Mummy Said the F-Word (32 page)

Small ripple of laughter. Jesus, I’ve forgotten to do the hello-readers-how-lovely-it-is-to-meet-you thing. Too late now.

‘And I’m sure lots of you can identify with that,’ I finish in a rush. I scan the room. Bev is stoking her face with canapés. Amelia flashes an encouraging smile.

‘So I thought,’ I continue – this isn’t remotely what I’d intended to say – ‘if we all feel like fakes, let’s acknowledge that and support each other. I don’t know about you, but it’s been a huge relief to me to discover that the childcare police aren’t about to storm into my house and wallop me with a truncheon for not feeding my children organic aubergine with a blueberry jus.’

What the heck am I blathering on about? It’s the stress of having Amelia here, staring at me. My brain’s running away with itself. Yet when I skim the audience, I realise that people are laughing. There’s a palpable air of relief. Even my shoes seem to have slackened off. My feet must have de-puffed.

‘So instead of me preaching to you about the right way to do things,’ I lurch on, feeling mildly out of control but beginning to enjoy myself, as if on a roller-coaster ride, ‘I thought we could all throw in the most dim-witted advice we’ve ever heard.’

There’s a lull; then someone pipes up, ‘You should
wear
your children. You should strap them to your body with scraps of ethnic-looking fabric.’

A flurry of approval and clapping.

‘No more than three hours of TV a week!’

‘No TV until they’re ten!’

‘No nursery – ever.’

‘All your bread should be home-made, even if you have to get up at four in the morning to make it.’

‘Grind the wheat for your bread with your teeth!’

‘With your children strapped to your body.’

Laughter fills the room as more hands shoot up.

‘Parents who give their children fruit juice should be jailed.’

Millie catches my eye and gives me a flamboyant thumbs-up.

‘Children should sleep in the adult bed,’ calls out a woman from the back, ‘even if it means you’re forced on to the floor.’

‘Potty-train them at six weeks old.’

‘Six
days
old!’

‘They should only play with wooden toys.’

And so they keep coming, until I’ve forgotten that this was supposed to be an ordeal.

‘When you hear all this,’ comes my newly confident voice, ‘you have to agree that one sure route to madness is trying to do the right thing. Feeling fake is natural. It’s part of the job. The one thing we can all do for our children is have time for them and listen.’

‘Absolutely,’ someone murmurs.

‘But, please, let’s stop beating ourselves around the heads, because the perfect parent doesn’t exist. I mean, sometimes I let my kids have Fanta.’

More clapping. My heart is thudding madly, but in a good way – as it might if Sam were to walk in right now, and Amelia were spirited away to another continent.

‘Question and answer time,’ Millie mouths from the side of the stage.

It’s the part I’ve been dreading. My jaw clenches instantly, and I spot Rachel, willing me to keep it together over the top of her glass.

‘So,’ I manage, the wobbliness sneaking back in, ‘would anyone like to ask a question? Any particular problems you’d like to, um … to throw open to everyone here?’

Rachel grins and winks. Amelia is smiling broadly, and her smile is starting to look a little scary. Something doesn’t feel right. She’s trying too hard to be my friend. Instantly, it all makes sense. Amelia is trying to warn me off him. In sharing her Sam-plans with me, she’s saying,
Don’t think you can come between us
.

There’s an awkward pause. Then a hand springs up and a chalk-faced woman blurts out, ‘What can I do about my kids’ fights? It starts as soon as they wake up – sometimes they’ve had at least three before we set off for school.’ She looks exhausted and desperate.

‘Does anyone else have a problem with inter-sibling fighting?’ I ask.

Much nodding and waving of hands.

‘Has anyone found strategies that actually work?’

‘Star charts!’ pipes up Marcia.

‘Praising them when they don’t fight and ignoring it when they do,’ calls out a glossy-haired woman in a tweedy suit. ‘Unless someone’s being seriously injured of course.’

Much laughter.

They
answer the questions, this eager audience, while I stand there in my liquorice dress, somehow managing to wing it.

Millie strides towards me – her wrap dress has unwrapped a tad, revealing a glimpse of lacy bra – and grabs the mic. ‘Thank you,’ she says grandly, ‘to our fabulous agony aunt, Caitlin Brown.’

And it’s over.

‘Brilliant,’ she hisses into my ear as I clatter past her.

‘I need a drink,’ I hiss back, almost running into – such good
fortune
– the wine waitress. I snatch a glass and gulp its contents greedily. ‘Thanks,’ I murmur.

