Just What Kind of Mother Are You? Read Free

who are similar in age to both Sally, my eldest, and Sam, my youngest.
    ‘It’s nothing major. I just thought you’d want to know so that you can address it before it gets out of hand.’ I stay silent, let her go on. ‘It’s just that Fergus came home last week saying that he would need money for school, and I didn’t really think much of it at the time. You know how it is … they always need money for something. So I gave it to him, and it was only when I was chatting to Guy about it last night and he said that Fergus had asked him for money also that we thought to question him.’
    I have no idea where this is going, but that’s not unusual when speaking to Kate, so I try to sound interested. ‘So what do you think he wants it for?’
    I’m guessing she’s going to tell me the teachers have set up a tuck shop. Something she’s not in agreement with. Something she’s against on principle .
    ‘It’s Sam,’ Kate says bluntly. ‘He’s been charging children to play with him.’
    ‘He’s what?’
    ‘Children are paying him money to play with him. I’m not sure exactly how much because … he seems to have a type of sliding scale in operation. Fergus is a little upset about the whole thing, actually. He’s found out he’s been paying substantially more than some of the other boys.’
    I turn around and look at Sam. He is wearing Mario Kart pyjamas and is feeding milk directly from his cereal spoon to our old ginger tom.
    I exhale.
    ‘You’re not cross that I rang, are you, Lisa?’
    I wince. Kate’s trying to sound nice, but her voice has taken on a shrill quality.
    ‘Not at all,’ I say. ‘I’m glad you did.’
    ‘It’s just that if it were me … if it were one of mine doing this – well, I’d want to know.’
    ‘Absolutely,’ I tell her. Then I give her my standard line, the line that I seem to be giving out to anyone and everyone regardless of the situation I’m faced with: ‘Leave it with me,’ I say firmly. ‘I’ll sort it.’
    Just before she hangs up I hear Kate say, ‘The girls okay?’, and I reply, ‘What? Yes, fine,’ because I’m flustered, and I’m embarrassed, and I’m not really thinking straight. I’m wondering how I’m going to tackle the problem of Sam’s new enterprise.
    But when I put the phone down, I think, Girls? What does she mean by that? Then I dismiss it, because Kate often gets me on the back foot. Confuses me with what she’s really trying to say. It’s something I’ve had to get used to.

2
    W E LIVE IN A draughty rented house in Troutbeck.
    Troutbeck sits to the east of Lake Windermere and is the kind of place you find in books entitled ‘Quaint English Villages’. There are supposed to be two hundred and sixty houses in Troutbeck, but I don’t know where all those people are hiding because I hardly see any of them.
    Of course, a lot are holiday lets. And many of the cottages are home to people who’ve retired here – so they’re not always part of the usual day-to-day goings-on, I suppose because they don’t have children living in the village. Or grandchildren they pick up from school a couple of days a week. Or take to swimming lessons, or to the park.
    I used to think it bordered on tragedy the way families lose touch, the way people sever ties, putting a pretty place to live above being together. But now I realize that’s just how people like it. They don’t always want to be together.
    My mother has a flat in Windermere village. She and my father never married – we were his second family, his other family – and because of something shitty that happened when I was a kid, something that we don’t ever talk about, we never see him. I’d ring my mother to pick up the ingredients Sally needs for cookery, but she doesn’t drive, so I’ve asked Joe to do it. Poor thing, he’s exhausted. He’s only had a few hours’ sleep, too.
    I back the car out with Sam in the front seat next to me and wave to the older two as they