The World's Worst Mothers (5 page)

‘Nobody could ever work out what it
really
means,' said Sven-Ole.

‘That's the point,' said Wohlfarth.

‘But don't you think there'll be talk when all these women that nobody has ever seen on the island start leaving the factory?' asked Vibke Paulsen.

‘We'll just say they wanted to remain anonymous, and anyway, there is nothing less suspicious than attractive blondes.' Wohlfarth laughed.

This rare laugh gave Ramona Bottle the courage to ask the question that nobody had so far asked. ‘And what about the other way around? I mean, how are the mothers going to get here?'

‘Students, please,' said Wohlfarth. ‘Mothers –
proper
mothers, deserving of the title …' He pointed again at the portrait of his mother on the wall. ‘They won't be
mothers
until they leave us.'

Looking at the three enquiring faces, it occurred to Wohlfarth that he still hadn't answered their question.

‘There is certainly a small logistical problem. We only have one window of six hours while the unfortunate children are at school. In this time frame, the swap must take place.'

‘You're not thinking of …' Vibke Paulsen swallowed, ‘using force?'

Wohlfarth smiled maliciously and patted the pile of papers. ‘Fortunately, that won't be necessary. Every one of them will come here of her own free will. I can assure you of that.'

Kruschke had been working round the clock for the last few days. The programming had proved very difficult. Mechanical functions, such as vacuuming, ironing and making beds, were easy to program: they were the same for all the Annas. What had taken up most of his time had been language. Hopefully he'd overlooked nothing. Kruschke shook his head. No, no. He hadn't made any mistakes. His Annas were absolutely perfect. So perfect that no one would realise what they really were.

And they had survived the first test. Kruschke accompanied them himself to the ferry port. They marched out of Wohlfarth's factory through the gate that had been flung wide and on down the street to the harbour where Wohlfarth's dazzling white motor yacht
Margarethe
was anchored. They took their seats on deck, throwing bright scarves over their heads and putting on their sunglasses.

Bursting with pride, Sven-Ole took up the helm, imagining himself as some big oil magnate or rock star who was speeding off over the Mediterranean to Capri with his playmates. Only the North Sea wasn't the Mediterranean, and Nordfall wasn't Capri.

Even on an island full of beautiful people, the departure of seventeen blondes would have caused something of a stir. All the more so on Nordfall.

Swantje, who did a bit of casual work at Dune View, tore off her apron and exclaimed, ‘I want to go to this model school too, if that's what you look like at the end of it!'

And Hinnerk, the last fisherman on the island, who was just unloading his catch at the harbour, couldn't keep his mouth closed, so amazed was he to see seventeen attractive young women going by. He let a whole box of flounder fall back into the sea from sheer astonishment.

The only strange thing was that the young women didn't say a word to each other. They had come silently along the gangway, and silently they sat in the yacht.

‘That's what models are like,' declared Swantje. ‘They don't talk to each other because they all distrust each other.'

‘I couldn't say which one I liked best,' said Hinnerk. ‘They were all equally pretty.'

‘Well, you can forget it. You'll never get one like that. As long as you stink of fish,' said Swantje, poking Hinnerk in the ribs.

‘You smell of cooking fat,' Hinnerk replied, but his grin made it plain that that didn't bother him.

Bruno was in no hurry to get home on this fine June day. It was Thursday, and the thought of the looming piano lesson with Professor Griebel made him queasy. Of course he hadn't been allowed to take part in the recital. ‘The fluency in his left hand leaves much to be desired,' Professor Griebel had explained to his mother. ‘He really needs to practise more and to take more lessons. That would give him some chance of making an appearance at our big summer concert.'

As soon as she heard the word ‘concert' Bruno's mother's eyes lit up. Since then, Bruno had had to practise every day, whether he wanted to or not. Only when his father came home in the evening and made pained faces, saying, ‘I've got a headache,' was Bruno allowed to close the lid of the piano.

