The Bad Mother's Handbook (33 page)

Daniel tried to push his glasses up and got foam on his
nose. ‘Might have done.’ He blew the bubbles off and
they floated down like snow to settle on the tiles. ‘I was
going to take you out to Pizza Hut and ask them to come
along, then your mum phoned and told me about this—’

‘She phoned your house?’

‘She was chatting to my dad for ages before he put
me on.’

‘Oh, God. I am sorry.’

Daniel shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t worry, he’s a natural flirt,
it doesn’t mean anything. My mother calls it his Bedside
Manner.’ He emptied the bowl and filled it up again ready
for the pans. ‘She’d like this Belfast sink. Thirties, isn’t it?
She’d probably kill for these original black and white tiles
too.’

‘She wouldn’t like having to traipse through the
kitchen to have a bath, though.’

‘I was wondering about that. I suppose the bathroom
was added on after the house was built.’

‘I know Nan and Grandad moved in here just before
the war but I don’t know if they used a tin bath and the
outside privy or whether the council had updated it by
then. I’ll have to ask her. Mum remembers there being a
range in the front room, where the gas fire is now, but that
went in the seventies.’

‘It’s full of character, your house. Full of history.’

‘Get away. You can say that because you don’t have to
live here. I’d swap you any day.’

Call-me-Leo appeared in the doorway holding two
glasses. ‘Are you having your wine in here?’

‘Stick it on top of the fridge for now.’ I got up carefully;
Will was totally out. I carried him through into the
living room and laid him in his bouncy chair. With his
head thrown back and his turned-up nose he looked like
a piglet in a Babygro.

‘Bless him,’ said Mum. I could see the bottle of wine
was well down.

‘Can you look after him for a bit longer? Birthday
treat?’

She nodded. I went back to the kitchen and picked up
my glass. ‘Leave that now, Daniel. Come on.’

‘I was hoping you’d say that,’ he smiled.

Up in my room he turned all serious. ‘I’ve been waiting
to give you this,’ he said, putting his hand in his
jacket pocket. ‘I didn’t want to do it in front of everyone.’
He pulled out a small black cube, about the size of, well,
a ring box. Oh, hell, I thought. ‘Take it,’ he said, placing
it in the palm of my hand. Any minute now he was going
to sink to his knees and ruin everything. I swallowed and
opened the lid.

‘Oh, Daniel.’

‘They’re your birthstones. You have got pierced ears,
haven’t you? I forgot to check.’

I was laughing with relief. ‘Oh, they’re lovely.
Brilliant. I’ll put them in now.’ I stood in front of
the wardrobe and fitted the tiny pins through my lobes.
The blue gems glittered as they swung in the light. ‘I
like my ears. One part of me that hasn’t changed shape
recently.’

Behind me Daniel glowed with pride. ‘You look fantastic,’
he said.

I turned round and since we were standing so close
together it wasn’t much of a stretch to reach over and kiss
him. He put his arms round me and we fused together,
lips, hips and toes. If this was a film, I thought, music
would be swelling and the camera would be circling us in
a long close-up. He kissed really well, surprisingly well.
Maybe he’d left more than friends behind in Guildford;
I’d never thought to ask.

‘Come and lie on the bed,’ I said quietly.

‘If you’re absolutely sure.’ He looked into my eyes.
‘Are you?’

‘Yes.’

We lay for a long time snogging and writhing against
each other. He ran his fingers down my back and neck,
seemed to know instinctively not to touch my breasts. His
kisses on my skin were light and shivery, but he scrupulously
avoided contact below my waist, even though I was
grinding my hips against his crotch like a complete floozy.
Suddenly I wanted him to touch me, really touch me. I
didn’t care about the flab or what the stitches looked like,
I just needed his fingers. I guided his hand down, past the
waistband of my skirt, under the hem of my knickers, an
electric path. I thought I was going to die with lust.

All the time he was gazing into my eyes and moving
his hand really gently, so gently. I knew I was soaking wet;
I knew too that the sensation was better than anything I’d
ever felt with Paul. No thrusting or stabbing, no jagged
nails, just his feathery fingertips slicking over and over the
exact spot it felt most good. The pleasure got more and
more intense, became a different feeling altogether, he had
to keep going, he mustn’t stop, I closed my eyes and came,
came, came on his hand, in waves of the most exquisite,
fantastic, glorious—

‘Are you all right?’

