate with a teaspoon at breakfast.) And what if she needs help on the toilet? It doesn’t bear thinking about. I have never seen Mum naked and now doesn’t feel like the right time to come over all free and relaxed with each other.

Lunch is tortuous. I have cooked the plainest, most World War Two-esque food I could think of – stew and dumplings – but it’s not going down well.

‘What
is
this?’ Jake asks.

‘It’s steak.’

‘What kind of animal is steak?’

‘Cow.’
Very expensive cow
, I want to add.

‘It doesn’t look like cow,’ Lola chirps. Mum glares down at her plate as if surmising that Lola is right and I’m probably trying to poison them all with braised roadkill.

‘That’s because it’s stew,’ I explain. ‘It’s cooked in a kind of gravy.’

‘What makes it thick?’ Jake enquires.

‘Cornflour. You make a little paste with—Just
eat
it, would you?’

Mum’s eyebrows shoot up. Christ, when will we emerge from this stage in which every ingredient and cooking method must be explained in brain-juddering detail? Every time we sit down to eat it’s like a bloody cookery exam.

‘Why are there cakes in the gravy?’ Lola asks.

‘They’re not cakes. They’re dumplings.’ My patience is stretched taut and could twang at any moment.

‘I don’t like them,’ she says.

‘That’s because you haven’t tried them. Look, they’re lovely!’
Fixing
her with a challenging stare, I fork in a whole dumpling, which plugs my entire mouth. It has the texture of teddy-bear stuffing. Mum has pushed hers aside and dumped her cutlery on the table. What was I thinking, bringing her here? She didn’t want to come. She has barely eaten a thing; doesn’t she like my cooking, or does she need feeding these days? Should I have cut up her meat into smaller pieces? I could never do Helena’s job. That woman is a saint.

With difficulty, I manage to gulp down the dumpling. I can feel it shifting lumpenly to my stomach.

‘Well,’ Mum announces, ‘I’d better be getting the bus.’ She shoves back her chair with a scrape.

‘Mum, there’s no bus. I’ll drive you home when the photographer’s finished. Are you sure you can’t manage any stew …?’

She flings me a beseeching look. ‘I want to go home. Don’t want no photos.’ She struggles up from her chair and totters across the kitchen with the kids gawping after her.

‘Bye!’ Travis calls out, waving his spoon.

‘What’s wrong with Granny?’ Lola cries.

I fly after Mum, putting an arm round her shoulders, but she brushes me off angrily.

‘What have you done with my hat?’ she asks.

‘You didn’t have a hat, Mum.’

‘Someone’s taken my gloves!’ Her eyes are startled, and her bony hands are trembling. She’s scared of me – her own daughter. If only Golden Boy Adam were here, Adam the computer whiz, whose farts receive rapturous applause. He’d never force dumplings on anyone.

The bang on the front door makes all of us jump. Shit, it must be Adrian. Lunch has been such a trial I’ve lost track of time. Guiding Mum upstairs to the front door by the hand, I open it and find Adrian laden with tripod and numerous silver cases. So much for a quick shoot.

‘Hi, Adrian, this is my mum.’

‘Oh!’ Mum brightens. ‘It’s your fella.’

‘Nice to meet you, Mrs, um …’ He tails off distractedly.

‘Jeannie. Jeannie Brown.’ Mum flashes her teeth at him and straightens the collar of her brown cardigan. The bus has, apparently, been forgotten.

We shuffle through to the living room. The kids have raced up from the kitchen and are at our heels.

‘I thought this room would be best,’ I explain, ‘being bright and airy and spacious.’

‘Hmmm.’ Adrian scans it. Through his eyes I take in the light-sapping pistachio paint that Martin chose, the fading armchairs, the assortment of stuff the kids have made – birthday cards, collages, clay owls, jam jars painted with wobbly strokes – which teeter on the mantelpiece. I am incapable of throwing anything away that they have produced. At some point our collection will reach critical mass and burst into the street in an explosion of glass fragments and owl beaks.

‘It’ll do, I suppose,’ Adrian says briskly. He rolls his eyes at Mum. ‘Last shoot didn’t really work out, Mrs, um, Jeannie. Wasn’t the look they wanted.’ His tone suggests that this was my fault. That I’d insisted on eight layers of lipstick and winged iridescent eyeshadow.

‘Oh,’ Mum says, clearly baffled.

‘Maybe you could get ready, Caitlin,’ he adds, ‘while I set up the lights.’

‘I
am
ready.’ I grin at him in readiness. Fuelled by my
irresistible
dumplings, which now lie in my stomach like bricks, I have never felt more ready in my damn life.

