The Mummyfesto (40 page)

‘You need to stop apologising,’ said Paul. ‘I’m surprised you’re still capable of speech, let alone owt else, after all you’ve been through.’

‘I feel so pathetic,’ I said. ‘Sam’s managing to cope with
Oscar being poorly and all the stuff that goes with looking after him and yet Mum goes walkabout once and I’m in pieces.’

‘It’s not about that, though is it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s this whole business with your sister. That’s what it’s all brought up.’

I was quiet for a moment. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. I hadn’t really talked about Deborah to Paul. It was all too painful. As far as he was concerned she was simply the girl next to me in the pictures in the photo album. The girl who disappeared from the pages when I was seven, leaving only a shadow behind. A shadow which was sometimes visible, sometimes not, but was always there.

‘It were my fault,’ I said.

‘How can it have been your fault?’

‘I wanted to go to sweet shop,’ I said. ‘That’s why we crossed over main road. There were no need to cross it, Mum were always telling us that. That’s why she let Deborah walk me home from school. Because there were only a couple of little roads to cross. Only on that particular day, greedy guts here decided she wanted to get some sweets on way home. If it hadn’t been for me …’

‘You can’t say that. The guy were twice over limit. He’s one what knocked her down.’

‘You don’t think like that when you’re seven years old, though,’ I said, ‘and when you’re growing up without a sister you loved more than anyone in world.’

The tears came again. Slow, silent ones this time, scoring a path down my cheeks. Paul pulled me to him, stroking my hair, kissing the top of my head. Doing his best to do what he always tried to do – to take the pain away. Only this pain ran so deep, I had no idea if it were possible even to reach it.

‘I know you’re hurting, love, but you can’t let this ruin your entire life. You need to put it to rest.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s why you’re so desperate for another baby, isn’t it? You’re trying to give Alice the sibling you had taken away.’

‘No, it’s not about that at all,’ I said, pulling away from him slightly.

‘I’m not saying it as a criticism,’ he said, stroking my hair again. ‘It’s perfectly understandable, given what you went through. But the thing is, love, you don’t miss what you’ve never had. It didn’t happen to Alice. It happened to you. And you can’t make it better by giving her a brother or sister. Because she’s not the one who’s hurting.’

And as he said it, I knew it was true. That every time I looked at Alice I saw myself. And that all these years, I’d been fighting to prevent something that wasn’t going to happen to her. Because she wasn’t me.

The tears came again. Dredged up from somewhere I had never dared to go. Tears so old I could practically taste my seven-year-old self on them.

‘It’s OK,’ I whispered to her. ‘You can let go now.’

Paul held me and stroked my hair for a long time. Until I was ready to speak again.

‘Alice is so precious,’ I said. ‘It scares the hell out of me sometimes.’

‘I know. Me too.’

‘What if something happened to her?’ I said. ‘We’d be left with nothing. I’m not sure I could cope. Mum always used to say I was the thing that kept her going afterwards. That she had to cope because she had me to look after.’

‘Nothing’s going to happen to Alice,’ said Paul, taking my head in his hands.

‘Me and you and Alice are just fine together. We’re a family. And as much as I’d love another child too, if it doesn’t happen it’s not going to stop us being a family. It can’t take away what we already have. Not unless you let it.’

I nodded and wiped my nose on the pillowcase. Paul smiled. I smiled back. The heaviness inside my head lifted for a second. Enough for me to be able to take residence inside my body again. It was OK. My skin fitted. It was forty-years old and scored with stretch marks and cellulite, but for the first time in years it felt comfortable. It felt like I could live in it. I kissed Paul on the lips. A little kiss. Followed by a bigger one. Wrapping my arms around him. Drinking him in. Easing myself on top of him. He looked at me with one eyebrow raised slightly.

‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘This isn’t trying. This is something entirely different. Something I’m doing because I want to. Because I want you.’

It was only when I switched my mobile on the next
morning that I got Sam’s text: ‘
At hospital with Oscar. He’s got pneumonia
.’

I screwed my eyes up. I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to know. But when I opened them the message was still there. I called Sam. It went straight to answer phone. I opened my mouth to say something, but realised I couldn’t think of anything anywhere near adequate. I called back and tried again.

‘Sam, it’s Jackie. I’m so sorry. If there’s anything I can do. Absolutely anything, please let me know. Or just if you need to talk. I’m here. We’re thinking of you all and sending a great big hug to Oscar.’

I went out to the landing and stuck my head around Alice’s door, which she always insisted on leaving open a little at night-time. She was still fast asleep, her fingers curled tightly around the Peter Rabbit Mum had given her soon after she was born. I felt very, very lucky.

