Something Old, Something New

I think then of my mother, the woman who gave up so much for me. She worked all hours and never once complained, not even when I had to tell her that I’d gotten pregnant, that all her hard work had been in vain. She surrendered some of the best years of her life working two jobs just to make ends meet and saving every spare penny so that I could go to university. She wanted me to achieve my dream of being a globetrotting photographer, to be independent, self-sufficient and to experience a freedom she never could. How did she feel when she found out that I’d risked all that for love? She didn’t try to encourage me to get an abortion and she didn’t even shout or cry, she just nodded and asked me what my plans were. She must have been disappointed, yet she took it all in her stride. Did she ever look at me in the same way I look at my children and think how quickly I’d grown? Did she ever wonder when I changed? These are questions I’ve never asked her, things I fear questioning her about in case she tells me something that hurts, that confirms my worst suspicions – that I did hurt her when I let her down.

I briefly contemplate ringing her but she’ll probably be on her third glass by now, surrounded by her sophisticated French friends and her doting husband. She lives in France on her husband’s vineyard and I’m happy for her that she has a second chance at love and happiness. After my father died, she remained strong. She never revealed distress or weakness, although I knew that she suffered; she just did it silently. I always wanted to make her proud and I swore that a man would never leave me in the situation that my father left her in. I couldn’t bear to be abandoned like that.

‘Studying going well?’ I ask Janis and she colours.

‘Yeah I guess.’

‘What is it?’ I smile. ‘Social networking distracting you?’

Her colour deepens and I move closer. I don’t want a chasm to open up between us. I want to keep my children close and to be there for them, to be a good mum. But a good mother ensures that her children are achieving their potential and doesn’t let them underachieve.

She takes a deep breath as if she’s going to divulge some deep, dark secret. I wait, afraid to move in case I deter her. Then she exhales slowly and says, ‘I’m okay Mum… honestly.’

‘I’m here to talk, you know. Whenever. I know the younger two keep me busy but you’re my child too and I love you, Janis.’

‘I know, Mum.’ She nods her easy acceptance of my fierce maternal devotion, evidently unable to comprehend exactly how much I love her, then plugs her earphones back in. I stand there for a moment and smooth out the patchwork quilt again. I want to say more, to have a meaningful conversation with my baby girl, but I can’t seem to find the right words because I’m afraid of saying the wrong ones. So I say nothing at all.

As I pull her door behind me, then walk out onto the dark landing, I am suddenly overwhelmed by sadness. There is no manual to help with this stuff, to tell you how to negotiate your way through having three children by two different men and two divorces, while dealing with your own guilt at getting it wrong before you’d even really begun. There are manuals on parenthood, sure, but I need a precise one to help with my particular situation.

And as I descend the stairs, heading to the living room where I’ll sit with a book or flick through the television channels for an hour before heading up to bed alone, I wish again for all that I miss. For things to have been different from the start. Yet at the same time, I know that what I want is impossible and that, therefore, I would change nothing.

Getting pregnant when I did gave me Janis. Marrying Dex gave me Henry and Anabelle. Things happened as they did and I wasn’t wholly to blame. Yet I wasn’t totally blameless either.

****

I jump awake, dragged from a dream about being in the jungle. Strangely, Lady Macbeth was there, talking about when the owl shrieks and the crickets cry…

Crickets?

I hold my breath and will my heart to slow down as I listen.

But I am not mistaken; my house is filled with the song of crickets. It’s as if I am abroad and they’re chirruping away. But I am not on a Greek island in a café eating date and walnut scones filled with honey and yogurt; a pleasant image inspired by a recent novel. I am, in fact, in England, inside my own home, clad in my fleecy pyjamas and it is February. So why, then, can I hear crickets?

I sit up and rub my eyes. My neck is stiff from sleeping on the sofa and I am cold. I need to go to bed and snuggle beneath the duvet. I pick up my phone and check the time. Three-thirty a.m. I head out to the hall and nearly fall over Dragon who is sleeping across the hallway guarding the stairs like some ancient mythical creature guarding its gold. Fairy Princess is not far away, snoring her head off in a very un-princess-like way. They clearly don’t need to go out, so I step carefully over them and tiptoe up the stairs. The house is immersed in darkness and I usually like this time when I can listen to everyone I love breathing in unison under one roof. But tonight, there is another noise and it is incongruous in my Sutton semi.

The crickets! The central heating must have encouraged their journey to maturity and some of the larger ones are chirping.

Upstairs, I pop my head into each child’s room to check on them. Anabelle and Janis are sleeping in their beds, but when I enter Henry’s room, he is sleeping on his knees in front of the vivarium. How can children do that? Fall asleep in some strange sort of yoga position. The lights inside it are off but I can make out the small dark shape of the baby dragon underneath the fibre-glass cave. I gently scoop Henry up and shuffle him into his cabin bed – not easy when he is getting so big and I have to lift him up four steps too – then pull the covers over him. As I turn away and head for the door, something crunches under my foot.

And again as I take another step.

There is a slimy wetness beneath the crunch.

I pause as my sleep fuddled mind tries to conjure an explanation.

Lego.

