Read Bad Mothers United Online
Authors: Kate Long
Bad Mothers United (40 page)
There was this catch in her voice that was upsetting to hear. I thought, Oh, love, it’s nearly been too much for you, hasn’t it? And I’ve not noticed because
I was so wrapped up in missing Mum, and the business with Eric, and your dad. And all that time I’d been assuming it was you who gave Daniel the push, and now it turns out to be him. Him! I
suppose he must have more backbone than I gave him credit for. Unless his snooty mother was behind it, or this uppity madam from his department. Oh, yes, I bet there’d been some encouragement
from the Manchester end.
Indignation flared up in me, same as it had when Ryan Marshall’s mum was boasting about her perfect daughter’s job and flat and fiancé. Who were these girls to hold a candle
to our Charlotte? I’d have liked to see them manage what she’d had to deal with the last three years.
‘And of course I’ve spoiled it for Will too,’ she went on. ‘He needed someone like Daniel in his life, a great role model, smart, loads of patience. Where the hell am I
ever going to find another boyfriend as nice as him? I won’t, basically. He’s just about the kindest guy I’ve ever met. And I’ve blown it, like I always do.’
I pulled her closer into the porch, out of the wind.
‘Look, are you absolutely sure it’s finished? Only, I’ve never seen a lad as committed as he was.’
‘He did appear out the blue a couple of times and I thought, you know, we were back on again. Then he’d turn round and say no. It was like he’d told himself he didn’t
want me but at the same time he couldn’t completely leave me alone.’
‘Did you tell him what you’ve just told me? Did you really explain?’
‘I tried. It didn’t come out very well. How could I explain, anyway, when I didn’t understand it myself? I thought he was right. I thought the root of it was I’d stopped
loving him enough. He said it would never be equal between us because he cared more about me than I did about him. But since we’ve broken up I realise that wasn’t true. Now I realise
what I’ve lost. Now I get it. Believe me, Mum, if I ever had another chance I’d grab him and I’d never let go. He’d never feel second-rate again. I’d talk to him
properly and I’d listen properly. No more rolling my eyes when he talks about his mum being “a bit emotional”, no sighing when he goes into how DNA replicates itself. No more
bad-day moodiness. I’d be the best person I could be for him. I would.’
‘Then you have to go back and say that. Spell it out, if you didn’t before. And as soon as you can. It sounds to me as if he could still be talked round.’
‘I can’t, there’s no point. Honestly, this time he’s made up his mind.’
‘Prove me wrong. Give it one last try.’
Her mouth twisted into an unhappy half-smile. ‘Hah. Because he’s a doctor’s son?’
‘Because if you don’t, Charlotte, it’s going to eat you from the inside out.’
The sleet was beginning to stick where it landed on the grass verges, clumping along the tyre ruts. You could tell it wouldn’t last but it carried on piling anyway,
wetly.
‘It’s too much of a risk,’ I said.
Mum frowned. ‘Where’s the risk? I don’t see what you have to lose.’
‘My dignity.’
‘Right.’
‘No, ’cause it’ll be so horrible if I fail again. If I deliver the big confession speech and then he still tells me to get lost, I’ll die.’
‘And if you stay here and never ever say anything? Let it roll round and round your head for the foreseeable future?’
I thought of the nights I’d already spent, awake and fretful under the weight of my mistake. All the Daniel-free days that stretched ahead. The slender chink of hope Mum had
presented.
I said, half-joking, ‘Well, I can’t go now. We have to pick up Will first.’
She said, ‘I can get him for you.’
For a fraction of a second it seemed as if the sleet was suspended in the sky.
And then she just took off, belting down the street like she used to when she was a little girl, her feet slapping against the shiny pavement. I could see the soles of her
shoes, her hair straggling behind her.
Dear God, let this one pay off, I thought.
When I got back with Will, Steve seemed brighter. I laid my coat over the back of the sofa and went to plump up his pillows.
‘Hey up, Karen. Any chance of a tea?’
‘Soon as I’ve changed Will’s trousers. We’re both wet through.’
‘I don’t know why you didn’t take the car.’
‘Because it was fairly bright when we set off. You never can tell how a day’ll turn out.’
The Metro had gone from the front, I saw. I hoped she was remembering to drive carefully.
I took Will into the kitchen and stripped and towelled him, then popped his pyjama bottoms on because they were hanging on the maiden just by me and I couldn’t be bothered to trail
upstairs after fresh clothes. ‘Here’s two Kit Kats,’ I said. ‘One for you and one for Granddad, yes?’ He took them obediently and trotted through to the lounge. I
glanced down at my own sodden jeans; they could wait till I’d made the hot drinks.
