Mummy Said the F-Word (33 page)

‘D’you think—’

‘He’ll be
fine
,’ Martin insists. I glance at him. Being here together reminds me of the countless school parents’ evenings we’ve attended together. These days I go alone, dispatching potted reports to Martin.

‘One of us should stay here tonight,’ I add.

‘I will. You should get home for Travis and Lola.’

‘I told you, they’re sleeping over at Sam’s.’

Martin frowns and there’s a glimmer of the old shark-eye look. ‘That’s OK, is it? What about school in the morning?’

‘I’d planned to go round first thing to pick them up. I’ll be there in plenty of time. You don’t have a problem with that, do you?’ I keep my voice light, for Jake’s sake. His dark eyes bore into me.

‘It’s just …’ Martin tails off, raking his hair distractedly. Clearly he does have a problem; he’s just not willing to share it.

‘Sam’s been a big support to me,’ I murmur.

Martin darts me an I-bet-he-has look.

‘Let’s not get into this now.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Martin mutters. ‘I just feel so … responsible for this.’

‘Dad,’ Jake says, ‘would you mind if …’ He reddens.

‘What is it, son?’

‘It’s … football. I, um, don’t really like it. I try, but I’m rubbish, everyone knows I am.’

Martin looks aghast. ‘Why didn’t you say?’

‘I thought you might be cross,’ comes the small voice.

‘You really thought that?’ Martin’s eyes moisten instantly.

‘Or disappointed or mad,’ Jake adds.

‘What kind of dad d’you think I am? I don’t care about football, Jake. I thought it was what you liked to do.’

Jake shrugs.

‘Hey.’ I touch his good arm. ‘I’ll go and see if the shop’s open, find you some comics and stuff, get a couple of coffees … Is there anything else you’d like?’

‘No thanks, Mummy.’

I can’t remember the last time he called me ‘Mummy’, or looked at me that way – as if he’s actually fond of me, and I’m not just some random, fun-wrecking adult.

I feel Martin’s eyes on me as I delve for my purse. My bag is crammed with wodges of paper – my survival notes for the
Bambino
event, none of which I referred to. There’s an oily napkin that the waitress gave me with the fishy blini.

‘I haven’t asked,’ Martin says, ‘how did the
Bambino
thing go?’

‘It was fine. Actually, I enjoyed it.’

He smiles. ‘Thought you would.’ A hint of sadness crosses his face. It’s still a handsome face, with top-quality cheekbones; he looks like a man who takes care of himself, even with the ward’s blue-white striplights draining him of colour. ‘Cait.’ He clears his throat and looks down. ‘I’m so sorry.’

I know then that he’s sorry for more than Jake’s arm and for trying to crowbar him into some First Division-footballer mould. He’s sorry about water-coolers, and shagging in the toilets of Bink & Smithson, and messing up everything we had.

It’s too late, of course, but something loosens in me, as if I’m slowly uncoiling. I turn away before he sees my eyes filling.

‘Cait?’ Martin calls after me. ‘Black no sugar, remember?’

My lips twitch into a smile. ‘Of course I remember,’ I say.

Travis and I spend Friday in hospital with Jake, having relieved Martin of bedside duties and seen him stagger off to work with hair askew. (
Work
, I ask you, after spending the night on a fold-out bed. Still, the design of a swanky gym complex in Canary Wharf waits for no man.) The ward and its various fittings thrill Travis. Who needs Thorpe Park when there’s a round-the-bed curtain to swing on and drape around oneself like a cape?

Jake, who is still being unnervingly – almost spookily – warm towards me, spends most of the day pretending he isn’t
really
watching little ones’ programmes (
Tweenies, Teletubbies
) that are showing on a loop in the TV room. His lunch arrives on a squeaking trolley. Fish, boiled potatoes, cauliflower florets – all a bleary off-white, apart from a small mound of sweetcorn. A brusque nurse hands him a bulbous red plastic knife and fork, as if he were three years old and incapable of manipulating proper cutlery, and he tucks in with one-handed gusto.

‘How are the sea monkeys?’ he asks through a full mouth.

‘They’re fine,’ I lie. (Frankly, they haven’t entered my radar for weeks.)

‘I miss them,’ he adds wistfully, and I wonder if this is my Jake talking, or if he’ll rip off a mask like a Scooby Doo baddie to reveal someone else’s child.

‘Do you?’ I ask. ‘I didn’t think you liked them. Remember when you unwrapped the box last Christmas and complained that they weren’t proper pets?’

He smirks. ‘I said they were rubbish, didn’t I? I was disappointed ’cause I couldn’t teach them tricks.’

