More Than Just Mum

‘You did!’ crows Scarlet. ‘I heard you! You were on your laptop and Jennifer Aniston was on the screen, going on about how important it is to have some “me time” every day and you said, “Oh, piss off, Jennifer Aniston and get back to me about ‘me time’ when you’ve spent all day sprinting around after other people.” Or something like that.’

‘I’d rather have a dog than a kid,’ says Dylan. We all automatically look at Dogger who, embarrassed by the attention, starts licking her vagina.

‘Well, at least none of you guys ever tried to do that,’ I gesture towards her. ‘Although Benji did once manage to wee in his own ear when he was a baby.’ I remember exhaustedly cleaning him up at three o’clock in the morning and trying to sob silently so that he’d go back to sleep. Happy times.

Scarlet smirks smugly. ‘I bet I never did anything as disgusting as the boys, did I, Mum?’

I smile back at her. ‘Oh, sweetheart. I don’t think a mealtime is the right occasion to talk about all the foul things that you got up to when you were little.’ I pause. ‘And also, not so little.’

Dylan and Benji laugh and Scarlet pulls a face at them.

‘So, are you going to ask Zoe out, then?’ she asks Dylan, retreating to safer ground.

‘None of your business,’ he snarls. ‘And if I were you, I’d be too busy worrying about the identity of my mystery online boyfriend to be bothered with my brother’s love life.’

‘What mystery online boyfriend?’ I ask.

‘So you’re admitting that you have a love life!’ screeches Scarlet. ‘Ha! A loveless life, more like it.’

‘So you’re not denying that he exists, then?’ returns Dylan.

‘What mystery online boyfriend?’ I repeat, louder this time. ‘Will someone please tell me what you’re talking about?’

‘Scarlet’s got a boyfriend but she’s only met him online,’ says Dylan, not breaking eye contact with his sister.

‘He’s just a friend and it’s nothing to worry about,’ Scarlet says, glaring back at him.

‘Nothing to worry about as long as he isn’t actually a fifty-six-year-old weirdo, you mean?’ Dylan grins at her.

‘Scarlet?’ I tap my hand on the table to get her attention. ‘Who is this person? Is he actually fifty-six? Because you are aware that would not actually be okay?’

Scarlet gives Dylan a withering look, which manages to concisely convey that she will be having words with him at a later date, before turning to me and putting on her reassuring face, which only serves to make me more wary.

‘He’s a friend of a friend and he’s not fifty-six, Mum. He’s sixteen and he lives in the Czech Republic and he’s totally fine.’

I frown. ‘And you know this how?’

Scarlet sighs dramatically. ‘Because I’ve seen photos of him and he’s a teenager, not a pervy old man.’

‘What does “pervy” mean?’ asks Benji.

‘She said nervy,’ I tell him. ‘Pervy’ does not feel like a word that should be in a ten-year-old’s vocabulary and the last thing I want is a phone call from the school, complaining about his language. ‘Go on, Scarlet.’

‘I’ll show you his photo,’ she says. ‘Then you can chill.’

‘I want to see your conversations. So that I know he isn’t being inappropriate.’

And also, so that I know that you aren’t engaging in sexting or nudes or anything else terrifying.

Scarlet’s face wrinkles up. ‘That’s an invasion of my privacy,’ she complains. ‘Those conversations are private.’

I eyeball her. ‘There’s no such thing as private on the Internet, you know that. The government can read anything you write online.’

‘God,’ she groans. ‘No wonder our country is in such a mess, if politicians are spending all their time snooping at my emails and messages instead of actually doing stuff.’

‘We’ll discuss this again later,’ I assure her, gathering up the plates. ‘Now, who wants some pudding? We’ve got apples and bananas.’

‘An apple is not a pudding,’ complains Dylan. ‘I need more than that if I’m going to keep my energy up.’

‘And he does need a lot of energy,’ Scarlet agrees. ‘If he’s going to be pursuing the lovely Zoe.’

It never ceases, their enthusiasm for winding each other up.

I think about the worries that are stacking up in my brain, like jumbo jets circling to land at Heathrow airport. Dylan and his potential girlfriend. Scarlet’s online liaison with a stranger. Benji’s insistence that he won’t ever be having children, which makes me question whether Nick and I have done such a terrible job of parenting that it’s the last thing that they want to do with their lives.

I think about all the conversations that I need to have with my offspring and I bitterly regret my decision to be self-righteous and virtuous and not drink during the school week.

Chapter 3 (#ue0cac415-70d9-531a-b900-8f1192db46ee)

I gaze out across the classroom, looking at the twenty-six faces that are staring back at me. Elise has just asked me a question and I absolutely know the answer. Of course I do. I am a teacher, and therefore I possess all knowledge.

‘So is it true then, miss? Did Shakespeare steal all of his good ideas from someone else?’ she asks again, leaning forward and fixing me with a steely glare. ‘Because that’s called plagiarism, that is.’

‘It’s called cheating actually,’ Brody informs her haughtily, before turning back to look at me. ‘Why do we have to read his stuff, if he’s a cheating scumbag?’

‘I’m sure that William Shakespeare wrote all of his own works,’ I say, trying to sound authoritative. I hold up a copy of Romeo and Juliet. ‘His name is on the front, after all!’

‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ calls Vincent from the back row. ‘I once got Wayne to do my Maths homework and then put my name on the top and Mr Jenkins didn’t suspect a thing.’

We all turn to look at Wayne, who is inspecting the contents of his nose. Vincent’s life choices clearly leave something to be desired.

‘That was stupid,’ states Elise. ‘There’s a girl in Year Eleven who’ll do your homework for five pounds and she puts load of mistakes in so that it doesn’t look too suspicious.’

‘Anyway,’ I say, attempting to regain control of the lesson. ‘As I was saying, Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, and—’

‘The tragedy is that we have to read it,’ interjects Brody, earning a laugh from the rest of the class. ‘I don’t know why you can’t just let us watch the film. That’s what Miss Wallace did last year when we had to study Macbeth.’

A mutter of agreement spreads throughout the room and I resist the urge to groan. Not this again. I’ve spent the last five months hearing about what Miriam Wallace got them to do in their English lessons last year – the conclusion being that she didn’t actually get them to do very much. Which means that I now have the thankless task of attempting to teach them everything that they should have learnt in Years Seven and Eight.

This is not the job I signed up for.

‘I want you to get into pairs and make a mind map showing how the theme of love is portrayed in the play,’ I tell the class. ‘Think about Romeo first. Who is he?’

‘Leonardo DiCaprio!’ shouts Brandon Hopkins.

I ignore him. ‘Consider how Romeo professes to feel about Rosaline right at the start and how quickly he switches his affections to Juliet.’

‘Romeo is a proper lad,’ calls Brody. ‘Way to go, Ro-may-o!’