You Must Be Jo King Read online

  Then he said, “Just over there, Simone, that’s brilliant.” Then back to me, “Okay, Jo, see you when you’re feeling better. Bye for now.”

  The creep, I’d forgotten the new merchandiser, the glamorous Simone, with legs up to her armpits and a chest that came with a foot pump was doing her stint in the office this week. Oh well, the diversion would keep him off my back.

  The beds were stripped and sprayed and as mattresses really did have piping, as instructed, that piping received my full attention. I sprayed the carpet as instructed, paying particular attention to the edges. I kept the windows and doors closed for the recommended two hours, while I did the same in the other two bedrooms. Two hours later, I opened the windows, vacuumed, polished, dusted, washed and, as I slid down the wall of my bedroom into an exhausted heap, I noticed a damp patch on the carpet beside the radiator. As soon as I can move, I told myself, I’ll have a better look at that.

  Then Josh barged in.

  “Mam, Mam, you gotta see this, Millie’s doin’ bright green shits!” His voice was a mixture of excitement and astonishment.

  “Er, rephrase that please, Josh.”

  “Oops! Soz Mam, I mean she’s shittin’ bright green poos.”

  As that was probably as good as it would get and as I was too exhausted to care, I hauled myself off the floor and followed him into the garden.

  “If this is a wind up, Josh…”

  It wasn’t.

  “Apollo Veterinary Centre, Mavis Moffatt speaking, how can I help you?”

  “It’s Joanne Charlton, I think I’ve got a bit of an emergency.”

  “Another emergency, Mrs Charlton? Perhaps we need to reserve an emergency appointment for you and Millie every couple of weeks.” She snorted a silly, mirthless laugh. “Just my little joke, it’s the mood I’m in today, I’ve had everyone in stitches. Eileen says I must have been on the whacky baccy at lunchtime.”

  Ms Moffatt, I wanted to say, you are sad and delusional. They are laughing at you, not with you.

  She went on, “And what can we tell Mr Robinson Millie has been up to this time?”

  “She has a stomach upset.”

  “And have we got rid of the little visitors?”

  “Yes.”

  “We have had a cancellation for 4pm if you’d like to bring her along then.”

  Lucy was having tea at Chloe’s. Josh was pointing his controller and shooting and whooping and refused to come to the vet’s. I told him I would be back within the hour and left him with instructions to do his homework and with strict instructions to lock the door behind me and not to open it to anyone.

  The cancellation arrived at precisely 4pm with her cat. Crossed wires, apparently. This meant I had to wait until after the last appointment to be seen by Mr Robinson which turned out to be more than an hour later and which gave Millie more than enough time to deposit a green heap in the middle of the surgery floor. Normal would have been bad enough, but bright green with green steam coming off it was somehow excruciating.

  I left the vet’s with Millie, some white stuff in a bottle, and a receipt for £40.

  It had started to rain. I turned into our street and spied Lucy sitting on the garden wall kicking her heels against the brickwork and with a scowl on her face that would scare the Grim Reaper. I pulled up. Apparently Josh had refused to let her in. He said he had strict instructions not to open the door to anyone.

  “You said you wouldn’t be long, Mam!” she said accusingly, her hair dripping around her face.

  “I know, but the cancellation turned up with her cat. Anyway, I thought you were at Chloe’s.”

  “For God’s sake! That was an hour ago.”

  “Don’t blaspheme, Lucy.”

  “Like you, you mean?” she said under her breath.

  I rang the bell and Josh came grinning into the hall. I watched him through the letterbox.

  “Yes, who is it?”

  “You know who it is, Josh, stop playing silly beggars and open the door.”

  “Sorry, I haven’t to open the door to anyone.”

  “We’re getting wet, Josh. Open-the-door – NOW!”

  He opened the door and got a reprimand threatening the loss of privileges from me and a condescending smirk from Lucy, which was no more than he deserved.

