Mummy Said the F-Word (23 page)

I storm through to the bathroom. Usually, I let the shower gush for a few moments, only stepping in when it’s steamy and hot. Tonight, to punish myself for supreme idiocy, I barge right in, shuddering as the icy water hits my body. Twithead woman, thinking I can possibly have a normal social life – a sex life, dammit – like just about everyone else on earth. I shower for ages, trying to sluice away my anger and mortification. It doesn’t work. Not even my lilac-scented body-wash raises my spirits, because it can’t wash out my head.

I picture normal people’s fun Friday nights: Sam and Amelia, squished up close on his velvety sofa, reminiscing about their early years, when they were still happy, still a family, and mulling over whether it might be possible to have all of that again; Martin returning with Travis’s hook (all hail Superdad!) and making Daisy wet her fancy knickers with laughter over my Pac-a-Mac display; Millie and some man in advertising whom she met in a bar last week, tottering around Soho, enjoying London, enjoying
life
; Darren arranging to meet friends at a club and telling them, amidst much hilarity, how it went arse over tit with that older woman with the Stone Age TV; even Rachel, cosied up with gingery Guy after a hard day’s baking; even my
mother
, for crying out loud, oblivious to the world beyond Mimosa House as she wanders the corridors, stopping to chat with the night-shift girls; the whole of London, relishing its Friday night. And me, worn out and faded, like a T-shirt after too many washes.

I pull on my dressing gown, make a mug of strong tea in the kitchen and glare into its depths. It’s 1.15 a.m. From outside comes a mass giggle as a crowd of young people head home – or, worse, are just setting out. Too depressed to contemplate sleep, I wonder what to do with myself. This is, after all, my child-free weekend, supposedly offering limitless potential for fun. What would I choose to do more than anything? I picture Sam and me lying on a damp blanket watching shooting stars and quickly bat the image away.

Rachel once confided that whenever she can’t sleep, she gets up and batch-cooks an entire week’s worth of meals. I could do that. Whip up a pasta sauce or a stack of tuna fishcakes while everyone else in this city is getting drunk and dancing and copping off with each other. I could make a fucking marinade. Perhaps I could saw off my own humiliated head and marinate that.

I could, if I so desired, rifle through the drinks cupboard and have myself a party. Who needs other people to have fun? I yank open the cupboard door and glare in. Disappointingly, there’s only weird stuff in there that no one ever drinks, like Kahlua and Noilly Prat, which Martin insisted on buying in duty-free for the drinks parties we never had. Anyway, glugging such concoctions would surely lead to a vomiting/passing-out/stomach-pump situation – a level to which even I, in my wretched state, have no wish to plummet.

Whatever I choose to do, I will not sit hunched over the computer at 1.27 a.m. like some tragic Nora-No-Mates. I will not check my emails with a desperate gleam in my eye. NO emails. NO computer. I am a strong thirty-five-year-old mother of three, in charge of my own destiny.

I log on. Nothing. Not a damn thing. Even R thinks I’m a laughing stock, and he’s not even a real person.

No readers’ emails either. They’ve figured that I’m a phoney and have sent their woes to Dorothy Hindman at
Your Baby and Toddler
magazine.

Maybe my connection is down, or there’s some blockage in
the
wire, like the time Lola used flannels to wipe her bottom and the Dyno-Rod man had to clear the obstruction in our pipe.

Bing! An email pops in. I click on it hungrily:

Worried about the loss of erection? EVEN if you have no erection problem, buy CIALIS to bring back romantic moments that u lost in past. CIALIS! Make your lovemaking incradible today. Ladyes will say thank you! Visit now for 70% discount oofer!

I scowl at the screen. What the hell is this stuff? Some kind of plant extract, or one of those pumping devices that can supposedly increase a penis’s length and girth? I am an agony aunt. I’m supposed to know this stuff. Whatever it is, it seems to have an unfortunate effect on the part of the brain responsible for spelling things correctly.

I Google Cialis and learn that it is, in fact, an almond-shaped pill to counteract erectile dysfunction, and that thirty pills can be whizzed to my home address – ‘in discreet packaging’ – for $395.

Why am I reading this tripe? I don’t even
own
a penis, let alone one that malfunctions. At least that’s one thing I don’t have to worry about. Another email pings in:

Tired with flakid penis?

Want sex all night long?

