Mummy Said the F-Word Read online

  About the author

  Fiona Gibson is a freelance journalist who has written for many publications including the Observer, the Guardian, Red and Marie Claire. She has three children.

  Also by Fiona Gibson

  Fiction

  Wonderboy

  Babyface

  Lucky Girl

  Non-fiction

  The Fish Finger Years

  Mummy Said the F-word

  FIONA GIBSON

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2008 by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Fiona Gibson 2008

  The right of Fiona Gibson to be identified as the Author

  of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance

  with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real

  persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 444 74070 7

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Also by Fiona Gibson

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Part Two

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Epilogue

  Other Books

  For Margery and Keith, with all my love

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Huge thanks to: Jenny Tucker for accidentally providing the title (thanks also to Pedro, the daddy who said the f-word). Cathy Gillian for being the best writing pal I could wish for. Tania Cheston for running with me and being so helpful with plots. The brain-boosting Dolphinton writers: Vicki Feaver, Elizabeth Dobie, Margaret Dunn and Amanda McLean. Kirsty Scott, Wendy Rigg, Anita Naik and Daniel Blythe for stacks of encouragement and perky-up emails. Jane Wright at the Sunday Herald for giving me the chance to be an agony aunt for a year. Wendy Varley and Ellie Stott for reading the early manuscript and offering lashings of encouragement. Chris, Sue and Jill at Atkinson Pryce bookshop. All at Hodder, especially my editors Sara Kinsella and Isobel Akenhead, and publicist Eleni Fostiropoulos. Jen and Tony at www.bluex2.com for my website. Finally, my gorgeous family Jimmy, Sam, Dex and Erin for always being there, making me laugh, keeping me sane and agreeing that we really are rubbish at keeping fish.

  www.fionagibson.com

  PROLOGUE

  A copy of Bambino magazine lies on our kitchen table. I pick it up, idly flicking through, about to fling it bin-wards. ‘Britain’s weekly parenting bible,’ reads the line beneath the shimmering pink logo, as if no parent could possibly consider raising a child without it.

  The magazine falls open at the problem page. ‘When Daddy Strays,’ reads the headline above one of the problems. I glance through the open door of our basement kitchen. My husband, Martin, is in the garden, talking urgently on his mobile. He has taken the day off work with life-threatening man-flu, but must be in constant contact with his office, naturellement. Our son Travis is enjoying the June sunshine and trying to catch butterflies to stuff into his toy ambulance.

  My skin prickles as I glance back at the magazine. The agony aunt is called Harriet Pike. She is wearing an expensive-looking white shirt – the kind magazines always refer to as ‘crisp’ – and a terse smile that veers towards a sneer. In fact, she bears an uncanny resemblance to the woman who pulled a disgusted face when a nugget of dung tumbled out of Travis’s dungaree leg in the fruit shop. Cat’s-arse face. You become immune to people like that.

  ‘Sassy, smart – she shoots from the hip,’ reads the text along the top of Harriet’s page. I start reading the ‘Daddy Strays’ bit. Not that I expect this Pike woman to say anything useful. I’m just curious, that’s all. My friend Millie edits this magazine and is forever sending me copies, which I bin, virtually unread, although I never tell her that. Millie means well, and sends the magazines in the hope that they’ll bring some sparkle to my life, ha ha.

  What Pike has done is break down the fall-out from Daddy’s affair into several steps – as if the unravelling of an entire life is as simple as baking a cake. ‘Step one’, I read, ‘is grief.’

  You’re grieving for the good times, the life you had together. Yet, however much you’re hurting, bear in mind that infidelity is rarely one person’s fault. Examine your own role, the part you had to play in all of this. Perhaps he felt dreadfully neglected. Second fiddle to your new baby.

  What planet is this woman on? He shagged someone else, end of story! ‘Hopefully,’ Pike witters on, ‘you might find it in your heart to forgive.’ With a snort, I drop the magazine on to the table.

  A cool breeze sneaks through the open back door. Finishing his call, Martin wanders into the kitchen. I look up and he’s gawping at Bambino, which still lies open at the problem page. Our eyes meet. And I see it – guilt and utter terror – smeared across his face.

  Shit. Something’s wrong. My heart judders, and everything around me turns vague and fuzzy as if it’s dissolving. So I haven’t been imagining it. I’m not a paranoid idiot. I’ve suspected for ages that something’s been going on – something that Martin couldn’t possibly share with me, because I am only his wife of twelve years and the mother of our three children. I’d even wondered if he’d been made redundant and couldn’t bring himself to tell me. My head had filled with images of him sitting in parks sipping coffee, trying to fill up the days.

  Now, I hope it’s something like that. It really wouldn’t be too bad. I could work full-time, find an office job, and we’d manage OK. I’d even forgive all the lies.

  Clutching his ambulance, Travis scampers in behind Martin and dances around him. He glances up at Daddy, whose face has turned an alarming purply-red. I grip the back of the chair, terrified of what might happen if I let go.