I opened my eyes. ‘Oh my God. That was unbelievable.
I never knew what it was like. Oh, God.’ I collapsed
back onto the pillow. ‘You’re brilliant. You knew exactly
what to do.’

‘I’ve been reading up on it,’ he said modestly.

I buried my face in his chest. ‘You and your bloody
Internet.’

‘Ashley Carter, actually, historical novelist. One of my
mother’s dodgy paperbacks. She keeps them in the bottom
of the wardrobe; she thinks I don’t know. It might all be
crinolines and fans on the front but it’s hot stuff between
the covers, I can tell you. They’ve been quite an education
to me over the years.’ His face was pink and he’d taken
his glasses off which made him look different and vulnerable.
I had a sort of leap of love for him then and reached
over to snog him again. I felt the hardness at his crotch
against my belly.

‘Is there, is there anything I can do for you?’ I asked.

‘I should think so,’ he sighed, lying back as I unzipped
his trousers.

*

I
HAVEN
’
T DREAMT
about the London visit at all, and I was
expecting nightmares. Maybe it’s because I think about it
all the time so there’s no need for my subconscious to drag
it out at night. Emma haunts me like a little ghost, her
big eyes, her wispy hair. I see her everywhere, as a child
in the kids at school, as the adult she never had a chance
to be. There’s a weathergirl on GMTV who reminds me
of her for some reason, something about the arch of her
brows. My heart does a stupid jump when Judy Finnegan
announces her.

What can I do, Emma? I ask her, but she just looks sad
and frightened. She’s become my imaginary friend; any
day now I’ll find myself setting a place for her at the table.
And sometimes in the night my heart bulges against the
mattress with emotion, and I feel as if the love in me could
flow out like a huge sea and bathe all those children no one
wants, their little limbs, if only I could get to them. What
can I do?

As for
her
, she’s a bad sensation that crawls over my
memory from time to time, often unexpectedly. The gaps
between flashbacks are getting longer though. Maybe,
some time in the future, a whole day will go past and I
won’t picture her at all. Did Nan ever actually know Jessie
Pilkington? It seems impossible; such goodness meeting
such evil. In any case, I found my real mother. Surprise,
surprise, she turned out to be Nan after all.

I was thinking through all this again while I sat in the
consultant’s waiting room, ready for him to deliver her
long-term assessment. I was all set up for an argument:
Don’t you dismiss my mother as a bed-blocker! She’s paid her
National Insurance contributions all her life, she’s only asking
for what she’s entitled to. If it takes her a long time to recuperate,
then so be it, you’ll just have to make arrangements. Don’t we
care about old people in this country any more
? No consultant
was going to walk all over me.

And yet, when I met him, Mr Hammond turned out to
be perfectly reasonable.

‘Take a seat. Now, Mrs Coper.’

I laughed out loud. ‘Oh, I wish! It’s
Cooper
, actually.’

‘Oh, dear, that wasn’t a very good start, was it?’ He
amended his notes. ‘I see you’ve been looking after your
mother, Mrs Hesketh, for thirteen years, is it?’

‘Yes, I suppose it will be . . . Although to be honest, she
looked after me for a while. I suffered from mild post-natal
depression, then it came back when I got divorced so when
I moved into Mum’s I was a bit of a mess. She was marvellous
with my daughter, got her in clean clothes every day,
made her her packed lunch for school when I couldn’t
manage; it’s not a time I like to think about, I’m not very
proud of myself.’

Sudden mental image of me sitting at the table with
tears running down my face and Charlotte’s paintbrush
in my hand. Nan’s patting my shoulder and saying,
‘Nay, they don’t put children into care just because
their mother’s done a bit of painting.’ From upstairs we
can both hear Charlotte thumping about, furious with
me because during the night when I had more energy
than I knew what to do with, I’ve filled in every damn
page of that magic painting book I bought her, she’s not
even got to do one tiny bit. ‘I couldn’t stop myself,’
I keep saying, ‘it was like a compulsion.’ And Nan keeps
patting, and Charlotte keeps thumping. Oh, I did weirder
stuff than that; don’t know why that incident popped into
my head.

When I came back to myself Mr Hammond’s eyebrows
were raised above the steel frame of his glasses and I
realized my mouth was open, God knows what he thought
of me. I pulled myself together and carried on.

