The Bad Mother's Handbook Read online

  ‘Eeh, lamb,’ she said. ‘You’ll be awreet, you’ll see. God’s good.’

  ‘How can I be?’

  But she just shook her head and carried on stroking my hair. I closed my eyes, let the earphones fall back.

  *

  MY MOTHER was eighteen when she had me, Jimmy was born two years later. But she couldn’t hold my father. Harold Fenton was a restless soul, his own mother couldn’t make moss nor sand of him. I think he loved us, though. He wouldn’t marry my mother, but he gave us his surname for a middle name, so’s everyone would know who we were. Nancy Fenton Marsh. I hated it, still hate it today. Fillin’ in forms and such; whose business is it anyway? Because in them days, the sin fell on the childer as well as the mother. But there was a lot of it about.

  She were allus short of money, that’s why she had to tek in washin’, an’ it were a right palaver in them days; two dolly tubs, a coal boiler, scrubbing board, mangle, it took for ever. She never had a home of her own either. The summer before I was born she’d sit out every evenin’ in her parents’ back yard wearing her nightie and her dad’s overcoat, there were nowt else as’d fit. She said it was a terrible labour: when they held me up and said, ‘Polly, it’s a girl,’ she told them she didn’t care if it was a brass monkey so long as it was out.

  Once, when I was about six and Jimmy four, we were waitin’ at a bus stop to go to Wigan an’ a smartish woman came and stood alongside us. There was a bus comin’ and my mother just bundled us on. I said, ‘Mam, this in’t our bus, where are we goin’?’ ‘Never you mind,’ she said. It turned out this woman was my father’s latest fancy piece. We went all the way to Worsley before my mother came to herself. He had a lot of women, she told me before she died, but she said he was her man and that was that. ‘At least he never drank,’ she used to say.

  She’d be thinkin’ of her father, Peter Marsh. Her mother, Florrie, had a grim time of it even though she had a husband. They’d married because she was expectin’ and then after, she had three children die in their first year. The doctor told her not to risk any more or she’d damage her own health – all she could think about was that at last she could sleep in the front bedroom with Polly, away from him. He were mean, you see; she allus struggled to get money out of him because he spent it all on drink. She used send Polly to the colliery gates to try to get some of his wages off him before he went in t’ pub (he never came straight home when there was brass to spend) but then that would get him in a rage. I think she were relieved when he went to join the Loyal North Lancashires in 1917, except when he got there, there were so few on ’em left he had to join up with the East Surreys. He sent some beautiful silk postcards though, ‘Greetings from France’, all embroidered with flags and flowers, and his slow big pencil writing on the back. Then he was hit by a shell, or at least he jumped into a hole to avoid one, and got buried by a wave of mud. They’d just been wondering how to break it to him about the baby, me, when they got the telegram. He was only forty-two.

  My father tried to join up as well at seventeen, but it’d finished by the time he got there, typically. I don’t suppose he were too bothered. My mother’s big fear was that she’d be made a widow too, but never being married she wouldn’t have qualified anyway. She lost him young, though; two days after his thirty-first birthday he was knocked down in Manchester, outside the Corn Exchange. And I did miss him, even though he’d been in and out of our house like a cat. We both cried over him. He was my dad. And you need your dad when you’re growing up. Well, I think you do, anyroad. Family’s everythin’ when it comes down to it.

  *

  I woke with a jolt. The tape had finished and my earphones were hissing. I unhooked myself and struggled out of the duvet.

  ‘I can’t have this baby, Nan. I’ve decided.’

  From the end of the bed Nan snored gently. I folded the covers over her and tiptoed out of the room.