  ‘Caitlin, I’m so sorry.’

  I watch Martin’s mouth. He never calls me Caitlin. From the start, I have always been Cait to him.

  So I know it’s something very bad.

&nbs
p; ‘What … what’s going on?’ It comes out as a whisper.

  Martin’s face has turned pale now, as if his internal temperature control has gone haywire. He slumps on to a chair at the table.

  ‘Brrrmmm,’ hums Travis, making his ambulance perform a jaunty three-point turn on the floor.

  ‘We can’t talk about this now,’ Martin murmurs, firing Travis a pleading look.

  ‘Nee-naw!’ cries our son. ‘Want butterflies. C’mon, Daddy, let’s play!’

  I can’t speak. My head is filled with a dull thumping noise.

  ‘Daddy funny,’ Travis announces. ‘Daddy cry.’

  He’s right, although Martin’s tears aren’t falling properly. They’re kind of blotting and making shiny patches around his eyes.

  ‘Please go upstairs, Travis,’ I murmur. ‘Go up to Lola’s room. She’s got all her vet things out.’ She, like her father, is off sick today. The house feels stale and germy.

  ‘No,’ Travis retorts, excavating a nostril with his finger.

  ‘Please. Up you go. You love playing vets. You could be chief vet! Go on, darling, I’ll come up in a minute.’ If I had it, I would stuff a million pounds into his dungaree pockets if he’d go up to Lola’s room.

  ‘No like Lola. No like vets.’ Travis studies his father in awe. Watching Martin crying is proving to be far more entertaining than a Junior Vet surgery with light-up X-ray machine and plastic kittens that wee in their litter tray. I pray for him to tire of this startling display and leave the room.

  All these years together and I’ve never seen Martin cry. Sometimes I’ve wondered if he actually possesses tear ducts, or if they were switched off at some point during late childhood. Everything feels heightened. My heart is pounding frantically.

  ‘Wee-wee,’ Travis announces.

  ‘Whatever it is,’ I say calmly, ‘you can tell me.’

  ‘Cait,’ Martin mumbles, ‘there’s someone else. I’m leaving you.’

  I turn away from him and stare down at Travis, whose navy corduroy dungarees are slowly darkening around the groin, indicating the steady progression of wee.

  ‘Mummy crying!’ he says, grinning, as if my next party trick might prove even more of a hoot. Who needs a Junior Vet surgery with all of this going on? It’s fantastic fun in our house.

  I swipe my arm across my face, march towards Travis and plop him on my hip. Then I carry him out of the room, yearning to shrink myself down, squeeze into his ambulance and be taken to a warm, safe place where this kind of thing never happens.

  Later, with our children safely decanted into their beds, I learn that her name is Daisy. Daisy, a pretty, delicate flower, had waltzed into Bink and Smithson, the architects’ practice in Holborn where Martin works, to offer after-sales service. ‘What sort of after-sales service?’ I bark at him.

  I am torturing him, dragging out every sordid detail. It should feel satisfying, but it doesn’t. We sit facing each other across the cluttered kitchen table.

  ‘She … she works for the water-cooler company. They’d installed some coolers, and—’

  ‘Get to the point!’

  ‘She … well, she came back, just to make sure the water had reached the right temperature … asked if there’d been any problems at bottle-changeover time …’

  Right. And lingered at Martin’s desk, laughing at his jokes, complimenting his choice of shirt and tie, making him feel so good and young again, and finally lunging at him – taking the defenceless kitten by such surprise that he found one hand plunging into her lacy 34C bra, and the other into her matching knickers.

  ‘And she, um … we um … It just happened,’ is how he puts it.

  Naturally, his colleagues had gone home by this point. And I made that bit up, about her underwear matching. Water-Cooler Slapper doesn’t strike me as someone who’d permit her peachy arse to come into contact with tragic saggy pants.

  So Martin’s hands had fallen into these places, in the way that Travis’s foot fell against Eddie Templeton’s butt during a row over a ripped painting at nursery. I hadn’t realised that crucial parts of Martin’s anatomy – hand, penis – are capable of behaving completely independently of his brain. Perhaps he needs to see a doctor about his nerve connections.

  ‘When did this happen?’ I ask dully.

  ‘Um, three months ago. About three months.’

  ‘So you’ve lied and lied.’

  Martin nods slowly.

  ‘And when’s the first time you actually …’ My voice fractures and I grip the table edge.

  His Adam’s apple bobs. ‘That day. In the, er, at the office … the after-sales day.’

  ‘What?’ I yell. ‘You mean you did it in your office? Jesus, Martin—’

  ‘No, no … it wasn’t … It was, Um …’ He tails off. ‘In the loo.’

  I open my mouth and shut it again. Oh, that’s all right then. They only did it in the office loo. Not on his desk or anything. Let’s crack open the fucking champagne. A horrible gulping noise comes from my gut.

