Single Mother on the Verge

by Maria Roberts

  ‘I don’t know how to cook pumpkin and I’ve still got pumpkin in the freezer from last year. Take it.’

  ‘You have it.’

  ‘No, you.’

  ‘No. It’s all right.’

  ‘If you stay, we can share it for dinner.’

  ‘I’m having dinner with some friends this evening.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ I say uncertainly. ‘Are they vegan?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How do you know them?’

  ‘From meetings and protests. We like the same things.’

  ‘That’s great.’

  We both fall quiet for a moment.

  ‘I bet you’re missing my cooking?’ I joke, seriously.

  Rhodri thinks about this. He’s about to lie to please me, but then at the last minute changes his mind: ‘Aiden’s a very good cook. You’re a good cook… but Aiden, well, he’s older and he’s had more experience. You’ll get better.’ Rhodri smirks.

  I grunt and turn to wash the dishes. But I’m happy he’s happy. No, I am. Well, perhaps not happy as such.

  29

  It’s less than two weeks to Christmas. Margaret No. 2 has taken Jack to her house: they’re going to watch Christmas films and eat Christmas food. She’s disappointed that we can’t visit her on Christmas Day because Damien will be there. I said, ‘Don’t worry about us. Think about what’s good for Jack in the long-term. It works for everybody if Damien sorts himself out. Maybe he needs your help right now, and we’ll be okay. We can see you after Christmas.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ she said.

  The perfect antidote to a life collapse is some girl bonding time, so my friends Sybil, Nancy and Emmeline are coming over for a pre-Christmas and pre-birthday meal. Zelda and Prince couldn’t make it. I’ll turn thirty soon. After that night with Damien, I’d wanted to bury my future birthdays in a field. But as I approach thirty it feels time to forget the bad stuff and celebrate again.

  I’m wearing the red Christmas apron with the reindeers laughing all over it. The turkey has been stuffed, basted and roasted: it’s settling on the side, ready to be carved. The vegetables are cooked. When Emmeline gets here, I’ll ask her how she makes those fabulous roasted vegetables she does, and we’ll quickly shove them in the oven. Nancy is vegetarian so she’s having vegetarian haggis. The table is set with candles and crackers.

  The front door is wide open so the girls stride in, spreading festive cheer, bags of wine, chocolates and champagne weighing them down.

  ‘Hello,’ says Sybil, handing over a beautifully wrapped parcel of homemade mince pies as she kisses me.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ says Nancy, handing me a parcel of homemade cookies.

  ‘Hello, hon.’ Emmeline wraps me in a tight hug. ‘How you doing? Smells gorgeous. Oooh, look at that turkey!’

  ‘I’m a vegetarian, and it even smells good to me,’ says Nancy.

  ‘Where shall we put these?’ Sybil asks, clinking bottles of champagne and wine together.

  ‘In the fridge. I have a bottle of champagne chilled already. Who wants a glass?’ It was given to me as a birthday present last year. No better moment to drink it than now.

  It’s only three o’clock and, a bottle of champagne down, we’re seated around the table, sipping wine and waiting for the roasted vegetables to crisp.

  ‘You okay, honey, since Rhodri left?’ asks Emmeline.

  ‘A bit sad,’ I say. ‘It was the right thing to do.’

  ‘You changed everything about yourself for him,’ she says. ‘You couldn’t have compromised much more.’

  ‘I can’t help thinking, If I’d just done this or that it would’ve worked.’

  ‘And all this see-other-men business,’ she says, ‘I don’t think that could work.’

  I don’t know if Emmeline’s right. Rhodri and I separated because ultimately he would have wanted us to move to a commune and drop out of working life altogether. And I couldn’t scrimp any more. I couldn’t inflict that on Jack. ‘Maybe I wouldn’t have stayed with Rhodri so long if I hadn’t had the other men.’

  ‘I don’t think you can truly love someone if you allow them to go with someone else,’ says Nancy.

  ‘Rhodri would say that that’s love. He sees it quite differently. It’s hard to apply the usual argument because the usual argument doesn’t apply.’ Rhodri told me that he was never heartbroken or made jealous by any of this. I think for a moment. ‘I’ll never do it again,’ I add. And I really mean it. I tried all that free-love business but I understand now that I want to be with just one man, not many.

