Souper Mum

by Kristen Bailey

  ‘Got the Pringle thing under control. I rang the school and got his contact details and sent him a hamper as an apology. I hope he likes cheese.’

  I turn my head slowly to meet hers. Cheese, yes. I hope he does. If only my problems could be solved with a bit of Gouda. She looks me in the eye as I appear drunk in thought and emotion.

  ‘Jools, we are OK. Richie Colman was nothing, Pringle was tabloid filler pap.’

  ‘But Matt …’

  ‘Will calm down. Give him some space. We flung this info at him at god knows what hour? He flew off the handle. You’ll be fine.’

  Admittedly, Luella speaks sense and my inner crazed worrier calms for a second. It was nothing. Matt will see that. We will go back to normal. Still, I attack the fingernails on my left hand, tearing them between my teeth. Luella gives me a look.

  ‘And to counter this tabloid pap, I’ve lined up something for us on Friday. Are you free?’

  I’m always at a loss how to answer this question. Time wise, owing to the children I am always occupied. On some other social scale, I am always free. I nod.

  ‘Well, I have a gem. BBC breakfast news. You and Tommy McCoy and some politician on a sofa discussing food. They want some sort of debate over families and food and you have been invited to represent the modern mother, be the voice of the people. What do you say?’

  I say nothing. Matt made his feelings very clear about the matter and that argument still echoes about my head. But there is also the fact I will be within spitting distance of one Tommy McCoy. The last time I saw him, everything changed – for better, for worse I haven’t yet decided – but part of me wonders if seeing him again might make me launch myself at him and rip his eyes out with my unmanicured nails. Not sure if the BBC is the best place for that. For one, it sounds a little grown-up and I feel intimidated. This Morning and Saturday Kitchen I can handle given they feature segments devoted to omelette challenges and how to lose two stone by only eating baby food. BBC breakfast news asks for you to be demure, intelligent, and relevant. I’d have to put my serious Guardian face back on, learn how to cross my legs to appear ladylike on that formidable sofa. On the other hand, I’m starting to wonder if I’m scared of the McCoy dynasty. While I have made it a point to try and bring them down for their intrusive elbowing into my life, it feels tiring to have to do such battles on live television where so much can go so wrong. I did have a plan last night where maybe I could just start Facebook groups dedicated to hating them and burning their books at bonfire events.

  ‘Christ, are we ready? BBC news is a pretty big deal.’

  ‘I’ll make you ready. Tomorrow I’m sending a stylist around and then you and me can have a huge powwow session to prepare you. This is the one where we can do some serious damage. No ambushes, no hiding behind his entourage and tabloid nonsense, we can take him apart bit by bit.’

  It’s incredibly savage. If Luella had claws, she’d be ripping out his viscera and gnawing on the bones. I’d like to think it is down to the fact she wants to see my good name brought to rights and is supporting all mothers out there. But part of me thinks how we view our ones that got away is very different. I haven’t even got the energy to get up from my kitchen chair at the moment, let alone fight McCoy in vicious, no holds barred ways. I just stare at my kitchen bin and see bits of shattered mug on top of last night’s rubbish. I think about Matt, everything we need to talk about, conversations that have been on hold for nine whole years.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  It’s 5a.m. in the morning. I’m sure I never used to think this time of day existed when I was young and studenty and could sleep like a warm, hibernating bear. Now twilight and I are good friends and I sit in my bathroom watching Millie in the bath because she decided in the middle of night to have a giant poo that not even wipes and concrete nappies could contain. A poonami if you will. But to be honest, dealing with excrement at such an hour is a welcome distraction.

  Last night, when kids, husband, and mother-in-law returned to the house, things got slightly painful. Gia was impressively quiet with me about the coffee flinging. At times, she stared me out like she was angry and mumbled Italian under her breath. Other times, she seemed guilty and I was strangely reminded of toddler Ted’s ‘I think I might have pooed myself’ face. All in all though, we’re back to square one on that weird emotional plateau where all that links us is the fact I married her son. Matt, on the other hand, was being wonderfully mercurial in avoiding me, which is no small feat given how small our house is. When he got home, he ran to the children to avoid confrontation and even sat with Millie at dinner to not have to look at me. One day we will sit like adults and have a conversation over what could make a mild-mannered accountant turn into some fury-driven Neanderthal coffee flinger, but for now he just keeps quiet, spending that moment too long in the loo so we won’t even have to walk past each other in the hallway.

