Losing Me (19 page)

•   •   •

“Mummy, I bought you this. I got it with some of my birthday money.” Barbara, age eight or nine, jigging with excitement, presents her mother the gift she’s wrapped in peach Kleenex and secured untidily with bits of Scotch tape.

“What’s this?” Rose says, carrying on with her ironing. Barbara wonders why her mother sounds irritated. Barbara is never annoyed when somebody gives her a present.

“Open it and see.” Barbara is still jigging.

Rose turns the iron on its end and begins unwinding the tissue paper. She discovers a china poodle with painted eyelashes and a pink bow in its hair. It’s attached to a tiny cart full of pink China roses. It cost a whole two shillings—half of the savings in her money box. Barbara thinks it’s the cutest thing ever. She waits for her mother to beam and embrace her and say how much she loves it.

“Very nice. Thank you very much. Why don’t you go and put it on the shelf.”

“I love you, Mummy,” Barbara said.

Rose was examining a stain on one of Stan’s shirts. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. I’ve half ironed this thing and now I’ll have to wash it all over again.”

•   •   •

Barbara pressed the downstairs bell. When Rose didn’t answer, she tried again. Still nothing. She hit the bell a third time. Surely her mother wasn’t out. Not after seven. Then:

“Hello? Who is it?”

“Mum, what took you so long? It’s me. I’m downstairs.”

Rose buzzed her in. Barbara took the lift to the third floor.

“I’ve twisted my ankle,” Rose said by way of greeting. “I can hardly walk.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake. Why on earth didn’t you call me?”

Leaving Barbara to shut the front door, Rose began hobbling back into the living room, grasping bits of furniture along the way. Barbara followed.

“I was waiting for you to call me.”

“Because somehow I knew telepathically that you’d twisted your ankle,” Barbara said, taking off her coat.

“No. You owe me a call.”

This was how her mother had always operated. Ever since Barbara could remember, Rose had kept a mental record of all social calls made and received. Friends—back in the days when she had them—who failed to call her as often as she called them were ignored until they made up their shortfall. Nevertheless, Barbara was surprised her mother hadn’t called. She wasn’t one to hold back when she was suffering.

“What was the point of calling? There’s nothing you can do. I just have to wait for the swelling to go down.”

It turned out that Rose’s ankle had given way a couple of days ago as she stepped down from the bus that brought her home from the shops. Terry, the building caretaker, had seen her topple over and helped her to her flat. “He’s been getting my shopping, bless him. He’s such a lovely chap. He’d do anything for you.”

OK, now she got it. Rose was feeling neglected and was making her point by not phoning.

As Barbara dropped her keys into her handbag, she noticed a packet of sweets. She’d bought them for her mother days ago and had forgotten about them.

“Oh, I got you some more peppermint creams. You said you’d run out.” She handed her mother the packet.

“I’ve gone off peppermint creams,” she said, waving them away. “I’m into toffees again.”

Barbara put the peppermint creams back in her bag and felt the familiar feeling of rejection.

Rose maneuvered herself onto the sofa and lifted her foot onto the leather footstool. Her
Thorn
Birds
video was playing in the background.

“Mum, can’t we turn this off while we talk?”

“No. This is the best bit. It’s the beach scene where they make up.” Her mother reached into the sweet dish and unwrapped a toffee. “You used to love Richard Chamberlain.”

Since her mother clearly wasn’t going to offer her one, Barbara helped herself to a toffee. Richard Chamberlain, or to be more specific Dr. Kildare, had been Barbara’s first pinup. She’d sent off for a signed photograph, and it had hung over her bed for years—until she’d replaced him with David Cassidy. Even though she’d been in in her forties when she’d discovered Chamberlain was gay, she’d still been upset.

Barbara knelt down and felt Rose’s ankle. It was puffy and purple, but her mother seemed to have no trouble moving it.

“It’s not broken,” Rose said. “Terry’s wife’s a nurse. She came up and looked at it. She said I’d be in more pain if it was broken.”

Barbara was inclined to agree.