‘So it’s only in the last, oh, I don’t know, five or six
years she’s been bad. It’s difficult to pin down exactly
when the balance tipped from caring to being cared for.
For ages she was just forgetful; we put it down to old
age. I can’t really leave her on her own now in case she
sets the grill pan on fire or floods the sink, but then again
some days you wouldn’t credit it, she’s as right as rain
and you wouldn’t guess there was anything wrong with
her. I gather that’s pretty normal, is it, with dementia?’

Mr Hammond gave a slight nod. ‘It can be.’

‘Weird, isn’t it? You never know which side of her
you’re going to get, is she putting it on or not; sometimes,
you know, I could—’ I clenched my fists in front of my face,
then laughed to show it was just a joke. Wonder if he was
fooled? I suppose he’s seen enough carers to know the
score. He kept nodding anyway, didn’t call the police. ‘But
I’ve been able to manage because she’s been so independent
physically. She can get in and out of a bath no trouble,
climb the stairs, dress herself; marvellous, really.’

Mr Hammond clasped his hands and looked sympathetic.
‘I’m afraid things are on a different footing now,’
he said.

‘I guessed so.’

‘You have to understand that for the foreseeable future
Mrs Hesketh is going to be significantly disabled. At the
moment nurses are helping to feed, dress and toilet her.
She’s going to need a lot of care.’

There was a silence while I took this in.

‘What about physiotherapy?’

‘That may have some long-term benefits, but it isn’t
going to work miracles.’

‘Will she be able to climb the stairs?’

Mr Hammond shook his head. ‘She won’t be able to
walk
without assistance. She was quite severely affected by
the stroke. So what we have to decide, together, is how to
provide the level of care that your mother needs to achieve
the best possible quality of life.’

So this was my penance for rejecting her and trying to
find something better. I was going to have to fireman’s lift
her every time she needed a wee, for the rest of her life;
spoon-feed William with one hand and her with the other.
My heart sank to my boots.

‘She wants to come home. She’ll have to come home
eventually, but can you not keep her another month or
two? My daughter had a baby eight weeks ago and the
house is upside down, as you can imagine, and we’re going
to need more help from social services . . . Can you see to
that for me or do I have to contact them myself?’

‘I’m still not sure you understand the full picture,’ he
said gently. ‘I don’t see how you can cope on your own.
Your mum will need a
lot
of care.’

I thought of her bedroom, of carrying her downstairs to
the toilet in the night, or of trying to fit a bed in the living
room, then where would the table go, where would we eat?
Maybe if we shifted the sideboard – but where? Could
we make Nan’s room into a study-cum-dining room for
Charlotte to work in? It would be funny eating upstairs,
and taking food all the way from the kitchen and then the
dishes back again . . .

‘Do you work?’ asked Mr Hammond.

‘Part time. Why?’

But he didn’t have to say anything. My life was telescoping
before my eyes.

‘I think you should consider a nursing home,’ he said.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, that’s out of the question. We’ll find a
way of managing,’ I replied. I knew that however grim the
situation was, there was no way I could hurt Nan any more
than she was already. It was an impossible idea, Nan not
being around.

As I got up to leave an idea I’d been trying to suppress
for a long time rose to the surface. Mr Hammond seemed a
kind man. ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘Do you think my getting divorced all those years back
might have triggered the dementia? She was really cut up
about it; family’s everything to her.’

‘No.’

‘Oh. Thank you.’ I got as far as the door. ‘And, er, is
there any chance that her stroke might have happened
because I had a few days away on holiday the week
before?’

‘No.’

‘Oh. I thought I’d ask.’

‘Goodbye, Mrs
Coper
,’ I heard him say as I closed the
door. I didn’t know what to make of that.

I walked through the hospital building, past the
maternity unit with its soft colours and posters of happy
breastfeeders, past the children’s ward with its giant Tigger
mural, to the shop where I bought a family size bar of
chocolate. I wolfed it down unhappily, then I went to see
Nan. She was trying to turn over a page of
Woman’s Weekly
,
licking her thumb and index finger and fiddling with the
corner. ‘Damn useless,’ she was muttering. But her face lit
up when she saw me, and that was something. ‘Eh, it’s our
Karen. You look bonny. Have you brought that baby today?
He’s so lovely, little thing.’