Bad Girl Read online

  I’m still in the bath when I decide to act on a ridiculous impulse and call Theo. I don’t know why at first, but I feel the need, and anyway he’s the one who always gets up with the baby after Lily has been with Henry through the night.

  He answers on almost the second ring. “Hey, Chlo. Happy Christmas. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

  I giggle nervously. “Oh, is little Mr Richards awake? Put me on speaker.”

  “Okay…” He sounds unsure.

  “There you go,” he says.

  “Merry Christmas little Henry,” I tell him, “Auntie Chloe loves you. Hope you aren’t being too demanding of your mummy, her nipples hurt a lot and your nappies smell like death. Anyway, lots of love. Hope Santa was generous.”

  Theo comes on the phone laughing his head off. “How much have you had to drink?”

  “I’ll have you know, I didn’t even go out last night.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Adam fucking came around, though. He was really depressed. He’d been to the pub looking for company and came looking for me instead.”

  “Fucking hell,” he says, “sorry, Henry. Good job he doesn’t understand yet.”

  I laugh riotously. “I know. Nothing happened. Don’t worry. It was just fucking weird and made me start to wonder about stuff.”

  “Yeah, what stuff?” he asks, sounding genuinely interested as Henry coos in the background.

  “About what you and me were discussing. About our mums.”

  “Hang on, let me put Henry in my other arm, this one’s going dead.” I wait for a few moments, then he’s back. “So, about our mums?”

  “Yours and mine.”

  “I see. And what have you been thinking?”

  “Whether they sort of influenced our romantic lives?”

  “Absolutely,” he says, “I was definitely more cautious about admitting my feelings to Lily because of the things I watched my mum go through.”

  “I understand that completely. I can relate.”

  “But, there’s this thing… I mean… with blokes.”

  “What thing?” I find myself biting my lip and trying not to move in the bath in case he realises that I’m naked on the other end of the line.

  “With blokes, if they’re really interested, they will let you know. It might not be that obvious, but the signs will be there.”

  “You mean like Adam, turning up last night?”

  “Nah, I’m sure that was just cos he was lonely and feeling fucked up.”

  “Oh god, cheers.”

  “That sounds worse than I intended it to,” he laughs. “With Adam, if he was gonna do anything, it would’ve happened years ago. He wasn’t exactly shy when it came to wooing Susan, you know.”

  “Yeah, I suppose.”

  “But this Cole guy… he’s making it known. I think he’s in love with you. It’s obvious.”

  “You think so?” But he’s never said the words out loud.

  “It’s clear as day to me. I’m a bloke, so I know.”

  “But we have a complex relationship.”

  “Yeah? Or did it become complex because that was easier than it being simple?”

  He has me there.

  “Ah, fuck you, Richards.”

  “You know I’m right, Chlo. The guy won’t leave you alone. He even messaged Lily about that picture of you holding Henry that she put on Facebook. He wanted the original so he could get it printed off. He’s got it bad. He’d probably do whatever you said if you just asked.”

  I take a deep breath. “Oh, the power.”

  “Oh, the power,” he agrees, “yes. That’s the problem. When a man gives it away, that’s it. He’s in it for real. When we know, we just know.”

  I gulp at the thought of what could be.

  “Well, I better let you go. Who’s cooking dinner?” I ask.

  “Oh, we’re not. Gustav invited us to dine out at one of his favourite haunts in London. Some Hungarian place with six courses or something. We’re staying at the Ritz tonight and Lily’s happy because she thinks we might be able to try some s—”

  “Whoa, whoa, goodbye, Theo. Good fucking bye.” Way too much info.

  He laughs loudly, tickled. “That’ll teach you to call me when I’m tired and running my mouth off.”

  He hangs up and I leave the bath, still laughing even as I pull my clothes on.

  I never know what to get my mother for Christmas because she so often will say “oh that’s amazing, thanks,” and soon later you’ll find it gathering dust in a cupboard or up for sale on her eBay page. She’s so unpredictable.

