The World's Worst Mothers (6 page)

Kruschke was back at the ferry port. It was calm today. A few clouds hung listlessly in a blue sky. The sea was dark grey and it was as smooth and motionless as satin.

The Annas had all left early that morning, and now the women who were to become super-slim, super-blonde models were expected.

Nordfall's inhabitants hadn't been all that interested in the transformation of a toy factory into a modelling school. Only Jens Lührsen, the owner of Dune View, had been excited. He would be delivering lunch every day for the models. His wife, Ilse, soon put paid to his good mood, though.

‘There won't be much business there,' she remarked. ‘You know what those young ladies live on: low-fat yoghurt, celery sticks and mineral water.'

But as they watched the women disembarking, she said, ‘It will be some job to turn that lot into anything decent.' And Swantje, who was watching with her, had to agree.

‘That fat one in front needs to lose at least thirty kilos. That'll take her a year.'

Quite unlike the silent ladies who had left the island earlier that morning, these ones were chattering so loudly that they drowned out even the screeching of the seagulls. Sentences like ‘This is ridiculous!' and ‘I want to speak to the organiser immediately!' were to be heard.

‘They all seem a bit cross,' whispered Swantje to the manageress of Dune View.

‘You're right there. Look at that one with the grown-out perm – she's going to explode with anger.'

A little roundy woman who was pulling a pink trolley behind her came surprisingly quickly down the gangway and called: ‘Where is Clang Clang, the world-famous virtuoso?'

Kruschke ran up to her and took her by the arm. ‘You are Bruno's mother, aren't you? Please be patient for a moment. It will all become clear.'

‘Become clear?' spat the woman, who had got quite red in the face. ‘What is there to become clear?' She took a letter out of her bag. ‘I have been informed that the world-famous pianist Clang Clang wanted to meet me here to discuss my son's future. He considers him unusually talented.'

The other women had come closer by now and they surrounded Kruschke. They were all waving letters.

‘I was invited to an interview for a job as a senior bookkeeper,' cried a woman with wild red hair.

A very fat lady pushed herself forward.

‘I was supposed to take part in a trial for a new weight-loss product. Lose twenty kilos in three days or get ten thousand euro compensation. Give me the stuff!'

‘No, I was first,' cried another woman.

‘You can't want to lose weight, you stick insect,' shouted the fat woman.

‘You haven't seen me in a bikini,' replied the thin woman.

Kruschke had his hands full trying to calm the ladies down. At last, he got them to follow him into Wohlfarth's factory.

‘Like a flock of gobbling geese,' said Ilse Lührsen and she went back into Dune View, shaking her head. She had a lot to do. Wohlfarth had ordered seventeen portions of fish fillet for that evening. With cucumber salad.

Wohlfarth had written a speech. He was walking up and down the factory floor, memorising it.

‘Ladies … No, that's too stiff. And anyway, they are not ladies. Well, then, my dear mothers … Rubbish, that's precisely what they are
not.
Otherwise, they wouldn't be here. What'll I call them?'

At that moment, the gate was flung open and a pack of enraged women came charging into the building. They were all shouting each other down.

‘Are you responsible for this circus?' called a long scrawny person in a flowing garment of indeterminate colour.

‘If you haven't got a good explanation, I will call the police,' screamed a fat little woman, gesturing threateningly with a mobile phone.

Wohlfarth raised his hands defensively.

‘Quiet, ladies, please. Silence, please.' He pointed at a couple of rows of chairs. ‘At least sit down and have something to eat.'

As if to order, Ramona Bottle and Vibke Paulsen appeared with coffee pots, cups and plates of goodies.

The long scrawny one shook her head. ‘I only drink barley coffee.'

And the short fat one asked, ‘Are those low-calorie biscuits?'

‘Oh, yes,' said Vibke Paulsen. ‘Don't worry. We've thought of everything. There's ordinary coffee and decaffeinated and herbal teas, low-calorie biscuits and soya milk …'

She was dishing out cups and plates and speaking soothingly to everyone, and gradually peace descended.

The seventeen women were now sitting quietly on their chairs, looking expectantly at Wohlfarth.

He cleared his throat a couple of times and then he began. ‘You are surely wondering why you are here, and I will tell you all in a moment. But on the voyage over, you may have gathered a few things. You are all mothers, and …' Wohlfarth took a deep breath, ‘and you are all dreadful mothers. To be quite clear: not only are you dreadful mothers, you are the world's worst mothers.'

A storm of indignation broke out.

‘Are you crazy?' one woman yelled, and another cried, ‘This has to be
Candid Camera.
Cooey!' She waved and grinned all around.

‘No, no, you've got it all wrong,' said Wohlfarth. ‘Let me explain –'

But they wouldn't let him. The short fat one was thumbing her mobile. ‘Hello? Hello? Is that the police?'

