The Family Trap (14 page)

‘That’s not true,’ I say, stung. ‘I did everything – I don’t know how you can say that. Dad was at work all the time, and you were ... well, you were brilliant, of course, but I wasn’t going out all the time, going to work and then popping off here, there and everywhere like Lipsy is. Besides,’ I add, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice, ‘she has Robert. I had no one.’

‘I’m worried about her. And I’m worried about you,’ she adds. I look up in surprise.

‘Me?’

‘You’re pregnant. You’ve just lost your fiancé, your plans have gone haywire, and you’ve had to move out of the house you love. And you’re working those long shifts, and looking after Phoenix. You look dreadful, Stella. Have you even brushed your hair today?’

I haven’t, as it goes. But that’s not so unusual. With long hair you can usually get away with it. Tousled, is what people think. It’s trendy.

Or so I thought.

‘Hey,’ I joke, ‘keep talking, why don’t you? You’re making me feel really good about myself.’

She says nothing for a while. Just when I’m breathing a sigh of relief, she stands and picks up her bag, throwing it dramatically over her shoulder.

‘I just can’t talk to you when you’re like this,’ she says, making me feel about thirteen all over again. ‘Sometimes I feel like I hardly know you at all.’

And with that, she stalks out of the cafe, leaving me staring after her like a total idiot.

And leaving me with the bill, of course. But no change there.

‘What was all that about?’ I say to the woman opposite with a rueful shrug. She looks away and wipes her baby’s mouth with a flannel.

I watch my mother walk across the square below. From up here I can see that her roots need doing, and that she’s put on weight across her hips. That’s where I get it from – something else to blame her for. A tall man carrying a big square package in front of his face looks like he’s about to bump into her as she reaches the shops on the other side. I jump up protectively, raising my arm and opening my mouth to shout out a warning, but what can I do from up here?

She dodges him nimbly, like a woman half her age, and I sit back down again, feeling foolish. I think about how I should have stuck to my original plan – avoid all conversational topics except the most shallow. It’s the only way to stay safe, especially with my mother. Give her an inch – just the tiniest opening – and out it all pours.

But then, as she disappears into the crowd, I find that I miss her terribly, and I wish I was down there by her side, shopping and chatting, leaving all our problems behind for just a few innocent hours. And I’m unaccountably annoyed at myself for messing it up once again.

Chapter 13

‘Again?’

‘Yes. If it’s not too much trouble.’

‘Well, of course it isn’t too much trouble. But … Lipsy, it’s my afternoon off. I had some stuff to do.’

‘But I’ve got to get ready for the party. I can’t do that with Phoenix under my feet all the time.’

‘I’ll have to look after him there. There’s hardly room to swing a cat in this bedsit.’

‘Well, duh! I wasn’t planning on bringing him all the way over there. Besides, I thought you could help Grandma with the food.’

‘What food? Hang on a minute, what party?’

‘Oh, Mum. You’re so funny. It’s not a surprise anymore so don’t worry. Robert let it slip last week – he’s rubbish at keeping secrets.’

‘I’m not being funny, Lipsy. Seriously – what party?’

‘Bye, Mum. See you in half an hour, OK?’

I end the call and look at the phone as if the answers might suddenly appear on its black screen. Nothing. So I dial my dad’s mobile.

‘What’s this about a party?’ I ask as soon as he picks up.

‘Lipsy’s party?’ he says. I can tell by his voice that he’s smiling.

‘I don’t know, Dad. That’s why I’m calling. She wants me to babysit so she can get ready, but I’m not to worry as it’s not a surprise anymore. Although it is, isn’t it? To me.’

‘Good joke, Stella,’ he says, laughing. ‘See you about six, OK?’

‘I wish people would stop telling me how funny I am and just tell me what the hell is going on!’ I scream into the phone.

After a shocked silence, my dad explains. I apologise and hang up, glad I’m in my room alone and no one can see my red face.

Is being four months pregnant and recently estranged from your fiancé a good enough reason to forget your own daughter’s birthday?

I thought not.

But I’m sure I knew nothing about the party.

‘Your mum was going to remind you when you met for lunch the other day,’ my dad explained. ‘We figured you might have forgotten with everything else you’d had going on.’

I shut up when I heard this, still feeling vaguely guilty for pissing her off, although still without much of a clue how I’d managed it. Just by being myself, I guess. Seems I can’t help it.

