I Don't Know How She Does It

A little later, Julie and I go for a walk up to the recreation ground at the top of the estate. The path is choked with ferns and there is a burnt-out Fiesta threaded with foxgloves. When we get to the swings, we find a couple of schoolgirl mothers sitting there on the bench. Teenage pregnancy ranks as a hobby round here. These two are pretty typical: waxy with tiredness and caked in makeup, they look like cadavers with their young jumping up and down on them, full of rude life.

Julie tells me that the breathlessness and the pains in our mother’s chest date from a few months back when a couple of Dad’s creditors turned up at the door. Mum explained that Joseph Reddy didn’t live there anymore, had not in fact lived there for many years, but the men came in anyway and looked over the furniture, the carriage clock, the silver frames I’d given her for the children’s photographs.

Younger than me and not cursed with the elder child’s desperate need for approval, Julie managed to stay outside the immediate blast area of Dad’s charm and for most of our lives has observed him coldly and without fear of side effects. I tell her about the day he came to see me at the office, and she explodes with indignation.

“Bloody typical, that is. Not worried about embarrassing you in front of your boss. What does he think he’s playing at?”

“He’s designed a biodegradable nappy.”

“Him? He’s never seen a baby’s bum in his life.”

And we both start to laugh, my sister and I, great snorts of laughter escaping through our mouths and our noses and finally running in tears down our cheeks. From a corner of my coat pocket, I produce a hanky crusty with use; Julie volunteers one in a similar condition but spotted with blood.

“Emily’s carol concert.”

“Steven’s rugby match.”

We turn and look out across the town. Its ugliness is draped in a ludicrous Vivienne Westwood sunset, all knicker-pink tulle and scandalous purples. The skyline is dominated by large chimneys, but only a few are still active — they let out quick small puffs like furtive smokers. “You didn’t give Dad owt, I hope,” Julie says, and, when I don’t reply, “Oh, bloody hell, Kath, you’re a soft touch.”

“City Ice Maiden,” I announce in my Radio 4 voice.

“Ice Maiden that melts pretty easily,” snaps my sister. “You’ve got to get over Dad, you know. He’s not worth it. There’s millions of crap dads out there, we’re nothing special. Remember the way he used to send you to the door when they came round asking for the rent money? You remember that, don’t you?”

“No.”

“You do remember, I know you do. That’s no way to treat a kid, Kathy, getting them to lie for you. And he thumped Mum when things weren’t going his way.”

“No.”

“No? Who was it that went downstairs to distract him when they were beating the shit out of each other? Little girl name of Katharine. Ring any bells?”

“Jules, what were those ice lollies with the hundreds and thousands on them called?”

“Don’t change the bloody subject.”

“Do you remember?”

“’Course I do. Fabs. But you never had them. Always saved your pocket money and bought the Cornish Mivvi. Mum said you always had to have the best of everything from when you could stand up. ‘Champagne tastes on beer money, that’s our Kath.’ So you went and made the money for champagne, didn’t you?”

“It’s not that great,” I say, studying my wedding band.

“Bubbly?” Julie looks at me as though she really wants to know.

How can I tell my sister that money has improved my life, but it hasn’t deepened it or eased it? “Oh, you spend most of your money trying to buy yourself time to make money to pay for all the things you think you need because you’ve got money.”

“Yes, but it’s better than that.” Julie gestures across the recreation ground to the child mothers. She speaks angrily, but when she says it again it sounds like a blessing. “It’s got to be better than that, love.”

THERE WAS A MR. WHIPPY VAN that used to go round our estate playing a hectic version of “Greensleeves.” One day during the summer holidays, Annette and Colin Terry were buying an ice cream from the van when their kitten ran out and got caught in the back wheel. We yelled, but the driver didn’t hear us and the van started pulling away. I remember it was boiling hot — the tarmac was rearing up in the road and it stuck in clumps on the bottom of our sandals like rabbit droppings. And I remember the way Annette screamed and I remember the music and the sense of something infinitely gentle being broken as the wheel spun round.

The Terrys lived two doors down from us. Carol Terry was the only mother we knew who went out to work. She started off doing some bar work for pin money and soon after she got a full-time job in the accounts office of a metals factory. Dissecting their neighbors over elevenses, my mother and Mrs. Frieda Davies decided that Carol spent her wages on going to the hairdresser and other things that came under the category of “enjoying herself.” They couldn’t have been more delighted when Annette failed her Eleven-plus. Well, what can you expect with no one at home to get the poor child a cooked tea?

Me, I remember Carol wearing lipstick and laughing a lot and seeming younger than my mother, whose birthday she shared.

The day of the accident, Mum heard our screams and ran out and took us all inside while the Mr. Whippy man tried to clear up the mess. I had dropped my strawberry Cornish Mivvi on the road. Mum calmed Annette down, made orange squash for everyone and found Colin a plaster (he had no graze or cut, but he needed a plaster). And then she gave the Terrys their tea while we all waited for their mum to get home from work.

Carol arrived late and flustered with shopping bags. She had got Mum’s phone message, but she had been unable to get away any quicker. When I think back to how it was when Carol came into the kitchen, and us all sitting at the Formica table, I can remember the heat hanging there like wet towels and Colin spilling his squash and how Annette wouldn’t look at her mum, but I can’t remember if it went unsaid, the thing everyone was thinking.

Did anyone say it? “But if you’d been here, the kitten wouldn’t be dead.”

35 No Answers

6:35 P.M. “And, furthermore, there is a good deal of evidence that mixed gender teams are critical to effective team functioning.”

“Jesus, Katie, I never thought I’d hear you say anything like that.” Rod Task is unimpressed, and he’s not the only one; the place is full of people who’d rather be in the wine bar than being addressed by me in my new capacity as diversity coordinator. I feel like a vegan at an abbatoir.

Chris Bunce lies back in his chair with his feet up on the conference table. “I’m all for mixing genders,” he says, stifling a yawn.

“Can we get the hell out of here now?” asks Rod.

“No,” says Celia Harmsworth. “We need to produce a mission statement.”

As the room groans, there is an answering thrum from the phone in my pocket. A text message from Paula. Ben ill come now

“I’ve got to go,” I say. “Urgent call coming in from the States. Don’t wait for me.”

I call Paula from the cab on the way home. She fills me in. Ben fell downstairs. “You know that dodgy bit of carpet near the top of the stairs by his room, Kate?”

Please God, no. “Yes, I do.”

“Well, he caught his foot somehow and he fell and bumped his head this morning. It came up a bit, but he seemed as right as rain. Then he was sick a bit ago and he went all limp.”

I tell Paula to keep him warm. Or should she be keeping him cool? Numb, my fingers feel like stumps as I