  I arrange the food on the serving dishes and take them to the table to a welcome round of applause. Emmeline sets about carving the turkey while Sybil cracks open the next bottle of champagne.

  After dinner we head into Manchester, where we drink underground at the Temple, a public toilet that was converted into a bar. I’m going to change. I’m going to clear out the men in my life, like I’m sorting out my wardrobe.

  30

  Last night I cleaned the house until one twenty-three a.m. so this morning we’re late for school. I’m beginning to suspect that all the cleaning may have something to do with wanting to bleach out my old life. Despite my good intentions, I didn’t succeed in getting up at six to shower. I’d meant to wear a nice dress, perfect my hair and makeup, and arrive in the playground looking like Audrey Hepburn.

  ‘Why are you still wearing those pants you slept in?’ asks Jack.

  ‘They’re also jogging bottoms,’ I reply. ‘Suitable for jogging to school in when I want to keep fit.’

  ‘But you wear them in bed.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’ That’s a small white lie, but never mind. ‘Have you got your lunchbag?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Reading book?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Homework?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, Jack.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why no homework?’

  ‘I forgot.’

  ‘I can’t remember everything for you,’ I say, trailing off. I can’t remember anything for myself, let alone Jack. I can’t even get dressed. The only space to park the car is a good ten minutes on foot to school. As I’m walking, running, walking towards the entrance I’m aware of the self-pitiful stoop I’ve adopted. My whole body feels as though it’s urging me to give up, collapse on the pavement and be washed into the gutter with the other detritus.

  At the school gates glamorous mums glide past us on their way for coffee at Café Exploit the Third World.

  ‘Let’s run a bit faster, Jack,’ I say breathlessly. I nod to the mums as I race towards the doors, hoping they don’t notice that I’m wearing my pyjamas and haven’t washed my face or brushed my hair.

  Back home I sip my decaffeinated Fairtrade organic instant coffee with Fairtrade organic rice milk and half a spoon of organic Fairtrade unrefined sugar, wishing that one day someone would invite me for mummy-type gossip over coffee. I look in the mirror, hoping to God that Helena Bonham Carter will gaze back at me, but, no, I’m still me. After some mental preparation and a few deep breaths, I take my mobile from my bag, take a seat on the stairs and call Morton. ‘Hi, it’s me.’

  ‘Hello, you. Listen…’ he says, before I have chance to ask him whether he has any honourable intentions towards me at all, and that the purpose of the call is to bring some order to my life by downsizing on the men in it. ‘… there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.’

  ‘What’s that, then?’ I’m hoping it might be that he wants to take on Jack and me as an investment, and fund a decade of Jack’s education at a top public school.

  ‘I’ve met someone. You know how it is, when you meet someone special and… Well, it doesn’t happen every day, does it?’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘So all this with you and me, it can’t go on any more. I get the sense you want a country cottage, with a gate leading up the path and roses growing around the door. I’m not the one to
give that to you.’

  ‘What’s wrong with wanting a cottage with roses growing around the door?’

  ‘Nothing at all. But I don’t want that sort of commitment. This woman, she’s the same age as me, and I’m quite happy sitting with her and filling in the crossword.’

  I’m not hurt. Not really. I’m relieved it’s over. I’m very fond of Morton, but I suppose I always knew he was too old to be the One. We chat for about an hour. He’s enjoying a rare day off and is in a pub filling in a crossword as we speak.

  ‘I’m going now,’ I say finally, because it feels like neither of us wants the conversation to draw to a close.

  ‘But we’ll still be friends?’ he asks. ‘I really want that. I’ve travelled the world and met some impressive people, but…’ he pauses ‘… Maria, you’re the only woman I’ve ever met who’s dragged me in the pissing rain through a graveyard.’

  This next afternoon I arrange a meeting with Jack’s teacher, Miss Lamb. I’m worried about him: two men have entered, then disappeared from his life, and I wonder if he’s having problems at school.