When I arrive at Lipsy’s – or should I say when I arrive home, this technically still being my house, after all – I hold out my arms for the baby, not trusting myself to say another word, birthday or no birthday. This is the fourth day in a row I’ve looked after Phoenix, and the excuses are getting flimsier by the hour. She only works part-time, but then there was the shopping trip with Rosie – Phoenix would be so much better off at home than being dragged around the shops, she pleaded. Don’t go then, I countered, but Lipsy’s face told me what she thought of that idea – and the day before that it was an appointment with the hairdresser. On Wednesday, my late shift, it was lunch with Rob in the staff canteen
–
no babies allowed.

‘Surely Rob would love to show Phee off to his colleagues?’ I reasoned.

Lipsy fixed me with a steely glare. ‘His job is hanging by a thread, Mum. Do you really think bringing a screaming baby into the office says “Look at me, I’m a professional”?’

She had a point, but I still thought it was a shame.

‘And will you please stop calling him Phee? You know it winds me up, why do you do it? He’s my baby, mine and Rob’s, and we’ve named him Phoenix. Deal with it.’

There is this strange role reversal going on at the moment. Lipsy is the mother, not only of Phoenix, but also of me. I daren’t do anything that might upset her. It’s like walking a tightrope – who knows what might upset her at any given moment? I think it’s the stress of going back to work so soon, but there’s no way on earth I’m going to be the one to tell her that.

Which is why I acquiesce now and take Phee – I mean, Phoenix – without further argument. She’s doing her best, I know that. I do remember what it’s like being a new mum. And it was worse for me – I didn’t have a Robert to help out and change nappies and bring home the pennies and keep me warm at night.

I pointed this out to Lipsy once and once only. I won’t dare mention it again.

‘Thanks, Mum,’ she says now, planting a kiss on my cheek. ‘There’s a stack of bread to be buttered if you get chance, and some of those pineapple and cheese things to make too. Grandma will be here soon, so you’ll have a bit of help.’

‘Great,’ I tell her. ‘That’s just …’

But she’s already disappeared up the stairs.

*

Lipsy’s party looks to be a sorry affair, what with Billy travelling and most of Lipsy’s friends at work or away at college. For my part, I’m still stunned that I managed to forget my own daughter’s seventeenth birthday. I even offer to do an extra feed and stay the night, so both Lipsy and Robert can have a drink and a lie-in tomorrow.

In my defence, in years gone by it’s never been necessary to remember Lipsy’s birthday all on my own. Usually there is a weekly, and then daily, countdown to the big day, accompanied by a list of required presents, and often a demand for some kind of ridiculous themed party. Last year she had a horse riding party over in Brickhill woods – a disaster on four legs. The year before that it was a pink Cadillac and driving around Milton Keynes with six of her friends, sipping alcohol-free champagne (that’s what she told me it was, anyway) and hanging out of the windows looking cool. Right. And wasn’t the year before that the year of the make-over party when Rosie’s mum phoned to accuse me of dressing her daughter up like a ‘ho’? Lipsy had to explain that one to me, I have to confess.

But never, ever have I been allowed to forget the day before.

‘Surprise!’ calls my mother as she opens the door. My dad is behind her, smiling a private kind of a smile. Something about my mother’s glittery tone sets my teeth on edge, and I have to make an extra effort to relax my shoulders.

‘Oh,’ Lipsy says, coming down the stairs, miraculously transformed into something ethereally beautiful. ‘What a lovely surprise.’

I glare at her, and then at my mother. ‘I thought it wasn’t a surprise anymore?’

They ignore me and trot off to the kitchen, arm in arm.

After a minute or two I follow them. Better that than let them talk about me behind my back.

The kitchen is, of course, a complete disaster area. I’ve spent the last half an hour ransacking the airing cupboard for something nice to wear. I was sure I’d left some clothes in there when I got kicked out. Not for the first time, I lament the loss of my old wardrobe full of smocks and tunic tops and baggy leggings that have stood the test of time and many expansions of my waistline. My current uniform of baggy combat trousers with a loose T-shirt hanging over them is hardly great party gear, but I guess it will have to do.

Note to self: time to go shopping for maternity clothes. I can’t put it off forever.

‘Mum,’ Lipsy hisses behind me. ‘Where are the sandwiches? What have you been doing?’

I ignore her and start to pile peanuts into little dishes.

‘What’s that smell?’

We all look at my father, whose nose is wrinkled up in disgust.

