The Motherhood Walk of Fame

by Shari Low

  And if he didn’t come over, what then? A long-distance relationship? Yeah, right. I’d been here two weeks and I’d already had a near miss in the sexual department. If I was here on my own permanently there was no way that my restraint and discipline would stand up to the pressure.

  So that left…What? Separation? Divorce? Sam? Sure, I could just move on in with Sam and play happy families. But how did I really feel about him? Did I love him enough to make a permanent relationship work? What if we tried and it didn’t last–what kind of crap mother would that make me? I’d then have subjected the boys to TWO father figures only for neither of them to work out.

  Oh, listen to me. One bit of lust and I already had Sam and me married, divorced and my kids in therapy.

  I heard footsteps padding around in the condo. Sam must be up getting a drink.

  For a split second I wondered if he’d come through but I knew he wouldn’t. Sam would never pressure me. Whatever happened from here on in was going to be down to me. I had to make the decisions and the moves. Mac kicked me in the face, as if reminding me of his presence. Okay, I was just getting to you. Because whatever I decided had to be the best thing for the three of us. And right at that very moment, I had absolutely no idea what the best thing was.

  CARLY CALLING…

  Carly to Kate and Carol:

  Survivd the skiing but storm brewng. Wish u wer here–need moral compass, pals and padlock 4 nethers. Help.

  Kate:

  Oh crap, knew this wd happn. DO NOT do anythg stupid. Do Not! Think pure thots & if that fails think thrush. Legs crosd yet? Anywy, need 2 talk–call me 18r. Kxxx

  Carol:

  Carol:

  Carol:

  No reply from Carol. Strange.

  Step Nine

  ‘Mum, Benny’s got his foot on my half of the seat!’

  ‘Haven’t.’

  ‘Have.’

  ‘Haven’t.’

  ‘Have.’

  ‘What’s the penalty in LA for child abandonment?’ I asked Sam. ‘Because whatever it is, it’s worth it.’

  It had been the journey from hell. The kids were overexcited, exhausted and suffering from arguably the worst childhood affliction imaginable: dead batteries in the Game Boy.

  If I could have managed it, I’d have chewed off my own ears. I now understood why taxi drivers have soundproof glass between the front and back sections of their cabs.

  ‘Mac!!’ Benny shouted in ear-splitting ire at something or another–perhaps a spare toe dangling into his personal space.

  ‘MY NAME IS NOT MAC!’ said Mac. Or at least a child who looked very like the one I’d given birth to and called by that name.

  ‘So what’s your name then?’ I asked him.

  ‘Doctor Octopus.’

  ‘But Doctor Octopus is a baddie.’

  ‘I know. I want to be a baddie now. Being a goodie is boring.’

  Oh, sweet Jesus, he’d gone over to the dark side. I just hoped we could get him back or it would be Doctor Octopus today, tomorrow a drug-dealing service and a stable of women who charged by the hour.

  ‘Think I should be concerned?’ I asked Sam, who, after all, did have experience of the ‘charging by the hour’ bit.

  ‘Nah. I play an intergalactic lawyer in my next movie–I’ll make sure he only gets parole.’

  ‘MUM, Doctor Octopus just hit me!’

  I zoned out. I glanced at Sam to see if his knuckles were white and his jaw was clenched, but he looked remarkably calm. He’d make a great father one day. Oh, I wasn’t even going to go down that train of thought again. I’d stored the whole Sam/Me/Naked/Relationship saga in the ‘On Hold’ file. I wasn’t even going to give it another thought. That wasn’t to say I wouldn’t occasionally look at his body in a lustful manner–after all, I was married, not dead–but my priority had to be the studio meetings and I’d resolved to stop ruminating and fretting about everything else for the time being. There was nothing I could do about Sam being amazing. There was nothing I could do about my husband being a twat. And there was nothing I could do about the fact that Benny had Doctor Octopus in a headlock. Actually, there was, but on the bright side it was keeping them quiet.