I reach for his hand and squeeze it. As visitors aren’t catered for by meals-on-wheels, Travis is wolfing a canteen ham sandwich that looks as if it’s been compressed by straightening irons. ‘I suppose they were a bit babyish for you,’ I venture. ‘Sometimes I forget how grown-up you are.’

He shrugs. ‘That’s all right. I’d rather have a dog, though.’

‘Are you joking?’

‘No. Yeah.’ He pulls a mock scowl that morphs into an ear-to-ear grin as Harvey whips back the curtain.

‘Jake, you’ve got a cast!’

‘Yeah.’ He displays it proudly.

‘
And
you missed school today. You’re so lucky. Wish I could break my elbow.’

‘How’s the patient?’ Sam asks, appearing behind him as Lola dives towards Jake. Lifesaver Sam, offering to collect her from school and bring her to me.

‘They did X-rays,’ Jake enthuses. ‘We saw my bones.’

‘Cool,’ breathes Harvey, forcing his way to the bed’s head end and perching on its spongy edge.

Martin returns – he’s cut his working day short – laden with provisions. He spots Sam and his smile cements. ‘Hi,’ he manages, cradling a large brown paper bag awkwardly.

‘Here, have this seat.’ Sam leaps up. He, too, looks flustered. ‘We’re going anyway,’ he adds quickly. ‘Come on, Harv. You’ll see Jake as soon as he’s out of hospital.’

No he won’t, I think miserably. He’ll be back with Martin and Slapper, giving me the cold treatment again and having a marvellous time with his new friends in their block and at the afterschool club.

‘Oh, I nearly forgot,’ Sam murmurs, delving into a crumpled carrier bag that he’d dumped in the corner. ‘We brought you a few bits and pieces, Jake, to keep you occupied.’

He hands over the bag and Jake pulls out several well-thumbed books including
The Far Side
and
Calvin and Hobbes
.

‘Wow, thanks!’ he exclaims.

‘That’s far too much,’ I protest as Lola hops on to the bed, craning to glimpse the pages.

‘Charity shop.’ Sam flicks a look at Martin, as if he might disapprove of his son being given second-hand goods. My ex-husband is not a charity-shop man. And I see it then – Martin’s quick glance that says, ‘So, you know Jake’s favourite comic strips, do you? And you’ve had my kids to stay over? Oh, and I hear you’ve been a huge support to Caitlin.’ As if he has the right to prickle over anything.

‘Let’s get going,’ Sam says, grabbing Harvey’s hand. He looks as if he might kiss me or Jake, or both of us, then thinks better of it.

And he’s gone.

It seems so much quieter now, even though the ward is filling with early-evening visitors. Travis is whingeing to go to the vending machine – so many buttons to press – which he spotted in the entrance area. Jake sets down a comic book on the chipped bedside cabinet and closes his eyes.

‘Lola, Travis, why don’t you go and watch TV?’ Martin suggests, and they scamper away.

Now it’s just us and Jake, who’s dozing off. We’re not talking much, but it doesn’t feel awkward. The old closeness has crept back in. An in-this-together feeling that I remember from when Jake was a baby and Martin and I were chronically sleep-deprived. Sometimes, after a small-hours feed, Jake wouldn’t settle and Martin would hold him in his arms, pointing out trees and street lamps through our bedroom window. Finally, we’d curl up in bed together, our body clocks so skewed that we couldn’t sleep. We’d talk then, barely noticing the creeping dawn.

‘Cait,’ Martin murmurs. ‘There’s … stuff I need to talk about.’

‘What?’

‘It’s about us. You and me.’

‘There you are!’ the voice chimes through the ward. Millie strides towards us. ‘God, Cait, I’ve only just found out what happened. Is he all right?’

I leap up to greet her. ‘He’s fine. Everything’s going to be OK.’

She hurries to Jake’s side, planting a noisy kiss on his forehead. He swipes a hand where she’s left a lipstick smear, as if a bird had deposited something there. ‘I couldn’t understand why you’d rushed off,’ she babbles, ‘when you’d gone down so well. Lots of people were dying to talk to you.’

I can’t help laughing. ‘Millie, it was an emergency.’

She plonks herself on the edge of Jake’s bed. ‘I know, and I’m really sorry … I’ve been trying to phone you, been so worried.’ She laughs. ‘I thought maybe you’d had delayed stage fright.’

‘Phone’s run out of juice,’ I tell her.

She sighs noisily. ‘None of those friends of yours were any help either. Especially that one in the hideous tight pink top … Bev, is it? Half pissed by the end of it, trying to chat up Henry, who’s only the MD. Don’t those friends of yours get out much?’

Martin clears his throat irritably.