  I put the kettle on for a much needed cuppa. While waiting for it to boil I squashed Millie’s medication with some cheese and pushed it into her mouth. She wagged her tail and begged for more. She didn’t get anymore, but being hand-fed cheese was obviously doggy speak for, ‘Millie, the upstairs ban has been lifted’, because…

  “Mam, can you get here quick? I mean like NOW,’ Lucy called frantically from upstairs.

  I sighed and switched off the kettle.

  Josh burst into the kitchen.

  “Mam, I’ve found out why Millie’s been shittin’ green poos. She’s been eatin’ the loose cloth from underneath my snooker table!”

  With the flat of my hand on his chest, I moved him to one side, “Not now, Josh.”

  Lucy was standing on her bed struggling to hold up a four-foot poster of the Black-Eyed Peas. “Mam, Millie’s pinched my Blu tack. Can you get it?”

  Millie shot under the bed then peered out defiantly. I knelt down, grabbed her front paws, dragged her out and demanded that she drop the Blu tack, NOW!

  She looked straight at me and with an exaggerated gulp; swallowed it.

  “Like-er what happens now, mam?” Lucy demanded to know, one hand holding up the poster the other hand on her hip.

  “Don’t worry, Lucy, I’m sure laxatives will have the same effect on Blu tack as they do on snooker table cloth.”

  “I meant about my poster!”

  I had just reached the top of the stairs and flinging myself down them seemed like the best idea I’d had all week, when:

  “Mam, come back quick, urghh! Millie’s bein’ sick, urghh!”

  I stared at the puddle of frothy green vomit with the ball of Blu tack in it and it occurred to me, and not for the first time, that perhaps I’d been multi-murderer Mary Ann Cotton in a previous lifetime and this was payback time.

  Shooing the dog downstairs, I cleaned up the sick, rinsed the Blu tack under the bathroom tap and offered it to Lucy who gagged.

  Josh called up the stairs, hardly able to contain his excitement, “Good and bad news, mam, that laxative’s brill stuff, Millie’s just shat the ship’s cat out and you know how long that’s been in there.”

  “And?” I waited.

  “She didn’t quite make it outside.”

  8

  COLD IN THE KIDNEYS

  My mother rang to tell me she had found lion’s poo. It was on the shelves in the garden centre but it was £6.95 for a tiny bit, so she had decided to put up with the cat’s poo as that doesn’t cost anything. She wondered why lion’s poo is so expensive because after all, lion’s must produce huge amounts?

  There didn’t seem to be any answer to that so I didn’t attempt one. She went on to say that after the garden centre she and Sadie went to the precinct to wait for the new Alzheimer’s charity shop to open, but although they had waited and waited, it didn’t open. Sadie said they must have forgotten, so they just got the bus home. Since then, my mother said, she had been feeling a bit queasy, she’d put it down to a shop bought prawn mayonnaise sandwich.

  I said I’d pop round. She said there was no need. I said I’d feel better seeing her.

  “Lucy, Josh, coats on please, we’re going to Gran’s.”

  “Whaaa,” said Josh, “you have to be joking! I’ve just got one more level then I’m finished this game and anyway it’s boring at Gran’s. She hasn’t even got a DVD player, only VHS and ancient videos, so you can count me out.”

  “Me too, Mam, I mean I l
ove Gran to bits but I’m waiting for an important message on Facebook from Emma, and she’ll expect a reply, so I can’t possibly go.”

  “Okay, you win. But please be warned that break time tomorrow will find me at the school gates waving a scarf and gloves for you, Josh, in case it turns cold, and for you, Lucy, I’ll have the pink and green cardigan Gran knitted for your last birthday, which you thought you’d hidden.”

  That worked a treat. I honestly surprise myself.

  My mother looked okay, albeit a bit pale. She was pleased to see us, but she said she didn’t want kisses, in case we got her germs.

  “I certainly won’t have prawn mayonnaise again, Joanne, I didn’t even like it much. Something was telling me I should stick with my usual cheese and tomato, but you have to move with the times. Sadie had bacon with lettuce, seemed an odd combination to me but she said it was very Moreish. She picks these things up from the telly. Anyway, while I was out, I got some new videos from Scope for the children. It’ll come to me in a minute where I’ve put them.”