  Sam was fairly nonchalant too, but then, this had a precedent. Years before, when the whole ‘I’m a male hooker’ debacle came out and put the kibosh on us reigniting our relationship, we’d gone to Thailand for an extended holiday and had weeks of non-sexual bliss together. We were good at platonic. Hadn’t we once spent weeks on a tropical island without so much as a tickly fumble? And Sam was the type of guy who, now that he’d shared his feelings and got everything out in the open, would let destiny take its course instead of trying to force it. I’d always thought he was a wise old head on young, perfectly formed, tanned shoulders.

  Still, it was a relief when Sam’s home appeared in front of us. Only one lone photographer at the entrance today–the others must have sussed that Sam was out of town and gone off to stalk Leonardo DiCaprio instead.

  Thankfully, as we drove through the electronic gates, Sam put Benny’s squeals of ‘Go back, do again, do again,’ down to fatigue and possible concussion resulting from Doctor Octopus scudding him with a ski boot. It was already almost seven o’clock–time for the boys to be in bed. As we headed up the driveway, I was mentally planning a quick but healthy dinner for the kids (chicken with vegetables that I would pretend not to see when they got sneaked into the bin) then a dip in the bath, then bed.

  After which, I’d have a long soak myself, perhaps a light dinner with Sam out by the pool and then an early night so that I was fresh and alert for my big day. I was ready. So ready. Nothing but nothing was going to stand in my way, I resolved.

  Then I noticed that something was standing in my way.

  Eliza. She’d come out to greet us and help us in with our assorted baggage, child, arch evil nemesis and alligator.

  I gave her a kiss on the cheek. ‘Hi there,’ I greeted her.

  ‘Eliza!’ screamed the boys as they rushed into her arms. They’d known her for a fortnight yet already she was Mary Poppins.

  She grabbed Archie from the boot of the car.

  ‘I have some news for you.’

  Silence.

  ‘Carly,’ she added.

  I jolted.

  ‘Oh, sorry–I thought you were talking to Archie. Apologies. It’s just that we’ve been doing it all weekend. He’s become the pet we never had. Or wanted. Anyway, news? Me?’

  ‘Ike Tusker’s office called. He told me not to disturb you in Mammoth.’

  My stomach started to turn. Ike Tusker! That must mean he had more meetings lined up for me.

  ‘He said your meetings have been cancelled…’

  The kick, when it came, almost doubled me in two. Oh no.

  ‘…and rescheduled for next week, Monday and Tuesday.’

  Knees like jelly, giddy relief. And actually, that probably wasn’t a bad thing because it would give me even more time to prepare. I could spend the whole weekend relaxing and maybe even fit in a wee bit of pampering. I could bribe Jojo into giving me another overhaul with the promise of more Miami Vice. I could take up yoga. Get in touch with my higher self. Top up my karma so that the cosmos would deliver wondrous things–like a movie deal and a face free of wrinkles…

  ‘Although he did say that the delay would mean that he couldn’t accompany you as he’ll be out of town, but he said that because they’re just introductory meetings that wouldn’t be a problem.’

  Okay. Fine. I could do that. After all, how scary could major movie moguls be? I decided to overlook the fact that they were the kind of people who were responsible for things like Alien, Freddy Krueger and Armageddon.

  ‘Thanks, Eliza.’

  ‘And also…’ she started, unable to disguise a definite grin. ‘You have company.’

  It took a second to sink in. Company. Whitney and Cilla from the LAPD back for an encore? No, their squad car would have been in the drive.


  Company? I looked at Sam; there was a distinct tension in his eyes.

  It seemed like everyone stopped for a second, no one sure how to react. Then reality caught up with me. Company. Company! That could only mean one thing–the one person I’d been hoping and praying would get their act together for long enough to do the decent thing and get over here. The person who’d been on my mind since the moment I got here (with the slight exception of a few minutes when my mind was being controlled by anatomy of the genital orientation).

  Oh, I was so ready for company. I was so ready for

  ‘Hi honey,’ came the voice. My eyes darted over to the doorway. ‘Did ya miss me?’

