The Bad Mother's Handbook (37 page)

‘Don’t give up hope,’ he said comfortingly, as he took
my hand to lead me home, but I wasn’t daft. I knew eggs
had to be kept warm. I knew what I’d done.

‘Thing is,’ he explained as we got past the church, ‘if
you take even one egg you’re not killing one bird, you’re
killing millions.’

‘How come?’ I’d been wiping my nose on my cardigan
sleeve all the way but he didn’t tell me off for it.

‘Because that bird would have had babies, and those
babies babies of their own, and so on and so on, down the
generations. Ad in-fin-i-tum.’

It wasn’t like him to heap coals of fire on my head, so I
knew he thought it was serious. All the rest of that summer
I trailed back and forth to the garage in the hope that I
could deliver some good news and wipe the slate clean,
but each visit the eggs were still there, proof of my guilt.
At the beginning of autumn the whole nest disappeared,
I don’t know whether it was lads or gales or a fox maybe;
do they eat rotten eggs? I stopped going, anyway.

To make it up, Dad bought me a pair of binoculars
for my birthday the next year and took me up the Pike to
see if we could spot the albino jackdaw (we did!), only the
effort of climbing winded him and it took us a long, long
time to stagger back down again. I think maybe that was
the very beginning of him getting ill. I can still remember
Nan’s face as he finally tottered in through the front
door. So all things considered, I never really got into bird-watching.

But baby Will lying so trusting in my arms, delicate
flaring nostrils, little screwed-up yawn; I so nearly
destroyed you. I was so nearly
such
a bad mother. I can’t
believe what I almost did with your life and your mother’s.
Every time I look at you, I’ll feel the weight of what might
have happened; all that future wiped out. Your first tooth,
your first step, your first word, your first day at school.
And so I should. I’ll make it up to you, Will; I’ll be such a
good grandma, I really shall, really.

*

Strange thing:
I heard Mum crying in the night when
I got up to do Will’s feed. She was sobbing and it
sounded like she was talking to herself too. Anyway, I
didn’t go in. I was knackered, and I wouldn’t have known
what else to say. She’ll just have to work the Nan thing
through.

*

I’VE KEPT thinking of summat the vicar said at Bill’s funeral:
the Door is Always Open. It is Never Closed. I wish I’d asked
him what he meant but he’s dead now, Mr Speakman.

What did he mean?

*

I
T TURNED OUT
to be a weird Christmas, all right, even
though it started off fairly normal. It was the first
Christmas with Emma, for a start. Throughout the morning
she hung at my elbow, round-eyed. ‘You’re never going
away, are you?’ I asked her silently, and she shook her
head.

Nan came home for Christmas dinner, thank God, or
I’d have spent the day under a cloud of guilt. I cut the food
up for her while the plate was still in the kitchen; Matron
had tipped me off about that. Then I chopped Charlotte’s
up too, so she could eat with grizzly Will on her knee. So
we got through that all right, although pulling the crackers
proved to be a bit of a challenge and the snaps made Will
bawl. He worked himself into such a foul temper Charlotte
finally took him upstairs where he went to sleep at once.
Then Steve arrived with his Brilliant Present.

‘I’m not stoppin’, my sister’s expectin’ me. I wanted to
drop these off, though.’

There were some CD-Roms for Charlotte, a bottle of
dodgy perfume for Nan, a ridiculously large teddy for
William and a spiral-bound notebook for me.

‘What’s this?’ I asked, turning it over and finding only
a W. H. Smiths price label on the back. True, it had a nice
picture of Lake Windermere on the front but I didn’t see
that was anything to get excited about.

‘Take a look inside. There’s twenty of ’em. Took me
ages.’

I flipped a few pages over.

1 voucher for

1 hours babysitting

signed

Steve

‘Good, in’t it? A chap at work saw it on Oprah Winfrey
an’ he said it had gone down a treat.’ He stood back and
waited for the applause.

‘Thanks. Really, that’s a great present. I appreciate it.’

Steve beamed. ‘I thought so. Only don’t make it a
Saturday afternoon ’cause of the footie. An’ I’m out
Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Fridays can be tricky,
too. But apart from that . . . I’m all yours! Hey by the
way, how much did you pay for that tree? ’Cause I know
a chap at work selling ’em for a pound a foot. He gets
’em off motorway reservations, digs ’em up at night, ’s not
like it’s stealing or anything. I’ll sort you one out next
year.’

