Single Mother on the Verge

by Maria Roberts

  I spot an American place, Garfunkels, across the square, so I make my way there.

  ‘Table for?’

  ‘One.’ I sound like such a loser.

  The waiter seats me at a small table by other lonely diners: a woman of my age, and a man who is probably just over thirty. I smile at the woman – she ignores me. I smile at the man – he looks down to his newspaper. I take a book out of my bag and pretend to read. If this is women’s liberation, you can stuff it.

  Morton calls to tell me he’s already in the Garrick Arms. This is followed by an almighty calamity. I think he and his phone have just crashed to the floor. ‘Are you okay?’ I hear a woman say. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Help him,’ someone else calls. ‘Is he injured?’

  ‘Morton,’ I shout. ‘Morton?’ I hastily pay the bill and leave the restaurant in search of the pub. Standing in Trafalgar Square I try to figure out where I am. There is an enormous building ahead of me. That could be Buckingham Palace or something so I won’t walk that way. I’ll walk up and down Charing Cross Road instead.

  I hate London. I do. This road goes on for eternity. After haranguing passer-by after passer-by I’m still lost. No one in this Godforsaken city knows where they are or where they’re going, and if they do then it’s some mystery they don’t want to share.

  ‘Morton.’ My phone is tucked between my shoulder and ear, my fingers searching through the A–Z. I turn the map upside-down. ‘I’m lost.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Back at Trafalgar Square.’

  ‘You’re practically here…’ Morton begins to direct me over the phone until I realize the big building ahead of me is actually the National Portrait Gallery, not Buckingham Palace, after all.

  ‘What’s with the hole on the knees?’ I ask pointing to his torn trousers.

  ‘I fell over,’ he says. ‘An attractive woman helped me up.’

  ‘Good dinner?’

  ‘Yes…’ Morton doesn’t finish his sentence, but nods sagely and closes his eyes.

  ‘Are you falling asleep?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m going to get a drink.’ Probably not wise to offer Morton one. Some night this is going to be. When I return from the bar with a large white wine, I balance on a small stool next to him. Morton barely registers my arrival.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ he asks, eyes closed as if he’s dozing or wishing me away. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’ve been to a seminar about setting up my own business.’ Once I’ve convinced Morton that my intention is not to seduce him and whip him off for a night of passion, he relaxes a little. I tell him about my top-secret plan to become stinking rich. He tells me it’s a fantastic idea and I should go ahead and do it. I’m quite wonderful, he tells me, and different from anyone he’s ever met. Maybe he can help me in some way. Then he begins to crack daft jokes – between which he pauses to gaze into my eyes until the warmth tickles my insides, then at my cleavage. I move the stool closer to him. ‘I like you,’ I tell him. ‘You make me laugh.’

  Soon we are kissing. Then we move out onto the road where I hang my arms around his neck as he searches in his pocket for his wallet. He hails a black cab. ‘Are you after my money?’ he murmurs. ‘Is that what you want?

  The only thing I want from Morton right now is the same thing he wants from me.

  In the hotel room Morton slumps on an armchair in the corner, he removes his glasses to rub his eyes.

  ‘Can you see me?’ I ask, from the bed.

  ‘Yes,’ he says, gesturing that I should walk towards him.

  It’s just after midnight. Morton’s asleep. I tease the slats of the blinds open with my fingers and peer out onto the dark London street. Buses cut across the road, black cabs stop and start, and a young woman clatters down the pavement in high heels. I gaze at Morton, smiling. Every girl should sleep with a silver fox once. I feel as if I’ve been dipped in a vat of warm runny honey while humming angels untangle my hair.

  I try to sneak back into bed without waking Morton, but as I creep under the sheets he pulls me to him. ‘Where have you been?’ he murmurs.

  ‘I was restless, I couldn’t sleep,’ I whisper, as he kisses the nape of my neck. I turn and wrap myself around him. By the time morning rages through the window, I’m exhausted.

  On the train home, commuters shunt by with bags, searching for seats. ‘Is this one free?’ a man asks.

