The Wrong Mother Read online

  ‘We could order a takeaway, bring a bottle of wine outside and eat in the car,’ Nick pleads. ‘It’s a warm night.’

  ‘You could,’ I correct him. ‘I’m sorry, but you’re married to someone who’s too old and knackered and grumpy to eat pizza in her car when there’s a perfectly good kitchen table within reach. And why only one bottle of wine?’

  Nick grins. ‘I could bring two if that’d swing it.’

  I shake my head: the party-pooper, the boring grown-up whose job description is to spoil everyone’s fun.

  ‘You want me to wake them up.’ Nick sighs. I open the car door and ease my wounded body out. ‘Jesus! Look at you!’ he shouts when he sees my knees.

  I giggle. Somehow, his overreaction makes me feel better. ‘How did an alarmist like you ever get a job working in a hospital? ’ Nick is a radiographer. Presumably he would have been sacked by now if he made a habit of startling prone patients by shouting, ‘Jesus! I’ve never seen a tumour that size before.’

  I open the boot and start to gather together the children’s many accessories while Nick makes his first tentative advance towards Zoe, gently urging her to wake up. I am a pessimist by nature, and guess that I have about twenty seconds to get through the front door and well away from the danger zone before the children detonate. I grab all the luggage and my house key (Nick has, of course, forgotten to put the door on the latch and it has swung closed), and head for shelter. I sprint up the path with nursery bags and blankets trailing in my wake, let myself in, and, gritting my teeth against the pain that I know will come when I try to bend and unbend my stinging knees, begin my ascent.

  Number 12A Monk Barn Avenue has one extraordinary feature: it consists almost entirely of stairs. Oh, there’s a strip of hall, and a narrow stretch of landing, and if you’re really lucky you might stumble across the odd room, but basically what we bought was stairs in a good location. A location, crucially, that we knew would guarantee places at Monk Barn Primary School for Zoe and Jake.

  Perversely, I already resent the school for making me move house, so it had better be good. Last year it was featured in a television documentary, the verdict of which was that there were three state primaries-Monk Barn, one in Guildford and one in Exeter-that were as good as any fee-paying prep school in the country. I’d have opted to pay, and stay in our old house, but Nick had a miserable time as a teenager at a very expensive public school, and refuses even to consider that sort of education for our children.

  From our bathroom window there’s a good view of Monk Barn Primary’s playground. I was disappointed when I first saw it because it looked ordinary; I’d uprooted my family to be near this place-the least they could have done was carve some scholarly Latin texts into the concrete.

  I wince as I drag my battered, stiffening body up the first stretch of stairs, past the downstairs loo, the bedroom that Zoe and Jake share, and the bathroom. The centrepiece of our flat is a large rectangular obstruction that looks as if it might have been sculpted by Rachel Whiteread. Inside this white-walled blockage is the house’s original staircase that now leads to flats 12B and 12C. It annoys me that there is a big box containing someone else’s stairs inside my home, one that eats up half the space and means I keep having to turn corners. When we first moved here, I kept leaping to my feet as I heard what sounded like a stampede of buffaloes on the landing. I soon realised it was the sound of our neighbours’ footsteps as they went in and out, that the thudding wasn’t coming from inside my new home-it only sounded as if it was.

  As I limp past the kitchen, I hear screams from the road. The children are awake. Poor Nick; he would never suspect that I rushed inside to avoid having to deal with the mayhem I knew was coming. I turn another corner. Nick’s and my bedroom is a few steps up on the left. It is so small that, if I stood in the doorway and allowed myself to fall forward, I would land on the bed. The idea appeals to me, but I keep going until I get to the lounge, because that’s the only room that has a view of the street, and I want to check that Nick is holding his own against the combined forces of Zoe and Jake.

  Tutting at the browning banana skin that perches like an octopus on the arm of the sofa, I walk over to the lounge window. Nick is on his knees on the pavement with a wailing Zoe tucked under one arm. Jake is lying in the road-in the gutter, to be precise-red in the face, screaming. Nick tries to scoop him up, fails, and nearly drops Zoe, who screams, ‘Dadd-ee! You nearly dropped m-ee!’ She has recently learned how to state the obvious and likes to get plenty of practice.