Of course my whole mind now was filled up with Charlotte and what she was doing. The kettle could have boiled itself into oblivion and I wouldn’t have noticed. I was thinking, It’s
so easy to get lost in motherhood. Find it blocking out the rest of you, interfering with your ability to reason, your sense of perspective, particularly if you’re a perfectionist the way my
daughter is. Good mothers learn to be kind to themselves, to forgive their own mistakes. But it’s hard when you’re caught up in the whirl of everything. I’d had a spell after the
divorce where my brains just scrambled. I remember sitting up till the small hours obsessively filling in one of her magic painting books, too wound up to go to bed. And in those days, if she got
so much as a spot of dirt on her clothes I made her change her whole outfit. Everything had to be just so or I got myself in a tizz. One time I lost a sock down the back of a radiator and I sat
down and cried. Can you believe it? Over a bloody sock? Mum fished it out with a coat-hanger in about two seconds.
She’s a lot like me, is Charlotte, though she’d hate me to point it out. I should have spotted she was in trouble, let her know I was on her side. Thank God she’d talked to me
at last. I just hoped I’d done some good.
Oh, Daniel
, I prayed,
if you’ve an ounce of kindness in you, take her back.
‘Our Charlie gone shopping?’ said Steve when I handed him his mug.
‘Something like that,’ I said. There’d be time enough later to fill him in. When I knew the outcome.
Will was on the sofa, thumb in mouth, staring at a blank TV screen. I reached for the remote but before I could switch the
Tweenies
on, Steve waved his hand to stop me.
‘Hang about, Karen.’
‘What?’
‘We’ve summat to show you.’
He beckoned Will over and whispered in his ear. Will looked confused. Steve tried again. I watched as my grandson frowned, his eyes swivelling round the room. ‘On the TV,’ said
Steve.
After a pause, Will trotted over to the set and reached up for the book which lay there, my family history.
‘Careful with that, sweetheart,’ I said.
Steve nodded, and Will slid it down, holding it against his chest to come back and stand by the bed.
‘Now,’ said Steve, ‘watch this.’
He laid the book against the duvet and opened the pages as best he could with his one good hand, angling them so Will and I could see. The first picture was of Mum, the last we’d taken
before she died. She was sitting in a wing-back chair against a bay window at Mayfield, holding a tin of oxtail soup I’d just won in the tombola. Her eyes were half-closed and she looked far
away, but there was a faint smile on her lips. You could just make out Bertie’s yellow tail wagging in the bottom corner.
Steve tapped the page with his index finger. ‘Who’s that?’
‘Nan,’ said Will without hesitation.
I caught my breath. ‘I didn’t know he recognised her.’
Steve flipped to the next photo, which was Mum and a sixteen-year-old Charlotte on the pier at Southport in a high wind. ‘And who’s that?’
‘Mummy.’
‘And?’
‘Nan. Mummy and Nan.’
He turned another page, pointed.
‘Nan.’
My heart swelled with pleasure. ‘How?’
‘Charlotte’s been coaching him.’
And I thought I’d won the jackpot this morning when she’d actually told me I’d been right about something.
‘So, Will, who’s this?’ I said, pointing at the photo of Mum by the door. I love that picture. She’s standing on the back lawn wearing a lilac jumper, and it looks like
she’s got a bird-table growing out of her head. How we’d laughed when the print came back from the chemist.
Will left the book and came to inspect. ‘Nan,’ he said confidently. ‘Can I watch TV?’
We put the
Tweenies
on and I came and sat on the end of the bed.
‘What do you think of that, then?’ said Steve.
‘I haven’t the words.’
‘She thought you’d be suited. We know you’ve had a rough year. She wanted to try and make it up to you.’
I nodded. ‘I’m that touched.’
‘Good. We want the old Karen back. We miss her.’
‘I am trying.’
‘I know.’
‘And I’ve been better lately, haven’t I? Well, we’ve all had to shape ourselves and get on with it. It’s just – it’s such a shame he’ll never
really know my mum.’
‘He will, though. We’ll tell him. We’ll teach him all her little rhymes, all her funny stories. Keep showing him photographs. Play him the tapes. He’ll come to know her
even if she isn’t here. People don’t just stop being part of the family when they’re not around any more.’
Out of the corner of my eye I could see Dad’s tenor horn hanging next to Mum’s photo.
‘Steve?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Is there room for me to lie down?’
‘Hang on.’ Painfully he attempted to shift himself across the mattress.