  Now he sleeps, the ultimate way to not be near me while I try and entertain Millie, who doesn’t look wholly impressed with the world. Poor Millie. It’s been quite a month for her. I wonder if she sits there internalising everything, making lists over how this rates as a poor life moment. Does this rate worse than Tommy McCoy in Sainsbury’s? Worse than when I forgot to put a nappy on her one school run and left her peeing through her sleepsuit, car seat, and blankets? The boys pushing her around in a cardboard box pretending she was for sale? I owe this girl a lot more hugs and cheap plastic presents for what we make her endure. I slide my hand over her head and watch the curls flatten out before springing back into place.

  By the time I wrestle her into a nappy, new pyjamas, and dry her hair it’s too late to get back to sleep, so we mooch into the kitchen where I give her a bowl full of her favourite raisins and Cheerios and check the kids’ schoolbags for signs of decaying food (Jake), small animals (Ted; one day I found a dead bird in a sock), and letters to tell me of events that happened last week (Hannah). No dead birds or biscuits but some interesting finds. According to Hannah’s pencil case: 1D for ever! Really? Already? I make a mental note to introduce her to an alternative music source. But there’s also a letter informing me that the end of year school play is coming up, ‘The Giraffe and the Dolphin’, and parents are in charge of their own children’s costumes. I scan down the page to see that in this ‘wonderful song and dance tribute to the animal kingdom that celebrates diversity and acceptance’ my twins have been cast as rhinos and my daughter is going to be a hula dancer. Costumes will be needed for three weeks’ time. I remember the time Dad used to give us tea towels to wrap around our heads so we could be shepherds/Joseph/innkeepers. Rhinos? Inside the boy’s bags, I find spellings for next week. Words beginning with the letter K. Kite, kettle, koala, and knife (there’s always a tricky one), some old remnants of paper planes, and a picture Ted has drawn of a rather good bus; he’s even remembered wing mirrors. Given there are six passengers, I assume them to be us. Ted is driving, of course. Jake seems to be some sort of navigator with a map. And a gun? Hannah sits to the back – she won’t like that. And Millie seems to be hovering in mid-air. That leaves myself and Matt in the back seat, our faces touching like we’re ‘having smoochies’ as the boys would say, but really it looks like we’ve been melded together in a horrible genetics experiment. I had a chat with them yesterday about the Pringle incident and they’ve been cavalier about everything. Jake told me there was no way I would kiss Mr Pringle because I was too old (a tad heartbreaking) and Hannah said it was nonsense because he’d just got married. So that ended that. I hoped.

  The kitchen door creaks open as Millie and I sit in the semi-darkness and it’s Gia with a fleece over her pyjamas and her slippers with the giant velour bows.

  ‘Millie. Piccola! She is not well?’

  I shake my head as I stroke her cheek. She looks slightly happier than half an hour ago. I think it’s the raisins. Gia starts rustling through the kitchen like she does.

  ‘She needed a nappy change so we got up early. Gia, it’
s only 6ish. No one will be up for a while.’

  She puts her hands up in defence.

  ‘No, no, no. I make light breakfast. Luella coming at 7 a.m. for training.’

  Training. This makes me think I need to wear a tracksuit and put on Rocky. With the BBC thing looming tomorrow, Luella is ready to turn me into a one-woman foodie express prepared to strap McCoy to the tracks and run right over him. Well, at least we’ll be well-fed. I watch Gia with a slight mixture of admiration and confusion. She still seems nervous around me, as I am with her, but bless her for rising so early to entertain my guests. Seriously, who the hell gets up before the sun has risen to make breakfast? I figure the only time I ever rise out of bed to cook is on Christmas and even then it’s to put on the oven and get back into bed.

  ‘You like my pancakes, no?’

