Read Bad Mothers United Online
Authors: Kate Long
Meet me at 12.30
, Eric had texted me.
Straight away I’d got myself into a dither: was this a sort of date, or what? How should I dress? For a school day I normally wore flat shoes and trousers because, as a classroom
assistant, you’re half the time squatting on infant-sized chairs and half the time on your feet. All us adults have backache at the end of the day. My hair I tended to keep clipped back out
of the way of glue, sand, snot, headlice, etc, and I never wore much make-up because who was there to appreciate it? This morning, however, I’d got up early and washed my hair and tonged it,
and put on a bit of lippy. I’d chosen a long skirt and a summer blouse and shoes with a bit of a wedge. I knew that by mid-morning the lipstick would most likely have slid off – those
big windows heat the classrooms like a greenhouse – and there was every chance I’d have caught my skirt on a chair leg and ripped it. But it felt nice to make an effort for once, and
anyway, nothing ventured.
When the dinner bell rang I gathered up my stencils and went to wash poster paint off my fingers. Some horrible child had put dirty fingermarks on my white sleeve, which was a blow, but I turned
the cuff up and that more or less hid the damage. I reapplied my make-up and smoothed my hair with wetted fingers. Sylv shouted after me as I sneaked across the foyer.
‘Ooh, you look nice, Karen. Going somewhere special?’
‘Smear test,’ I called back. That shut her up. This was one bit of gossip she wasn’t having off me, not yet. Not till I’d an idea myself of what I was walking into.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. God, if I could have climbed into a hole and shovelled earth over myself, I would have done. ‘I didn’t mean to suggest you
couldn’t be a good father unless you lived in. Like, when I told you before about my dad’s set-up and how it worked fine for us, I wasn’t lying. Obviously you’re a
fantastic parent. I know you are.’
But he only smiled. ‘I think you’ve just defeated your own argument, Charlotte.’
‘Yeah, that’s right. Because I’m sure you’re terrific. I’ve said before—’
‘It’s OK. There’s no need to apologise. Just think it through logically. Regular, consistent and committed contact is what counts, not some specific number of hours. Yes, the
type of parenting you and I have to manage is perhaps more difficult, it’s certainly more complicated logistically than what happens in a traditional nuclear family, but it’s not poor
or inadequate. Not by default, anyway. We’re simply parents who do our best in not-always-ideal circumstances, and there are millions of us in that camp.’
I didn’t know how to respond, but he didn’t wait for either validation or argument.
‘Now, to go back to the degree for a moment. Have you considered how helpful it’s going to be to Will if you abandon the course at this stage?’
The kind expression in his eyes pierced right through me. ‘Martin, I’m not going to lie to you. I really, really want the degree, you know I do. I’ve worked so hard for it. I
love the course, I chose it because it was one of the best, set my heart on it before I ever got pregnant. I’ve been revising like mad for these exams. But the bottom line is, you
don’t need a degree to get a job.’
‘I’m not talking about jobs. I’m talking about a sense of fulfilment, completion. Completing who you are. If you break off your studies now, you’re always going to feel
that loss. Will might come to feel it too. You said how bitterly your mother regretted not finishing her education, and the effect that had on your growing up.’
‘I would never make Will a scapegoat like that!’
Martin left a pause before he carried on:
You might not intend to.
‘Let’s look at this pragmatically. You’re already two-thirds of the way through the degree. You’ve got your dissertation sketched out, haven’t you? Ready to
tackle in the autumn. We were going to draw up a reading list so you could cover some background research over the holidays. Would you really bin all that effort at this late stage? It’s
your decision. You have five weeks till we break up: why not stick it out till the end of term, then decide during the summer? Talk it over with your boyfriend. He’s supportive, isn’t
he?’
‘Let’s not go there,’ I said.
‘All right, leaving that aside, it really is a situation you need to think through in a considered space, not something you should leap at. Of course you can terminate the course
whenever you want to – you’re an adult, you’re here of your own free will. But personally speaking, Charlotte, I’d be
very sorry indeed if you left
.’
He strolled back across the room, ignoring his chair and instead leaning against the side of the desk so he could refill our cups.
I felt slightly shaky with gratitude. Daniel used to joke sometimes that I had a crush on Martin. I wondered if he was right.