  Our neighbours Fergus and Nancy choose this moment to pull up in their shiny red two-seater Mercedes. Roof down, of course. Fergus and Nancy own the whole of number 10 Monk Barn Avenue in its original form. When they pull up in their sports car after a hard day’s work, they can go straight inside, pour themselves a glass of wine and relax. Nick and I find this incredible.

  I open the lounge window to let some air in, put the phone back in its holder, and turn off the TV. The best way to stop my wounded skin from stiffening is to keep moving-this is what I tell myself as I quickly repair the lounge: cushions back on the sofa, TV guide back on the coffee table, Nick’s jacket to the wardrobe, race down to the kitchen with the banana skin. If I ever leave Nick for another man, I’m going to make sure it’s someone tidy.

  Back in the lounge-our only large room-I unpack the nursery bags, sorting things into the usual five piles: empty milk bottles and juice cups, dirty clothes, correspondence that needs attention, junk that can be binned, and artwork that must be admired. The children are still howling. I hear Nick trying, as tactfully as possible, to fend off Fergus and Nancy, who always want to stop for a chat. He says, ‘Sorry, I’d better…’ Jake’s yelping drowns out the rest of his words.

  Nancy says, ‘Oh dear. Poor you.’ She might be addressing Nick or either of the children. She and Fergus often look anxious when they see us struggling with Zoe and Jake. Now they probably think something terrible has happened at nursery-a rabid dog on the loose, perhaps. They’d be horrified if I told them this was normal, that tantrums on this scale are a twice-daily occurrence.

  By the time Nick manages to lug the kids up to the kitchen, I have put on a load of washing, wiped all the surfaces, spooned some defrosted shepherd’s pie into two bowls and put it in the microwave. My children spill into the kitchen like survivors from the wreck of the Titanic: damp, unkempt and full of complaints. I tell them in a bright voice that it’s shepherd’s pie for tea, their favourite, but they appear not to hear me. Jake lies face down on the floor and sticks his bottom in the air. ‘Bottle! Cot!’ he wails. I ignore him, and continue to talk brightly about shepherd’s pie.

  Zoe sobs, ‘Mummy, I don’t want shepherd’s pie for supper. I want shepherd’s pie!’

  Nick zigzags around her to get to the fridge. ‘Wine,’ he growls.

  ‘You’re having shepherd’s pie, darling,’ I tell her. ‘And you, Jakie. Now, come on-everyone sit down at the table!’

  ‘Nooo!’ Zoe screams. ‘I don’t want that!’

  Jake, seeing Nick pouring wine into two glasses, sits up and points. ‘Me!’ he says. ‘Me turn.’

  ‘Jake, you can’t have wine,’ I tell him. ‘Ribena? Orange squash? Zoe, you don’t want shepherd’s pie? What do you want, then? Sausages and baked beans?’

  ‘Noooo! I said-Mummy, listen. I said, I don’t want shepherd’s pie, I want shepherd’s pie.’

  My daughter is very advanced for a four-year-old. I’m sure none of her contemporaries would think of such a simple yet brilliant way to infuriate a parent.

  ‘Want dat!’ Jake points again at Nick’s wine. ‘Want Daddy drink! Srittle!’

  Nick and I exchange a look. We are the only people in the world who understand every word Jake says. Translation: he wants to sit on the sofa with a glass of wine and watch Stuart Little. I can relate to this. It’s almost exactly what I want to do, give or take the odd detail. ‘After supper, you can watch Stuart Little,’ I tell him firmly. ‘Now, Zoe,
Jake, let’s all sit down at the table and you can have some nice shepherd’s pie, and you can tell me and Daddy all about your day. We can have a nice family chat.’ I sound like a naïve idiot even to myself. Still, you have to try.

  Nick picks Jake up off the floor and puts him in a chair. He wriggles off and wipes snot all over Nick’s trousers. Zoe clings to my leg, still insisting that she both does and doesn’t want shepherd’s pie. ‘Okay,’ I concede, moving mentally to Plan B. ‘Who wants to watch Stuart Little?’ This suggestion attracts an enthusiastic response from the junior members of the household. ‘Fine. Go and sit on the sofa, and I’ll bring your supper in there. But you have to eat it all up, okay? Otherwise I’ll turn the TV off.’ Zoe and Jake run out of the room, and begin to clamber up to the lounge, giggling.