  ‘I think so.’ I’m not in the mood for conversation. Remorse is settling in. And I’m so tired I just want to sleep. So I curl my coat into a ball, wedge it against the window and draw my knees up for a nap. As the train rocks out of Euston, I fall asleep.

  When I wake the man is looking at me. ‘You slept a long time. I’m Michael.’ He shakes my hand steadily.

  ‘Why are you heading to Manchester?’ I yawn. ‘Do you live there?’

  ‘Business,’ he says. ‘I am looking to invest in a bed company. Do you live in Manchester?’

  ‘Not in the centre no, but I work in an office there sometimes.’

  ‘Are you working there tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then let’s meet for a coffee,’ he suggests. ‘I’m in Manchester for a few days, then return to London and back to Nigeria.’ Michael tells me that he’s a management consultant in London, that he uses his income to fund business ventures in Nigeria. There, he’s a wealthy publisher. I ask if he helps the poor in his country; he says he has no time for them. If they didn’t want to be poor, they should work harder. He says I should move there. I’d have a better life there, with him.

  ‘You’re married?’ I observe, gesturing to the ring on his finger.

  ‘Yes. Four children. They’re looked after by their mother.’ He waves his hand as though to sweep them aside. ‘You are an intelligent, beautiful girl. I never met a woman like you.’ He writes down his email address on the cover of my notebook. ‘I wish I had a woman like you as my wife.’

  ‘Yes, but you have a wife.’ The man can’t just go proposing on a train when he already has a wife in another continent. It seems… let me think… a little hasty.

  ‘But I would be so happy with you as my wife.’ He tells me he has three cars in Nigeria, one of which is a Rolls-Royce, that I should move there because I would have a glamorous life and a big house, even a pool and staff. There are many opportunities for a girl like me, clever, white – being white will work in my favour. I tell him I have a child. He says, ‘Bring the boy too. Email me and visit. You will love Nigeria. It is beautiful. More beautiful than here. I will look after you.’

  When we pull into Piccadilly, he stands up reluctantly. ‘You will email me? You will come to Nigeria?’

  ‘No.’ I laugh. ‘I have a boyfriend here, my home. I have a family.’

  ‘I will never get over meeting you,’ he insists. ‘You beautiful girl that could have been my wife.’

  22

  I pull the car in at the edge of the communal gardens and look over at my house. It’s almost midnight but the living-room light is on, which means Rhodri is awake. It’s a fortnight since I saw Morton in London, and during that time I’ve given up my job with Athens, and moved to work on a freelance project for a local magazine where I earn ten pounds more per day. I dropped by a contact’s workplace one morning and was offered the job. The hours are long, and much of the work needs to be completed in the office rather than from home. I love my new job, but it’s making our household unhappy. I see less of Jack, and Rhodri says he’s been asking regularly about Damien. I have no choice but to spend long days out of the house: my business venture seems increasingly im possible now the national economy is wobbly, and the bills are piling up. Rhodri has taken on some gardening, but the money goes nowhere. A woman once told me: ‘When poverty comes in at the door, love flies out of the window.’ I thought she was clueless, but now I see that she was speaking the truth.

  To make matters worse, Margaret No. 2 has been having troubles of he
r own. For years she has lavished all her love and attention on Jack and me, but now Eddie is protesting that it isn’t fair on their other grandchild: Damien has a three-year-old son with his present girlfriend. She has agreed that when Damien is released from prison in a few weeks’ time, he will move into her house. Which means Jack won’t be able to stay. And I’ll have to keep my distance. More so now than ever, it feels as if Damien’s world is going to collide with mine.

  I climb the stairs to find Rhodri in the bath. We used to bathe together: we’d sit in candlelight telling stories to one another. He would wash my hair, soap my limbs, and twiddle his fingers between my toes. It was a tight squeeze because it was a very small bath, and Rhodri is so tall and spindly he had to bend his knees to fit into it.

  ‘Evening,’ I say, leaning over to kiss Rhodri’s cheek. Tonight I will be loving and adoring, even if I feel like shooting myself. He doesn’t reply. I look at him more closely. ‘Is something the matter?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Rhodri,’ I ask again, more gently, ‘talk to me.’ There’s something about the look on his face that makes my stomach sink. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I was thinking of my life without you.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m fine,’ I soothe. ‘I’m not going to die or anything.’

