Mummy Said the F-Word (25 page)

He shrugs. ‘Whatever.’

Deep breath. Don’t lose it. Don’t exhibit any emotion whatsoever.
‘Well
,’ I chirp, ‘that’s good news, isn’t it? Harvey must be delighted. When are they having the wedding?’

‘Really soon.’ He’s gloating, I swear.

‘Great! I do love weddings. Remember Uncle Adam’s with that party in the big marquee? Wasn’t that fun?’

‘Yeah, except Daddy was late and you had an argument in front of everybody and you cried.’

‘Um, yes …’

‘And then Uncle Adam and Auntie what’s-her-name …’

‘Cathy.’

‘They got divorced. Why does everyone get divorced?’

‘They don’t,’ I say briskly. ‘There are lots of happy marriages. There’s, um …’ My brain empties itself of all logical thought. ‘There’s … Rachel and Guy. Bev and thingy.
Lots
of people. Want me to switch off your light now, or are you reading for a bit longer?’

‘Reading,’ Jake mutters. The look he throws me causes me to back away and hurry downstairs. This isn’t right. I am the adult here:
I
should be in charge. Yet sometimes he reminds me of those small, yappy dogs that nip at your ankles and shins.

Dear Caitlin,

My first letter of the night shift reads:

Is it normal for young children to use bad language? My six-year-old son seems to have fallen into a habit of it – not constantly, but enough to worry me and his father and for his friends’ parents to comment on it. (At a recent birthday party, he announced that the jelly was ‘shit’.)

I smile, reassured that I’m not the only mother with a potty-mouthed child. Aren’t
I
supposed to make the
readers
feel better? Isn’t this happening the wrong way round?

The writer continues:

I’m worried that we must be doing something dreadfully wrong. We don’t pepper our everyday conversations with
expletives
, but occasionally the odd bad word shoots out. I’d be grateful for any advice you can offer.

Ashamed Mum, Bristol

Dear Ashamed,

Your son’s ears are as receptive as satellite dishes, his brain a remarkable filing cabinet for the storage of bad words. Please don’t beat yourself up for spouting the odd rude word yourself. Your little boy would still be exposed to expletives in the playground and while out and about.

Granted, some people take great exception to this. I did hear of one family who banned Raymond Briggs’s
Father Christmas
in their house, due to the overuse of the word ‘bloomin’ – as in ‘another bloomin’ Christmas’. An overreaction perhaps. However, I do appreciate your concern. No one wants their child asking why there are no effing Horrid Henry books at the library. Plus, bad words take on greater weight and significance when they fall from the mouths of babes.

Miss Race, in her moss-coloured blouse, shimmers before me like a spectre.

Explain to your son that grown-ups often find these words upsetting, and that using them may result in fewer playdate and party invitations. But don’t blow it up into some international incident. We all know the allure of forbidden fruit.

That’ll do for tonight. Maybe Sam’s right: wading through leftover angst is beyond the call of duty. A dumpee’s way of filling the empty small hours. I’ll just read one more email, and only because it’s headed ‘PLEASE, PLEASE READ THIS’.

Dear Caitlin,

I am emailing you as I have no one else to turn to. Things haven’t been good lately. I know a lot of it is my fault, in that I have not always been supportive about the children
coming
here for weekends. Having an only child who stretches me to the limit sometimes, I fear that my parenting skills are sorely lacking and at times find it hard to cope.

I thought that things would improve when we moved into the new flat with the extra bedroom, but if anything, they have become worse. I know Martin feels—

Martin. Will I ever be able to encounter that name without shuddering? I read on.

I know Martin feels tremendous guilt at what he has put you and the children through. It’s something he seems unable to reconcile. He wants them to feel happy in our home and feels that I don’t support him, when I am trying my very best.

I blink at the screen, rigid in my chair. The fridge growls ominously.

You’re probably shocked that I’m emailing you out of the blue when we have barely spoken. The truth is, I don’t know what else to do. I don’t have many friends that I can turn to. Many of them disapproved when I got together with Martin, and I know that our relationship has caused a great deal of pain. And I admire you, Caitlin. You seem so together and sorted, and have remained dignified throughout.

I could slam my fist through the PC. That would be dignified. I could fling the sea-monkey tank at the wall, if it wouldn’t cause mass death.