  ‘They won’t eat it,’ Nick tells me. ‘Zoe’ll sit with hers on her lap, mashing it around with her fork, and Jake’ll throw his on the floor.’

  ‘Worth a try,’ I call over my shoulder as I race upstairs with a bowl of shepherd’s pie in each hand.

  Jake reaches the top of the stairs first. When Zoe’s head appears a second or two later, he smacks her lightly on the nose. She hits him back and he falls into me. I fall too, and spill both bowls of food. When Nick arrives to see what’s happened, he finds Zoe bawling on the stairs, Jake bawling in the lounge doorway, and me on my hands and knees on the carpet, collecting fluffy mincemeat, carrots, mushrooms and lumps of potato to put back into the bowls.

  ‘Right,’ says Nick. ‘If everybody stops crying right now… you can have some chocolate!’ He’s got a half-unwrapped Crunchie bar in his hand and is holding it as a highwayman might hold his gun, pointing it at the children. I see undiluted desperation in his eyes.

  Zoe and Jake are writhing on the floor, demanding both chocolate and Stuart Little. ‘No chocolate,’ I say. ‘Bed! Right now!’ I abandon the shepherd’s pie clear-up operation, pick them up and carry them downstairs to their room.

  Utterly determined to complete the task I have set myself no matter what obstacles I encounter, I finally manage to get Zoe into her nightie and Jake into his pyjamas and sleeping bag. I tell them to wait while I get their bedtime milk, and when I come back to their room, they are sitting side by side on Zoe’s bed. Zoe has her arm round Jake. They both smile up at me. ‘I brushed my teeth, and Jake’s, Mummy,’ says Zoe proudly. I notice a pink and a blue toothbrush protruding from under Jake’s cot, and large white smears on the carpet and on Jake’s left cheek.

  ‘Well done, darling.’

  ‘Tory?’ says Jake hopefully.

  ‘Which story do you want?’

  ‘Uttyumbers,’ he says.

  ‘Okay.’

  I take Dr Seuss’s Nutty Numbers off the shelf and sit down on the bed. I read it without interruption, and Zoe and Jake take turns to lift the flaps and find the hidden pictures. When I’ve finished, Jake says, ‘Gain,’ so I read it again. Then I put Zoe in her bed and Jake in his cot and sing them their goodnight song. I made it up when Zoe was a baby, and now Nick and I have to sing it every night while the children laugh at us as if we’re eccentric old fools, singing a song that contains their names and lots of words that don’t exist.

  I kiss them goodnight and close their door. I don’t understand children. If they’re shattered and want to go to bed, why don’t they just say so?

  I find Nick sitting cross-legged on the floor, a dustpan and brush idle in his lap. He is watching the news again and drinking his wine, surrounded by small piles of cold shepherd’s pie. Nick loves every sort of news: 24, Channel 4, CNN. He’s hooked. Even when nothing of any interest is happening, he likes to hear all about it. ‘How were they?’ he asks.

  ‘Fine,’ I tell him. ‘Sweet. Aren’t you going to…?’ I point at the mess.

  ‘In a sec,’ he says. ‘I’m just watching this.’

  It’s not good enough. Not now, not on the day that somebody tried to kill me. Is it possible to push a person under a bus and not be trying to kill them?

  ‘You could do both at the same time,’ I say. ‘Watch the news and clear up the mess.’ Pointless; it’s the sort of comment someone like Nick doesn’t understand.

  He looks at me as if I’m crazy.

  ‘I’m just saying, it’d be more efficient.’

  When he sees I’m serious, he laughs. ‘Why don’t I just go straight to the last day of my life?’ he says. ‘That’d be really efficient. ’

  ‘I’m going to ring Esther,’ I say through gritted teeth, picking up the phone to take into the bathroom. A warm bath with lots of lavender-scented bubbles in it will make everything all right.

  ‘Remember to make dinner and sleep and have tomorrow’s breakfast at the same time,’ Nick calls after me. ‘It’s more efficient.’

  He is joking, and has no idea that I often do cook and make phone calls simultaneously. I’ve made entire meals one-handed, or with the phone tucked under my chin.

  I turn on the hot tap and dial Esther’s number. Hearing my voice, she says what she always says. ‘Have you saved Venice yet?’

  ‘Not yet,’ I tell her.

