Yet my one-night stand turned into something more. Matt left that morning but I’d bump into him the following night at the same club. I was in mourning for Richie, I wanted to mask his loss with fruity alcohol and messy snogs. Matt spied me from across the bar, came over, and boom, the sweet Scottish voice and he was back in my bed again. From there in, he became, and I cringe to call him this, a booty call. He started buying me tubes of Munchies and sharing spliffs with me. He was studying Social Policy and Philosophy, I was a psychologist. He had so many ideas about the world, global development, and changing things one person at a time. He wore beanie hats and in the mornings I’d find him hidden under the duvet, his sandy hair all fuzzy like a lost hamster, his slate grey eyes a little bleary from the weed and snakebites. He was completely likeable. Completely. But I’d spent the last four years with Richie Colman, I needed distractions, space, time. He was just the rebound guy – so I knew in the back of my mind that even though Matt was pleasant enough, our dalliance would have an expiry date. We were both twenty years old, our biggest concerns being cheap alcohol and scraping through modules. Then everything changed; the condom split.
CHAPTER FoUR
Clifton Primary Swimming Pool. Possibly the most humid place on the planet north of the Equator, where the windows are constantly misty from all the excess heat, which in turn transforms non-swimming children into manic whirling dervishes, and the parents, sweating elegantly in their fleeces, sit dotted around the viewing terraces chatting on their iPhones trying to handle the rubbish acoustics. I’m feeding Jake and Toby the rest of the mini muffins washed down with apple juice and watching to make sure Ted doesn’t leapfrog down the benches and end up in the pool himself. The power of distraction does wonders for a poorly tummy. I sit and stare at the azure of the pool wondering why I feel so tired and rough. Probably the scotch eggs I ate in the car. It’s been a quiet afternoon. The Sky man did arrive at 2 p.m. and told me he was here to fiddle with my dish. I resisted the temptation to respond with innuendo, given ‘Stuart – Here to Help!’ was five foot tall and three foot wide. So I just made him some weak tea like a good hostess and Ted offered him a Rich Tea finger which he ate like a wood chipper, leaving crumbs all over the freshly washed doormat.
‘Mummy, Toby’s had three muffins and I only had two.’
Toby looks especially pleased with himself, chocolate crumbs lining his collar. Must remember to attack him with wipes before his mother sees. I hand Jake another one as he runs off and I am almost a little impressed that he has been able to count and determine the numerical difference. But that’s always been Jake. Even when he was little, there was always a Stewie Griffin look about him like he knew more than he was letting on. Matt calls him the mastermind, like he might have even sent Ted out first to check on the situation before making his appearance in this world. Ted is different, a follower – but the ever-faithful henchman, the one who’d defend his brother to the core but who probably drew the zebra crossing because he was told to. Must remember to clean the garage floor when I get back.
‘All right, Jools? Paula offloaded the kids on you again?’
I turn to see Donna, mother of Ciara (Hannah’s class), Justin (two years younger ), and Alesha (one year older than Millie; always dressed in Bisodol pink) and who lives five doors down from me. I like Donna immensely. She’s amiable for the fact she is completely ballsy, no holds barred, always says what’s on her mind, which makes for entertaining company in the bear pit of try-hard mothers and their competitive ways. She’s dressed in skinny jeans, knee-high boots, a maxi cardigan, and a T-shirt emblazoned with a slogan I’m glad the kids can’t read. I’m still wearing what I had on this morning but have added a grey hoodie and a bra. I’ll never leave the house without a bra again. Donna being Donna puts her hand in my plastic bucket of muffins and helps herself. She flicks her poker straight black hair away from her face.
‘That bitch is doing my ’ead in I tell you. Told me Harriet couldn’t come to Ciara’s pizza party ’cos she’s allergic to wheat.’
I don’t want to fuel the fire by telling her I’m going to stuff Harriet silly with gluten tonight.
‘Aah, let her be. Sunday, right?’
‘Yep, and tell Matt to come too, bring all your kids. You know what it’s like at mine, friggin’ free for all.’
I watch as Donna feeds Alesha muffin crumbs out of her perfectly manicured blue nails, each nail with a spray-on Celtic pattern. Donna, it could be said, is a little rough around the edges with her tattoos, key chains, and overdone mascara, but I think that’s part of her appeal. In any case, I think I’m closer to being her than someone like Paula Jordan; she from the herd of parents who pretend their children are being educated at Clifton Primary because they’re Guardian reading lefties when in fact they’d sooner go private if they had more money. At least with Donna, what you see is what you get. She’s also full of gossip, which keeps me on my toes.
‘Anyway, did you see Jen Tyrrell this morning? Might as well have mounted Mr Pringle at the gate.’
Jen Tyrrell – Paula Jordan’s BFF but ten times worse. I’m surprised she doesn’t leave a trail of wheatgrass and diet pills everywhere she walks. She’s the sort of mother who also feels the ridiculous need to be queen bee. Recollections of those sorts of girls from school always urge me to give those kinds of folk a wide berth. Mr Pringle – the twenty-something, freshly qualified teacher of the girl’s class – a dewy-eyed looking fella who most of the mothers take great joy in ogling from the school gate. He’s pleasant enough to look at but his youth and energy often make me feel a little woeful about myself.
