Otherhood

by William Sutcliffe

  ‘Yoghurt?’

  ‘WILL YOU LET ME FINISH! It’s for you. That’s what I’m saying. Something I’ve done for you. A project which has taken no little effort, and I come in here to tell you what it is and you won’t even listen to me.’

  ‘Yoghurt?’

  ‘Are you listening?’

  ’Strawberry, raspberry or pear?’

  ‘I WON’T BE IGNORED. I WILL NOT BE IGNORED. I’ll have raspberry.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear. You’ve found a Jewish girl. You want me to date her. I’m not interested. Full stop.’

  ‘How can you be so arrogant?’

  ‘I’m wrong then. You’re excited because you like my flat? Because you’ve read a good book? Because Arsenal won yesterday?’

  ‘Will you stop this!’

  ‘Stop what?’

  ‘Putting words into my mouth.’

  ‘I haven’t put any words into your mouth.’

  ‘I just want you to hear me out. For two minutes. Please. Sit down. You remember the Swimers, don’t you? Joan and Ivan?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘On the corner. They had a shih-tzu that bit you when you were six.’

  ‘I remember the dog.’

  ‘Well, Joan’s sister has a nephew by marriage who lives up here. I remember him from the wedding photos.’

  ‘What wedding?’

  ‘That’s not important. Anyway, I got in touch with him, and it turns out he’s moved away. Apparently the climate’s just impossible –’

  ‘No, it’s not!’

  ‘Don’t interrupt. But he was very charming, and he’s given me the email address of the mother of a girl who used to go to playgroup with his daughter, who’s just come out of a painful divorce that was apparently not her fault at all, and she’s beautiful, and she’s a good friend of his wife –’

  ‘Whose wife?’

  ‘. . . and she’s beginning to think about dating again, and when I said that you were up here and in the same boat, he was very happy to pass on the email and apparently she’d love to hear from you.’

  ‘What boat?’

  ‘Don’t be pedantic.’

  ‘Why have you done this?’

  ‘Done what?’

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘She’s called Alison, and she’s got a degree in politics from Manchester, and she was an NHS manager, but she’s on a career break at the moment.’

  ‘Mum –’

  ‘That’s what they call motherhood, these days. A "career break". It’s outrageous, isn’t it? Motherhood isn’t a gap where you temporarily divert your attention from more important things. It’s the most important thing of all. And it never ends, either. Motherhood never ends. You think it will, but it doesn’t. Not ever. When I’m lying on my deathbed, I’ll probably still be worrying about you and Rose.’

  ‘Well, don’t bother. It doesn’t help.’

  ‘I don’t have the choice.’

  ‘If you didn’t have children, you’d probably spend exactly the same amount of time worrying. You’d just find a different topic. You’d get a dog, or something.’

  ‘That’s very hurtful, and I know you’re just trying to change the subject.’

  ‘Since when have you ever not wanted to talk about worrying?’

  ‘What we’re talking about is Alison, and when you’re going to get in touch with her.’

  ‘Can I just get this straight? You think I’m going to get in touch with this woman and go on a date with her, based on the fact that she’s the mother of a child who went to playgroup with the son of a man who’s the nephew of the sister of the woman whose dog bit me when I was a child?’

  ‘You can’t hold the dog against her. That was more than twenty years ago.’

  ‘I’m not talking about the dog.’

  ‘And it wasn’t a son.’

  ‘What wasn’t?’

  ‘It was a girl who was at playgroup with Alison’s daughter, who’s also a girl. Phoebe. Terrible name, but that could have been the husband’s fault. Apparently she’s very sweet.’

  ‘I don’t care if Phoebe’s sweet! I’m never going to meet her and I’m never going to meet Alison!’

  ‘I know it might be hard for you to hear this, but at your age you have to start thinking about divorcees. The good ones were snapped up long ago. Someone’s got to break the news to you, Daniel, and it looks like it’s me.’