  ‘Damn, you’re slow. Pull your finger out. Decontaminate those salt-marshes.’

  I work three days a week for the Save Venice Foundation, which Esther thinks is a hilarious and sensationalist name for an organisation. We have been best friends since school. ‘Talking of slow…’ She groans. ‘The Imbecile is such an imbecile. You know what he did today?’ Esther works at the University of Rawndesley. She’s secretary to the head of the history department. ‘A load of e-mails came through to me that he needed to look at and respond to, right? Six, to be exact. So I forwarded them to him, and-because I know what an imbecile he is-I gave him two options: either he could reply directly, himself, or he could tell me what he wanted me to say and I’d reply for him. Two clear options, right? You understand the choice on offer?’

  I say I do, and hope her story won’t go on too long. I want her to listen, not talk. Does that mean I’ve decided to tell her?

  ‘Three hours later, I get seven e-mails in my inbox, from the Imbecile. One tells me that he has replied to all the messages himself. Great, I think. The other six are the replies, to all sorts of important bods in the world of history academia-yawn!-that he thinks he’s sent to the bods, but that in fact he’s sent to me. He just clicked on reply! He doesn’t know that if someone forwards you an e-mail and you click on reply, you’re replying to the forwarder, not the sender of the original message! And this guy’s the head of a university department!’

  Her irate tone makes me weary. I ought to be angry, but instead I am numb.

  ‘Sal? You there?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  I take a deep breath. ‘I think a childminder called Pam Senior might have tried to kill me this afternoon.’

  ***

  Pam has never been Zoe and Jake’s childminder but she’s one of our regular babysitters and she helped Nick when I was away for a week last year. She is usually cheerful and chatty, if a little opinionated about things like dummies and the MMR vaccine. When I saw her in Rawndesley I was pleased; I thought it would save me a phone call. On weekday evenings I’m often so tired by the time I’ve made and eaten supper that I find it hard to produce full, cogent sentences.

  I called out to Pam and she stopped, apparently pleased to see me. She asked after Zoe and Jake, whom she calls ‘the bairns’, and I told her they were fine. Then I said, ‘Are you still okay to have Zoe for the autumn half-term week?’ I had my mum or Nick’s mum lined up for most of the school holidays, but both were busy that week in October.

  Pam looked shifty, as if there was something she wasn’t telling me. The expression on my face must have been tragically-let-down-needy-working-mother to the power of a hundred as I anticipated being hit by a sudden childcare catastrophe. As indeed I was.

  Monk Barn Primary’s autumn half-term coincides with a conference I have to attend. Most of the Ven
etian environmental scientists as well as experts from all over the world who are working on how to preserve Venice ’s lagoon are convening for five days in Cambridge. As one of the organisers, I have to be there, which means I have to find someone to look after Zoe. I tried nursery first, hoping they’d have her back just for the week, but they’re full. Once Zoe leaves at the beginning of September, another child will take her place. So I thought of Pam, who had helped me before.

  ‘No probs,’ she said when I asked her three months ago. ‘I’ve stuck it in the diary.’ There was no element of uncertainty, nothing about pencilling it in and confirming later. Reliability, I would have said before today, is Pam’s main characteristic. Her navy blue NatWest Advantage Gold diary is never out of her hands for long.

  Pam appears to have no interests. She is single, and her social life, from what I can tell, revolves entirely around her parents, with whom she still goes on holiday every year. They stay in hotels that belong to the same chain, all over the world, and clock up reward points that Pam is very proud of. Whenever I speak to her she gives me her latest score, and I try to look impressed. She has also told me defiantly that she and her mum always make sure to leave hotel rooms spotless: ‘There’d have been nothing for the maid to do after we left-nothing!’

  She doesn’t read books or go to the cinema or theatre, or watch television. She isn’t keen on exercise of any sort, though she always wears lilac and pale pink sportswear: jogging bottoms or cycling shorts, and skimpy Lycra vests under zip-up tracksuit tops. Art doesn’t interest her: she once asked me why I have ‘all those blobby pictures’ on my walls. She isn’t a fan of cooking or eating out, DIY or gardening. Last year she told me she was giving up babysitting at weekends because she needed more time for herself. I have no idea what she might do with that time. She once said that she and her parents were going on a course to learn how to make stained-glass windows but she never mentioned it again and nothing ever seemed to come of it.