Mummy Said the F-Word (21 page)

‘I, um, suppose you don’t want him thinking you’re back together and being disappointed.’

‘Mmm.’

A silence descends. ‘Is she thinking of moving back to London?’ I ask in an overly perky voice. God, the effort of pretending I don’t care.

‘Well, she lost her job in Cornwall, so it’s a possibility, yes.’

I frown at the back of his head. ‘Sam, what d’you think will happen? Do you want to get back together?’

He turns round and hands me a mug, but I still can’t fathom him out. ‘Honestly, Cait, I don’t know. She’s all torn up about splitting up with her boyfriend.’

‘I’ve never asked you this, but … why did you break up? I know she left, but—’

‘Look what I’ve got, Dad!’ Harvey tumbles in from the garden with a handful of writhing worms, followed by Jake, who appears to have forgotten that I’m the most despicable person on earth.

‘Look at mine,’ he yelps, uncoiling his hand to reveal a shiny-backed beetle.

‘Lovely, Jake … What are you planning to do with it?’

‘Can I bring it home?’

‘Yes, of course you can.’ Am I such a terrible mother when I allow live bugs in the house? Actually, I am relieved. Bugs = dirty = normal, grubby-fingernailed child. Not Obsessive-Compulsive Mr Sheener.

‘You’ll find jam jars under the sink,’ Sam says. ‘Remember to punch some holes in the lid and put plenty of soil and leaves in there.’

My mobile beeps and I fish it out of my pocket to read the text:
MEETING FRIENDS AT THE CROWN IN COLUMBIA ROAD
8
PMISH WD BE GREAT IF U CD COME DARREN X
.

The smile sneaks across my face. ‘Something nice?’ Sam asks as the boys charge outside for further creepy-crawly collection.

‘Darren, the TV-fixer, remember?’

‘You’re seeing him again? After the Bev fiasco in the restaurant?’

‘Yes, tonight. He’s just asked me for a drink. Martin’s picking up the kids, so there’s no babysitter worries.’

‘Sounds great.’ He smiles lamely.

‘And it’s better than spending Friday night with a tank of sea monkeys.’ I head towards the back door to round up the kids from the bottom of Sam’s garden. ‘Anyway,’ I say, glancing back at him, ‘what are you up to tonight?’

We have a joke, Sam and I, about our lamentable social lives, answering such questions with a blasé, ‘Oh, I thought I’d pop along to a private view at the ICA; then there’s an all-night party at Tracey Emin’s studio. Apart from that, nothing much.’

‘She’s, um … coming over,’ Sam says hesitantly. ‘Amelia’s due in about an hour’s time.’

My entire body seems to deflate. ‘That’s great!’ I say, mustering a wide, fake grin, the effort of which almost causes my face to crack.

Back home, I busy myself by packing the kids’ weekend bags. Lola is jammed by my side, helping to pair up socks from her drawer. Jake, who’s impatient for King Daddy’s arrival, keeps asking why he’s not here yet. Travis is in the garden, attempting to find further specimens for our bug collection. I plan to de-mother myself when they’ve gone. It’s less stressful than enduring their bathroom-door hammering and Travis catching me sprinting naked across the landing and going, ‘Eugh.’

He’s late. Martin is
never
late. When he finally shows up, at seven forty-five, he is creased around the eyes, as if severely sleep-deprived. His usually pristine hair looks as if it’s been sat on. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ he mutters, giving me an unexpected kiss on the cheek, which shocks me, as if a stranger had lurched over and pecked me in the street.

‘You look awful,’ I tell him, having dispatched the kids to gather up their favourite toys. (No matter how ready we are, there’s always a scramble for last-minute ‘essentials’.)

‘Cheers.’ He smiles weakly and perches on the sofa arm.

I peer at him. In spite of how much I despise him, I’m concerned to see him looking so haggard. He will, after all,
be
in charge of our children for the next forty-eight hours. Right now, he barely looks up to the job.

‘Bad day at work?’ I persist.

‘I, um …’ He glances down at his shoes, then blinks up at me. ‘I haven’t been to work today. Me and Daisy have been having a few … problems.’

‘Oh dear.’ My heart bleeds.

‘Issues, I suppose you’d call them.’ Joyless chuckle. ‘About the kids …’

‘What about the kids?’