  ‘I don’t mean that.’ Rhodri looks at me. ‘I was imagining my life without you and Jack. I was imagining what it would be like if I didn’t live with you and have to do all this.’

  He means family stuff, the ceaseless shunting from one thing to the next and feeling like nothing ever improves. ‘So you were thinking of leaving us?’

  ‘No… yes… well, no… no… I’m not –’

  Shaking, I sit on the edge of the bath. ‘Rhodri, are you going to leave me?’

  I don’t want him to leave me. Maybe I thought I did, but I don’t. I know that now. ‘Don’t leave me, please.’

  ‘I’m not going to leave you.’ Rhodri’s hot wet hand grabs mine. ‘It was a silly thing to think. It’s just… you, Jack, working, bills – it’s a lot for me.’

  I know it’s hard for him: before he moved in with us he lived in a squat, worked when he wanted, spent very little and enjoyed a completely different lifestyle. Maybe he should never have fallen in love with me. ‘It’s a lot for me too. I’m only just getting used to it and I’ve done it for nine years.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he insists, drying his face on the towel.

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Promise.’

  Well, that’s a relief.

  The next day I’m running to a tight deadline again. This is the third night I’ve worked until almost midnight. The later I return home, the less I seem to want to walk through the door. I drive the car past our house and park by the garages. I throw my arms over the steering-wheel, my forehead touching my fingertips. ‘I don’t want to go home,’ I say, out loud, to myself. Are these the thoughts that bother men and women who one day set off for work never to return? Do they approach the front door one fateful evening thinking, I can’t live like this any more, before fleeing for ever?

  ‘You’re unhappy,’ I say to myself. ‘But what are you unhappy about?’

  I drive back towards the house, park the car and walk along the garden path, willing this feeling to change.

  ‘Evening,’ calls Rhodri. ‘You’re late.’

  ‘I’m tired. I’m going straight to bed.’ I change into my do-not-undress-me pyjamas: fluffy, white, emblazoned with pink rabbits, and when Rhodri climbs in next to me I pretend to be dead with sleep.

  It feels as if I’ve only just dropped off when I wake with a start. Jack is moaning loudly in his bedroom. I hear him getting up and stumbling across the landing, shouting, ‘No no no.’ I jump out of bed and take him in my arms, then back to his bed. ‘Sssh, sweetheart, sssh,’ I coo.

  ‘No… no… no…’ He looks at me, terrified, his hands moving up and down my face. ‘No… don’t… Mum…’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘They’re all around you,’ he shrieks, between sobs.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Lots of little balls.’ He screams, backing away from me. I hold him tightly in my arms, breathing into his hair, rocking him like a baby. He cries and cries. ‘They’re going to get you.’

  ‘What’s going to get me, Jack?’

  ‘The balls,’ he cries. ‘The little white balls that are heading for earth.’

  When eventually I manage to calm him, I lie by his side, stroking his hair and shushing him softly. He drifts in and out of his nightmare. Each time I try to move from his bed, he stirs and cries. So I lie, wakeful, by his side, waiting for him to slip into a deep sleep. It’s almost morning when I return to my bed and the birds are squawking up a riot outside on the telegraph pole.

  A few hours later Jack sings his way to the bathroom, sits on the toilet, pyjama bottoms around his ankles, and calls, ‘Good morning, Mum,’ in his usual way. He runs the tap, washes his hands, then climbs into bed with Rhodri and me.

  ‘You had a nightmare last night, Jack. Do you remember?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You were shouting and screaming. You got up out of bed and walked across the landing.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Don’t you remember anything?’ asks Rhodri.

  Jack grips my face in his hands. ‘No,’ he says. ‘Can we not talk about it, please? Can I watch television before school?’

  Rhodri shrugs. It’s all quite peculiar but I shan’t push it.

  ‘Night terrors?’ suggests Rhodri.