Girls don’t love u no more?

No need doctor forget problems now! Viagra shipped to you direct!!!!!

More sex! It’s everywhere you look. You can’t leave the house without being confronted with some snogging couple who look as if they’ve either just done it or are pelting home to disrobe as soon as humanly possible. It’s a wonder anyone gets any work done. Even Sam is getting some, a factlet that could well propel me towards the Noilly Prat were it not for another email that pings my way:

Hi, Cait,

Well, it’s nearly two in the morning and here I am, sitting at my PC after a pretty disastrous date. I hope you don’t mind if I share it with you.

Please do. More sex talk is precisely what I need right now.

It was arranged by a friend who seems to have got it into his head that I need ‘fixing up’, as if I’m a leaky roof. So off I went to meet this girl – let’s call her S – and she’s drop-dead gorgeous. Long, fair hair …

So R fancies blondes. Zzz.

… with an amazing sexy mouth and big blue eyes.

I consider switching off the PC and trying that head-marinating thing instead. Would it fit into our biggest salad bowl, I wonder?

Anyway, things start off well enough. Bit of chat, filling in our backgrounds – you know the kind of thing.

Actually, I don’t. What I like to do on a date is prance about in age nine-to-ten rainwear with my arse hanging out.

So, after a couple of hours, I ask her back for coffee.

Two hours? Fast work, mister.

Which she does. Things are going nicely when she starts wandering around my living room, which is pretty dishevelled, as you can imagine, and says, ‘Hmm, I wouldn’t have gone for the cold palette in here, not with that north-facing window. I’d have chosen honey tones to bring in some warmth.’

I hadn’t realised I’d gone for the cool palette, or even that I had a north-facing window. By now she’s started touching the curtains, which are too heavy and opaque, apparently – I should have gone for a lighter texture and tone. And while doing this, she’s saying, ‘I can see that you have a storage
problem
,’ while eyeing Billy’s towering stack of videos and DVDs. I start thinking, I just want you to go home. Please. Now. I don’t want to talk about cold palettes or have you tweaking my curtains and scrunching your pretty little nose up. I don’t even want to go to bed with you.

I start to feel old, Cait. Old and past it. We have a little kiss, but it’s going nowhere. It’s a bloody disaster. I feel wooden and stiff, and not in a good way. Can you believe what I do next?

Please, please don’t tell me what you got up to in bed. I can’t bear it.

I feign a migraine. Jacqui, my ex, used to have them so I know the drill: blinding pain, needing quiet and darkness. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I tell her, ‘but I’m going to have to call you a cab.’

‘Ice cream’s good for migraines!’ my lunatic date announces, barging through to the kitchen and rummaging in the freezer. No ice cream. ‘Not very organised, is it?’ she shouts. ‘There are sausages out of their packet and loose peas everywhere … Ooh, look, here’s an Arctic roll. I suppose it’s better than nothing.’ She brings it out, peels off the spongy layer and forces me to eat the ice-cream middle.

Despite my blinding headache – which is genuine now – I manage to phone a taxi and deposit her in it. And that’s it. Thanks for listening, Cait. It’s so good just knowing you’re there.

R x

I smile, flooded with warmth. Actually, I feel all right again. Almost
normal
. Sipping my tepid tea, I tap out a condensed version of my own debacle. His reply is almost instant:

God, Cait, I’d never thought of anything you’d buy in those outdoor shops having erotic appeal. I’m not really the outdoorsy sort myself – tried camping once, with Billy, and woke up in what I can only describe as a small lake at our
feet
. (The only time I went to Glastonbury, I booked into a B&B.) Anyway, better luck next time! You deserve it. I’m sorry, but Darren is obviously a dickhead.

R x

P.S. Would you like to meet for coffee sometime?

I stare at the last line. Coffee? No big deal. At least, not compared with parading myself in tangerine nylon and having Mrs Catchpole scowling at my crotch.

It’s just
coffee
, isn’t it? Just hot, brown liquid. Nothing to flip out about. It’s not ‘Let’s pretend hot beverages will be involved when we’re really just going to bed.’

Then I remember Millie’s warnings about cling-filmed pubes and how I mustn’t get into any personal stuff. I type:

Sorry, but life is pretty hectic at the moment, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to meet up. If it’s OK with you, I would prefer for us to remain email buddies.

