Megan 3

by Mary Hooper

  A tingle ran down my back. I didn’t like the sound of that.

  The bedroom opened and Mum appeared. She didn’t look as if she’d just got out of bed or anything – she always looked neat and tidy whatever the occasion – but she did look a bit pink. ‘Everything all right?’ she asked me.

  ‘Fine,’ I said, and then I just looked at her, waiting. Past her, reflected in the mirror on her dressing table, I could see a man wearing a dark suit.

  ‘Well, if your mother’s not going to introduce me, I’d better do it myself!’ a jovial voice said. The door opened wider and he stepped forward. He was short and quite squatty, with hair combed over a bald patch and a pale, freckled complexion. ‘I’m George,’ he said. ‘George Simpson. I daresay your mum’s told you about me.’

  I shook my head slowly. ‘No. No, she hasn’t.’

  ‘There hasn’t really been the time, George,’ Mum said, smiling up at him. ‘And we didn’t know events would overtake us quite so quickly, did we?’

  ‘Indeed not,’ George said.

  ‘We knew Mum had a…’ I didn’t really know what to call him. ‘A boyfriend,’ I said, for want of anything better.

  ‘Ah, I think I’m a little more than that,’ he said.

  Yeah, I could see that, I thought – seeing as you were coming out of the bedroom.

  ‘What George means is – he and I are engaged,’ Mum said all of a rush.

  I stared at her. ‘What? How can you be?’

  She laughed. ‘Quite easily.’ She held up her hand, ‘See – engagement ring.’

  I glanced at it, not knowing what to say. People their age getting engaged seemed bizarre. I knew people still did it – but young people, not your mum. And especially not to someone you didn’t know. This George might as well be a stranger off the street for all I knew about him.

  ‘Oh. Isn’t it all a bit quick?’ I said.

  Mum smiled. ‘George and I have been seeing each other for a few months now. And I’ve known him for years at work, of course.’

  ‘That was before love blossomed!’ George put in, giving her a hug, and I was practically sick on the spot.

  Just as I was wondering what it all meant – I mean, were they getting married or anything? – Jack came into the hall with a colander in his hand. ‘Bye!’ he said to Mum, beaming at her.

  ‘There’s my boy!’ Mum said, swooping on him and picking him up. Then she looked at him closely and said, ‘Whatever has he been doing, Megan? He’s absolutely filthy!’

  ‘They had the sand tray out today,’ I said, still thinking what’s this George doing here? ‘Jack wasn’t allowed near it but two of the older kids gave him some sand to play with.’

  ‘It’s in his hair, nails… even in the crease of his neck!’ Mum said, examining him all over. ‘And he’s got yellow stains all over his T-shirt. The babies should be more closely supervised, Megan. He could have eaten that sand!’

  ‘He probably did,’ I said.

  Jack was staring at George, eyes wide.

  ‘This is Jack. So what do you think of my grandson?’ Mum asked George.

  ‘Very nice, very nice,’ George said smoothly, and I thought, I bet he hasn’t had children. ‘How old did you say he was?’

  ‘Nearly fourteen months,’ I said. I took Jack from Mum. ‘So… now that you’re engaged – what’s that mean, exactly?’

  ‘Well,’ Mum said slowly, ‘we’re not only a proper couple, but George has come to live here with me. With us.’

  ‘Oh.’ I stared at her. If she’d said George was an alien I couldn’t have been more surprised. Mum – living with someone when she’d always been so bloody scathing about anyone else setting up – living in sin, as she called it – before they were married.

  ‘But we… it’s so small here!’ I said weakly, trying to imagine what it would be like having another person in the flat: George in the bathroom, George to be cooked for, George hogging the TV controls, George wanting Mum to go out places with him, George’s washing, George’s ironing, George’s stuff all round the place. We could barely manage as it was.

  ‘I hope we’ll be able to move quite soon,’ George said.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mum. ‘We’re looking out for a house with a garden.’ When I didn’t make noises of pleasure and appreciation she added, ‘A nice garden for Jack to play in.’

  ‘Oh. Right,’ I said. I couldn’t quite take it in. House: OK. George: not so OK. But whether I approved or not it didn’t make much difference. It was official: George was here, living with us.

