Pedigree Mum

by Fiona Gibson

  Chapter Forty

  ‘Roberto,’ Mary says, ‘I need to talk to you.’

  ‘Uh-huh?’ He drags his gaze away from a fast-moving Swedish thriller which is impossible to follow without staring intently at the TV screen.

  ‘Please listen to me,’ Mary says, twisting her hands together.

  He looks at her in her armchair with what he hopes passes for rapt attention. ‘I am listening, Mum, but I know what you’re going to say.’

  Her brow furrows. ‘What am I going to say?’

  With a sigh – no chance of figuring out who that guy in the alley was now – he flips the TV to mute and turns to face her.

  ‘Look, I know it’s been hard for you. I understand that you’re really fond of Kerry, and when all this settles down there’s no reason why you can’t still see her as much as you used to …’

  ‘It’s not Kerry,’ she says carefully, her neck turning mottled pink. ‘Well, it is, and you know how I feel about all that, but you’re a grown man and …’ Mary shrugs sadly. ‘You make your own choices in life.’

  Rob nods. ‘Look, I tried everything to sort things out, but she wouldn’t hear of it …’

  ‘Can you blame her, Roberto? The way I understand it—’

  ‘Mum,’ Rob cuts in sharply, ‘I can’t go into this now. I’m with Nadine and that’s just the way it is. It’s not ideal but it’s happened, and we’re trying to make it work.’ He blinks at his mother, wishing his dad would bring the children in now; they’re out in Eugene’s shed in the back garden, a treasure trove crammed with model steam engines at various stages of construction, where his father whiles away much of his spare time.

  ‘I’m doing my best, Mum,’ Rob adds. ‘You’ll like Nadine once you get to know her. She’s just young and she was nervous about meeting you, but she’s a sweet girl really and she means well …’

  Mary waggles a foot, allowing a sheepskin slipper to drop onto the ivy-patterned carpet. ‘She’s certainly very attractive.’

  ‘Mmmm.’ Rob can sense her peering at him as he picks at a fingernail.

  ‘It all happened very quickly, didn’t it? I had no idea you and Kerry were having difficulties.’

  ‘Mum, please.’ The credits are rolling on TV; final episode too.

  ‘Does Nadine mind about this … this thing you have?’

  ‘What thing?’

  Mary inhales deeply. ‘This thing about being born in the wrong body.’

  ‘What?’ Rob turns and stares at her. What is she on about now? He glances out of the living room window, focusing on the glowing window of Eugene’s shed.

  ‘I read about it in a magazine, Roberto.’ She lowers her voice and casts a quick glance at the TV, as if the muted model in the insurance ad might be able to hear them.

  ‘You mean … people who think they’ve been born the wrong sex?’

  Mary shudders. ‘Yes, and I know what you’ll go through. It starts with hormones and you change shape and the beard stops growing and then …’ She looks at him, her eyes wet and shiny, the tears threatening to spill over. ‘And then breasts come.’

  Rob stares at his mother. Her veiny hands are trembling on her lap as she fiddles with the pleats of her olive-coloured skirt.

  ‘You don’t think …’ he starts.

  She nods, unable to form words for a moment, then blurts out, ‘They have surgery, don’t they? To remove it, I mean. It’s irreversible, Roberto …’

  Her cheeks are flushed, fat tears coursing down her cheeks now as Rob lurches off the sofa and across the room to gather his mother up in his arms. ‘Mum, it’s okay, please don’t cry.’

  ‘But I read …’

  ‘What did you read? One of those real-life stories in some stupid women’s magazine?’

  ‘No.’ She shakes her head. ‘On your laptop …’

  ‘God, Mum.’ Rob sweeps his hands over his burning cheeks. ‘That’s a column I do, a pathetic thing my new boss is making me write in the guise of a woman. Jesus …’

  She looks up at him, blinking away tears. ‘You mean it’s not really you?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ he says, squeezing her bony hand. ‘Not the real me anyway. It’s just a stupid made-up persona.’

  ‘Really?’

  He laughs mirthlessly, not hearing his father stepping into the hallway with Mia on one side and Freddie on the other as he declares, ‘Yes, really. Listen, Mum, I know you’re concerned about me right now, and I’ve been a pretty awful husband and father. There’s a lot to be worried about – I realise that. But I can promise you that I am perfectly happy being a man.’

