The Mummyfesto (11 page)

Paul was quiet on the way back to Hebden Bridge. He didn’t really say anything much until we pulled up near Sam’s road.

‘I’m sorry if it’s my fault,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, if they didn’t find anything wrong with you it’s probably me, shooting blanks or summat.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ I said. ‘We don’t know it’s not me, yet. They probably wouldn’t have told me if it was. Anyway, we shouldn’t be talking about fault. It’s not intentional is it? On either part.’

‘No, you’re right.’ Paul’s shoulders straightened a little. ‘I just want you to know I appreciate what you’re putting yourself through.’

‘Thank you. And I appreciate how difficult it must have been for you to look at those magazines.’

‘Well, you know how it is,’ said Paul with a grin. ‘Sometimes you’ve just got to go through with summat, no matter how much it pains you.’

‘Thank you for the sacrifice. And just so you know, you won’t ever be allowed that excuse again, OK?’

‘Wait till I tell the lads at rugby club. They’ll all be queuing up for sperm tests.’

‘And for what it’s worth,’ I said, holding his hand. ‘I have a theory that Yorkshire sperm are particularly tenacious. Endurance above speed and all that.’

Paul grinned. ‘That about sums me up.’

‘It doesn’t matter how long the journey takes, does it,’ I said, ‘as long as we get there in the end.’

‘No,’ said Paul. ‘I guess not.’

We climbed up the steps and across the bridge to Fountain Street. It was virtually an island, bordered, as it was, on the other end by the canal. Sam sometimes referred to it as the People’s Republic of Fountain Street. Eclectic was the kind word to describe its population. Paul was more inclined to use the word ‘hippyville’. Not that he’d ever used it to Sam’s face, of course. He wasn’t that daft. A collection of various children’s toys, pushalongs and playthings were strewn across the front gardens. Scooters that had seen better days, a plastic cooker with the oven door missing. There was even a rabbit hutch with a cuddly toy rabbit inside.

‘Now that,’ said Paul, ‘is a smart idea. Think what they’ll
save on vets’ bills. And they won’t have trauma of a kid in tears when it dies. Why didn’t we think of that?’

‘You see,’ I said. ‘Sam’ll convert you to her way of living yet.’

Paul rapped on the door of number ten with his knuckles. Nobody seemed to have a doorbell or knocker, probably because they were in and out of each others’ houses so much that most of the time their doors were open. The paint was peeling off the front door. Sam said that because Rob spent his days painting other people’s houses it was the last thing he wanted to do when he got home. Sam finally opened the door and Fleabag bounded out and fled down the road, clearly not welcoming of visitors.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘We were in the middle of a game of Sam Says. It’s like Simon – sorry, I’m sure you worked that out. I’ll shut up now. Come in.’

She stepped forward and gave me a huge hug. I’d been all right until that point.

‘Are you OK?’ she asked, seeing my trembling lower lip.

‘Yeah. We’re fine. No news is good news for now, eh?’

‘Well, Alice has had a fab time with the boys.’

She was interrupted by shrieks of laughter from the front room.

‘Sounds like she still is,’ said Paul. ‘I bet we’ll never get her away.’

Oscar appeared in the doorway, wearing a pirate hat and with what appeared to be a stuffed parrot on his shoulder.

‘Pieces of eight, pieces of eight,’ he said.

‘Amazing what you can find in the charity shops in Hebden,’ Sam whispered to me.

Alice came running out behind him and hurtled into Paul and me in turn.

‘Pirate Oscar and Pirate Alice are going on a treasure hunt,’ Oscar said.

‘Well, I’m afraid Pirate Alice needs to go home soon,’ said Paul, ruffling her hair.

‘Please, Daddy, just one treasure hunt.’

‘OK,’ said Paul. ‘If it’s quick.’

‘Pirate Zach’s hiding the treasure in the backyard,’ Oscar informed him.

‘Well, we’d better find it quick then, before any other pirates get there,’ said Paul, shepherding them towards the back door.

‘Fancy a cuppa?’ asked Sam.

‘I’d love one.’