“So how are you managing in the bath and getting dressed?”

Rose said she’d had a quick up-and-down wash each morning, but she couldn’t manage to get in the bath. Barbara asked if she’d like a bath now, while she was here to help her.

“Well, if it’s no trouble. I don’t want to put you out.”

“You aren’t putting me out.”

When the bath was ready, Barbara helped her mother into the bathroom and sat her down on the loo lid. “You’ve forgotten my bath salts,” Rose said.

Barbara picked up the jar of lavender bath salts and started sprinkling.

“That’s too much. Now you’ve made the water all slimy.”

“No, I haven’t. The water’s fine. Now, come on. Let’s get you undressed.”

Barbara hadn’t seen her mother naked in decades. Not since before she left home.

“Look at me,” Rose said. “I’m nothing more than a sagging old prune.” The leg with the good ankle was already in the bath. With Barbara holding her arm, she was able to draw the other one across. “And I used to have such beautiful firm breasts. Look at them now—a couple of empty, shriveled paper bags.”

“Oh, stop it. You’re eighty-three. Of course you’ve got a few wrinkles and saggy bits. But your figure’s great. You still go in at the waist.”

“True—which is more than you do.”

“Mum, I just paid you a compliment. I’m not asking for one in return, but could you at least stop criticizing me for five minutes?”

“Oh, stop being so sensitive. You need to take a chill pill.”

Little did her mother know that she was on twenty milligrams a day.

“I’m not being sensitive. You’re being rude. Now behave, or I won’t scrub your back.”

Rose snorted and grabbed the handrail on the wall. Barbara carried on supporting her other arm. Gingerly, Rose lowered herself into the water.

Barbara reached for the soap and the loofah mitt.

“Ooh, that is bliss,” Rose said. “I can’t remember the last time somebody scrubbed my back.” She paused. “I can still picture bathing you when you were little. Do you remember how we used to make that unicorn horn with your hair?”

“I do. And I used to hate the way you scrubbed my ears.”

“But you know why I did that?”

“Yes, because cabbages would grow in the dirt if you didn’t.”

“That’s right.”

“Every day when I shower,” Barbara said, “I remember you telling me that.”

Rose chuckled. “Ooh, I nearly forgot. Talking of prunes, I must ask Terry to get me some. These days they’re the only things that keep me regular.”

“Mum, you can’t keep asking Terry to do your shopping. He’s not your personal butler.”

“He doesn’t mind. And I always get him a bottle of Scotch at Christmas.”

“So what? You’re using him, and it isn’t right. Just tell me what you need and I’ll order your shopping online.”

“What? No way. I don’t want strangers choosing my fruit and veg. They’ll give me any old overripe rubbish.”

“But you’re happy for Terry to do it.”

“He knows how fussy I am.”

“OK, I’ll do it.”

“All right . . . if you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“Well . . . I suppose it’s not like you’ve got a lot on at the moment.”

Rose sat in her dressing gown and made a shopping list while Barbara made her mother supper: eggs, lightly poached, on Marmite toast—brown not burned.

The evening traffic was so bad that it took Barbara nearly two hours to get home. She located a year-old spinach cannelloni in the deep freeze and shoved it in the oven. While it was cooking, she poured herself a Scotch and took it into the living room. She sat on the sofa and found herself thinking about ear cabbages. Had she and Rose shared a moment back there?

Chapter 7

P
am had posted a new status update.
Oh-em-gee . . . Susan Boyle in concert last night at the Apollo. Voice of an angel. Such an inspiration. *fills up.*

“Gawd . . . Aunty Pam’s been to see Subo.”

“Thank you, Ben,” Barbara said. “I
can
read. And FYI, my Facebook newsfeed is private. Would you mind not peering over my shoulder? And how come you’re up so early on a Saturday morning?”

“My day at the food bank.”

Her son ambled over to the fridge.