  ‘Mum, I don’t want to be rude, but you don’t know anything about anything. So really, don’t interfere.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about anything?’ said Gillian, in an extravagantly wounded tone, as if each word was a razor blade on her tongue. ‘And what would you say if you were trying to be rude?’

  ‘Maybe that’s a bit strong.’

  ‘You can be so cutting! So brutal! No wonder you’re always on your own.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You can’t say these things!’

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.’

  ‘I’m your mother. You should be nice to me.’

  ‘It’s not so easy, Mum, when you’re muscling in on things that have nothing to do with you.’

  ‘Your happiness has everything to do with me.’

  ‘But you can’t make it happen.’

  ‘I can try. And you’re not happy, are you? Are you?’

  ‘I’m not unhappy.’

  ‘Are you still in love with Erin?’

  ‘WHAT?’

  ‘You heard. I think you ran away from something. I think you ran away from her.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that.’

  ‘Have you had a girlfriend up here? I’m not trying to intrude, I just want to know. If I don’t know what you’re doing or how you’re feeling, it’s like you’re not my son any more.’

  Daniel stared at the kitchen window. The pane, inside and out, was speckled with grime. He lifted a hand to his face and rubbed his eyes. The pressure began to hurt his eyeballs, but once he had started he couldn’t stop. With a sigh, he dragged his hand down over his cheeks and pressed it hard against his lips.

  ‘No, Mum,’ he said.

  ‘No what?’

  ‘No, I haven’t had a girlfriend.’

  ‘Have you been on dates?’

  Daniel examined his fingernails. They needed cutting. ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Has there been anything at all?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, Daniel. Why?’

  ‘I can’t explain.’

  ‘What are you afraid of?’

  ‘I’m not afraid.’

  ‘Well, here’s the email. I’m not saying marry her. I’m not saying you even have to touch her. Just spend an evening together. Get yourself out there. Stop being a hermit. It’s breaking my heart.’

  ‘Mum, please just leave me be. I can cope. I’m fine.’

  ‘You’re not fine.’

  ‘Well, even if I’m not, it’s my problem, not yours.’

  ‘That’s not true. Your problems are my problems. That’s what being a mother means.’

  ‘I’m thirty-four.’

  ‘I don’t care if you’re sixty-four, I can’t be happy unless you’re happy.’

  ‘You saying that just makes everything worse. You can’t pressurise me into being happy in order to cheer you up.’

  ‘I’m not pressurising you into anything. I’m just telling you that you have no right to wallow. Whatever you may think, you are not alone on this planet. You have a duty to sort yourself out. And I’m not going to argue about it any longer. It’s just a fact, and you’re going to have to get used to it.’

  Gillian turned and left the room. Daniel heard her walk across the hallway and into the bathroom. Was she, he wondered, feeling pleased with herself? Is this what she had crossed the country to say to him? Did she think she was helping?

  Carol and Matt

  it’s a test

  Just by the sound of the key in the lock, Carol knew Matt was angry. When he entered carrying a rolled-u
p Evening Standard curled in his fist like a cudgel, her worst fears were confirmed.

  ‘Read,’ he said, slapping it on to the coffee table in front of her without so much as a ‘hello’.

  Carol prised open the clenched newspaper and began leafing through.

  ‘Twelve,’ barked Matt, ‘page twelve,’ as if only an illiterate wouldn’t know exactly where to find the Mitzi Badminton column.

  There was a large photo of the woman they had met in the top left-hand corner of the page, alongside her preposterous name in type large enough to be used as a road sign. The image wasn’t like the blurry mug shots of journalists they used to print, but was a full-length portrait in a vaguely slutty cocktail dress. She had a grinningly quizzical expression on her face and her hands were outstretched, palm upwards, as if to say, ‘Who, me?’ Quite what this all meant was a mystery to Carol. Did this indicate that the article was by her, or about her? Or maybe both? And was her picture this size just because of what she wrote in the column, or was she famous for doing something else that Carol had never seen?