  Chapter Forty-One

  Harvey’s curry has been eaten and pronounced delicious. Despite his warning about Ethan’s naan-draping tendencies, he actually placed it very politely at the side of his plate, perhaps due to being in the Presence of a Woman. Kerry has enjoyed herself hugely so far, managing to avoid becoming too drunk due to consuming her bodyweight in carbs. And now Ethan – short, chubby, carroty of hair – is standing before them in the small, book-filled living room, having set up a flipchart on a stand.

  ‘From my training days,’ he explains, brandishing a fat black felt tip. ‘I’m a failed actor like Harvey, you see.’ Harvey shoots him a mock-exasperated look.

  ‘What did you train people in?’ Kerry asks from her curled-up position on the sofa.

  ‘Teambuilding, motivation, making things happen – all that stuff.’

  Harvey snorts. ‘Making what sort of things happen, Ethan?’

  ‘Oh, fuck off. Anyway,’ Ethan continues somewhat tipsily, ‘what I’m saying, Kerry, is that you need to view the situation objectively and list the pros and cons. Then you can make an informed decision.’

  ‘What the hell is he talking about?’ Harvey whispers to Kerry as she gives him a baffled shrug.

  ‘So here,’ Ethan says grandly, ‘is Dog.’ In the flipchart’s top left-hand corner, Ethan draws an approximation of a small, droopy-eared hound. ‘And here is Man,’ he continues, sketching a scrawny person, then writing DOG and MAN beneath them, to avoid any confusion. ‘So,’ he addresses Kerry, ‘give me some pros for choosing Dog over Man as your beloved.’

  ‘Er …’ She tears off a small corner of cold chapatti and chews it. ‘Loyal. Cheery. Always pleased to see me. Cuddly. Sweet. Likes playing. Never moans …’

  ‘Whoa, enough, hold on a minute …’

  ‘Never comes home pissed,’ Harvey adds as Ethan scribbles on the board.

  ‘Doesn’t try to broaden my musical tastes,’ Kerry suggests, recalling Rob’s unintelligible jazz phase when the house jarred with squawking saxophones.

  Ethan frowns. ‘Can we just put “good taste in music”?’

  Kerry glances at Buddy who has arranged himself, rather forwardly, across Harvey’s lap. ‘No musical preferences,’ she suggests. ‘That’s definitely a plus.’

  ‘Now cons?’ Ethan prompts Kerry.

  ‘Poos on pavement,’ she replies.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Actually, I can’t think of any. Can we move onto Man now?’

  ‘Okay, Man: pros,’ Ethan says bossily.

  ‘Er.’ She cannot think of one positive thing.

  ‘C’mon, Kerry,’ he smirks, ‘there must be something the male of the species is good for.’

  She shakes her head. ‘Don’t like Man. Man impregnate editorial assistant,’ which has them all convulsing with laughter.

  ‘Not your ex,’ Ethan says. ‘He sounds like a jerk. I’m talking generic everyman …’

  ‘He’s bloody lost it,’ Harvey chuckles.

  ‘Okay,’ Ethan bellows, ‘what can a man give you that a dog can’t?’

  She considers this for a moment, feeling slightly sleepy now, full of delicious curry and wine and thinking about the walk home – only fifteen minutes, but still, it’s freezing out there. Anyway, the only pro she can think of to place Man above Dog is sex and right now, she doesn’t really want to go there.

&nbs
p; ‘Could I be cheeky,’ she says, ‘and ask for a coffee, Ethan?’

  ‘What, not another proper drink? Come on, it’s still early …’

  ‘Thanks, but I’d better head home. It’s been lovely, thank you, and you’ve really helped me to think about things … objectively.’ She catches Harvey’s eye and smiles as Ethan heads to the kitchen.

  ‘Come and give me a hand, Harvey,’ he calls back.

  ‘I’m sure you remember how to operate the kettle,’ Harvey mutters, but extracts himself from beneath Buddy anyway, who flops onto Kerry instead.

  She sits there, looking at the flipchart bearing Ethan’s wonky scrawlings. ‘You embarrassed her,’ she hears Harvey murmur, just audible over the low music.

  ‘No I didn’t.’

  ‘Jesus, Ethan.’

  ‘She didn’t say the obvious, though – that a dog can’t take her out to dinner …’ There’s a snigger, and Kerry can’t decide if they don’t care that she might be able to hear, or are just drunk and think they’re whispering.

  ‘I’d take her out,’ Ethan slurs.

  ‘Oh, shut up.’

  ‘No, I would! Seriously. She’s fucking gorgeous, Harv. You never said. I’d even put up with her dog – I could always take an antihistamine …’

  ‘What are you on about?’