  For a change of scenery, and to give Rhodri some space, Jack and I stayed at my mother’s last night. I’m longing for a break and the opportunity to relax before I go stir crazy.

  ‘Morning,’ calls my mother, as I walk across the landing. ‘Getting up now?’

  Not yet, I think. I need a lie-in. I slope back to my bedroom, hoping to huddle in bed for a little longer. When I lift up the duvet to climb in, I discover that Jack is hiding beneath it and promptly springs to life. ‘Morning, Mum,’ he says, pulling me to him for a kiss. ‘Shall we watch television?’ With that he pulls out the remote control and Saturday-morning TV blasts into the room.

  Someone help me, please. I’m so exhausted I can barely peel my eyes open.

  ‘Jack, get dressed we’re going out to the shops,’ calls my mother.

  Thank goodness. That means I can sleep for a few more hours. I check the time on my mobile, 8.36 a.m. – far too early to do anything. Only real mums go food shopping at this time on a Saturday.

  Lying there in bed, I think about my relationship with Rhodri, and how it’s not looking good. I take the opportunity to compile my Love Curriculum Vitae. Should I find myself truly single again, I can post it on an Internet dating site. From the look of it, the offers will be rolling in.

  Love Curriculum Vitae

  Full name: Maria Lynn Claire Roberts

  Age: 29

  Appearance: just under 5ft 3, brown hair, stubby nose, thunder thighs.

  Education: lots, but none of it proving useful.

  Relationship status: cohabitant with environmental activist (open relationship, but not yet swinging).

  Former relationship history: father of child, absent.

  Location: a council estate, Manchester.

  Estimated assets: minus £90,000 (if you include the mortgage).

  Likes: champagne, good hotels, posh restaurant meals.

  Dislikes: rarely being able to enjoy any of the above.

  Strengths: falls in love quicker than it takes to scratch a lotto card.

  Weaknesses: falls out of love in the same time it took for the Triassic period to turn into the Jurassic period. (That is, many millions of years.)

  Bonus features: ample breasts, tiny waist, extra-large arse.

  Additional extras: might make ideal partner for a hobbit fetishist who appreciates the shorter, dumpier, less trendy version of Cindy Crawford.
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br />   And then I fall asleep.

  It’s almost lunchtime when my mother and Jack return, complete with her disapproving look and a bag of pasties from the bakery down the road. I’ve showered and slapped on some make-up, blow-dried my hair, and slipped on the dress I wore last night. I’ve sprayed it with her Chanel No. 5 to make it smell nice. We sit down to eat.

  ‘When do you go to Edinburgh?’ she asks.

  ‘In about three weeks.’

  ‘Are you going to eat your lunch?’

  I look at the pasty. ‘Give me a minute,’ I say. ‘I haven’t had breakfast yet.’

  I’ll be at the Edinburgh Festival for almost the entire month of August. Last week I caught a glimpse of my play at rehearsals, and it doesn’t look like I imagined it. The lead female dropped out on Christian principles, the next choice turned up, then ran a mile, and the director is heavily pregnant. Now the venue managers where the play is to be staged have gone bankrupt. Everything is going wrong. If I believed in Fate, she’s wagging a finger and saying, ‘Do not go to Edinburgh. Stay at home.’

  ‘Margaret [she means Margaret No. 2] is going to take Jack on holiday and then we’re going to take him away with his cousins. The following week we’ll come to the festival to visit you. We’ll book into a hotel.’

  I turn to Jack. ‘That sounds exciting, doesn’t it, darling?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Jack, his mouth crammed with pasty.

  ‘Rhodri could travel in the car with us,’ adds my mother.

  ‘He’s protesting at the camp for climate action at Heathrow.’

  ‘All summer?’

  ‘Not all summer, but he can’t take time off for holidays after that.’

  I’m going to be on a low income during August. Our bank accounts are overdrawn and it looks likely that the magazine project I’ve been working on will end in October. Maybe I shouldn’t have left my job with Athens. If our financial situation doesn’t improve, come November I’ll have to sell my lady eggs to Americans, then a kidney, and the dodgy little toe on my right foot.