The Bad Mother's Handbook (18 page)

‘Like you did.’

‘Exactly!’

Her eyes were flashing anger back at me, as if
I’d
done
something wrong.

‘So, in fact, you wish I’d never been born? Isn’t that
what you’ve been burning to tell me for the past seventeen
years?’

All that sacrifice.

‘Well, you said it.’

‘Well, then. That makes two of us, doesn’t it?’

The words flew out and collided in midair. There was a
moment of deafening silence.

Then Charlotte threw her book against the wall and
it dropped down on top of her pot of pens, scattering
them across the desk. At the same moment Nan walked in, wide-eyed with fear. She pushed past me and tottered
over to the bed.

‘Eeh, love,’ she said, putting her hand on Charlotte’s
shoulder.

Rage boiled up inside me at the gesture. Just who
should be getting the sympathy here?

‘Get OFF her!’ I shouted, and they both flinched but
stayed where they were. ‘YOU,’ I barked at Nan, ‘it’s
YOUR fault, all this. We wouldn’t be in this mess if it
wasn’t for you. Get out and leave us to it.’

They moved closer together and Nan lowered herself
down on the edge of the bed. She put her arm round
Charlotte’s bulk.

‘Talk sense, Karen,’ Nan muttered.

I thought I was going to hit her.

‘Talk sense? Talk sense? That’s the pot calling the
bloody kettle, isn’t it? There’s no one comes out with as
much rubbish as you, and it’s me who has to put up with
it on a daily basis, it’s a wonder I’m not off my head.’

‘Are you sure you’re not? Anyway it’s not Nan’s
fault, Mum. Whatever else, it’s nothing to do with her.’
Charlotte’s face looked small under her fringe, but very
fierce.

‘Oh, isn’t it?
Isn’t it?
Well, I’ll tell you something you
don’t know, lady.’

‘Karen,’ said Nan faintly.

I didn’t even look at her.

‘For a start, it was Nan who made me keep you. Just
hang on, she told me. Have the baby, and then if you’re still
not suited, put it up for adoption, there’s plenty of women
who’d jump at the chance. Of course when I’d had you she knew I’d never be able to give you up. She said she’d look
after you—’

‘She
did
!’

‘Only some of the time. And that’s not the point. She
changed my mind
, ruined my life. I had such plans . . .’

‘Oh,’ said Charlotte tartly, ‘put another record on.
Come on, Mum, we all know it was
you
who fucked up.
You can’t blame it on anyone else. Not even Dad.’

‘A lot you know. You’re not even eighteen. You wait
till you get to my age and the best years of your life are
behind you and you know there’s no redeeming them, see
how you feel then about
decisions that got made for you
.’ It
was true what they said about a red mist coming down in
front of your eyes. There was a buzzing sound too, and my
heart was leaping with extra surges of boiling-hot blood.
I stepped forward shakily and pointed down at Nan. ‘She
isn’t even my real mother.’

Nan turned her face into Charlotte’s shoulder and I
waited for the thunderclap. She just stared back, cool as
you like.

‘Did you hear what I said? I’m adopted.
Nan isn’t my
mother
.’

‘Well,’ said Charlotte, ‘same difference. She brought
you up, didn’t she? What’s that make her, then?’ She was
breathing fast and clinging on to Nan, who had her eyes
shut. ‘At least she wanted you, which is more than I can
say for
my
mother. From where I’m standing it looks like
you got a pretty good deal. Now, would you get out of
my room, please; I’m supposed to be watching my blood
pressure.’

*

To my amazement
Mum turned on her heel and swept
out. I’d thought she was going to hit me at one point, or
have a heart attack. Her cheeks had gone really pink and
her eyes all stary. My own heart was pounding in my chest
and my throat was dry.

After a minute Nan and I untangled ourselves. She
fished a hanky from her sleeve, wiped her eyes and
blew her nose. Then she began rooting in her cardigan
pockets.

‘Have a Mintoe,’ she said, offering one up in a shaking
hand. ‘She dun’t mean it. She loves you. That’s why
she could never give you up.’ She wrestled with the cellophane
wrapper.

‘I don’t care,’ I said, and at that moment it was true.
My insides were churning but my head was clear. I
gripped the Mintoe in triumph. ‘Oh, Nan. I can’t believe
I said all those things to her face, they’ve wanted saying
for so long. It feels brilliant. How did I manage it? It was
like I was possessed.’