“Of course, you know why women your age are into Subo,” he said, taking out a carton of milk. “Because she gives them hope. I mean there they are, sad and middle-aged, their lives practically over, and she’s telling them not to give up. So why haven’t you and Aunty Jean been to one of her gigs? You’re totally her demographic.” He began pouring milk over a bowl of Honey Shreddies.

She knew he was taking the piss, but it didn’t stop her picking up a tea towel lying on the back of a chair and throwing it at him. It fell onto the floor, a foot or two short.

“Arrogant little sod. How dare you suggest my life is practically over?”

He was grinning as he bent down to pick up the tea towel. “It was a joke. Of course your life isn’t over.”

“Thank you. And Susan Boyle happens to put a smile on people’s faces. What’s wrong with that?. . . Oh, and if you’re planning on taking cereal up to your room, don’t get milk over the duvet. I only changed the cover yesterday.”

He picked up the bowl and turned to go.

“Mark my words,” Barbara said. “One day you’ll be fat and middle-aged with bushy eyebrows and an enlarged prostate. Wait until your kids call you sad and pathetic. Then you’ll be laughing on the other side of your face.”

Ben turned round and grinned. “Not gonna happen.”

“You reckon?. . . Oh, and FYI, when I die, I want ‘Bat Out of Hell’ played at my funeral.”

“Really? But Subo’s got the voice of an angel. Surely you’d prefer her.”

“I want ‘Bat Out of Hell
’
and ‘Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven.’”

“Mum, I don’t quite know how to break this to you, but ‘Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven’ isn’t actually a Meat Loaf song.”

“Duh.”

“God, you’re weird.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Barbara dutifully “liked” Pam’s status update and went to take a shower. She’d promised to do an afternoon shift at the deli. Before that she planned to do a supermarket shop for Rose and drop it round. She had her coat on and was hunting for her keys when the phone rang. It was Sally Fergusson. She sounded tense, and there was a certain amount of throat clearing.

“I just wanted to call and say thank you for seeing Freddie, but we won’t be needing you anymore.”

She knew that Sally had form, sacking tutors, but she hadn’t been expecting to get her marching orders quite so soon. “Goodness. Would you mind telling me why? It’s just that I thought our session went rather well.”

She came straight out with it. “My son is not dyslexic. I’m horrified that you could even suggest such a thing.”

Great. So after he promised not to, Sally’s dad had gone wading in.

“Sally, has your father been speaking to you?”

“You made sure you got him on your side, didn’t you?”

“This has nothing to do with sides. He’s worried about Freddie, that’s all, and he asked my opinion.”

“I’m Freddie’s mother. It’s me you should be speaking to, not my father.”

She was right. Barbara shouldn’t have discussed Freddie with a third party—even if it was his grandfather. “I apologize. It was very wrong of me. But you weren’t there, and your dad seemed anxious. Not that that’s an excuse. Believe me, I was planning to call you to talk about Freddie.”

“I don’t understand what there is to talk about. It’s simple. Freddie is a highly intelligent child who is simply not getting the stimulation he deserves. Why is it that his father and I are the only people who get it?”

“That’s not true. I get it. Freddie is a smart boy. Be in no doubt about that.”

“Then how can he possibly be dyslexic?”

“Smart kids can be dyslexic.”

“And what gives you the right to diagnose him? Are you an expert?”

“No, I’m not, and I have absolutely not diagnosed him. He would need to be properly assessed. All I’ve done is voice my concerns.”

“Oh, I get it. You’ve got some kind of agenda. Everywhere you go, you see dyslexia. You’re like one of those crazy social workers who think everybody’s sexually abusing their children.”

“That’s ridiculous. I am no such thing, and if you carry on speaking to me like this, I’m going to hang up.”

Sally didn’t say anything. Barbara decided to take her silence as something approaching a climbdown.

“Look,” Barbara said, doing her best to stay calm. “I know you’re upset and angry. Why don’t I come over sometime? It might be easier if we discussed this face-to-face, and afterwards you can decide whether or not to let me carry on tutoring Freddie.”

Sally took a moment to consider Barbara’s proposal. “Fine. Whatever. But you’ll need to come straightaway. Freddie’s at a friend’s house for a few hours. I don’t want to have this conversation with him around.”

