The Bad Mother's Handbook (25 page)

‘Well,’ said Anya after about thirty seconds, ‘we must
be off if we’re going to hit the shops. Are you coming into
town with us?’

‘Not a lot of point me trailing round the Arndale at
the moment. I’ll have to be getting back soon, anyway.’

I knew they couldn’t wait to be on their own. They’d
probably phone Julia from town and give her a blow-by-blow
account of the Madman in Queen’s Park.

We said goodbye with lots of hugging and promises
to ring and good lucks, then they scarpered. Daniel was
lying along a bench chewing his lolly stick.

‘Waiting for the E numbers to kick in,’ he said.

‘I think they already have. Did you take your Ritalin
today?’

‘The only problem I’ve got is Grade Deficit Disorder,’
he said sitting up and shading his eyes.

‘Really? What did you get?’

‘B and a C. My parents will be scandalized. Still,
serves them right for moving me at a critical period of my
development.’

I went and sat at the other end of the bench.

‘B C isn’t too bad. They’re only modules. You can
retake, can’t you?’

‘Yeah, yeah. It’s OK, I’ve got all the spiel worked out
in my head for when I get home. You got an A, didn’t
you?’

‘More trouble at home; my mother’ll make me wear
it round my neck like the albatross. How did you know?’

‘Lucky guess. Well done. My dad’ll be delighted, he
thinks you’re wonderful.’

‘It was nice of him to drive me back last week.’

‘No problem. He enjoyed talking to you. He says
you’re intelligent. I got a bollocking though for being too
pissed to drive you myself.’

‘Were you? Pissed?’

‘Oh, yes.’ He inspected his lolly stick and read out the
joke. ‘What zooms along the river bed at 100 m.p.h.?’

‘I dunno.’

‘A motor pike and a side carp. Nice one.’ He pocketed
the stick and got up. ‘I’ll give you a lift back now, if
you want.’

‘I won’t say no.’

And so, just like that, we fell back into step as if
nothing had happened. Maybe both of us had too much
to lose.

‘Do you mind
if I don’t ask you in? Only I’m dead tired,
I really need to lie down.’

‘I’ve got to get home myself. Face the music.’ Daniel
grimaced. ‘Bloody parents, they’re a liability. See you!’

He bibbed his horn and I trailed up the front path feeling
suddenly depressed. Reaction, I suppose. I struggled
with the door, tossed the results slip on the table and collapsed
on the sofa. Nan came out of the kitchen, beaming.

‘Eeh, it’s our Charlotte. You’re looking bonny, love.
Get your feet up and Debbie’ll make you a cup of tea.
She’s brought a little present for you.’

I blew her a kiss.

‘I do love you, Nan,’ I said.

*

W
HEN
I
GOT IN
Milady was lying on the sofa admiring
a tiny sleepsuit, Nan was massaging Charlotte’s feet and
Debbie the cleaner was holding a needle and thread over
her tummy.

‘I can’t tell whether it’s swinging in a circle or not,’
Debbie was saying. ‘And I can’t remember which way
round it is, anyway. Can you, Nan? Is it a circle for a boy
and a straight line for a girl?’

‘Perhaps it’s a hermaphrodite,’ quipped Charlotte. I
know for a fact neither of them know what that is, but they
both laughed.

I picked up the scrap of paper on the table and winced.
It was the report fiasco all over again. Shame she didn’t get
an A in Doing as you’re Damn Well Told.

‘You do know you’re throwing your life away,’ I
snapped as I went past. She never even turned her head.

‘Ooh, I just saw the baby move!’ exclaimed Debbie.
‘Bless it.’

‘Can I have a feel?’ said Nan.

T
HREE DAYS
later I walked out.

T
HE DAY STARTED
as per usual, with Nan wandering in
and announcing it was morning. Up with the lark, that’s
my mother. Back in her bedroom I changed her bag then
she stumped downstairs and had a wash. Meanwhile I
threw on leggings and shirt. Nan returned to her room to
get dressed and I trailed down to the kitchen to make
breakfast. It’s a kind of ballet sequence we’ve refined over
the years, and the only one who ever throws a spanner
in the works is Charlotte, rising unexpectedly early or
locking herself in the bathroom for a pre-school hair crisis.

But this morning I’d finished my toast and Nan still
hadn’t made an appearance, so I went back upstairs to
see what the matter was. She was sitting on the bed in her
underslip glowering at the chair.

‘What’s up now?’ I asked. ‘Your Weetabix is going
cold.’