  Ethan snorts. ‘You come back from your lessons making her sound plain and dreary …’ Kerry blinks down at her rice-speckled plate on the coffee table.

  ‘No I don’t,’ Harvey mutters.

  ‘Yeah, you do. I was imagining a middle-aged woman with chunky ankles and a lilac twinset stinking of mouldy rose petals …’

  ‘Shut up, for God’s sake.’

  ‘And she’s not, is she? She’s hot. You never said!’

  Kerry stares ahead, deciding to bolt down her coffee as quickly as she can without scalding her mouth. Or maybe she won’t drink it at all. She’ll invent some domestic emergency she must rush home for and attend to at once. An iron left on, or the horrible feeling that she left something in the oven … While the evening has been fun, she now feels faintly ridiculous for coming back to the home of one man she barely knows, the other a complete stranger, just because she didn’t want to sit in an empty house on a Saturday night.

  The sound of the boiling kettle has drowned out the two men’s voices. Then it clicks off, and the whole flat seems to fall deadly silent as Ethan says, ‘You know what, Harv? I’d love to meet a woman just like Kerry. But younger.’

  Chapter Forty-Two

  It was just an offhand remark. Kerry doesn’t care if Ethan regards her as a well-preserved geriatric, the kind of woman you’d describe as ‘good for her age’ or – horrors – ‘young at heart’ (which, let’s face it, means old). Yet, infuriatingly, his words are still playing over and over in her mind the next day, like the way she sometimes finds herself humming a Cuckoo Clock song in the checkout queue.

  Just like Kerry … but younger. Bloody fantastic. Okay, she’s four or five years older than Ethan and Harvey, but is it really that obvious? Glancing into the tiny flower-shaped mirror stuck to the fridge, all she sees are under-eye shadows and a blur of crow’s feet. Shit. It’s one of the downsides of being distinctly un-vain, she realises. When you can go for days barely glancing into a mirror, merely giving your hair a quick brush and stuffing it into a ponytail, it comes as an almighty shock when you actually take the time to have a proper look. Maybe she should build up to it gradually, allowing herself just a casual glance before the full-on examination in what appears to be a magnifying mirror, she realises now. Ugh. So it’s almost a relief when Rob’s car pulls up outside. At least, now the children are home, she won’t have time to ponder such a stupid, meaningless comment.

  ‘Hey,’ she says, trying to gather Freddie and Mia in for a hug as they charge into the house. ‘Have a good time?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Mia replies distractedly, having pushed past her in order to bestow Buddy with cuddles and kisses.

  ‘Nonno made us this, Mummy.’ Freddie holds up a beautiful gleaming green and gold steam engine.

  ‘Wow, that’s amazing! Isn’t he clever? You’ll have to take it in to school after the holidays.’ She glances at Mia, detecting a distinct lack of festive spirit. ‘You okay, sweetheart? Have you enjoyed yourself this weekend?’

  ‘Um … it was okay.’

  Kerry frowns at Rob. ‘What’s wrong?’ she mouths as Freddie dumps his model on the table.

  ‘Can we play with Buddy in the garden?’ Mia asks.

  ‘Yes, sweetheart, as long as the gate’s shut… .’ As children and dog tumble back outside, Kerry fixes Rob with a quizzical stare. ‘So what’s up?’

  ‘Er … they just overheard something when I was having a chat with Mum,’ Rob mumbles. ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘Well, they both seem a bit upset, Rob.’ She clicks on the kettle, dropping an ordinary teabag into a mug for Rob, and a chamomile one in hers.

  ‘You’ve gone all Shorling,’ he remarks.

  ‘It’s just herbal tea, Rob. It has been around for a few decades now. So, the thing they overheard …’

  ‘Oh, God. It’s going to sound awful but Mum read my column on my laptop last weekend – my Miss Jones one – and assumed it was some kind of fantasy thing, that I actually want to be a woman …’

  ‘What?’ She explodes with laughter. ‘Like … have the full op, you mean?’

  He nods, his mouth set in a firm line.

  ‘You’re not, are you?’

  ‘For God’s sake, Kerry …’ He emits a withering laugh.

  ‘And they overheard you talking about this? About having your, your … dick removed?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ he says glumly. ‘Just that I was perfectly happy being a man, and I guess it’s confused them. Like, there was a possibility that I might want to be a lady …’

  ‘For God’s sake, Rob,’ Kerry exclaims. ‘And they’ve been asking you about this?’

  ‘All the way here, yeah …’

  Kerry shakes her head. ‘As if they haven’t enough on their plate right now.’

