Passion Flower

“That’ll be too late!” wailed the Afterthought. “All the kittens will be gone!”

“There’ll be more,” said Mum.

“Not from Sukey. They won’t be Sukey’s kittens. I want one of Sukey’s! She’s so sweet. Dad would let me!” roared the Afterthought.

“Very possibly, but your dad doesn’t happen to be here,” said Mum.

“No! Because you got rid of him! I want my kitten!” bellowed the Afterthought.

It ended up, as it always did, with Mum losing patience and the Afterthought going off into one of her tantrums. I told Vix that life at home had become impossible. Vix said, “Yes, for me, too! Specially after your mum talked to my mum about teenage filth and now my mum says I’m not to buy that sort of thing any more!” I stared at her, appalled.

“What right have they got,” I said, “to talk about us behind our backs?”

The weeks dragged on, with things just going from bad to worse. Mum got crabbier and crabbier. She got specially crabby on days when we had telephone calls from Dad. He rang us, like, about once every two weeks, and the Afterthought always snatched up the phone and grizzled into it.

“Dad, it’s horrible here! When are you going to get settled?”

I tried to be a little bit more discreet, because I could see that probably it was a bit irritating for Mum. I mean, she was doing her best. Dad was now living down south, in Brighton. He said that he missed us and would love to have us with him, but he wasn’t quite settled enough; not just yet.

“Soon, I hope!”

Triumphantly, the Afterthought relayed this to Mum. “Soon Dad’s going to be settled, and then we can go and live with him!”

I knew that Mum would never let us, and in any case I wasn’t really sure that I’d want to. Not permanently, I mean. I loved Dad to bits, because he wasn’t ever crabby like Mum, I couldn’t remember Dad telling us off for anything, ever; but I couldn’t imagine actually leaving Mum, no matter how impossible she was being. And she was being. Running off to Vix’s mum like that! Interfering with Vix’s life, as well as mine. I didn’t think she ought to have done that; it could have caused great problems between me and Vix. Fortunately Vix understood that it wasn’t my fault. As she said, “You can’t control how your mum behaves.” But Vix’s mum had been quite put out to discover that her angelic daughter was reading about s.e.x. and gazing at pictures of male bums. It’s what comes of living in a grungy old place way out in the sticks where nothing ever happens and s.e.x. is something you are not supposed to have heard of, let alone think about. Vix agreed with me that in Brighton people probably thought about it all the time, even thirteen-year-old girls, and no one turned a hair.

I said to Mum, “When I am fourteen,” (which I was going to be quite soon), “can I think about it then?”

“You can think about it all you like,” said Mum. “I just don’t want you reading about it in trashy magazines. That’s all!”

It was shortly after my fourteenth birthday that Mum finally went and flipped. I’d been trying ever so hard to make allowances for her. I’d discussed it with Vix and we had agreed that it was probably something to do with her age. Vix said, “Women get really odd when they reach a certain age. How old is your mum?”

I said, “She’s only thirty-six.” I mean, pretty old, but not actually decrepit.

“Old enough,” said Vix. “She’s probably getting broody.”

I said, “Getting what?”

“Broody. You know?”

“I thought that was something to do with chickens,” I said.

“Chickens and women… it makes them desperate.”

“Desperate for what?”

“Having babies while they still can.”

“But she’s had babies!” I said.

“Doesn’t make any difference,” said Vix. “Don’t worry! She’ll grow out of it.”

“Yes, but when?’ I wailed.

“Dunno.” Vix wrinkled her nose. “When she’s about… fifty, maybe?”

I thought that fifty was a long time to wait for Mum to stop being desperate, but in the meanwhile, in the interests of peaceful living, I would do my best to humour her. I would no longer read nasty magazines full of s.e.x., at any rate, not while I was indoors, and I would no longer nag her for new clothes except when I really, really needed them, and I would make my bed and I would tidy my bedroom and I would help with the washing up, and do all those things that she was always on at me to do. So I did. For an entire whole week. And then she went and flipped! All because I’d been to a party and got home about two seconds later than she’d said. Plus I’d just happened to be brought back by this boy that for some reason she’d taken exception to and told me not to see any more, only I hadn’t realised that she meant it. I mean, how was I to know that she’d meant it?

“What did you think I meant?” said Mum, all cold and brittle, like an icicle. “I told you I didn’t want you seeing him any more!”

“But why not?” I said. “What’s the matter with him?”

“Stephanie, we have already been through all this,” said Mum.

“But it doesn’t make any sense! He’s just a boy, the same as any other boy. It’s not like he’s on drugs, or anything.”

Well, he wasn’t; not as far as I knew. It’s stupid to think that just because someone has a nose stud and tattoos he’s doing drugs. Mum was just so prejudiced! But I suppose I shouldn’t have tried arguing with her; I can see, now, that that was a bit ill-judged. Mum went up like a light. She went incandescent. Fire practically spurted out of her nostrils. I couldn’t ever remember seeing her that mad. And at me! Who’d tried her best to make allowances! It didn’t help that the Afterthought was there, leaning over the banisters. The Afterthought never can manage to keep her mouth shut. She had to go starting on about kittens again.

“Dad would have let me have one! You never let us have anything! You’re just a misery! You aren’t any fun!”

She said afterwards that she thought she was coming to my aid. She thought she was being supportive.

“Showing that I was on your side!”

All it did, of course, was make matters worse. Mum just suddenly snapped. She raised two clenched fists to heaven and demanded to know what she had done to get lumbered with two such beastly brats.

“Thoroughly unpleasant! Totally ungrateful! Utterly selfish! Well, that’s it. I’ve had it! I’m sick to death of the pair of you! As far as I’m concerned, your father can have you, and welcome. I’ve done my stint. From now on, you can be his responsibility!”

Wow. I think even the Afterthought was a bit taken aback.

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“I HAVE SPENT sixteen years of my life,” said Mum, “coping with your dad. Sixteen years of clearing up his messes, getting us out of the trouble that he’s got us into. If it weren’t for me, God alone knows where this family would be! Out on the streets, with a begging bowl. Well, I’ve had it, do you hear? I have had it. I cannot take any more! Do I make myself plain?”

Me and the Afterthought, shocked into silence, just stared woodenly.

“Do I make myself plain?” bellowed Mum.

“Y-yes!” I snapped to attention. “Absolutely!”

“Good. Then you will understand why it is that I am relinquishing all responsibility. Because if I am asked to cope just one minute longer — ” Mum’s voice rose to a piercing shriek “ — with your tempers and your tantrums and your utter – your utter —”

We waited.

“Your utter selfishness,” screamed Mum, “I shall end up in a lunatic asylum! Have you got that?”

I nodded.

“I said, have you got that?” bawled Mum.