  Every day, Carol came across one more thing that used to be comprehensible but had recently decided not to be. Things that she had never even realised took any skill or knowledge to decode, like newspapers and shop layouts, were constantly and without warning changing around her into new forms that were suddenly confusing, misleading or utterly impenetrable. She was getting old. The longer she lived, the less she understood.

  ‘Well?’ said Matt.

  ‘Oh, I’ll read it,’ said Carol, trying feebly to cover for her straying attention by fumbling in her bag for a pair of glasses. She hated being hovered over while she read, but didn’t feel she had the right to impose conditions. It was, after all, his flat. And the article was her fault.

  She had to read the first sentence three times. She was too tense to take anything in. A long-forgotten schoolgirl deep inside her wanted to burst out in mischievous giggles, but she suppressed the urge, coughed and began to read properly.

  Mitzi loves guys who aren’t afraid to show they love their mommas. Can there be anything sweeter? But there are limits. Lad-about-town and BALLS! feature supremo, Matt Walker, has quite a reputation with the ladies, but who would have expected him to choose as his date at an exclusive London party this week his very own mother?

  When I go over to congratulate him on his taste, his cool crumbles. Is that a tear I see in his eye as he goes down on his knees, literally begging poor, confused Mitzi to keep his taste in women secret? He even tries to pass off his own mother as an employee.

  ‘Don’t forget your balls!’ says the magazine. ‘Don’t forget your mummy!’ says Matt Walker.

  ‘So?’ says Matt. ‘Are you happy now?’

  ‘Oh, it’s not as bad as it could have been. She’s quite kind about you, really.’

  ‘You’re not even going to apologise? Can’t you see what you’ve done?’

  ‘I’ve said sorry already, Matt.’

  ‘I just want you to see what you’ve done. This is my professional reputation. You’ve dragged it through the mud. I could lose my job. Things might never be the same again.’

  ‘Anyone who thinks you’re a lesser person for being nice to your mother isn’t worth knowing.’

  ‘What if they’re your employer?’

  ‘Then they’re not worth working for.’

  ‘It’s my job! It’s how I live!’

  ‘Well, I don’t like annoying you, and I’m sorry if you’re upset, but I’ve got something for you that might make up for it.’

  Changing the subject had always, ever since Matt was two, been the best way of reining in his bad moods. Meeting anger with anger or strictness had never worked. Suggesting a new game – plucking a novelty from the air – was the only way of making him change tack. Even his biggest rages were usually at the mercy of his short attention span.

  ‘What?’ said Matt.

  ‘This.’

  Carol handed over a small square of paper with a central London phone number written on it.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Phone number. For Julia.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Julia. The girl we met at the party.’

  ‘I didn’t meet a Julia.’

  ‘Well, I met her, and introduced her to you, then she left. Pretty girl. Very pleasant and interesting.’

  ‘Why would I want her number?’

  ‘To call her. Ask her out.’

  ‘What? What are you talking about? Did you tell her I wanted to go out with her? Is that how you got her number?’

  ‘No. She works for the PR firm who organised the party. I picked up a leaflet on the way out, and it had the name of the firm on it. Then I used the phone book.’

  ‘Mum, I don’t need your help getting dates, and I’m really not going to have my girlfriends picked by you. Sorry. Forget about it.’

  ‘It’s a test.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a test.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Of you.’

  ‘Of me? What about me?’

  ‘To see if you’re lying or not.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘I want to find out if you’re only interested in seventeen-year-old girls, or if you were telling the truth the other night.’

  ‘Of course it’s the truth.’

  Matt swept his hands angrily through his hair and made a guttural sound of frustration and annoyance in his throat – precisely what his father did when he was angry, usually immediately before storming out of the room. But in this flat there was no room you could leave, so Matt walked as far as the furthest window and stared out, in an obvious attempt to terminate the conversation.