  I nod. Pancakes in any form are always good. I watch as she breaks eggs with the one hand. How does she do that? Does she just have bigger palms than me? She then shakes sugar into the same bowl and starts groping the mix. No scales, no measuring. How do you do that? She then pours out the right amount of milk and whisks lightly like that’s what her hand was made to do. I’m waiting for her to toss the pancakes with her toes. But she doesn’t.

  Soon after, the kitchen door swings open and Matt stands there in his stripy pyjama bottoms and an old Che Guevara T-shirt he kept from Uni. Gia tuts to look at it with all its holes, but I’ve known never to throw it out given it’s a piece of his political youth he so desperately wants to cling on to. In his hands, the morning papers, which he flings onto the kitchen table. Since McCoy we get them delivered to the house every day. If nothing else, having a wealth of Sudoku to complete every day keeps me on my toes. Gia comes and puts a cup of coffee next to me, seemingly whipped out of thin air. I sip and turn the first page of The Sun.

  ‘YOU WANT SOME MCCOYS WITH THAT?’ screams the opening headline. Apparently, Kitty’s run in the jungle is not going so well. Next to the fact most of the attention has been focused on a love affair between a fading soap star and Premiership footballer, Kitty has spent most of her time being needy and teary, which has not endeared her to the public who made her eat a wallaby penis as penance. Luella will like this. I make a note to keep the article for her. Matt sits opposite me with the Daily Mail and the computer open, his knuckles rested against his cheeks. He scrolls down then pauses. His eyes look up at me for a moment then down at the screen. Then up again. No smiles. He closes them and grips on to the edge of the table. Something’s wrong. Shit. Not frigging Richie. I can’t do Round Two just yet.

  ‘What is it?’

  He shakes his head. Gia goes behind him, stirring her ricotta cheese. Her stirring gets slower, more laboured.

  ‘That is …’

  ‘Non adesso, mamma. Glielo diciamo dopo.’

  I scrape back the chair to go over and see for myself what could be so covert it needs Italian to keep it from me. Matt tries to cover the screen. I pull his fingers back.

  ‘JOOLS CAMPBELL: HER MOTHER’S BATTLE WITH CANCER AND THE DAUGHTER WHO DOESN’T CARE.’

  There was a time back in 2005 when I thought my life was near the point of implosion. The twins had just been born and went through bags of nappies, sucking on my nipples until they were raw and clogged, never sleeping in tandem, and providing enough washing to fill the Thames. Hannah was three and while she liked having real life dollies to play with, was going through a phase of wanting to be naked all the time and feeding the DVD player breadsticks. I used to cry rivers of tears at how bloated, unkempt, and tired I was. I used to feel as though my brain would seep out of my ears because it couldn’t take the noise, the emotion, the sheer pressure. It was a low point.

  Today rates up there with that time. It is 8.23 a.m. and point in hand, this is what I have to do today:

  Learn everything about the food industry with Luella

  Wax my eyebrows

  Send three of the children to school

  Talk to my husband

  Come to terms with the fact my mother had cancer

  Ring my brothers

  Ring my dad

  Cry

  Cry more

  I haven’t really thought too much about my mother since she sold her story to the papers and talked absolute shit about the circumstances under which she left. Bar Ben telling me she’d rang, I’d relegated her back into the deepest, darkest recesses of my mind where she’d always been, playing Frisbee with my thoughts over maternal matters. She wasn’t worth the time. But here she was again, in my face with stories of illness, toying with me yet again. I read the article over breakfast wondering how she had the gall to speak more lies. If she was ill, I didn’t know; if she was alive, I didn’t know. All I knew was that I cried over breakfast, thinking Gia had put far too much salt in her ricotta pancakes when really they were just flavoured with my briny tears.

  Luella arrived at 7.01 a.m. with hugs, knowing how much the article would hit me for six, apologising that her radar hadn’t been big enough to stop the story going to press. Although she’d promised an entourage to style and preen me, she’s decided against it and instead has me brought five bags of clothes, shoes, and her own tweezers to attack the unsightly caterpillar-shaped things above my eyes.

