The Darker Side of Mummy Misfit #2 (5 page)

I also feel really mean for calling Fenella ‘Gob Almighty’ (even if I
didn’t
do it to her face) cos she’s not.  I’m just mean and bitter and twisted right now.

Ned just gave me a slightly bemused look when I told him about my blow-up.

“Well, there’s not much you can do about it now, is there Lib?  Everyone must know you’ve been under a bit of strain at the moment - it’ll soon blow over.”

That was our
baby
we lost - not “a bit of strain”.

Oh, I hate everyone at the moment but most of all I hate myself and my body for letting me down.

Friday 10
^th
October

Popped in to Mrs S for a cup of tea and a chat this afternoon.  Bloody Gestapo was there with Pritesh.  Still finding it hard to get my head around the fact that they’re together - such an odd mix - but he looks like the cat who got the cream and at least he’ll leave
me
alone now.

Mrs S was a little less confused and happy to have company.  She says she’s teaching Desmond, her new canary, to whistle ‘Copacabana’ but I don’t think she’s having much success.  She still talks fondly of Bazzer, her beloved (deceased) budgie, but always whispers if in Desmond’s earshot.

“I am very much thinking that Desmond is not quite as bright in the head as my dear Bazzer but it was so kind of Skunk to be buying him for me that I will do my best to teach him to be a clever birdie.”

Gestapo piped up with, “Oh Mrs S, you’re such a hoot, darling.  It’s a frickin’ bird in a cage.  What do you imagine you’re going to train him to do?  Roll out your tasteless chapatis or chop a chilli or two?”

I was about to rush to Mrs S’s rescue with a particularly barbed comment (the upside of my black mood is that I don’t give a flying toss) but Mrs S was in like a shot.

“My dear, you are only welcome in this house because my son is foolish enough to let you be putting your fake claws into him but, if you are finding it too difficult to be treating an old lady and her birdie with respect, you can be sticking your plastic talons elsewhere.”

Couldn’t have put it better myself!  Silver was right - Mrs S can still be quite lucid when she’s focused on something other than her loneliness.

Gestapo and Pritesh left pretty soon after that and Mrs S and I played some Manilow quite loud and shared a Babycham or three.

Saturday 11
^th
October

My unscheduled drinking session with Mrs S resulted in my forgetting to collect Max from school yesterday.

Not big and not clever, I know.  Feel mortified.  I am an unfit parent.  A misfit mummy.

Fenella (oh perfect and gobby one) realised that he’d been left abandoned at the classroom door and brought him to Mrs S’s, after trying our house, to find us both sprawled on the sofa, sobbing and singing ‘Can’t smile without you’ whilst sharing a desperate bottle of cooking sherry.

I have vague recollections of her taking me home and putting me to bed saying that she’d feed the kids and wait until Ned came home.

Have had to deal with a very disgruntled husband all day and nurse a humdinger of a hangover.  Babycham with a cooking sherry chaser are
not
a good mix.

Sunday 12
^th
October

Nic called and told me that he’s booked a couple of nights in Brighton for us to have a little “girlie time”.

“Now Libs, you can’t say no.  I’ve squared it all with Neddy-Boy and he thinks it’s a great idea.  He’s got Fenella sorted to take Max to school and look after him until he gets home from work.  It’s a done deal.  We leave on Wednesday and you
vill
say yes.  Resistance iz futile.”

Felt a bit railroaded into it all.  And a bit miffed that Fenella had been roped in.  Why doesn’t she just
move in
with my husband and be done with it?

And of course, she’ll find it a
breeze
to care for three kids as she grows another
oh so perfect one
.

Ha!  Bet she doesn’t realise she’ll have to chair the rescheduled fundraising meeting on Thursday.

I
shall be on a jolly in the gay capital of England and, because of my monumental stuff-up at the last meeting,
she’ll
have to pick up the pieces.

A teeny-tiny part of me feels a bit guilty - I’m obviously not
100%
bad yet.

Monday 13
^th
October

Decided to do the charity shop rounds to cheer myself up.  I know I can easily afford something more upmarket now but it’s just not me and I love the challenge anyway.

Picked up a great Chloé top and some Joseph trousers - for the grand total of fifteen quid.

Dropped them at the dry cleaners feeling smug.

Once upon a time I would have had to choose between buying the top
or
the trousers and I certainly wouldn’t have been able to afford the dry cleaning.

Tuesday 14
^th
October

Bit of a tricky one with Max on the way to school today.

“Mummy, I don’t
understand
.  How can our baby have died if it wasn’t born?”

Found I had to pull the car over to answer that one and replied, after a long think, “Oh Maxie!  The baby wasn’t strong enough to grow anymore.  There’s really no other way I can explain it to you.  Some babies just aren’t lucky enough to be born.”

He thought this one through for a minute and then added, “I was lucky Mummy, wasn’t I?  I’m a big strong boy and I’ve got you as my mummy.”

Drove the rest of the way to school through a haze of tears.

PM

Spent the evening packing for my break with Nic.

Could almost hear Ned’s sigh of relief as he watched me close my case.

Tomorrow night he’d have the house to himself and his boy with no miserable, hormonally-charged wife around.

And I’ll be dancing in a gay club, pretending I don’t have a care in the world.

Pretending.

Wednesday 15
^th
October

Nic and I left at ten this morning and travelled first class on the train to Brighton.

