More Than Just Mum

‘I’ve been revising for my Maths exam!’ Scarlet’s voice is laden with persecution. Nobody does aggrieved like my daughter.

‘I was in the bathroom.’ Dylan sits down and starts prodding at his phone.

‘Again?’ asks Benji, voicing what we’re all thinking. ‘You were in there for hours when we got home from school. Have you got diarrhoea or something?’

‘Why are you so gross?’ Scarlet glowers at him. ‘Nobody actually says stuff like that.’

Benji glances across the room at me, his face a picture of confusion.

‘I was only asking,’ he says. ‘Because we’ve been learning about germs in Science and I was just going to say that Dylan should probably wash his hands a bit better after he’s been to the toilet. Then he won’t keep needing to go.’

‘The supper?’ I ask, but nobody hears me. Dylan is exclaiming his disbelief that Benji could be so hypocritical as to talk to him about personal hygiene when we all know that Benji runs the tap and pretends to put his hands underneath but for some ungodly reason refuses to actually get them wet, and Scarlet is furiously slamming knives and forks onto the table and muttering loudly that she is the only person in this family to actually do anything helpful ever, while Benji is repeating the word ‘diarrhoea’ over and over again like some kind of hideous mantra.

So it is left to me to rescue the sausages and chips and heat up a tin of baked beans before screaming at them all to shut up and sit down.

‘I’ve cooked you a delicious meal and the least you can do is have enough respect to eat it nicely,’ I roar, slamming the charred contents of the oven onto three plates. ‘I’ve been at work all day listening to Year Nine mutilate the English language, which is enough to send the sanest teacher over the edge, and I’ve got lessons to plan and your dirty pants aren’t going to clean themselves and Dad won’t be home until late and we’ve run out of wine.’

They all pause for a moment and I see Dylan eyeing me warily.

‘It looks great, Mum,’ he says.

‘Yeah, thanks for cooking for us,’ says Scarlet. ‘We’ll do the washing up.’

‘Thank you for everything,’ adds Benji, passionately. ‘Like, thanks for making our food and doing the shopping and washing our clothes and making our packed lunches, and also thank you for giving birth to us and driving us to places and just for being our mum.’

He pauses for breath and gives me a big, ten-year-old beam.

‘You are such a suck-up,’ mutters Scarlet. ‘And I think you’ll find that it’s me who makes the packed lunches, actually.’

‘You’re all very helpful,’ I say, sinking down into a chair. ‘It’s why people have children in the first place, you know? For an easy life and for all the extra help that they get.’

Dylan laughs and starts squirting tomato ketchup copiously over his plate. I would normally make a cutting remark about the ratio of sauce to food but today I keep quiet. The sausages and chips have been cremated almost to the point of ash and I think a little extra moisture is acceptable in this case.

For a few moments, the only sound is that of knives attempting to ineffectually carve their way through several layers of pyrolysed pork. I lean back and start to relax. Nick was going out with a couple of mates after work but hopefully he won’t be home too late. We’ll eat pasta in front of whatever American crime series we’re currently working our way through on Netflix and it’s Wednesday, which means no school for me tomorrow. If I use my imagination and powers of delusion, I can almost make myself believe that it’s the weekend.

‘I started following Zoe on Instagram today,’ says Scarlet, giving up on her knife and picking up the sausage with her fingers. Her voice is casual but the look she shoots at Dylan is distinctly shifty.

‘Why did you do that?’ Dylan rounds on her, his face screwed up in displeasure. ‘You don’t even know her!’

‘So?’ Scarlet shrugs, her grin stretching from ear to ear. ‘That’s what social media is for, Dylan. Getting to know new people.’

‘But you know that I—’ he stops and gestures wildly at Scarlet, before slamming his hands over his face.

‘I know that you what?’ purrs Scarlet. This is her favourite game. ‘I know that you fancy Zoe? Is that what you were going to say?’

Dylan groans. A good mother would probably stop this but there’s no chance of me doing that. This is the first thing I’ve heard about any Zoe character, and if Dylan is interested in her then I want to know everything that there is to know. And fortunately for me, Scarlet is an excellent source of information.

‘Dylan’s got a girlfriend!’ crows Benji, his eyes sparkling with delight. ‘Are you going to get married? You’re allowed, you know. You can do that when you’re eighteen. And you can also vote and get a tattoo and be sued.’

‘I do not have a girlfriend!’ snaps Dylan. ‘So shut up!’

‘You are not allowed to get a tattoo,’ I say, but even as the words come out of my mouth, I’m wondering why I’ve never thought about having one.

Maybe something tasteful, like a small butterfly or a daisy? Maybe something that would prove I’m not old and past it. Or perhaps I could get my eyebrows shaved off and perfectly arched brows tattooed in their place? That could be worth looking into. I think I could achieve a lot more in life if I had eyebrows that were on fleek, as Scarlet would say. It sounds quite French. I wonder if it’s actually spelt en flique? I must remember to ask her.

‘But you’d like to have a girlfriend, wouldn’t you?’ says Scarlet, resting her chin on her hands. ‘And fortunately for you, my Instagram stalking would suggest that Zoe is currently boyfriendless and looking for luuuurve.’

‘You are a hideous sister,’ Dylan tells her, but I can see that he’s keen to hear more.

‘I’m never going to get married,’ Benji informs us while attempting to surreptitiously feed the rest of his sausage to Dogger. Clearly my youngest child does not have a future in espionage. ‘And I’m definitely not having any kids.’

This distracts my attention from the Zoe situation for a second.

‘Why not, darling?’ I ask. ‘Having children is wonderful and fulfilling and life-affirming and …’ I trail off, aware that all other conversation has ceased.

‘Are you kidding us?’ says Scarlet. ‘You’re constantly knackered and you’re always saying that you’ve got no money because we’re so expensive.’

‘Well, yes, but you see, that’s all—’

‘And you and Dad are always talking about the holidays you could have if it was just the two of you,’ adds Dylan. ‘You could be going to Mauritius this summer and not having two weeks camping in France.’

Scarlet shudders. ‘God. It’s a no-brainer. Dirty nappies and crying babies and never losing your baby belly. I’m never having kids.’

I instinctively suck in my tummy. ‘Those things are true, but—’

‘I’m going to live with Logan,’ Benji tells us. ‘We’re going to live in this house and go to work on quad bikes and play on the Xbox and eat pizza every night.’

‘Are you both going to live with Dad and me?’ I smile, momentarily warmed by my youngest child. ‘That’ll be nice.’

He loads up his fork and rams it into his mouth.

‘No. You’ll both be dead by then,’ he mumbles through a mouthful of masticated beans, which takes the wind out of my sails just a little bit.

‘I don’t even know why you had kids,’ says Scarlet. ‘I’ve seen photos of you from before and you look way younger.’

‘That’s because I was way younger,’ I retort. ‘And people get older regardless of whether they’ve had kids or not.’

‘It’s not the same though, is it?’ Scarlet is on a roll. ‘Like, you’re always moaning that you’ve lost all sense of your own identity and that you have no time for yourself.’

‘I’m not,’ I protest feebly.

I am.

‘Okay.’ Scarlet raises her eyebrows at me. ‘So that wasn’t you earlier, telling Jennifer Aniston to piss off?’

‘Who is Jennifer Aniston and why were you telling her to piss off, Mum?’ asks Benji. ‘That was a bit rude of you.’

‘Language!’ I say automatically. ‘And I didn’t tell Jennifer Aniston to piss off.’