‘Mummy?’
I turn. Adam peers through from the sitting room, awkward.
‘Can I go to France then?’
‘I told you to run your bath,’ I snap, all my anger resurfacing. Ian had no right to mention the holiday to Adam before talking to me. Why do I always have to be the bad parent?
‘But …’
‘Bath. And no, you can’t go to France, and that’s final.’
He glares at me then, a little ball of fury, my words bursting the bubble of his excitement. ‘Why?’
‘Because I said so.’
‘That’s not a reason. I want to go!’
‘It’s reason enough. And no arguments.’
‘That’s a stupid reason! You’re stupid!’
‘Don’t talk to me like that, Adam. Now run your bath or no story for you tonight.’ I don’t like him when he’s like this. I don’t like me when I’m like this.
‘I don’t want a story! I want to go to France! Daddy wants me to go! You’re mean! I hate you!’
He’s carrying a plastic dinosaur and he throws it at me before storming off to the bathroom. I hear the door slam. It’s not only me who can do that with effect. I pick it up and see the Natural History Museum sticker on the foot.
That only makes me feel worse. I’ve been promising him we’ll go for ages and not got around to it. When you’re the full-time parent there’s a lot of things you don’t get around to.
His bath is short and no fun for either of us. He ignores any attempt I make to explain why I don’t think the holiday is a good idea, just glowering at me from under his damp hair. It’s as if even at six he can see through my bullshit. It’s not that he’s never been away for a month. It’s not that I think maybe a week would be better in case he got homesick. It’s not that maybe Daddy and Lisa need their space now that a baby is coming – it’s simply that I don’t want to lose the only thing I have left. Him. Ian doesn’t get to take Adam too.
‘You hate Daddy and Lisa,’ he growls as I wrap his perfect little body in a large towel. ‘You hate them and you want me to hate them.’ He stomps off to his bedroom, leaving me kneeling on the bathroom floor, clothes damp and staring after him, shocked. Is that what he really thinks? I wish he had proper tantrums more often. I wish he’d cry and scream and rage rather than sulk and then spit out these barbed truths. From the mouths of babes …
‘Do you want Harry Potter?’ I ask once he’s got his pyjamas on and the towel is hanging in the bathroom to dry.
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’
He doesn’t look at me, but clutches Paddington tightly. Too tightly. All that contained rage and hurt. His face is still thunderous. He might as well stick his bottom lip out and be done with it.
‘I want to go to France with Daddy. I want to eat snails. And swim in the sea. I don’t want to stay here and go to holiday school while you’re at work all the time.’
‘I’m not at work all the time.’ His anger stings me and so do his words, because there is some truth in them. I can’t take the time off to spend with him like some other mums can.
‘Lots of the time you are.’ He huffs slightly and turns onto his side, facing away from me. Paddington, still clutched tightly, peers over his small shoulder at me, almost apologetically. ‘You don’t want me to go because you’re mean.’
I stare at him for a moment, my heart suddenly heavy. It’s true. It’s all true. Adam would have a great time in France. And it would only be four weeks, and in a lot of ways it would make my life easier. But the thought remains like a knife in my guts. Easier yes, but also emptier.
Despite the frigid coldness of his back being to me, I lean over and kiss his head, ignoring his clenched tension as I do so. I suck in the wonderful clean smell that is distinctly his own. I will always be his mother, I remind myself. Lisa can never replace me.
‘I’ll think about it,’ I say, very quietly from the doorway, before I turn the light out. Letting him go would be the right thing. I know it would, but I still want to cry as I pour a glass of wine and slump onto the sofa. A whole month. So much can change in that time. Adam will be taller for sure. There’ll be less of this wonderful time when he still wants to cuddle and hold hands and be happy to be my baby. In the blink of an eye he’ll be a teenager, tonight’s behaviour a precursor of that. Then he’ll be grown and gone and having his own life, and I’ll probably still be in this shitty flat scratching out a living in a city I can’t afford, with barely a handful of part-time friends. I know I’m exaggerating everything in my self-pity, and that really I’m still trying to process the word pregnant and the effect that’s going to have on my life. I didn’t think that Ian would have more children. He was never that interested the first time around.
I was his practice wife, I realise. Adam and I were his practice family. When the story of his life is spun, we will simply be the early threads. We will not be the colour.
It’s a strange and sad thought, and I don’t like strange and sad thoughts so I drink more wine, and then make plans to fill those weeks with fun. I could take myself away for a weekend. I could start jogging. Lose this extra half a stone that has settled on my tummy and thighs. Wear high heels. Become someone new. It’s a lot to fit into a month, but I’m willing to try. Or at least I’m willing to try while I have half a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc in me. Before I can change my mind I text Ian and tell him the holiday is okay. Adam can go. I regret it almost instantly, but I don’t really have any choice. Adam will resent me if I say no, and I can’t stop him being part of that family too. Trying to keep him all to myself will only drive him away. I feel stronger while tipsy. It all seems a good idea right now.
Later, I wake up in the dark beside Adam’s bed. My breath comes in rabid pants as the world settles around me. He is fast asleep, one arm still wrapped around his battered, worn Paddington Bear. I watch him for a moment, letting his calm become mine. How do I seem to him on those occasions when he does wake up? Some crazy stranger who looks like his mum? For a boy who’s never had bad dreams it must be unsettling no matter how much he says it’s not.
Maybe I should have some proper therapy for my night terrors. One day, maybe. Shall I lie on the couch, doctor? Care to come and join me? Oh no, of course, you’re married. Maybe we should talk about your problems.
I can’t even make myself smile. Adam’s going away for a month. Lisa is pregnant. I’m getting left behind by the world. I crawl between my slightly sweat-damp sheets and tell myself to buck up. There are way worse positions to be in. At least the thing that happened with David proves that there are still men I can find attractive. And, more importantly, men who still find me attractive. Silver linings and all that.
Despite my middle of the night pep talk, and the joy and love in Adam’s face when I tell him his France trip is on, I’m still miserable as I watch him run through the melee at the school gates without even a glance back. Normally, this makes me happy. I like that he’s a confident child. But today that immediate forgetting of me seems symbolic, representing my entire future. Everyone running forward, and me on the other side of the gates, waving at people who are no longer looking back, left behind alone. I think about that for a second and it’s so pretentious I have to laugh at myself. Adam’s gone to school the same as he does every other day. So what that Ian’s happy? Ian being happy doesn’t mean that I have to be unhappy. Still, the pregnant word sits like a lead weight in my heart I can’t shift, and my eyes itch with tiredness. I hadn’t got back to sleep.
Surrounded by shrieks and laughter of children and the chatter of North London mums,