‘I never drink at this kind of event,’ comes a voice in my ear. I turn, and it’s Harriet Pike; her sneer would make small children weep.

‘Oh, Harriet, I’m—’

‘Yes, I’ve gathered. You’re Caitlin. My replacement.’

My mouth shrivels, and I’m scrabbling for words when Rachel hurries through the crowd towards me, holding out my bag. ‘You didn’t turn off your mobile, idiot. It’s rung at least five times. You’d better see who it is.’

‘Thanks, Rachel.’ I smile tightly at Pike.

‘I’d decided to move on anyway,’ she says tersely.

‘Right …’

‘You can’t do these things for too long. Seen one problem, seen them all.’ She laughs bitterly.

‘Yes, I suppose there are certain themes that come up.’

‘Anyway,’ she adds, ‘I couldn’t resist popping along today. To see what kind of a hash you’d make of this.’

My mouth drops open. The milling crowd – even Rachel, who’s still clutching my bag – seems to melt away.

Harriet’s eyes narrow. ‘Do you know how long I worked for this magazine?’ she hisses. ‘Ten years! Since the first issue. I was on the launch team. Bet you didn’t know that, did you?’

‘No, I …’ I can feel my face blazing. Her burgundy lipstick has bled into the creases around her mouth.

‘Even the name,
Bambino
, was my idea,’ she fires on. ‘You should have heard some of the dreadful names they were kicking around.’

‘Excuse me,’ I mutter, ‘but I really have to go.’ Rachel flings me a let’s-get-out-of-here look.

‘Mind you,’ Harriet retorts, ‘we had a proper editor then who knew what she was talking about. Not Millie Dawson, who brings in her friend to take over my page and hasn’t a clue about raising children.’

‘Do
you
have children, Harriet?’ I bark, startled by my assertiveness.

Her lips wither. ‘It’s not necessarily the mother who knows what’s best for a child.’

‘For goodness’ sake,’ Rachel snaps, ‘do you honestly think you know better than a parent does? I used to enjoy your page, Harriet, and read it every week, but I didn’t realise you had such an attitude—’

‘Why are you being like this?’ I cut in. ‘
I
didn’t sack you. I had no intention of taking on the page permanently.’

Harriet laughs scathingly. ‘With a job like this, one needs a break. I’d been doing it week in, week out, for ten years. Can you imagine what that’s like? Millie – your
friend
– encouraged me to take time off, said I needed a rest – planning, of course, to substitute me with you.’

‘I’m sorry you feel that way,’ I say firmly, ‘and I’m sure it didn’t happen like that. Now, if you’ll excuse me …’

Right on cue, my mobile trills. Grabbing my bag from Rachel, I fish it out and hurry to the corridor. It’s stopped ringing by the time I take the call. Not five but
nine
missed calls. All from Martin. What’s going on? Trembling, I call him, willing him to pick up.

It can only be one thing. Something has happened to Jake.

‘It’s OK, Cait, it’s OK. He’s going to be all right.’

‘What happened?’

‘It was just … an accident. I can’t believe I let it happen.’

‘Just tell me what happened!’

‘It’s his arm. He’s done something – fallen on his arm when the car hit him.’

‘He got hit by a
car
?’

‘Please don’t panic,’ Martin insists. ‘He’s been seen in A&E and they’re keeping him in, but they just want to check everything’s all right.’

‘Where? Which hospital?’

Someone touches my arm and I turn to see Amelia. Martin gives me the details and I try to store them in my head. My hands are shaking so much I stab the wrong button to finish the call.

‘Caitlin,’ Amelia says gently, ‘what’s going on?’

‘Jake’s in hospital. He’s been knocked over or something, I don’t know …’

‘I’ll drive you. My car’s over the road on a meter.’

‘I can get a cab,’ I protest, but she’s already marching me towards her beaten-up yellow Beetle with a gigantic sunflower emblazoned on its bonnet.

The car rattles and jerks, and it quickly becomes apparent that London driving and Amelia don’t mix. She curses constantly, gripping the steering wheel as if fearful that it might spring from her hands.

This shouldn’t be Jake. Not cautious Jake, who has never had an accident in his life. Travis is different; he’s been to A&E so
many
times that he greets the waiting-area toys like long-lost buddies. He broke his willy once, three weeks after Martin left. I’d bought him a toddler seat that fitted over the loo and he’d somehow tumbled forwards, trapping his penis at an unfortunate angle and bellowing for me. I’d run into the bathroom thinking, What now? What’s he broken or spilled? I was still smarting from finding him squirting the last glug of my L’Occitane shower gel (a gift from Millie) down the loo. All those bad thoughts I’d had; then I’d found him screaming, with blood dripping on to the floor.