Here it comes: Sorry, but while I’m happy to pop round in the week bearing gifts, I’ll have to cut down on weekends. You know how it is. Space issues, ya-di-ya. And we’re going to be terribly busy building an annexe with en-suite bathroom for Pink Princess …

‘She … Daisy worries about the effect they’re having on Poppy. She’s been quite withdrawn at school and finds it hard to make friends and—’

‘And you’re saying this is our children’s fault? Christ, Martin, you only have them every other weekend. That’s when you’re not going to the theatre or
Sardinia
—’

‘I know, and I’m
not
saying that. She, Daisy …’

‘How are they affecting Pink—Poppy exactly?’

‘Just … by being there. It’s pretty awkward. Lola hardly speaks to Poppy.’

‘Well,’ I snap, ‘I’m really fucking sorry. What on earth d’you expect? That she’ll embrace her as a step-sister?’

He meets my gaze and his eyes looked desperately sad. My own left eyelid is reverberating, as if an insect has landed on it.

‘Mummy!’ Travis calls from the stairs. ‘Where’s my hook?’

I tear my eyes away from Martin and try to normalise my voice. ‘Probably in your bedroom, sweetie. I’ll help you find it in a minute.’

‘Cait,’ Martin hisses after me, ‘I’m not going to do anything. I won’t change how things are, with the kids staying with me. They’re my priority. I’ll make it work out.’

‘Yes,’ I growl under my breath, ‘you bloody will.’

As I embark on Operation Hook Hunt, with Travis making ineffectual forays into his pant and sock drawers, I try to ignore the feeling of dread that Slapper is planning to screw things up between the kids and their father. Whatever I feel about him, they adore him and need their time with him. Where men are concerned, kids are so unblaming. Mine seem to have forgiven him for seamlessly replacing me with Slapper. Martin only has to tell a feeble joke to have the three of them screeching with laughter, as if he warrants a one-man show on the comedy circuit. I suspect that, even if I were capable of fashioning life-sized prehistoric creatures from salt dough, I’d evoke only a lukewarm response.

Martin’s role is that of entertainment manager and dispenser of impromptu gifts. Mine is to delve around the dusty pipe at the back of the toilet hunting for lost toys. The Mum-Dad equation is, I feel, horribly unbalanced.

They leave, with Travis scowling through the back window of Martin’s car, as if blaming me personally for the disappearance of his hook.

‘This is Caitlin, the famous writer.’ Darren kisses my hot cheek and beckons me to join his friends at their table in the corner of the bustling pub. I laugh, and he introduces me to each face in turn: fresh-faced boys (not men but
boys
) and girls who undoubtedly read
Elle
and
Glamour
, and wouldn’t touch
Bambino
even if they found it abandoned on the train. I’ll bet there’s not a stretch mark or a thread vein between them.

This
is where I want to be – not trapped with Bev Hartnett and her perimenopause.

Drinks are flowing at an impressive pace. Within minutes any smidgen of self-consciousness has ebbed away, and I’ve stopped fretting about Slapper objecting to our kids’ presence, and Jake finding me so objectionable, and the fact that Sam is probably immersed in a passionate deep-throat snoggy scenario with Amelia right now. None of that matters. I feel like Cait, my pre-motherhood self.

A girl with golden streaks running through her chestnut hair bubbles with excitement about her new job as a PA in the City. Her first job; she’s just starting out in life. I feel a twang of envy. Another is moving out from her parents’ place and in with her boyfriend. ‘We’re thinking of going for a vintage look,’ she announces, ‘with one of those cool sixties lamps that curves over in an arc, and maybe beaded curtains.’

I love the frivolity of it all. Lamps and beaded curtains. Not pedal bins and blocked waste pipes. Darren’s friends discuss films, music and clubs, and I don’t bother to pretend that I’m familiar with a wide array of recreational drugs or have exotic body piercings. I soak it in, temporarily inhabiting a fish-finger-free world. There’s no swapping of recipes, no talk of guess-the-stuffed-bunny’s-birthday stalls. With Martin showing up so late, I didn’t have time to dress up, and now I’m relieved. Everyone is wearing skinny tops and low-slung jeans. Maybe dressing up is something you have to do only when you’re starting to crumble around the edges. When you have ‘flaws’ (magazine-speak) to ‘conceal’. Anyway, I feel fine in my faded jeans and baby-blue lambswool sweater.

The Crown is noisy and pleasingly old-fashioned. It’s the kind of cosy, unpretentious place that Martin and I frequented during our early years, when we’d left college and taken to throwing occasional sickies from work to spend extra time together. I feel myself slithering towards mild giddiness, as I did during those ever-stretching afternoons.

‘I can’t believe you have three children, Caitlin,’ the PA girl announces. ‘I thought you were around the same age as us.’