There was no point. Even if he played for ten hours a day, he would never amount to anything. Professor Griebel knew this perfectly well. And Bruno was sure of it too. He suspected the professor of deliberately giving his mother to understand that her son could one day be an important pianist. The money he made from Bruno he surely spent on taking that red-haired girl student out to dinner.

Bruno kicked a tin can angrily against a lamp post. Suppose he was injured? Maybe he could catch his hand in the door. His friend Jim had done that – not on purpose, of course. And now his right hand was all bandaged up.

‘You can have my punchbag, if you like,' Jim had said. ‘I can't train for the next four weeks.'

That was a very tempting offer. But the punchbag was far too big for Bruno to be able to sneak it into the house. The only way was for Bruno to go around to Jim's place and use the punchbag there. As far as his parents were concerned, he was going to his friend's house to help him with his maths.

Bruno opened the gate and was slouching up the neatly weeded path when he heard a voice trilling, ‘Ah, here comes dear Bruno!'

Bruno looked up in amazement. A strange woman was standing in the open doorway, wearing a silly apron and beaming at him.

‘What … what are you … doing here?' stuttered Bruno.

The woman came towards him and before Bruno knew what was happening she'd taken his schoolbag from him. ‘It's terribly heavy. Come in, my dear. I've made your favourite food. You do like oven-fresh chips with ketchup and mayonnaise, don't you?'

Prattling away, the woman went ahead of Bruno into the house. Puzzled, he followed her.

There was a wonderful smell of oven chips in the kitchen. Bruno's mouth watered. Was it all a dream?

‘Who are you?' he asked.

The woman, who was just opening the oven door, turned to him. ‘I'm your Aunt Anna, of course! Don't you recognise me?'

Bruno frowned. He didn't know any Aunt Anna.

‘I'm a second cousin of Great-aunt Adelheid.'

Bruno did know Great-aunt Adelheid. The one with the viola.

‘I've met her,' he said. ‘At my grandmother's birthday. There were these totally delicious cheesecakes. Great-aunt Adelheid played something for us and we weren't allowed to eat until she'd finished.'

‘Every birthday was like that,' the young woman cried. ‘She sawed away for ever and it was dire, right?' She smiled conspiratorially at Bruno.

Bruno smiled back. She wasn't half bad, this aunt. ‘But I don't remember you,' he said.

Aunt Anna piled crispy chips onto a plate. ‘How would you? The last time I saw you, you were only a baby. But I thought maybe your mum had shown you photos.'

The only photos that Bruno's mother ever showed him were ones of him sitting at the piano. He sighed.

Aunt Anna squeezed ketchup out of a bottle onto his chips and pushed the plate towards him. ‘Enjoy your food, my dear.'

Bruno was just about to stick a forkful of food in his mouth when he suddenly lowered the fork and asked, ‘And where's Mum?'

Aunt Anna sat down beside him at the table.

‘She's gone to the North Sea, for her health.'

‘She never mentioned it to me,' said Bruno.

‘Oh, you know, she's been meaning to go to this spa for ages. And then a place suddenly became available. She had to decide immediately. So she called me and asked if I could look after you for a while.'

Bruno chewed thoughtfully. It was true that his mother had been saying for ages that she needed to go to a health farm. That was something his parents were always arguing about, because his father said she needed no such thing, that, after all, she was at home all day and had no stress.

‘But the housekeeping, the garden, the ironing – and Bruno. I have all these things to worry about,' she had always replied.

Now she had nothing to worry about.

‘And how long will she be away?' asked Bruno, putting one of the crispiest chips into his mouth.

‘Four weeks,' said Aunt Anna.

Bruno tried not to look too happy, but he couldn't manage it. He was beaming all over his face.

Sophie wasn't in much of a hurry to get home either. The letter would have come today. The letter from school to say that she was going to have to repeat a year at school. Her mother would definitely have read it by now, and the thought of what she would say made Sophie go weak at the knees.

