Bad Mothers United Read Online Free Page B

Daniel left, and I lay awake till two, listening to a woman in the street shouting,
    ‘Please, Barry, please,’ over and over. In the morning our front garden was full of silly string.
    ‘Why don’t you ring your mum,’ Daniel was saying now, as we pulled into St Paul’s Street. ‘Let her know you’ve arrived safely.’ Sometimes I suspect
    he’s a forty-year-old man trapped in a twenty-year-old’s body.
    ‘Yeah, all right. Well.’ I was patting my pockets, shifting bags with my feet. ‘I would if I could find my phone.’
    ‘You haven’t left it behind?’
    ‘I don’t
know.
No. I had it when I got in the car.’
    ‘Did you?’
    ‘Not sure. No, I didn’t. Oh, it’s no good. Give us your mobile. I can ring myself and then we’ll hear it.’
    He passed it across and I keyed in my number. An ominous silence followed.
    ‘Maybe you’re out of signal range.’
    ‘I’m not.’
    ‘Ah.’
    ‘Fuck.’
    ‘Your mum’ll pop it in the post for you.’
    ‘Yeah, and have a trawl through my texts while she’s at it.’
    ‘She wouldn’t do that.’
    ‘Shows how well you know her, Daniel. Honestly, the less you tell her, the nosier she gets. It’s really infuriating.’
    ‘She’s only trying to watch out for you.’
    ‘Stop bloody defending her, will you? Oh, hang on, here she is.’
    I held the little phone to my ear and she went, ‘Mum? Mum?’ all cross, as though it was somehow
my
fault she’d left her mobile sitting in Bank
Top.
    I said, ‘You put it down by the landing mirror. I can post it first thing tomorrow.’
    ‘Not this afternoon?’
    ‘The health visitor’s coming. You know that.’
    There was some muttering, then she said, ‘All right. But while you’re here, can you check if my Dryden notes are in my bedside drawer? I meant to clip them in my file but I
don’t think I did. I need them as well.’
    ‘What, you want me to go and look now?’
    Obviously. Everything always has to be right that minute with our Charlotte. I handed the phone to Steve, who took it off me as though it was a live scorpion. ‘Say hello to your
daughter,’ I ordered.
    After Mum had rung off I had to stop myself flinging Daniel’s phone down and grinding it into its component parts with my boot heel. ‘Are you still remembering to
    take your pill?’ she’d asked me. For fuck’s sake. ‘Are you remembering to take
yours
?’ I should have said.
    ‘Sorted?’ Daniel enquired.
    ‘Uh-huh.’ I took some deep breaths. I needed to remember it was Mum I was angry with, not him. An effort was needed. ‘Look, do you have to get straight off or can you come in
    for a brew?’
    He switched off the car engine and sat back, his brow furrowed.
    ‘No, I’ll pass. I have to get back to Manchester. There’s a lot of stuff to set up in the lab before term starts. And I need to check in with my mother—’
    ‘Course.’
    ‘So I’ll give you a hand with your bags but then I’ve got to be straight off. ’
    Rain dribbled down the windscreen in jagged paths.
    I said, ‘Dad’s there. Round at ours.’
    ‘Thought the conversation sounded a bit stilted.’
    ‘I suppose now the coast’s clear they’ll be all over each other again. It’s ridiculous at her age. She should be past it. And what does she think she’s doing,
    raking up the marriage when it died bloody years ago? I mean, either she wants him or she doesn’t. She should make up her mind. The worst thing is this ludicrous pretence that
    nothing’s going on between them. Does she think I’m stupid, or what?’
    ‘Put her out of her misery, then. Talk to her.’
    ‘About her sex-life?’ I mimed extreme horror. ‘Oh, yeah, top idea. Tell you what, I’ll book us on
The Jeremy Kyle Show
and we can have it out in front of a
    live studio audience.’
    Daniel closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Give it a rest, hey, Charlotte?’
    We sat side by side with the water drumming on the car roof. The drainpipe between our house and next door was sputtering