Mummy Said the F-Word (24 page)

She nods tersely.

‘I’ll talk to him,’ I say, tugging Travis away from the photocopier buttons.

‘I’d be very grateful. Jake might use that sort of language at home, but it’s not appropriate for school.’

‘Of course he doesn’t talk like that at home,’ I snap. ‘I wouldn’t allow it.’

‘Well, he’s picking it up from somewhere.’ She gives me a sly look.

‘Children hear bad language everywhere – in the street, on TV …’ Shut up, you ruddy great berk, going straight on the defensive.

‘Not before the watershed they don’t.’ Miss Race sets her lips primly. ‘In fact, Jake explained that you say it. I asked him where he learned it and he said, “Mummy.”’

‘He said I taught him to swear? You really believe that?’ Travis is gawping at me. Watching his mother losing it in the poky school office is proving far more entertaining than any photocopier.

‘Well,’ she says with a wry chortle, ‘I did think that was rather far-fetched. And, as I said, it’s nothing serious. We just like to keep lines of communication open. I thought you’d want to know.’

‘Yes, I do. I’m very grateful. Thank you.’ I grip Travis’s hand and bid Miss Race farewell, gritting my teeth. Travis’s parting gesture is to stab at the photocopier, setting it whirring into
action
. Lights flash and its innards rumble, as if chortling over my family’s shame.

My day takes a surprise turn for the better when Sam and Harvey come round after school. ‘Hi, Sam,’ I say.

‘Cait, I’d like you to meet Amelia.’ Sam grins, and his ex-wife shimmers into focus behind him. I note with a start that her arm is casually slung round Harvey’s shoulders. Heck, why shouldn’t it be? She’s his
mother
.

‘Hi, come in. Lovely to meet you,’ I gush in a strained voice.

‘I’ve heard so much about you,’ Amelia says warmly. She has a broad, beaming smile and swathes of corn-coloured hair. Pretty doesn’t do her justice.

‘Yes, you too,’ I manage.

She follows me into the house, stepping gingerly over Travis’s train track on the living-room floor. I have accepted that she and Sam are on the verge of getting back together. I’ve imagined myself at their re-marriage ceremony, wearing a sombre dress and a brave smile.

‘Your children are just as lovely as Sam described,’ she adds.

Jake turns round from the TV and frowns. Lola beams delightedly.

‘We were wondering,’ Sam says hesitantly, ‘if you’d all like to come out for dinner. Just a cheapie Indian.’

‘Oh, Mummy, please!’ Lola implores, equating Indian with her beloved jewel-coloured rice. They want me to sit in a restaurant with Sam’s beautiful, skinny-hipped ex-wife, soon-not-to-be ex.

I’m not sure I can do this and act normal. ‘Um, I was planning to do sausage and mash …’

‘Aw, we
never
have Indian,’ adds Swearing Supremo Jake, as if every other child on the planet is treated to sumptuous Asian cuisine on a daily basis.

‘We went on your birthday,’ I remind him.

‘Yeah, like in November.’ He rolls his eyes dramatically.

‘It was my idea,’ Amelia explains. ‘With Harvey and Jake being such good friends, I wanted to meet you all properly. Our treat.’

Right. So they
are
a couple again. ‘OK,’ I say brightly, ‘that’d be lovely.’ Dinner with just Sam and the kids would be lovelier, but I shoo the thought away. Anyway, I could do without cooking after my Miss Race encounter (a matter that I still need to broach with the accused).

By a stroke of good fortune, we choose a restaurant where the children are warmly welcomed and Travis is given a cushion to boost him to table-height. I sit opposite Sam and Amelia, which feels rather interview panel-ish. There’s no denying how sparkly they are with each other, which twists my insides somewhat.

‘Remember my mum,’ Amelia says, snapping off fragments of poppadum, ‘and that row with Dad over the naan bread?’

‘When he draped it over the arm of the sofa?’ Sam says.

‘And she’d made the curry, and Dad kept asking what kind of meat was in it—’

‘And she told him, “It’s
meat
meat,”’ Sam concludes, laughing.

Amelia tears her gaze away from Sam and looks at me. ‘Sorry, Caitlin. It’s really rude – all this reminiscing.’

‘No, that’s OK,’ I say quickly. My napkin has fallen off the table, but I don’t dare to retrieve it, in case I catch Sam and Amelia playing footsie, or her hand snaking up his thigh.

‘Mum,’ Jake barks, ‘you’re not listening.’

‘Sorry, sweetheart, what did you say?’

Sam flicks a poppadum crumb from Amelia’s chin.

‘I said, why did Miss Race want to see you this morning?’

