Mummy Said the F-Word (18 page)

‘That hook thing makes him look a bit, um … deformed,’ Adrian mumbles.

No one has the will to prise it off him. He could sport a fake wooden leg for all I care.

It’s over. Adrian is packing up, slamming precious equipment into cases and displaying a distinct eagerness to escape.

‘I want to go home,’ Mum shouts the instant he’s gone. ‘Where’s my bus?’

To my relief, by bedtime Lola at least seems to have forgotten about the enormous wonderful thing. She snuggles close to me in her bed, smelling sweetly of bubblegum foam from her bath.

I start to read her story. There’s a small shuffling noise behind her half-open door. ‘Jake?’ I call softly. ‘Is that you?’

He ambles into view in rumpled checked pyjamas and stands awkwardly in the doorway.

‘Are you OK?’ I ask gently.

He nods.

‘Want to sit with us? We’re reading
The Water Babies
. D’you remember that from when you were little?’

I feel silly for asking. Ten-year-olds aren’t interested in
The Water Babies
.

‘Yeah.’ He smiles. ‘I remember it.’

I’m surprised, and pathetically grateful, when he ambles over and joins us on the bed.

‘Move up,’ I urge Lola. ‘Make room for your brother.’

Begrudgingly, she shuffles along about a tenth of an inch. Jake squeezes in beside me and I start to read. We’ve reached the part where Tom falls in the river, but it isn’t really Tom – just the shell he’s left behind as he enters the Water Babies’ world.

‘Mum,’ Lola cuts in, ‘did Tom die?’

‘Yes, but he was unhappy and now he’ll have a better life.’

‘How can he have a better life if he’s dead?’

‘It’s … a sort of afterlife,’ I tell her.

‘You get reincarnated,’ Jake explains, which isn’t what I mean, but I don’t correct him. It takes me back, with him snuggled up at my side, to the old days before everything unravelled.

‘Will
you
die?’ Lola asks.

‘Everyone dies sometime, sweetie, but I hope it’s not until I’m very old.’

She bites her lip. ‘Will you be like Granny when you’re old?’

I laugh and stroke her hair. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Mum,’ Jake murmurs, and I brace myself for more questions of a life-and-death nature, ‘I don’t really want you to buy me a GameBoy Advance.’

The tension that’s gripped me all day subsides a little. ‘That’s good. I’m really proud of you for helping me today, Jake. I know you didn’t want to be in the photos, but you did it anyway.’

He nods thoughtfully. ‘I really want a GameBoy Advance, but I know we don’t have much money and can’t afford it.’

‘Well, that’s true.’

He grins, breathing out spearmint. ‘So I’m gonna ask Dad for one.’

The house is blissfully silent as I creep downstairs to check my emails. My new
Bambino
account is up and running and I have mail – real mail from real
Bambino
readers who, despite my terrifying man-face, seem to be under the illusion that I can help them.

The first one reads:

Dear Caitlin,

Is it so wrong of me to fantasise about leaving my little boy strapped in his buggy and legging it to the train station to somewhere like, I don’t know, Paris, and never coming back? I had my passport photos taken yesterday …

And the next:

This morning, while trying to coax my bickering kids out of the car, I had an overwhelming urge to slam the boot down on to my head. Am I normal?

Berserk Mother, Wakefield

And another:

Since our little boy was born seven years ago, my husband has changed from being a reasonably attractive man and keen squash player to an overweight, hygienically challenged slob who hasn’t cleaned his teeth for several months. Do you think I should have an affair?

Suzanne, Bucks.

I feel ridiculously chuffed that they have chosen to contact me, out of all the agony aunts on the dozens of magazines out there. I pull out a notebook from my desk drawer and start to make notes.

Another email pings in.

Dear Caitlin,

I was delighted to see that that dreadful Pike woman has been replaced and was hoping that you, as the new agony aunt, might offer more balanced and sympathetic advice to parents. (I am a single father.) But no, you come across as so terribly earnest, going all out to convince us that you understand what normal parents are going through.

With all the make-up you’re wearing, and your hair done up into some kind of bouffant, I can’t help suspecting that you don’t really have children at all. If you do, you are obviously nannied up to the hilt. How can you possibly know what it’s like in the real world when all you have to do all day is preen yourself in your posh office?

Yours in anger,

R

I glare at the screen. How dare this creep insult me without knowing the first thing about why I took this job? Millie begged
me
to do it. I only agreed because I can’t bring myself to ask Martin for more money.