It’s been a good few years since I’ve been away with him and I’d totally forgotten how even the simplest of outings turns into a major production in his company.  He gathers friends and followers along the way, like some sort of camp Pied Piper.

We’d barely left Victoria Station when we found ourselves sipping champers with a German lesbian, an eccentric and incredibly deaf granny called Morag and a gay guy with the most frightful stutter.

By the time we arrived in Brighton we’d played charades, sung dirty ditties and all revealed a secret about ourselves.

We’ve arranged to meet up with them all tomorrow for a night on the town.

Nothing like immersing yourself in a bit of complete and utter madness to help you forget your troubles.

PM

Nic treated me to a lovely lunch and then some relaxing spa treatments back at the hotel.  My
oh so tiny and perfect
masseuse told me that my back was a mass of knots and tension and that my chakras were totally out of sync.

So tell me something I don’t know!

Have to admit I’m looking forward to the distraction of a fun night with Nic - just the two of us, like in my happy-go-lucky days.

Spoke to Max on the phone before he went to bed.  He said he missed me but Fenella had cooked yummy lamb burgers and couscous to cheer him up - well bully for bloody Fenella.

Ned said he missed me too but I think he’s just as grateful for this break as I am.

I know I’m not easy to live with right now but I don’t know how to change things.  When I look back to last year we were so happy -
broke
but happy - now we’ve got the dosh to be enjoying ourselves and all I can think about is the baby I lost.

My baby who checked out too soon.

And I have no idea how I’m going to get through this fog.

Thursday 16
^th
October

Drinking is
not
the way to get through a fog.

Woke in my hotel bed with Nic snoring and farting by my side.  We were both fully clothed, of course, and the room smelled like a brewery.

“Sheesh, Lib!  What did we get up to last night?” he said when he woke up.  “I can’t remember feeling this bad for years!”

I explained that, from what I could remember, we’d started very sedately with a civilised drink in the bar, then dinner and cocktails.  I appeared to have lost a chunk of the night somewhere but my next memory took us to a gay bar where I had vague recollections of us beginning to dance like everyone else on the dance floor and ending up gyrating on the tables.

If the bruise on my bum is anything to go by, I fear I may well have lost contact with the table at some point too.

“Ooh, Lib.  Bits of it are coming back to me now as well.  I almost snogged that really cute Russian guy, didn’t I?  Oh my days!  Thank heavens I didn’t.  I love my Rick and we’re about to become parents.  I’d never have been able to live with myself.”

He groaned and rolled away from me with another almighty fart.

“Well,
I
almost turned a gay man straight,” I told him as I recalled my slow dance with Sid from Essex, “so I must be one hot mamma at the moment.”

We both snuggled down then and snoozed until three when we decided to
gradually
rise and ready ourselves for yet another night of partying with our new-found train buddies.

Friday 17
^th
October

I was a very good girl last night and limited myself to white wine only and huge amounts of water - which, as it turns out, was just as well.

Our new friend Tarquin-the-stuttering-gay kept telling me not to drink water because “fish piss in it” - don’t think he’d cottoned on to the fact that that’s an old joke and no one finds it particularly amusing any more.  That didn’t stop him though - we must have heard it ten times.  Along with all his other tried and tested one-liners.  (Feel a bit mean, because I think he can only do short jokes because the others take so “Llooonnng!”)

Morag-the-deaf-granny was a scream and kept us constantly entertained with tales from her days as a Madame in a brothel in the 70’s.  We heard some pretty eye-watering stuff and even the unshockable Nic looked a little perplexed at times - particularly with her goldfish anecdote.  I
still
don’t believe that’s possible or legal.

Anna-the-German-lesbian was rather forthright and a little on the prickly side but, once the lovely Morag had plied her with a few brandies, she loosened up and told us that she’d had her heart broken by her gym teacher at sixteen and had never been the same since.

So many stories … so little time.

We had a fantastic meal at an Italian and then headed off to a piano bar.

And we certainly turned a sleepy bar into a joint that was ‘a-jumpin’!

We were the only people in there apart from a couple of very sedate gay gentlemen and a rather odd looking businessman sipping on his scotch in the corner.

We decided to put money into a kitty for our drinks and, for once, I didn’t feel the fear of God rush through me as I heard the idea mentioned.  This ‘having cash’ thing is
great!

Within an hour we had the pianist playing everything from ‘I Will Survive’ to ‘Dancing Queen’ and we were all strutting our stuff on the dance floor.  What an odd bunch we must have looked.

The sedate gay couple ended up joining us - they were celebrating 30 years together and said we’d made their night.  The ‘odd businessman’ pinched my bum whilst in a high-kicking circle of ‘New York, New York’ and I had to have a quiet word with him.  A year of dealing with Letchy has made me more than capable of taking on the likes of
him
.

He was very apologetic and, once he realised that he was barking up the wrong tree, proceeded to tell me that he was a divorcee and hadn’t had a shag for fifteen months.

Like I care!

Finished a particularly wild version of the ‘Lambada’ and went off to powder my nose and have a pee, checking my mobile as I shimmied.

That’s when I saw I’d had
twelve
missed calls from ‘Home’ and six from ‘Fenella’.

Saturday 18
^th
October

This ‘having money’ lark is also a bonus when you need to make an emergency dash from Brighton to London in a cab. 
Big bucks!