  There, in total, complete, resounding Technicolor splendour was…Carol!

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Carol! Oh. My. God. I ran over and threw my arms around her, swiftly followed by two boys screaming, ‘Auntie Carol, Auntie Carol!’

  My heart was still racing. I’d been so sure for a split second there that it was going to be my bloody knight in shining armour, sweeping in on a big dramatic entrance to save our marriage from the clutches of doom. Hah! If God loved an optimist then I just got a free ticket for the big white gates.

  Meanwhile, I wondered if poor Eliza realised she’d just been trumped in the boys’ shallow scale of affection. There was no contest. To them, their favourite aunt meant love, attention and, most importantly, new toys.

  Carol laughed as she lifted them up and hugged them simultaneously. Not bad for a woman who makes Kate Moss look meaty.

  ‘I’ve got toys for you inside, my darlings,’ she said as they squealed with delight.

  I joined in the group hug. ‘I’m so glad to see you,’ I murmured. Then, aware that Sam was far enough away that he couldn’t hear, I continued, ‘I’ve got so much to tell you. And I swear to God I want a medal for my powers of restrai—’

  ‘Great,’ she interrupted, shrieking so loudly that she startled the kids. Had she been mainlining caffeine again? She definitely had a manic look about her.

  ‘Anyway, I have a present for you too,’ she said in a distinctly odd voice.

  ‘Carol, you shouldn’t have,’ I scolded her. After all, I’d only been away for two weeks.

  ‘You know something, you could be right,’ she said, her eyes darting from me to Sam then back to me again.

  I laughed. ‘Okay, if it’s Gucci I’ll accept it. Just to make you feel better, of course.’

  ‘It’s not Gucci, I’m afraid. It’s…’

  ‘It’s me.’

  It took me a few moments to register that her voice had dropped a few octaves. Or that it was now coming from the direction of the door. Or that, if I listened real close, I could hear a low, slow exhalation coming from Sam. Or that my children were now screaming like they were on a roller coaster at a totally vertical angle.

  There was no drama and no sweeping. And the jury was definitely still out on whether he would save our marriage from the clutches of doom.

  But Mark Barwick had come to the party.

  ‘I know my powers of perception are not known for their reliability, but do you want to tell me what’s going on with you and Sam?’

  Busted.

  But then I knew that already. Mark had barely got past the ‘Hi honey, I’ve pined for you every moment of the day…’ bit (okay, so I made that up, but he did say hello) when he held up ‘exhibit for the prosecution number one’–heat magazine. And there, in full Technicolor, was a picture of me kissing Sam as I got out of his car at the Peninsula Hotel. And no, the mercenary gits hadn’t got my good side. On pages three, four and five were step-by-step snaps of what happened next–the walk across the foyer, the stumble, the fall…all underneath the headline ‘Drunken shame of Morton’s new lady’. With the subheading, ‘Honey, hooker or hired help? Just who is Morton’s new unstable gal-pal?’

  Fame at last–and it consisted of grainy photographs of an episode that left me with skinned knees. So that’s what Kate wanted to talk to me about–‘Hi hon, don’t know how to break it to you but your arse is all over heat.’

  Of course, Mark wasn’t bothered in the least about the mag. He was already on the way over when he picked it up from a newsagent’s at Heathrow.

  And anyway, he was smart enough to know it was all nonsense.

  But Carol…well, as she always says, there’s no smoke without matches.

  She’d cornered me in the kitchen on the pretence that we were replenishing everyone’s drinks. Eliza had gone home for the night, after rearranging the household sleeping arrangements. Mark had been moved into my room, the boys had been moved to a smaller room next door, and Carol was further along the corridor.

  ‘So, Hawaii, wow!’ I said breezily, remarking on her announcement that she’d just decided to come for a few days’ stopover en route to Honolulu for a Pringle photo-shoot. Jumpers. On the beach.

  ‘Don’t avoid the question,’ she hissed.