‘I’m not wearing that.’ She pointed to the dress slung
over the chair back.

‘Why ever not?’

‘It’s not red.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake. It’s a lovely frock, Mum. You wore
it last week.’

She glared at me.

‘I tell you what, why don’t you put that little maroon
cardigan over the top? That’s reddish.’

No answer.

‘Well, you can’t go to church in your underslip. Maud
and Ivy’ll be here soon, you don’t want to hold them up.’ I
opened the wardrobe door and rifled through her clothes.
‘Wait a minute, what about this?’ I pulled out a grey dress
with scarlet flowers on the skirt. ‘This is a nice one.’

‘It’s not red enough.’

With enormous control I put the grey dress back and
walked out onto the landing to check the laundry basket.
Maybe her red wool two-piece could be redeemed with a
squirt of Febreze and a good shake. I rooted about and
found it, but there was a soup stain down the front. I flung
it back in and stood there thinking. I had four choices.
I could throw myself over the banisters now, this very
minute. Then they’d all be sorry. I could burst into noisy
tears which no one would take any notice of. I could go
into Mum’s room and slap her across the face – oh, I know
it’s a terrible thought, I’m supposed to be her carer and it’s
not her fault etc. etc., but believe me, there are times when
I come so close I have to walk away and count ten. Or,
and this was the plan resolving itself before my eyes
as being the most reasonable course of action under the
circumstances, I could run away.

I went back into Mum’s room and pulled out all the
spare bags and tape she needs for changing and put them
on the dressing table. Then I got out the little scissors from
her jewellery box and cut the right size openings in the top
of every bag.

‘I’m old enough to do as I like,’ she snapped suddenly.

‘No, Mum, you’re not old
enough
, you’re
too
old, that’s
the point.’

I got the overnight case from the top of her wardrobe
and took it into my room. (
We’re off! We’re off!
) My head
started to sing a stupid song of Nan’s to the rhythm of
my breathing. I packed a smart suit and a pair of courts,
two pairs of leggings and assorted tops, knickers, travel
wash, make-up and curling tongs. (
We’re off in a motor
car!
) Walking past Mum’s bedroom I could see she’d lain
down on the bed and closed her eyes. I carried straight
on downstairs to the bathroom where I topped up my
sponge bag, then in the hall I checked my handbag and
address book. (
Sixty bobbies are after us and we don’t know
where we are!
) Finally I scribbled a note to Charlotte saying
I’d gone to stay with a friend for a few days but I’d give
her a ring that evening and if she needed help to contact
her dad or social services. It was completely irresponsible
of me. I imagined the expressions of horror when Charlotte
finally roused herself to let Maud and Ivy in and they discovered
the truth together. Well, they’d just have to sort it
out.

I slammed the Metro door so hard the hinges all but
fell off, then stuck a Madonna tape on full blast. All the
way to Manchester I justified myself to the music. ‘Rescue
Me’. ‘Secret’. ‘Bad Girl’. I couldn’t believe what I’d done.

Then, as I drew into the half-empty car park, the tape
came to an end and a man on the radio said Princess Diana
was dead.

I sat in the car for a few minutes, listening; a car
crash, France, early hours of the morning, a high-speed chase. ‘The phone lines are open now for your calls,’ the
presenter said. ‘Please do dial and let us know how you’re
feeling about this terribly sad, this shocking tragedy; hello,
Gemma from Radcliffe.’ Gemma, quavering: ‘I just can’t
believe it, she was so young—’ I switched the radio off and
got quietly out of the car.

I walked up to the station, past the screaming headlines
on the newspaper stand, past a huge chalk heart someone
had scrawled on the wall near the cafe,
R.I.P. DI.
Unreal.
I bought my ticket on autopilot and went to stand on the
platform where a little group was talking to each other
animatedly. Tight-faced fifty-something woman, nasty
claw-shaped brooch on her coat; very thin man freezing
in shirt sleeves; young lass in salwar kameez and anorak,
towing meek child: normally they’d all be busy maintaining
personal space. But this morning was different.

‘In a tunnel,’ claw woman was saying, ‘awful.’ ‘Those
boys,’ murmured the young mum, shaking her head while
her tiny daughter stood with her face upturned, watching
pigeons fly between the metal rafters above our heads. The
thin man balled his fists: ‘Bloody journalists. They want
locking up. They’ve no bloody scruples.’

‘It said in our paper she was just Very Badly Injured,’
claw woman piped up, ‘I thought she was still alive till I
put the telly on. I can’t believe it.’

