Mummy Said the F-Word

by Fiona Gibson

  ‘Um, well,’ he blustered, ‘maybe a home’s your only option.’

  My option? Oh, of course. I was Big Chief Baddie. Cocky, capable Adam had always been Mum’s darling son, and now has a flourishing website design business. What had I ever done? Facilitated my own conception with the sole aim of destroying her health. I was never going to make anything of myself with my sturdy thighs. When he left home, Adam’s room was preserved and shown to visitors, like John Lennon’s. Mine was filled with clothes horses and the deceased twin tub.

  ‘Hi, Caitlin, Jeannie’s in great form today, isn’t she?’ Helena emerges from the manager’s office as Travis and I break for freedom. She seems to like my mother. It would be churlish to say, ‘Actually, no, I found her to be particularly evil today.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘she seemed really chirpy.’ Which makes her sound like a budgerigar.

  Cool air hits my face as we step outside. Our visit lasted approximately fourteen minutes, of which I am extraordinarily proud. Sometimes we have it wrapped up in ten. Yet, as usual, I’m tinged with guilt as I take Travis’s hand. Helena seems to have unearthed a different Jeannie – a Jeannie who’s frequently ‘in great form’ and often has the other inmates ‘in stitches’. Of course it’s different for Helena. Caring for Mum is her job. Being her daughter is more complicated.

  Visiting Mum tends to plunge me into low-level gloom, a situation best remedied with a steamy bath in which I’ve poured all manner of sweet-scented gloop. I sink deep, enjoying the calm that descends on the house once the children are in bed. Millie jammed this week’s Bambino into my bag and I flip through it idly. There’s a feature on playing in the snow with your children, as if you might need a 2,000-word article to tell you how to do that. ‘Relish the moment as your child experiences snow’s downy softness and catches a snowflake on his tongue.’ Yeah, yeah. And has a fistful rammed down the back of his jacket by his foul elder brother. Naturally, the apple-cheeked children in Bambino never pick up what looks like a stone for their snowman’s nose but which turns out to be frozen dog doo.

  I skim through the fashion pages – zingy hand-knits fashioned from Peruvian alpaca – and settle on Harriet Pike’s problem page.

  Dear Harriet,

  How can I stop my daughter nagging to be bought things every time we go shopping? It has escalated to the point where we can’t even go into ordinary shops, like a chemist’s, without her pleading to be bought an Alice band, nail polish, lipstick, novelty bubble bath and numerous items which she does not need and I cannot afford.

  It’s exhausting, stressful and I worry that I have inadvertently brought up a spoilt little madam. Sometimes I do buy her a small treat to keep her quiet, but that just seems to trigger an avalanche of nagging.

  Please help.

  Desperate, Plymouth

  Dear Desperate,

  Nagging in shops is a stage that virtually every child goes through. However, you are probably part of the problem. In buying her treats, you are sending the message that nagging is effective and reaps rewards. Never mind the nine times you’ve said no; the occasion when you crumbled is the one she’ll remember. So, no more spontaneous purchases. That’s my absolute rule. By giving in to nagging, you’re fuelling a child’s greed. Try instead to switch the focus from buying to actually doing things with your daughter, like reading together, making collages or baking cookies. Such activities should distract her from rampant materialism.

  Perhaps you and your partner are setting a poor example in always craving the latest laptop or plasma-screen TV? Remember that children often pick up on and mimic our most unappealing traits …

  Poor Desperate! She spills out her fears and what does she get in return? A verbal slapping. Rampant materialism, for God’s sake. What are we talking – a hairband and a bottle of Matey? Never a trip to Boots goes by without Lola bleating for a fish-shaped soap or a box of ‘boutique’ tissues in a flower-sprigged box. One time she nagged for a bottle of Listerine, thinking it was some newfangled drink that turned your tongue blue. Anything with a barcode on it, basically. Does this mean that she, at seven years old, is a rampant materialist too?

  ‘Don’t take your daughter shopping,’ Harriet concludes, ‘until she stops expecting you to succumb to her every whim.’

  And what should Desperate do when she needs to go shopping? Lock up her daughter in the airing cupboard? There’s no mention of a husband or boyfriend. She writes ‘I’, not ‘we’. Perhaps she, too, has been binned by her husband in favour of some young slapper with pert breasts. I slam Bambino on to the side of the bath. Clearly, Harriet Pike has never produced children of her own. It’s generally the child-free who glower at you as your kid drops his pants by the sensory garden for the sight-impaired and starts peeing.