‘You heard? She’s started a “parents’ discussion forum” so she can go rub her tits in his face every Tuesday night.’
‘What are they discussing?’
‘Crap. Fundraisers, school plays, fucking do-gooding bullshit.’
I laugh. It’s always been the case at Clifton Primary: two very different crowds – one who twizzle the occasional turkey, their kids’ looking they’ve been thrown up on by a Claire’s Accessories; next to the Boden crowd, competing to be the most organic and involved mothers in the land. I’m on neither team, just watching from the middle of their stand offs at the school gate, watching the divide that will never be united. Not by Donna at least who scans the stalls. But there’s no one here to pick a fight with unless she go for the au pair sat waiting for little Maisy: bag of organic dried fruits in one hand and rice cakes in the other.
‘Did you see Hugh Tyrrell at that parents’ meeting last week? I tell you, if I was porking that you’d need to take my eyes first.’
Hugh ‘Huge’ Tyrrell – for want of a kindly word, a ‘portly’ man with hair that sprouts out his collar like errant weeds. I laugh and nod but to be honest, I have become a bit lost for words given my emotional and physical fatigue. Donna picks up on it.
‘You all right? Little quiet.’
‘Crap day. Guess who I bumped into this morning?’
Donna shrugs her shoulders.
‘Tommy McCoy.’
‘What? The real McCoy? You’re joking! He’s fit as.’
‘Maybe, but a real tosser. He was in Sainsbury’s and I think I had a fight with him. It was surreal.’
Donna loves this idea of me being confrontational. Actually, anyone in a confrontation will do for her.
‘Bloody hell, a fight? Was it fisticuffs over the frozen foods?’
‘Fish fingers, actually.’
‘Hope you told him where to go.’
‘I think I did.’
Donna smiles and puts one arm around my shoulders and the other hand into my muffins.
‘That’s my girl! Shame, though. I always thought he was fit. Rumour is he’s hung like a ruddy donkey.’
My muffin lodges in my throat, just as she spies her Justin with his trousers around his ankles about to pee in someone’s handbag and hurdles down to stop him.
CHAPTER FIVE
Before long, the kids, having been
illegally loaded into my car, are now filled to the brim with fish finger pie. Something I’m still unapologetic about – comfort food needs come first but given McCoy’s damn voice still haunts me, I’m now cutting apples and plucking grapes onto a plate. Something still riles about this morning – there was the judgement, the presumption, but also the fact he pigeonholed me so quickly; how he was so quick to turn around and judge one day of junk as a fail. I think about what he said and turn to look at empty plates, thinking about processed food zipping its way around my kids’ bodies, turning into bad fats and making them stupid. Maybe I should have gone with a spag bol tonight. Maybe I should have baked my own muffins. I pluck at a few more grapes.
Upstairs, I hear some sort of boyband-like anthem pulse through the ceiling. That would be the girls, while the boys are gawking in front of the television which is allowed, as the alternative would be them hurling themselves off the sofa and swinging from the lampshades. Millie sits in her high-chair and catches bits of grape in her mouth like a trained seal. Half an hour until Paula Jordan arrives. So I’ve hidden anything with artificial colouring and gluten and I have my two best mugs out. I even have the kids watching the Discovery Channel which is thankfully now less fuzzy since Stuart the Sky Man came to fiddle with our dish.
‘Dadddddddyyyyyy!’
It’s a sound I hear every night. Like he’s just returned from war or the children haven’t seen him in months. I hear the front door open and shut and watch from the kitchen as the boys hurl themselves at him. Toby Jordan watches in adulation. I suppose Paula calls for more restraint in her house. Kids generally like Matt because of his Balamory style accent and the fact he launches them through the air and over his shoulders.
‘All right? Ted? You OK, buddy.’
Ted immediately remembers he was sick and pulls a face. Matt bundles him in his arms and returns him to the television. There’s two minutes of wrestling before he comes to find me and to give Millie a kiss.
‘Correct me if I’m wrong but we have just the two sons, right? Or are they multiplying on their own now?’
‘The Jordan kids. Eaten?’
‘Nope.’
‘There’s some fish finger pie if you want it.’
‘Yeah, why not? Put a brew on as well.’
Matt always returns from work with pink eyes and a doughy, bloated expression on his face, like part of his soul has been extracted through his flesh. He’s always worked long, hard hours to support us but I know that being an accountant was not what his heart desired. To avoid being a corporate clone, he therefore hangs on to the last vestiges of his youth that he feels still keep him young and relevant: the vintage satchel, the big earphones, the Kruder & Dorfmeister playlists, the unstyled Blur/Parklife haircut. Hell, if he could, I’d bet he’d wear his tie around his head like a Cherokee as soon as he left the office. I’m not sure what Matt would have done had we not got pregnant at the age of twenty and instead used our degrees to lead other lives. He’d probably be on a Greenpeace boat giving whalers hell, maybe a renegade journalist in East Timor, or an anti-war campaigner helping mine victims find new limbs. Instead he signed his life away to Price Waterhouse Cooper. I can’t even remember what I wanted to be.
