Gill Sims

Why Mummy Doesn’t Give a ****


Скачать книгу

… as it once was, so I can’t ever be naked or Do Sex with another man again. It was OK with Simon, he saw it all happening gradually, the stretch marks and the sagging, and even the baggy tapestry fanny didn’t all happen at once, and also it was mostly his fault. Have you noticed that he has quite a big head that he probably passed on to his children? So that was different. But I could no more inflict my Flaps of Doom on a new man than, well, than I could show them to you. It Just Is Not Going to Happen!’

      ‘Well, anyway, we’re not advocating you pick up randoms on Tinder and booty-call them,’ said Colin sternly. ‘If you meet someone that you find you connect with enough to want to go to bed with him, then he’ll probably be a nice enough person to not care that you have a few flaws and imperfections. He’ll probably be too busy worrying about his own imperfections anyway. But you can get to know someone first, and then think about bed. There’s no obligation to shag anyone you don’t want to.’

      ‘But what about dick pics?’ I whimpered.

      ‘Well, they’re quite useful. Look at it like this, if they send you a dick pic, you can instantly discount them, and not waste any more time on them. Unless, of course, you like what you see …’

      ‘OK, OK,’ I sighed. ‘I’ll think about it. I’m trying very hard to be a strong independent woman and not need a man, though, but it’s bloody lonely being a single mother and coping with everything on your own.’

      ‘You are a strong independent woman,’ said Hannah firmly. ‘You’ve always been a strong independent woman, and really, you’ve been coping on your own for years as Simon was always working or away so much.’

      ‘Well,’ said Sam, ‘in the meantime, remember you’ve always got us. You’re not on your own.’

      Monday, 16 April

      And at last the children have returned to school after the Easter holidays or the Spring Break or whatever the fuck they call it these days. I thought things would be easier when they were in secondary school. I thought as they got older they’d get more self-sufficient, they’d be able to get themselves up and out the door in the mornings, they’d not need me to find all their stuff (though why I thought that age would bring them the magical ability to locate lost items, I don’t know, given that it had never bestowed that gift upon their father), they’d be able to make their own lunches and breakfasts and possibly even their own dinners sometimes too. Oh, what a poor, sweet fool I was! Trying to get teenagers out the door is possibly even more stressful – more reminiscent of banging your head endlessly against a brick wall – than trying to get bloody toddlers out the door.

      THEN, when their lights were still on at 11 pm, despite increasingly furious bellows from me, I had to go downstairs and switch the router off, which resulted in further furious bellows from them because Peter had been number one on Fortnite and about to win the battle and Jane had been having a like, really, like, important chat with Millie and Sophie on Snapchat and now her life was ruined. Neither of them seemed the slightest bit concerned that these things had been happening when they were supposed to be sleeping – it was still all my fault according to Jane because Simon apparently let her stay up as late as she wanted over the weekend.

      Jane finally emerged from her room half an hour before we had to leave, and locked herself in the bathroom. This immediately set alarm bells ringing, because Jane is incapable of spending less than an hour in the bathroom at the best of times.

      I banged on the door and shouted, ‘What are you doing?’

      ‘I need to wash my hair,’ she screamed back.

      ‘But you washed it last night before bed,’ I pointed out.

      ‘Well, I need to wash it AGAIN, don’t I, Mother,’ she snarled.

      ‘But we need to go in half an hour at the most if you want a lift to the bus stop,’ I wailed. ‘And if I don’t give you a lift to the bus stop you’ll miss the bus and be late for school and then you’ll get another detention and I’ll probably be summonsed to see your head of year and made to feel like a shit mother because you were late again, when actually it’s not my fault, but Mrs Simmons won’t see it like that, she’ll judge me for being an incompetent single mother and probably have you taken into care because when she starts giving me her judgy look I’ll revert to being a sulky teenager too and huffing and rolling my eyes, and last time I had to go and see her she actually asked me if I was chewing and Jane, please, just be ready in time.’

      Meanwhile, Peter finally emerged from his room and shuffled downstairs. I abandoned trying to prise Jane out of the bathroom and ran downstairs, as he slouched over the kitchen counter shovelling Weetabix into his mouth.

      ‘Peter, how many Weetabix have you got in there?’

      Peter considered my question as he crammed another shovelful into his mouth.

      ‘Six?’ he finally offered.

      ‘And is there any milk left for your sister’s breakfast?’

      ‘Oh