Barbara didn’t take kindly to Sally’s summons to come immediately. Plus schlepping to Islington right now would leave her short of time. There was no way she’d be able to fit in Rose’s supermarket shop, let alone drop the groceries in. Her mother would not be pleased. On the other hand, this was about Freddie, and she cared about him. “OK . . . Give me an hour.”

She put down the phone and went in search of her mother’s shopping list. It was lying on the hall table under her keys. She brought it over to her laptop, went onto the Tesco Web site. Just this once her mother would have to make do with a supermarket delivery.

A bit later she called Rose from the car.

“Well, if the apples come bruised, I’m sending them back. And I like my bananas green—so they last longer. I hope you told them that.”

“You don’t actually get to talk to a person, but I’ve done my best.”

“But why can’t you do my shopping?”

Barbara explained that she’d started doing some private tutoring. “There’s this kid who’s having problems. His mum is really upset about him and wants to have a chat.”

“I see. So I suppose I’ll just have to wait my turn, then.”

Yeah, just like I did all those years,
Barbara thought
. Only my turn never came. And it wasn’t like I even had brothers or sisters.

•   •   •

Jack opened the door. “OK, before you say anything . . . This is all my fault and I am truly sorry. I know I promised not to say anything to Sally, but in the end I just couldn’t hold back.”

Barbara’s response was polite but no more. She wasn’t about to let him off the hook. “These things happen,” she said.

“And I overheard what Sally said to you on the phone. She shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.”

“It’s fine. I realized she was upset.”

By now they had reached the basement. Bertie was amusing himself with a lamb bone. Sally was in sweats and perfectly pedicured bare feet. She was standing at the kitchen counter pouring coffee into a mug. She looked up when she saw Barbara.

“Thank you for coming. Look . . . I was appallingly rude to you on the phone. I’m sorry. I got myself worked up, that’s all.”

“I’m sorry, too. I should have spoken to you sooner.”

“Right, now we’ve got that sorted,” Jack said, “maybe we should all sit down and have a cup of coffee.” Jack paused and looked at his daughter. “Unless, of course, you’d rather I wasn’t here.”

His daughter rolled her eyes. “No, Dad. It’s OK. You can stay.”

Sally took two more mugs off the shelf. Jack produced a box of shortbread, and the three of them sat down at the kitchen table. Bertie padded over to join them and made himself comfortable at Jack’s feet.

“Freddie’s dad still away?” Barbara said, reaching over to scratch Bertie under the chin.

Sally nodded. “I’m not sure when he’ll be back. . . . So . . . maybe you could explain why you think Freddie’s dyslexic.”

“Like I said on the phone, I don’t know for certain that he is.”

“But you suspect he might be?”

“It’s possible. The fact is that Freddie is a smart, articulate boy with excellent reading and comprehension skills. . . .”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Sally said. “I know all this.”

“But do you also know that he can’t recite the months of the year or the days of the week in order?”

“That’s absurd.”

“Have you heard him do it?” Barbara helped herself to a finger of shortbread.

“No, but it’s ludicrous to think he can’t do something so basic.”

“I think he might also be struggling to tell the time.”

“What? The child is ten. That’s crazy.”

“Again . . . have you ever checked he can tell the time?”

“I don’t know. But at some point, surely I must have. . . .”

“What’s more, his mental arithmetic is well below what I’d expect from a child of his age.”

Jack looked at his daughter. “Isn’t that what his class teacher told you?”

“I’ve told you,” Sally shot back, “the woman’s an idiot.”

Jack shook his head. “Why is it that everybody who doesn’t agree with you is an idiot?”

“Look . . . Freddie is bored. How many more times do I have to say it? He’s lost the incentive to learn.”

“You could be right,” Barbara said. “On the other hand, he may have real problems, which need to be identified and addressed.”

“But I don’t understand. Jeremy and I never had problems academically. Why would Freddie?”