  Woah. I peeked out of the window to check where everyone was. Mark and Sam were sitting by the pool having a beer. A sight that I’d have thought was perfectly normal a few weeks ago, but that now made me want to have a long lie down in a dark room with an oxygen tank. Mark and I hadn’t had two minutes alone since the big reunion a couple of hours earlier. There had been one awkward hug/kiss thing, which would have been excruciating had the kids not glued over the fact that we had no idea how to react to each other. It was difficult to be passionate, even if we’d been so inclined, when there were small children hanging from limbs.

  Now Benny and Doctor Octopus were playing in the pool, despite the fact that it was way past their bedtime and darkness had fallen. Thankfully, Sam had installed more floodlights than most Premiership football teams.

  Okay, the coast was clear and my interrogator was waiting.

  ‘Come on, what’s going on with you two?’ she probed again.

  ‘Do you want the truth? Or shall I fob you off with something innocuous until I can get into a witness protection programme?’

  ‘Truth.’

  ‘I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. Okay, here’s the short version–chapter and verse would take too long. Sam thinks he might be falling in love with me. I’ve no idea how I feel about him any more, apart from the definite, irrefutable fact that I could spend at least a fortnight doing filthy things to him. I don’t know where things stand with Mark and me, but I’m skidding across that thin line between love and hate on an hourly basis. And everything could depend on what happens with the movie studios because they might want me to move out here and how would Mark feel about that? Let me tell you–colonic irrigation would have more appeal. And meanwhile, I love it here, Carol, I love it so much. It’s an amazing life. I could live here forever. And so could the boys. Look at them! I haven’t seen them this happy since they flooded the kitchen to make an indoor paddling pool. But anyway, nothing has happened between Sam and me that involved contact with internal organs. I promise. And I don’t have my fingers crossed,’ I finished, holding up my hands as evidence.

  ‘That was the short version?’ she asked archly.

  I nodded. ‘What do you think? Be objective, but bear in mind that I’m your sister-in-law and that means love, devotion and free babysitting.’

  She leaned back against the worktop and gave the impression of serious thought. Although Carol is a model so she can conjure up any expression at will–what looked like ‘deep, emotional, pensive contemplation’ on the outside could quite easily be ‘wonder how many calories are in that fajita’ on the inside.

  ‘I think you’re stuck between a rock and a stone,’ she observed meaningfully. She continued, ‘I know that Kate feels sorry for Mark, but I’m with you. I’d be gutted if Cal didn’t support me in something that was really important to me. But Sam? Dangerous move, Carly You should really think about it before you do anything crazy.’ She glanced off in the direction of the window. Sam was now standing up on the diving board, every muscle gleaming in the moonlight. ‘Aw, fuc
k it, go for crazy, he’s bloody gorgeous.’

  I laughed and gave her a hug. ‘Crude, superficial and completely lacking in morals–I’m so glad you’re here.’

  Mark put the boys to bed, both of them having an internal tussle between exhaustion and excitement. One day they would have the emotional maturity to pick up on the tense vibes that were definitely present. Actually, cancel that–they’re male, so perhaps not. I was just thankful that Carol was there to be outrageous, witty and keep the conversation flowing. Sam, to his credit, acted completely normally. But then, that calibre of acting skill was why he was in movies and not washing-powder commercials. Occasionally, our eyes would meet and I’d catch just a glance of a smile. Mark, on the other hand, found it difficult even to look at me. The mountain may have come to Mohammad but it was obviously still extremely pissed off.

  Sam and Carol made their excuses and went off to bed around midnight.

  Showdown time.

  I half-expected to hear death knells sounding in the Hollywood Hills.

  He was already in bed when I came out of the bathroom. I stripped and climbed in beside him. He didn’t move–just lay there, staring at the ceiling. Now, until a few weeks before that point in our lives, there were very few things that irritated me about my husband. However, as I may have mentioned before, his ability to ignore an argument drove me nuts. He would quite happily have laid there staring at the ceiling for twenty minutes until he nodded off to sleep, leaving words unspoken, insults unhurled and ornaments unbroken.