  Martin stares at me. His lips are pale and shrunken. ‘I can’t tell you how much I wish this hadn’t happened.’

  ‘Do you … d’you love her?’ I hate myself for asking that, but I can’t help it.

  His mouth tightens, and he shakes his head. ‘It’s not … I don’t know, Cait. All I know is, I can’t be here any more, with you.’

  ‘Then do it,’ I snarl. ‘Just get out.’

  It’s as if he’s secretly yearned to do this for months and has finally been given permission.

  The tension around him disperses. He gets up, walks out of the kitchen and heads upstairs to the hall. I hear him stepping outside, closing the front door behind him and unlocking his car. The engine starts. The sound of him driving away merges with all the other East London noises.

  He’s gone. I rest my head in my hands and shut my eyes tightly, kidding myself that when I reopen them, everything will be normal again. Martin will be his usual distant self, but at least he’ll be here, still mine.

  Nothing’s changed when I open my eyes. ‘It’s natural to feel angry!’ chirps that blasted woman in Bambino magazine. My family, my life, destroyed for a quickie in an office loo.

  In terms of after-sales service, surely this is taking things a tad too far.

  PART ONE

  Forget computers, gadgets and all the trappings of our modern age. The greatest gift you can give a child is the warmth and stability of a loving family.

  Harriet Pike, Bambino problem page, 18 February

  Smug fuck.

  Caitlin Brown, newly single mother of three

  1

  Did you know that the tongue is more responsible for bad breath than the gums or teeth? That it forms the perfect breeding ground for odorous bacteria in the form of an invisible layer of soft plaque? Sweep it away instantly with our new Antibacterial Tongue-Scraper, a snip at—

  ‘Mum!’

  I type, ‘£4.99 (special introductory price).’

  ‘MUM! Where are you?’ Lola’s voice ricochets around the stairwell as she thunders down to the kitchen.

  ‘I’m working,’ I call back. ‘Watch your DVD, colour your picture. I’ll be finished in a minute.’

  We’ve struck a bargain, Lola and me. She will allow me to bash out my sparkling copy for vitalworld.com, a website that seems to thrive on customers’ paranoia about emitting bad smells. In the meantime – and we’re talking one measly hour – she can watch her Simpsons DVD or colour in her zebra poster. I know that mothers are supposed to drip with guilt if they so much as try to nudge a toe back into the world of paid employment. However, since Martin’s departure over eight months ago, I don’t have a choice. And Lola’s playdate with Bart Simpson is, I feel, hardly tantamount to infant neglect.

  It’s Friday, and we’re just home from school. We live on a quiet terraced road a short walk from Bethnal Green tube station. The area was pretty cheap when Martin and I moved here, soon after getting married, but it’s been gentrifie
d and is now awash with young families. There are numerous all-terrain buggies and pleasing, wholesome activities for kids. Jake, my ten-year-old, is at football practice in the new sports hall, which for some reason he doggedly keeps attending, even though the coach commented that he spends most of the session examining his fingernails. Travis, who’s three, is at his psychopathic mate Rory’s birthday party. Good mothers accompany their offspring to parties and stay for the duration. However, Travis didn’t want me to stay. ‘Bye-bye, Mummy!’ he yelled, waving gleefully. My third-born seems to regard being away from me as a fantastic treat.

  I continue: ‘It takes mere seconds to scrape the layer of mushroom-like spores from the tongue’s surface.’

  Bloody genius! The Booker Prize beckons. I picture myself striding on to a stage in some glittering ballroom to receive my award. I have swathes of rich chestnut hair (rather than nondescript light brown) and the perky breasts of a nineteen-year-old. I am no longer a dumped thirty-five-year-old mother in ratty jeans and an ancient Gap sweater that’s felted in the wash.

  ‘Mummy! I’ve been shouting and shouting and shouting.’ Lola stalks into the kitchen and plonks herself on my lap, causing my swivel chair to wobble dangerously.

  ‘Yes, hon. I heard you. This’ll only take me a minute.’

  ‘You always say that. It’s never a minute. It’s hours and hours and hours.’

  She sighs dramatically. At just turned seven, she has mastered the art of cranking up my guilt to the max.

  ‘I’m sorry, hon. The sooner you let me get on, the sooner I’ll be finished, and then we can do something nice.’

  ‘It’s not fair,’ she growls.

  I peer over her shoulder at the screen. What else can I dredge up about this wretched scraper thingy? Ross, who commissions my copy, expects lashings of descriptive detail, and once ticked me off for not making some wart-freezing gizmo sound ‘tempting’ enough. My instinct was to behave in an extremely grown-up manner and tell him to fuck off, but when you’re reliant on one client for 90 per cent of your income, you tend to button your lip. ‘You need to lure visitors,’ Ross urged me. ‘Have them believing that our products are –’ he snorted into the phone ‘– Truly life-changing.’