‘No, it’s OK, don’t worry.’
‘If you want to lie down, love, you lie down. Come on.’
I squeezed in next to him.
He said, ‘Fancy, though.’
‘Fancy what?’
‘Us. After all that’s happened, me ending up back here.’
‘Yes. Fancy.’
His arm came round and pulled me close. The sharp edge of his splint was digging against my leg, and I could see the angry skin below the edge of his dressing. I almost lost you, I thought. You
were so nearly toast. And what now? Where do we go from here?
Steve wriggled and sighed. ‘What time do you put Will down for his nap?’
‘In about an hour.’
‘Just time for another dose of painkillers to kick in.’
From the TV was coming an alarm sound and flashing lights.
Tweenie clock, where will it stop?
‘And then what?’
‘Physio, of course.’ He began to unbutton the top of my shirt.
‘Physio?’
‘Well, my version.’
I watched his fingers moving deftly. ‘You know, as soon as you’re fully recovered, you’re going home.’
‘Course I am, Karen,’ he said. ‘Course I am.’
The examiner who’d passed me on my first test said I had the makings of a decent driver. He said I was ‘cautious but not hesitant’, which is what they look
for, apparently. He said my positioning at junctions was good and I showed a mature awareness of other vehicles on the road.
I wonder what the examiner would have said if he’d seen me hurling Mum’s Metro round the back streets of Manchester that afternoon. How I didn’t burst a tyre I’ll never
know, I hit that many kerbs. The few occasions I had been out in the car on my own I’d been nervous, but not this time. I had too much on my mind. Get there and get it over with, was all I
was thinking.
I hadn’t even gone back in our house in case Dad asked me what I was up to and that made me lose my nerve. I hadn’t changed my wet clothes, repaired my make-up, pulled a comb
through my hair. Because whatever happened between me and Dan now, it wasn’t going to be decided by a slick of lipstick. He could take me as I was or not at all.
Miraculously there was a parking space along Dan’s street, not too far down from the flat, but it was on the small side. Parking’s the one thing I’m not so confident about,
and I never attempt it without first checking to see if anyone’s watching. An audience totally puts me off. I slowed to a halt, had a quick glance round but saw only two figures far, far
away at the top of the road. So I went for it, heaving the steering wheel to one side and easing up the clutch, whipping my head from right to left in an attempt not to hit anything during the
manoeuvre. First try I connected with the kerb, panicked, revved and shot forward, bumping lightly into the 4×4 in front. I waited for some whooping alarm to start up but luckily nothing
happened.
Get a grip, Charlie
, I told myself.
It’s not going to help anyone if you dent Mum’s wing
. I took a deep breath and began to back up. But now I was well
skewed, the front nearside sticking out and there wasn’t enough room to straighten. I drove the car out and tried again. This time I had the angle better and although I still hit the kerb,
I was ready for that and didn’t panic. Instead I heaved the back wheel up onto the pavement, and took a moment’s pause while I got my head back together.
Idly I glanced into the mirror and noticed that the two people I’d seen at the top of the road were now much closer. I squinted, trying to make out more detail. A pair of women, it was.
One was tall and thin with long hair, jeans and a short beige mac, and the other was smaller, slightly broader, in an expensive-looking coat with a fur collar. The tall woman’s mouth was a
bright slash of colour against her pale face. That’s when it dawned on me: I was watching Mrs Gale. And her younger friend? No prizes for guessing. Even from this distance you could pick up
the glossy sheen of Amelia’s hair, the confidence in her stride.
‘Buggeration!’ I said, and promptly stalled the engine.
I looked again. Had they spotted me? Mrs G was talking animatedly and Amelia was nodding, well immersed in their conversation. I thought, I can duck down and hide till they’ve gone past
– but then they’ll be in the flat with Daniel and really I have to speak to him now while my courage is up – or I can make a dash for it and see if I can beat them.
Although the car was fairly central, it was sitting with its rear end on the footpath, like a dog cocking its leg. Well, sod whether my parking was parallel or not, I no longer cared. I
wrenched the gearstick into neutral, yanked at the keys and scrambled out. I didn’t dare check behind me. All I was concerned about was getting to Daniel first.
I ran full pelt for the flat, throwing myself up the brick path, and was about to ring the bell when I saw someone moving on the other side of the glass. I waved and tapped, and thank-you,
God, the door was opened by one of the ground-floor Ukrainians, wearing his coat and obviously on his way out. I just gasped, ‘NeedtoseeDaniel!’ at him and made for the stairs. I
expect he thought he’d let in a nutter.