Henry probably sneaked a grape up here too and that somehow got mixed up with the Lego and that’s what’s now sticking to the ball of my foot and oozing between my toes. It must be Lego that Henry has left out again, even though we’ve had the discussion about putting it away once he’s finished playing with it. The dogs don’t brave the stairs very often, but if they do and they decide to consume some of his plastic building blocks or his intergalactic pirate ship, then there will be an expensive trip to the vet and Henry will lose what is now being hailed as a better investment than stocks and shares. I will certainly have to speak to him about tidying up properly tomorrow.

But as I take another step, the chirruping gets louder and something scuttles across my naked foot and up my shin. I shake my leg vigorously and hear a plop as something hits the wall. It’s like a horror movie where everyone except for the actress can see that at any moment she’s going to have her leg ripped off by a giant killer scorpion. My heart thuds as I realise with mounting dread what must have happened. This is no giant scorpion and this is not a movie. I told Henry ten times before he went to bed to ensure that he put the lid on the cricket tub properly but now…

I thrust my fist into my mouth and bite down to stifle my scream. I want to get my feet off the floor so I take it in turns to lift one then the other. Which is your favourite foot? Which one would you keep if you had to choose? It’s like some bizarre Sophie’s choice.

I hate bugs!

The doorway is further away than the bed so there is only one option open to me. I hop back to the steps and climb them, then perch on the edge as I use a tissue from my pyjama pocket to clean the squashed cricket corpses from between my toes. The thought makes me heave but what can I do? I am trapped, a prisoner in my own home, surrounded by a Gryllidae enemy. I long for some antibacterial handwash but I would have to step back into the abyss to get it, so I have to make do with an already soiled tissue.

And all this because I could not deny my son another pet. I am a stereotype of the overindulgent single mother. Will my son grow up with a sense of entitlement because I struggle to say no to him when I should stand firm? No. Henry is a good boy, not some little prince who believes everyone exists to please him. He’s kind, intelligent and sincere, even a bit too serious at times for a boy of his age. Giving him a pet all of his own is a good thing. It provides a sense of responsibility and helps him to understand how important it is to care for an animal properly. I have done the right thing; this will be good for him. Just not for me.

As these thoughts race through my mind, I sit still for a while, gazing into the darkness. My eyes burn with tiredness but I cannot look away in case I come under attack from an advancing cricket army.

I am staring at the floor as the grey dawn light seeps into the room and brings with it another day. I am cold and tired and my head is fuzzy. But only when I am certain that no crickets have found their way up the steps, do I finally surrender and crawl beneath the covers at the bottom of Henry’s bed and fall into a restless slumber.

Chapter Seven (#ulink_13caf1b5-4e21-584e-8c26-0610eb3695a1)

The Sky’s the Limit

I open my eyes to find my youngest child staring at me. It’s quite disconcerting waking up to a curious child watching you intently.

‘What are you doing in Henry’s bed, Mumma?’ Anabelle’s big blue eyes roam my face.

I sit up and run my hands through my hair. I am disorientated and groggy.

‘Oh, I uh, came in here last night and I was very tired and I fell asleep.’ I peer cautiously over the edge of the bed to see if the cricket army followed me. It’s almost as if I expect them to be waiting there for me like evil sentries, ready to throw themselves kamikaze style beneath my feet.

‘All the crickets escaped, Mumma. I don’t like them. They’re in my room and in the bathroom. One tried to crawl on my foot when I went to wash my hands.’

I sigh and pull Anabelle into my lap. A flicker of pride runs through me as I inhale her unmarred sweetness and realise that she must have had a dry night. ‘I know sweetheart, Mumma doesn’t like them either. I guess today is going to involve a big clean-up.’

‘Can we go to the park too?’ she asks as she snuggles against my chest.

‘If it stays fine.’

The quilt moves and Henry sits up at the other end of the bed. His hair is messy and he has a white dribble streak up his left cheek. The lucky boy slept through it all, oblivious to the great cricket escape. ‘Mum?’ He frowns at me. ‘Why are you and Anabelle in my bed?’

‘Somebody forgot to put the lid on the cricket tub.’ I stare at him but his face is a picture of innocence. ‘They all escaped.’

‘Oh no!’ he gasps and crawls over to me. I expect him to express concerns about how on earth we are going to manage to find all of the crickets but instead he says, ‘Whatever will I feed the dragon today?’

I shake my head. ‘I guess a trip to the pet shop is in order too.’ He nods and smiles sleepily at me. ‘But first you’d better get up and see how many crickets you can catch because I don’t fancy finding the crunchy little bodies beneath my feet for the next year.’

Anabelle shudders. ‘A year, Mumma? But does that mean they will be in my room for Christmas?’ She pops her thumb into her mouth, a habit that I usually try to discourage but at this moment in time I don’t, because I know how she feels. I too need some comforting.

‘Tell you what. Let’s go down and make pancakes for breakfast shall we?’

‘Yes!’ Henry bounces on the bed and Anabelle joins in.

‘Watch your heads!’ I shout over their laughter, because a cabin bed is not the best trampoline in the world and I do not fancy having to call out a builder to have the ceiling repaired.