  ‘We were just hanging George’s things up in the wardrobe,’ Mum said.

  ‘I haven’t got much with me,’ said George. ‘I’ll have to bide my time and pop back for the rest.’

  Mum looked at me, seeming a bit embarrassed. ‘George had to leave in a rush yesterday evening.’

  ‘Spent the night in the car!’ George added.

  My mind spun with possibilities: moonlight flits, non-payment of rent, rows with landlords. The obvious thing just didn’t occur to me.

  ‘We said we were going to move the bedside table to make room for my trouser press,’ George reminded Mum.

  ‘Let’s finish that, then,’ Mum said, ‘and Megan will make us a nice cup of tea.’

  ‘I like it very strong,’ George said, going back into the bedroom, ‘and two sugars.’

  I changed Jack first, washed his face and sat him in his high chair with a biscuit. While I was making the tea, Ellie came in. ‘Mum home?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and George. He’s home, too.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ she asked, and she pulled such an extraordinarily astonished face that I started laughing.

  ‘George. He’s here. Right here in the flat.’

  ‘George?’

  ‘George est arrivée,’ I said, in French that was probably wrong.

  ‘What – he’s come here to meet us?’ Ellie asked.

  ‘No, he’s come to live with us.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  ‘I’m not!’

  Jack threw his biscuit on the floor and I picked it up, inspected it for fluff and gave it back to him.

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since today. I came home, heard voices in Mum’s bedroom and he appeared. Mum says they’re engaged.’ I rolled my eyes at Ellie. ‘She’s got a ring.’

  ‘What’s it like? What sort of stone?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ I said incredulously. ‘Fancy you asking a thing like that at a time like this. I didn’t even look at it.’

  There was a long silence and then Ellie heaved a great sigh and shook her head. ‘What a turn up. We thought he was just a bloke at work.’

  ‘He was, apparently – until their love blossomed!’

  ‘Don’t tell me he said that?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Yuk,’ we both said together.

  ‘It’s a bit strange though, isn’t it?’ I said in a low voice. ‘He arrived all unannounced – I mean, I don’t think Mum knew he was moving in today. And he told me that he’s going back for more stuff later. Apparently he spent last night in his car.’

  ‘His wife chucked him out, then,’ Ellie said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? His wife found out he was seeing Mum and chucked him out.’

  I gasped. ‘I bet you’re right.’

  ‘We’re going to be falling over each other here with five of us!’ she said, pulling an anguished face. ‘What’s he like, anyway?’

  ‘Fattish. Funny hair,’ I said, turning my nose up. ‘Not exactly gorgeous.’

  ‘Nor is Mum,’ she pointed out.

  I found a banana in the fruit bowl and started mashing it up for Jack’s tea. He was getting tired, now, grizzling and giving the occasional irritable shriek. The biscuit, half-chewed, had disappeared somewhere between him and the high chair tray, and he’d rubbed some soggy bits of it into his hair. I looked at my watch. I couldn’t put him to bed befor
e six – if I did he’d be up, bouncing around, by nine o’clock. I had to keep him going until seven at least to have any chance of getting him through the night.

  Ellie looked out of the kitchen and towards Mum’s bedroom. ‘Suppose we hate him?’

  I shrugged. ‘Dunno. If we do… I suppose we’ll just have to put up with him.’

  It was an hour later and we were sitting down for what was normally called ‘tea’ but what Mum had today called ‘supper’. Ellie had been sent down to the corner shop for a pizza and some salad, and there wasn’t a sign of a chip anywhere. We were all being terribly polite and formal with our ‘Please pass the salad cream’ and ‘Anyone want some more tomato?’ except Jack, of course, who didn’t know it was a Big Occasion and so was sitting under the table eating a biscuit and making the occasional rude noise.

  ‘So, what are you doing at school, then?’ George asked Ellie.

  Ellie shot a look at me. She hated being asked things like that. ‘Lessons,’ she said.

  ‘Ellie!’ Mum said warningly.

  ‘Well, you know. Just the usual.’

  ‘Have you started your GCSEs yet?’ George asked pleasantly.