‘I think it’s the nappy bin,’ I tell him. ‘Lipsy, you have been emptying it, haven’t you?’

‘That’s Rob’s job, not mine,’ she snaps.

‘Where is Robert, anyway?’ asks my mother.

Lipsy tells her he’s on his way home from work early, and I bite my lip. His job can’t be that much in jeopardy if he’s finishing early for a party, can it? I peer in the bin and shake my head.

‘Nope, it’s not this that smells.’

Lipsy puts her nose to Phoenix’s bottom, then looks at me with her eyebrows raised. ‘I think it’s a fresh one,’ she says.

Ordinarily I’d have told her to do it herself, but I see my chance to escape for a while, and besides, I’m too tired to resist.

By the time I’ve got Phoenix into clean clothes – the nappy leaked, don’t ask – the party is in full swing. Robert is home, and two of Lipsy’s old school friends are drinking cider in the kitchen. Rosie and Lipsy are sitting on the sofa with their heads together, and Mum and Dad are cuddling up to each other in the corner. Ugh. Is there anything worse than parents who are intent on showing the world how much they love each other? In your own lounge, in your favourite armchair, leaving their mark like two oversexed alley cats?

‘Oh, there’s the baby,’ someone cries, and before long I’m surrounded by cooing girls and poor Phoenix is being patted and stroked like a piece of dough. Lipsy won’t like this, I think, and sure enough she appears at my side to extract him from my grip as though I was about to offer him up for general consumption. Any minute now she’ll be saying ‘He’s a baby, not a toy,’ and the atmosphere of joyful praising of a cute new baby will be lost.

While no one is looking, I slip over to the presents that are laid out on the coffee table. With my back to the room, I deftly remove every last tag and pocket them. Now Lipsy won’t know who bought her what, and my failure to buy her a present will go unnoticed.

But when I look up I see my dad watching me. Whoops. Not unnoticed after all. He extricates himself from my mother’s grip and slides over to my side.

‘How are you bearing up, sweetheart?’

And just like that he’s reminded me that I’m here alone at my daughter’s party when I should, in an ideal world, have a husband at my side. I should have travelled down this morning, finding time to stop on the way to pick up something thoughtful and clever from the motorway services, and then wafted in, resplendently beautiful in my brand new designer maternity dress. While Paul looked on proudly and told everyone how well the new job was going, how deliriously happy we were, how glad he was about the baby …

Meanwhile, back in the real world, my feet are swollen and aching from all the hours I’m spending on them, I forgot my own daughter’s birthday, and I’ll be lucky to have a single item of clothing left soon if I continue to expand at this rate. I sigh and reach for the offered glass of Buck’s Fizz.

‘Dad,’ I say, ‘I honestly don’t know where to begin.’

He smiles and gives me a hug. My mother glares at me over his shoulder, pointing to the glass in my hand and making cut-throat signs across her neck.

‘Doesn’t she drive you insane?’ I ask my dad when he releases me and steps back.

‘Who?’

‘Your wife, of course. My mother. Come on, tell the truth – wasn’t it just a tiny bit of a relief to be away from her for a while?’

He catches my expression and starts to laugh. ‘No, actually. I missed her like crazy. You know, you two are so similar. I think that’s the problem. That’s why you clash all the time.’

Don’t you just hate it when people say that? I had a boyfriend once whose best friend hated me. No, he really hated me. Took every opportunity to put me down. And whenever I tackled the boyfriend about it he’d whimper and say, ‘Oh, you two are so alike. That’s why you don’t get on. It’s such a shame.’

Yeah, a shame you just likened me to a complete git.

I shake my head at my dad and sip the Buck’s Fizz. Yummy. Surely the tiny amount of alcohol in here will be offset by the super-healthy orange juice. Think of all that lovely vitamin C.

‘You should take some time off, Stella,’ my dad says. His tone is light but his expression is deadly serious. ‘We’re all really worried about you.’

I sigh. Not this again. ‘I can’t,’ I tell him. ‘I need the money.’

‘We can lend you some money.’

‘No, you can’t. I know you two are struggling to get back on your feet as well. We all are. Besides, I need the job, Dad. I enjoy it. More than I realised. I’m glad I didn’t give it up, actually. If anything good has come out of this sorry mess it’s that I’m still there with those lovely people. You should come over and meet them one day, they hardly get any visitors, you know. There’s this one old lady, Edie, she’s just brilliant, she–’