Nan turned to me and smacked her minty lips. Her
bottom dentures jumped forward suddenly and she
popped them back in with her index finger. ‘Pardon,’
she said. We both began to giggle with nerves.

Then the door flung open and Mum was there again.

‘How
dare
you laugh at a time like this!’ she shouted.
She held up a photo frame in front of her face. It was
the one she keeps on her dressing table; me on a stretch
of mud at Morecambe in a white sun-hat and knickers,
hair blowing across my face. ‘Look! You were five
when this was taken and just
look
at you! Picture of
innocence! And it turns out in the end you haven’t the sense you were born with. All those times I’ve warned
you!’

Nan and I sat and watched as she tossed the photo
onto the desk where it sent more pens clattering off and
knocked over my clay elephant I’d made in Year 7.

‘Bloody hell, Mum. You’ve broken its trunk off.’

‘You’re having an abortion.’

I could have said, ‘Yeah actually, I am, in two days’
time. You can come along and cheer if you like.’ But at
that very moment two things happened. Nan drew in her
breath and put her hand over my bump; and I felt the
baby move.

It wasn’t the first time, I realized now; there’d been
flutterings before, like when a nerve twitches, only deep
inside. But I hadn’t clocked what they were, until this
moment.

‘You’re having an abortion,’ Mum said again.

If it had been a request; if she’d sat down and held me
like Nan was doing; if we hadn’t said those awful things
to each other five minutes ago. But Fate gets decided on
littler things than that every day.

‘You’re wrong, Mum.’ Flutter flutter. ‘I’m keeping this
baby.’

Nan’s arms tightened around me.

‘Don’t talk soft. You’re not fit.’ Mum leaned forward
and spat the words at me. And if I hadn’t decided by then,
that would have swung me.

‘Well, I’m a damn sight
fitter
than you. At least I
won’t make this baby feel guilty all its life,’ flutter flutter,
‘at least I won’t try and make it Responsible for my own
shortcomings. If you didn’t want me, eighteen years ago, that’s fine. But I’m not going to do to this baby what you
did to me. Poor bugger. It deserves a better chance than
I had.’

Can foetuses clap? I was sure I could feel a round of
applause down in the left side of my pelvis. Washed in
adrenaline, the thing was going berserk.

Mum’s face had gone that nasty colour again and her
legs were trembling.

‘You’ll change your mind. Or I’ll never speak to you
again.’

‘There’s worse things than babies,’ said Nan. ‘They’re
nice, babies are.’

‘Damn you both,’ said Mum.

*

THERE’S worse things than babies, dear God in heaven there
are.

It was all drinkin’ i’ th’ owden days, an’ feights all t’ time.
The children used come runnin’ across the fields shoutin’,
‘Harry Carter’s feightin’ again,’ an’ we’d all go an’ watch. He
lived at t’ top o’ t’ brow, an’ he were allus after the women even
though he was married. His little lads would be pushin’ through
t’ crowds an’ shoutin’, ‘Don’t feight, Daddy,’ but he never took
any notice. He was forever askin’ Herbert Harrison’s wife for t’
go wi’ him, an’ she’d allus tell her husband on him, it were like
a game. They just wanted an excuse. One time I was stood wi’ a
big crowd watchin’ them stagger about the street and Dr Liptrot
came up alongside me. He didn’t see me, though, he were glued
to th’ action. Finally Herbert Harrison knocked Harry Carter
down, then he turned an’ walked off. Harry got up, rubbed his
chin an’ stumbled towards us. I ducked away, but as he drew level Dr Liptrot patted him on the shoulder and said, ‘Now, then,
let that be a lesson. Feightin’ dogs come limpin’ whoam.’ Harry
stopped for a second, looked at the doctor, then hit him so hard
he knocked out both his front top teeth.

It weren’t just the men who drank, neither. My grandmother
Florrie used to have a big oak sideboard with a long
dark patch on the top. Once she caught me an’ Jimmy playin’
wi’ matches outside on the flags and she dragged us in and
pushed us reight up again’ the drawers of this sideboard. ‘Do
you know what made that mark?’ she said. I shook my head;
I’d only have been about seven and she could be very fierce.
‘A neighbour set herself afire with an oil lamp,’ she told us. ‘She
were dead drunk, an’ she came running out into t’ yard and
staggered in here, all i’ flames. She laid her arm along this sideboard,
an that’s why there’s a mark.’ She put her face close to
ours. ‘So think on.’ ‘Did she die?’ Jimmy asked. ‘Of course she
did,’ said my grandmother, and she clipped us both hard round
the ear.