He frowns, and his eyes skim my carefully chosen floral-print dress and cardie, a look I’d hoped suggested kindness and empathy. Surely I couldn’t possibly look scary in a floral dress. ‘Oh,’ he says blankly. ‘So we’re going for a casual look.’

Casual? Even with that dratted stew bubbling away on the hob, I’d managed to blow-dry my hair, polish my shoes and apply light make-up. Maybe he prefers the Carmen school of cosmetics? A little back-combing, perhaps? Violent blusher stripes?

‘I can change if you like,’ I tell him, but Adrian has lost interest and is hunting around at skirting-board level for sockets.

‘Don’t want my photo taken.’ Jake thrusts his hands into his jeans pockets.

‘Oh, come on,’ I insist. ‘It’s no big deal.’

‘Yeah, it is. It’s for a stupid ladies’ magazine.’

‘It’s not just any old ladies’ magazine. It’s for parents, all about bringing up your children properly.’

‘Ha!’ he says bitterly, briefly touching the bump on his head. ‘Well, I won’t be in it. I’m going upstairs.’

‘No, Jake,’ I hiss.

‘Yes, Mum.’

I stare at him, trying to simultaneously plead and instil fear into his heart. After all the goddamn things I have done for him, the interminable years I’ve spent helping him to construct Meccano. (I am tragically inept at construction.) All the dirty pants I’ve washed and trainers I’ve scrubbed and he won’t do this one piddling thing to help me out.

‘Please, Jake,’ I say weakly.

‘No.’

‘Horrible meanie!’ Lola elbows him in the chest. ‘We’ve got to help Mummy.’

‘Ow! Don’t touch me, pig!’

His roar shocks all of us and causes Mum to jolt in her chair in the corner. She’ll probably have a heart attack and it’ll be all my fault. Travis waves his Captain Hook’s hook excitedly. Lola’s bottom lip trembles, and her eyes wobble with tears.

‘Hey, kids,’ Adrian announces like some jolly uncle, ‘I’m sure if you cooperate, Mummy will treat you to some enormous, wonderful thing when we’re done. Won’t you, Mummy?’

I’m not your mummy
, I want to sneer. ‘Yes, um … of course I will.’ I smile savagely.

‘What?’ Lola asks. ‘What will we get?’

‘Can I have a GameBoy Advance?’ Jake enquires.

Jesus Christ.

‘Or an Xbox? Everybody’s got an Xbox. Jamie Torrance has an Xbox
and
a PlayStation 3.’ He folds his arms triumphantly.

Adrian is grinning at me. The ‘you-poor-fucker’ smirk of the child-free.

‘You can choose a book,’ I mutter.

‘A book?’ Jake carps. ‘That’s not an enormous, wonderful thing.’

I could happily stamp on his foot, verrucas or no verrucas.

Mum is gazing adoringly at Adrian with her head tipped to one side. ‘Glad to see you’re back,’ she announces. ‘That woman hasn’t been the same since you went off with that other girl. Doesn’t know if she’s coming or going. Look at the state of these poor kids.’

I chuckle inanely, wondering if it’s possible to dissolve through mortification.

‘They look fine to me, Jeannie.’ Adrian positions us on the sofa, as if we’re incapable of independent movement. Incredibly, and probably visualising Xboxes, Jake allows his legs to be crossed neatly at the ankles.

‘You’ve got to work at a marriage,’ Mum rattles on. ‘Young people today expect everything on a plate.’

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Adrian murmurs, a small tic appearing beneath his left eye.

‘Are you married?’ she snaps.

He blinks at her. One minute he’s being welcomed back into our family fold, the next he’s being quizzed on his marital status. I forget that not everyone is accustomed to Mum’s tangled thoughts. ‘Um, well, I live with—’

‘What’s her name?’ Mum demands.

Adrian smiles stoically. ‘Um, Lewis.’

Mum’s forehead crinkles.

‘That’s a man’s name,’ Lola retorts.

‘Yes, it is,’ I say, hoping, as Adrian starts shooting, that my grin doesn’t make me look unhinged.

‘It’s the least you could do,’ Mum snaps at him.

‘What’s that, Jeannie?’ Adrian asks.

‘Make an honest woman out of her.’

Adrian smirks, casting me a look over his camera. Jake sits stiffly by my side. I wonder if the cloud of simmering resentment
around
him will show up in the pictures, like a Ready Brek glow. While Lola is a model of obedience, Travis – who’s plonked on my lap – refuses to take off his hook.