  I loom over Bambino and scowl at Pike’s picture. You can tell from her face that she believes you’ll cause irreparable damage by allowing your children to watch more than four minutes of TV a week, and that their pleas for a hair bobble are – of course! – all your fault for not locating vast expanses of pristine snow for them to frolic in. No doubt Pike would reckon that I shouldn’t be lying in this bath, but filling it with non-GM grapes and jumping on them to make juice for my deprived babies. Adam and I were raised on boxed Vesta curries. By rights, we should be dead.

  I clamber out of the bath, skewering my heel on Travis’s plastic pterodactyl. As I dry myself, I realise that blood from my foot is blotting the towel and dripping on to the chequered vinyl floor. There are wine-coloured daubs, like evidence at a crime scene. Cursing under my breath, I try to clean the floor with a spongy wipe, but the blood keeps oozing out so I concentrate on binding my foot in loo roll. Thus bandaged, I hobble upstairs and peep in on the kids, who are all zonked out in their beds, then slip gratefully into my own.

  Things could be worse. I could be Desperate of Plymouth with her wilting hair and murky shadows under her eyes. All she did was go to the chemist’s, probably for something innocuous – a box of plasters or a packet of Rennies. Normal stuff that you don’t stop needing just because you’re a mother. Like me, she’ll be lying in bed right now trying to calm her racing heart and reassure herself that the terrible scene in the shop wasn’t really her fault. What do agony aunts know about real people’s lives?

  My heel throbs urgently. I want to phone that Pike woman this minute and tell her to take a damn hike.

  5

  ‘Sorry to land this on you, Caitlin. I know things are difficult at the moment.’ Ross attempts to beam sympathy across his cheap-looking desk. What he’s actually landed on me is the fact that vitalworld.com has gone bust, thus rendering my latest batch of copy surplus to requirements and sending my outstanding invoices into some weird, shadowy zone involving creditors’ forms and court. Then, after some unspecified period, I ‘might’ get paid ‘eventually’.

  The Vitalworld offices are in Camden. As I was summoned here at short notice, I’ve had no option but to bring Travis with me.

  ‘When did you know this was happening?’ I ask, trying to keep the agitation out of my voice.

  ‘Only found out yesterday. You know how it is with these things …’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  Of course I don’t know. I feel helpless. It’s hardly feasible to launch into a rant while keeping one eye on Travis, who’s having tremendous fun filling one plastic cup after another from the water-cooler. It’s a Purity Springs model – Daisy’s company – which seems particularly cruel. Its turquoise droplet-shaped logo glows in the periphery of my vision. It looks like a teardrop. I wonder if Daisy has been here, and if any of the Vitalworld staff have enjoyed her deluxe after-sales service too.

  ‘So I’m redundant,’ Ross adds lamely, ‘as of the end of the week.’

  ‘That must be, um, worrying.’ I try, unsuccessfully, to look as if I care.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll get plenty of other work, Cait. You’ve been great. Fast, reliable, never let us down. I’m so sorry it’s ended like this.’
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br />   ‘Yes, me too.’ Now I’m a second-hand car: good runner, full service history.

  As Travis and I leave the office, I realise what an utter twit I’ve been not to see this coming and to have relied on Vitalworld as my main source of income for so long. For months now, they have repeatedly ‘lost’ my invoices and palmed me off with crap about system problems. I didn’t used to be such a wimp. Along with the telly, Martin took my courage and guts and jumped all over them with his bloody great size-eleven feet.

  We wait for the lift, with Travis jabbing its buttons randomly. Harriet Pike would suggest that if I object to my infant’s button-pressing tendencies, I shouldn’t take him to places that have buttons. I should leave him at home to poke crayons into sockets.

  ‘Where we going, Mummy?’ he asks as we step out into the fug of Camden Road.

  ‘We’ve just got time to go home, get the car and take the TV in for repair.’

  ‘Telly fixed!’ Delighted, he charges headlong into my legs.

  No matter how hard you toil with your collages and cookies – thank you, Pike – all children really want is a functioning screen.

  Now all I have to do is find a way to pay for the damn thing.