  Josh said, “You don’t get new videos from charity shops, Gran.”

  I shot him a look and said they were new to us. Lucy said there was a Scope bag at the side of the settee, they might be in that. They were.

  My mother spread the videos out. Danger Mouse, Pocahontas and My Girl. Josh sniggered.

  “Do you want cold in the kidneys, Lucy?” my mother asked.

  “I’ve never heard of it, Gran. Who’s in it?”

  “Who’s in what,dear?”

  “Cold in the kidneys.”

  “You young ones,” said my mother shaking her head, “ne’er cast a clout till May be out, Lucy.”

  Lucy looked at me, puzzled. I smiled, I knew how she felt. I went into the kitchen to put the kettle on.

  Josh followed and whispered, “Mam, Gran’s puttin’ My Girl on. I’m not watchin’ it.”

  “Well close your eyes then, or else sit in here with me and Gran.”

  He passed his grandmother in the doorway on his way out.

  “Joanne,” said my mother, “Lucy’s all bare round her middle and I’m worried about her kidneys.”

  “I know what you’re saying, Mam, but it’s the fashion.”

  “Fashion is as fashion does, Joanne. We may have had an occasional warm day, but one swallow doth not a summer make. Lucy will be riddled with arthritis by the time she’s my age. I mean just look at my finger joints and I’ve never gone round with nothing round my middle.”

  I picked up a plastic tub from the bench. “I didn’t know you were taking Ginseng, Mam.”

  “Oh, those, I found them at the back of the cupboard. Someone told me Ginseng works wonders for your memory. I was taking them a while ago then I put them in the cupboard when the decorators came and forgot about them.”

  I looked at the tub. “These are three years old!”

  “Are they? How time flies,” she said.

  “It’s probably those that have been making you feel ill. Get rid of them and I’ll get you some more when I’m out tomorrow.”

  We sat in the kitchen with our tea and my mother said I was not to call on Friday as she and Sadie would be going to Mr Foster’s funeral. They would go to the church but not the crematorium as that was all uphill.

  “Poor Mr Foster, Joanne. He dropped down dead while waiting in the queue at Boots for the one hour photo service and there was only three minutes to go. Poor Mrs Foster, said every time she looked at those photos, it would remind her she need only to have paid for the next day service, as under the circumstances, that’s when she got to see them. Oh! I nearly forgot, Joanne. Sadie’s niece, Claire is going to try that Ivy F again to become pregnant and if nothing happens this time round, she’s going to have her downstairs laminated. I’ll let you know how she gets on. By the way, Joanne, did Ernest call?”

  I said he hadn’t but I had a couple of scares. One of which turned out to be a man collecting for the Salvation Army and other was the gas man come to read the meter.

  “Oh, well, I suppose there’s still time,” she said.

  Then she asked if I’d heard how ‘poor George’ was getting along. It was a mystery to me why George had become ‘poor George’ since we had split up, but there we are. George and my mother were fond of each other. My mother would have liked a son, but as she had been in her forties when I was born, I remained her first and last. George’s mother had died when he was three and he’d been brought up by his father, Stan, so my mother had become a kind of surrogate. Five years ago, before he had retired with his new bride to Portugal, Stan had left his small and limping, building business to George. This had really impressed my mother, who was ever so proud to have a ‘businessman’ as a son-in-law.

  As I was happy my mother seemed okay, I reached for my coat and said I’d see her over the weekend. She gave me the Scope bag, and said there was something in it for me. I went into the lounge to collect the kids. They were red-eyed and snuffling and the credits for the end of My Girl were rolling. Perhaps they were normal after all.

  On the way home they nearly came to blows over who would be first to use the computer. Josh said it was his turn, he wanted to download some Slipknot, for his iPod. Lucy said she needed it first to see if Chloe was logged onto Facebook. I said I would toss a coin to decide who was to go first and they could have half an hour each before bed. I said I’d never known children like them for arguing all the time. Lucy said it was a recognizable fact that most children’s behavioural problems stemmed from bad parenting and it didn’t help that they were now products of a broken home. I said adversity was character building.

