The Bad Mother's Handbook Read online

  Outside in the quiet cold air his pants squeaked.

  ‘Can I see you again?’ he murmured over the creaking. My ears were still ringing slightly and it took a moment to register what he’d said.

  ‘How old are you?’ I found myself asking. Around us crowds of people moved into knots and couples, shouting or embracing, slapping passing cars on the roof. Someone was throwing up in a shop doorway amid cheers.

  He held up his palms to me, head on one side. I was sure I could see crow’s feet in the lamplight. ‘Hey. What’s up? Does it matter?’

  Does it matter? That’s what Paul said when I asked him if he’d done it before. And yeah, it bloody well did, as it turned out. So not a great question, Rawhide.

  ‘I’ll take your number. I’ll give you a call.’

  He shrugged. Then, with difficulty, he extracted a pen from his back pocket and wrote it on my hand, held onto my fingers afterwards. He was staring into my eyes.

  ‘I’m twenty-eight, if you must know. God.’ He shook his head. ‘Still don’t see what the deal is. Why, how old are you?’

  ‘Like I said, I’ll give you a call.’ I loosed my hand from his grip. ‘See you.’ And I joined Julia and Gilly on the taxi rank, feeling as if, somehow, I’d got one back. On somebody.

  See the doctor. I should bloody cocoa.

  *

  IT WERE summat an’ nowt, only a dance at the Mechanics’, but I got in a row over it. It were a regular thing when I was about sixteen. I’d throw my lace-up shoes and best frock out of the window, then tell my mother I was off to Maggie Fairbrother’s. Her mother used go out drinkin’ so we could do as we liked. So then we’d walk it into Harrop and go dancin’. The last time though it were t’ Carnival Dance and when I got back home I had confetti all in my hair and cuffs. I kept brushin’ it out but it sort of clung. My mother spotted some of it on the floor, and I got a good hiding and sent to bed. She was allus angry, and tired to death, bent over her dolly tub or her scrubbing board or her mangle. And shamed. You see she could never hold a man, never had a home of her own. I think she were terrified I might end up the same.

  *

  I HAD A TRIP into Wigan to find out what I already knew.

  There was a time, late sixties I suppose it’d be, when approaching the town was like driving through a war zone. Nan and I would get the bus in and I’d stare out of the windows at rows and rows of shattered terraces, brick shells, piles of rubble. Sometimes there’d be a square of waste ground with just a line of doorsteps along the edge of the pavement, or ragged garden flowers sprouting through the masonry or a tiny patch of floor tiling in the mud. On the horizon there would always be those huge swinging metal balls on cranes. It made me shudder to think what they could do. That was the progressive period when they were busy putting people into tower blocks (I don’t know what they called the period when they moved everybody back out again).

  The journey through all those ruins always unsettled me. We’d have reached the Market Hall by the time I felt right again. Nan would visit each stand, chatting and joking with the stallholder over every purchase, and I’d turn on my heel and gaze upwards at the steel rafters where pigeons fluttered, and escaped balloons dawdled tantalizingly. You could smell the sarsparilla from the health-food booth, and ginger and hot Vimto. If I was good I had a hair ribbon off the trimmings stall, and I got to choose the colour.

  So now I drove through the outskirts of a reinvented Wigan with grassed-over areas and new, prestige estates with names like ‘Swansmede’ and ‘Pheasant Rise’. Imaginative chaps, these developers. I got through Scholes and onto the one-way system, over the River Douglas, past the Rugby League ground, under Chapel Lane railway bridge. Huge hoardings promised faithfully to change my life if I bought a new car, cereal, shampoo: if only. Then I was out the other side, glancing over at the A–Z spread out on the passenger seat. Finally I was turning into Prentis Road.

  Streets like this used to be cobbled, but the council tarmacked them over years ago. At the beginning of the road two short blocks of terraces nudged the pavement. I know these back-to-back houses, there’s enough of them in Bank Top. The flat red fronts, the white doorsteps that nudge the pavement and, at the back of each house, a flagged yard walled round six foot high and a door opening onto a cinder track. The original outside privies would all have been demolished in the sixties, and little narrow kitchens built on to free up what had been the parlour. Then in the seventies everyone had to go Smokeless, so the coal sheds went. While they were at it, most people had the two downstairs rooms knocked through and folding screens put in (so much more versatile!). Anything so long as it didn’t look Victorian. (You want to get them picture rails tekken off an’ all.)