Daisy ploughs on:

I know what you must think of me. Poppy’s father has never been part of her life. He, too, was a married man, so I know how hard it is to bring up a child alone and the pressures we single mums have to deal with.

Another married man! Ah, a theme emerges. A vein throbs in my neck. So she knows, does she, what it’s like to be barred from
your
own son’s bedroom? How it feels to be caught by your self-satisfied ex in a child-sized Pac-a-Mac? Perhaps I should pity her. It must be terribly hard trying to go about your business, advising customers at bottle-changeover time, when your clothes have a habit of flying off and you accidentally find yourself having sex.

Anyway, I thought you might be able to have a chat to Martin and let him know, in your understanding away, that I am perfectly happy about your children’s visits, and that if I seem tense, it’s due to my own inadequacies. Sometimes it’s so helpful to have a mediator in these circumstances, isn’t it? And you do a remarkable job in
Bambino
.

Many thanks for reading this, Caitlin. I’d like to smooth things out and see Martin much happier before Jake comes to live with us permanently.

Regards,

Daisy

Permanently?
Is this some kind of sick joke? She really believes that Jake wants to live at the love nest? My heart thuds furiously. How dare she concoct this crap about my son? If Miss Race could hear the bad words whirling inside me, her head would spin off like a frisbee. Jake, residing with Slapper. My darling son, forbidden from sitting on Poppy’s chair, and sharing roof-space with 8,000 My Little Ponies. I would rather gouge out my eyes than allow it.

I formulate a considered reply.

Dear Daisy,

Thank you so much for your email. Please accept my heartfelt sympathy that things have gone rather cock-eyed between you and Martin. Have his piles put in a reappearance? They do tend to make him rather irritable, as I remember only too well during a holiday in Scotland. Shall I dig out some info on creams and suppositories from my vitalworld.com file and forward it to you? In the meantime,
ask
him to tell you about the time the doctor shone a torch up his arse and said, ‘You have a beautiful specimen up there, Mr Collins.’

As for Jake moving in with you …

My fingers grind to a halt. I glower at her email. Creepy phrases like ‘a great deal of pain’ judder before my eyes.
I
could show her what pain’s like.

‘Mummy!’ comes Travis’s cry from his room, but I can’t get up from my chair, can’t go to him.

Slapper. How I hate her.

‘Mummy!’ There’s a scrambling on the stairs as Travis pelts down to the kitchen. ‘I fell out of bed!’ he roars.

I open my arms and pull him close. His cheeks are hot and damp from crying. ‘Oh, sweetheart. Are you OK now? Did you bump yourself?’

‘Yeah. No. I rolled under the bed and couldn’t get out. It was dark.’

I lift him on to my knee and stroke his moist hair, this child who would no more try to hitchhike to Greece than be parted from me. This is how it should be. The way children should regard their mothers, instead of acquiring crazy urges for the superior facilities at their father’s flat.

‘Want to sleep in the big bed with me tonight?’ I ask gently.

‘Yeah,’ he murmurs. His fine hair smells sweet, like vanilla cookies.

‘Hang on. I’ll finish this and we’ll go up.’ I delete my juvenile rant and shut down the computer.

Travis rides upstairs on my hip, even though he’s too heavy these days for this mode of transport. I tuck him into Martin’s side of the bed before changing into PJs and slipping in beside him.

Travis makes my anger fade away, just by being here, breathing into my face. The third child, whose conception we hadn’t planned, and which Martin had been distinctly put out by, but who greeted the world with an exuberance that had gripped my heart.

Occasionally, I wonder if Martin would have succumbed to Slapper’s charms if we’d stopped at two children. Weighing them up – Travis and a huge, farting adult male – there’s really no contest. I lie awake for a while watching him sleep, figuring that life can’t be so bad when someone needs you this much. And I start to feel almost lucky. Kids aside, I have a decent-ish home and a job that’s grown on me unexpectedly, like an inherited pot plant. I’m not a deranged water-cooler-maintenance girl. My breasts may be lacking in perkiness, but at least I do have a brain, of sorts.

As for Slapper’s suggestion that Jake might move out, I’ve decided on a more concise response, which I shall fire off first thing.

Over my dead body
.

Martin looks dashingly handsome as he strides into the steamy café the following morning. Handsome, that is, if you’re attracted to chunky six-footers with deep brown eyes and a caramel tan. The girl at the counter, who’s dropping marsh-mallows into tall mugs of hot chocolate, beams an eager smile. I nod curtly as he eases his way between the cramped tables towards mine.