Opening the street door, she saw that their mail box hadn't been emptied. Odd. As she opened it, an advertising flyer, a mail-order catalogue and several letters fell out. The school used grey, environment-friendly envelopes. And there was one of those. Sophie took it and wondered briefly if she shouldn't just make it disappear. But that wouldn't alter the fact that she had to repeat the year. Better to face the music. She went up to their apartment and opened the door.

‘Mum? Mum, I have something to tell you, but please, please, don't be angry …' She broke off. A woman in an awful skirt and an even worse cardigan was standing in the hallway.

‘Hello, my dear. How tall you've got! And what lovely hair you have!'

Nobody had ever said that to her before. Sophie's hair was thick and curly and, no matter what she did, she always looked as if something had exploded on her head.

She shook her hair a bit and then said, ‘Excuse me, but I don't know who you are.'

‘I'm your Aunt Anna. Don't you remember?'

Sophie didn't remember any Aunt Anna, but her skirt didn't seem quite so awful any more.

‘I'm a cousin of your father's. Your mother and I used to be great friends, but since the separation –' Aunt Anna broke off and sighed. ‘You must know how difficult that all was. But still, when she needed to leave so suddenly, she thought of me. Here, she left you a note.'

Aunt Anna took a piece of paper out of her pocket.

Had to go away, all a bit of a surprise, explain later. Kisses, Mum,
read Sophie.

She was relieved. A narrow escape. But for how long? Four weeks? Had Aunt Anna just said something about four weeks?

‘It takes four weeks, this treatment.'

‘Treatment?' asked Sophie, astonished.

‘I don't mean that she's ill. It's just a health farm, you know. You go there to lose weight and relax.'

‘She never mentioned anything like that.'

‘Maybe not to you,' said Aunt Anna. ‘But she'll have discussed it with George, wouldn't you think?'

Sophie nodded. Her mother discussed lots of things with George that Sophie only found out about by chance. For example, that they were planning a cycling trip along the Elbe this summer. Sophie hated cycling.

‘What time does Nicholas have to be picked up from his crèche?' asked Aunt Anna.

‘Half past three,' said Sophie.

‘Wonderful!' crowed Aunt Anna. ‘We'll have a bit of calm before the storm, then.'

Really, that ugly blue cardigan wasn't so bad, Sophie thought. It went well with her blonde hair.

Lulu came out of the kitchen and rubbed against Aunt Anna's legs. She didn't react but prattled cheerfully on. ‘I do like little children, you know, but they can be terribly irritating. Don't you agree, Sophie?'

‘Stop that, Lulu!' cried Sophie, as the cat raised her paws to scratch Aunt Anna's flawless leg.

‘What am I supposed to stop?' asked Aunt Anna.

‘I didn't mean you, I meant the cat.'

Sophie pointed at Lulu, who was getting up on her hind legs, to get a sniff at Aunt Anna's skirt.

Aunt Anna looked down. She seemed a little dismayed. Maybe she didn't like cats.

‘That's Lulu,' said Sophie.

Aunt Anna smiled broadly. ‘How lovely. Delighted to make your acquaintance, Lulu!'

Emily opened the door to the flat. It was empty. As expected. In the kitchen, there was a note on the table.

A miracle has happened! Will be in touch soon. Love, Mum.

Emily sat down. If you didn't know her mother, you might think the note had been written in great haste, the way the letters seemed to fly over the paper, slanting severely to the right as if they were trying to take shelter from a fierce downpour. But her mother always wrote like that. Because as she wrote, something else usually occurred to her, something she absolutely must attend to.

The doorbell rang. Emily peered through the spyhole. There was a woman on the other side of the door. She looked quite nice.

Emily opened the door. ‘What can I do for you?'

‘It's me,' said the woman. ‘Aunt Anna.'

Emily frowned. She didn't know any Aunt Anna. But maybe it was a friend of her mother's.

‘My mother is not at home,' said Emily.

The woman put a foot in the door.

‘Of course not, my dear. I know that. That's why I'm here.'