“I can’t answer that,” Barbara said, “other than to say he’s Freddie. He isn’t you or your husband.”

As she struggled to take it all in, Sally looked close to tears. “So what do we do?”

“Get him assessed,” Barbara said. “Once you know what you’re dealing with, you can take it from there.”

“What does that mean?” Sally said. “That he’s going to end up in some boys’ academy for kids with special needs?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” her father came back at her. “Stop being so dramatic. Of course it doesn’t mean that.”

“Your dad’s right. There are plenty of mainstream private schools with programs suitable for Freddie.” She couldn’t resist the add-on: “He’s one of the lucky ones.”

Barbara took out her phone and found the number for the North London Dyslexia Clinic. Sally took it down and said she would make an appointment.

“Promise me you’ll let me know how it goes,” Barbara said.

“I will. . . . So would you like to carry on tutoring Freddie?”

“Definitely—if you’re happy. But let’s get the assessment first. Then I’ll know how best to help him.”

Sally managed a smile and thanked Barbara for coming.

“I know this has all come as a shock,” Barbara said. “But Freddie is bright. With the right help, he’s going to be fine. I promise you.”

“Freddie’s all we’ve got. All our hopes and dreams are invested in him.”

“Come on, love,” Jack said, patting his daughter’s hand. “Freddie’s brain might be wired a bit differently from most people, but he’s by no means a lost cause. You’re just going to have to modify your hopes a bit, that’s all. Is that really such a big ask?”

Barbara thought it might well be.

Jack showed her to the door. “Thank you so much for that. You did brilliantly. Far better than I could have done. I’m such an oaf, the way I go blundering in. My wife was always telling me off. I do miss her being there to keep me on the straight and narrow.”

“When did she die?”

“Eighteen months ago. Breast cancer.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Doctors did all they could, but in the end . . .” His voice trailed off. “Then you’re left alone to pick up the pieces. It hasn’t been easy. . . .”

“I’ve not been widowed,” she said, “but I do know how it feels to be on your own.” She told him about Frank’s job and how it took him away for weeks and months at a time. “When Frank was away and my son, Ben, was at university, I hated that feeling of coming home from work to an empty house. Frank’s in Mexico right now, but at least this time I’ve got Ben at home to keep me company.”

“Ah, returning-graduate syndrome. I’ve read about this in the papers.”

“Actually, to be precise, it’s called unemployed-graduate-dependent-on-the-bank-of-Mum-and-Dad-syndrome.”

“Point taken,” Jack said, laughing. “So, Barbara, one last thing before you go. When do you think we should tackle Sally about how she and Jeremy are failing to meet Freddie’s emotional needs?”

“
We
?”

“Yes. I mean you’re so good at this. . . .”

“That’s because education is my field. I can’t start accusing Sally of being a bad parent.”

“But Freddie’s being neglected and then they make up for it by spoiling him. Surely you can see that.”

“I can, but it’s not my place to raise the issue. I’d be crossing a boundary. And anyway, you should meet some of the cruel, deadbeat parents I’ve come in contact with. In the scheme of things, Sally and Jeremy are great parents. Ask me again when they turn the house into a crack den.”

•   •   •

After she’d finished at the deli, Barbara didn’t feel like going home. It was the weekend. Ben would be going out and she couldn’t face another Saturday night on her own with a microwave spag bol and bad telly.

“Tell you what,” she said to Jess. “Why don’t you and Matt have a night out? Let me babysit. I’d enjoy spending a few hours with the kids.”

At first Jess wouldn’t hear of it. Her mother needed to go home, put her feet up and rest. She didn’t need to be running around after Atticus and Cleo.

“Actually, that’s exactly what I need. You’d be doing me a favor. It’s too quiet at home. Come on, what do you say? You and Matt haven’t been out in ages.”

They promised to be back by half past ten. Barbara called Jean and asked if she fancied coming over after the children were asleep. Jean couldn’t have been more grateful for the invitation. Ken was at a medical conference in Stoke-on-Trent, and she was on her own, fuming about the wording of the wedding invitations.