  This was where my Real Mother grew up.

  I parked the car and walked slowly along the pavement, this stupid song going through my head, the one we used to chant on school trips when I was in the juniors.

  We’re goin’ where the sun shines brightly (BLACKPOOL!)

  We’re goin’ where the sea-hee is blue (RIVER DOUG-ER-LAS!)

  We’ve seen it in the movies

  Now let’s see if it’s true (IS IT BUGGERY!).

  Christ, I thought, I’m turning into Nan. But that should have been impossible. At least I wasn’t singing out loud.

  I started counting door numbers although I could see, ages before I got to the end, that I was going to run out. 28 was the last in the row, then there was a grassy space with a sign saying ‘Hollins Industrial Park’. Past this was the first building, a sort of hangar, Naylor’s Body Work Repairs. A row of courtesy cars was parked outside and one of those revolving signs turned sluggishly: OPEN/SUNDAYS. A young lad in overalls came out, saw me staring and shouted over.

  ‘Y’ lookin’ for summat? Boss is out the back.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I called.

  He shrugged, climbed into one of the cars and started revving the engine with the door open. I walked a bit further, to where I reckoned 56 would have been, and silently blessed my mother. I knew she wouldn’t be here. I’d known it all along. She was in London, with a Life.

  Talking of which.

  I’m supposed to be holding out for Mr Right, but what do you do in the meantime? I was prepared to settle for Mr Do For Now If You’re Not That Fussed, while I was waiting. ‘Love ’n’ Stuff’ had sent me Davy, looked a bit like that actor who played Jesus of Nazareth in the ’70s, only not so holy. Same age as me but a completely different attitude to life. Dressed young, smoked roll-ups. Tall and lean. I’d seen him twice, once for a quick drink at the Wagon and Horses (he had an appointment with somebody), and once for an Italian meal in Bolton (we went Dutch, but that was OK, it is the nineties). Right from the word go he let it be known that he had a full and active social diary. Well, I thought, I bet you don’t have a mother with a high-maintenance colostomy and a daughter ready to hurtle off the rails at any moment. I just smiled and said, ‘Good on you. Hope you can fit me in somewhere,’ which sounded naff and desperate (again).

  At Luciano’s he told me he was divorced, which I think even now was probably the truth, and that he’d been in a few different dating agencies but ‘Love ’n’ Stuff’ was the best so far (he gave me a little wink when he said this line). Then he did some tricks with a bread-stick which I thought were screamingly funny, although in retrospect I’d had quite a lot to drink by then. He also said he was a rep and so the only way he could be contacted with any regularity was through his mobile. Yeah, well, I know it’s the oldest trick in the book, but when you want to believe someone, you do.

  I wouldn’t have brought him back to the house but he claimed to be Mr I Might Be Able To Fix Your Metro too. Also it was Saturday afternoon, Nan’s nap time, and I knew Charlotte had gone into town as usual, so the coast should have been clear. Hah. When is my coast ever bloody clear?

  He’d not been under the car two minutes when Nan appeared at the front door. I motioned her to go back inside but she only waved back, put her hand to the
jamb and lowered herself down the step. Then she waddled down the path holding some bit of paper aloft.

  ‘I’ve won a Range Rover,’ she said, pushing a letter in my face. ‘Charlotte can have it, she can have it for school.’

  I thought there hadn’t been any post that morning, but Nan had been up before me.

  ‘Let’s have a look.’ I whipped it off her and scanned the contents. ‘Load of rubbish. No, you haven’t, Mum. It’s junk mail. And it’s for me anyway.’

  ‘It never is.’ Nan looked cross.

  ‘Look, what does that say?’ I pointed at the address window. ‘See?’

  She peered forward and huffed at me. Then she spotted Davy, who had wriggled himself back out from under the chassis while we’d been talking. ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Davy, Mum.’