  ‘Take a seat,’ she says, pointing to a very small chair at a very small table. ‘How are things at home?’

  ‘Not bad,’ I say cautiously. ‘Why?’

  ‘Is everything okay with Jack?’

  ‘Well, he’s been a little upset. Some boys have been teasing him. And he said you told him his maths is slipping. He’s proud of being good at maths and he took it very much to heart. He’s a sensitive boy.’

  ‘He’s been quite upset at school.’ She reaches behind her to take one of Jack’s books from a pile. She opens a page and shows me that Jack has scrawled some rather sad faces on what should have been a bar chart. ‘This is all he managed to do during one whole lesson.’

  Quite worrying, I agree. The lines are wobbly, as though he couldn’t hold his pencil still – he’s barely managed to draw a graph at all.

  ‘Jack has broken down crying in class a number of times. When I took him outside to ask what was wrong he told me he missed his dad.’ Miss Lamb looks at me expecting an explanation. But I’ve done that thing I do, pressed my lips together.‘You don’t have to tell me anything,’ she says sympathetically. ‘But it might be helpful if you do.’ She asks, ‘Is there any chance he could see his father?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  We’re not the only single-parent family in the world. I’m not the only mother who works. There are other children whose families have broken up. I’m not the only single mother in the playground.

  ‘My partner has recently moved out. Jack said he wasn’t bothered but maybe he is more than he realizes. Maybe he thinks he’s missing his dad, but he’s missing Rhodri, who was like a father to him.’

  ‘Can Jack still see Rhodri?’ asks Miss Lamb.

  ‘Yes. He’ll still come over. It’s amicable,’ I say.

  ‘That’s good,’ says Miss Lamb.

  I drive with Jack over to my mother’s house. She and my stepfather are at work but the heating is sure to be on, so the house will be cosy, and she always has a fine selection of tea, juice, sweets and biscuits. It’s the ideal neutral place for me to have a chat with Jack. Our own house is too full of history.

  When we arrive, I make us some snacks and we head up to my old room and snuggle up in bed watching television, Jack tucked under my arm. I hand him biscuits and hot Vimto, which I let him sip as I hold it.

  ‘Jack,’ I say gently, ‘I had a word with Miss Lamb today. She’s worried about you. She says you walked out of the classroom crying the other day.’ I try to detach him from me, but he clings on, all arms and legs. If I could just see his face, I could make him smile. But, no, he won’t let me.

  ‘At school,’ he says, beginning to cry, ‘they keep asking me about my dad and they know not to. I told Saul that I didn’t see my dad and he told everyone that my dad is a murderer, so I threw him against the wall.’

  ‘No, no, you mustn’t do that. You must tell a teacher.’

  ‘I have told the teacher but she doesn’t do anything, just says to them, “Don’t do that.” Finlay’s always, always going on about his dad and it drives me mad and he’s doing it on purpose, I know he is, and then he asks me where my dad is and I have to say I don’t know.’

  ‘What about deep-sea diving with sharks in New Zealand, like we said?’

  ‘Because he isn’t.’

  Imagination, Jack, use your imagination.

  All of this hurts Jack, I can feel it. It’s not like when he cries at being told off, or when he’s fallen off his skateboard: these sobs come from deep down in his stomach, somewhere even Vimto can’t reach. Not even hot Vimto. When will we stop struggling with this? It’s been years.

  ‘It’s all right for you, you have a dad,’ he says. ‘You don’t know how this feels. And you go to see your dad and you have a sister and you have stepbrothers.’

  ‘You have three granddads and lots of people who love you, and friends and cousins and uncles.’

  ‘But it isn’t the same.’ He unhooks his arms from my neck, turns his back to me and presses his cheek against the bedroom wall. ‘You don’t understand. You don’t know how it feels.’

  ‘I’m trying to understand, Jack, but you’re right, I don’t know how it feels. But I’m trying, love.’

  Jack becomes distraught. I’m not helping him at all. I’m making things worse.

  ‘I want to see my dad and I want to see my half-brother,’ he says angrily. He thinks that if he says this firmly enough I’ll give in.