‘OK,’ I said at last. ‘I need to think about this some more. But thank you for taking the time to listen to me.’
‘My pleasure.’
Then, with barely a pause, he went on to the subject of this extended reading list he was compiling for me, how he’d grouped the texts not by simple chronology but by stylistic
development, so I’d appreciate how each author drew on previous writers for inspiration. ‘Nothing comes from nothing,’ he said. ‘Everything begins before itself.
There’d be no Romantics without the Augustans.’
I said, ‘Haven’t you another student to see?’ And he said no, he had a meeting but he’d decided he’d have a more interesting and productive time talking to me
instead.
By the time he’d finished going through the list, my brain was alight with ideas. I wanted to run to the library and start straight away.
‘I can lend you the Mandeville,’ said Martin, reaching for his bookshelves. ‘My own copy. Keep it as long as you need it.’
I took the book reverently.
As I flicked through the pages he smiled. ‘Not that I’m putting any kind of pressure on you to stay, Charlotte.’
‘Course not. I haven’t been bulldozed at all.’
‘I’m glad you see that.’
The
Adagio
finished; we were back to the brisk and busy
Allegro
.
‘Martin?’
‘Yes?’
‘One last thing. Since we’re speaking so honestly.’
‘Uh huh?’
‘Do you mind if I don’t drink the coffee any more? Only it tastes like bitumen.’
He laughed and patted the back of my chair. Then he turned the music up and we sat for another couple of minutes in companionable silence.
I’d have stayed there the whole day if I’d dared.
For once it wasn’t raining. I crossed the playground and went out through the gates, a right turn onto the main street with its unlovely mix of Victorian and 1960s
architecture. All my history was laid out in the length of this village, like the Bayeux Tapestry. Here was the top of the road where Steve nearly ran me over on his push bike so that I dropped my
satchel and my pencil case burst open and my O level science book fell in the mud. Here was the chip shop I used to visit on a Friday night when I was first married. This building on the right was
the library where I’d come during the day when Charlotte was a baby, to try and keep warm. Because, God, we were skint in those days. We had this rented room over the newsagent’s, and
the gas fire would go on for three hours each evening and that was it; getting up to feed Charlotte at night was freezing torture. Everything we owned came from car boots or charity shops, although
even charity shops were sometimes too dear. Our cupboards were stocked with value labels, and I’d often buy a bag of stale rolls off the baker at the end of the day and freshen them in the
oven. One particular memory I have is of me crying as I tried to wrap Christmas presents with cheap paper off the market so thin it ripped if you looked at it twice. I even used to squash the
toilet rolls out of shape so they released fewer sheets per tug. That’s how poor we were.
Here was the chemist where later on I’d queued endlessly for Mum’s prescriptions, and the Wool Shop, also one of her favourites, and now the post office where a pre-teen Charlotte
once stopped to stroke an evil-eyed Westie, only to have it nearly bite her finger off. I caught sight of my reflection hovering over a display of Hallmark cards, and paused. My face wasn’t
actually too knackered from a distance, but when I moved in closer I could see there were two deep worry-lines between my eyebrows. I forced my muscles to relax and the lines grew fainter. That
wasn’t bad, if I could stay like it. Mum always said people ended up with the face they deserved.
Five minutes later found me pushing at the saloon door of the Feathers. Eric I spotted immediately. He was at the bar, denim jacket hanging open and brick dust staining his T-shirt.
I nodded at the state of his front. ‘I see you’ve brought some work home with you.’
‘That’s me, always do a thorough job. What are you having to drink?’
I went mad and ordered wine. The air in the pub felt close and thick, and I had to pick up a menu and fan myself with it.
‘Aye, it is warm,’ said Eric.
I watched as he peeled off his denim jacket. Builder’s arms he certainly had, lean and brown and nicely muscled. Manly arms, the kind of arms which could fold you in and hold you tight.
The hairs on the skin above his watch were golden rather than dark, which was surprising. Perhaps he’d been working outside and they’d bleached in the sun. On his left-hand middle
finger he wore a signet ring. There was a white scar across the knuckle of his right thumb, a recent cut at the base of the palm.
‘– and out of nowhere this damn bucket landed on my foot,’ he was saying. ‘So there’s mortar spilling everywhere, me hopping about. Don’t think I’ll
lose the nail, but it wouldna be the first time.’
