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Dylan nods slowly. ‘The uni has got a Facebook page. I can probably use that to start figuring out where the best jobs are. That way I’ll be ahead of the rush when we all start.’
‘That sounds like a great idea,’ I say, forcing myself to smile. ‘And in the meantime, Dad and I will look at our budget and let you know how much we can give you each month.’
Dylan steps forward, giving me a quick hug before loping out of the room. His phone is already out of his pocket, his thumbs speeding over the screen.
‘Oh my god.’ I flop down onto the table as soon as he’s left the room. ‘This is a genuine, arsing disaster. Everything just seems to be going wrong at the moment.’
Although on the plus side, my lip has almost cleared up and the scarring appears to be minimal. Dr Google has reassuringly informed me that the numbness will almost certainly pass with time and at least I’m not going to have to find the money for plastic surgery, which is definitely something to celebrate.
‘Calm down,’ Nick says, standing up and moving across the kitchen. I watch as he fills the kettle and pulls two mugs off the shelf. In a crisis, we drink tea, just like the rest of the population of the British Isles. And if we’re out of tea then we just have to make do with wine. ‘It can’t be that bad.’
I raise my eyebrows. ‘Were you even listening last week when I told you how much he needs for food and stuff? And that was before we knew how pathetically small his loan was going to be.’
Nick turns to face me, looking a bit sheepish. ‘Was that when I was watching Game of Thrones?’ he asks. ‘Because you started talking just as it got to a good bit and there’s a remote possibility that I wasn’t listening.’
I glare at him. ‘Well, let me outline our financial situation once more, for those of you in the back who were too busy fantasizing about scantily clad women riding dragons.’ I stand up and rest my hands on the table. ‘We need to give Dylan at least three hundred pounds each month. Plus, in two years’ time, we’re going to have to do the same for Scarlet. And as it stands, I do not know where that extra money is coming from because we don’t have a secret stash of savings hidden under the bed and every time I think we might be able to put some money away, we seem to have a new disaster.’
I hold up my hand and count off on my fingers. ‘The car breaking down. The oven deciding that it didn’t feel like actually heating up. Dogger hurting her leg and needing the emergency vet, which cost us the equivalent of two week’s food shopping. The school trip that Benji needs to go on unless we want him to be the only child in his class who doesn’t attend.’
I pause for breath while Nick gawps at me. ‘Winter is coming, Nick,’ I tell him, as dramatically as I can. ‘Winter is coming and we don’t have any warm coats.’
There is silence while my husband digests my words.
‘Three hundred quid a month?’ he says eventually. ‘Are you sure?’
I nod and we stare at each other across the kitchen.
‘We’re going to have to rethink a few things around here then.’ He hands me a cup of tea, his fingers brushing against mine. ‘We knew that this day was coming, Hannah. You said it yourself a few weeks ago. We need to increase our earnings.’
He means my earnings, and he’s right. I need to earn a full-time wage.
I need a plan.
Chapter 7 (#ulink_2e74faed-2947-59c4-876b-acca4e21c91b)
I spend days brainstorming ideas for a new career path, letting my mind explore the sensible, the wild and the downright obscure. On Saturday night, Benji has a sleepover at Logan’s house and Dylan is in his room watching god-knows-what on his laptop and talking to god-knows-who on his phone. Scarlet is diligently ploughing on with the ever-increasing amount of homework that she’s been given (I really think I might need to have a quiet word with her teachers; it’s unacceptable how much work that child is getting at the moment). So Nick and I have the kitchen to ourselves, which is a rare event. I’m intending to wait until after we’ve eaten to talk to him about my new plan, but just as we clear away the plates, my mobile pings with a text from Logan’s mum.
That’s her genuine contact name on my phone, along with Nina’s mum and Franco’s mum. And I am very aware that I don’t exist as Hannah in the lives of these people – I am Dylan/Scarlet/Benji’s mum, despite the fact that I have shared some of my most traumatic parenting situations with them while waiting in the school playground at the end of the day. We are all women who have been relegated to the status of ‘someone’s mum’ from the moment that our children started making friends with other kids.
Benji wants to come home. His teddy’s arm has fallen off & I think it’s upset him a bit x
‘Are you kidding me?’ I read the text aloud to Nick and we stare at each other for a moment. ‘Teddy’s arm?’