  This was as far as arguments ever went in Carol’s family. Theirs was not a home where arguments were thrashed out, plates were thrown or weepers were hugged.

  This week, however, Carol had junked the family rule book. Her visit to Matt was an assault on the whole way the family worked, on the central idea that you did not interfere too much in other people’s business. For this week, and this week only, she was simply not going to back down obediently whenever it was asked of her. Her very purpose, for now, was to interfere, and now she had begun, there was little point in being half-hearted.

  She walked to the kitchen for a glass of water, which she drank down in one gulp. She then rinsed and dried the glass, her hands clumsy and unruly with nerves.

  Slowly, trying to conceal her hesitancy, Carol walked towards Matt. She spoke gently and calmly, as if offering up a casual suggestion. ‘So phone her. She’s your age. She’s pretty. She’s intelligent.’

  Matt turned and stared angrily at Carol. For a moment, he appeared lost for words. ‘And if I don’t phone her, that means I’m only interested in teenagers?’ he spat.

  ‘No, it just means you’ve failed the test.’

  ‘But . . . what is this? What are you trying to do to me?’

  ‘Help you.’

  ‘Men my age don’t let their mothers choose their girlfriends.’

  ‘Men your age shouldn’t have girlfriends. They should have wives and children.’

  ‘Aaargh! You’re insane!’

  Matt was making the throat noise again, but Carol had him trapped in a corner of the flat and she was standing her ground. She could see his eyes flicking past her, looking for an escape route.

  ‘I’m only staying till Monday. It’s not much longer. I just want to find out who you are before I go. If you phone her, I’ll know that you’re trying: that you want something better than your horrible magazine, and that you’re looking for a woman who’s more than just a one night stand. If you don’t, I’ll know this is how you like things. I’ll know this is who you want to be. It’s not a test to make things hard for you, or to put you in your place. It’s just a test so I can find out what I need to know.’

  ‘What if I’m not interested? What if she just isn’t my type? This is ridiculous.’

  ‘I’m not sa
ying anything else, Matt. All I’m asking is that you make up your own mind, and that you let me know what you did. Cup of tea?’

  Matt stared at the phone number, which he was still carrying crumpled up in his hand, speechless.

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ said Carol, as she clip-clopped back to the kitchen with all the feigned calmness she could muster. In fact, her knees felt weak, surges of blood were booming in her head and her lungs seemed to have shrunk. She felt like she had just faced down a bear, and got away with it.

  fresh, open and dreamy

  Matt’s first thought, as he caught sight of Julia walking into the restaurant, was a straightforward ‘too ugly’. The idea popped into his head with the kind of sound effect you hear on TV quiz shows when the contestant gives the wrong answer. Whatever might happen over the meal, this was not going to lead anywhere. She wasn’t actively unattractive. There was nothing physically wrong with her: her body bulged in all the right places and her face had an open, affable quality to it. She was probably quite pretty, if pretty was your thing. But Matt had got used to more. He didn’t shop from this aisle.

  He thought, fleetingly, of ducking out before she saw him. He could easily sit out the evening in a pub, then go home to his mother, tell her the kind of story she wanted to hear and get on with his life exactly as before, without any further maternal interference or pressure. This was, in fact, the natural thing to do. To stay and go through with this pointless blind date simply for the sake of appeasing Carol, when he could just as easily do what he wanted and bullshit his way out of the conflict, was a little crazy.

  Except that he wanted to pass the test. He had no idea why, but he did. It was not that he craved his mother’s approval – he was far too old for that – but this week, for some reason, his mother’s disapproval made him feel uncomfortable. And he had begun to sense, like a child again, that his mother had a telepathic ability to see through his lies.

  He was usually proud of his abilities as a liar. It was a skill he felt he had perfected. But now, in the presence of his mother, he was like a scratch golfer with the yips. He had lost confidence in his ability to do the very thing he usually found easiest. Besides, to pass an honesty test by lying felt just that little bit too sneaky.