When I reached the landing I stopped for a second because I felt sick. In the car I’d been trying to keep my head clear and not work myself into a state, even though the first song I
heard when I turned on the radio had been bloody ‘Seasons In The Sun’. It gives me the creeps at the best of times, that track. Then, due to the hideous lyrics, I’d had an
attack of self-pity and a very short cry. But I’d managed to pull myself together by reciting Walshy’s football version over the top:
We had goals by the ton, we had Bristol on the run but the fun didn’t last ’cause the bastards ran too fast.
Now, though, I was beyond terrace chants. It was just me and my fear.
The door to Dan’s flat was shut, no clues as to whether he was in or not. I began hammering on the wooden panels and calling his name. I thought I could hear voices in the hallway
below.
Suddenly the door swung open and there he was, standing in front of me.
‘Charlotte!’
‘Quick,’ I said, slipping over the threshold. ‘Close it.’
He just stood like a lemon. When he didn’t move, I turned and slammed it shut myself.
‘They’re
coming
,’ I said.
At the same moment I caught sight of myself in the mirror over his fireplace. My eye make-up was melted below my lashes, Alice Cooper-style, and my damp hair looked dark and greasy. I was in
the jogging bottoms and hooded sweatshirt I’d been slobbing around in that morning.
‘Who’s coming, Charlotte?’
‘Your mum! Amelia!’
God knows what he thought. That I was having some species of breakdown, probably.
My eyes swept round the room. Everything seemed pretty much as I remembered. Like us, he hadn’t bothered with Christmas decs, though he had gone as far as displaying his cards upright. I
checked again: where were the bits and pieces I’d given him over the years? The desk photo of me and Will had gone, I now saw, along with the Magic Eye print I’d bought from Bolton
Scope, plus the green eco-gonk for the top of his computer. That hurt. It looked like he’d cleared me out. But no, not quite, because the bullet-shaped fossil I’d found in a charity
jumble sale was still sitting under his monitor where I’d planted it last year. A belemnite, he’d called it. A tiny ancient squid. Swum its way through a million billion tides to wash
up on a table in Tannerside Scout Hut.
‘Daniel,’ I said.
There was a sharp rap at the door.
‘Don’t open it,’ I mouthed. ‘Please.’
He stayed where he was.
The knock came again. ‘Daniel? Daniel, are you in there?’ His mother’s voice.
I smoothed my hair nervously, wondering how long he’d hold out. How long before he’d shrug apologetically and reach past me for the latch.
‘Danny?’ This was Amelia. More pleading, less strident.
‘Daniel, darling, open the door. We know she’s in there, we saw her run in. You don’t have to deal with it, don’t listen to her sob story. Don’t let yourself be
talked round.’
My jaw dropped. Hell’s bells, there’s nothing like laying your cards on the table, is there? I knew Mrs G didn’t like me, but to be so blatant about it.
Amelia said, ‘Let us in. This is silly.’
There was another series of bangs on the door and then silence. We waited, and for a second or two I actually wondered if they might have given up, scuttled off to Mrs G’s flat for a
glass of wine and a bitch about me. But no, because next came a scrabbling, metallic noise that made me suck in my breath. Mrs Gale was fitting her key into the lock. She was coming in
regardless.
‘We’re concerned about you, darling,’ were her first words as she walked into the room. Amelia hovered behind, her eyes fixed on me.
‘There’s nothing to be concerned about, Mother.’
‘It is over, you know,’ Mrs Gale addressed me. ‘So what do you want? Is it money?’
Even Daniel flinched at that one. I felt fury boiling up inside me, imagined marching across and shaking her by the shoulders till her teeth rattled in their sockets. I had to clench my fists
till the immediate urge passed.
‘Can you leave us, please,’ said Daniel.
‘No, I shan’t. Not until I hear what’s going on. Didn’t I tell you we hadn’t seen the last of her? Charlotte, you must know you have no right to be here. You
haven’t brought the child along, have you? No, good, that’s something. Because it won’t work, this emotional blackmail. Daniel and I have talked it through and I’ve told
him, he has no legal or moral obligation towards you or your son. I think he’s made it quite clear that your romance is over, and I’m afraid you need to move on and accept the
situation.’
My ears were buzzing with the effort of holding in my rage but I thought, Don’t give her the satisfaction. If I lose my temper and start shouting, I’ll just be playing into her
hands, so she can say: ‘See, darling, what a gruesome little fishwife she is when you try and cross her.’
‘Please,’ said Dan again, quietly. He held his arm out to indicate the door.