Nick shakes his head. ‘I sewed it back on after the last time. It must have come loose.’
I slam the dishwasher closed and wait for a second to hear the tell-tale gushing of water. A new dishwasher is not in my budget right now.
‘I think you’re missing the point,’ I tell Nick. ‘He’s going into Year Six in September and then he’ll be starting at Westhill Academy before we know it. How is he going to cope in a world of constant fights and drug-dealing and rampant sex when his teddy’s arm falling off sends him into a meltdown?’
Nick raises his eyebrows at me. ‘I think you’re being a little bit dramatic there, Hannah. He’s got a whole year to grow up and anyway, it’s secondary school, not prison.’
‘You don’t know what it’s like,’ I mutter darkly, pulling my shoes off the rack next to the door. ‘You’re not there all week.’
‘Neither are you,’ Nick points out, slightly unreasonably. ‘I’ll drive – I want to check if Betty’s new windscreen wipers work.’
He hasn’t got a clue. He doesn’t see the kids scurrying down our school corridors like there’s a herd of zombies hot on their heels. He isn’t the one who has to lurk outside the girls’ toilets, ready to catch the smokers red-handed. He isn’t here after school when Scarlet and Dylan (although mostly Scarlet, to be honest) regale us with terrifying stories of crime and punishment that never make it as far as the staff room. And Benji is our baby. It was only two minutes ago that he couldn’t wear shoes without Velcro.
I yell up the stairs, telling the older two that we’ll be back soon, and then we head out into the dark. It’s a clear night without a cloud in the sky and the stars are out in force. I stand for a second, wondering when the world got so big.
The sound of Betty roaring to life jolts me back to the task in hand. I clamber into the Land Rover and we rattle our way up the road, the heater making a complete song and dance about being turned on full. It clearly has little man syndrome because it certainly isn’t producing anything even vaguely warming. Nick flicks the wipers on and they manage two half-hearted swipes of the glass before freezing in position across the windscreen and I have to endure the rest of the journey listening to him mutter about how he just can’t understand it and he fitted them perfectly and he read the instruction manual and watched a YouTube video and there’s no reason at all why they shouldn’t be working.
I love my husband very much but when he gets started on the topic of Land Rover maintenance I am sometimes tempted to shove his diff lock where the sun doesn’t shine.
We get to Logan’s house and his mother opens the door, depositing a teary and rather subdued-looking Benji onto the front step.
‘I’m sorry, Mum!’ he says, the instant that he sees me. ‘I just felt weird and you said to call you if I wasn’t okay.’
I pull him into a hug and Logan’s mum nods understandingly at me over the top of his head.
Oh god. He should be sorry. She probably thinks that he’s a complete wimp and that I have failed in my duty to provide him with the life skills that he should have acquired by the ripe old age of ten. She’ll tell all the other mums and they’ll mock me behind my back, saying that I baby him because he’s my last child and I’m incapable of letting him grow up.
‘It’s fine,’ I tell him. ‘And you don’t need to be sorry.’
Logan’s mum hands me his rucksack. ‘I think all his things are in there. We’ve put Teddy’s arm in a sling but it’s possible that he’s going to need a bit of surgery.’
I look gratefully at her and raise my eyebrows. ‘Kids, hey?’
She smiles. ‘I know – and we haven’t even started on the teenage years with Logan yet! Speaking of which, I saw your Scarlet walking out of the park yesterday morning when I was coming back from yoga. She’s a beauty, isn’t she? Have you thought about sending her photo off to one of those modelling agencies?’
‘I’m not sure that would be a good idea,’ I tell her, shuddering. ‘She’s difficult enough to handle as it is, without getting any big ideas from a bunch of supermodels.’
Logan’s mum laughs gently. ‘And you must join us one of these days. Honestly – one hot yoga session with Orlando and you won’t ever look back!’
I open my mouth with the intention of making a hilarious quip about the fact that yoga is supposed to aid flexibility, and therefore surely my ability to look back would only be improved after a session with hot Orlando, but then I pause. Some of the mothers in the school playground take their exercise regimes incredibly seriously and the last thing I need right now is to piss off the PTA.