I sat down at the kitchen table and smiled at the jumbled collection of photos, paintings and weird and wonderful creations camouflaging Sam’s fridge.

‘Can you actually still get in there?’ I asked.

‘With difficulty.’ She smiled. ‘Rob keeps telling me to throw the old stuff away to make some space but I can’t bring myself to do it. It’s like I’m throwing away their life histories.’

I nodded. As someone whose fridge still had the scan picture of Alice stuck on it, I couldn’t do anything else.

Sam put a mug down in front of me. I liked having friends who knew me so well they always hit the exact colour shade of coffee I liked.

‘So did they tell you anything?’ Sam asked, sitting down opposite me with her tea.

‘Only that there was nothing sinister there.’

‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it?’

‘I guess so. I won’t get the blood-test results until we go back, mind. Or Paul’s sperm results. And if everything’s clear I still might have to have my tubes checked.’

‘That sounds fun. How does Paul feel about it all?’

‘Oh, you know. He tries to joke about it and stuff, but he’s pretty stressed too. He doesn’t want to go down the IVF route. I do know that much.’

‘And what about you?’

I shrugged. ‘I’d do anything. It’s not for me, see. It’s for Alice. I want her to have a brother or sister.’

Sam nodded and took a sip of her tea. She looked down at the table. ‘If it does turn out to be bad news I want you to know that it’s fine being an only child when you’ve never known anything different. I actually liked having my parents all to myself. Bit selfish I suppose, but there you go.’ I smiled at her. ‘The most important thing is that you don’t forget what a brilliant mum you are to Alice.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I just want what’s best for her. I guess all mums do.’

‘That’s what makes us so strong,’ she said. ‘We’re fuelled by love. It’s much more powerful than money or ego.’

I put my mug down on the table. ‘You’re still serious about this election thing, aren’t you?’

‘I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life.’

‘It’s completely crazy; you do know that?’

‘Not as crazy as the hospice having to beg people in the streets for money, or you having to chase up the council because they’re not looking after your mum properly.’

She had a point. I knew that. And I also knew that Sam didn’t know the meaning of the words ‘can’t’ or ‘won’t’. That was what worried me.

‘OK. Supposing I agree with you. What exactly do you propose we do about it?’

‘I told you. We stand in the general election.’

‘Who for?’

‘Our own party. We start a new one.’

‘Now you have lost it.’

‘No. It’s obvious. Everybody’s fed up with politicians. How many people do you hear say “they’re all as bad as each other”? How many people don’t even vote because they’re so hacked off with the whole thing?’

‘So why would they vote for us? Apart from the fact that we’re three hot young things, of course.’

Sam smiled. ‘Because we’re fighting for ordinary people. For kids, for grannies, for everyone who hasn’t got a voice.’

‘And you really think there are enough granny-huggers to vote for us? Beyond Hebden Bridge, I mean.’

‘Of course there are. Look at the bloody alternatives. We’d be a breath of fresh air.’

I hesitated. Sam was a very hard person to say no to.

‘You’ll never get Anna on board.’

‘Why not?’

‘She oozes common sense for a start.’

‘Well, I’ll just have to convince her that doing this
is
common sense.’

‘And how do you propose to do that?’

‘I’m having a meeting. A week tomorrow. Eight o’clock. Here. At this very table. Me, you and Anna.’

‘And what if we don’t turn up?’

Sam looked at me as the shrieks from outside indicated that Oscar and Alice had found the treasure at last.

‘You will,’ she said. ‘Because we only regret the things we don’t do. Not the things we do.’

‘Why do you feel the need to cut yourself, Jodie?’

You shouldn’t have to ask questions like that. Not to fifteen-year-old girls. No one at my school cut themselves. I would have seen the marks. We all would. The communal showers at Grove Park School allowed for neither modesty nor concealment.

I couldn’t put an exact date on when girls started cutting. All I knew was that in the ten years I’d been doing this job, the numbers had grown every year. Girls barely into their teens feeling the need to slash and burn.

