Mummy Said the F-Word (12 page)

Seemingly unconcerned with my reaction, Carmen is packing away her things. I keep staring. It’s beyond awful. I will appear in a national magazine looking like a Bert or a Norman. My man-face face gawps at me as Carmen cleans her lip palette with baby wipes. In some other universe, Travis continues to trill the
Batman
tune.

‘I … um …’ I stutter, fearing that if I stare long enough, I will detect an Adam’s apple and a hint of beard growth.

Carmen is humming now, seemingly having forgotten that I exist. She certainly doesn’t care what I think of her handiwork. How dare she lull me into a false sense of security? Natural glow indeed! I’d be no less pissed off if I’d asked a painter to redecorate my living room – not that I can afford to employ tradespeople – and instead of the creamy white I’d asked for, he’d painted the goddamn room purple.

‘Mummy!’ Travis cries. ‘Where’s Mummy?’

‘Just coming, darling,’ I manage, as Carmen gives my hair a cursory backcomb and liberal dose of foul-smelling spray. Fantastic. Now I am sporting an unyielding dome. Who backcombs their hair in this day and age?

By now, I am beyond caring. I’ll just have to go with it. At least I’ll give Millie a laugh when she sees the pictures. Then I can throw myself off London Bridge and be done with it.

‘She’s ready,’ Carmen sing-songs.

I am no longer Caitlin, but ‘she’. And I smell weird, as if my entire body has been dunked in melted-down old-lady make-up. I smell like Mimosa House, minus the faint whiff of wee and meaty dinners.

I stride purposefully from the dressing room to the main studio, where Adrian has positioned a soft leather seat for me to park myself on. Travis is sprawled belly-down on the floor, where he’s playing with a pile of multicoloured cables. I hope they’re not live electrical cables. Surely Adrian or his whey-faced assistant would have stopped him if they were …

‘Right. Lovely.’ Adrian appraises my appearance, his mouth twitching with unease. ‘On the chair, please, Karen.’

‘It’s Cait—’ I start, just as Travis looks up, his face crumpling in horror as he sees not his loving, pancake-making mother, but some bloke called Bert who’s stolen my clothes.

‘Mummy!’ he screams, sending the cables flying.

‘It’s OK, darling, it’s
me
,’ I protest as he spins away, colliding with a light stand and sending it crashing to the floor. There’s a metallic clang and a tinkle of breaking glass.

‘Christ, my light!’ Adrian barks.

I spring out of the seat and try to gather up Travis from his
huddled
position in the corner. He writhes out of my grasp, still wailing as if I’m some dastardly child-thief. ‘Want Mummy!’

‘Travis, darling, I
am
Mummy.’

‘Don’t like Mummy face!’ he shrieks.

Carmen regards the scene with amusement, one hand plonked on her skinny hip.

‘It’s just make-up,’ I soothe. ‘I’ll take it all off.’

‘Horrid Mummy! Bad Mummy!’

‘Shhh, sweetheart …’

‘WANT DADDY!’

‘I try to grasp his hand, but he flails wildly, punching my thigh and kicking furiously. Finally, as his fury morphs into sobs, I manage to coax him towards the leather seat.

‘Sorry about your light,’ I murmur.

‘These things happen.’ Adrian rolls his eyes towards his assistant – a sharply angled boy who has so far failed to acknowledge me and is already setting up a replacement light. ‘They could have warned me,’ he adds, ‘that there’d be a child here today. It’s not really
appropriate
.’

Oh, isn’t it? Maybe I should have employed the stuffing-him-in-a-cupboard trick. Bet Harriet Pike didn’t cause any bother when she was having her photo done.

Travis is so distraught we end up doing the pictures with him plonked on my lap, whimpering like an injured pup. No matter how I try to radiate empathy, I am conscious of my jaw being unnaturally clenched.

‘Smile, Travis,’ I murmur.

‘Oh, don’t worry about him,’ Adrian mutters. ‘I’m cropping out the kid.’

Now Travis, like me, is nameless.

Carmen swoops over my face with her powder brush. ‘You have a terribly oily T-zone,’ she reprimands. ‘You’re breaking through.’

No bloody wonder. Travis is still gulping silently. As we leave the studio, I glimpse the three of them – Adrian, his assistant and Carmen the Witch – swiping beers from a battered fridge and flipping them open with a desperate air.

‘Nasty Mummy face,’ Travis whimpers in the stairwell.

Hell, I’ve forgotten to scrape off the damn make-up. ‘It’s just like dressing up,’ I assure him. ‘You know, like when you play Captain Hook.’