‘Sorry, Martin,’ she catches herself, ‘listen to me babbling on, with poor Jake in his sick bed. Wasn’t it great, though, Cait? We’ll have to make these events a regular thing. Twice a year, maybe. Pre-Christmas would be perfect.’

Martin smiles tightly. ‘Would you like a coffee or something, Millie?’

‘Not for me,’ she declares. ‘Well, only if there are skinny lattes – you know, something decent. Not that vending-machine crap.’

He marches away, and she grimaces at his retreating form. ‘God, Cait, this must be so hard for you.’

‘Well, it’s OK now we know Jake’s arm’s going to heal and there’s no nerve damage.’

‘No, I mean with
him
. Shagpants. Being forced to spend all this time together, crammed up in this horrible stinky hospital.’

Millie’s citrus perfume seems alien among the disinfectanty smells.

‘We’re still Jake’s parents,’ I insist.

‘I know, but—’

‘It’s fine being with him. Kind of comforting.’

She gives me a confused look. ‘Well, I think he’s really aged. He never looked that haggard when he was with you.
And
he’s put on weight.’

I smile. She’s being loyal, but it’s not what I need to hear,
and
it’s not true. It reminds me of the night, soon after Martin had left, when Millie and I were coming home in a cab from a night out and happened to pass the end of Slapper’s street. I’d made the mistake of pointing this out and Millie had nagged me to ask the driver to swing round so we could scrawl furious messages on Martin’s windscreen. She’d have sacrificed her favourite Chanel lipstick for the pleasure, not caring if we’d ground it down to a gummy stump. Sensible, reasonable Cait wouldn’t let her do it. But I loved her for dreaming up the idea.

Jake’s eyes flicker open.

‘Hi, sweetie,’ Millie says briskly. ‘Look, I brought you this.’ She hands him a mini bagatelle game that Travis begged for in the hospital shop.

‘Um, thanks,’ he murmurs, giving it a half-hearted ping.

‘You’re welcome, darling. Take care, won’t you? Get better soon.’ She turns to me and hisses, ‘Hope you don’t mind if I shoot off before Shagpants comes back. I feel so awkward around him.’

‘Of course not. Thanks for dropping in.’

As she leaves, Jake frowns at me. ‘Who’s Shagpants?’

‘Oh, no one you know.’

He grins slyly at me and we laugh, both knowing he can read every damn thought in my head.

‘It’s good that Millie’s able to conceal her hatred for me,’ Martin quips.

‘Oh, that’s just Millie. Take no notice.’ You’re lucky, I think; I know what she planned to do with her lipstick.

With Jake awake now, and Lola and Travis tired of TV, there’s no chance to ask Martin what he wanted to talk about. When
is
the right time? Perhaps that was the trouble with us all along: no time for each other any more. We’d lost each other.
Where
had my R been – or even a sympathetic agony aunt – when I’d needed a little help?

‘Are you going to take these guys home?’ Martin asks, sipping his millionth vending-machine coffee.

‘Yes, I’d better. Travis should be in bed by now.’

Martin gives me a fleeting look. ‘I miss all that, you know.’

‘What, bathtime? Bedtime? The witching hour?’

He nods. ‘All that. The ordinary stuff. Seeing them all first thing, getting them ready for school, doing that thing with the cereal – remember the milk waterfalls?’

‘Yes, I remember that.’ Swallowing hard, I busy myself by feeding Lola’s tired, floppy arms into her coat sleeves, while Martin buttons up Travis’s jacket.

I kiss Jake’s cheek. He looks up at me and says, ‘The doctor says I can come home tomorrow.’

‘I know, love. That’s brilliant news.’

He bites his lip. ‘Give me a cuddle, Mum.’

His request is so surprising that I feel awkward at first, breathing in the scent of his skin and feeling his heart pulse through his pyjama top. I love him so much it crushes me.

I daren’t ask what he means when he says ‘home.’

Morning Cait,

I’ve been awaiting your full report on the
Bambino
event. As none has been forthcoming, I have to ask: HOW DID IT GO?? I trust that you didn’t clam up/faint/run screaming from the building. In fact, I know you didn’t. I am aware how fantastic and natural you were, as if you had done that kind of thing countless times before, and that you also looked sensational in your little black dress and those knockout shoes with the strappy bits …

I almost choke on my toast. He was there.

Yes, Cait, I have a confession to make. Billy was spending the night at his mum’s, and on the spur of the moment I decided to see a film in the West End. By the time I got there, anything half decent was sold out, and I didn’t really fancy nursing a drink in some bar. I happened to notice a copy of
Bambino
on a news-stand and you flashed into my mind. I thought, Why not? I hoped you wouldn’t mind my turning up out of the blue and that I might be able to project silent support, so I bought the darned mag to get the address of the do.