  ‘Jamie? Eeh, you favour a German.’ She reached down and touched his leg. ‘Is he foreign?’

  ‘No. Come on back inside and I’ll make you some tea.’

  She gave him a glazed smile before retreating. ‘You want to watch them swanky pants,’ was her parting shot. ‘Don’t get muck on ’em.’

  We went back up the path, me holding her elbow to stop her escaping, and I got her ensconced in her chair and put the telly on. Love Boat, ideal. Then I came out again.

  The Ribble bus went past and stopped at the corner. Charlotte got off, face like thunder.

  When she got close enough she held up a carrier bag and snapped, ‘They wouldn’t take it back! Can you believe it! Just because I’d washed it! I tell you what, I’m never shopping there again, bunch of rip-off merchants.’

  She stepped angrily over Davy’s legs, then paused as she realized they were coming out from under my car.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ she said staring down. ‘Mum? Mum, who is this?’

  ‘It’s Davy. A, er, friend of mine.’

  She shot me a withering look.

  Davy shuffled out, grin at the ready, wiping his hands on the oily rag. Then his face fell. There was a pause.

  ‘Jesus, Mum; we’ve met, actually,’ said Charlotte in icy tones. ‘Last week, at Krystal’s. I’m sure you remember, all those teenage girls. God, how disgusting. Twenty-eight, my arse! You’re really wrinkly in the daylight, Mr Leather Pants. Don’t you ever wear anything else? They must be beginning to stink by now.’

  The penny was beginning to drop.

  ‘You old, sick bastard,’ she said, and turned on her heel. I gaped after her. Charlotte?

  ‘Small world,’ said Davy.

  ‘I’ll give you small world,’ I snarled. My leg twitched with the effort of not kicking him. ‘You want reporting. Get your hands off my car and leave my daughter alone, or I might do something vicious with that socket set.’

  ‘You’ll laugh about this one day,’ I heard him saying as I walked away.

  When I got inside Charlotte had stropped off upstairs, but Nan was still watching Love Boat. A soft-focused couple were embracing to a backdrop of blue sea, and from the bridge a little boy was watching them, a big smile on his face. The captain put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and a tear twinkled in his eye. ‘I guess your mom’s found what she was looking for, Jimmy,’ he said as the music swelled and the credits rolled.

  ‘I forgot to tell you, I’ve won a Range Rover,’ said Nan, pulling out an envelope from under the cushion.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ I said, snatching it off her. But this time it wasn’t junk mail. It was from Social Services Adoption Department.

  Chapter Three

  I didn’t know what to do.

  If I contacted him first, would that make me look like a total Sad Act? Would it be reported to his mates that I was turning into some mad stalker, unable to accept the bleeding obvious, that her boyfriend had blown her out? Because he had, hadn’t he? Or was it me who gave him the boot? Or was it neither?

  Or what if I’d got it all wrong and he was sitting alone in his room, broken-hearted, too dispirited to pick up the phone? After the initial fog of anger had cleared I’d got to thinking we’d make it up, maybe sulk for a few days but then fall into each other’s arms, and out of the ether he’d pull some magic words which would wipe my head clean forever of Jeanette Piper and her writhing limbs and panting cries.

  But that had been two weeks ago. Oh WHY hadn’t he been in touch? Even to finish it. You know, if you’ve shared bodily fluids with someone then they ought at least to tell you where you stand. Surely it’s manners. It wasn’t just my pride, there was my hymen too. Or perhaps best to forget about that.

  Bloody Paul bloody Bentham, bloody men.

  So in the end I went round to his house.

  I practised all the stuff I was going to say before I went, and on the way as well, trying to get the inflections exactly right, the face, the body language. I just want to get things cleared up, I told my bedroom mirror, folding and unfolding my arms to assess the different effects.

  Clothes had been a problem too. I didn’t want to wear anything which implied I’d made an effort, only for him to give me the elbow, that would make me look really pathetic. On the other hand, I didn’t want to look like something the cat dragged in, in case he had wanted to get back together but changed his mind when he saw the state I was in. God knows, I didn’t want him to think I’d been pining for him. In the end I’d settled for washing my hair and worn my second-best jeans.