C x

The cursor dithers over the ‘send’ icon. Taking a deep breath, I zap it to him. There. For once in my life, I have taken the sensible option. It’s something to be proud of – like writing everyone’s names in indelible pen in their gym shoes, or washing out the salad ‘crisper’ from the fridge. Mature, grown-up. Something I have always aspired to be. Like Rachel, with her model child and home-made tagliatelle.

I should be proud of myself. So why do I wish I could snatch back my email and scream, ‘Yes’?

It’s a blustery, hair-flappy morning when Jake’s teacher bustles towards me across the playground.

‘I was hoping to catch you,’ Miss Race says breathlessly. ‘Could you pop in for a quick chat? It’s nothing serious.’ Her forehead creases ominously.

‘Of course,’ I say, aware that ‘nothing serious’ actually means ‘This is very bad.’ It’s like hearing, ‘My trousers are wet,’ or, ‘I think I have nits,’ but worse.

Most of the children are inside school. Stragglers are clumping towards the main door, seemingly unconcerned about late marks. Miss Race clomps ahead across the playground, her dark hair pulled back severely and secured with a glossy black claw. Her name, conjuring images of a sleek thoroughbred horse, is all wrong for her. I shuffle in behind her, clutching Travis by the hand, praying that she’s not going to bring up Jake’s head injury again and suggest that we’re put on some kind of register. His verrucas have gone. We have single-handedly tripled sales of verruca lotion. I could fetch him from his classroom, strip off his socks and prove it.

She beckons us into the office, where one of the teaching assistants – face the colour of cod, looks about nine years old – is operating the rumbling photocopier.

‘It’s, um, about Jake,’ Miss Race begins hesitantly.

‘Right!’ I say, too eagerly, as if it could possibly be anything else. Great. A brain-juddering discussion about my son’s behavioural difficulties with this whey-faced teenager listening in.

‘I know things have been … tricky at home,’ she continues, ‘and it’s been an unsettling time for him.’

How I hate my marriage break-up being referred to in such
foggy
terms: ‘situation at home’, ‘unsettling time’. It’s no better than describing a child as having ‘anger issues’ when he’s just an aggressive little squirt.

‘Has something … happened?’ I ask.

She smiles benignly. ‘He’s normally such a good, cooperative boy.’

Please just spit it out. Travis plunges a hand into a jar of multicoloured paperclips on the desk.

Miss Race clears her throat. ‘His behaviour has been rather challenging lately. There was an incident yesterday.’

I nod, trying to drag my gaze away from the blueish vein on her neck. She is what my mother would call ‘heavyset’, and today is wearing a moss-green blouse and pleated fawn trousers. I didn’t think they made trousers like that any more.

‘We have a magnetic board in the classroom,’ she continues, ‘with the letters of the alphabet, and what you do is stick them on to the board to make words.’

Jesus, shouldn’t Jake’s year have progressed from such basic activities? Miss Race is holding him back, I’m sure of it. Last term’s topic seemed to focus on the importance of washing hands before touching food, and he kept bringing home ridiculously simple reading books. In any other class, he’d be fluent in Russian by now.

‘Jake took it upon himself to come in at breaktime,’ she barges on, ‘and arrange the letters to form a … an
inappropriate
word.’

The assistant collects her papers together noisily and flits out of the room. Travis upends the paperclip jar and they scatter all over the desk.

‘Which word?’ I ask, trying to gather them up.

‘A … er … a bad word.’

‘
Which
bad word?’ I’m losing patience now.

Travis bats away my hands and carefully drops the paperclips back into the jar. Good boy. At least one of my children hasn’t skidded off the rails.

‘It was –’ Miss Race flicks her gaze towards the office door, in case a child might be lurking there and keel over at the horror of it all – ‘the worst one,’ she hisses. ‘The one … we never say.’

‘What does it begin with?’ Now I feel ludicrous.

‘Mumble, mumble,’ she says, flushing pink.

‘Sorry?’

‘Um … “f”.’

‘Uh?’

‘It was the F-word. F-U-C-K.’

Deep inside me, a ball of laughter begins to form. Please, God, don’t let it burst out. Don’t have me snorting hysterically as if I think it’s big or clever. I try to focus on bad things, like Mum escaping from the home, and children in poor countries with no clean water to drink.

‘Was that it?’ I ask. ‘Just … just the F-word?’