  ‘I know … and I’m sorry. I’m a complete and utter fuck-up, aren’t I?’

  She looks at him, assessing the man she could quite happily have slapped in the face just a few weeks ago. Now, though, her barely controllable fury has ebbed away to be replaced by a sort of … quiet disillusionment. It’s less painful, certainly. To her surprise, a sense of something akin to pity has also begun to creep in.

  ‘I can’t believe your mum jumped to that conclusion,’ she says, turning to tip out the kids’ overnight bags, and stuffing their laundry into the washing machine.

  ‘You know Mum. Makes worrying about me and Dom her life’s work. She hadn’t even been able to bring herself to tell Dad …’

  ‘God. Poor Mary.’ Kerry can’t help smiling as she turns back to face him. ‘Listen, d’you want to come to Mia’s party next Saturday? I know she’d be delighted if you were there.’

  There’s a small pause. ‘I’d really like that, if you’re sure it won’t be awkward …’

  ‘Why would it be? You’re still her dad, Rob.’ Kerry’s voice cracks a little, and she quickly clears her throat. ‘It would mean a lot to her. We’ve spent ages planning it and I’ve booked a clown as a surprise.’

  ‘Have you? Why?’

  ‘To make it fun, Rob. That’s what clowns are for, apparently.’

  He winces. ‘I’m not sure about clowns. Don’t you think they’re kind of … sinister?’

  ‘Not this one. He’s a pupil of mine. D’you remember you saw him when you picked up the kids last weekend? He’s an actor really …’

  ‘Oh,’ he laughs witheringly, ‘one of those.’

  ‘Yes,’ she says, deciding not to rise to the bait, ‘one of those, but don’t hold it against him, will you, and be all terse and tight-lipped while he’s here?’

  ‘Of course not,’ he blusters, finishing his tea. ‘I am perfectly capable of being pleasant, you know
.’

  She sniggers, taking a moment to savour the image of Rob and Harvey in the same room. As children’s birthday parties go, she figures, this one might prove more entertaining than most.

  *

  Next morning, having underestimated the amount of gift wrapping she still has to do, Kerry ignores the small stab of guilt as she suggests Freddie and Mia watch a full-length movie while she ‘gets on with things’ upstairs.

  ‘What things?’ Mia wants to know.

  ‘Christmassy things. Things you’re not meant to see.’

  ‘Ohhh.’ Mia nods, eyes shining. ‘Santa’s busy as well, Mummy.’

  ‘Yes, I’d imagine he is.’ She puts on the movie, eager to tackle the pile of gifts currently stashed in her wardrobe.

  ‘Mummy?’ Mia has followed her out into the hallway.

  ‘Yes, honey?’

  ‘Is Father Christmas real?’

  Kerry frowns, conscious of the seconds ticking by as she scrabbles for the appropriate response. ‘Why d’you ask?’ she says lightly.

  ‘’Cause Audrey-Jane says he’s not. She says her mummy and daddy don’t believe in lying to children and presents just come from shops.’ Mia blinks slowly.

  ‘Why would they say that?’ Kerry asks, feigning amazement.

  ‘’Cause Santa’s a lie, she said.’

  ‘Oh, Mia.’ Kerry bobs down and brushes a caramel curl from her daughter’s lightly freckled face. ‘You know what? I think maybe Audrey-Jane just said it to be mean, to spoil the fun, don’t you?’

  Mia nods solemnly.

  ‘Shall we put out Father Christmas’s mince pies and beer now, and a carrot for Rudolph?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she says firmly. And that, thankfully, seems to satisfy her. While Kerry wouldn’t wish her daughter to be speculating on Santa’s existence at the age of fifteen, she is only seven, for goodness’s sake. Anyway, does it really count as a lie? How joyless are some of the mothers around here? Briefly, Kerry wonders again how many of the invited children will actually turn up for Mia’s party.

  No time to dwell on that now, though. Upstairs in her bedroom, Kerry surveys the vast selection of games, books and soft toys – both children are still rather fond of their cuddlies, albeit secretly in Freddie’s case – plus a dazzling array of stocking presents which she’s been amassing over the past few months. Aunt Maisie, too, has sent alluring parcels for all of them, while the children’s main gifts – new bikes – were ordered by Rob and are hidden in Mary and Eugene’s attic. Then, for Mia’s birthday in just five days’ time, Kerry has bought an easel and enormous art set, including five hundred pens which she knows her daughter will store in perfect rainbow order (clearly, Mia has inherited Rob’s organisational skills).