Thin man saw me staring at his
Observer
and handed it
to me without a word. I held it up, saw the pictures and
read the words, so it was true.

Then the train to Euston slid in.

As the coach lurched out of the station I sat alone in my
corner by the window and thought about Diana, and about me. I remembered all the royal wedding celebrations, all
that hope and happiness in the midst of my own messed-up
life, her lovely smiling face and that rumpled fairytale
dress. Everyone had seemed united, you’d felt like the
whole nation was with you as you sat in front of the telly
watching that balcony kiss. I’d kept the souvenir issue
of the
Radio Times
and even copied the haircut, briefly. I
thought she was charmed, then it turned out she’d been
duped just like the rest of us. Confessing and crying on
prime-time TV; I’d squirmed for her. And now after so
much unhappiness she was dead, shocking proof that
money and elegance and class and beauty, none of them
mean anything in the face of Fate.

Sadness tightened on my chest, and guilt. If she
couldn’t get it right, what chance had the rest of us? Then
my own failings and inadequacies seemed to rise up like
a cold mist around me so that I suddenly found myself
in tears and had to stare out of the window at the blurred
countryside. I didn’t even know her, I thought, so why am
I crying?

*

It was turning into
a surreal kind of day. No Mum,
Dad in the kitchen unloading frozen ready-meals and tins
of Nan food, and all the TV stations awash with the
Diana story, whichever channel you flicked to.

‘I know it’s a shame, but I don’t know why there’s
all these women in tears,’ I muttered. ‘You’d think she’d
been personal best friend to a hundred thousand people.
I reckon they’re putting it on for the cameras.’

‘I got you six of these mini pizzas ’cause they were on special offer,’ said Dad. He was well pissed off, you
could tell. ‘What a flamin’ carry-on. I have to be at work
tomorrow, you know. I’ve had that much time off the boss
has given me a warning. But Ivy Seddon says they’re organizing
a rota at the Over Seventies’, and I’ve been on the
phone to social services and there’s a nurse coming round
every morning for an hour. That Crossroads woman’s
here tomorrow and then there’s that cleaner you have.
It’ll be like Paddy’s market. You certainly won’t be on
your own, love. I’ll come round every evening after I’ve
had my tea. Anyroad, your mum might not be away so
long, she could be back in a day or two.’

‘I’m not bothered, Dad.’ I wasn’t either. In some ways
it was a relief to have her out the house. ‘She’s done it
before, remember. That time she found a lump in her
breast and took herself off to Fleetwood for a long weekend.’

‘Aye. And it were nowt in t’ finish. Do you think she
really has gone to stay with a friend?’

‘I wouldn’t have thought so. She doesn’t have any.’

‘It’s norra man, then?’

‘Nah.’

‘I just wondered.’

‘She’s been horrible about the baby, you know. She
wanted me to get rid of it.’

Dad became very busy stacking the freezer compartment.

‘Well, she was only thinking of you. She thought it
would be for t’ best. You know, your education and that.’

‘I don’t think I’ll ever forgive her.’

Nan wandered in.

‘Where’s our Karen?’

Dad and I exchanged glances.

‘She’s had to pop out for a while. Do you fancy a
brew?’ Dad unplugged the kettle and held it under the
cold tap.

‘I need my bag changing,’ she sighed.

‘Over to you,’ said Dad.

*

A
S SOON AS
I got off the train I found a mobile phone
place, threw my credit card at the assistant and emerged
with a Nokia, a charger and twenty quid’s worth of
vouchers. ‘You’ve one blob left on your battery,’ the smart
lad in the shop had said. ‘You’re telling me,’ I joked, but
he’d lost interest. Then I went outside onto a grass verge,
away from all the bustle, and read the instruction booklet.
At last I felt ready to dial.

Unluckily it was Steve who answered, so the first few
seconds were him calling me every name under the sun.
When I could get a word in edgeways, I told him my number
and got him to write it down and read it back; it’s not
that he’s thick, far from it, but he’s careless. I asked after
Charlotte and Nan and got another mouthful of abuse,
then I heard Charlotte’s voice in the background asking
to speak to me. I knew if I let her I’d fall apart; I’d turn
straight back to the station and climb on the next available
train home. So I said quickly, ‘Tell her I’ll be home in a day
or two. Battery’s flat. Got to go.’ Then I pressed
End
and
switched off for half an hour. If I was going to do this right
I needed to clear my head.