‘I’m afraid I’m going nowhere till she leaves.’
All this time Amelia’s face was growing more and more fascinated. I don’t know what she’d heard about me, but I think I was worse in the flesh than she’d been
expecting. Maybe she’d clocked my hoodie and thought I was going to pull a knife, or at the very least break into some vicious street slang. Maybe she thought I was going to offer her
drugs.
Mrs G stepped forward. ‘All right, let’s get it over with. Say what you need to say, Charlotte, then go.’
‘’S’OK,’ whispered Daniel to me.
Really I needed to sit down because my legs were so shaky, but I didn’t want to put myself on a lower level than everyone else.
I tried to speak, managed only a rasp, cleared my throat and said, ‘I’m sorry.’ They all just stared at me.
And now I discovered that the whole speech I’d prepared asking for another chance, assuring him that if he had me back I’d listen more and take more interest and be less spiky and
more grateful, had evaporated from my brain. How could I explain, under their critical gaze, the lessons I’d learned over these last months? How meeting Jessie had shown me what wickedness
is in the world and the need to close ranks against it. To hold fast that which is good, as Nan would say. How Dad coming a-cropper demonstrated that you never know what’s lying in wait for
you on the road ahead. Mostly I’d learned about love watching Mum carefully cut up Dad’s meals into small chunks, or each evening smooth moisturiser into his knobbly old feet. Would I
do those things for Daniel if he needed me to? Yes, I would. No hesitation.
Not that I could say any of this with Witch-features listening in.
‘I’m, really, really sorry,’ I said again, my voice very small.
A snort from the doorway. I looked up expecting to see Mrs Gale sneering, but it was Amelia whose face was twisted in disgust.
‘It’s all right being sorry now, Charlotte. You had your chance, and you blew it. Danny deserves better than you. He knows it and you do too. You’re not messing him about any
more. I won’t let you.’
‘Come on,’ said Mrs Gale, all brisk and buoyant now she could see I was failing. ‘Time for you to go, young lady.’
But then something wonderful happened. Without looking at me, Daniel reached out sideways and took my hand. I let out a little squeak of surprise.
‘Daniel!’ his mother barked.
When I turned, I could see he was breathing fast and his skin was clammy. I squeezed his fingertips and he squeezed mine back, hard.
‘Listen,’ said Mrs G. ‘If you do need cash, we can probably let you have some. Not much, but if that’s what it takes, I’m sure we can come to some
arrangement—’
‘Move,’ said Daniel, nodding them towards the door.
Amelia said, ‘Don’t fall for it, Danny. Don’t, because you’ll only end up how you were before. She’ll take you for granted, she won’t appreciate you.
She’ll break your heart again.’
‘I could probably stretch to a hundred,’ said Mrs Gale.
Daniel took a deep breath. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘That’s it.’ And he jerked me forward so that we more or less barged the two women aside, pushing them apart, and
then we were out onto the landing and running down the stairs, across the hallway, through the front door and down the brick path, still holding hands.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked as we turned out of the gateway and set off up the road.
He didn’t answer. We passed the badly parked Metro, and a postbox, and the street sign at the corner and a Londis and a hairdresser’s, and then he began to slow down, panting. We
didn’t stop, though. Down a ginnel he led me, across a car park, along the edge of a playing-field. Here was a trio of newly planted saplings, two of which had been snapped off and the
guard-rail of the other filled with empty bottles and cans. Here was a wire supermarket basket suspended from a spiky fence. A skeletal hedge with an abandoned nest inside, a column of signs for
an industrial park. I saw Christmas lights already twinkling against the gloom of the afternoon. These were Dan’s streets, and I didn’t know them because I’d never taken the
trouble.
At the end of the next road was a garage and a bike repair shop, and some concrete steps leading to a flyover.
‘Is it much further?’ My lungs were on fire and my knees weren’t much better.
He pulled me towards the steps and then we were hauling ourselves up a series of zigzag flights marked throughout with graffiti and water-stains and streaks of rust. Every corner and crevice
was packed with litter. The traffic from the main road above us roared; I could smell diesel.
Just as I thought I was going to collapse, we reached the top. I gulped in exhaust fumes and held onto the metal hand-rail for support. Daniel walked on a little distance, then stopped and
tipped his head back as if to study the sky. Above us, the clouds thickened. Sleet was on its way here too.
‘Why have we come here?’ I shouted. I had to raise my voice because of the lorries and vans thundering past.
He said something I couldn’t make out.
‘What?’
‘She’s not my girlfriend. She likes to think she is, but she isn’t. I wanted you to know that.’