  Now I just stand in the hallway and the house has become that nest of activity where the children launch themselves at me, demanding to know the whereabouts of jumpers and asking me to fashion their hair into something presentable. I stand there as they waltz around me, not knowing what to do. I just bend down and grab the closest one, Ted, and hug him, stroking his hair and looking into his eyes.

  ‘Have I done something wrong?’

  I shake my head. In the doorway, I see Matt looking on at this manic display of emotion, car keys in hand.

  ‘Kids, car, please. Daddy’s taking you to school today.’

  There’s a chorus of whys and cheers as they clamour to the front door and Matt and I have a moment standing one metre apart where we stare at each other for five seconds.

  ‘Call me if you need me.’

  I nod.

  By 10 a.m., I don’t have to ring Dad or the brothers because they each show up at my house of their own accord, traipsing in with cakes (Dad), alcohol (Adam), and the greyest, saddest face I’ve ever seen (Ben). Adam, who has been drinking since he read the headline, is sprawled across my sofa, legs akimbo. Dad tries to force feed him some chocolate éclair.

  ‘Did you know, Dad?’

  He shakes his head. Gia appears at the living room door with a tray of tea, cakes, and freshly baked biscotti. The boys sit to attention.

  ‘Gia, you shouldn’t have,’ says Dad.

  She blushes and shakes her head. Gia has always liked Dad. I think single men of a certain age whether widowed, divorced, or abandoned always bring out the sympathetic edge in woman of Gia’s age. He is all the more attractive for having raised three children singlehandedly and for the fact he doesn’t sit like a lonely spinster at home eating pies for one. To be honest, I think she likes a crowd when she’s being the Italian Nonna. Ever since they arrived, all I’ve been able to smell is cheese and baked meat wafting through the house. Luella stays in the kitchen as chief taste tester, no doubt.

  ‘I can’t believe she’s gone and done it again,’ says Ben.

  ‘I can.’

  Adam, fuelled by alcohol, is quick to respond. It’s very much Adam’s style. When Mum left us, I was very analytical about the situation even at the age of ten. I became obsessed with the reasons why she would have left and by the age of twelve was researching theories of maternal attachment. Eight years later, the psychology behind the situation still lingered enough in my brain to want to study it at university. Yet Adam’s reaction was the polar opposite. After she left, she no longer existed, she was merely a ghost. He used to badmouth her every occasion possible and would get riled to see her picture or come across an item that once belonged to her. Twelve years later when girlfriends and sex became a preoccupatio
n, he always found it hard to nurture any relationship, instead depending on multiple liaisons with multiple woman. I cross my fingers one day he’ll find that girl to change his mind, to change the idea hardwired into his brain that women leave.

  ‘Seriously, we expected different? I for one am done with her. I really don’t care if she was sick or not. I really don’t.’

  Ben’s bottom lip quivers. Ben’s reaction was always more skewed when it came to Mum’s leaving. His attachments still in their very rudimentary stages, they were never allowed to grow, like roots stuck in the ground unable to surface so stunted to live underground for ever. Ben attached himself to Dad, Adam, and myself at the time but he always looked a little lost, cried that bit more than Adam and I ever did.

  ‘But she … what if she had needed us? I think I would have at least liked to have known.’

  I think about that word need, imagining some Picoult style situation where she may have needed a kidney or bone marrow. Would I have been willing to sacrifice that to a mother who abandoned me all those years ago? Would I have wanted to hold her hand on her death bed?

  ‘She’s a bitch, Ben. A complete bitch. I needed a mother and where was she? Now she’s using this to make us feel bad about her leaving. That’s really magnanimous of her.’

  I hear tutting from the kitchen door as Luella says something to Gia. The door closes.

  ‘Adam. You shouldn’t talk about your mother like that,’ Dad says. Adam shakes his head.

  ‘I’m sorry. But my mother left me when I was seven. Whatever happens to her, that’s called karma.’

  I am torn. Torn between a brother and his anger and another little brother who’s crying at the suggestion that we can be so heartless. I’m speechless for once, so just grab Ben by the shoulders and go to hug him. It’s always been Ben to be vulnerable and taken in by such emotional circumstances. He retrieves a crumpled newspaper from his shoulder bag and starts reading aloud.