by Kate Long
‘And did you know he’d been engaged to someone else when she met him?’
I put the photo back down, surprised. ‘No. She never said anything.’
‘Yes, really. She snaffled him! Can you imagine Nan doing something like that? I reckon she was a bit of a minx when she was a girl.’ Charlotte shook her head in mock disapproval.
‘She must have really been in love.’ I thought of my own wedding album, stuck underneath the wardrobe in shame. ‘And she was right too, they were devoted to each other for over forty years.’
‘My God, that’s fantastic.’ Charlotte picked out another; Nan in a gaberdine-type coat and a group of young girls in pinafores. They were standing, along with a big, stern man wearing a watch and chain, in front of a vintage bus. ‘Nan said that was a charabanc. They called it Whistling Rufus and they went on trips to Blackpool and Southport in it. She couldn’t remember who those people were, though.’
‘Looks like a school party. Unless, no, she’s about eighteen there so she’d have left school. It must be mill workers. She always said she had some good times at Jarrod’s, but they don’t seem so happy there, do they? Maybe good times are relative . . .’
But Charlotte wasn’t listening. ‘Have you seen this one, Mum?’ In her hand was a very faded, creased and yellow photograph of four people: from left to right, a little girl, standing, with ringlets, hands folded in front of her; sitting, a grim old lady in black silk and wearing clogs with their curved-up soles; a boy, younger than the girl, standing awkwardly in a dark outfit with a large white collar, something like a sailor suit; and a pretty, anxious woman in her twenties, perched on a straight-backed chair, an oval locket against her white blouse. ‘Do you know who they are?’
We huddled together and gazed at the four solemn faces. Only the boy was smiling, as if he couldn’t keep his energy and youth from spilling out.
‘Well, that’s Nan,’ I said, pointing to the girl. ‘And that’ll be her grandma next to her.’
‘Florrie Marsh, that’s right. I’ve written it on the back. She looks a right old battle-axe, doesn’t she? The other woman’s Nan’s mother, Polly. She’s sad there because Nan’s father kept leaving them, apparently, then coming back again. He was living with some trollop in Chorley when that picture was taken.’
I thought Polly looked tired to death. ‘Poor thing. Awful not to know where you stand, so humiliating. Especially in those days. Nan would never tell me much about it, too ashamed, but I knew there was something funny about the set-up. Well, well.’ I put my finger gently to the boy. ‘I can guess who he is, what a little angel.’ His dark suit was spoilt by a white crease in the paper running the length of his body. ‘Terrible to die so young.’
‘Nan’s brother Jimmy. Aww, see, one of his socks is coming down.’
‘Did she say anything about him?’
‘He drowned in the canal.’
‘Really? Poor lamb.’
‘She cried when she told me, I think they were pretty close. But she was all right after,’ she added hastily. ‘I started telling her about Will puking into Ivy’s shopping bag and she cheered right up.’
We shuffled the pictures together and Charlotte slid them back in their envelope.
‘I tell you what, Mum,’ she said as she put the lid back on the shoe box, ‘I’m going to take that portable tape deck and record some of Nan’s stories because they’re really interesting, How We Used to Live and all that. I could keep the cassettes for Will when he’s older, his family history.’
(My family history, I thought.)
‘It’s like . . .’ Charlotte put the box at the bottom of the stairs and came back in. ‘You know when the TV’s on but you’re recording a different channel to the one you’re watching? It’s like that with Nan. What you see on the surface isn’t what’s going on inside. We think she’s mad half the time, but it’s just that she sort of lives in a different dimension to the rest of us.’ She rescued Will from where he had wedged himself against the hearth and held his face up to hers. He laughed and tried to swipe at her hair. ‘Well, her time frame’s different, anyway. Nan’s past is her present. I mean, there’s not much this decade has to offer her, is there? You know, if someone in their twenties was widowed and then disabled, everyone would be going on about how tragic it was, but because Nan’s old she’d expected to get on with it. She’s a really amazing woman actually. I reckon there’s more going on with Nan than anyone ever realized.’