Even before removing his bag and shoes, he does what he always does and that’s to sift pointlessly through the cupboards. He sits down next to Millie, his blond hair all ruffled, stretches his arms behind his back, and takes a long sip of tea. Then he stops.
‘So what do you know?’
It’s his line. He knows I have a million and one things to tell him when he walks through the door and this line is permission that he is ready to take it all in. I lean on the counter sipping from a cup and dole out the rest of the Rich Tea fingers.
‘Start with Tommy McCoy.’
I tell him all the details and he nods, laughs, and finishes my explanation with a hug. Hugs are what Matt and I do. For the longest time, I’ve realised this is our ritual way of maintaining some level of intimacy in our relationship given we lack the energy to kiss or think of anything complimentary to say to each other. So our groins slightly touch, his stubble grazes my freckly cheek, we literally prop each other up. Today, his hair smells of mangoes which makes me think he’s run out of shampoo and had to use the kids’ but the contact is surprisingly drawn out and I see Millie smile to see us embrace, like she knows this is how the world should be.
‘Well, don’t let the bastard get you down. You’re an all right cook.’
I look over and give him half a smile, knowing that popping fish fingers in soup and slapping a thick layer of butter onto cheap white bread doesn’t really qualify for much affection. But all right? I’ll take that. He points to the fridge.
‘Well, you do what all mums do, you get on with stuff. End of.’
I stare at the fridge and the numerous recipe cards and magazine cuttings stuck on with alphabet magnets. He may be right. Maybe that is something that also niggles. Not that I’ll ever be a McCoy league chef but truth be told, I thought I quite liked cooking. I have a feeling that in my harried existence, it’s one of those things I seek some sort of joy from, even some feeling of achievement. From creating something in the kitchen to seeing it being wolfed down and the kids asking for more, it’s definitely one part of being mum where I feel almost useful. Even feeding the husband makes me feel that I can at least provide him with some joy after a fraught working Monday.
I watch him sit down to eat when there’s a knock at the back door. Adam. Adam, the elder of my brothers, lives around the corner in a bachelor pad with a flatmate the kids have christened Smelly Seb. When Adam runs out of money for a takeaway, he comes round to ours.
‘Matteo! Juliet! How goes it?’
‘Eaten?’
‘Nope.’
I get him a plate. ‘So are we still on for tonight? You got the TV fixed?’
My raised eyebrows reveal to the boys that an explanation is wanting. Matt nods and winks to Adam. ‘It’s the Champions League semi-final. Liverpool vs Inter. Adam and I are making a bit of a night of it.’
I flare my nostrils. ‘Anyone else I can expect?’
‘No. Could you rustle some of those nice chicken wings you make?’
‘No, I can’t make bloody chicken wings.’
Adam holds his imaginary handbag up. Matt smiles at me hoping it will summon up some goodwill. Not likely, Matteo Campbell.
‘Well, I won’t mind if you both get the kids bathed and ready for bed before you sit down to your game.’
I pat Millie on the head and Adam and Matt mumble their acceptance of the terms and conditions then wolf down what’s left of the fish finger pie.
‘You know Dad used to sprinkle the fish fingers with Tabasco, crisped them up under the grill. Proper legend.’
I stand open-mouthed wondering how he has the gall when he’s shovelling it all in double speed. Jake walks in and does what he always does in the kitchen – sniffs his nose around on the hunt for sugar. His face lights up to see my reprobate brother.
‘Uncle Adam! Are you here for the football?’
I realise there has been a plan in place all along, so stand closer to Millie to garner some form of female solidarity.
‘Sure thing, Jakers. How’s it going, little man?’
‘All right, but Alfie Lingham called me a pube today.’
A bit of crust flies out of Matt’s mouth which Millie finds highly entertaining. Adam looks to me for some back-up – this goes beyond the call of duty for an uncle.
‘Do you know what a pube is?’
‘No.’
He’s five. For some reason this fills me with a sense of relief.
‘Well, it’s hair that grows around your underwear area.’
Matt laughs and piles more food into his mouth so he doesn’t have to explain.
‘What, like Daddy’s? He’s got hair all over his beanbags.’
‘Yes, that would be correct.’
Adam is going purple trying hard no
t to laugh and erupt in a messy fish finger fit of hysterics.
‘Well, that’s stupid. How can you be a pube? Anyway, Toby’s mummy is here.’
We all freeze as a cloaked figure hovering in the hall awaits her entrance to be announced.
‘Paula? Paula! Hey, come in. God, kids, eh?’
Seemingly unperturbed at learning about the state of my husband’s balls, she sashays into the kitchen. The boys even rise to greet her. Luckily, her eyes seem more focussed on the bright orange concoction laid out in front of her and the fact Adam seems to be creating a sandwich involving crisps, sweet chilli sauce, and iceberg lettuce.
‘Thanks again for looking after the kids. Are they ready?’
‘Yeah, sure. HANNAH!’
Paula still can’t seem to take her eyes off the food.
Souper Mum Page 4