‘Cait, what’s happened? What’s so urgent?’ He drops on to the opposite chair.

‘Want a coffee or something?’ I ask.

‘I’ll go up and order in a minute.’ No need. The girl has whooshed to his side, despite the sign that reads, ‘
PLEASE ORDER AT COUNTER. THANK YOU
.’

‘Anything I can get you?’ she asks.

‘Um, just a latte, please.’

‘Can I bring you a cookie or a muffin with that?’

Can I climb on to your lap and attach my lips to your face with that?

‘No, just a coffee, thanks.’ He smiles wearily and turns back to me. ‘Is this going to take long? I really should be at work. There’s a client presentation in half an hour …’

‘You’d better read this.’ I hand him the printed-off email.

His eyes cloud as he scans it. ‘For fuck’s sake. I can’t believe she sent this. I’m really sorry, Cait. You shouldn’t be involved.’

He barely acknowledges the waitress as she places the coffee before him. I sip mine, which is tepid now. In the sugary warmth of the café, with the kids deposited at school and nursery, I am a model of calm. I deserve a Most Controlled Being Award. A Well Done for Not Losing It certificate, like the architectural awards on the pale-grey walls of Martin’s office.

Still reading, he shakes his head despairingly. ‘I suppose she thinks you’re a
real
agony aunt.’

‘Read the last bit. Where she says Jake wants to …’ My voice splinters.

Martin glances up at me, then scans Daisy’s final lines. ‘Oh, God, Cait …’

‘Is it true? Is this what he wants?’ My nose starts running and I blow it distractedly on a paper napkin.

Martin places the printout on the speckled table and reaches for my hand. I let him hold it. I don’t flinch or pull away. He looks at me the way the old Martin used to, before exasperation and smugness poisoned everything. ‘It’s … it’s what he’s been saying. At first I thought it was a whim, and that he was just trying to stir things up … but he won’t let it drop. I didn’t know how to tell you.’

‘How could it work when Slap— when Daisy finds it so difficult having our kids around? He can’t live where he’s not wanted.’

‘He would be wanted. I’d make sure of that.’

Marcia and Charlene, two of the scarier PTA mums, march in and deliberate over the cakes in the chiller cabinet. I quickly free my hand from Martin’s grasp.

‘He can’t mean it,’ I insist. ‘He’s just saying it for … a reaction. Because he blames me for us breaking up.’ A tear wobbles like mercury on my lower eyelid. Martin reaches for my hand again, but I clasp mine on my lap, out of reach.

‘You know that’s not true,’ he says softly. ‘It was
my
fault. All of it.’

‘You mean—’ I clamp my mouth shut.

‘Hi, Caitlin!’

‘Hello, Marcia,’ I mutter.

She shoots Charlene a look-who’s-here glance while manoeuvring their laden tray. That’s the trouble with living in a family-friendly neighbourhood: numerous school-gate spies noting your every move. Before having kids, I could have got up to anything and no one would have noticed or cared. Luckily, for once they don’t stop to talk.

‘Do you … regret it?’ I murmur when they’re out of earshot.

‘Yes, Cait, I do.’

Out of the corner of my eye I see Marcia biting her eclair obscenely.

‘Since when?’ My voice has turned brittle.

Martin fixes me with solemn eyes. ‘Since … since I left you. But especially …’ He lowers his gaze and I’m overcome by an urge to hold him. The Most Controlled Being Award slips from my grasp.

‘Especially … when?’

There’s a hint of a smile. ‘That night with the hook. You remember. When you had some bloke round and were standing there in Jake’s raincoat thingy and …’ He grins sheepishly.

‘Right. When I looked like a complete idiot.’

Marcia’s eclair wavers in mid-air.

‘No, Cait, you looked like
you
. Like the girl I first met, who was so sweet and spontaneous. Seeing you like that – all over the place, not knowing where to put yourself – reminded me how funny you are, and how no one’s ever—’ He stops.

The waitress removes my cup and flashes a smile at Martin, but it goes unheeded.

‘Martin,’ I murmur, ‘it’s too late for any of that.’

‘Yes, I know.’

I swallow hard. ‘I need to go now. There’s stuff I have to get on with at home.’