  She’s been on about getting an air fryer for ages and goes on and on about having one. She always says she’ll wait for the sales and never bothers, so this year, I’ve damn well got her one and we’ll see what happens.

  I carry the big box up the steps towards the house, which is set on higher ground above the road. I grew up in a reasonable part of town and the house is big and old and draughty – it was left to my mother by her aunt, who died childless. My mum’s done a lot of renovation on the place and it’s nice. I’m carefully crossing the long garden path to the front door, the front garden almost as long as the back. There’s a hedge beside the garden path that gives the front as much privacy as most people’s back gardens.

  There were endless parties when I was growing up. When I was smaller, the gardens would all be packed with people drinking and smoking and swearing. I would hide out in my bedroom and watch through the net curtains, jealous as hell of all these people my mother seemed to adore – feeding them, plying them with booze, even hugging and kissing most of them.

  It’s never been like that between my mother and me. We’re not close in terms of affection.

  The one way I thought I could get close to her was by joining the action, so when I was thirteen, I started wearing make-up and hanging out quietly in the background of her parties. People knew I was there and would acknowledge me, but as I got older, I became more ingratiated and I guess that’s how Social Butterfly Chloe was born. I learnt it all from her. Never let it be said that my mother doesn’t have ambition. She may have spent most of her life in a safe but boring, reliable job, but she’s shagged her way through a decent amount of men and has hundreds of friends and acquaintances.

  I make it down the long and treacherously uneven path before dropping the box in front of the door. It’s been three years since I last spent Christmas here and it feels weird. Cole will be heading to bed soon, his Christmas done and dusted. He’ll be full of seafood and salad and ice cream and beer. I wonder if he got anything nice from anyone.

  I don’t know.

  It’s noon so I’m surprised when my knock on the door isn’t answered. I try the bell too but nobody comes to the door. I did tell her I was coming.

  I search my messages and double check. I find proof that I definitely said I’d be here at noon on Christmas Day and we’d go down to the Crown Inn if she booked a table. Her reply was that we would definitely be doing that. The last text I got was: See you then!

  I knock again and nothing.

  I start to worry something bad has happened.

  I can’t remember the name of her current boyfriend, or maybe there isn’t a boyfriend right now and she’s dead behind these doors, who knows? She passed away a few days ago and nobody was the wiser…

  I dial her phone because for fuck’s sake, this is ridiculous. I’ve driven out here. I’ve dolled myself up. I’m even wearing a new dress.

  I hear her phone ringing and realise it’s in the front room. I leave the air fryer where it is and walk to the bay window, spotting her phone on the mantelpiece, flashing with my call.

  I press the red button and go around the back of the house, traipsing the grass along the perimeter, my heels sinking into the soggy ground, the air fryer weighing me down.

  Sure enough, the back door has been left open and I let myself in.

  My heels are covered in mud and chunks of grass so I leave
them on the mat by the back door, locking it after myself.

  I tiptoe into the house and smell cigarettes, weed and booze before I’ve even left the utility room and got into the kitchen.

  There are bottles everywhere, empty pizza boxes… questionable messes I can’t even look at.

  In my stocking feet I fly up the stairs as lightly as possible and find her bedroom door wide open. She’s passed out in bed, naked, the sheet barely covering her. Her boyfriend, or whoever he is, is asleep face down, also naked.

  They’re comatose, the pair of them. She’s forty-five and still acting like a teenager. I should feel surprised, but I’m not.

  Most people thought my mum was so cool when we were growing up. Here was where everyone would come. Tom got his first drag of cannabis here; his first love. This house was where Paul found a taste for older women, discovering my mother’s friends were uninhibited and up for it with a randy young guy. Theo would play strip poker here and always somehow managed to get down to his boxers before pulling it all back in his favour, perhaps just to show his body off to Lily or to all of us. He has a bloody good body. Saskia and Marie lost their virginities in this house – Marie to her ex-boyfriend Anthony and Saskia to some random she never talked about afterwards, only telling us that it was done and that was all we needed to know.