  Ellie shook her head.

  ‘Because my daughter – Ria – is right in the middle of hers.’

  Ellie and I made startled faces at each other. So he did have children! I wanted to ask how many he had, and why he wasn’t living with them, but under Mum’s steely glare I didn’t dare.

  Jack got tired of his biscuit, threw it across the floor and went under the table to find his duck. We heard a quack-quack-quack as he pushed it up and down between our legs, and then he emerged at the other end – George’s end – and stood up, putting a sticky hand on George’s smart office-sharp trousers to help pull himself up. George looked alarmed and brushed at his leg to dislodge Jack’s hand. ‘And why isn’t this young man joining us for supper?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s already had his,’ I said. ‘I can’t keep him going that long – we eat too late.’

  Jack, knowing he was being spoken about, gave George a beaming smile, and George just about managed to smile back. Jack then smacked his hand on to George’s thigh. ‘Man!’ he said. Or something like it.

  ‘That’s right. Man! Another word!’ I said delightedly to Mum and Ellie. ‘That’s about seven altogether now.’

  I lifted Jack on to my lap and bounced him up and down. ‘Clever, clever boy!’

  Jack chuckled, then he turned and reached towards my plate, trying to grab the pizza. I cut him a tiny slice of it and he wriggled off my lap and went back under the table with it. Ellie and I both laughed, but Mum tutted.

  ‘Megan!’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Bad habits…’

  ‘Your mother’s right,’ George said, brushing sticky bits off his trousers. ‘Neither of my children were allowed to eat anything unless they were sitting up at the table properly.’

  Bully for them, I wanted so say.

  ‘Manners can’t begin too young,’ he went on.

  Ellie kicked me under the table and I kicked her back. Nightmare! It was going to be like having another Mum – only worse.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘And so he just moved in!’ I said dramatically. ‘I came home on Friday and there he was taking up half the flat!’

  Claire and Josie gasped, giving me all their attention for the first time that evening. For ages they’d been comparing mobile phones, ringing each other and messing about text messaging, so much so that I’d begun to think that without a mobile phone I might as well be dead.

  It was Sunday night and the three of us were in California’s with all the beautiful people. Josie was wearing a short stretchy black top and snakeskin trousers and high heels, Claire was wearing similar trousers with what looked like a sparkly bikini top. I was just wearing my jeans and a T-shirt.

  ‘It must be lurve,’ Josie said. ‘Your mum must have had some sort of brainstorm.’

  Claire nodded. ‘She must have got it bad. Fancy him moving in already!’

  ‘It’s really weird. I’ve never even seen her with a man before,’ I said.

  ‘Is he married?’ Josie asked.

  I shrugged. ‘Dunno. He’s been married, because he’s got kids. And on Thursday night he said he slept in his car – so Ellie and I reckon he must have got chucked out from wherever he was living.’

  ‘Whoo-ee!’ Josie said. She stood up and I saw that a couple of boys had arrived at the bar just in front of us and she was going to try and get herself noticed. This was what the whoo-ee – all cute and perky, accompanied by both arms being stretched out – had been about. She’d had another tattoo done – a butterfly just below her collarbone on the right, and the low-cut top drew attention to it. The boys were all eyes, smirking and eyeing her up and down.

  ‘I wonder what it’ll be like,’ Claire said. She was looking at the two boys, too, but she wasn’t quite as obvious as Josie. ‘I mean, you’ve never had anyone living with you and your mum before, have you? D’you think he’ll be strict?’

  I nodded. ‘He is.’

  ‘Aw, he’ll be all right,’ Josie said. ‘My stepfather’s brilliant! Like – he’s got money, for a start. We were really broke before he came along, but now we go on holiday and go out for meals all the time and everything. He got me my job at his firm, too.’

  ‘I don’t want to work with him and my mum in the estate agents, thank you,’ I said.

  ‘The two of them are babysitting tonight, though, aren’t they?’ Claire said. ‘So that’s something.’

  I nodded, thinking that at least now he was living with us, Mum wouldn’t be out so much. ‘When he suggested it, I couldn’t get out the door quick enough. He even lent me a fiver!’