I never saw it happen myself, but as soon as I knew the
story it was in every dream I had for months. Jimmy never said
owt, but I know he dreamt it too.

There was a lot of drunkenness in them days. My grandfather
was allus on t’ spree, my mother said. He used to knock
his beer ovver and lap it up off table top like a dog, he were
terrible. And when he’d spent up he’d go and stand outside the
pub and wait for people to treat him, he had no shame. Even as
a little girl my mother was sent wi’ a jug to t’ Waggon an’ Horses
for him, when he was too idle to get his own ale.

His friends laughed an’ called him a ‘character’, but Florrie
had another word for it. At his funeral do, when they’d had a bit,
some of ’em were singin’;

‘Me father was an ’ero
’Is brav’ry med me blush
They were givin’ free beer up at Bogle
An’ me father got killed i’ t’ crush.’

My mother said it was disgustin’, an’ they were all tarred
wi’ t’ same brush.

Then after, two of his mates from t’ colliery were tellin’ tales
about him, how he’d gone to t’ pictures once to see a Charlie
Chaplin. He’d not been gone above an hour an’ he was back in
t’ pub, an’ they said, ‘What’s up, Peter, were it not a good show?’
An’ he said, ‘They turned all t’ lights out, so I got up an’ came
whoam.’ They were all two-double laughin’.

‘Aye,’ said another man, ‘an’ there were a time when we
went to see the Minstrels at Southport, an’ a chap came on and
sang “Danny Boy” an’ he were really good, so all th’ audience
started shouting, “Encore! Encore!”. An’ Peter called out at t’
top of his voice, “Never mind bloody Encore, let bloody man
sing again!” ’

Someone else said they remembered Peter Marsh coming
out of the polling booth once, very pleased because he’d said to
himself, ‘Well I’m not voting for ’IM’ – an’ put a great big cross
next to t’ candidate’s name. Was he soft i’ th’ head, or was it just
the drink? No one seemed to care, it didn’t matter, ’cause he was
such a Character.

Florrie wasn’t laughing, though. She had twenty-two years
of his meanness wi’ money and his not bothering about the
babies she’d lost. She never married again; I think she’d had
enough of men. So she lived with her daughter Polly, and then
me when I came along, and it became my dad who had us all on
a piece of string wi’ his antics.

There were times as Jimmy hated his father, hated his comings
and goings and the fact he would never marry our mother.
‘He loves you, in his own way,’ Mam used say. ‘He gave you his
name.’ ‘ That just meks it worse!’ said Jimmy. She had no answer
to that, ’cause it was true. I think she felt it was her fault she
couldn’t keep him.

So as he got older Jimmy started to go wanderin’, all ovver
t’ fields an’ down by t’ canal. He’d walk an’ walk, as if he were
lookin’ for summat. An’ he ran errands for people an’ made a
bit o’ money that way. He used to see a lot of Mrs Crooks at
Hayfield House; she was a widow and had never had children of
her own. ‘I’ll pay thee Friday,’ she’d say to him, an’ she allus did.
Then one day, he should have been at school, Harry Poxon saw
him at t’ side of t’ canal, leanin’ ovver wi’ a stick. ‘Tha’ll faw in,’
he said. That were t’ last time he were seen alive. They were five
days wi’ a grapplin’ hook before they found him, under t’ bridge
at Ambley. Mrs Crooks sent forget-me-nots for his coffin and
all the school lined up an’ sang ‘There’s a Friend for Little
Children’.

He were only ten when he died.

*

T
HREE O
’
CLOCK
in the morning and there’s somebody
standing at the bedroom door.

‘I can’t sleep. The baby’s kicking.’

‘Go back to bed, Charlotte,’ I mumble, still only half out
of a dream.

But it isn’t Charlotte, it’s Nan.

All night
I’d been dreaming I was drowning; now I’d
wakened to the image of the baby lying face up, motionless,
under water, and a terrible chill of knowing it was
somehow my fault.

Then as my head cleared I thought about how its body
was actually floating inside me now, this very minute, hair
flowing round its huge head, and how everything would
all gush out—

I couldn’t face school. I lay in bed till eleven staring at
the ceiling.

‘I’ll tell them I’ve had flu,’ I said to Mum when I finally
made it downstairs.

‘Say what you damn well please,’ she replied.

So I walked out through the front door, down Brown
Moss Road, Gunners Lane and out onto the Wigan road.
I was going to walk until I dropped off the edge of the
world.