Then she lowered the mobile. ‘Nothing.'

‘Unfortunately, we don't get a signal here on Nordfall,' said Vibke Paulsen.

The tumult got louder. ‘I'm going. I'm not putting up with this,' cried a lady in an elegant suit with carefully coiffured hair.

‘That's right. I must get home, my Timmy will be home from school at any moment,' said the short fat one.

‘Please listen for a moment,' said Wohlfarth, unfolding a sheet of paper. ‘I would like to read something to you, and I think you will be very happy to stay here after you have heard it.'

He cleared his throat and read. ‘“My mother is so suspicious. She reads my diary secretly. And the first thing she does when she gets home is to check if the TV is still warm, because I'm not allowed to watch telly. It makes you stupid, she claims. But she watches all sorts of rubbish every night till really late. If I say I'm meeting a friend, she rings up to make sure it's true. She'd love to be able to get me implanted with one of those chips, so she could track my every move.”'

Wohlfarth broke off. ‘I don't think I need to read any more, do I?'

The woman in the chic suit, whose pointy nose had got very white, took out a handkerchief and snorted noisily into it.

Wohlfarth took a new sheet.

‘This will interest one of you for sure: “My mother is the world's worst mother because she forces me to play the piano, though I'd much prefer to box. I can't play at all. And I'm always terrified of my piano lesson, especially since I've been going to Professor Griebel. He's mad expensive, and I wish my mother would save the money, but I just can't talk to her. If I say anything, she immediately bursts into tears and that makes me feel guilty. And all because Great-aunt Adelheid used to play the viola. But that doesn't necessarily make me musical, does it???” There are three question marks here,' said Wohlfarth, lowering the page.

The woman with the grown-out perm leapt up and cried, ‘But it's not true. You should hear Bruno! I played Mozart to him in the womb! And in preschool he could play ‘Twinkle, Twinkle' on the recorder and –'

‘What you have to say does not interest me in the slightest,' said Wohlfarth coldly. ‘All I am interested in is what your children have to say. This one, for example: “I'm ten, but my mother treats me like a baby. I'm not even allowed to go to my friend's house by myself, and he only lives around the corner. And even if it's warm outside, I have to wear my scarf and gloves. Everyone laughs at me and calls me a mammy's boy. I'm not allowed to go to the playground with the others either, because I might break something.”'

The short fat one gave a loud sob. ‘But you should have seen Timmy when he was born. He was so tiny!' She indicated the size of a hamster with her hands.

Wohlfarth would not be distracted. He read on and on. At the end, seventeen women sat and stared at the ground. None of them dared to look at her neighbour, so unpleasant was all that they'd heard.

‘But why are we here now?' asked a woman who had so far kept quiet. She was tanned and muscular. When she opened her mouth, you could see that she had a piercing in her tongue.

‘Have you seen those letters on the building?' asked Wohlfarth. ‘WIMI. Can you think what that might mean?'

Most of them shook their heads.

‘It means Wohlfarth's Institute for Mother Improvement. Wohlfarth is me, and the mothers – that's you.'

Bruno gave a punch. Whammm! And again. Wham! Wham! The punchbag swung to and fro. Bruno had to duck to avoid getting it in the face. Then he jumped up, danced around the punchbag and gave another punch. He felt strong. He felt alive. And most of all, he felt happy.

He had hung Jim's punchbag on the thickest branch of the oak tree. Now he boxed the punchbag with a series of faster, lighter punches.

‘Bruno!' called a voice. ‘Bruno, there was a phone call for you.'

Aunt Anna came along the garden path towards him. She was carrying a tray with a glass of strawberry-flavoured milk on it.

‘You need something to keep your strength up,' she said, smiling at Bruno.

She was always smiling. At first, Bruno had found it a bit irritating. But he'd got used to it.

‘Who phoned?' he asked ‘Mum?'

‘No. Your piano teacher.'

Bruno went ice-cold. Today was Thursday, and he had genuinely forgotten that he should have been at his piano lesson. He hadn't played the piano for a week. Actually, since Aunt Anna had been in the house. She had closed the lid of the piano, locked it and thrown the key down the toilet. Bruno had stood helplessly by. How could she do a thing like that?

‘Now you don't need to feel guilty for not playing,' she'd said.

Bruno's father didn't know a thing about all this. He had been pretty surprised when he came home that first evening to find, not his wife, but a complete stranger. He'd tried to phone Bruno's mother on her mobile.

‘Of course, all I'm getting is the voicemail,' he'd cried. ‘Isn't that just typical!' But his anger soon dissolved when he saw what Aunt Anna served up for supper. Steak that was still bloody, with potato wedges dripping with fat. Bruno's mother never cooked anything like that. Aunt Anna hadn't prepared the meal herself. She'd got it from a nearby steakhouse

‘I can't cook a thing,' she'd confided to Bruno. ‘But don't give me away.'