  This was the house my friends knew they could use and abuse. And I did the same. I used and abused this place, as much as my mother, if not more. I didn’t want to join her, I wanted to beat her. I wanted to get her attention and the worst thing… not even the dangerous stuff I did like snorting lines or fucking my boyfriends in her bed ever got her attention.

  I was just the mistake. The one time she wasn’t using contraception.

  I’m the product of her party lifestyle she didn’t expect. I’m the girl she resented. The albatross around her neck. She didn’t treat me badly, she just didn’t treat me like a daughter.

  I was always dressed, fed and kept warm, but my mother never loved me. She tolerated me, celebrated me when it suited her and never questioned my sexual escapades. She pretty much left me to sink or swim through life. I had to teach myself everything.

  I go downstairs and into the living room. There’s a tiny excuse for a Christmas tree in the corner. It used to be me who’d always go into the attic and bring the big one down and dress it with all the decorations my aunt kept up there for decades. I used to think this house was cursed or something. My aunt died single and I used to wonder if my mum was cursed by some family trait that meant most of the women in our family wouldn’t ever be able to hold down a marriage or a family. I started to wonder if that also applied to me.

  I find a couple of presents under the tree. One is for someone called Robin, who I’m assuming is her current partner. There’s another present, this time labelled with my mother’s name. And the third present is for me, addressed: To Chloe, from Mum x

  I open the present and it’s a tacky necklace, like those you see in department stores as you’re in the queue for the till. It has a heart-shaped pendant, probably not even sterling silver, and a cubic zirconia little jewel, apparently. It’s an afterthought. Not even that. Not even a token. It’s a “here, this is all you’re worth” piece of shit.

  I wasn’t holding out much hope for today, but I was hoping she’d at least be conscious when I arrived… and then maybe we’d at least have a drink before I go and meet Saskia later.

  Suddenly she’s in the doorway in her robe, her tits almost hanging out, her dyed red hair like a rat’s nest.

  “Oh, you’re here.” She searches for her cigarettes and lights one up. “Mental night last night. Should’ve been here. That mate of yours, one with the baby blues, he stayed for a drink before he left looking for you.”

  “Yeah, Adam. He found me.”

  “Nice lad, that one,” she says, in her thick accent, the same one I’ve spent the past few years shaking off, like my identity as her daughter. I’ve tried to swap out this life and my Leeds accent for something else, but it’ll always be inside me, festering… that thought in the back of my mind that I’m nothing better, I’m just like her, like mother like daughter, sort of thing.

  “He’s alright,” I agree.

  “So, did you shag him then?” she asks, plonking herself down on the sofa and picking bits of stuff out of her teeth.

  “No, I’m still sort of with Cole. He’s coming to see me soon.” I texted him this morning to come, after having that conversation with Theo. He told me he’d already bought his ticket, that not even I could stop him coming.

  “That’s nice. Be careful with that one.”

  “Why?” I ask, feeling murderous.

  “He’s a bit out of your league, girl. I mean, look at him. And he’s rich, ain’t he? Girls like us don’t get guys like that.”

  “Thanks for the advice.”

  “Wouldn’t want you getting your heart broken.”

  I move to the doorway because I can’t stomach her cigarette smoke or her bullshit a second longer. How utterly deluded she must be to think that in the two years I was out in Australia, Cole and me didn’t get to know one another and really care about each other. She mustn’t be aware of the passing of time, I don’t think; one day rolls into another for her.

  “I’m off to meet Saskia,” I tell her, “so I’ll see you later. I got you an air fryer, it’s in the kitchen.”

  “Shouldn’t have, love. Don’t know what I’ll do with it.”

  There are two ways this could go…

  I could tell her exactly what I think, or I could call her fucking bluff.