He remains unconvinced. How long before we’re home and I can hose down my face? Half an hour at least. Half an hour in public with my Bert face on.

In the studio’s cobbled courtyard, I scrabble in my bag for my purse. Thirteen quid and a few coppers. Not nearly enough for a cab. I grasp Travis’s hand, intending to find a café with an abundant supply of loo roll with which to wipe my face. We march through a series of junk-cluttered alleys, eventually finding ourselves at a bustling roundabout. Nothing looks as it did when we came here. There are gloomy warehouses and factories with crudely painted signs, but no café with limitless loo paper, and therefore no chance of making myself look normal.

We march on, bracing ourselves against the cold March winds, both too gloomy to speak, until the Underground sign comes into view. Thankfully, the Tube carriage isn’t crowded. Perhaps we’ll manage to get home without my having to make eye contact with anyone. Each time I blink I’m conscious of something like eighteen layers of lash-lengthening mascara. I feel like my eyelashes have been dunked in tar.

Darren flashes into my mind. Young, carefree Darren, who was under the illusion that he and I might have fun together. That seems laughable now.

In the carriage, an elderly man is filling in a crossword, and a bunch of backpackers are checking guidebooks and maps. On the opposite seat, to the left, a woman sits with her head bent, her glossy black hair hanging around her face, engrossed in the contents of the file on her lap. She’s wearing a grey pinstriped trouser suit and is plugged into her iPod.

‘Want biscuit,’ Travis murmurs.

‘We’ll be home soon. You can have a snack before we pick up Lola and Jake.’

‘Want biscuit with ’ole in the middle.’

‘I think there’s some in the tin.’ I’m so done in after the shoot that I’ll let him hog as many as he wants. He can have the whole bloody packet.
And
Fanta, if there’s any left in the fridge.

‘WANT. BISCUIT.’ His voice blasts down the carriage. The man with the crossword rustles his newspaper irritably. The woman coughs. One day, in a parallel universe, maybe I’ll enjoy Tube journeys with an iPod.

‘Biscuit!’ Travis screams.

‘Yes, when we get home, but not if you have a tantrum.’ Breathe deeply, hold it in and release. Breathe. Breathe. ‘Avoid eye contact,’ Pike advised on last week’s problem page. ‘Never, EVER pay attention to a tantrum in a public place. As long as your child is safe, simply ignore him until the tantrum subsides. I might add that parents who over-indulge their children are merely encouraging these outrageous displays.’ Crossword man regards Travis disapprovingly. Bet his children never behaved like this.

‘Don’t like Mummy,’ Travis declares. ‘Mummy not my friend.’

‘Good.’ I stare fixedly at the file on the woman’s lap. She closes it and my gaze rests upon the teardrop-shaped logo on the front.

Purity Springs. Personal Service Always
.

She glances up and our eyes meet. Something spins between us in the carriage, a ball of horror. I inhale sharply.

‘Hello, Daisy,’ I croak.

She yanks out her headphones. ‘Oh, hi! Sorry, Caitlin, I didn’t see you.’ Her voice is high-pitched, and she giggles uneasily. At least she has the decency to look mortified. Her face is immaculately made up, although she looks bleary around the eyes. She’s probably been up half the night shagging the pants off my husband.

‘Finished work for the day?’ I ask curtly, although at 2 p.m. it’s unlikely.

‘I – I’m on my way to see clients at Liverpool Street.’

‘That’s nice.’
Are you planning to shag them?
I want to ask.

She straightens the file on her lap. Crossword man folds up his newspaper noisily.

‘Settled into your new flat?’ I venture.

‘Um, yes, it’s lovely. Er, I mean … you know. It’s quite ordinary really, but it’s, um … fine.’

‘I hear it’s a penthouse,’ I add.

‘No, it’s nothing like that.’ Her laughter tinkles out like shards of glass. ‘There’s no room to swing a cat. We call it the penthouse as a joke.’

‘Oh.’ Bloody hilarious.

‘What’s a planthouse?’ Travis asks, mercifully distracted from his biscuit craving.

‘A very expensive flat,’ I explain loudly, ‘on top of a big building. Only very rich people can afford them.’ I regard her coolly, hoping that if I stare hard enough, my gaze will penetrate her frontal lobe and cause irreparable damage.

‘Really,’ she insists, ‘it’s quite tiny.’

‘Size isn’t everything,’ I reply.

Daisy nods mutely and glances around the carriage, settling her gaze on the emergency handle. What a cow, she’ll be thinking. Is it any wonder that Martin left her for me? Look at her poor, starving child, desperate for a biscuit, and her face all caked in—

Shit. I’d forgotten my face. What am I thinking, trying to freak her out? Daisy’s the one with the penthouse and architect boyfriend and nicely done make-up. I am the ladyboy with bouffant hair and lips dripping with grease.