Where was Martin when I needed him? I’d never hated him more than at that moment. Naturally, as soon as he learned of Travis’s accident, he was tearing through East London at something like 800 miles an hour to meet us at hospital, where we were told that the damaged appendage would miraculously self-heal.

Amelia is chatting – I wish she’d keep her mind on the road – but I’m not in a small-talk mood. ‘So I’ve definitely finished with my boyfriend,’ she says, ‘because whatever happens with me and Sam, I realised I wasn’t being honest, stringing him along and sneaking up to London whenever I could to spend the night with Sam.’

‘That’s probably the best thing,’ I murmur. Please don’t expect me to advise you. Not now.

She lurches to a halt at a red light. ‘I probably shouldn’t ask this, and it’s really none of my business—’

‘Amelia, I think you’re in the wrong lane.’

‘God, am I?’ She noses right, triggering a torrent of angry tooting behind us. ‘I was just wondering,’ she continues, now straddling two lanes, ‘if there’s ever been anything between you and Sam.’

I swallow hard. ‘Of course not,’ I say tersely. ‘What made you think there was?’

She shoots me a glance. Her sunniness has faded, and her eyes are flinty. I realise now that being chummy towards me has required a monumental effort on her part. She’s the one who deserves the Most Controlled Being Award.

‘It’s just … I hear from Harvey that you’re around a lot,’ she continues lightly, seemingly having forgotten my injured son in hospital, ‘and your name’s always cropping up.’ She barges in front of a rusting Transit van, her knuckles taut as she grips the steering wheel. ‘I just wanted to know,’ she adds with a dry snigger, ‘what kind of competition I’m up against.’

I stare pointedly out of the side window so she can’t see my blazing cheeks.

‘There’s no competition, Amelia,’ I say coolly.

‘Right. I’m sorry.’

‘I haven’t been involved with anyone since Martin left,’ I add, conveniently erasing Pac-a-Mac night from my mind.

‘Well, I can’t understand why not,’ she says, her voice brightening. ‘You’re a lovely-looking woman, Caitlin. Ever think of joining one of those dating websites?’

‘No,’ I growl. Oh, please. She’s warned me off Sam; now she’s turned into my mother. Isn’t it time you found yourself a nice man?

Mercifully, the hospital’s in view. Amelia pulls up in front of a huddle of smokers, their faces misted in a pale-grey haze. ‘Shall I come in with you? I can let Sam know I’ll be late.’

‘No, I’ll be fine. Thanks for the lift.’

‘He’ll be fine, Caitlin. Kids break bones all the time.’ She squeezes my hand, but any trace of warmth is long gone.

Jake doesn’t break bones all the time, I think, tumbling out of the car and striding towards the entrance.

But she’s right. The receptionist directs me along a corridor and up two floors to the fracture ward, and he
is
fine. His face is pale and drawn, and his right arm is encased in plaster, but my son still breaks into a grin when he sees me.

‘Hi, Mum.’

‘Oh, honey.’ I put my arms round him and kiss his forehead. He still smells of Jake: sweet as honey. I barely register Martin saying hi from the chair beside the bed and asking where Lola and Travis are, as if I might have left them bundled in the cupboard under the stairs while I snatched my five minutes of
fame
. He stands up and tugs the faded burgundy curtain around the bed.

‘They’re at Sam’s,’ I say quickly, ‘sleeping over. Oh, Jake, how did it happen?’

Jake shifts in bed, wincing. ‘Me and Dad were playing football—’

‘On the grassy area by the flats,’ Martin cuts in. ‘I passed to him and the ball went into the road. Jake chased it and the car came round the corner … It just clipped him, sent him flying, and he landed on his arm. It was my fault really, wasn’t it, son?’

Jake shakes his head fiercely. ‘No, Dad. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.’

He looks like a little boy, propped up against white pillows with his brave face on.

‘He’s fractured his elbow,’ Martin adds. ‘It was some mess, wasn’t it, Jake? All twisted-looking.’

‘It was freaky.’ Jake grins.

‘How long will he be in here?’ I ask as Martin drags over a chair for me.

‘A couple of days. We’re waiting for X-ray results. They want to check that it’s setting properly and make sure there’s no nerve damage to the hand.’