‘Maybe one day!’ I trill, trying to look like attending a yoga class isn’t my definition of hell.
I usher Benji towards the garden gate where Nick is waiting. And then a thought hits me and I spin round.
‘Actually,’ I say, ‘it can’t have been Scarlet who you saw, because I dropped her at school myself yesterday.’
But Logan’s mum has closed the door. Benji trips over his own feet and starts to wail.
When we get home, the fairy lights are on outside the front door. I always put them on if Scarlet or Dylan are coming home late but I was in too much of a rush to think about doing it tonight. One of them must have come downstairs and switched them on while we were getting Benji.
We get inside and I’m intending on scooting him upstairs to bed, but as we walk into the living room, I see Scarlet and Dylan draped across the sofa.
‘Hey!’ calls Scarlet. ‘We heard you were coming home. It’s just as well – the house was too quiet without you here.’
‘Get over here, little dude,’ says Dylan, opening his arms.
Benji dashes across the room and flings himself down between them, snuggling his feet onto Scarlet’s lap and his head against Dylan’s shoulder. Nick and I sit down, and we spend the next fifteen minutes watching our teenage children comfort, reassure and finally get a smile out of their little brother.
*
It isn’t until Sunday lunchtime that I finally get to discuss my new plan with the rest of the family. Nick cooks a roast dinner and I wait until everyone’s plate is full before clearing my throat and getting their attention.
‘I have an announcement to make,’ I say, hitting my water glass with my fork.
Nick cringes and puts out his hand to stop me. ‘Don’t do that, Hannah. Those glasses are only cheap. They’ll shatter if you look at them the wrong way.’
‘An announcement!’ Scarlet’s reaction is far more satisfying than my boring health-and-safety-conscious husband, so I turn to her, a big smile on my face. ‘Are you finally going to let me change my name to Scarlett with two ts, which is obviously how it was supposed to be spelt in the first place?’
I squint at her, wondering what she’s wittering on about now.
‘No, and I have no idea why you would think that’s what I’m about to say. Anyway, I’m really excited to be talking to you guys about this. So, the thing is—’
‘We’re going somewhere amazing on holiday, aren’t we!’ squeals Scarlet. ‘Oh my god, Mum! Where is it? Is it America?’
‘Is it Disneyland?’ yells Benji. ‘Logan went there last year and he said it was fantastic. You can go on rides and eat candy floss and meet Mickey Mouse and—’
‘It’s not Disneyland, numbnuts.’ Scarlet waves her hand, dismissing Benji’s suggestion. ‘Can you imagine Dad somewhere like that?’
We all turn to look at Nick, who is staring at us all like we’ve grown three heads.
‘What are you going on about?’ he asks. ‘And can you please eat this roast before it goes cold.’
‘We’re just saying that you wouldn’t be seen dead at Disneyland,’ Dylan informs him, ramming a huge piece of chicken into his mouth. ‘You know. Not with all that expectation that you might actually have a good time.’
Nick frowns. ‘You’re damn right I wouldn’t. What a waste of money! I don’t need some wet-behind-the-ears, spotty juvenile in a mouse costume telling me that it’s time to enjoy myself, thank you very much.’
Scarlet groans. ‘Well, not everyone is a killjoy like you, Dad.’
Nick looks hurt at this accusation.
‘I am not a killjoy. I just can’t stand organised fun.’ He spits out the last two words like they’re putting him off his food. ‘I don’t need permission to have a good time.’
It is for this very reason that the Thompson family will never step over the boundaries of Center Parcs or anything Disney-related or indeed any campsite that has the audacity to offer entertainment of any kind. We did once visit Legoland when Dylan was younger, mostly because Nick was under the innocent illusion that it would just be about Lego bricks. The car journey home was mostly spent listening to him bang on about the ratio of activity to queuing time and the cost of a can of coke. The day only managed to avoid being a complete disaster because Dylan had quite a lot of birthday money to spend and Nick convinced him to buy a box that consisted of boring, grey Lego, which he then spent three solid days turning into a replica of something from Star Wars that Dylan wasn’t allowed to play with.
‘I think we’re going to Morocco,’ says Dylan, having finally swallowed his chicken. ‘That’s on your bucket list, isn’t it?’