  Chapter Six

  I WENT ON a blind date with Pauline’s brother’s friend from tai kwon-do class. ‘He’s got a smashin’ personality,’ Pauline had said. Ugly as sin, then, I thought. But it was worse than that. When I walked into the Working Men’s and saw him propped against the bar it was like that old music hall joke, Don’t stand up, oh I see you already have. He came about level with my nose. That wouldn’t necessarily have been a problem, only he looked like Ken Dodd and talked like Roy Chubby Brown. I sat through fifty minutes of filth, then he said, ‘I’ve got good manners, me. Tits before fanny,’ and laughed uproariously. ‘Wanker,’ I hissed, picking up my bag. ‘Ah, get away, you love it really, you ladies,’ he grinned. ‘Have you ever actually had sex with anyone?’ I asked nastily. That shut him up.

  ‘His twin brother’s on a kidney machine, you have to make allowances,’ said Pauline the next day.

  I gave her a hard stare. ‘Why? Why should I? No one does for me.’

  She just turned away and started counting Tesco’s computer vouchers. Cow.

  *

  ‘My God, you’re here!’

  Daniel was sitting in the window of Tiggy’s, looking anxious.

  ‘Did you think I wouldn’t be?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, under the circumstances . . . I’d have stood me up, without a doubt.’ I slumped down beside him. My bulge nearly came up to the edge of the table. ‘I don’t know what to say. I’ve been such a bitch.’

  ‘No, no, well yes, actually.’

  We laughed nervously.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Hormones under the bridge. This thing’s too important to fall out over.’ Fingers through hair, worried frown. ‘So, you really have decided, then?’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ I kept my voice low. ‘It’s not practical. I could no more look after a baby than fly to the moon. Think about it. Mum’s life would be in tatters, I’d have to throw in my university place and stay, God, stay at home for years, it doesn’t bear thinking about. And I know I’d make a terrible mother, I’m just not the sort. I’ve been really stupid, I should just have got on with sorting things out. I mean, the father . . .’

  My voice began to quaver and my eyes pricked.

  ‘Say no more.’

  An enormously fat chef carrying a tray of dirty cups squeezed past our table, his apron straining over his stomach. ‘Keep your hair on, we’re short-staffed,’ he barked at an old biddy in the corner. Everyone turned to see. The biddy stuck two fingers up at his back, then swept all the sachets of salt and pepper into her handbag.

  ‘Now he looks pregnant. You’re a positive sylph compared to him. Look, I’ll get you a milkshake while you cast your eye over these.’ Daniel began pulling some folded sheets of paper out of the pocket of his jeans.

  While he was at the counter I looked through the pages he’d printed off the Internet. An abortion is legal until the 24th week of pregnancy, I read. There is an initial consultation with a doctor, but the woman can also see a counsellor if she wishes. Hmm. Now there was an idea. I didn’t want my head screwed up any more than it was already. On the other hand, they might try to persuade me to change my mind, and now I’d made the decision there was no way I was going back on it. Toes or not.

  ‘Banana,’ said Daniel putting the tall glass down on the table. ‘They’re all out of chocolate. Drink up, anyway, you need your calcium or your teeth will fall out. And you don’t want to be toothless on top of everything else, do you?’

  I tried to smile.

  In order to qualify for a same-day procedure, the woman must be under 19 weeks pregnant. If she is more than 19 weeks, she must stay overnight at the hospital or health care centre.

  Same-day procedure!

  It is generally accepted that there is very little risk associated with abortion.

  Toes.

  ‘How far are you on?’ asked Daniel gently.

  I thought back and counted. ‘I’m fairly sure. Eighteen weeks, I think. So I might be just in time. I could go to the clinic in the morning and be back by teatime, tell my mum I’d been to Manchester shopping.�
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  Buy some extra-large pads, pretend I had flu and rest up for a day or so. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  Daniel looked uncomfortable. ‘Yeah, you might just about be OK. Only, they have this funny way of calculating.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ My heart began to thump.

  ‘It’s something I’ve heard my dad mention. They don’t calculate from the actual date of, er, conception.’ He dropped his gaze. ‘They take it from the start of your last period. So—’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘So, well, that means you’re not actually pregnant for the first two weeks or so of your pregnancy. As it were.’

  ‘You’ve got to be wrong about that. That’s ridiculous, it doesn’t even make sense. I’ve never heard that one before.’