  The TV hospital is in Bethnal Green Road, about half a mile from home.

  ‘I don’t see many of these,’ the repair boy says, sniggering at our deceased appliance. ‘Where the heck d’you get it?’ He has a broad smile and is in his late twenties at a guess – a mere boy from an addled mother’s perspective.

  ‘From a friend’s attic, actually.’ I’m still panting from hauling the dratted thing in from the car.

  TV Doc’s eyes glint with amusement. ‘Is it steam-powered?’

  I find myself smiling back as Travis barges past him in order to access the alluring buttons of the display TVs. ‘Probably. It’s Fanta-powered now, anyway. My daughter sloshed a drink down the back and it just, um … went off.’

  He nods sagely. He is still young enough to be termed cute; once a man passes thirty, his cuteness has begun to morph into something else.

  ‘Fanta,’ he repeats.

  ‘Yes. I don’t normally let her have it,’ I add quickly, as if he might be an undercover accomplice of Harriet Pike’s.

  He arches an eyebrow in an undeniably flirtatious manner.

  ‘She’d normally have water or fresh juice,’ I charge on, ‘but I needed to finish some work and she’d spotted it in the fridge and …’

  Confusion has clouded his eyes.

  ‘Teeth,’ I add. ‘Acid erosion and all that.’

  TV Doc smiles. ‘Don’t have them myself. Kids, I mean. Listen, the best thing you could do with this heap of junk is dump it. Don’t let your husband take it apart and start fiddling with it. He’ll be wasting his time.’

  I want to tell him, ‘I don’t have a husband, a job or, as you’re aware, a working telly.’

  ‘Do you sell second-hand TVs?’ I ask.

  ‘Sure. Hang on and I’ll see what I’ve got reconditioned in the back.’

  For Travis, the day is panning out marvellously. First the water-cooler to play with in Ross’s office; now a shop filled with flickering screens and no siblings to dictate what he watches. He has settled happily on the tatty carpet, a beatific smile on his face. I speed-read a gaudy red-and-yellow sign:

  Quality repairs on all major brands of TV’s, VCR’s, Computer’s, Laptop’s, Security System’s, Camcorder’s and Vacuum-Cleaner’s. Competitive Rate’s. No hidden Cost’s. Ask Darren for Quote’s.

  So many things can go wrong these days, not least the use of apostrophes.

  Before he’d commenced his shiny new life, ‘broken things’ had been Martin’s domain. It had hit me that I was man-less on a practical level when I’d dragged our wheelie bin on to the pavement for refuse collection. There’s an awkward corner you have to turn, and the bin toppled over like an enormous drunk person, spewing festering rubbish everywhere. I stood there in my dented slippers staring at sweetcorn tins and bread wrappers, and conscious of Mrs Catchpole next door gawping in horror from her path. ‘Dearie me,’ she muttered, hurrying in through her front door and slamming it behind her.

  The bin had cracked. There was no Martin to fix this, no strapping husband to make everything all right. Fuelled by anger and determination, I charged into the house, flew back out with a roll of bin liners and stuffed in every last putrefying chicken drumstick. I mended the bin’s crack with thick black tape and bunged the bin bags into it. Then I went back inside and enjoyed the longest shower of my life, with no adult male grumbling, ‘What are you doing in there?’ See, Martin? Who needs a farting, bollock-scratching man to fix things?

  ‘What’s that man doing?’ Travis demands from the floor.

  ‘He’s trying to find a new TV for us.’

  ‘This is all I’ve got at the moment, if you want reconditioned.’ TV Doc has emerged from the back room, brandishing a portable TV.

  ‘How much?’ I ask.

  He quotes a price which seems ridiculously low.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yeah, no problem. Leave me your name and number and I’ll call you if anything else comes in. This’ll tide you over for now. Are you after a combo or an LCD or a plasma screen?’

  He gives a cheeky look, which I shoot back. ‘Just one with, you know, pictures.’

  He grins and hands me a pad on which to write my name and number. As we leave, he winks in a way that could be plain creepy, but somehow manages to be cute. Yes, he’s definitely the right side of cute. The blush whooshes up from my chest.

  ‘See you around, Caitlin,’ he says.

  ‘See you, um …’

  ‘Darren.’

  ‘Thanks, Darren.’

  I’m still beaming stupidly as I drive our new fourteen-inch baby home.