How bloody
dare
he?

‘Never reply to emails personally,’ Millie advised me. ‘You’ll only encourage lunatics with too much time on their hands.’ She’s right; why bother acknowledging this jerk when I barely have time to communicate with my own kids?

But I can’t help myself. With my heart juddering furiously, I fire off a reply:

What the hell do you know about my life?

It’s a gloriously sunny late-April afternoon when Sam and I bring the kids to the park to run riot with their water guns. His sleekly muscled legs, clad in baggy shorts, are already lightly tanned. His chest bears a faint suggestion of hair and is infinitely touchable. Even his feet are quite fetching, as men’s feet go – no gnarled nails, no toe-hair sproutings. (Martin may be head-turningly handsome in your smooth, DFS-sofa-model kind of way, but his weirdly skinny feet let him down tragically. Ha.)

I catch myself appraising Sam’s body and quickly rearrange my face. ‘You’re burning,’ I warn him. ‘Better put on some sunscreen.’

‘Never use it,’ he protests.

I laugh and pluck the garish orange bottle from my bag. ‘What is it about men and sunscreen? Martin was like that. Look – your shoulders are a tiny bit pink.’

‘I’ve never had sunburn in my life,’ he protests.

‘God,’ I splutter, ‘that’s such a
man
thing. Being immune to burning. Refusing to ask for directions when they’re lost.’

He smirks. ‘OK, boss. Slap some on.’ And he plonks himself before me with his beautiful bare back in my face.

I hesitate. Heck, for a graphic designer who spends great swathes of his time holed up in front of a computer, he is extremely well honed. Slathering on his sunscreen will involve touching his
bare, naked flesh
. Help. I do this in the most non-sexual manner possible, rubbing briskly as if removing a stain. ‘There,’ I say in a businesslike voice.

‘Thanks,’ he purrs. ‘That was really … sensual.’

‘Shut up,’ I mutter, silently cursing my hot cheeks.

We sit in silence for a few moments, watching the kids charging through the paddling pool. A vision of loveliness in miniscule cut-off shorts – they’re smaller than most of my knickers – rollerblades past us. I check to see if she registered with Sam. He watches her for a moment, then flicks his eyes back to me.

‘Cait … there’s something I want to tell you.’

My breath tightens. Lola is complaining loudly that Jake squirted the back of her head, but I block her out. ‘What is it?’ I ask.

He runs a hand through the grass. ‘I, um …’

Oh, God. This is it. Shooting-stars night – he felt it too. Like me, he’s tried to push his feelings aside for the very reasons I have. Because our sons are friends, and
we
are friends, and it’s all too entwined and embarrassing—

‘I, um … It’s about Amelia,’ Sam murmurs.

No, I don’t want to hear this. ‘Oh, right.’

‘We slept together,’ he says flatly.

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Some brat squirts my neck, but I ignore it. Cold water dribbles down the back of my T-shirt. ‘Did you?’ I say finally.

‘I don’t really know why I’m telling you,’ he adds.

Neither do I, I think bitterly. Does this mean they’re getting back together? I daren’t ask. ‘When … when did it happen?’ I manage.

Lola and Jake are squabbling about whose turn it is to be armed with the Super-Soaker, rather than the substandard ordinary water gun.

‘In Cornwall during the Easter holidays.’

‘Just before we went camping?’

‘Uh-huh.’

Why didn’t you say?
I want to ask.
Why did you lie there with me on your blanket and let me believe something special was happening?
I curse myself for being so ridiculous. Sam hadn’t made me believe anything. It was me. My ridiculous malfunctioning brain had dreamed up the whole thing. Caitlin idiot Brown.

‘I … I thought you’d stayed at your sister’s hotel?’

Sam nods. ‘Amelia came over for a night. She’d had some row with her boyfriend, called me to sound off about him.’

How terribly cosy. How very grown-up and mature. The park, which a few moments ago had seemed vivid and green and full of life, now seems flat and listless. I want to go home.

‘You know how it is,’ Sam continues, ‘when you’ve known someone for ages, and even though it’s obvious it’ll never work there’s still this connection, this … frisson.’

I don’t know that feeling. A mangy dog sniffs around our bag of picnic supplies and I shoo it away. It growls at me and pees on the grass.

‘Isn’t frisson that curly lettuce you get in bags?’ God, I’m a twerp. I deserve to be executed.

Sam smiles. ‘I think that’s frisée. The purply stuff.’