  ‘Sweetheart, I don’t think he’s changed. If he had, then you could see him. And when you’re older, able to catch a bus, that kind of thing, fifteen perhaps, you can. But right now you need your mum.’

  Jack furrows his brow. Not good enough, I hear him think.

  ‘It’s better to have a mum who’s healthy and happy,’ I try to explain, ‘and able to look after you and have fun with you, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And if your dad was around then maybe I wouldn’t be able to do that – because he made me very unhappy, Jack, and I wasn’t able to be a good mum. I was sad and crying all the time. I don’t want him in our lives. I don’t want him coming to the house.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have to come to the house.’

  ‘No.’

  There’s silence between us. I don’t know how to pull Jack back to me.

  ‘What did he do to you?’ asks Jack.

  ‘He hurt me.’

  ‘I know that, you told me that. I want to know what he did. Tell me.’ He says it again, persuasively, softly: ‘Please tell me.’

  There’s a moment of awkward silence between us. There’s only one right answer: ‘I’m going to, Jack.’

  For a long time we sit on the bed. Jack curled up on my lap, holding on tight, weeping hard, trying to talk, but not able to. ‘I can’t say what I’m thinking,’ he says.

  ‘You must,’ I urge. ‘If you say it, it won’t feel so bad.’

  ‘It’s too bad to say.’

  ‘Nothing’s that bad.’

  ‘It’s horrible to say.’

  ‘Say it, then it’s gone. Whisper it.’

  I brush my hair to one side so he can whisper in my ear: ‘I wish I never had a dad.’ He says it again strongly: ‘I wish I never had a dad.’

  31

  I’ve failed my son because I’m absolutely incapable of sustaining a relationship.

  What a fuck-up.

  Last night Jack slept in my bed. He was fitful, coughing and kicking out, so I moved and slept in his bed. I had an awful nightmare, the one where a beast creature enters the house and tries to kill me. It has hairy legs and a nasty face. I tried to get back to sleep but the dogs next door barked and barked, the rabbits banged about in the hutch and a drunk couple picked a fight by the back gate. It’s past ten o’clock, and I still can’t lift my head from my pillow. Which means we’re very late for school again. Which means I must have hit snooze. So
I’m still in bed, but Jack is obviously awake because the television’s blaring downstairs. What will the note say? ‘Mummy couldn’t be bothered to take me to school yesterday, so she didn’t’?

  As I’m stranded in bed for the foreseeable future, I decide to use my horizontal status productively. Unable to do that, I brood. What now? Do I get up, get dressed, feign a dental appointment for Jack, or just stay here in bed? I try again to get up. No, not happening today.

  Who now? I consider past boyfriends, former bosses, acquaintances I bump into from time to time, any man who has ever sent me an email/smiled/delivered post to my door. Neighbours. God, no, not one of my neighbours.

  Did Rhodri and I actually make the decision to split up – and stick to it?

  I actually made a decision. I made a decision? Things are looking up.

  Jack tumbles up the stairs muttering, ‘Ouch, ouch.’ It’s his favourite word at the moment. ‘What you doing, Mum?’ He yawns.

  I’m on his bed, wrapped in his fake Doctor Who duvet, a Dalek pillow under my head and his favourite teddy under my arm. ‘You took up all the room in my bed, so I got into yours. Give us a hug.’

  Jack throws himself on top of me, wrestling my neck into a headlock.

  ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’ I ask.

  ‘I have stomach ache.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ I say, thinking, That’ll do. No school today. Jack said he was ill and I can’t be cruel and force him to go to school. ‘Is it a very bad stomach ache?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Jack, screwing up his face and rubbing his tummy for effect.

  ‘Oh, you poor thing,’ I say. ‘No sweets and crisps for you today but lots of green veg to fill you up with vitamins to help fight that bug!’

  ‘Okay.’ He grimaces.

  Even a diet of salad and vegetables seems preferable to him than a day at school. I check his forehead. No temperature. He could really be ill. But he climbs off me and hunts for PlayStation games, so perhaps not.

  ‘No PlayStation if you’re ill,’ I say.

  He pulls out a Dandy from his bookshelf and reads to me, putting on an accent that sounds Scottish for the voice of Desperate Dan.