  I walk into the kitchen, pick up the air fryer and tell her, “Wouldn’t want to clutter up your kitchen.”

  “Erm, no, no—”

  I’m out of the door and gone before she can try and stop me – the door slamming behind me with a great clatter that’ll more than likely wake my mother’s foul boyfriend upstairs.

  Ungrateful, bitter, twisted old cow.

  I’m only glad I already came and got all my stuff from this place and moved it into my rented house in the summer – having carefully stowed it all in the attic while I was gone so that none of her dirty boyfriends or nefarious mates could rifle through any of it and get any ideas. Now I have nothing to come back for. I don’t have a mother. As horrible as that is to admit, it’s true. I don’t have one.

  All I have is some stunted teenager pretending to be a mother. All she ever did was palm me off on my grandmother, and when Nanna died, that’s when I was left to fend for myself. I was eight. Left on my own in the summer holidays, barred from leaving the house or answering the door or the phone. Alone.

  I throw the air fryer into the back of the car. I’ll return it and spend the money on something nice. Maybe a massage at the spa or something. Better that than wasting money on someone so spiteful and rotten.

  There’s no traffic but I drive home like I’m battling through the rush hour and everyone is pissing me off. I get home, tossing the air dryer into the under-stairs cupboard and slamming the door shut.

  I’m so angry I ever thought she could change. I’m disappointed in myself for ever believing she could be better.

  I make it to the kitchen and see the bottle of sherry on the side I always buy myself for Christmas – the one drink Mum wouldn’t touch. I need a drink, so I have one.

  My heart hurts and I feel let down and betrayed.

  I feel alone.

  I pick up my phone and send a message to Cole: I need you.

  A few minutes pass, then he’s calling me up.

  His face appears on the screen and he looks at me carefully.

  “What did she do?”

  My lip wobbles and my face contorts and I have to put the phone on the counter and cry.

  “Chloe,” he tries to soothe me, “what happened?”

  “I got my hopes up is what happened. This fucking idiot right here, who should know better by now, but just won’t give up. And I get burnt every time, every
fucking time, Cole.”

  I pick up my phone again and rub my eyes, staring into his on the screen. It’s dark and he’s in his childhood bedroom at his parents’ house. He’s bare-chested and has bedhead and he looks gorgeous.

  “I’m gonna be there soon,” he says, “but I really wish I was there right now. You don’t know how much I wish I were.”

  I think of his big arms wrapped around me and how good they would feel, how amazing it would be to be in bed with him right now, cocooned and safe with him.

  The lump in my throat bulges and I try to breathe past it, but I can’t… I can’t even speak.

  “I’ve got you something and it’s coming in the post. I care about you, Chloe. Don’t think that I don’t. I care about you. I want to be with you, you know that. I don’t think I can live without you. It hasn’t been the same since you were gone. It’s driving me up the wall.”

  I nod down the line, cupping my mouth because I’m so cut up, the distance between us too great – especially at times like this. I thought we could go our separate ways and he’d be better off and maybe I’d find some answers from Adam, but instead all we’ve got is this vast, cavernous distance between us – when the truth is, we’d both much rather be together than not.

  “I miss you,” I finally admit.

  “Babe, I miss you so much,” he tells me, shading his eyes with his hand so I can’t see them. “I miss your smile and your laugh and I miss that cheeky look in your eye and your Daisy Dukes and your ham and cheese toasties.”

  I wipe my eyes and take a deep breath. “I’ll see you soon, won’t I?”

  “Second week of January,” he says. “Not long at all. I’ll be with you sooner than you think.”

  I bite my lip to stop it trembling and look up at the ceiling. “I’m seeing Saskia so don’t worry, I won’t be on my own.”

  “I’m really glad you won’t be on your own.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I’m gonna go, beautiful. It’s late here and I don’t want to wake the house. Okay?”

  “Okay, sleep tight.”

  “I’ll be dreaming of you,” he says.

  “Me too.”