  Back home, the arguing and conciliation over the use of the computer proved to be inconsequential as the decision had been pre-determined by the dog who sat wagging her tail in a nest of chewed up computer cables. Lucy screeched and stomped her feet and Josh swore under his breath.

  I poured a glass of Australian Chardonnay then I opened the Scope bag, the contents of which I pushed into the mouth of the video machine to be grabbed, swallowed and regurgitated into that, which along with the frustration over the computer, was guaranteed to persuade my children to have an early night; The Sound of Music.

  9

  MOVE OVER JOAN CRAWFORD

  The next day was a bright and sunny start to the last day of May. The birds whistled and sang and preened and fanned their feathers; elaborating their mating dances. Butterflies fluttered and fat bees buzzed as they claimed their fragment of earth and sky. The tranquil, warm, early summer breeze silently lifted the remnants of the waxen white Magnolia blossom, floating its faded petals to the ground, like a fluttering of early summer snow. The line of washing billowed and danced to the tune of mother nature and the morning sun escaping through the leaves of a neighbouring birch, created moving mosaics on the patio paving.

  Buoyed by last night’s film, I pushed open the windows and trilled to the outside world that high on a hill was a lonely goat-herd. I sang Edelweiss into my coffee cup and, lifting the hem of an imaginary dirndl skirt and pinafore, I swirled about, treating my dancing partner, the washing basket, to a rendition of My Favourite Things. I put stuff into the washing machine and Millie, taking full advantage of my exuberance and before I’d gotten round to closing the washer door, pulled them out again. Josh, silhouetted in the dappled sun on the patio, picked dog dirt from the grooves in his trainers with a screwdriver while Lucy, from her bedroom, could be heard singing into her karaoke, “Don’cha you wish your girlfriend was hot like me. Don’cha?”

  I was Julie Andrews, the children were the Von-Trapps and George had been killed in the war.

  Then, the singing upstairs became a squeal as Lucy, bounding down the stairs with the squeal echoing behind her, charged past me and tore outside to accuse Josh of drawing lipstick and bras on her Arctic Monkeys.

  Josh shr
ugged and said they looked better as girls. Lucy said she knew who would look better as a girl.

  Tranquillity lifted her skirts and floated over hedges and fences to settle into neighbouring gardens peacefully bereft of teenagers and dogs. The cute Van Trapps set about killing each other while the dog danced around them barking her head off.

  I went to the sink, filled a bowl with water, took it outside and threw it over them. They gasped. They hung their arms ape-like and dripped. The dog shimmied water from her coat then ran for cover.

  I stood for a minute with the dripping bowl. I was losing the plot. I knew it would just be a matter of time. I ran, guilt-ridden, to the phone to ring George. I asked him if he remembered the children he had fathered because I’d nearly drowned them on the patio? I said I had to be the worst mother in the world, the children would be taken into care. I said I made Joan Crawford look like Mother Theresa and I demanded to know what he intended to do about it. And while I was at it I told him about the mortgage he needed to take out to pay for the dog damage and the vet’s bills and to come and get the dog.

  “Calm down, Jo. Take a chill pill for God’s sake. The children won’t go into care, it’s care in the community these days. A bowl of water would not have been enough to drown them and you’re actually quite a good mother – all things considered.”

  Quite a good mother! All things considered! And when exactly had he became an authority on the subject I should like to know?

  “Just trying to be helpful, Jo.”

  “Well keep trying and who knows, one day you might succeed!”

  “I didn’t ask you to ring. Although as it happens I was just about to ring you because, the thing is, Fran and I are about to leave for Florida. Her brother has an apartment out there, so I won’t be able to do anything about anything for the next three weeks or so.”

  He was going to Florida while I was going dool-bloody-ally.

  And because there was silence from my end, he added, “We thought it would give us a chance to check it out and perhaps take the children next year.”