Will was waiting outside in the corridor for me as I came out of the drama studio at break-time. He looked a bit awkward, peering out at me from under his mass of thick dark hair. I realised that he hadn’t seen me since all the stuff had been in the papers and that he might be worried I was going to lay into him like everyone else had.

‘Hi. Good to see you,’ I said. ‘How’s tricks, or shouldn’t I ask?’

‘Been better,’ he said, managing a hint of a smile. ‘I’m sorry. I should have listened to you. It might have stopped me from behaving like such a dickhead.’

I smiled at him. ‘Parents and teachers are there to be ignored,’ I said. ‘It’s part of our job description. But what’s more important is that when people make mistakes we help them pick themselves up and move on.’

‘Good,’ he said, visibly brightening. ‘Because that’s why I’ve come to see you. I want to do something about bullying. Put on a play for the whole school, something like, raw and hard-hitting. Something they won’t easily forget. I need you to help me though.’

His face was serious, as serious as I’d ever seen it. If I didn’t know better I’d say there was a hint of humility there as well. He was clearly feeling this every bit as much as Anna.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘That’s a great idea. Fancy helping me put it together, you and some of the other Year Elevens doing some improv?’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’d like that.’

‘Come down here at 12.30 then. Bring some of your mates and we’ll see what we can come up with.’

‘What about Freeman?’

‘What about him?’

‘He might not let us do it.’

‘He might not have any choice,’ I said with a smile.

I wondered if it would be obvious to everyone that I was simply going through the motions. Mentally I’d already withdrawn from the election. I was only doing this because I’d made a promise to Sam. And as I’d tried to explain to David, right now, the last thing I wanted to do was to break a promise to her.

I’d spoken to Sam twice on the phone since Monday night. She’d sounded tired, which was not surprising seeing as she hadn’t been home. And distant. As if this had transported her to an entirely different world. A world where the minutiae of day-to-day life did not even register. She said Oscar was hanging on in there. Which I guessed was shorthand for fighting for his life.

It was only after I’d put the phone down that I realised it was the first time in months she hadn’t mentioned the campaign. And I wished to God that it hadn’t happened
like this. That the whole thing had fallen apart due to some internal squabbles or the fact we weren’t even registering in the polls not because we’d discovered the hard way that some things were far more important than politics.

‘You nervous?’ asked Will, who was walking down with me to the town hall. David had announced that he wouldn’t be attending to support his Liberal Democrat colleague in order not to embarrass me publicly. Will had said it was big of him. I wasn’t sure whether David had picked up the sarcastic tone in his voice.

‘Not really,’ I said. ‘It’s not as if it matters any more. Not like it did before, anyway.’

‘I still can’t believe you’re going to pull out,’ Will said, shaking his head.

‘Well, one day when you’re older you’ll realise that sometimes you have to make sacrifices for people you love.’ Will pulled a face. I realised I must sound like some housewife from the fifties.

‘People you love, or people who tell you what you can and can’t do with your life?’

I hesitated. I knew full well what he was getting at. But if there was one thing I’d learnt in this election campaign it was how to wriggle out of an awkward direct question.

‘I did it for you, Will,’ I said, turning to face him. ‘You and Charlotte and Esme.’

‘I don’t know why. None of us asked you to.’

He had a point. Though to be honest Charlotte didn’t seem to be bothered either. She’d chosen to shut herself
in her bedroom listening to Ed Sheeran rather than come with me to the hustings tonight. Though I suspected it was more because she was at that age where being seen out in public with your mum was just generally embarrassing, rather than specific lack of interest in the campaign.

Esme was still sporting the Lollipop Party sticker on her coat, but seemed to have cooled a bit on the whole idea because her favourite colour was now red.

‘You know why I did it, Will.’

‘Yeah,’ he said, giving me a sideways look. ‘I do.’

We climbed up the stone steps to the town hall and made our way through to the room where the hustings were being held. Some people had already arrived and staked their claim to front-row seats. A middle-aged man had bagged a seat near the back.

‘I bet he’s the heckler,’ Will whispered.

I glanced across to the far end of the room where the other candidates had gathered: two women, Lib Dem and Green, and two men, the Labour guy and the sitting Tory MP. They turned to look in our direction. I felt instantly protective of Will. They could think and say anything they liked about me. I didn’t want Will brought into it. The Liberal Democrat woman nodded at me. Her name was Laura Jenkins. I knew her from way back when she’d sat on the town council with David. She was tall and slim. Reedy, I suppose, was the word. Probably a few years older than me, but very stylish. I nodded back. I even managed a weak smile.

‘Right,’ I said, turning back to Will. ‘I’d better go and join the rest of them. Are you sure you’re OK about this? I mean, I don’t think anyone will mention the stuff in the papers but if they do—’

‘I know you’ll give them hell on my behalf,’ smiled Will.

‘Something like that,’ I said.