I narrow my eyes at him. ‘How d’you know?’

‘Josh Haines went past the office. He saw you in there with Travis and you were looking really mad.’

Damn and blast. For some reason Amelia seems to have warmed to me. I’d rather she didn’t learn about my substandard parenting skills just yet. ‘We’ll discuss it later,’ I murmur.

‘Mum, she’s my
teacher
. I need to know what’s going on.’

‘OK,’ I say, aware of Amelia’s gaze, ‘she said you rearranged the plastic letters on the board to make a bad word.’

He snorts and a few grains of rice shoot from his mouth. ‘That wasn’t me.’

‘She seemed certain, Jake. Said you’d snuck in during break—’

‘It wasn’t me!’ he cries. ‘She blames me for everything – she’s got it in for me.’

‘Stop lying,’ I hiss.

‘It wasn’t fucking me!’

‘
Jake!
’

‘Hey,’ Amelia cuts in deftly, ‘that’s nothing compared to the trouble I got into at school. Want to know what I did?’

‘Yeah,’ he mumbles, crunching a poppadum angrily.

She grins and her cheeks dimple prettily. ‘I started a swearing academy behind the sports hall.’

‘What’s a swearing candy?’ Lola asks eagerly.

‘Academy,’ Jake corrects her. ‘So what did you do?’

Amelia laughs. ‘It’s not clever, OK, and I don’t want any of you copying this, but I was banned from the school trip to York because of it.’ She leans forward and the children move closer, drawn in by her mischievous grin. ‘It was a school of bad words.’

‘Cool,’ Jake breathes.

‘A group of us used to meet up at break,’ Amelia continues. ‘I’d hand out lists of bad words and we’d practise saying them in different combinations.’

‘Mum!’ Harvey guffaws.

‘That’s when your toilet mouth started,’ Sam teases.

‘And because of that,’ she concludes, ‘I never got to make brass rubbings of Roman remains, or whatever it was they got up to.’

Everyone sniggers and the mood lifts. I’m astounded at how she’s defused the tension. Despite her girlie flutterings around Sam, I actually like her – not only for her swearing academy, but her astounding appetite. The only person I’ve been to dinner with recently is Millie. Her habit of discussing the G1 indexes of our various foodstuffs, or some amazing regime consisting of nothing but water with a dusting of cinnamon, tends to kill my appetite stone dead. Amelia has wolfed a naan the size of an oven glove and, besides her own lamb jalfrezi, is now attacking the remains of Sam’s balti. Snacking from a lover’s plate. How very intimate. A lump forms in my throat, and I gulp it down.

I will Amelia to go to the loo, and try to transmit extra-sensory messages to make her need it urgently. She stays put, laughing and picking at poppadum crumbs from Sam’s plate. I crave just a few moments alone with him, to establish precisely what’s going on – not that it would be possible to talk surrounded by kids’ waggling ears. Amelia is astoundingly beautiful; why has Sam never shared that minor detail? I’d seen photos of her – he gave me a whistle-stop tour of his former life in the form of a chunky-paged photo album – but in these pictures she looked wispy and insipid. She is radiant now in her embroidered cotton top with her hair falling loosely around her face. Her only embellishment is a dainty turquoise pendant. Bet she doesn’t require ten de-mothering steps, or blunder about in her garden with her gusset out.

‘So, Caitlin,’ she says, ‘Sam tells me you’re a writer.’

‘Well, only in a piddling, part-time kind of way.’

‘Nothing like building yourself up, is there?’ she laughs.

I shrug. ‘It doesn’t feel like a proper job. My only regular work is the problem page in
Bambino
, a parenting magazine – you’ve probably never heard of it.’

‘The one where the babies wear cashmere?’

‘That’s the one.’

Sam, I notice, is gazing at her, drinking her in.

‘That’s quite a responsibility,’ Amelia says. ‘I mean, giving the wrong advice could mess up someone’s life …’

‘It does feel scary sometimes, although I’m sure some people think I just bash out replies in between cooking the kids’ tea and running their baths.’

‘What happens to the letters you get? I imagine you can’t print them all.’

‘God, no, there are hundreds. With the leftovers –’ I shuffle uncomfortably ‘– I, um, stuff them into a cupboard in the hall, and I’m trying to … well, I’m trying to answer as many as I can.’

Sam bursts out laughing. ‘You never told me you do that.’

‘What else can I do? Throw them out as if they’re junk?’

Amelia shrugs. ‘That sounds perfectly sensible to me. You
know
what a hoarder I am, Sam. Can’t bear to throw anything away.’ She darts him a meaningful look.

