Bad Mothers United Read Online Free Page A

college.’
    Steve scratched his head. ‘It sounds daft to me, having to pass all them extra exams when you already know what you’re doing. Can’t that headmaster of yours swing summat for
you?’
    ‘Leo? Don’t talk soft. It’s not up to him. He can’t magic me up a teaching qualification.’
    ‘I don’t see why not. It’s his school.’
    ‘Have you any idea, Steve, how the actual real world works? Anyway, how could I start a college course when I’ve Will to look after?’
    ‘I’ve told you, I’ll have him. I’ll help.’
    ‘Then how would
you
have the time to look for another job?’
    He reached out to put his arms round me and, damn it, I didn’t step away.
    ‘Eeh, we’re a pair, aren’t we, Karen?’
    ‘No. We very much aren’t.’
    ‘Aw, come on.’ He tightened his grip around me. I laid my head on his chest, wearily.
    I said, ‘You’re having a mid-life crisis, aren’t you? Middle-aged men and motorbikes. I’ve read about it. Trying to claw back the past.’
    ‘Nowt wrong with that. Everyone wants to hold onto a bit of their youth. What about you and your family history project, all your tapes and family trees and old photos?’
    ‘That’s to do with the future. It’s for Will, so he’ll know where he came from.’
    ‘Well, there you are.’ Steve’s hand on my back, roaming. ‘What’s so bad about taking the best from what you had and bringing it into the present?’
    ‘I’m not sleeping with you again. I always hate myself after.’
    ‘Shh. We’re having a little cuddle, that’s all.’
    ‘As long as you know.’
    ‘Course.’
    He moved in for a kiss. A ringing started up in my ears.
    ‘That’s Charlotte’s mobile,’ I said.
    By the time we reached the ring road, I’d pretty much shed the mother-gloom. Funny, it’s like taking off a massive old coat, all heavy and comforting and
    stifling, and you’re ages fighting with the sleeves and you think you’ll never get out from under it and yet once it starts to go, it slips off fast.
    Then came a rush of light-headedness and excitement. I started thinking about my plans for the term and my reading list, essay topics to cover the Augustans through to the Romantics, and what
    I was going to talk about with Martin Eavis. What I was going to talk about with the others, the holiday gossip and news. This term it would all be comparing millenniums, who’d been having
    the craziest time the moment Big Ben chimed. Gareth and Roz I knew had been headed for Cardiff to see the Manics gig. Gemma had a rave planned in Glastonbury. Walsh’s dad was supposedly
    flying him to Prague for some bash there.
    As for me, I was right outside the competition because I’d spent the Ultimate New Year’s Eve sitting in front of the TV watching
Goodbye to the ’90s
with my parents.
    I’ve checked in the Encyclopaedia of Sad and it doesn’t get any sadder than that. ‘Mum, what were you doing as the millennium dawned?’ Will is going to ask me at some
    point in the future. And I’ll have to say, ‘Arguing with your grandma about whether or not you should be allowed to stay up.’ And he’ll say, ‘Whose side were you
    on?’ And I’ll say, ‘Yours, of course, because I am the best mum ever.’ And we will high-five, or whatever it is twenty-first-century youth do to express solidarity.
    In the end I’d got my way and carried him back downstairs in his pyjamas, but by nine o’clock he was conked out on the sofa so Mum sort of won that one. At five to midnight I
    jiggled him awake, and at 12.01 a.m. Daniel rang the front doorbell and brought a lump of coal across the threshold, which Will then tried to eat. Afterwards, while Mum put my son to bed, I went
    out on the lawn and watched the fireworks explode over Rivington Pike. Daniel said, ‘I wonder what the next thousand years will bring?’ and I said, ‘Mortgages, wrinkles and
    death.’ When we went back inside, Dad was trying to kiss Mum although he pretended he wasn’t.