‘Oh, no, awful.’ I was going to have to pay attention. ‘Don’t you wear special boots?’
‘If I remember to load them in the van.’
The drinks arrived and we took ourselves to a corner table.
‘You’re very nice today, very summery,’ said Eric.
I blushed. ‘Normally it tips down here eleven months of the year, but we seem to have had an amazing run since you moved in.’ God, now I was talking about the weather. It was stupid
of me to get wound up. We’d chatted easily enough before, with Kenzie and Will ferreting about in the background. If only this room wasn’t so hot.
‘Nothing to do with me, hen. I grew up in Dumfries and Galloway. I tell you, Scotland can out-rain England any day of the week.’
‘Bet it can’t. Year Five were doing the water cycle this morning. I had to help them stencil weather symbols and I thought to myself then, there ought to be a special cloud with a
scowling face on it for Lancashire rain.’
‘Do you enjoy being a teacher?’
‘Classroom assistant.’
‘Same thing, isn’t it?’
‘No. It pays a lot less, for a start, but then I work fewer hours and I don’t have all the marking and planning to bother with. Which at the moment is a blessing, admittedly. I would
still like to be a full-time teacher, get on a training course, see if I could pass the right exams. But you know what life’s like. Fate tends to knock you off your tracks.’
Eric tutted as if he knew exactly what I meant. ‘I bet you’re good, though. With the wee kiddies. I bet you’re patient. More patient than me, anyway.’
‘I wouldn’t claim that.’
‘Ach, I ended up shouting at Kenzie this morning. He wouldna put his shoes on, wanted me to do it and I know he can manage perfectly well himself, I taught him over the summer. It’s
as if he wants babying, as if he’s going backwards. And I canna be waiting on him hand and foot.’
‘Well, it’s hard when you’re on your own.’
‘It is.’
Our table-mats and cutlery arrived.
I said, ‘Do you mind if I ask: is there no sign of Maria coming back? Has she not been in touch at all?’
‘Nah.’ He cast his eyes downwards. ‘It just happened out the blue. Told me one day I wasna right for her, she wanted more, then the next day she’d packed up and gone. No
forwarding address. Trying t’explain to the lad . . .’
My indignation flared again. What kind of mother just drops her child as if he’s an inconvenience? She ought to be hunted down and hauled home.
‘That must have been awful.’
‘To be honest with you, Karen, it cuts me up to be talking about it.’
I nodded sympathetically. ‘Kenzie’s such a sweet boy, as well. It’s lovely to watch him play alongside Will. He likes colouring in, and drawing, doesn’t he? He did me a
beautiful sun the other day. Will just scribbles. He’ll scribble on anything if you don’t watch him – magazines, letters, the skirting board. His own legs one time.’
‘You wait till he discovers scissors. Kenzie’s done for my shaver cable. Two minutes, I was out the room. Mopping up a drink he spilled.’
At the edge of my vision I could see two middle-aged women very obviously checking Eric out. They swivelled in their seats and leaned together, whispering. One of them had maroon-streaked hair
and the other needed her roots bleaching; both wore skirts like pelmets. I thought, Well, at least I’m not dressed like mutton. I look ‘nice and summery’: he said so. I sat up
straighter and smoothed my blouse.
‘No, you can’t afford to take your eyes off toddlers for a second,’ I said. ‘And I’ll tell you something, it’s worse when the child you’re in charge of
isn’t your own. It puts you in an impossible position. I’ve lost track of the number of things I’m supposedly doing wrong with Will. The latest is, Angel Delight’s not a fit
and proper pudding, even though Charlotte ate her way through vats of it when she was his age and I don’t recall her being struck down with nutritional deficiency. And I cut his hair too
short, that’s another bone of contention. What I say is, she can take over when she comes home for the summer, she can be the one to hold him down in the barber’s chair while he screams
his head off and chokes on his own clippings.’
Eric was nodding like a man who understood.
‘Although, as it stands, our Charlotte’s not even speaking to me,’ I went on.
‘How come?’
‘Oh, a stupid misunderstanding. Something she heard over the phone. I’m not stressing about it. She’ll come round. Basically the problem is, she wants control over Will but
she’s not here to enforce it.’