‘Oh, yeah.’ He rolls his eyes, laughing her off. ‘It just seems a bit excessive, Cait. Beyond the call of duty. I mean, you’re not being paid to do that, are you? How d’you find the time?’

‘It doesn’t take that long,’ I protest.

‘
Liar
,’ Sam’s look says. He pushes back tousled hair and meets my gaze.

‘Well,’ Amelia declares, ‘I think it’s admirable, Caitlin. You obviously care about these people.’

She’s not entirely right. I have other, more selfish reasons. Ploughing through
Bambino
mail stops me dwelling on Martin and Slapper and, more crucially, Sam and Amelia. There’s nothing like a sackload of mail to make you feel, well,
needed
. Even if it can’t give you a cuddle or massage your feet.

The evening passes with all of us crunching aniseed sweets and not wanting to leave, even though the kids are splattered with rice and sauce and it’s way past Travis’s bathtime. Harvey looks more contented than I have ever seen him. It’s as if he has found the missing piece to complete his jigsaw. What kind of embittered old trout would I be not to want his parents to be together?

We finally part company at the end of my street. My family and Sam’s, feeling suddenly separate. ‘Well, Caitlin,’ Amelia says, ‘it was lovely to meet you.’

‘You too,’ I say.

‘I hope I’ll see lots more of you and your kids. They’re a real credit to you.’ She smiles warmly and for the first time this evening I sense a twist of unease. She’s almost too friendly, as if she’s taken a course in niceness.

‘Thanks,’ I manage.

Amelia grips Sam’s hand territorially. They turn away, and as they head towards Sam’s road I’m tempted to sneak a look to see if they are still holding hands, or if Harvey is between them, forming a chain of three.

Summoning every ounce of willpower, I stride home with my gang, and I don’t look back.

To prevent my mind from wandering towards Sam-and-Amelia territory, I whip through the witching hour – bath, stories, bed – making Jake’s room my final stop, despite my recent barring.

‘Jake,’ I venture from the doorway, ‘I’m not going to make a big deal out of this …’

He is propped up in bed with a fantasy novel and one pyjama-clad leg straggling out from under the duvet. ‘Out of what?’ he asks, flicking his gaze up at me.

I inhale deeply. ‘The magnetic-letters thing. You know – in your classroom. I’d just like to know what made you … why you thought it might be a good idea.’

‘It was a joke,’ he says slowly.

‘Well, it wasn’t very funny.’

‘God,’ he says, exasperated, as if my gentle probing is akin to relentless interrogation involving dazzling lights and thumbscrews. ‘It’s not a big deal,’ he adds witheringly.

‘I’m not saying it is, but it was obviously a big enough deal for Miss Race to summon me into her office, wasn’t it?’

‘That’s her problem,’ he snaps.

‘No it isn’t. It’s our problem, Jake, and we need to talk about it.’

‘Mummy!’ Lola’s voice spears across the landing. ‘Why are you shouting?’

Hell, I hadn’t even realised I was. A lovely evening out, with the curry and everything, trashed by my temper. Amelia would never do this.

‘Wish I lived with another family,’ Jake growls into his book.

‘What did you say?’

‘I said I wish I had another family. A family that’s not always arguing.’

I scowl at him. ‘What d’you mean exactly? Do you have a particular family in mind?’

‘Yeah. Sam and Amelia and Harvey.’

I can’t believe he’s saying this. Clearly, he has forgotten that Amelia doesn’t live with her son. At least, not at the moment. Perhaps, when you’re cool enough to have established a swearing academy, certain minor details don’t matter.

‘You do know that Sam and Amelia are divorced, don’t you?’ I snap. ‘They split up years ago, before Harvey started school, so they can’t get on
that
well—’

‘Yeah, but—’ he cuts in.

‘They’re not perfect, Jake,’ I charge on. ‘No one is. You might look at them and think, isn’t their life great, and aren’t they all smiley and happy with a mum who ran a swearing academy, but you don’t
know
.’ Oh, shit. These are his best friend’s parents. Book me in for a brain transplant.

‘They
do
get on,’ he growls. ‘They must do ’cause they’re getting remarried.’

I peer at Jake through the gloom. His air of smugness suggests that he knows how this makes me feel, that he can decipher my untoward Sam-thoughts. ‘How … how d’you know?’ I ask, trying to steady my voice.

‘Harvey said.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yeah.’ He grins savagely. ‘They’re gonna have a big party like that actor and actress in the olden days that married each other eight times.’

I smile, despite wishing to plunge myself through Jake’s bedroom window and land in a mangled heap on the pavement. ‘I think you mean Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. And they were only married twice.’