  Buggeration. Martin has showed up half an hour early to collect the children for a weekend of joy and splendour. He’s stepping out of his car looking spruce in dark jeans and an expensive-looking soft grey sweater. Handsome bastard.

  I watch his approaching form through the living-room window. No one is ready. I have yet to pack the kids’ clothes. (Although their possessions are accumulating at Slapper Towers, and Martin is perfectly capable of operating a washing machine, I cannot stomach the idea of her laundering their stuff. I can picture her wincing as she examines grubby collars and greying whites.)

  ‘You’re early,’ I remark as I let him in.

  ‘Better than late, isn’t it?’ He saunters into the living room as if he owns the place, which he still does (well, half of it) and frowns at our new TV. ‘What happened to the telly?’

  ‘It shrunk.’

  ‘Seriously, where’s that crappy ancient thing Millie gave you?’

  ‘Lola poured a can of Fanta down the back.’

  ‘Fanta?’ he repeats, slanting his eyes.

  ‘Yes, you know – the fizzy orangey drink.’

  ‘Since when did Lola have Fanta?’

  Fury fizzles inside me. ‘Are you criticising me for giving her a treat for completing her school star chart?’

  This is a fib. The Fanta was a bribe, not a reward.

  ‘Of course not,’ Martin blusters. ‘I just thought we agreed they wouldn’t have fizzy drinks.’

  Oh, we agreed lots of things – for instance, that we wouldn’t screw other people.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re lecturing me,’ I snarl, wondering when this will become easier and we’ll be able to ‘manage’ each other, like tolerant work colleagues, without spite.

  ‘Sorry,’ Martin murmurs, perching on the sofa’s threadbare arm. ‘Guess I’m just upset about last weekend.’

  ‘What, because we went to Thorpe Park too?’ My voice is clipped, like a doctor’s receptionist’s. It’s not a voice I like.

  Martin sighs and glances upwards, as if trying to penetrate the ceiling with his gaze. Jake and Lola are supposed to be choosing their clothes. Lola will probably interpret this as embroidered jeans, r
ainbow tights and the old-lady furry hat that she insisted on buying at the school car-boot sale, but no sweaters or pants.

  ‘Hello, Daddy.’ She wanders into the room, dragging her zebra-striped wheelie suitcase, closely followed by Travis and Jake.

  ‘Hi, guys,’ Martin says, beaming. ‘We’re going to have such fun this weekend, aren’t we?’ He touches Jake’s shoulder as if testing if paint has dried.

  ‘What are we doing?’ Lola asks warily.

  ‘I thought we could go to the zoo, and there’s a space exhibition at the Science Museum – they’re showing a 3-D film. It sounds brilliant.’

  ‘Great,’ Jake enthuses.

  ‘I wish Mummy was coming,’ Lola whispers.

  ‘You don’t want me there,’ I respond quickly. ‘You’ll have a great time with Daddy.’

  She blinks at him. ‘Can we see the penguins?’

  ‘They’re not at the Science Museum,’ Jake scoffs.

  ‘No, I mean at the zoo …’ Hurt flickers in her eyes.

  ‘Of course we can, darling,’ Martin says hurriedly. ‘Right, is everyone packed and ready?’

  ‘I’ll just fetch Travis’s bag,’ I murmur, grateful for an excuse to vacate the room.

  Martin follows me upstairs. I feel so self-conscious with him clomping behind me, and canter up the final few steps to shake him off. He goes into the bathroom and bolts the door behind him. My bathroom, to dribble all over with his wee.

  I snatch Travis’s bag – a matted Magic Roundabout Dougal – from his ravaged bed and hunt for his beloved Captain Hook’s hook.

  ‘Why is there blood on the bathroom floor?’ I hear Martin asking the kids as I head back downstairs. ‘Did someone cut themselves?’

  ‘I think it was Mummy,’ comes Lola’s reply.

  ‘Oh,’ Martin chuckles. That’s all right, then.

  ‘No one’s cleaned it up,’ Jake adds pointedly.

  I stand in the doorway and hand the Dougal bag to Martin, then follow them out to the pavement. There’s a kiss each – excluding Martin – and mumbled goodbyes. Lola lingers on the pavement as Martin chides her to get in the car. It’s as if she’s reluctant to leave me.