  ‘Forget it. I’m probably wrong.’

  As soon as he said it I knew he was probably right. ‘So what you’re saying is, that would make me nearer twenty.’ I put my hands over my face and dragged them down over the skin. What a fucking mess.

  Fat chef came out from behind the counter again and began shouting at two boys for breathing on the window and drawing pictures of willies. ‘If yours looks like that you need to see a doctor,’ he bellowed. ‘I’ll be phoning your headmaster. Which school d’you go to, when you’re not playin’ truant?’ ‘Best go before he sits on us!’ one of them shouted, and they slid out of their seats and barged past us, colliding with the table and sending the sauce bottle spinning on its axis. We watched it lurch and fall. Tomato ketchup blobbed out slowly, mesmerizingly.

  Stupid I may be, but I’m not daft. I knew that nineteen-week cut-off point must be there for a good reason, that a later operation was going to be a lot more traumatic than an early procedure. I’d been really ill having a wisdom tooth out once, vomiting everywhere and swollen up like a hamster. My insides still scrunched up when I thought about it.

  Did they use a general anaesthetic? It would be best if they just put you under so you didn’t know what was going on, but what if they didn’t? What if it really, really hurt and you saw what came out and it lived in your head for ever and ever?

  ‘Do you know what they do, exactly?’ I made myself ask.

  ‘No. The website didn’t go into details. Just what’s on those pages.’

  I couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. We looked at each other for a long time but he held his gaze steady. Panic rose suddenly up my throat like nausea, catching me off-guard. Not me! This can’t be happening to me! I can’t cope, there has to be another way!

  I struggled to get a grip. My mum has these breathing exercises, they use them on anger-management courses; she does them if we have a big row. She doesn’t know I use them too. In through the nose, count five, out through the mouth. I had – breathe – to stop the scary thoughts – breathe – and face up to – breathe – the practicalities – breathe. There was no other way. Breathe. It was going to be all right if I kept my head.

  ‘What you could do,’ Daniel was saying, ‘is tell your mum you’re staying over at a friend’s, a girlfriend’s obviously . . .’

  ‘Which is something I never do.’

  ‘Work with me, Charlotte. You could tell her it was a special occasion, an eighteenth or something . . .’

  ‘I’d have to bunk off school, they’d want a note.’

  ‘It’s half-term the week after next.’

  ‘What if she rung up my friend’s house to check?’

  ‘Take your mobile.’

  ‘I haven’t got one!’

  ‘Take mine, for God’s sake!’ Daniel sounded exasperated. ‘You could tell her your friend lent it you so you’d always be contactable, even if you got in from clubbing very late. And give her a false number for the home telephone, then when you get back say, if she’s tried it, that you must have made a mistake.’

  Once again I looked at him with respect. ‘God, you’re a good liar.’

  ‘Sign of intelligence.’ He cocked his head, eyebrows raised. ‘So, are we sorted?’

  I closed my eyes and took another long deep breath. ‘You are so . . . God, I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘It’s no big deal. Just providing information.’ He drained his cappuccino and leaned back.

  ‘Well, yeah, then, I think I am, er, sorted. Bloody funny word for it, though.’ I scanned the papers again while I waited for my insides to settle down. It looked as though everything might work out OK. Outside the two rude boys had returned and were busy writing FAT BASTAD on the steamed-up glass.

  Then something on the papers caught my eye.

  For details of our tariff please click on our homepage.

  ‘Hey, Daniel, is this a private clinic?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Well, I can’t afford it, how much is it going to be?’

  ‘About five or six hundred pounds.’

  The milkshake straw pinged out from under my fingers. ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘It’s no big deal—’

  ‘Pardon me, it bloody is!’

  ‘If you’d listen for a minute. I was going to say, my grandfather left me a few thou, it’s sitting in a savings account doing nothing.’

  ‘Oh, God! No way. I am not taking your money for this. No way. That’s final.’