*
I was listening to Radio 4 and they were interviewing Kate Adie about what it was like to report on the conflict in Bosnia. She said what made it difficult sometimes was that the people there had no concept of an incident being the result of a single moment’s action; when something happened it was because of an accumulation of events, sometimes stretching back for decades. She was sent to cover a massacre that had taken place in a small town near the main fighting.
‘What happened here yesterday?’ she asked an eyewitness.
‘In 1943 . . .’ the man began.
Everyone’s history is the product of someone else’s; what we think of as our own experience is only what’s been bestowed on us by others and you can’t walk away from that.
And why should you?
SNAPSHOTS FROM THE FUTURE
Will stands up on his own for the first time, falls over and bangs his head on the marble hearth. For ten seconds I think he might be dead, and in that gulf of horror I realize then that I do love him after all. It must have sneaked up on me when I wasn’t looking.
Mum comes home from school with the news that Leo Fairbrother’s getting married, shock announcement. Some well-to-do fifty-something he’s met in Italy, Maria Callas lookalike, though she actually comes from Oldham. How will Mum take this terrible blow? To be honest she seems fine about it; maybe they were only ever good friends. In the event Mrs F provides Mum with twice the social life (teaches her bridge, invites her to wine-tastings) and passes on her old Aquascutum and Jacques Vert, all contributions gratefully received. Now they go to the Octagon as a threesome (though I think it stops there).
I come in quietly through the back door. It’s Reading Week at university, and no one’s expecting me. I can hear voices before I get inside.
Mum is sitting on the toilet with the door open, blowing up a balloon, while Will rushes around the kitchen shrieking. ‘Mummee!’ he yells when he sees me.
‘Good God, is there no privacy in this place?’ she moans, her voice echoing off the tiles.
I put my bags on top of the fridge and lie down on the floor so that my son can climb all over me, giggling. It’s good to be home, but only because I don’t live here. Maybe I’m a bad mother for not being around all the time, but, hey, I’m doing the best I can. What more can any of us do?
It’s a Friday teatime in November and I’m phoning home as usual.
‘Shall I put Nan on?’ asks Mum. ‘She’s been to a funeral today so I brought her back for tea.’
‘Go on, then.’
There’s a scuffling and someone says, ‘Bloody hell fire,’ then the sound of heavy breathing.
‘Hello? Hello?’ (‘There’s nobody there,’ she tells Mum. ‘Yes, there is,’ snaps Mum, ‘have some patience, for God’s sake.’)
‘HELLO, NAN.’
‘It’s dark here. Is it dark where you are?’
‘YES. I’M ONLY IN YORK.’
‘They’ve a big bonfire at the Working Men’s. Are you having a bonfire?’
‘WE’VE GOT SOME FIREWORKS FOR LATER.’
‘Are they?’
‘NAN?’
‘It were a beautiful sermon.’
‘NAN.’
‘What?’
‘I LOVE YOU.’
‘I love you too.’ (‘Here, Karen, I’ve got myself fast with this wire all round me.’)
THE BAD MOTHER’S HANDBOOK
Kate Long lives with her family in Shropshire. The Bad Mother’s Handbook and her second novel, Swallowing Grandma, are b
oth top-ten bestsellers.
Also by Kate Long
SWALLOWING GRANDMA
QUEEN MUM
Acknowledgements
For their encouragement and guidance:
David Rees, Kath Pilsbury, Ursula Doyle, Leslie Wilson, Katherine Frank and Simon Long.
For helping to get the ball rolling:
Judith Magill, Adrian Johnson, Lynn Patrick and Peter Straus.
For invaluable practical support:
the Headmaster and staff of Abbey Gate College.
For inspirational background material, and a whole lot of Oldham Tinkers LPs:
Mum and Dad.
First published 2004 by Picador
First published in paperback 2005 by Picador
This electronic edition published 2012 by Picador
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
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Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-0-330-53170-2 in EPUB
Copyright © Kate Long 2004
The right of Kate Long to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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