Bruno never let on. Nor had he told his father that Aunt Anna never ate with him. She was probably on a diet. His mother was always doing that, and then in between meals she stuffed herself with chocolates and cake. Women were just weird.

With Aunt Anna's arrival, a whole new life had begun. After she'd thrown the key of the piano down the loo, she'd said, ‘I've heard that you are a very good boxer. Do you want to show me?'

Bruno had borrowed Jim's punchbag, and since then he'd been training every day. And every day he was getting better and better.

On the third day, a postcard had come from his mother, with a picture of a seagull on the front.

My dears,
Don't worry, I'm very well. I'm enjoying the sea air and I'm looking forward to seeing you in four weeks' time.

Bruno wasn't in the least bit worried about his mother, but about something else entirely.

‘What did Professor Griebel say?' he asked anxiously now.

‘He asked if you would be coming today.'

‘And what did you tell him?'

‘I said that you wouldn't be coming today, or tomorrow, or ever again.'

Bruno didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

‘Mum will explode when she finds out,' he said.

Aunt Anna's smile got wider.

‘Don't fret, my dear. You won't know your mother when she comes home.'

Bruno often thought back to these words later.

‘Would you like something to drink or maybe a few biscuits?'

Aunt Anna was standing in the door of Sophie's room, passing her in a tray.

‘Super! Thank you,' said Sophie and bit into a cookie.

‘Enjoy!' said Aunt Anna and disappeared again.

No ‘When are you going to tidy your room?' or ‘Have you done your homework?' No complaints that she had forgotten, yet again, to empty the dishwasher or to put the clean clothes in the wardrobe. No orders to comb her hair or not to chew her nails. Since Aunt Anna had been in the house, Sophie had all the time in the world.

She licked the biscuit crumbs from her fingers and logged in to Allfriends.

Dragon Monster had written to her:
Hey, how are things? Everything OK with you?

Sophie answered:
Better than OK. My mum is gone to a health farm, and our auntie is looking after us. My stepfather wasn't too pleased at first, because Mum had said nothing to him, but I think he likes Aunt Anna too. My mum's probably gone to one of those wellness thingies where you can lose weight too. And do you know the best thing? Aunt Anna is the first one that Nicholas hasn't been able to wind around his little finger. He can cry buckets, as much as he likes. She just looks kindly at him and says nothing. Then he totally explodes. She's super nice to me. Never nags if my room is not tidy, lets me listen to as much music as I like and to spend as long as I like online.

Dragon Monster wrote back:
Hey, send that auntie over to me, sounds really cool.

The door burst open and Nicholas came in. ‘When's Mummy coming home?' he asked for about the hundredth time.

‘I told you. She's gone to a health farm and she'll be back in three weeks.'

‘What's a health farm?' Nicholas wanted to know.

‘It's like going on your holidays,' said Sophie.

‘Will you read it to me again?' Nicholas pressed a thoroughly crumpled postcard into Sophie's hand.

‘You must know it off by heart by now,' said Sophie. ‘Oh, well. “Dear George, dear Nicholas, dear Sophie.”' It always irked her that she came last in the list. ‘“It's lovely here and I'm relaxing hugely. Lots of love from Mum/Marie.”'

She'd scribbled in the margin:
Give Nicholas a kiss from me.
So far, Sophie had left that bit out when she read the card to Nicholas, but he looked so miserable now that she said, ‘Oh look, here's another bit that I never saw before. It says: Give Nicholas a kiss from me.'

Nicholas turned a tear-stained and dirt-smeared cheek towards her. Sophie hesitated for a moment, and then she bent down and gave him a quick kiss.

‘You have to kiss me properly,' said Nicholas. ‘It has to smack, like this.' Nicholas made a loud smacking sound with his tongue.

‘Wash your face first, and then we'll see,' said Sophie.

‘You're so mean!' Nicholas stomped out of the room.

Sophie was about to write to Dragon Monster to tell him what songs she'd just bought, which ones she wanted to buy and which ones she was not sure if she should buy or not, when Nicholas reappeared. With a clean face this time.

‘Will you kiss me now?' he asked.

At that moment, Aunt Anna came into the room. ‘You shouldn't be disturbing your sister. Out you go!'

‘But Sofa is supposed to give me a kiss. Mama said so, look!' He reached the card with the seagull out to Aunt Anna.

‘Your mum's gone to a health farm and she's very well,' said Aunt Anna. ‘Come on, now.'

She took Nicholas and dragged him, screaming, out of the room.