  He put his hand out to me across the table but I didn’t touch him. ‘Charlotte, what choice do you have? You can pay me back when you get your student loan, whatever, if it’ll make you feel better.’

  ‘NHS?’

  ‘If you want to start from scratch and find out all about that route, it’s up to you. But to be honest, you’re leaving it all a bit late.’

  I wanted someone just to sort it out for me, take it all out of my hands. I felt utterly weary.

  ‘Can you book me in, then?’

  ‘I’ll telephone as soon as I get home.’

  Like he said, what choice did I have?

  *

  THIS IS THE WAY my world collapsed.

  I’d gone on a mug-hunt. Opened the kitchen cupboard and there was only Nan’s china cup with roses, and an eggcup with Blackpool Tower on it. Ridiculous, as we have about twenty mugs in this house.

  I knew where they’d all be so I steamed upstairs and rapped on Charlotte’s door. No answer. I didn’t seem to have seen her properly for weeks, she kept disappearing off to her room with sandwiches and endless bloody yoghurts. She reckoned to be revising but I’d thought she might be brooding over that boy, so I’d left well alone.

  I stood and listened: nothing. I hadn’t heard her go out but she obviously wasn’t in her bedroom. (Can I just say I don’t normally go barging in; for one thing, I’m always frightened of what I might find – justifiably, as it’s turned out. Oh WHY did I have to be RIGHT?)

  I opened the door slowly, sniffing the fuggy teenage air, and looked round. Mugs, yes, several, dirty, dotted about; her fleece on the floor in a heap; Charlotte, Charlotte on the bed, half-sitting up against the headboard with her Walkman on and a book on her lap.

  Her lap.

  Through the thin T-shirt I saw, for the first time, the outline of her belly rising in an unmistakable swell. The paperback was perched on top and it looked like she was using one of those beanbag trays for the elderly. Her head whipped up and she stared. And the look in her eyes was mine, eighteen years ago.

  *

  Out of the corner of my eye something moved and my whole body jolted with shock. I was sure I’d locked the door, but there she was, like Nosferatu only with permed hair, pointing a sharp fingernail at my belly. OhGodohgodohgod, worstnightmarescenario, major panic for about five seconds, then, weirdly, something else. Something else taking over.

  The guitar solo on my Walkman faded out and a voice in my head spoke over it, Don’t panic. This is the worst it gets. What can she do to you, other than shout? And you’re well used to that, it’s water off a duck’s back, isn’t it? And, listen, you’re her equal now, in this situation. You’re one woman talking to another. She can’t accuse you of any
thing she hasn’t done herself. Keep calm and say what comes into your mind.

  *

  EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO, sitting at the table in tears and Nan kneeling at my side trying to hold my hand, except I kept pulling it away. Nan saying over and over again, ‘Tha’ll be awreet, we’ll sort it out.’ Me saying, shouting, ‘How CAN it be, for God’s sake?’ She was frightened – I think I bullied her a bit after Dad died – but very sure. Very sure.

  *

  Then I was ready, and from then on it wasn’t like me speaking at all.

  *

  ‘You STUPID—’

  Charlotte wrenched her earphones off. Her face was twisted with some emotion, but it didn’t look like shame.

  ‘Oh, Christ, don’t start—’

  ‘What do you mean, don’t start? I cannot believe what I’m seeing – ’ I pointed in fury at her stomach – ‘that my own daughter could have been so bloody bloody stupid – and, and loose!’

  She put the book down deliberately on the duvet and shuffled herself more upright.

  ‘What, like you, you mean? Exactly like you, Mum, or had you forgotten?’

  She was too cool by half. I wanted to strangle her with my bare hands.

  ‘Oh, no. How could I possibly forget? That’s the point. All that sacrifice and now this slap in the face.’ I clenched my fists so hard my nails dug into the palms. ‘You should have taken notice of me, of my mistake! I thought, Jesus wept, if there was one thing I’d taught you, it was not to throw your life away—’

  ‘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?’