When he’d gone Charlotte wanted to know what the
deal was.

‘It’s just a way of getting back in with me, I know what
he’s up to. But don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, eh? I
don’t suppose he knows what he’s letting himself in for.’
We looked at each other and sniggered. ‘I’d like to be a fly
on the wall when he has to change one of William’s demon
nappies.’

‘Or when Will pukes all down Dad’s back.’

‘Quite.’

‘This scent smells of toilet cleaner,’ said Nan. ‘Put it
under t’ sink wi’ t’ Vim.’

Daniel arrived shortly afterwards like some kind of
rogue Santa, bringing with him an entirely new future.

I could tell he was on pins from the word go.

‘I got all these for Will,’ he said breathlessly, unpacking
a stack of garish toys from the Early Learning Centre. ‘Dad
says a baby’s brain carries on developing for months after
birth, so he needs plenty to stimulate him.’ He pressed a
plastic cow in the stomach and it mooed. ‘That’ll get those
neurons sparking.’

‘Have you been running?’ I asked.

He only gave a nervous giggle and handed me a huge
poinsettia. ‘For your table,’ he explained. ‘Although I have
to say it looks extremely nice already.’

We all turned to the scene of devastation that was the
remains of the turkey dinner. A trail of gravy bisected
the white cloth, and Nan had wiped her hands on her
paper hat and screwed it up in the sauce boat. Dead
jokes lay curled next to a set of jacks, a metal puzzle and
a fish key-ring.

‘Yeah, right,’ said Charlotte. ‘We did have a centrepiece
but I set it alight and melted the robin.’

‘Jolly good. Now, take these; I haven’t finished yet,’
said Daniel producing more parcels with the flourish of a
conjurer. I began to wonder if he was drunk.

There was talc for Nan and a snakeskin belt for
Charlotte to match some boots she had. She was made up.

‘Are you taking your coat off or what?’ I laughed.

‘Yeah, sit down, for God’s sake, Fidget Britches,’ said
Charlotte. ‘And while you’re here you can settle a debate.’
She pointed at the silver tinsel tree with folding arms we
bring out every year. ‘Is that or is that not a Middle-Class
Christmas tree?’

‘Be quiet,’ I said without much hope. ‘I’ve got to go and
strip the turkey.’

‘Hang on a minute. What do you say, Dan?’

He shuffled himself backwards into the settee and
shrugged. ‘I’m not entirely sure what you mean.’

‘Well,’ said Miss Clever, ‘Mum thinks we should start
having a real tree because it’s posher, even though it’s
loads more hassle.’

‘I
like
them,’ I said. ‘I like the smell, it’s atmospheric.
We’d have had one this year but what with one thing and
another I never got round to it.’

‘Only,’ she went on, ‘I told her that in real Middle-Class
homes they care about the environment too much to cut
down trees on a whim, so it’s actually cooler to have an
artificial one.’

‘I think they’re both rather fun,’ he said, ‘if you have to
have a pagan anachronism in your front room.’

‘Well, what sort of tree do your parents have, Daniel?’
I asked, rising to tackle the mess on the table.

‘Norway spruce. But my father has a synthetic one at
the surgery, I don’t know if that counts.’

‘See,’ said Charlotte, but actually I thought
I’d
won that one.

*

‘What was
all that about trees?’ asked Daniel when
Mum was in the kitchen sawing the last bits off the
turkey.

‘You’re a bonny lad,’ said Nan attempting to lean over
and pat his knee. ‘I’m nearly ninety, you know.’

‘Splendid.’

‘They think as ’cause you’re owd you’re not so
gradely reet.’ Nan sat back with a satisfied look on her
face.

‘Do they? Do they really?’ He turned to me.

‘Oh, yeah, well, I was winding her up. She’s such a
daft bat at times. Listen.’

‘While shepherds washed their socks by night
All watching ITV
The angel of the Lord came down
And switched to BBC,’

sang Mum over the noise of the radio, then, ‘
Bugger
bugger bugger!
’ Evidently the turkey was putting up a
fight this year.

‘Have a toffee,’ said Nan brightly. But I knew she
couldn’t open her handbag so I got down on the rug,
fished some out for her and began unwrapping the cellophane.

‘It’s Mum’s fixation about being Middle Class. It’s
stupid, I keep telling her we’re probably all Middle Class
these days.’

‘I wouldn’t have thought it mattered.’