‘We’re not going to Morocco,’ I say. ‘And what I actually wanted to—’
‘Not with any of you, anyway,’ adds Nick. ‘We’re going to wait until you’ve all left home and then me and your mum are going to have the holiday of a lifetime.’ His eyes glaze over slightly. ‘We’re going to shop in the souqs of Marrakech and hike in the Atlas Mountains and drink funky cold medina.’
He sings the last three words, wiggling his shoulders in what I can only assume is his interpretation of a hip-hop dance move.
Scarlet’s eyes narrow. ‘You do know that song is talking about date rape, don’t you? Medina was a drug that the guy put in people’s drinks to make them have sex with him because they didn’t like him.’ She holds up her hand and starts counting off on her fingers. ‘It’s all there in the lyrics, Dad. He thinks that girls should be with him just because he has nice clothes and it condones animal testing and it is totally transphobic.’
We both stare at her and I run through the song lyrics in my head. The dog doing the wild thing on his leg. Sheena. The comment about making sure that the girl is pure.
‘Scarlet’s right,’ I tell Nick, feeling shocked. ‘He drugs them. And we’ve been playing it to the kids since they were tiny.’
‘Exactly.’ Scarlet smacks her lips with relish. ‘What kind of parent forces their kids to listen to lyrics like that?’
‘And anyway, the medina that you’re thinking of is a part of some cities in North Africa,’ Dylan informs Nick. ‘The streets are like mazes and it’s really easy to get lost.’
‘Thanks,’ says Nick, nodding. ‘I’ll try to remember that.’
‘That song is ruined for me now,’ I mutter. ‘Forever.’
‘So if we’re not going to Morocco and we’re not going to Disneyland then where are we going?’ asks Benji, waving his hand to get our attention back on the topic.
Which is absolutely not the topic that I actually want to discuss.
‘We’re not going anywhere,’ I say firmly. ‘The announcement that I want to make has nothing to do with any holiday.’
‘Bloody hell, you’re not pregnant, are you?’ asks Dylan and there is silence as four pairs of eyes bore into my stomach.
‘No, I’m not!’ I snap. ‘And Nick, you shouldn’t be looking so panicked, for god’s sake.’
‘So – if you’re not having a baby, which I’m glad about by the way because babies are annoying and Dogger wouldn’t like it, and we’re not going on holiday, then what are we doing?’ asks Scarlet.
‘It’s not what we’re doing, it’s what I’m doing,’ I tell her and everyone puts down their knives and forks and I finally have their unadulterated attention. Because I don’t do anything without any of them. Not ever.
‘I feel like we should have a drum roll.’ Scarlet raises one eyebrow. ‘You’re really building this up, Mum. I’ve got places to be this afternoon.’
I frown. ‘What places? And speaking of which, have you been bunking off school? Because I’ve been told by two different people now that you’ve been spotted out and about in places that you shouldn’t be.’
Scarlet inhales sharply and turns to glower at Dylan. ‘What people? As if I can’t guess.’
Dylan shrugs. ‘Wasn’t me, so you can stop giving me the evil eye,’
I bang my hand on the table. ‘Scarlet! Have you or have you not been hanging out in town when you should be at school? This is incredibly serious, you know. You’re supposed to be getting an education, not wasting these precious years shopping and lazing about in the park.’
‘I’d probably get more of an education in the park than I would at our crappy school,’ she mutters.
She does have a point. Not that I’m prepared to concede it.
‘Scarlet’s not daft enough to skive school,’ states Nick. ‘So it must have been someone else who looks like her. Anyway, about this big announcement, Hannah.’
‘God. Imagine looking like Scarlet.’ Dylan rocks back on his chair and smirks at his sister.
‘At least I’ve got all my own teeth,’ she snarls back.
Dylan laughs. ‘So have I. Is that the best you’ve got? You’re slacking, Scarlet – maybe you should start attending school a bit more.’
Scarlet’s growl of anger is drowned out by Nick’s voice. ‘Your mother is trying to tell us something and I for one am very keen to hear what she has to say. So either be quiet or you can leave the room.’ He turns to face me. ‘Hannah. Please ignore our horribly behaved offspring and tell me about this announcement.’