‘It’s the lighting in here,’ I reply, laughing, not minding that she’s lying through her pearly teeth.

As we leave the pub, someone shouts, ‘See you again, Caitlin!’ I feel ridiculously happy, as if I have left all my worries behind on the Crown’s battered oak table.

‘So,’ Darren says eagerly, ‘where to now?’

I like that. The assumption that I needn’t scamper home before I turn into a pumpkin.

‘We could have a coffee at mine,’ I venture. (The old ‘coffee’ line! Martin used to tease me that the first night he’d come back to my flat, said promised hot beverage had never materialised).

Darren grins, and his fingers curl around mine. His friends have dispersed; it’s just us, on a warm, lazy May night. ‘That sounds good,’ he says.

We don’t talk much as we stroll along my road. I steal glances at him; his mouth is full, curved and sensuous, highly kissable. My heart quickens as I remember that I’m wearing a black-and-white spotty bra, mismatched pink knickers and haven’t shaved my legs.

Oh, well. Relationships aren’t made or broken over stubbly shins.

I fish out my keys at the front door and realise I’m trembling slightly. Will I have the nerve to go through with this? Surely sex is one of those things that you soon get the hang of again – like riding a bike. You’re rather wobbly at first, and might fall off and graze yourself, but as far as the basic mechanics go – which bit goes where – I feel reasonably confident that it’ll all come flooding back to me. Like helping Jake with his fractions.

No, no. I’m bloody crap at fractions.

Darren touches my face, nudging back a loose strand of hair as I try to stab my key into the lock. Then he kisses me. It’s a languid kiss that makes me shiver all over and drop my keys on the flagstone with a clatter. I imagine Mrs Catchpole peering out and sucking in her lips. A mother of three, the youngest of whom often runs about in the garden stark naked. Look at her now, making an exhibition of herself with a man, in full view of our street! That family’s gone to the dogs since that nice Martin left.

A rogue thought flashes into my mind as I retrieve my keys. Darren is twenty-five, which means he was
born in the 1980s
. Good God. We step into the house, and I flick on the hall light.

‘Ugh,’ he says with a shudder.

Damn, this is where it all comes crashing down. I’d looked OK in the corner of the dimly lit pub. Now, faced with the sight of me close up beneath the dazzling bulb, he is sickened.

‘What
are
these?’ he asks, peering at the bug jars that the kids lined up on the shelf.

‘Oh, those.’ I laugh, awash with relief. ‘They’re our pets.’

It happens quickly then. There isn’t much chat, and coffee is certainly absent. In fact, the kettle doesn’t feature at all. We are kissing on the sofa like teenagers, kissing and kissing with a keenness that I haven’t experienced since the early days of Martin and me.

We’re undressing each other and I no longer care that my underwear clashes and my shins are bristly and I haven’t had the chance to slather my body in extract of papaya, or whatever you’re meant to do prior to such an event. Darren’s body is lean, lightly muscled, clad only in snow-white briefs.

‘Let’s go upstairs,’ he murmurs.

‘Yes,’ says the eighteen-year-old that I’ve become. Desire whirls in my stomach as I stagger up from the sofa, knocking Travis’s Playmobil airport from the coffee table on to the floor. We arrive in the hall, holding hands and giggling and shivering slightly.

‘Hey, gorgeous,’ Darren says, pulling me towards him. His mouth is on mine, tasting beery and faintly cigaretty in a strangely pleasant way. ‘You,’ he murmurs, ‘are so sexy.’

‘Come on,’ I murmur, tugging his hand, ‘let’s go up—’

Driiiiing!

Jesus, the bloody doorbell. We spring apart.

‘Who’s that?’ I whisper, staring wildly from the front door to Darren, as if he’d have the faintest idea.

Driiiing!
Driiiiiiiiiing!

Shit. Bollocks. I mime, ‘Shhh,’ with a finger pressed over my mouth. My eyes are bulging, about to pop.

If we stand there, deadly silent, whoever it is will go away.

‘Who …?’ Darren mouths, rubbing his goosepimpled upper arms.

I mime a flamboyant, ‘How the hell should I know?’ and conceal as much of my body as I can by folding my arms over
myself
. Trapped in my own hallway, in clashing bra and knickers. A draught sneaks in under the door. Someone is out there, no longer jabbing the doorbell, but waiting.

Someone staggering home pissed from the pub and winding up at the wrong house. Or a burglar casing the joint, as they say on TV. Or the person who sends pubic-hair trimmings to agony aunts.

Or a madman with an axe.