‘Ah, well, that’s because you’re Real Middle Class.
It’s the half-and-halves, caught in between, who obsess
about it. Nan knew where she was, working in the mill
and proud of it; I’ll probably go off and get my degree –
eventually – and earn my twenty-thousand-plus a year, so
I’ll be all right.’ Daniel’s eyebrows moved up and down
rapidly. ‘Yeah, well, if everything goes to plan, that is.
Sorry, didn’t mean to sound so smug. But Mum’s in the
land of the class-dispossessed; part-time school assistant
living in an ex-council house. She’s Aspirant Something,
but I don’t know what.’

Daniel squirmed and opened his mouth to say something,
then changed his mind.

‘The irony is, she’s become Middle Class and she
doesn’t even know it.’ I placed the naked Mintoes on
Nan’s lap and clambered back on the sofa. ‘Shall I tell you
why?’

‘I’m utterly intrigued.’

‘It’s the fact that, instead of spending her energy
moaning about things, she’s now getting up and actually
doing something to make them better. As long as I can
remember she’s droned on about how life ought to be
different and I always thought, “Well, why not see if you
can change it, then?” And I never had a satisfactory
answer, unless you count, “We don’t do that kind of
thing”, “That’s the way it is”, “We put our heads down
and slog on”. But your Middle-Class person says, I’m
going to write to my MP, organize a rota, lobby the
council, hold a meeting. Middle-Class people
act
, they
don’t suffer.’

‘Too much of a generalization,’ said Daniel hugging
himself like a man who’s been accidentally shut in a
freezer. ‘I know plenty of whinging Middle-Class. Half
my father’s patients probably fall into that category.’

‘Huh. It’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.’

‘Mrs Waters is fed up ’cause she’s having a hip op,’
Nan piped up.

‘No. She said she’s fed up with her son playing
hip-hop.’ I sniggered, then felt mean when she looked
confused. ‘He plays his music loud,’ I explained.

‘Well, they do, young ’uns. You do.’

‘I don’t—’

There was an extra loud clatter and a yelp from the
kitchen. I got up to investigate.

‘Do you think your mother’s going to be long in there?
Because there’s something I want you all to hear,’ he
blurted out. ‘Together. I think.’

Radar Ears was back in like a shot.

*

I
T WAS LIKE
an old-fashioned film. ‘Mrs Cooper, may I
have the honour of asking Charlotte to be my bride?’
A shock, but quite a nice one. I mean, a doctor’s son. I
came through wiping my bleeding thumb on my apron,
all ready to play Understanding Mother.

*

He stood up
as soon as Mum walked in.

‘Eeh, are you going?’ mumbled Nan through a mouthful
of toffee. ‘You’ll want a coat on, it’s bitter out.’

He shook his head, embarrassed, and moved so that
his back was to the fire. Me and Mum sat in front of him
like an interview panel while he straightened his fingers,
spread them out and put his palms together. Then his
hands dropped to his sides and I thought, Oh God, what’s
coming now? Because I really hadn’t a clue. He raised his
head and began.

‘I should have said this earlier, when I first came, but
I didn’t know how – I have something I need to tell you
both. At least, I think I should tell you – I mean, there’s
no question whether I should tell you, it’s whether I
should tell you both together, or just you, Mrs Cooper,
or maybe you, Charlotte, and get you to speak to your
mother.’

‘Maureen Tickle had a broken ankle for six weeks
before they X-rayed it,’ said Nan. ‘She’d been walking on
it an’ all. Exercise, the doctor told her, honest to God.’
Her lips snapped shut and she stared at Daniel’s knees.

‘Go on,’ Mum prompted him. She was gripping her
thumb so tightly the tip had gone white.

‘Right, well. The thing is, I may have been out of
order, acting behind your back, in fact I probably was,
and you’re going to be very cross. My father will be
furious with me when he finds out, he’ll say I did it all
wrong.’

‘
What
, for Heaven’s sake?’ I tried to catch his eye but
he was looking over the tops of our heads.

‘They’ve a new woman at the Post Office, great big
teeth like a rabbit.’

‘Shut up, Nan, just a sec.’

‘It was meant to be a surprise. I’ve been doing some
research on the Internet. I thought you had a right to
know—’ Daniel pulled out an envelope from his jeans
pocket and made as if to offer it to Mum, then pulled it
back and held it to his chest. ‘But I can see now I should
have gone to you first because it was to do with your
family, no business of mine—’