Sophie almost had a guilty conscience. But after all, it was only fair that for once things were not going Nicholas's way.

The next day, Aunt Anna went a bit too far.

Nicholas usually got a sticky, sweet cereal with milk for breakfast.

‘It doesn't taste nice,' he said, pushing the bowl away.

George, who was in an awful hurry, knocked over a cup of coffee as he stood up, looking at the clock.

‘What doesn't taste nice?'

‘Those aren't Honey-Bunnies. It tastes terrible.'

Sophie looked into Nicholas's bowl and nearly burst out laughing.

‘It's Lulu's cat crunchies. Aunt Anna, what have you done?'

Aunt Anna, who, as usual, was not sitting with them at the table, but was bustling around the kitchen in an apron, armed with a dishcloth, pulled a packet off cat food off the shelf and said, ‘Nicholas always has this, and Sophie and George have that.' She pointed at a packet of sliced bread.

‘I have to go,' said George. ‘Will you please explain to Anna the difference between cat food and child food.'

Aunt Anna was still standing smiling with the packet of cat food in her hand. Sophie stood up and took it out of her hand.

‘This is for Lulu, and this,' she pointed at the Honey-Bunnies,
‘this
is for Nicholas.'

She spoke as if she were talking to an illiterate person. Which Aunt Anna was not – she could read. On the first evening, she'd read aloud to Nicholas. Even if it was in an extraordinary monotone. Nicholas didn't want to be read to by her after that. He found her voice ‘creepy'.

When George had no time – and he often had no time – Sophie had to read to Nicholas. And it wasn't nearly as bad as she thought it would be. When you read to him, Nicholas was very quiet. He didn't fidget, he didn't whine, he snuggled into Sophie, he sucked his security blanket and just listened.

Now he was sitting at the kitchen table with his arms pressed close to him, staring darkly into his bowl. Sophie took it away and put it down for Lulu, who went at it with a lot of slurping.

‘When you were very small, you used to swipe the crunchies out of Lulu's bowl. You used to like them,' said Sophie.

‘But I'm not small now,' said Nicholas crossly.

‘You are a little boy and you must be good and do what your big sister says,' warbled Aunt Anna.

Even Sophie thought that was a bit much.

‘Come on, Nicholas,' she said. ‘I don't have to be in school until the second lesson. I can take you to school first.'

She stood up from the table.

‘Could you make a sandwich for Nicholas's break, Aunt Anna?'

George usually made a sandwich for Nicholas to take to preschool, but today he'd forgotten.

‘Of course. What would you like? Salami, cheese, jam, butter?' Aunt Anna took two slices of bread out of the packet.

‘One with cheese and one with salami, as always,' said Sophie. ‘And with butter, of course.'

Sophie put her plate into the dishwasher and looked out of the corner of her eye as Aunt Anna put a slice of cheese on the bread, smeared the butter over the cheese, and then put a second slice of bread on top. Usually, people do it the other way around, thought Sophie. Oh, well, what did it matter, it came to the same thing.

But one thing was clear. Aunt Anna was definitely not a good housekeeper.

Emily was lying on the sofa on her tummy watching television. There was a report on the North Frisian Islands. She saw the islands of Pellworm, Amrum, Föhr and Sylt. Which of these islands was her mother on right now? Aunt Anna had just said that she was on an island in the North Sea for her health. On the coffee table was the postcard that Emily had got from her mother. There was a seagull on it, but she hadn't put her address. Hardly surprising, considering how scatterbrained she was.

The postmark gave nothing away. Emily turned the card this way and that. There was something funny about it. The words?

Dear Emmykins,

I'm sure you were surprised that I left so suddenly, but I'm fine and I'm making progress.

Mum.

Progress? In what? In relaxation? Hopefully. Maybe everything would be easier if her mother had four weeks with nothing to think about. No interviews, no car threatening to fall to pieces at any moment, no daughter.

Emily turned up the television.

Aunt Anna went on hoovering. That was her favourite thing. She was eternally going over the flat with the vacuum cleaner. She even hoovered the tables and shelves. Yesterday Emily had only just rescued a piece of paper out of the machine. Her mother had written important addresses on it – the doctor, the mechanic and so on. Emily had put the paper carefully into her pocket so that it couldn't disappear into the belly of the vacuum cleaner. She pulled it out now and smoothed it with her hand. And suddenly it came to her what was wrong with the postcard. The handwriting.

Emily laid the piece of paper with the addresses and the postcard side by side. In the addresses, her mother had made mistakes. She'd scratched things out, scribbled things in between the lines, underlined some things. The handwriting on the postcard was her handwriting, yes. Emily recognised the little circles that her mother made instead of dots over the letter i. But she never wrote as neatly as this. Was that a sign of relaxation? Emily wanted to hear it from the woman herself.