‘Well, see you around.’ She leaps up and stuffs her folder into her bag.

‘Bye,’ I manage, as the train pulls into Liverpool Street.

‘Nice seeing you both.’ She grins broadly, any hint of nervousness gone.

‘Bye-bye!’ Travis says with a cheery wave.

Daisy waves briefly and swoops off the train, her heels clacking on the platform. I swipe my oily lips against the back of my hand. They leave a scarlet smear, like a wound.

Carmen’s warpaint is an absolute swine to get off. I haven’t worn mascara since Jake was born – due to the fact that it’s the only item of make-up that doesn’t magically melt away while you sleep – so I don’t possess any remover or even cotton wool to wipe the wretched stuff off. (Daisy, I’d imagine, has pastel-coloured cotton-wool balls in a pretty glass jar from Liberty. And probably has her eyelashes
dyed
.)

In the sanctuary of our bathroom I moisten a wad of loo roll and rub my eyelids. Although the mascara is smearing nicely on to the under-eye zones, there’s still a ton of it stuck to my lashes. What’s this stuff made from – creosote? Maybe Guy and his mates would be able to offer assistance with its removal or suggest a non-gunky substitute. I fear that I’ll never blink normally again My eyeballs will wither up through lack of lubrication.

I make another loo-paper wad and scrub at the charcoal patches under my eyes. Now my skin looks raw and is stinging like buggery. Great. Now I look like I’ve been sobbing for weeks. With no time for further face-scouring, I set off with Travis to collect Lola and Jake from school, conscious of everyone checking out my stressed, puffy face.

There’s nothing like the school-gate cluster to heighten your unease if you’re not feeling 100 per cent.

‘Hi, Cait!’ chirps Bev Hartnett, bastion of the PTA, in disastrous drapey blue trousers that might possibly hail from the New Romantic era.

I grin tightly and turn away, but there’s no escape.

‘What’s happened to your face?’ she asks, feigning concern.

‘I, er, had my photo taken.’

‘What, for your passport or something? Are you going away?’

‘No, it was for, um, a work thing. A magazine thing.’

She gives me a curious look. I will the school bell to ring and the children to rescue me from Bev’s unfaltering gaze.

‘Went to a horrible place,’ Travis announces. ‘Lady put fing on Mummy.’ He jabs a grubby finger at my lips.

‘Caitlin,’ cries Rachel, beetling over to join us, ‘you look terrible! Have you been crying?’

‘I was assaulted,’ I explain, ‘with a mascara wand.’

‘Really? Oh, come on. You’ve had one of those department-store make-overs, haven’t you?’

‘God,’ Bev chips in, ‘I never let them anywhere near
my
face, even when they’re giving out free samples.’

Yet more mothers drift towards us, all focusing intently on my ravaged face. I feel naked and glance around desperately for Sam.

Millie texts me:
HOPE SHOOT WENT WELL BET U LOOKED GORGEOUS LOVE MX
.

‘You owe me one,’ I growl at my phone.

Sam waves from across the street and arrives by my side as the children surge from the building. While he raises an eyebrow, and is clearly studying my swollen eyes, he refrains from quizzing me in public. For that I could hug him, if Bev wouldn’t interpret it as evidence of our rampant affair. Can’t wait for the Easter holidays for a break from all this.

Over the next few weeks I crack on with my page, grateful for regular work to temper my rage when Martin announces that he, Daisy and Poppy are going to Sardinia for the Easter holidays. ‘It was only a cheap deal,’ Martin mutters. ‘One of those last-minute things.’ What’s ‘only’ about whizzing off to Sardinia? There’s no
only
about it.

I’ve heard nothing from Darren since our date. Even he didn’t want to meet up again, he could have called to see if I’d managed to find Mum. Clearly, he’s too young to comprehend what it’s
like
to have an aged parent. His own mother is probably around forty-five. I feel hurt, and vaguely cross; after all, he’d called me and made all the moves. When I’m out shopping locally, I try to avoid passing the TV shop. If I can’t avoid it, I walk on the opposite pavement with my head twisted unnaturally to one side.

Newsagents, too, are challenging. Every time I glimpse a copy of
Bambino
I’m reminded that time is ticking away to the dreadful day when my first problem page appears. Then I’ll be outed as a man, and life as I know it will be over. It makes Darren, and even Sardinia, pale into insignificance. Perhaps I could buy up every copy and have a gigantic bonfire in the garden. Or at least relocate to another country.