‘No, that’s radicchio.’

Go on, fuckwit, babble on some more about salad. Just what the situation requires. ‘Or lollo rosso,’ I suggest as a drenched Lola thunders towards us.

‘Anyway,’ Sam says with a small laugh, ‘confession over.’

I don’t know what to do next. Congratulate him? Ask how he
feels
about it? ‘I suppose we all do those things,’ I mutter.

He frowns. ‘Can you imagine it happening with Martin?’

‘No, I don’t think Martin would sleep with you.’

Agh. Pathetic joke. ‘I mean,’ he insists, ‘d’you ever wish …’

‘Sam, I’d rather stick pins in my eyes.’

We snigger as Lola lands on my lap, soaking me. ‘What’s funny, Mummy?’

‘Just a silly joke.’

‘Tell me.’

‘No, hon …’

‘Why not?’ She turns angrily.

Because it’s really not funny at all. ‘Here, let me towel your hair before you get cold.’

‘I’m already cold,’ Lola complains.

I can’t look at Sam as I help her to dry off. This will change
everything
, I just know it. Me and Sam, doing this kind of stuff together. Him never ticking me off for my shoddy parenting skills. Just being there whenever I need him. Never shaming me by not only owning but
using
a pasta machine.

He’ll get back with Amelia. They’ll be a couple again, a symmetrical family with everything as it should be. If I were a faintly decent person, I’d be happy for him, but inside I’m crushed.

It’s not a pathetic attempt at one-upmanship. It’s not:
Listen, Pants-a-Flying Sam Blackwell. You’re not the only who’s seeing some action with the opposite sex. You know what? I am too. Or I shall be. Just you wait
. No, I wouldn’t stoop so low.

Well, it’s only a
tiny
bit of that.

One undeniably cute young man is waiting for my call. OK, weeks have passed since our date, but
subconsciously
, he’s waiting. He could have lost my number, and, anyway, I have nothing to lose – because all was already lost after Sam’s confession in the park.

With the kids installed in front of the TV, I find Darren’s shop’s number on yell.com and creep towards the phone. My bravado ebbs away as I tap out his number, and my tongue acquires a sandpapery texture. An answerphone plays its message and bleeps.

‘Hi, Darren?’ I say tentatively. ‘It’s Caitlin. Caitlin Brown with the, um, disappearing mother …’

There’s a click. ‘Hi, Cait?’ Darren says, sounding pleased. ‘Great to hear from you. Sorry I haven’t phoned. With your mum and all that, I thought maybe your life’s a bit complicated to have me butting in …’

‘Oh, no,’ I blurt out, too eagerly. ‘My life’s … fine.’

A small silence.

‘Was your mum OK? You seemed really worried …’

Rather belated concern, I’d say, but I don’t want to seem bitter. He sounds so chirpy, so unencumbered by ex-spouses and elderly parents. ‘I found her playing poker in one of the canal boats. I think she’d mistaken it for the Clyde.’

‘Uh?’

‘It’s a river …’

‘Oh, right.’ Darren laughs. It’s a warm, easy laugh that makes my shoulders un-clench. ‘These mistakes are easily made,’ he adds.

Lola bounds into the kitchen in her velour Scooby Doo dressing gown, complete with ears, tail and matching paw gloves. ‘Mummy—’

‘Shhhh!’ I hiss at her.

‘What’s that?’ Darren asks.

‘Just my daughter. Hang on a minute … Lola, what d’you want? Are you thirsty or something? You can see I’m on the phone …’ Oh no. I am committing the heinous crime of talking to my child while attempting to conduct an adult phone conversation.

‘No,’ Darren says, ‘I mean that weird hissing noise. Sounds like something’s wrong with your phone.’

‘Can I speak to Daddy?’ Lola bellows, trying to snatch the receiver with her paw.

‘It’s not Daddy!’ I mouth at her.

‘Who is it?’

‘Go
upstairs
!’ When will I ever get a smidge of privacy? When?

‘Are you doing anything tomorrow night?’ Darren asks.

‘Woof!’ Lola barks. ‘Woof, woof, woof!’

‘No, um, I think I’m free tomorrow.’ I waggle my eyebrows furiously. Lola whirls round the kitchen, barking and thrashing her doggie tail.

‘D’you have a dog?’ Darren enquires.

‘No, I … Lola,
shush
.’

‘We could go for dinner or something, try that new place where the Spice Garden used to be.’

Lola hangs her head like a scolded hound.