  I think it’s best for both of us, I told my friend the Alsatian, and it wagged its tail slowly and grinned. Then I marched up and rang Paul’s doorbell, shaking. Paul Bentham is no good, chop him up for firewood, my head kept chanting, which wasn’t exactly helpful. There was a funny metallic taste in my mouth.

  Chimes echoed in the distance but no one stirred. I waited a long time, then turned to go, half relieved, only to hear the door open behind me.

  ‘Sorry, love, I was on the toilet.’ Mr Bentham, naked to the waist, bare-footed, embarrassed and embarrassing. I tried not to look at his pink rubbery nipples, and the line of wiry hair which came up from inside his trousers and touched his paunch. His face was shiny and he had too much forehead. You could tell he’d been pretty once, like Paul, but everything had begun to blur and slide. It made me think of my dad, about the same age, mid-thirties, but sharp-featured, built like a whippet, all his own hair – extra, actually, if you count the recent moustache. I hate it when old people let themselves go.

  Mr Bentham stared at me for a moment. ‘He’s norrin. Went off to Bolton, I think. He’ll be back about tea time. Shall I tell him you called?’

  ‘Yeah.’ My heart sank. I was going to have to go through all this palaver again. ‘No. Actually, can I just scribble him a note? I won’t be a minute.’ I smiled nicely.

  ‘Aye, awreet, love. Come in.’ I followed him down the hall to the back kitchen. ‘Want a cup of tea? There’s one brewed.’

  I glanced round the mess and took in the dish of gritty butter, the weeping Brown Sauce bottle, top askew, the open bag of sliced bread stuck on the table. I knew without looking what state the sink would be in. Even if it was clear of dirty pots there’d be Christ knows what clogging and breeding in the plughole. My mum has her faults, God, but at least our house is fairly clean. Three men living on their own: possibly even worse than three women.

  ‘No, ta, you’re all right.’

  Mr Bentham followed my gaze. ‘I work shifts,’ he said simply. ‘Oh, you’ll need some paper.’

  We doubled back and stopped at the telephone table, which stood under a rectangle of lighter-coloured wallpaper, a little hook still protruding at the top. ‘Used to be their wedding photo,’ Paul had pointed out on my very first visit. ‘You’d have thought he’d have stuck something over it,’ I’d said to Paul, who’d shrugged.

  ‘Anyway, give me a shout when you’ve done. Like I said, he’s gone off to t’ shops. After some video or summat, I don’t know.’ He shook his head. ‘He dun’t talk to me you know, I don’t have a clue what he’s up to from one day to t’ next. But that’s lads for you
.’ He scratched his neck and dropped his gaze to the floor.

  ‘Thanks.’ I brandished the pen and pad. ‘I won’t be long.’

  Mr Bentham wandered off into the lounge and Grandstand came on.

  Dear Paul,

  I came popped round to say can I have my CDs back sometime? If you want we could get together meet up for a drink and a talk chat (but only if you’ve got time). I’ve got loads on at the minute and I bet you have too!! Give me a ring.

  Love Charlie Charlotte

  This masterpiece of literature took me nearly ten minutes to draft; I kept thinking, at any point Mr Bentham’s going to re-emerge to check I’m not up to anything dodgy, like rifling through his wallet. And what if Paul came back early and caught me off guard? An RNIB envelope came though the letter box and I jumped about a mile. ‘Get a grip,’ I remembered Paul saying, which irritated me so much I lost my thread even more. But finally it was finished.

  ‘Shall I leave it in the hall?’ I shouted towards the lounge.

  Mr Bentham ambled out. ‘No, give it here, we put them on a board in the kitchen. See?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Right.’

  I thought that was a bit civilized, but then I registered the gingham frame round the cork and I realized it was just another bit of Mrs B that she’d left behind. He impaled the note with a map pin, underneath a take-away menu and next to, oh God, next to a note for Paul, written in childish handwriting, must be Darren’s, saying ‘Phone Chrissy about Sat eve!’