  Josie let out a cackle of laughter. ‘He didn’t volunteer to babysit just to be nice,’ she said. ‘He did it to get you out of the way.’

  I looked at her, not knowing what she was getting at.

  ‘You cramp their style!’ she said. ‘Bet your sister’s out too, eh?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Well, then. They want a little bit of nookie, don’t they?’ She glanced over to the two boys to make sure they were watching her and added loudly, ‘A touch-up in front of the telly!’ before collapsing in giggles.

  I thought about it. It wasn’t a nice thought. Not Mum and him. In fact, it made me cringe…

  ‘Bet they are!’ Josie went on. ‘They’ll be at it hammer and tongs by now. Don’t go home early – you might get a shock!’

  ‘Just because your mum and dad are always at it!’ Claire put in. ‘I don’t suppose everyone else’s are.’

  ‘My mum and dad even did it on the stairs, once,’ Josie said proudly.

  ‘How d’you know?’ I asked.

  ‘My brother saw them.’ She shrieked with laughter again. ‘Don’t look all disgusted, Megan Warrell. You’ve done it – why shouldn’t they? I think it’s nice that they still want to do it.’

  I thought about this; I didn’t think it was particularly nice. ‘Anyway, we haven’t got stairs in our flat,’ I said.

  We began to talk about something else. Josie was staring at the two boys openly now. She might as well have had a notice on her forehead saying, I’m Josie and I’m up for it. She got what she wanted, though, because after ten minutes or so of blatant staring, giggling and posturing, the boys came over, asked if we wanted drinks, and then went back to the bar to get them.

  While they were getting the drinks I found out that Claire and Josie had seen them there before, but had never managed to get them over. I was instructed to call both girls by different names: Chelsea and Jonquil, to pretend that they had jobs in a PR agency – and on pain of death to keep quiet about the fact that Claire was still at school. I began to wonder where I was going to fit into this foursome.

  The boys came back with drinks and sat down, and told us that their names were Pete and Lou. I thought they looked pretty OK. I mean, I wouldn’t have tried to poach them or anything – not
that they were going to fancy me in a grey T-shirt which smelt slightly of baby-sick – and not after all the hard work that had gone into getting them over. Anyway, even if I had gone for it with either of them I was put straight out of the running by Josie announcing that I might have to go home early because I had a baby to look after.

  Pete and Lou turned to me in surprise. ‘Yeah?’

  I nodded, embarrassed to be in the spotlight. ‘He’s just over a year old. His name’s Jack.’

  ‘Phew!’ Pete said, and immediately made a dismissive gesture with his hand, as much as to say leave him out of it.

  ‘Aah, it’s a dear ickle baby-waby,’ Josie said, screwing up her face into a stupid expression.

  ‘I got a little brother called Jack,’ Lou said, but that was about the last thing they said to me. The five of us got up and had a dance or two together, but a bit after that Lou and Claire went up to the bar and started chatting to each other up there, and Pete and Josie began dancing very slowly and sexily, arms around each other.

  I sat there for a while, smiling glassily at nothing in particular. Then I went to the loo for ages, then I walked around seeing if there might possibly be someone else there I knew. Suppose – just suppose – Jon had been there. How good would that have been? Of course he wasn’t, though. I sat down again, wishing I’d brought a book with me.

  I didn’t feel right in there. I didn’t fit in. It wasn’t just I didn’t have my nails done with little sparkly stones sticking on them, or a tattoo on my shoulder, or snakeskin trousers or the latest shoes, it was more than that. All this lot were all in some vast, special gang. They could chat up, get chatted up, have dates, flirt, two-time, sleep with whoever they wanted, if they wanted. They had nothing else in the world to worry about except themselves. Me? I couldn’t do anything – anything – without having a big debate with myself first. Should I be doing this? Could I afford it? Could I fit it into my life? What about Jack? Would whatever-it-was affect him?

  As I sat there I began to feel sorry for myself. I’d missed out on a big chunk of my life. Never, ever again was I going to be the same as the other girls there. I’d known this ever since Jack was born, of course, but could usually push it to the back of my mind – when I was shopping, or cooking, or cleaning it didn’t matter. Here, though, I had to face up to how different I was.