‘Because I can like, see the hurt. Instead of it all being inside.’ She looked down at her hands which poked out from under the long-sleeved shirt which covered the evidence of her self-harm. She reeked of pain. Pure, unadulterated sadness. Sure, I worried about things at her age but they were stupid things: spots, the size of my
breasts, whether my breath smelt. The usual suspects. Beneath that, at the core of me, I’d been happy, surely? I certainly hadn’t been
un
happy. Any pain I’d felt hadn’t penetrated. It hadn’t flowed through my veins.

‘And does that make you feel better?’

‘Yeah. For a while, at least.’

‘Where does the hurt come from, Jodie?’

‘From inside.’

‘How does it get there, though? What causes it?’

‘I dunno. Everything I guess.’

‘Name some of the everythings.’

I knew her parents were divorced. I knew she hadn’t got many friends at school. That she hadn’t been doing very well academically. She’d told me all of this already. But I didn’t want to put words into her mouth.

‘Danny.’

‘Who’s Danny?’

‘My boyfriend. Well, he were till he, like, dumped me.’

‘Did he give you a reason? For breaking things off, I mean.’

‘Yeah. Said I were a minger and that he were going with Serena because she were good at sucking his cock off.’

I nodded slowly, working hard at keeping my face expressionless. ‘I see. That’s not a very nice thing to say about someone who was your girlfriend, is it?’

Jodie shrugged. Her scraped-back hair gave her no place to hide the hurt on her face, though.

‘Did he say nice things to you when you were with him? Did he make you feel good inside?’

Jodie shrugged again.

‘How long were you with him?’

‘About six months.’

‘Can you name one nice thing he said about you or did for you during that time?’

There was a long silence. Jodie shifted in her chair.

‘It weren’t like that.’

‘What was it like, then?’

‘I dunno. Just normal stuff. Getting off with him and that.’

I nodded. ‘Did he ever hurt you, or make you do things you didn’t want to?’

Jodie looked down at her feet. ‘Only a bit. He weren’t as bad as a lot of them.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘He didn’t post any photos of me on Facebook. Or text them to his mates. That’s why I loved him, see. He weren’t like the others.’

I nodded slowly, trying not to think about Charlotte, who was only two years younger than her.

‘So when you said he was one of the people who hurt you, who made you want to cut yourself, what did you mean by that?’

‘I’m hurt that he, like, dumped me. That he doesn’t think I’m fit enough.’

‘Have you talked to anyone about how you feel. Your mum, your friends?’

‘It’s not gonna change owt, is it?’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Well, me mam wouldn’t take any notice for a start. She hasn’t got time to listen to me.’

‘Because of her work?’

‘That and her boyfriend. And he slaps her about so she wouldn’t think anything of it.’

‘And what about your friends?’

‘They can’t do owt about it.’

‘They could support you, though. Be a shoulder to cry on.’

‘Not really. They’ve got their own crap to deal with.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Keely were raped by her boyfriend and his mates and Shaz’s dad knocks her mam about.’

‘I see. So how have they coped with all of that?’

‘They cut too.’

I nodded slowly again. I was used to hearing depressing things. I’d worked with a lot of troubled teenagers. But occasionally, I was still blown off my feet with the sheer awfulness of it all.

I blogged about it that evening. Not Jodie’s case specifically, of course. I was careful never to compromise client confidentiality. But the kind of messages society as a whole conveyed to girls. A society where how you look is everything and girls are conditioned to believe that they somehow deserve to be hurt, physically or emotionally, if they don’t measure up. A society where being beautiful inside counts for nothing and a word like minger even exists. A society where girls feel it necessary to harm themselves
as a way of showing how much they are hurting inside.

I posted the blog, linked it to Twitter and Facebook and waited for the response. David said that was why I’d started the blog. That I needed to know other people out there felt like I did. That I wasn’t, as I sometimes feared, a lone voice in the wilderness. Maybe he was right. But the one thing which had become abundantly clear in the five years since my Mothers’ Talk blog had come into existence was that if I had ever been a lone voice, I certainly wasn’t now. For some inexplicable reason I regularly made the top ten UK Mummy Bloggers list. Consequently, companies were queuing up to advertise on my blog. If I was honest, totally honest, I got a little kick out of how that made me feel. And an even bigger kick about how perplexed David was about it.